Interesting Ideas

US President Donald Trump has failed to stop the US offshore wind industry, but a billion-dollar bribe may tempt the French firm TotalEnergies to back off.

The post Trump Tries To Vanquish His Offshore Wind Demons With A Billion-Dollar Bribe appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it tricks ants into moving its seeds with a scent that mimics their larvae

Plants are superb at enticing animals to pollinate their flowers or carry off their seeds. But one plant co-opts an astonishing combination of fire, bees and ants to mastermind its reproduction.

The South African Natal crocus, Apodolirion buchananii, has a gloriously bright white flower that emerges from the ground before its leaves appear in early spring. But the flower only blooms shortly after fire breaks out naturally in its native grasslands, leaving it standing like a beacon among the blackened grass to help lure bee pollinators, with an irresistible sweet scent that wafts through the air.

When Danish-German shipping company Scandlines officially launched Baltic Whale, a zero-direct-emission freight ferry, on March 10, it marked a decisive step forward for electrification in short-sea shipping. Industry coverage focused heavily on the vessel’s all-electric design and onboard technology. But the deeper story, according to CleanTechnica sources based in Gedser, ... [continued]

The post Scandlines Races To Fully Electrify Ferry Services As Fehmarn Tunnel Stalls appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Prof Kaveh Madani, winner of the Stockholm water prize, was accused of sabotage with his environmental work

Eight years before he got the call telling him he had won the Stockholm water prize, Prof Kaveh Madani was being interrogated by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, accused of being a spy for the CIA, MI6 or the Mossad.

Today he is in exile and on Wednesday won the world’s most prestigious water prize for combining “groundbreaking research on water management with policy, diplomacy and global outreach, often under personal risk and political complexity”.

The detection at a popular park of ‘one of the worst invasive species to reach Australia’ is causing concern that suppression efforts are cracking

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

The Newmarket women’s football side was gearing up for its clash against crosstown club New Farm United in Brisbane’s inner northern suburbs on Saturday morning when a message pinged in the team’s group chat.

Just hours before kick-off, the game was postponed, to a date undetermined.

As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset

Just off the B3134 in Somerset is a portal to the underworld. The smaller of two openings to Goatchurch Cavern, it’s called the Tradesman’s Entrance – and through it I am squeezing. After tumbling on my bum over damp smooth rock, lacerating a jumpsuit in the process, I venture down and down, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing upright, trying to find footholds in the dark.

I’m here with film-maker Robert Petit, so he can show me something of what he’s been experiencing for the past five years, on his way to making an endearingly poetic documentary film called Underland, which riffs on nature-writer Robert Macfarlane’s bestselling 2019 subterranean travelogue of the same name. We’re heading 100ft underground to the Boulder Chamber where, over sugary snacks, I will quiz him about his obsession.

As we have seen recently with some Chinese EV chargers reaching and exceeding 1,000 kW of charging power and BYD planning to install about 3,000 such chargers, some of these Chinese companies are moving at a different speed. They seem to be dissatisfied with doing what is average and are ... [continued]

The post 300,000 New EV Chargers Planned For Latin America appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Exclusive: Fixing a leak can be simple and equivalent to closing a coal power station, making lack of action maddening, say analysts

The world’s worst mega-leaks of the potent greenhouse gas methane in 2025 have been revealed by an analysis of satellite data.

The super-polluting plumes from oil and gas facilities have a colossal heating impact on the climate but often result from poor maintenance and can be simple to fix. The assessment found dozens of mega-leaks, each having the same global heating impact as a coal-fired power station.

Frome, Somerset: A small patch of land, leased by the council, will be the site of a new community project. And so we descend, ready to rewrite its future

Who crawled along Snail’s Bottom? Who found beauty on Bonnyleigh Hill? Who measured Little Acre Farm? This small patch of Somerset – like everywhere else in Britain – is a storied landscape, every feature named and memorialised by mostly forgotten individuals. Our job over the next two hours is to take one such name, one such story, and overwrite it with something better.

Over a level crossing, through a kissing gate and on to a public footpath running down sloping ground. I had only been told the local epithet for this banana-shaped paddock after we moved here, though my arm already understood its origin. A priapic stallion, its coat studded with burdock burrs like a peppered mackerel, had clamped its jaws around my humerus. “That’s bitey horse field,” people told me. Bitey no more, for the poor fly-grazing beast has left, and our ever-proactive town council has secured the land on a 99-year lease.

Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements

On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects.

Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies.

Some of Europe’s biggest airlines are playing with the future source of our energy security. The first to show its hand was Lufthansa. Last week the airline publicly criticised one of the few European policies aimed at decarbonising aviation: the targets for replacing kerosene with Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs). We have seen ... [continued]

The post Europe Must Not Let Airlines Sabotage Clean Aviation Fuels appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Our photojournalist explores the Cornish landmark on the eve of its anniversary and meets some of its staff, visitors, plants and creatures

“Give me a sleeping bag and I’ll happily sleep here overnight,” says Kim Mackintosh as she wanders amid the vibrant flora of the Mediterranean biome at the Eden Project on the eve of the tourist attraction’s 25th anniversary.

Loupe in hand, the leader of the biome’s horticulture team is marvelling at an array of plants that have recently come into bloom, tenderly examining the yellow furry buds of an Acacia glaucoptera before flogging a Grevillea flower to dispense its rich, honey-flavoured nectar.

Kim Mackintosh inspects the ‘kangaroo paw’ of an Anigozanthos through her loupe. All photographs by Jonny Weeks

Recent reports and statements from BYD Vice President Stella Li indicate that their new Bahia plant in eastern Brazil recently received export orders totaling 100,000 units, split between Mexico and Argentina. The news sent BYD’s share price up on Monday. However, the implications to BYD’s overall business and the global ... [continued]

The post Brazil Fuels BYD Growth in the Americas, Mexico & Argentina Place 100,000 Orders appeared first on CleanTechnica.

From fluffy owlets to rosy-hued flamingos, Claire Rosen’s portraits of live birds took her on a journey that touched on colonialism, wallpaper design … and chickens

Green shipping can ensure that Europe’s leading shipping industry remains on top. Originally published on Lloyd’s List As anyone knows, any great Greek tragedy is defined by an act of betrayal. Back in November, as the International Maritime Organization came to vote on the biggest climate deal in its history, ... [continued]

The post Greece Risks Becoming Trump’s Trojan Horse in the Fight to Decarbonise Shipping appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Exclusive: finding out who owns land will become simpler under plans to make the best use of green spaces and hit net zero targets

Finding out who owns land in England is to become much simpler because a paywall will be lifted from large parts of the Land Registry, the government is to announce.

A small number of landowners control the majority of land but finding out who owns what is difficult to piece together, even for government departments, owing to the way the Land Registry operates. Freeing up access will make it easier to determine ownership of key areas, such as river catchments, grouse moors and peatland.

Scandlines has deployed a high-capacity battery-electric freight ferry on the Puttgarden–Rødby corridor, introducing scheduled service with zero direct emissions under normal operating conditions on the 18.5-kilometer Fehmarn Belt crossing. The Baltic Whale completed its first commercial rotation at 08:05 on March 10th, establishing a new operating profile for short-sea freight ... [continued]

The post The Baltic Whale Enters Battery-Electric Freight Service On The Fehmarn Belt appeared first on CleanTechnica.

As EU Environment Ministers meet to discuss electric vehicle targets, new research shows EVs are the best way to protect drivers from oil shocks. The EU spent €67 bn on oil imports for cars last year Accelerating the roll-out of EVs would cut oil imports by €45bn over the next ... [continued]

The post Iran Conflict Set to Hit Petrol Drivers 5 Times Harder than EV Drivers — Analysis appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Today’s challenges demand a new European investment plan. Dear President von der Leyen, Dear President Costa, Europe faces a historic moment. The scale of the economic, geopolitical, climate and technological challenges before us cannot be met with incremental adjustments or national solutions alone. They require European-level fiscal and financial capacity ... [continued]

The post Industry & Civil Society Groups Call for a New European investment Plan appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The final DNV study for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) matters because it changes the hydrogen shipping debate from an argument about theoretical decarbonization potential into an argument about engineering burden and cost. DNV is not saying hydrogen-fuelled ships are impossible. It is saying that hydrogen requires a design-based ... [continued]

The post Hydrogen at Sea Just Got Even More Expensive: What DNV’s Safety Findings Mean appeared first on CleanTechnica.