Tootfinder

Big news for the energy transition!
And a nice little 'told you so' moment for yours truly :)
In the first half of this year, renewables produced more electricity globally than coal, for the first time.
And 2025 is the date I predicted for this to happen, back in 2016, in a blog post for Ecofys! The score was 23%-40% at the time, with most of the renewables share still coming from hydro, and the prediction was less than obvious.

"Finnish Town Pioneers Renewable Energy Storage Solutions with World’s Largest Sand Battery"
#Finland #Energy #Renewables

Finnish Town Pioneers Renewable Energy Storage Solutions with World's Largest Sand Battery | Happy Eco News
Finland's renewable energy storage solutions using the world's largest sand battery cut emissions by 70% in Pornainen. The system stores 100 megawatt-hours of thermal energy from solar and wind sources, heating the entire town for weeks while eliminating oil dependence and reducing costs.

Last week, the Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that
people who enter the country without authorization must be detained throughout their removal proceedings
-- a process that can take years.
The decision stems from the case of Jonathan Javier Yajure Hurtado,
a Venezuelan citizen who entered the United States in 2022.
In 2024, he was granted Temporary Protected Status, which expired in April;
He was subsequently arrested.
At…

DOJ Board Says Millions of Immigrants Can Be Jailed During Removal Proceedings
The ruling would force immigrants to litigate their cases — a process that could take years — while being detained.

Die #Klimakrise trifft #China:
Der Norden der chinesischen Provinz #Sichuan erlebte am 5. September den bislang stärksten

Northern Sichuan records heaviest rainfall of 2025, causing flash floods and evacuations
Northern Sichuan recorded its most intense rainfall of 2025 on September 5, with 12-hour accumulations exceeding 250 mm (10 inches) in Guangyuan and Nanchong, and a provincial maximum of 255.2 mm (10…

QDeepGR4J: Quantile-based ensemble of deep learning and GR4J hybrid rainfall-runoff models for extreme flow prediction with uncertainty quantification
Arpit Kapoor, Rohitash Chandra
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05453

QDeepGR4J: Quantile-based ensemble of deep learning and GR4J hybrid rainfall-runoff models for extreme flow prediction with uncertainty quantification
Conceptual rainfall-runoff models aid hydrologists and climate scientists in modelling streamflow to inform water management practices. Recent advances in deep learning have unravelled the potential for combining hydrological models with deep learning models for better interpretability and improved predictive performance. In our previous work, we introduced DeepGR4J, which enhanced the GR4J conceptual rainfall-runoff model using a deep learning model to serve as a surrogate for the routing comp…

ToonOut: Fine-tuned Background-Removal for Anime Characters
Matteo Muratori, Jo\"el Seytre
https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06839 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509…

ToonOut: Fine-tuned Background-Removal for Anime Characters
While state-of-the-art background removal models excel at realistic imagery, they frequently underperform in specialized domains such as anime-style content, where complex features like hair and transparency present unique challenges. To address this limitation, we collected and annotated a custom dataset of 1,228 high-quality anime images of characters and objects, and fine-tuned the open-sourced BiRefNet model on this dataset. This resulted in marked improvements in background removal accurac…

Les Français majoritairement favorables aux énergies renouvelables, y compris parmi les électeurs de droite et d’extrême droite
> Une enquête d’opinion, portant sur un panel de 12 000 personnes, montre une dichotomie entre les positions des hommes politiques et les attentes des citoyens en matière d’énergie.

Les Français majoritairement favorables aux énergies renouvelables, même parmi les électeurs de droite et d’extrême droite
Une enquête d’opinion, portant sur un panel de 12 000 personnes, montre une dichotomie entre les positions des hommes politiques et les attentes des citoyens en matière d’énergie.

Nada como a mesquinhez pública de um governo de gente sem coluna vertebral.
https://expresso.pt/internacional/medio-oriente/guerra-isr…

Ativistas da flotilha vão ter de pagar custos da viagem de regresso a Portugal: Governo enviou formulário de reembolso
Os quatro portugueses, detidos por Israel quando estavam a bordo das embarcações da flotilha humanitária de ajuda a Gaza, foram recebidos na noite de domingo por centenas de apoiantes pró-Palestina. Governo português já enviou a conta do voo

🦾 Thin biofilm can transform CO₂ into renewable energy
#co2

Thin biofilm can transform CO₂ into renewable energy
NIBIO has contributed to developing a method for turning greenhouse gases like CO2 or CO into biomethane—a renewable energy source. Using thin layers of microorganisms, so-called biofilms, greenhouse gases can be transformed into clean-burning fuel.