1. The Sky Is Vast The dumbest moment at the Copenhagen Climate Conference came late on the night of Dec. 12, 2009, after 100,000 protestors had marched three miles from downtown Copenhagen to the Bella Center, site of COP 15, to demand climate action from 192 world leaders gathered there. That wasn’t the dumb part. [...]
2023
Solutions to the world’s converging environmental crises may not always align, the Biden Administration’s climate czar said last week. “There are a lot of hard conversations around the clean energy transition that we haven’t figured out yet, that there’s certainly not a global consensus on, let alone an American consensus on,” White House National Climate [...]
Fusion energy needs more than a sustained fusion reaction before it can help the world produce sufficient carbon-neutral energy. The U.S. Department of Energy has identified a research and development agenda for a suite of technologies and processes to enable fusion. Two DOE officials named five of those pressing technologies in a webinar Thursday hosted [...]
Investment in fusion energy is about to go mainstream, according to the lead fusion coordinator for the U.S. Department of Energy. “As the technology continues to mature, there will be a point where private investors feel that they must be invested in fusion, and I feel like we’re starting to reach that inflection point,” Scott [...]
Those unusual frozen Februaries in Texas may not be so unusual anymore. Early winter has been warming across North America, but late winter is another story. Scientists have documented a cooling trend over more than 40 Februaries, marked by dangerous and increasingly common intrusions of Arctic air deep into the United States. “December has certainly [...]
If nuclear power has a future, it will likely be small, modular and water cooled, according to an expert with global credentials in nuclear research. “There are plenty of technologies now—50 different models around the world. Once one of them gets into a financially viable equation, that will capture the entire market,” said Alfredo Caro, [...]
The number and range of mosquitoes has boomed across North America in recent years, and with it, the number and range of mosquito-borne diseases. Ticks and fleas are following their lead. “Between the period of 2004 to 2016, the number of diseases caused by these insects— mosquitoes, ticks and fleas—has nearly tripled during this time [...]
It was supposed to be a dirty autumn and winter, with European nations scrambling to replace Russian gas with high-polluting coal. But according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, the cold seasons so far have been the cleanest in more than 30 years. “There were widespread expectations that the fossil fuel [...]
On Dec. 19, the governments of 196 countries agreed to set aside 30 percent of the earth for wildlife, to slash subsidies to harmful industries, and to cut food waste in half, all in an effort to halt and reverse the collapse of the earth’s biodiversity. But science has shown that government efforts need individuals [...]
A Biden Administration effort to curb methane emissions on federal lands relies on a single phrase in the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920 that may give the administration little leverage with the courts. The Administration is taking comments now on a proposed rule that would limit how much methane drilling companies can leak, vent, or [...]
