Interesting Ideas

Washington, D.C. — Today, the Sierra Club released a new tracker which shows that while Americans are grappling with soaring costs, utility companies are planning to add nearly 500 more expensive and polluting gas-fired power plants across the country. Over the past year, electricity prices increased at double the rate of inflation. Rather than investing in ... [continued]

The post New Sierra Club Map Shows Expensive U.S. Gas Buildout appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The state of Michigan has sued several oil companies, claiming they have conspired to keep EV and renewable energy prices high.

The post Michigan Sues Big Oil For Antitrust Violations appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Hawes, North Yorkshire: A stunning ray of sunshine, beamed on to a farmhouse, is a reminder of my family’s history in this landscape

It is early Saturday morning and I’m on my way to the Hawes Honeys sale of “in-lamb” (pregnant) ewes at Hawes auction. Usually I drive through Nateby and up over the tops into North Yorkshire, past the big pipe under the road where I used to play with toy cars when I was little, and remembering my sons shouting “hold your breath everyone, don’t breathe the Yorkshire air” as we passed the county boundary.

Today I take a different route, turning off at Wharton to go via Mallerstang instead. As I drove into Mallerstang I had to stop the car and watch as a single ray of sunlight broke through, lighting up a white farmhouse on the other side of the valley, opposite Pendragon Castle.

A mangrove conservation project in Guanabara Bay has shown how a dying ecosystem can be transformed into a thriving sanctuary

With deep blue waters flanked by dramatic peaks, Guanabara Bay is the postcard view of Rio de Janeiro – but it is also one of Brazil’s most polluted coastal environments. Raw sewage and solid waste flow into the bay from surrounding cities, home to more than 8 million people. Cargo ships and oil platforms chug in and out of commercial ports, while dozens of abandoned vessels lie rotting in the water.

But at the head of the bay, between the cities of Itaboraí and Magé, the environment feels different. The air is purer, the waters are empty but for small fishing canoes, and flocks of birds soar overhead.

Known as ‘white gold’, lithium is among the most important mined elements on the planet – ideal for the rechargeable batteries used in tech products. Can Europe’s largest deposit bring prosperity to the local community?

It looks more like the past than the future. A vast chasm scooped out of a scarred landscape, this is a Cornwall the summer holidaymakers don’t see: a former china clay pit near St Austell called Trelavour. I’m standing at the edge of the pit looking down with the man who says his plans for it will help the UK’s transition to renewable energy and bring back year-round jobs and prosperity to a part of the country that badly needs both. “And if I manage to make some money in the process, fantastic,” he says. “Though that is not what it’s about.”

We’ll return to him shortly. But first to the past, when this story begins, about 275-280m years ago. “There was a continental collision at the time,” Frances Wall, professor of applied mineralogy at the Camborne School of Mines at the University of Exeter, explained to me before my visit. This collision caused the bottom of the Earth’s crust to melt, with the molten material rising higher in the crust and forming granite. “There are lots of different types of granite that intrude at different times, more than 10m years or so,” she says. “The rock is made of minerals and, if you’ve got the right composition in the original material and the right conditions, then within those minerals there are some called mica. Some of those micas contain lithium.”

CATL is the largest battery producer in the world. Any move it makes is noteworthy. While CATL has been making sodium-ion batteries for some time, production commitment has increased dramatically in 2026. CATL introduced its Naxtra line of batteries earlier in 2025 and has now announced plans for volume production ... [continued]

The post Why Sodium-Ion Batteries Are Happening Now appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Paying attention to the calls of our avian neighbours can reduce stress, find scientists in Germany

Feeling stressed? Try a dose of birdsong to lift the spirits. A new study shows that paying attention to the treetop melodies of our feathered friends can boost wellbeing and bring down stress levels.

Previous research has shown that people feel better in bird-rich environments, but Christoph Randler, from the University of Tübingen, and colleagues wanted to see if that warm fuzzy feeling translated into measurable physiological changes. They rigged up a park with loudspeakers playing the songs of rare birds and measured the blood pressure, heart rate and cortisol levels (a marker of stress) of volunteers before and after taking a 30-minute walk through the park. Some volunteers experienced the birdsong-enriched environment, some heard just natural birdsong, and some wore noise-cancelling headphones and heard no birdsong. Half of the recruits were asked to pay attention to the birdsong.

The new Nissan LEAF, the transformed 2026 Nissan LEAF, continues to shine thanks to the wonderful mix of good specs, modern design, and great affordability. It has certainly been one of the top EV highlights of the past year in the United States — probably the greatest — and it ... [continued]

The post New Nissan LEAF Wins 3 More Awards! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Rammed earth sourced from, or near, the grounds of a proposed building site is attracting attention as an eco-friendly construction material

From afar, the low-rise homestead perched in the Wiltshire countryside may look like any other rural outpost, but step closer and the texture of the walls reveal something distinct from the usual facade of cement, brick and steel.

