Green Innovation Time

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) announced today that it will contribute 110 million euros (US $125 million) to support a new global partnership to bring affordable insurance and other financial protection to millions of vulnerable people around the world. This major new initiative supports the Fijian’s Presidency’s priority of ensuring COP23 looks for ways to take care of the vulnerable. The announcement was made during the launch of the InsuResilience Global Partnership for Climate and Disaster Risk Finance and Insurance Solutions as part of the High-Level COP23 Presidency Event on resilience and risk sharing. The contribution from BMZ follows a £30 million (US $39 million) commitment that was made by the Government of the United Kingdom in July. BMZ has joined forces with COP23 Presidency, the Ethiopian Chair of the V20, the United Kingdom and the World Bank to launch this Global Partnership. It builds on the InsuResilience initiative,...

watch vidoe of Norway being announced as the winner of the Fossil of the day award 2017 at COP 23 in Bonn.

The Fossil of the Day Award goes to Norway for defending continued Arctic oil exploration in court. Imagine if you will, a wonderful place filled with beautiful fjords, super cozy knitted sweaters, and 5.2 million really happy people. This place does everything amazingly well! In fact, their oil is cleaner and safer, and they are better equipped to keep it flowing for generations to come! Wait, what?! In the not so far future, tomorrow morning in fact, the first of seven court days begins in Oslo. There, the government of Norway will defend (to environmental organizations) their decision - made less than six months after signing the Paris Agreement - to allow new oil exploration in the Arctic. More generally, the Norwegian government will defend a delusional fairy tale spun by the oil industry. It’s clear that the world’s oil and gas reserves already in development will take us to 1.5°C. Unfortunately, Norway is far from alone in their hypocrisy in continuing fossil fuel exp...

COP 23 Side-event to showcase innovative approaches to Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) Thursday 9 th  November, 2017 The event  will showcase innovative approaches endorsed by the European Union (EU) to enhance Measuring (and monitoring), Reporting and Verification (MRV) capacity and their engagement in the transparency framework under the Paris Agreement. The side event will provide an overview of three specific projects, emphasizing new solutions which can be accessed and potentially replicated in other contexts: two major EU-funded projects, the  ClimaSouth project  and the Regional implementation of Paris Agreement project (RIPAP), and Information Matters, a project supported by Germany and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). source: europa.eu

For four consecutive days Portugal was powered entirely by renewables, a major milestone in its journey to a clean energy future. For a 107-hour run, Portugal’s electricity consumption was fuelled entirely by renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and hydro power, an analysis of national energy network figures found. This landmark achievement comes as April smashed temperature records, keeping 2016 on track to be the hottest year on record. This temperature increase (1.1 degrees Celsius above average for the month) highlights the urgency of a switch to renewables – a move that many countries are embracing. In 2013, Portugal was generating only 7.5% of its electricity from wind, but in 2015 this increased to 22%, with renewable sources providing almost half of the country’s energy for the year. Portugal isn’t the only country stepping up its transition to clean energy. Germany has been praised for consistently increasing its use of renewabl...

Environmental activists are applauding the Volta River Authority’s decision to build a wind power plant to help Ghana’s power generation. The Volta River Authority (VRA) plans to construct a 150-Megawatt wind power plant to supplement power generation in Ghana. The project, the first of its kind, is part of the VRA’s Renewable Development Programme and will be completed in two phases. The first phase, which would generate 75 MW would be located in Anloga, Anyanui and Srogbe communities in the Keta Municipality in the Volta Region, while the remaining 75 MW would be located at Wokumaglje and Goi communities in the Ada West District in the Greater Accra Region. In its July scoping report, the VRA said that the project was to help Ghana use more renewable energy sources. Currently, all grid-supplied electricity is generated using a mix of hydro and imported fossil fuel. Only 0.1% of energy is generated from renewable sources, specifically solar power, the VRA noted in the report. ...

The rapidly falling cost of solar energy is going to make it difficult for President Trump to deliver on his promise to put coal miners back to work. Trump has taken steps to ease the burden on coal country by  ripping up environmental rules  and pledging to  withdraw the United States from the Paris climate accord. But those deregulatory steps do little to offset the mounting long-term challenge that coal faces from cleaner forms of energy, especially solar. By 2040, U.S. power generation from renewable energy is likely to skyrocket by 169%, according to a recent  forecast  from the research firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Coal-fired power is projected to plunge by 51% in the United States over the same period. "The greening of the world's electricity system is unstoppable," wrote Seb Henbest, the lead author. SOURCE: money.cnn.com

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday said Nigeria must use its oil wealth to prepare for a future when the world no longer runs on fossil fuel. The Vice-President made this statement at the 55th anniversary of the Oil Producers Trade Section (OPTS) of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) in Lagos. He said Nigeria, as a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), needed to develop renewable energy and help other businesses flourish to adjust to the reality of the dwindling significance of fossil fuels. “It is no longer a question of if but when,” Osinbajo said, referring to global efforts to shift away from oil as a fuel. “Oil-rich countries, such as ourselves, have an obligation to prepare for a destiny that may well be beyond oil”, he said. The vice president called on oil and gas majors in Nigeria, many of them represented in the audience, to invest in renewable energy research and development to help Nigeria prepare fo...

