Interesting Ideas

Doug Gimesy’s extreme close-ups of ‘sky puppies’ are designed to trigger an emotional response that endears people to the ‘wrongly vilified’ mammals

• More summer essentials

After standing chest-deep in the middle of the river for hours, the perfect belly dip was over in the bat of an eye.

It was the moment photographer Doug Gimesy had been waiting for, standing in his sweaty waders on a stinking hot day, as he steadied kilos of camera equipment mere inches above the water.

US innovators in the green hydrogen space continue to expand their impact on the global decarbonization movement, despite the sudden U-turn in federal energy policy.

The post Industrial Green Hydrogen Is Coming To Europe From The US, No Less appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Mystery swirls over the classified DoD intel that led to an emergency work stoppage at five new wind farms in mid-construction.

The post 4 States Fight To Restore Offshore Wind Projects … Wait, Where Is Virginia? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Humanoid robots have a habit of returning to public attention in waves. Each wave arrives with smoother motion, better balance, and more confident timelines. The claim is usually some version of general purpose capability. The promise is a machine that can safely share space with humans and perform a wide ... [continued]

The post Humanoid Robots Keep Slipping Into the Future, Much Like Fusion appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Merlin has been trained to identify the songs of more than 1,300 bird species around the world

When Natasha Walter first became curious about the birds around her, she recorded their songs on her phone and arduously tried to match each song with online recordings. After a friend recommended Merlin Bird ID, a free app, she tried it in her London garden and was delighted to discover the birds she assumed were female blackbirds – “this is how bad a birder I was” – were actually song thrushes and mistle thrushes.

“I’m obsessed with Merlin – it’s wonderful and it’s been a joy to me,” says Walter, a writer and human rights activist. “This is what AI and machine-learning have been invented for. It’s the one good thing!”

Covert cryogenic depots, geopolitical complications, and the logistics behind Christmas Eve DISCLAIMER: This article is satire. While it references real companies and locations, SLEIGH operations, reindeer biogas systems, and covert retail refueling networks do not exist. Santa’s actual propulsion system remains classified. None of the information in this article was ... [continued]

The post CleanTechnica Exclusive: Inside Santa’s Global Refueling Network appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Hundreds of sheep graze among the panels at the Sherco Solar power plant in Minnesota, which is slated for a major solar plus storage expansion.

The post Massive Solar Plus Storage Facility To Replace Both Coal And Natural Gas appeared first on CleanTechnica.

These fungi boost plant growth and restore depleted ecosystems, but federal funding for a library housing them has been cut – and it may be forced to close

Inside a large greenhouse at the University of Kansas, Professor Liz Koziol and Dr Terra Lubin tend rows of sudan grass in individual plastic pots. The roots of each straggly plant harbor a specific strain of invisible soil fungus. The shelves of a nearby cold room are stacked high with thousands of plastic bags and vials containing fungal spores harvested from these plants, then carefully preserved by the researchers.

The samples in this seemingly unremarkable room are part of the International Collection of Vesicular Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (INVAM), the world’s largest living library of soil fungi. Four decades in the making, it could cease to exist within a year due to federal budget cuts.

Secondhand tobacco smoke and routine tasks such as operating the stove shown to be biggest emitters of indoor pollution in UK homes

Christmas and New Year is a time when many people will be at home. Being indoors can give us a degree of protection from outdoor air pollution, but it can also trap pollution we produce inside our homes.

Risks from secondhand tobacco smoke are well known and the effect is perhaps best seen by comparison of health data before and after indoor smoking bans. A study of 47 indoor smoking bans in public spaces found hospital admissions for heart attacks decreased by an average of 12%, but people are less aware of other indoor pollutants and how to minimise them.

If one is interested in the electrification of developing countries, Bolivia is perhaps the most interesting Latin American country to follow in 2025. Amidst a two-year-long fuel crisis, the Andean country has been quietly building a massive EV revolution as ICEV sales slowly collapse, as we reported earlier this year. ... [continued]

The post EV Sales Are Booming In Bolivia As The New President Scraps The Fuel Subsidy appeared first on CleanTechnica.

