Interesting Ideas

Approval for exploration in 70 new areas prompts fierce backlash from fossil fuel opponents

The Norwegian government has been heavily criticised for approving plans to reopen three North Sea gasfields nearly three decades after they were closed to help fill the gap in energy supplies created by the Middle East war.

Amid sharp price rises in oil and gas since the US and Israel’s attack on Iran in February, Oslo has also given its approval for oil and gas companies to explore in 70 new locations in the North Sea, Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea.

The volume of coal delivered in the United States for uses other than power generation—primarily, for manufacturing—decreased by about half in the last 15 years. Coal delivered for these purposes in the South decreased the most in percentage terms between 2010 and 2025, falling 75%, or 14.7 million short tons ... [continued]

The post Coal Distributions for Non-Electric Power Use Decline in the South appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Sacramento, CA — Today, Sierra Club announced its endorsement of Tom Steyer for Governor of California, backing a candidate with a long record of investing in climate solutions, taking on Big Oil, and helping build the coalitions needed to win major environmental fights. “Tom Steyer has not just talked about climate ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club Endorses Tom Steyer for California Governor appeared first on CleanTechnica.

To celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s centenary, Madeleine Finlay catches up with natural history writer Patrick Barkham, who has met the celebrated presenter. They explore how the natural world has changed in the century that Attenborough has been on Earth, and how his programming has reflected his growing commitment to highlighting the devastating impacts of the climate crisis on nature and biodiversity

Clips: BBC, PBS

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Inkpen, Berkshire: There is far less birdsong now than in Lillian Watts’s day, but it is down to her that there is any at all

Lillian Watts’s bench has fallen into disrepair, so instead I sit on Arthur’s Seat on the common. Warmth rises from the heath, even on this chilly spring morning, and a lizard creates curvaceous lines under the dry, still-dormant heather.

It is both Lillian’s and my birthday, though she died in 1989, aged 93. I play a recording of her from 1975, from the village’s history society. Poet, potter, English teacher, naturalist and formidable campaigner, she, along with villagers such as Arthur Cooke (1898-1980), saved this place from development. Lillian’s voice is measured, soft and annunciated, with the clipped vowels of her time.

Powerful property and farming firm Grosvenor Group says knock-on effect of Iran war could arrive next year

Fertiliser shortages caused by the Iran war have driven up costs for UK farmers by up to 70% and will have a “dramatic” impact on food prices globally next year, according to one of Britain’s most powerful property and farming companies.

Mark Preston, executive trustee of the 349-year-old Grosvenor Group, controlled by the Duke of Westminster, said fertiliser “was already quite expensive” before the 50% to 70% surge in prices since the start of the Iran war in late February.

Aviation’s decarbonization debate spends most of its time in the fuel tank. Sustainable aviation fuel gets the mandates, hydrogen and synthetic fuels get the hype and VC dollars, and batteries get the short-haul hopes. All of those matter, but they share a problem. They are slow, expensive, infrastructure-heavy and constrained ... [continued]

The post Better Flight Planning Can Cut Fuel & Contrail Warming appeared first on CleanTechnica.

By Dr. Thomas Nann, CEO and Co-Founder of Allegro The biggest constraint facing AI data centre expansion is not generation. It is storage, and not only storage, but the unique way that AI data centre’s use power. As AI-driven data centres scale, the grid challenge is no longer simply how ... [continued]

The post AI Data Centres Need Big Batteries But Lithium Isn’t Fit-For-Purpose appeared first on CleanTechnica.

As Reform vows to block solar and windfarms, energy leaders say renewables offer most secure future, insulating UK from hostile forces

• UK politics live – latest updates

• May elections: What’s at stake across England, Wales and Scotland?

The defining issue of Thursday’s local elections, feedback from doorsteps suggests, will be the UK’s soaring cost of living. But voters should be told about the links between inflation and the effects of fossil fuels and the climate crisis – or the remedies they choose – may make the situation worse, green campaigners have warned.

Ami McCarthy, the head of politics at Greenpeace UK, said: “With people’s bills and prices soaring from yet another fossil fuel crisis, these local elections have a global context – driven by the Iran war.

The author has become acutely aware of how the climate crisis is affecting women – and, in her new book, she argues that it’s time for mainstream western feminists to join the dots

Natasha Walter is halfway through explaining how she came to be politically radicalised when a young woman approaches the cafe table. We two middle-aged women look like “the most trustworthy people here,” she says, so could we watch her baby while she grabs a coffee? Like the solid citizen she is, Walter doesn’t take her eyes off the pushchair parked by the cafe steps for the next five minutes, though all we can see of the occupant is a tiny swinging foot. Sorry, where were we? Ah yes, the groundbreaking feminist writer who famously argued in her 1998 book The New Feminism that Margaret Thatcher had broken down barriers for women was explaining why she no longer really believes it’s possible to be rightwing and a feminist, as Theresa May or Amber Rudd insist they are.

