Solar will become the largest source of power in the next decade, surpassing coal, oil and natural gas, according to a new report from BloombergNEF. The tectonic shift will occur alongside a historic rise in the use of energy driven by AI and the electrification of entire industries.
Between 2018 and 2023, the share represented by data centers in total U.S. electricity use rose from 1.9% to 4.4%, according to a study published last week in the journal Environmental Research Letters.
The average American household uses about 150 pounds of glass containers each year, but more than two-thirds of that glass never gets recycled into new bottles. This isn't because people aren't trying. Glass is now the only common packaging material that costs recycling facilities more to process than they make from selling it, and the U.S. recycling system has been adapting to this problem for the past twenty years.
The proposal, announced Monday morning and contingent on state and federal regulatory approval, would result in a company that leads in nearly every aspect of the US power and utility industry, including overall electricity generation, natural gas generation, and renewables. The $67 billion deal combines NextEra's size and reach with Dominion's positioning as the local utility for the world's largest concentration of data centers in northern Virginia. But the results are likely bad for consumers and the environment, creating a company with enormous financial and political strength that will be difficult to effectively regulate, according to consumer advocates and analysts.
“The UK just doesn't have many district heat networks. A lot of infrastructure is required that is done best as public infrastructure,” says Peter Judge, senior research analyst at Uptime Intelligence.
“What's at risk here is an extremely ecologically sensitive area,” said Wendy Schneider, the executive director of local environmental nonprofit Friends of the Inyo. “Hot Creek is not only beautiful, it's sort of the gateway to Mammoth Lakes. So you'd be able to see the mine when you get off the 395 and head into town. There will be noise and lights 24/7 and big trucks rumbling around, just messing up our public lands.”
Dozens of wind projects in Texas are in limbo after the U.S. Department of Defense paused issuing routine federal permits citing national security concerns, a move that experts say expands the Trump administration's crusade against wind energy. According to data collected by the American Clean Power Association, 54 Texas wind projects are waiting for the department to review development plans to ensure that turbines don't interfere with military operations. It's part of a broader nationwide logjam that has ensnared 165 onshore wind projects, a figure first reported by the Financial Times.
Houses, even in the countryside, can be as harmful to migrating wildlife as energy development, highway crossings and fences, according to conservationists and researchers. But while highway dangers can be mitigated with over- and underpasses and fences can be retrofitted to be more wildlife-friendly, researchers didn't know how much space big game animals require when weaving through rural housing.
Australia ordered the shareholders linked to China to sell their stakes in Northern Minerals, a company that is developing a rare earth mine. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said he had issued orders on Monday following concerns that Chinese investors had tried to take control of Northern Minerals. The Australia-based mining company is developing its Browns Range project in the far north of the state of Western Australia to mine significant reserves of dysprosium and terbium. The six companies are to sell their stake within two weeks.
The 2026 World Cup is not only the most politically combustible tournament in modern history, but it is also on track to be the most polluting World Cup ever, with total greenhouse gas emissions hitting nearly two times the historical average. Scientists conservatively project that the tournament will generate around 9m tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Air travel comprises approximately 7.7m tons of this carbon budget, and more than four times that of the average for tournaments held between 2010 and 2022. The researchers note that the worst-case upper estimate for air transport is about 13.7m tons of CO2.
The 500-kilovolt transmission line would run some 140 miles from an important substation in southeastern Imperial County, near the Mexican border, to a new one on the border of Orange and San Diego counties near the Pacific Ocean - carving a steel-towered path through Anza-Borrego to get there.
The strongest gusts are predicted to blow Friday night and Saturday along the Interstate 5 corridor, the northwestern Antelope Valley and the Santa Ynez Mountains, according to the National Weather Service. There's a 70% chance gusts could reach 40 to 55 mph in these areas, and a 20% chance they'll hit 60 mph or higher, forecasters said.
One load of laundry can release up to 1.5 million tiny plastic fibers into the water that drains out of your washing machine. Most water treatment plants can't catch fibers that small, so they end up in rivers, lakes, and the ocean. Scientists now think laundry is responsible for about 35% of the small plastic pieces found in the sea.
