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CCDS - Critical Care Decontamination System - Uses Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor to Decontaminate N95 Respirators, and Other PPE

           

Battelle Memorial Institute's CCDS Critical Care Decontamination System uses a hydrogen peroxide vapor to decontaminate N95 respirators. The organization says that the process takes about 2½ and that masks can be cleaned and reused up to 20 times.Battelle Memorial Institute

nbcnews.com - by Didi Martinez, Brenda Breslauer and Stephanie Gosk - April 14, 2020

Late Monday, the Pentagon announced a $415 million contract to commission 60 decontamination systems that will allow millions of highly protective N95 face masks to be reused.

The system, which can process up to 80,000 masks per day, has been called a potential "game changer" for the front-line health care workers and first responders who rely on the masks, according to hospital officials concerned about a shortage of protective equipment to shield their staff from COVID-19.

But the story of how this system came to be is a testament to what can happen when a doctor and an engineer — who happen to be husband and wife — ask, "What if?"

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Inside Dominica’s Efforts to Become the World’s First Hurricane-proof Island

           

Lead Image: When Hurricane Maria struck Dominica in September 2017, more than 90 per cent of the island's structures were destroyed and leaves were ripped from trees. Today, the people of Dominica are rebuilding with the knowledge that climate change could mean a future of storms like Maria.  PHOTOGRAPH BY GALAXIID, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

travelandleisure.com - by Cailey Rizzo - November 21 2019

When Hurricane Maria barreled through the Caribbean in September 2017, it destroyed 90 percent of the island of Dominica overnight. When the storm cleared, Dominica didn’t just want to rebuild. From the rubble, the island developed a new goal: to become the world’s first climate-resilient nation.

And, according to a new National Geographic report, the island is on track to do exactly that.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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The Deep Adaptation Agenda

Jem Bendell - scientistswarning.org

CLICK HERE - Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy (36 page .PDF document)

. . . The paper, published in July of 2018, concludes “…recent research suggests that human societies will experience disruptions to their basic functioning within less than ten years due to climate stress.  Such disruptions include increased levels of malnutrition, starvation, disease, civil conflict and war – and will not avoid affluent nations. This situation makes redundant the reformist[2] approach to sustainable development and related fields of corporate sustainability. Instead, a new approach which explores how to reduce harm and not make matters worse is important to develop. In support of that challenging, and ultimately personal process, understanding a ‘deep adaptation agenda’ may be useful.”

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 

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Here’s How AI Can Help Fight Climate Change According to the Field’s Top Thinkers

From monitoring deforestation to designing low-carbon materials

           

Steam and exhaust rise from a chemical factory and coking plant in Germany. Photo by Lukas Schulze/Getty Images

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - Tackling Climate Change with Machine Learning

theverge.com - by James Vincent - June 25, 2019

The AI renaissance of recent years has led many to ask how this technology can help with one of the greatest threats facing humanity: climate change. A new research paper authored by some of the field’s best-known thinkers aims to answer this question, giving a number of examples of how machine learning could help prevent human destruction.

The suggested use-cases are varied, ranging from using AI and satellite imagery to better monitor deforestation, to developing new materials that can replace steel and cement (the production of which accounts for nine percent of global green house gas emissions).

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Dominica’s Indigenous Innovation

           

CONCEPT DRAWING KALINAGO RESILIENCE HUB CHANNELING CULTURAL BUILDING PRACTICES AND MYTHOLOGY OF THE CENTIPEDE. PHOTO © ILLYA AZAROFF AND + LAB ARCHITECT PLLC

rocagallery.com - by Illya Azaroff - May 21, 2019

 . . . Since Hurricane Maria struck in 2017, the tiny island of Dominica is rebuilding with the aim of becoming the first climate resilient and 100% sustainable nation in the world . . . Dominica can unlock the DNA of resilience through the vernacular building practices and rich cultural history of the Kalinago people that first inhabited the island . . .