“I can’t support just any woman getting into power, because I think a system that leaves too many women in the shadows – that condemns too many women to poverty or worse – is not a feminist system, and I don’t think you can call yourself a feminist if you’re going to prop up that system,” she says, eyes still glued to the baby for whom we are briefly responsible. “It’s not my kind of feminism.” Her younger self, she admits, would have thought her too uncompromising. But something in her seems to have hardened, facing a world she sees as threatened by the rise of far-right authoritarianism on one hand and a climate emergency on the other. “In the past I always wanted to be a broad church, I always thought any woman can be a feminist, but now I really am feeling … maybe I’ve been radicalised.”

Project is expected to double Utah’s power demand, guzzle scarce water resources. Salt Lake City — Box Elder County Commissioners voted on Monday to approve the Stratos Data Center, a massive project set to become one of the largest in the country. The facility will be built in the Great ... [continued]

The post Insane Stratos Data Center Approval Threatens Great Salt Lake Basin appeared first on CleanTechnica.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of the Interior announced today that it intends to transfer approximately 1.4 million acres of national public lands in Alaska’s Dalton Utility Corridor to the State of Alaska. The transfer follows the Trump administration’s unlawful earlier decision to revoke protections on more than two million acres of ... [continued]

The post Sierra Club Statement on Interior’s Decision to Give Away 1.4 Million Acres of National Public Lands for Mining and Drilling Projects appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Julie, once a circus elephant, and Kariba, from a Belgian zoo, are to be moved to a former ranch in Portugal

Europe’s first large-scale elephant sanctuary, which is opening to offer a more natural environment for some of the 600 animals still held in captivity across the continent, is to receive its first arrivals.

Julie, Portugal’s last circus elephant, will be moved next month to the animal charity Pangea’s multimillion pound sanctuary in the Alentejo, 200km (124 miles) east of Lisbon, close to the border with Spain.

When I landed in Guangzhou on my recent trip to China and was heading to my hotel, one of the first things I noticed was significantly more electric trucks on the road than just a few months prior. Sometimes there were older boxes on the back of new truck chassis, ... [continued]

The post LANDKING Makes Electric Trucks Look Inevitable at Auto China appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Intervention for farming and flood risk changes the unique systems as communities grapple with how to live alongside the vital waterways

When British settlers started building Christchurch city 170 years ago, they largely ignored the nearby Waimakariri River, which twists from the South Island’s alps towards the eastern shore.

But rain and glacial shifts compelled the braided river – a globally rare form of river with many woven channels – to take on a new shape, occasionally flooding land and depositing tonnes of shingle in its wake.

Seven of Vienna’s ten new hydrogen buses are sidelined because CaetanoBus cannot supply ordinary spare parts. Not hydrogen tanks. Not fuel-cell stacks. Not high-pressure valves. Door compressors and blind-spot monitoring systems. That is what makes the case important for transit procurement agencies. The reported failure is not exotic enough to ... [continued]

The post Vienna’s Hydrogen Bus Failure Is A Warning To Transit Agencies appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Commercial electricity sales in Virginia increased by nearly 30.0 million megawatthours (MWh) between 2019 and 2025, much faster growth than in any other state except Texas, a much larger state, according to our Annual Electric Power Industry Report. The growth in sales of electricity in Virginia is largely driven by a concentration ... [continued]

The post Commercial Electricity Sales Have Soared in Virginia, Driven by Data Centers appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Group that worked with AOC and Bernie Sanders seeks to counter claim that climate policy is politically toxic

Americans do not care about the climate crisis, only economic issues: that’s the message some wonks have put forth in the past year, as the Trump administration has dismantled environmental protections. But the shift away from climate is misguided, an influential group of progressives is arguing.

“The climate crisis is a core driver of the cost-of-living crisis and instability we see across the economy,” says a new policy platform from left-leaning thinktank Climate and Community Institute (CCI).

Firm benefits from conflict to rake in $6.9bn as higher energy prices turbocharge profits

• Business live – latest updates

Shell has reported better than expected profits of $6.9bn (£5bn) after its oil traders reaped the benefits of soaring energy prices during the war in Iran, angering climate campaigners.

Europe’s biggest oil and gas company posted a 115% jump in first-quarter profits from the $3.2bn reported in the last three months of 2025.

Gas and coal plants guzzle billions of gallons of water every year despite low-water alternatives. A new Sierra Club analysis on thermal plant water usage reveals that Texas gas, coal, and nuclear plants consume roughly 100 billion gallons of water every year, while renewables and battery storage use barely any ... [continued]

The post New Analysis Reveals Massive Water Use by Texas Power Plants appeared first on CleanTechnica.