Interesting Ideas

This may well end up being the year of the robotaxi. Several companies are trying to scale up robotaxi service significantly after early testing and initial rollout. You can count Chinese auto giant Geely and self-driving partner WeRide in that group. Geely Holding Group brand Farizon and WeRide announced today ... [continued]

The post Geely & WeRide Planning 2,000 Robotaxis for This Year appeared first on CleanTechnica.

To some it was a reckless experiment but scientists hope the dispersal of 65,000 litres of sodium hydroxide into the Gulf of Maine could ease the climate crisis

For four days last August, a thick slick of maroon bruised the waters of the Gulf of Maine. The scene, not unlike a toxic red tide, was the result of 65,000 litres of an alkaline chemical, tagged with a red dye, that had been deliberately pumped by scientists into the ocean.

Though it sounds perverse, the event was part of a scientific experiment that could advance a technology to combat both global heating and ocean acidification. Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), as the approach is called, acts like natural weathering, but on human – rather than geological – timescales.

Monitors admit they are struggling to keep track of the environmental disasters arising from widening war

Israel’s bombing of Iran’s oil infrastructure will have major long-term environmental repercussions, experts have warned, as monitors admitted they were struggling to keep track of the environmental disasters arising from the widening war.

Even as Iranians filled the streets to mark the appointment of a new supreme leader, the Shahran oil depot north-east of Tehran and the Shahr-e fuel depot to its south continued to burn on Monday, two days after they were bombed by Israeli warplanes.

Like Stonehenge, the Australian coastal landmark is first seen from a busy highway – and locals warn charging a fee for safe viewing could make existing congestion worse

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How much is a view worth? The Victorian public is asking itself that question after the state government announced on Monday that it would impose visitor fees on one of its most spectacular landmarks, the Twelve Apostles.

Bookings would be required and a fee payable for parking and access to the $126m Twelve Apostles Visitor Centre, the gateway to the main viewing decks for the famous sea stacks – columns of remnant rock from the eroded Victorian coastline, visible along the winding, 240km-long Great Ocean Road.

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VinFast has signed agreements with two Indonesian transportation companies that could see up to 20,000 electric vehicles deployed in commercial service over the next several years, strengthening the Vietnamese automaker’s push into Southeast Asia’s largest economy. The memoranda of understanding involve PT Satu Kosong Tujuh and PT Sembilan Benua Abadi, ... [continued]

The post VinFast Secures Fleet Deals For 20,000 Electric Vehicles In Indonesia appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The recent investigative reporting by Swedish Television and Norway’s NRK into the fuel cell supplier PowerCell has opened a window into the Vestfjord Lofoten hydrogen ferry project that Norway has been building toward for years. The journalists focused on a specific claim about durability. Internal tests suggested that the fuel ... [continued]

The post Hydrogen vs Batteries on Norway’s Lofoten Route: An Engineering Reality Check appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Lotus Cars will become the first Chinese-built car brand to sell EVs in Canada under the new tariff framework, according to a report by CarNewsChina. The publication reported that Lotus is preparing to export electric vehicles to Canada once the Canadian government releases the final implementation guidelines for a tariff ... [continued]

The post Lotus Poised To Be The First Chinese EV Brand In Canada Under New Tariff Law appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Dynamic line rating can produce large savings in some parts of the electricity system. In other cases it reveals that operators had been overestimating how much cooling transmission lines receive from the surrounding air. Both outcomes matter. Dynamic line rating replaces assumptions with measurements and forecasts about what transmission lines ... [continued]

The post Unlocking Existing Grid Capacity With Dynamic Line Rating appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Jessika Roswall cites Poland and Finland, which have made border areas near Russia or its allies ‘more hostile’ to cross

Countries should look to rewild their land borders as a deterrence to invasion and build up other geographical defences to attack, Europe’s environment chief has said.

Jessika Roswall, the EU’s commissioner for the environment, water resilience and a competitive circular economy, said nature should be used to improve national security. “Investing in nature and using nature as a natural border control is necessary, and actually increases biodiversity. It’s a win-win,” she said.

The Chevy Bolt 2.0 is arriving at dealers now. It brings some fresh new colors and a ton of new tech features at an affordable price.

The post Chevy Bolt 2.0 — Way Better In (Almost) Every Way appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Young people hope green light to build eco attraction’s northern outpost will change theirs and the town’s fortunes

In the Lancashire coastal town of Morecambe, there has been talk of Eden Project’s futuristic biomes being built beside the shoreline overlooking the bay for a decade.

