Planetsolar

PlanetSolar, in collaboration with the Université de Genève and Martin Beniston, is extremely proud to announce that we have won the GLOBAL+5 INOVATIVE award presented by The Global Journal for the PLANETSOLAR DEEPWATER EXPEDITION. We are very excited that our 2013 campaign is creating the kind of enthusiasm that will provide the M/S Tûranor the opportunity to have a useful, unique and innovative second life now that she has accomplished her world tour.

GLOBAL+5 is the first ever festival of global governance providing the unique opportunity to identify and award innovative and visionary projects which address some of the world’s most pressing upcoming challenges within the next five years.

Twenty out of seventy-five projects were selected to make the final cut and the Jury was asked to focus on the potential impact of each project over the next five year, the ability to empower and engage citizens, and the innovation that will drive enthusiasm and support for stakeholders.

Based on these criteria, PlanetSolar won the GLOBAL+5 INOVATIVE award for the PLANETSOLAR DEEPWATER EXPEDITION project. The project’s goal is to carry out a unique scientific measurement campaign along the Gulf Stream and to contribute raising awareness about the reality and complexity of climatic change.

In scientific terms, the use of the PlanetSolar M/S Tûranor as the ideal platform for these scientific experiments is justified by several factors, in particular its relatively slow speed that enables small-scale oceanic features to be documented and mapped, the stable trajectory, and the absence of pollution linked to the combustion of bunker fuel. This last point is crucial, since the “signature” of many organic compounds in the natural environment is close to those found in the exhaust fumes of ships; fumes thus significantly contaminate the measurements, and for the first time thanks to the characteristics of PlanetSolar, the measurements will be sampling exclusively natural environmental conditions.

Beyond the purely scientific aspect of the project, it is expected that the exploration of the very emblematic Gulf Stream by a solar-powered vessel and the results that will emerge, should help in raising awareness about the reality and complexity of climatic changes. Appropriate flow of scientific information to decision-makers at economic and political levels will improve the capacity for appropriate decisions to be taken in the fields of adaptation and climate policy. This will indeed be crucial in upcoming years considering the slow pace of negotiations aimed towards a post-Kyoto protocol; a first major step towards intervention is scheduled for 2015, and the scientific information generated by the PLANETSOLAR DEEPWATER EXPEDITION in 2013 and 2014 will provide new arguments for the upcoming climate negotiations.