From merrily dismissing climate science, to promoting irresponsible health claims, the podcast was an unintentional warning for our times

Looking back on this crazy year, one event, right at the start, seems to me to encapsulate the whole. In January, recording his podcast in a studio in Austin, Texas, the host, Joe Rogan, and the actor Mel Gibson merrily dissed climate science. At the same time, about 1,200 miles away in California, Gibson’s $14m home was being incinerated in the Palisades wildfire. In this and other respects, their discussion could be seen as prefiguring the entire 12 months.

The loss of his house hadn’t been confirmed at the time of the interview, but Gibson said his son had just sent him “a video of my neighbourhood, and it’s in flames. It looks like an inferno.” According to World Weather Attribution, January’s fires in California were made significantly more likely by climate breakdown. Factors such as the extreme lack of rainfall and stronger winds made such fires both more likely to happen and more intense than they would have been without human-caused global heating.

Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire: I couldn’t believe how much moss there was covering the rocks, the trees, the ground – everything

Living in a city, I don’t have much contact with nature, but when I do, I always savour it. Most people go to the woods in search of flowers, birds, insects or fungi, but I was looking for moss. Why moss? What is so special about this irksome plant you find hidden in plain sight?

The Forest of Dean could be synonymous with moss. When I went, I was immediately struck by the amount there was. It was covering rocks, trees, the ground – everything! Everywhere was camouflaged by this blanket of green. It was like looking through emerald glasses. I ran my hand over a patch of moss; it was soft and velvety like a puppy’s fur.

With the snow line edging higher, 186 French ski resorts have shut, while global heating threatens dozens more

When Céüze 2000 ski resort closed at the end of the season in 2018, the workers assumed they would be back the following winter. Maps of the pistes were left stacked beside a stapler; the staff rota pinned to the wall.

Six years on, a yellowing newspaper dated 8 March 2018 sits folded on its side, as if someone has just flicked through it during a quiet spell. A half-drunk bottle of water remains on the table.

Christian Aid annual report’s top 10 disasters amounted to more than $120bn in insured losses

Cyclones and floods in south-east Asia this autumn killed more than 1,750 people and caused more than $25bn (£19bn) in damage, while the death toll from California wildfires topped 400 people, with $60bn in damage, according to research on the costliest climate-related disasters of the year.

China’s devastating floods, in which thousands of people were displaced, were the third most expensive, causing about $12bn in damage, with at least 30 lives lost.

Toyota USA has announced a new plan to sell hybrid Corollas in the US, potentially stepping on the toes of its BEV plans featuring new 2026 C-HR crossover SUV.

The post Toyota Confirms Launch Of New C-HR+ BEV In Europe While Hybrid Plans Expand In US appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The Caatinga in the north-east has been transformed by the heating climate in just a generation and could become the country’s first desert

Every Tuesday at dawn, Raildon Suplício Maia goes to the market in Macururé, in Brazil’s Bahia state, to sell goats. He haggles with buyers to get a good price for the animals, which are reared in the open and roam freely.

Goats are the main – and sometimes only – source of income for the people of Macururé, a small town in the Brazilian sertão. This rural hinterland in the country’s north-east is known for its dry climate and harsh conditions.

Raildon Suplicio Maia, a goat farmer from Macururé sells his animals at the market. Grazing has disappeared and he now spends any profit on feed

New, commercial-scale, energy efficient  rooftop heat pumps will hit the US market within the next two years, cutting costs and emissions, too.

The post A 15-Ton Rooftop Heat Pump Is Coming For Your Fossil Fuels appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Mersey Valley Way takes in Manchester and Stockport on its 13-mile route with other walks to be identified in 2026

A new river walk has been announced by the government as ministers try to improve access to nature in England.

The 13-mile (21km) walk will go through Greater Manchester and the north-west of England. There will be a river walk in each region of the country by the end of parliament, the government has pledged.

Volkswagen is aggressively introducing new plug-in hybrid and battery electric cars in China. What effect will that have on other markets?

The post Volkswagen Renaissance Begins In China appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The auto world has been changing fast, but it is likely to change a lot more in the coming 5–10 years. The market is going to keep electrifying, whether legacy automakers like it or not. Furthermore, after decades of simple driver-assist technologies like cruise control, we are venturing into a ... [continued]

The post GM Might Be Preparing For A Big Tech Transition appeared first on CleanTechnica.