But this summer, spades will finally break ground to make the project a reality, with the visitor attraction expected to open in less than two years.

With the ongoing global focus on increasing gross domestic products, natural capital becomes an innocent and seemingly inevitable byproduct. Ecosystems and natural resources are not infinite, yet the industrialized economy treats them as if they were. Global growth has resulted in significant damage to the natural world, and it’s an ... [continued]

The post The Need For Global Growth Is A Billionaire’s Lie — And It’s Killing The Planet appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Family-run farms in El Salvador and Honduras face mounting losses, rising costs – and the need to adapt or be left behind

• Read more of our Coffee crisis series here

On a steep hillside in western El Salvador, Oscar Leiva watches rainfall in December, a month that once marked the start of the dry season. During this harvest cycle, flowering came early and then stalled. A heatwave followed. What remains of the crop is uneven, lower in quality and more expensive to produce than the last.

For Leiva and his family, coffee has never been just a crop. His mother, Esperanza Marinero, remembers when the rains arrived on schedule and the harvest could be planned months in advance. Today, the calendar no longer holds. Decisions about pruning, fertilising and hiring labour feel like educated guesses. Each mistake carries a cost the family cannot afford.

St Albans Cathedral, Hertfordshire: The chapel here is a wonderful curiosity, thanks to its restoration by a green-fingered Victorian sculptor

All’s quiet in the Lady Chapel, sheltered from the bustle of the city by thick limestone walls of Totternhoe clunch, quarried just a few miles north-west in Bedfordshire.

But though I’m aware of being alone in a vast vaulted space, when I look at the stonework, I feel surrounded by the echoes of women who’ve stood here before me and left their legacy on the chapel walls.

Britain’s toads have begun their spring migration, putting them at even greater risk than usual. Here’s how – and why – we should look after them

There’s a touch of old magic about toads, those shapeshifters of myth, superstition and folklore. Charismatic creatures with the pleasing Latin binomial bufo bufo, common toads have astonishing copper- or gold-coloured eyes and rugged, textured skin. “People say they look warty, which I’ve always thought is a bit unfair,” says Dr Silviu Petrovan, a conservationist and toad population researcher.

More prosaically, toads are great for your garden. “We say toads are a gardener’s best friend, because they eat all the pests,” says Jenny Tse-Leon, the head of conservation and impact at the British amphibian charity Froglife. Their spring migration is a dramatic event, during which hundreds of thousands of animals travel back to their ancestral breeding ponds. “Like the wildebeest of the Serengeti,” says Tse-Leon. “They’re just a lot smaller than wildebeest.” The males “piggyback” on potential partners: “You see them riding on the female’s back to get a lift to the pond.”

I just read Zach’s “Are Gas Prices Going Up?” and it was a curious coincidence that I had just finished this conversation with my uncle, who is from New York. An accountant and financier by trade, he made the postulation that the average increase would be between $0.27 to $0.35 ... [continued]

The post How Are Prices of Gas & Diesel in ASEAN, and Where Do We Go From Here? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Early spring sightings show colourful insect is a resident species for first time in decades, says conservation charity

The large tortoiseshell – an elusive and enigmatic butterfly that became extinct in Britain in the last century – is a UK resident species once again, with a flurry of early spring sightings.

Britain’s list of native butterflies has increased to 60 with the return of the insect after individuals emerged from hibernation in woodlands in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight.

Rising temperatures making it hard even for young, healthy people to safely do normal physical tasks in many regions

Climate breakdown is shrinking the amount of time that people can safely go about their lives, according to a study that shows a third of the world’s population now resides in areas where heat severely limits activity.

Rising temperatures, driven by the continued burning of fossil fuels, are making it difficult even for many young, healthy adults to do basic physical activities, such as housework or walking up stairs during daylight hours at the height of the summer, the report warns.

Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) is California’s largest utility, providing electricity and natural gas to over 16 million people in central and northern parts of the state. It is the largest utility in California and one of the largest in the US, with about 28,000 employees. PG&E is electrifying its ... [continued]

The post Largest California Utility Could Have 3,800 Electric Fleet Vehicles By 2030 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Before the end of February, Volvo Cars Philippines officially landed two of its most important electric vehicles in Manila — the EX90 and the ES90. Hariphil Asia Resources Inc. handled the local launch, and honestly, this is one of the more consequential premium EV introductions the Philippine market has seen ... [continued]

The post Volvo Brings The EX90 & ES90 To The Philippines — And It’s A Big Deal For Local EV Buyers appeared first on CleanTechnica.