Interesting Ideas

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of the Interior announced today it would revoke two public land orders to open more than two million acres of public lands in Alaska to drilling and mining. In an announcement late Friday afternoon, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum issued an order rescinding two land withdrawals north of ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club Statement on Trump Administration Opening Millions of Acres of Protected Public Lands to Mining appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The space solar field is emerging from science fiction to fact, regardless of US energy policy favoring fossil fuels.

The post Space Solar Power Will Inevitably Trump Trump’s War On Solar Power appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Subspecies driven to extinction by hungry whalers returns after ‘back breeding’ programme using partial descendants

Giant tortoises, the life-giving engineers of remote small island ecosystems, are plodding over the Galápagos island of Floreana for the first time in more than 180 years.

The Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger), a subspecies of the giant tortoise once found across the Galápagos, was driven to extinction in the 1840s by whalers who removed thousands from the volcanic island to provide a living larder during their hunting voyages.

European truckmakers pledge a zero-emission future, yet green finance remains marginal in funding the sector’s transition. The European truck industry faces growing competitive pressure. Chinese manufacturers are scaling up electric truck production rapidly and expanding in the global market. European truckmakers commit to battery-electric vehicles, but production expands too slowly to win ... [continued]

The post Locked Out of Green Finance: What’s Holding Truckmakers Back? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Romney Marsh, Kent: It’s a family outing, raking the wet sand looking for plump shellfish. Out of everyone, though, I’m the most enthusiastic

The vast tidal flats are empty save for the hunched figures of three black-backed gulls considering a decomposed dogfish, and four humans (one rather small) trudging through the endless silt. A light mist obscures the coast with its string of motley houses and, on the breeze, there is only the distant soughing of shallow waves chasing foam over the sand. There is the piquancy of seclusion and its attendant danger here, perhaps the closest thing Kent has to wilderness.

I’m relishing the long walk in this lonely place, but my children are less enthusiastic about our annual pilgrimage to the cockle beds, a typically cold affair as the quality of shellfish diminishes in spring and summer. We’re travelling well armed, brandishing handmade rakes with formidable tines of six-inch nails, while the youngest carries a hopeful white bucket. About half a mile offshore, our labour begins.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

Kraków’s ban on burning solid fuels plus subsidies for cleaner heating has led to clearer air and better health

As a child, Marcel Mazur had to hold his breath in parts of Kraków thick with “so much smoke you could see and smell it”. Now, as an allergy specialist at Jagiellonian University Medical College who treats patients struggling to breathe, he knows all too well the damage those toxic gases do inside the human body.

“It’s not that we have this feeling that nothing can be done. But it’s difficult,” Mazur said.

Families are navigating the tough choice between unimaginable riches and the identity that comes with land

When two men knocked on Ida Huddleston’s door last May, they carried a contract worth more than $33m in exchange for the Kentucky farm that had fed her family for centuries.

According to Huddleston, the men’s client, an unnamed “Fortune 100 company”, sought her 650 acres (260 hectares) in Mason county for an unspecified industrial development. Finding out any more would require signing a non-disclosure agreement.

Government announces tougher measures to tackle unlicensed sites as ‘prolific waste criminal’ is ordered to pay £1.4m

A new 33-strong drone unit is being deployed to investigate the scourge of illegal waste dumping across England, the government has announced.

The improvements to the investigation of illegal waste dumping – which costs the UK economy £1bn a year – come as the ringleader of a major waste crime gang was ordered to pay £1.4m after being convicted at Birmingham crown court.

The Supreme Court’s decision limiting presidential tariff authority should have reduced uncertainty. Instead, it introduced a new layer of it. The Court narrowed the use of one statute for imposing broad tariffs. The response from the administration was immediate. Tariffs would continue under other authorities, and tariffs already collected would ... [continued]

The post From Courtroom to Capital Markets: Why US Tariff Instability Matters appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Proving heavy vehicles can electrify fast across Europe By Max Molliere, Principal Data Analyst, E-Mobility, T&E Six out of ten new EU city buses were zero-emission (ZE) in 2025, as battery-electric and fuel cell powertrains made up 56% and 4% of new sales respectively. This was unimaginable back in 2019 ... [continued]

The post Past the Inflection Point: Electric Now Clearly Dominates the City Bus Market appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Government plans legislation giving landowners and tenants rights to cull deer to protect crops and property

It will be much easier to shoot deer in England under government plans that aim to curb the damage the animals are doing to the country’s woodlands.

