Interesting Ideas

Frome, Somerset: Get tuned in to the river’s sounds and you’re treated to a symphony of noise, from susurrating hisses to great belches

After three decades living alongside mute waterways in East Anglia, with their soundless glide over clay, I am learning a liquid language here, and all its boulder dialects, as our winter‑filled local stream gushes down its limestone gorge.

My fellow country diarist and wild swimmer Amy-Jane Beer shares my passion for river music. She tells me of her compulsion to listen when fresh water is given a voice by coming to the surface.

Germany has announced a new incentive program for EVs, PHEVs, and EREVs that includes imports from Chinese manufacturers.

The post Germany Unveils New EV Incentive Plan appeared first on CleanTechnica.

I just wrote about 4th quarter US EV sales. As expected, they don’t look great. Sales dropped a ton in the 4th quarter after Republicans killed the $7,500 US EV tax credit. However, we all know that the 3rd quarter was a blockbuster quarter for US EV sales for the ... [continued]

The post US EV Sales Drop 2% in 2025, But Up 162% Compared to 2021 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Fears of storm surges and flooding, with landslides and volcanic mudflows possible on Luzon

The Philippines is experiencing its first tropical storm of the year. Ada, also known as Nokaen, slowly developed into a tropical storm on Friday, travelling northwards along the east coast over the weekend and bringing torrential rain of up to 200mm a day and maximum wind gusts of up to 65mph near the storm’s centre.

The system is expected to remain a tropical storm until Tuesday as it tracks north-west, though weakening as a result of the incoming north-east monsoon, transitioning back to a tropical depression, which could bring further rain and strong winds enhanced by the monsoon later in the week.

Pricing fertilizer emissions sounds like a recipe for more expensive food, but when the numbers are worked carefully, it turns out to be a policy that cuts emissions sharply while barely moving grocery prices. The reason is simple and counterintuitive. Fertilizer is a large share of farm costs and an ... [continued]

The post Pricing Fertilizer Emissions Cuts Climate Pollution Without Making Food Expensive appeared first on CleanTechnica.

By Dhruv Soni, Senior Technical Program Manager at Tesla Battery Minerals and Metals, CELI 2025 Fellow In the clean energy boom of the 2020s, the United States has continued to lead the world in early-stage innovation, especially across next-generation chemical process industries such as carbon capture, hydrogen and ammonia, sustainable ... [continued]

The post Addressing the Scale-Up Challenge for Clean Energy Process Technologies appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Trust had $254m invested in companies such as Chevron, BP and Shell in 2024, a nine-year record, analysis shows

The Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019.

End-of-year filings reveal that in 2024 the trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell. This was a nine-year record and up 21% from 2016, Guardian analysis found. Adjusting for inflation, it was the highest amount since 2019.

There are so many koalas in some places that food is the issue – while elsewhere populations are threatened by habitat loss. And there are no easy fixes

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On French Island in Victoria’s Western Port Bay, koalas are dropping from trees. Eucalypts have been eaten bare by the marsupials, with local reports of some found starving and dead. Multiple koalas – usually solitary animals – can often be seen on a single gum.

Koalas were first introduced to French Island from the mainland in the 1880s, a move that protected the species from extinction in the decades they were extensively hunted for their pelts. In the absence of predators and diseases such as chlamydia, the population thrived.

The good news about public EV chargers keeps coming. Just a bit after reporting about 88 new fast chargers planned for Brooklyn, NY, here’s another recent and relevant development. In nearby Queens and a little further out in Long Island, there will be a total of 80 public fast charging ... [continued]

The post 80 Fast EV Charging Ports Coming To Queens & Long Island appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Pioneering scheme hopes species that thrived for thousands of years in Irish waters can do so again

The dinghy slowed to a stop at a long line of black bobbing baskets and David Lawlor reached out to inspect the first one.

Inside lay 60 oysters, all with their shells closed, shielding the life within. “They look great,” beamed Lawlor. So did their neighbours in the next basket and the ones after that, all down the line of 300 baskets, totalling 18,000 oysters.