The researchers note that aerosols can also contribute to cloud formation, which also causes further losses. But the degree of that contribution is much harder to estimate, so the researchers focus on aerosols for much of the analysis. Some of those aerosols occur naturally, typically from dust kicked up by winds in desert regions. However, despite deserts' reputation as sunny paradises, the world as a whole hasn't built much solar infrastructure in the desert yet, so this isn't as much of a factor as you might expect.
Paper and paperboard make up roughly a quarter of municipal solid waste in the United States, it is the single largest category by weight. Eliminating paper waste entirely would take a Herculean effort for most households, but whether you want to do good, better, or best, you can cut what you use and recycle more of what you don't.
El Salvador's green coffee production is forecast to fall to 542,000 60-kilogram bags in market year 2026/27, a 7.5% drop tied mainly to El Niño weather amid broader structural challenges, according to the latest USDA Foreign Agricultural Service annual report.
The United States is the world's most committed buyer of single-use towels, by a margin no other country approaches. Americans alone consume nearly half of all paper towels produced globally, and Europeans use roughly 50 percent fewer than we do.
Asia’s last tropical glaciers can be found near Puncak Jaya, Papua, the highest peak in Southeast Asia. But it is unlikely that they will survive until the end of this decade. Over the past 44 years, the peak has lost 97% of its ice and four of its glaciers. Its remaining two glaciers, Carstensz and the East Northwall Firn glacier, are expected to disappear by 2030, adding Indonesia (alongside Venezuela and Slovenia) to the list of countries that have lost all of their glaciers.
Five pairs of rubbery feet carry velvet-sheathed black-and-white bodies towards the rope line separating the king penguins from the dozen or so visitors, who look on in awe. As these emissaries shuffle over, a hundred of their cohorts parade on a nearby bank, splashing around in the water and regurgitating food into their chicks' open beaks.
Datacentres are consuming 6% of electricity in the UK and US, with the growing strain of AI on energy supplies prompting community resistance, according to research. The proportion of electricity used by vast warehouses stacked with microchips to power AI and the internet has risen 15% worldwide in the past two years as annual global investment in datacentres approaches $1tn (740bn) nearly 1% of the global economy, according to the International Data Center Association (IDCA).
These are some of the things we can see in data from electricity grid provider UK Power Networks (UKPN), which provides electricity utilisation rates taken half hourly for 96 datacentre sites within its region. This stretches from the datacentre hotspots of west London and Docklands, south-eastwards to Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and includes all of Essex and East Anglia.
At the end of a dirt road along the northeastern edge of Montana's Crazy Mountains, a simple sign warns visitors they are now entering private property. For fifth-generation Montanan Brad Wilson, the notice marks a defeat with implications far beyond the Crazies. "The fate of our public lands and our rights are in jeopardy right now," Wilson told Floodlight.
The Lazard analysis that suggests that this is the cheapest form of energy, all of these projects you're describing in Nevada have one thing in common: when the sun goes down, they produce zero electricity. And this nation over rotated towards intermittent forms of energy, and the idea that we could add intermittent and shut down base load is what put our grid at deep risk.
As the unforgiving summer heat soared above 40C, she had walked for miles, piling the sticks and fallen branches into a bundle on her head while sweat ran down her face. Just a few weeks ago, the 35-year-old had been preparing meals for her four children on a small gas stove with little fuss. But as the crisis in the Middle East has choked India's vital supplies of imported liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used by more than 60% of the country's population for cooking refills have been scarce and prices have risen far beyond what is widely affordable.
Whales are increasingly exposed to traffic and ship strikes. The United States-Israel war on Iran has disrupted global supplies of energy, fertilisers, medicines and even helium, devastating economies around the world. Now it's also threatening whales off the coast of South Africa.
Most well-known people who talk about climate change are in North America and Europe, says Kenyan rugby sevens star Kevin Wekesa, but for us this is a very relevant conversation. It is not only about future tournaments or big international pledges. In Kenya, we see the effects in rising heat, cracked pitches and changing weather in communities where young athletes are growing up.
Sand is sometimes referred to as the unrecognised hero of development, but its essential role in sustaining the natural services on which we depend is even more overlooked. Sand is our first line of defence against sea level rise, storm surges, and salination of coastal aquifers all hazards exacerbated by climate change. The most extracted solid material on Earth, sand is mined to build homes, roads and sea walls in concrete production, building foundations and masonry work.