Emma Reynolds, the environment secretary, plans to bring forward new legislation to give landowners and tenants legal rights to shoot deer to protect crops and property.

Using local content criteria in the Industrial Accelerator Act (IAA) as a lever for public support is the only option on the table to build up a resilient and local battery industry across Europe. 1. The urgency & feasibility of Union content criteria for batteries Access to batteries, their components, ... [continued]

The post How Can IAA Bring Local Cleantech Manufacturing? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Washington, D.C. — Today, Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency dismantled a bedrock environmental and public health standard that protects Americans from mercury and other dangerous toxic air pollutants, such as arsenic, lead, and chromium. Rolling back the new and more protective Mercury and Air Toxics Standards will allow coal- and oil-fired power ... [continued]

The post Donald Trump Tears Down Another Key Public Health Safeguard appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A fair and effective tool for Europe’s energy transition Fossil fuels still account for around 70% of the EU’s energy consumption, leaving it heavily dependent on imports and exposed to price shocks. In 2024 alone, the EU spent more than €375 billion on fossil fuel imports, while fossil fuel companies made €180 billion ... [continued]

The post Taxing Fossil Fuel Profits appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Even as weather extremes worsen, the voices calling for the rolling back of environmental rules have grown louder and more influential

In the timeless week between Christmas and the new year, two Spanish men in their early 50s – friends since childhood, popular around town – went to a restaurant and did not come home.

Francisco Zea Bravo, a maths teacher active in a book club and rock band, and Antonio Morales Serrano, the owner of a popular cafe and ice-cream parlour, had gone to eat with friends in Málaga on Saturday 27 December. But as the pair drove back to Alhaurín el Grande that night, heavy rains turned the usually tranquil Fahala River into what the mayor would later call an “uncontrollable torrent”. Police found their van overturned the next day. Their bodies followed after an agonising search.

The US startup 1854 Motors aims to be the first domestic automaker to introduce sodium-ion batteries in a full sized EV, beginning with the Pierce pickup truck.

The post Cultural Architects, Trojan Horses, And Another EV Startup To Challenge Tesla appeared first on CleanTechnica.

C M Taylor’s book, which will raise funds for charity, follows teenagers whose favourite swim spot is contaminated

A water company discharges sewage into a river with impunity and the government fails to stop them. The story may sound familiar, but this one is different: there’s a satisfying comeuppance all round.

The ongoing saga of sewage being pumped into the Thames has inspired a new YA (young adult) novel, Floaters – and when its limited first edition is published later this month, 50% of all profits will go to the conservation and campaign charity Surfers Against Sewage (SAS).

In this week’s newsletter: The south-east of the country is suffering through the worst heatwave since 2019’s ‘black summer’, while the government continues to back fossil fuel projects

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Australians are no strangers to blistering weather – being a “sunburnt country” of “droughts and flooding rains” is baked into our national identity. But since the 2019-20 bushfires, which burned through an area almost the size of the UK, and killed or displaced 3 billion animals, the arrival of warmer weather each year is accompanied by dread. This summer has brought punishing extremes of heat and fire that are brutal even by Australian standards.

More, after this week’s most important reads.

‘A different set of rules’: thermal drone footage shows Musk’s AI power plant flouting clean air regulations

The death of Heather Preen: how an eight-year-old lost her life amid sewage crisis

Trump lashes out at California governor’s green energy deal with UK

‘Landmark’ greenwashing case against Australian gas giant Santos dismissed by federal court

‘What’s more important, the electricity or food?’: extreme heat is driving up power bills in central Australia

What the Albanese government did on the environment amid the Liberals’ turmoil: threatened species, a new coal project and carbon leakage

LOS ANGELES — Environmental and public health advocates are calling on California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman to investigate an AI-powered campaign that allegedly submitted public comments attributed to residents without their consent to oppose Southern California clean air standards. The extent of the AI ... [continued]

The post Advocates Call on California Attorney General, LA District Attorney to Investigate AI Astroturf Campaign appeared first on CleanTechnica.