The Rammed Earth House in Cranborne Chase is one of the few projects in the UK that has been made by unstabilised rammed earth – a building material that consists entirely of compacted earth and which has been used as far back as the Neolithic period.

We have been covering NIO for more than 9 years. When it started out as a young, ambitious, small young company, it was clear the EV startup had big dreams. The company wanted to achieve great things and excite the world, as Tesla had done, on the benefits of a ... [continued]

The post NIO Scores A Profit! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

With plans to sell off over a million acres of natural habitat for oil and gas development, the Trump administration is ignoring the dire impact on its fragile ecosystem

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This week, the Trump administration took a key step towards opening new leases for oil and gas drilling across millions of acres in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – a pristine and biodiverse expanse in northern Alaska and one of the last wildlands in the US still left untouched.

With a call for nominations officially issued on Tuesday, the US Bureau of Land Management began evaluating plots across the 1.5 million-acre Coastal Plain at the heart of the refuge – an area often referred to as the American Serengeti, thanks to its rich tundra ecosystems, which provide habitat for close to 200 species and serve as the traditional homelands of the Iñupiat and Gwichʼin peoples.

Flawed economic models mean climate crisis could crash global economy, experts warn

Fossil fuel firms may have to pay for climate damage under proposed UN tax

The lithium boom: could a disused quarry bring riches to Cornwall?

Trump’s Greenland threats open old wounds for Inuit across Arctic

‘Erasure of years of work’: outcry as White House moves to open Arctic reserve to oil and gas drilling

Arctic endured year of record heat as climate scientists warn of ‘winter being redefined’

One of the first things Donald Trump did when he got into office (the second time) was try to stop funding for and development of cleantech. Honestly, it’s one of the most ridiculous things one could imagine a president focusing on, but then again, that list is long with this ... [continued]

The post Trump Tries to Cancel Millions More for EV Charging — Illegally, Of Course appeared first on CleanTechnica.

This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world

BYD passenger vehicle sales are in a tough spot, as just discussed. However, BYD’s commercial vehicle sales are going swimmingly. Compared to December, naturally, sales were down last month (in general, December is a much bigger sales month than January), but they weren’t even down much month over month. Meanwhile, ... [continued]

The post BYD Electric Bus & Truck Sales Actually Up! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A new, 3-D printed, reusable sponge-like cartridge can soak up critical minerals from domestic mining, industrial, and electronic waste.

The post The Solution For US Critical Minerals: Geopolitical Minefield Vs. Recycling appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Research in Wales found that home, not outdoor travel, was largest contributor to children’s daily exposure

Children living in homes with wood burners could be exposed to over three times more pollution than those in non-wood-burning homes. The results come from a study that looked at air pollution experienced by primary schoolchildren in Wales.

Fifty-three children from two primary schools in Anglesey (Ynys Môn) were given backpacks equipped with air pollution sensors. They took the packs home and carried them during their journeys to and from school.

Shas Sheehan challenges refusal to remove 25,000 tonnes of waste causing ‘grave environmental hazard’ near school

A 25,000-tonne illegal waste dump next to a primary school in Wigan presents “a grave environmental hazard” and should be cleared, the chair of the Lords environment committee has told the government.

Shas Sheehan challenged the refusal of the Environment Agency to clean up an illegal waste dump in Bolton House Road in the Greater Manchester town, given the agency was spending millions clearing up illegal waste deposited in Kidlington, Oxfordshire.

Charity praises effort to stop Ramsgate’s Pie Factory Music closing but calls for more youth services in coastal towns

The last remaining youth centre in one of England’s most deprived coastal places has been saved from being sold after a long campaign by the charity that has for 13 years called it home.

In November the Guardian revealed how the centre in Ramsgate on the Kent coast was facing being auctioned off by Kent county council, despite an independent report that estimated the centre was saving the council more than £500,000 a year in costs, including for services in mental health, youth justice and social care.

It is a most absurd thing — Republicans who insist that the we should be completely free and that people should be able to spend and try to make money however they wish somehow also decided that major investors cannot be allowed to look at matters of climate change, social ... [continued]

The post Court Says Texas Cannot Punish Investors for Taking Climate Change into Consideration appeared first on CleanTechnica.

We already knew that Waymo was going to be entering several new markets in 2026. With the company raising $16 billion to expand more rapidly, I also expected we’d see some announcements about such expansions this week. And now we have them. The company has announced that it is now ... [continued]

The post Waymo Entering Boston & Sacramento — Where Next? appeared first on CleanTechnica.