 . . . Rediscovering these historic threads of resilience have been key to developing new master plans for the territory under the Kalinago Institute for Resilience and Regeneration (KIRR), founded by my team together with leading experts and community leaders, including members of the Kalinago council of chiefs, Nichie Louis Patrick Hill and Dr. Michael McDonald. Its mission is to create a thriving Kalinago Territory as a low carbon, resilient region where citizens can live and excel within the carrying capacity of its ecosystems for multiple generations into the future.

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World Bank Offers Dominica $27 Million for Geo-Energy

           

World Bank Director for the Caribbean Tahseen Sayed and Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit signed the US$27 million

caribbeannewsnow.com - May 19, 2019

Dominica reached a new milestone in its feat to become “the world’s first climate-resilient nation,” when prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit and the World Bank regional director Tahseen Khan signed a financing agreement earlier this month worth US$27 million.

The World Bank funding, along with sponsorship from the citizenship by investment programme (CBI), Dominica Housing and others, will go towards developing a 7MW geothermal plant on the island.

This will help Dominica diversify its energy mix, increasing its renewable energy share from an already impressive 25 percent to 51 percent.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 

 

 

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Puerto Rico Plans Stop Short of the Grid of the Future

           

Photo by Fluor Corporation, Public Domain

CLICK HERE - PREPA’s draft 2019 Integrated Resources Plan (IRP) (310 page .PDF document)

pv-magazine-usa.com - by Christian Roselund - February 7, 2019

PREPA’s draft IRP calls for rapid deployment of solar and batteries, including the installation of as much battery storage as is currently online in the entire United States over the next four years, in a system broken up into “minigrids”. However, it stops short of utilizing behind-the-meter PV and storage . . .

 . . . PREPA’s final IRP is scheduled to be published on February 12.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

CLICK HERE - Puerto Rico Energy Bureau - Critical Projects - Documents

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Kiribati: a Drowning Paradise in the South Pacific

DW Documentary - November 8, 2017

Climate change and rising sea levels mean the island nation of Kiribati in the South Pacific is at risk of disappearing into the sea.

But the island’s inhabitants aren’t giving up. They are doing what they can to save their island from inundation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ0j6kr4ZJ0

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How a ‘Solar Battery’ Could Bring Electricity to Rural Areas

           

New solar flow battery with a 14.1 percent efficiency. Photo: David Tenenbaum, UW-Madison

CLICK HERE - STUDY - Chem - 14.1% Efficient Monolithically Integrated Solar Flow Battery

theverge.com - by Angela Chen - September 27, 2018

Solar energy is becoming more and more popular as prices drop, yet a home powered by the Sun isn’t free from the grid because solar panels don’t store energy for later. Now, researchers have refined a device that can both harvest and store solar energy, and they hope it will one day bring electricity to rural and underdeveloped areas.

The problem of energy storage has led to many creative solutions, like giant batteries. For a paper published today in the journal Chem, scientists trying to improve the solar cells themselves developed an integrated battery that works in three different ways.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 

 

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Kalinago Residents Gather to Create Action Plan for the 2018 Hurricane Season

           

A section of the Kalinago Territory about a month after Hurricane Maria

dominicanewsonline.com - June 1, 2018

KALINAGO TERRITORY — The largest disaster-preparedness-focused gathering of Dominicans since Maria made landfall will take place 9AM tomorrow, June 2nd, in the Kalinago Territory. Over 60 Kalinago residents and government officials will come together for a day-long workshop to review how emergency management procedures worked and failed in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

Co-led by the Kalinago Council and the Dominica Resilience Systems, this workshop will ask concerned citizens to review how emergency systems performed with respect to 26 core mission critical functions, which consist of everything from water and evacuation routes to emergency shelters and supply chains.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

ALSO SEE RELATED ARTICLE HERE - Kalinagos to discuss development agenda for Kalinago Territory

 

 

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