The African Women Water Sanitation and Hygiene Network (AWWASHNET) has decried the state of water infrastructure in communities across Lagos, even as it demands innovative financing of the sector within the realm of public control. Observers believe that the bulk of the Lagos population have limited access to potable water AWWASHNET made the demand after carrying out a fact-finding visit to different communities in Lagos, including Orile-Iganmu, Okokomaiko, Orile Agege, among others, drawing the conclusion that the state’s water infrastructure were in dire straits. The group said women bear the brunt of the lack of water as they would have to go the extra mile to ensure they have adequate water for drinking and other domestic uses. Vice Chairperson of AWWASHNET, Vickie Uremma, said: “In the communities visited, the stark reality of lack of water and rotting water infrastructure stared us in the face. Clearly, all the talk of the state government about guaranteeing access t...

© PureMadi Access to clean water is an ever-present struggle for over 780 million people on the planet -- so no wonder affordable and effective water purification tools are considered life-savers in such cases. Based out of the University of Virginia, the non-profit organization  PureMadi  has come up with an easy-to-use water purification system that combines ceramics with copper and silver nanoparticles to clean up to 99.9% of the potentially deadly pathogens found in water. © PureMadi Bringing together the experience of the university's students and faculty members from various disciplines, PureMadi has been making ceramic water filters of the same name for the past year out of a factory in Limpopo province, South Africa.  ScienceDaily  details how the filter -- which has been tested extensively at the university -- works: The filters are made of local clay, sawdust and water. Those materials are mixed and pressed into a mold. The result is a flowerp...

© Kikando The lack of clean water has become a serious problem worldwide, thanks to industrial contamination,  agricultural  and urban  pollution , and even from seemingly innocuous acts such as washing your  synthetic fiber clothes . It's hard not to contribute to the problem. But might we find viable solutions by emulating processes found in nature? That's what Royal College of Art design graduate  Pratik Ghosh  is aiming for his design for a home water purification system, which looks like a terrarium and is designed to filter and clean water like a "mini-Amazon rainforest." See how it works: Drop by drop  from  pratik ghosh  on  Vimeo . Called  Drop By Drop , Ghosh's enclosed design is like a mini-ecosystem, incorporating one square foot of plants, plus a pump-activated vacuum system that uses water pressure, transpiration, evaporation and condensation of water to produce about three-quarters of a cup of purifie...

©  Kogalla Personal lighting just took a huge leap forward with the Kogalla RA. Good lighting can make all the difference, not just in a home or business, but during all sorts of activities, from cycling to running to camping, hiking, and adventure sports. Having easy access to a light that clearly illuminates your trail, worksite, or even just the sidewalk is one key component of a safer, more productive, and enjoyable outing after dark. What was once the sole domain of gas- and battery-powered lanterns ended up giving way to handheld flashlights, which dominated until soon after the commercialization of LED bulbs, but has now been slowly giving up ground to LED headlamps that let users go hands-free. With the current state of LED bulb and battery technology, it's now possible to pick up a cheap, lightweight, energy efficient, and bright LED headlamp or flashlight right from the impulse buy section at the local hardware, auto parts, or home improvement store. Headlamps,...

The lanterns will be distributed to female headed households within IDP (internally displaced persons) communities in Mogadishu, as part of a renewable energy project financed by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID). Solar lanterns can significantly improve safety, especially for women and girls in IDP communities, and provide the opportunity for school children to study after dark. The lanterns are also a clean and safe source of light that can replace potentially hazardous forms of lighting such as candles and kerosene lamps, helping to reduce the risk of fire, and the negative health impacts of burning kerosene indoors. Each household will receive a pair of lanterns: one which can be used for cooking and charging mobile phones, and to provide safety by lighting the way to toilets and other areas of the camps, and one for the specific purpose of enabling children to study in the evenings. Mr. Elmi Omar Elmi, Deputy Minister for the Federal Ministry for Humanita...

If you think you can use the solar panels on your roof to power your home during an outage, think again. During an outage, while your home remains connected to the grid, the devices that manage your solar panels are powered down for safety reasons. In other words, this permanent connection to the grid makes it impossible for homeowners to draw on power generated by their own renewable energy resources. A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego wants to change this. They have developed algorithms that would allow homes to use and share power from their renewable energy sources during outages by strategically disconnecting these devices, called solar inverters, from the grid. The algorithms work with existing technology and would improve systems' reliability by 25 to 35 percent. Researchers detail the algorithms and their applications in a paper they presented at the American Control Conference in Seattle, Wash. "We were inspired to start investigatin...

Organic solar cells are flexible, transparent, and light-weight -- and can be manufactured in arbitrary shapes or colors. Thus, they are suitable for a variety of applications that cannot be realized with conventional silicon solar cells. In the  Energy Technology  journal, researchers from KIT now present sunglasses with colored, semitransparent solar cells applied onto lenses that supply a microprocessor and two displays with electric power. This paves the way for other future applications such as the integration of organic solar cells into windows or overhead glazing. "We bring solar power to places where other solar technologies fail," says Dr. Alexander Colsmann, Head of Organic Photovoltaics Group at KIT's Light Technology Institute (LTI). The "smart" Solar Glasses designed as a case study by the scientist and his team at KIT, is self-powered to measure and display the solar illumination intensity and ambient temperature. The solar cell lenses, perfe...