Collection of good news nuggets to get the weekend off to a bright start.
Though whisky is something you would typically not want to associate with driving, one company is using waste products from the distilling process of the alcoholic beverage to sustainably power its fleet of trucks. Scotch whisky maker Glenfiddich, which sells over 14 million bottles of single malt whisky annually, has started modifying its delivery trucks to run on low-emission biofuel, in gas form, made out of waste products from its own whisky distilleries as part of an initiative to curb its carbon emissions.
How amazing is this? Architecture studio Ibuku has just completed The Arc gymnasium for a school in Bali - a private educational institution that promotes sustainability through learning in a natural environment - featuring an unprecedented and highly complex double-curved roof made entirely from bamboo.
In what was a first for the US, a county in Washington state has banned all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including oil refineries and coal-fired plants. Whatcom county council unanimously passed the measure, which also requires existing fossil fuel facilities to offset emissions.
Africa’s largest rainforest reserve has just been removed from UNESCO’s register of threatened sites. Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo is home to rare bonobos and forest elephants, which have been the subject of conservation efforts in recent years. “Regular wildlife monitoring shows that bonobo populations remain stable within the reserve despite past pressures, and that the forest elephant population has slowly begun to recover,” said UNESCO.
Form Energy of Massachusetts is claiming that in a few years they can produce at scale “the battery you need to fully retire coal and natural gas plants.” Solving the key challenge with renewable energy - storage - Form Energy’s new battery technology, which they’re calling the “Holy Grail,” ditches lithium for one of the most abundant minerals on Earth: iron. After an in-depth analysis of Form Energy’s inner-workings, the Wall Street Journal said that there's a “Cambrian Explosion” going on in the sector of batteries and energy storage.
Hats off to Linda Brown: She's a realtor in Missouri who is determined to make her hometown 'a city where no one sleeps outside.' For nine years Linda Brown organized a nightly drop-in shelter where homeless people in Springfield could eat, shower, do laundry, use a computer, and socialize during bingo games and karaoke - but they wanted to do more. So they transformed an abandoned mobile home property into a village of 31 tiny homes that provides permanent housing to the chronically disabled homeless.
After more than a decade of trying, a corporation that made billions drilling for oil is poised to add a critical piece in the renewable energy puzzle. This month, TransWest Express announced that it had acquired almost all the permits, permissions and partnerships needed to begin seeking customers for a 732-mile high voltage power line that would carry 20,000 GWh of renewable wind energy a year (roughly three-quarters of the energy needed to power Los Angeles) from windy southern Wyoming to a distribution hub near Las Vegas where it could tap into the grid that feeds Phoenix and Los Angeles.
Dive in Deeper
The Free Diving Experience
Free diver Guillaume Néry takes you on an underwater journey that will take your breath away in this glorious, peaceful short film.