Food produce and other waste has been littering Sussex coastline as capsized shipping containers wash ashore

Coral Evans was walking along the beach in Brighton on Tuesday evening when she came across an unfamiliar sight.

“Hundreds of dust masks had washed up, along with single-use plastic gloves and cans of dried milk,” she said. “It was odd to see in winter – because nothing surprises us in summertime with the amount of people on the beach.”

Some regions of the continent have enough ice to push up sea levels by 15 metres if they all melt, but researchers don’t yet fully understand the consequences

On one side of Dr Ben Galton-Fenzi’s view across the vast Totten ice shelf, the sun sat low on the Antarctic horizon. On the other, a full moon.

The ice shelf is “flat and white”, says Galton-Fenzi. “If there’s cloud around, you lose the horizon.”

The German hydrogen backbone without customers or suppliers—a pipeline from nowhere to nowhere—is real steel in the ground, pressurized and defended as inevitable, yet it is being built for an energy system that does not need it. That claim sounds provocative until the energy flows are laid out in full. ... [continued]

The post Pressurized Steel, Missing Demand: Germany’s Hydrogen Backbone In Energy Flows appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Study links rapid growth of ocean macroalgae to global heating and nutrient pollution

Scientists have warned of a potential “regime shift” in the oceans, as the rapid growth of huge mats of seaweed appears to be driven by global heating and excessive enrichment of waters from farming runoff and other pollutants.

Over the past two decades, seaweed blooms have expanded by a staggering 13.4% a year in the tropical Atlantic and western Pacific, with the most dramatic increases occurring after 2008, according to researchers at the University of South Florida.

As expected, the US electric vehicle market took a hit in the 4th quarter. With the $7,500 federal EV tax credit ending at the end of the 3rd quarter (after Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump prematurely killed it), people rushed to buy EVs before October, and then the market ... [continued]

The post Lowest US EV Sales Since 4th Quarter of 2022 — CHARTS appeared first on CleanTechnica.

It’s a mystery wrapped in an enigma: If EV sales are crashing, why are hundreds of new public EV charging stations still popping up all over the country like mushrooms after the rain? There are more than a few answers to that question, and the coming wave of used EVs ... [continued]

The post Oh, So That’s Why EV Charging Stations Are Still Hot Property appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The first thing I seek in technology, amidst the numerous conveniences accessible in modern society, is quiet. Power outages and the desire of many to be off the grid have led to certain portable power technologies becoming popular with the modern adventurer. Whether one wants to use more intermittent solar ... [continued]

The post Whisper-Quiet BLUETTI Elite 30 V2 Portable Power Station — 600W 288Wh: Double the Runtime. Half the Waste. appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Experts call for tighter regulation as GPS tracking reveals how people’s behaviour affects the lives of some of the world’s largest birds

Many people look up to admire the silhouette of raptors, some of the planet’s largest birds, soaring through seemingly empty skies. But increasingly, research shows us that this fascination runs both ways. From high above, these birds are watching us too.

Thanks to the development of tiny GPS tracking devices attached to their bodies, researchers are getting millions of data points on the day-to-day lives of these apex predators of the skies, giving us greater insight into where they hunt and rest, and how they die.

A return to nuclear power is at the heart of Japan’s energy policy but, in the wake of the 2011 disaster, residents’ fears about tsunamis, earthquakes and evacuation plans remain

The activity around the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant is reaching its peak: workers remove earth to expand the width of a main road, while lorries arrive at its heavily guarded entrance. A long perimeter fence is lined with countless coils of razor wire, and in a layby, a police patrol car monitors visitors to the beach – one of the few locations with a clear view of the reactors, framed by a snowy Mount Yoneyama.

When all seven of its reactors are working, Kashiwazaki-Kariwa generates 8.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power millions of households. Occupying 4.2 sq km of land in Niigata prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, it is the biggest nuclear power plant in the world.

The latest research examines the risks and rewards of geoengineering the ocean to make it absorb more carbon dioxide.

The post Geoengineering The Ocean — What Could Possibly Go Wrong? appeared first on CleanTechnica.