Interesting Ideas

Firefighters are racing to douse flames on California’s Santa Rosa Island as experts express concern for unique habitat

On the south-eastern corner of Santa Rosa Island lies a grove of a few thousand Torrey pine trees, some of them more than 250 years old. The only other place on earth where these gnarled pines exist is in San Diego county, but biologists classify the two groves as different subspecies. So when a rare wildfire broke out on Santa Rosa Island late last week, firefighters raced to keep it from spreading into the grove, where it threatened to consign the island’s Torrey pines to extinction.

So far, they appear to be succeeding – even as the 18,000-acre fire has torched nearly one-third of the island’s surface. But biologists who have studied Santa Rosa Island’s unique ecology are watching anxiously as the fire continues to burn a part of the island that is home to six plants found nowhere else on the planet.

Volkswagen is the leading electric vehicle seller in Europe. It may not be at the level of BYD or Tesla globally, but it is one of the top automakers in terms of EV sales globally as well. Europe is where it shines, though, and the new ID. Polo is an ... [continued]

The post The 100% Electric VW ID. Polo GTI appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A few days ago, I looked into how much it would cost to fuel a Hyundai Santa Fe versus how much it would cost to “fuel” a Hyundai IONIQ 5. (There’s a backstory there — go ahead and catch up on it all if you’re curious and missed that.) I ... [continued]

The post $1,523 to Fuel Toyota C-HR vs. $205 to Energize Kia EV6 appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Earlier this month US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum testified with very little background knowledge about solar systems — yet that didn’t stop him from denigrating them. “All of these projects you’re describing in Nevada have one thing in common,” Burgum sneered. “When the sun goes down, they produce ... [continued]

The post Top US Official Doesn’t Know About Battery Storage — Cue The Laughter :) appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Technological interventions face huge financial or practical challenges, but there is another way

In 2019, my scientific research was nearly brought to an early end when my team and I published the bombastic statement that natural forest restoration was the “best climate change solution” available in a paper for the peer-reviewed journal Science.

I remember a colleague from the World Wildlife Fund advising me that this message represented career suicide. He argued that people would be furious because reducing greenhouse gas emissions was the most urgent priority. The revival of nature might help with 30% of our carbon drawdown needs, but you cannot stop rising temperatures without cutting emissions.

Opposition to AI and the enormous data centers it will need in the future is growing in the US, as people begin to see the risks.

The post Why AI And Why Now? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Earlier this year, the city was hit by its longest power cut since the second world war. But were those responsible eco-terrorists, agents of the far-right, or even Russian proxies?

Sebastian Brandt, chief technician of the Immanuel hospital in the leafy, affluent Wannsee district of Berlin, guessed something was wrong as soon as he opened the window of his home and smelled diesel. It was 3 January, a freezing Saturday morning, and luckily the hospital opposite had relatively few patients on this post-holiday weekend. As he looked out, the diesel fumes told him that the emergency generator – a huge, deafening, decades-old machine in the basement – had kicked in. That meant the hospital was no longer getting power from the grid. And that meant Brandt was not going to have a quiet weekend.

Although an emergency generator keeps a hospital running, it has its limitations. Surgical procedures have to be cancelled, and though generators are tested regularly, no one can be certain what will happen when they are kept running for days on end. The generator tank in the Immanuel hospital contained about 3,000 litres of diesel, and Brandt had calculated it would burn about 550 litres a day; when the grid operator informed the hospital that the outage might last until the end of the following week, Brandt was quickly dispatched to fetch more diesel from the nearest petrol station that was still on the grid. Meanwhile, he’d heard that a neighbouring hospice was going to move its patients to the hospital, too.

The Martuwarra Fitzroy catchment is home to four of the world’s five sawfish species, which rely on large groundwater-fed pools to survive the dry season

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

Conservationists fear a government plan to double groundwater extraction from the Martuwarra Fitzroy River catchment in Western Australia could jeopardise threatened sawfish populations.

The untamed river, which flows 700km through the Kimberley to King Sound, is considered the last stronghold for sawfish globally and is home to four of the world’s five species.

Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah have joined forces to tap into hundreds -- yes, hundreds -- of gigawatts in geothermal energy within their borders, leveraging new drilling technologies, AI, and other advanced systems.

The post Four Western States Combine Forces To Kickstart A Geothermal Energy Revolution appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Global events and the climate crisis have left Britain’s food system dangerously exposed and in desperate need of an overhaul

The news that the Treasury was asking UK supermarkets to cap price rises on essential foods was greeted with predictable squeals of horror this week. Supermarkets were reportedly “furious”, while luminaries from the former head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies to the former chair of M&S could be found harrumphing about the evils of price controls.

But this caterwauling is a distraction from two unpleasant facts. Firstly, the food price surge over the summer and beyond is likely to be significant – and will come on top of a near-40% rise in the price of food since 2020 – due to a devastating combination of the Iran war and a forecast record-breaking El Niño, which will hammer global food production. And secondly, Britain’s food system is painfully exposed to such shocks. The long-held assumption that a global food system can be relied on to meet the nation’s needs, at a reasonable price, no longer applies.

The leading quick serve restaurant chain Bojangles has just launched a new EV charging campaign to go with its new rip-and-dip Chicken Ripper sliders.

The post EV Charging Meets Chicken Rippers At Bojangles (In Other Words, The War On EVs Is Over) appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Most EV charging happens at home, and most EV owners have single family homes where they have their own chargers. Of course, some EV owners live in condo and apartment complexes where there typically are not enough EV chargers onsite yet. Fortunately, for EV adoption, there are plenty of single-family ... [continued]

The post 2,500 New EV Chargers Planned For Apartment & Condo Complexes appeared first on CleanTechnica.

I’ve been saying for a year or more now that the Kia EV6 has risen to the top of my list as the new or used vehicle we’d most likely buy next. I love the vehicle, as it seems to be the perfect package in all kinds of ways. I’ve ... [continued]

The post Kia EV6 Price Gets Cut to $37,900! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

As War in Iran Drives Push for Energy Security, Energy Storage Forecast Revised Upwards over Next Five Years WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. energy storage industry installed 9.7 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of new capacity in the first quarter of 2026, the strongest first quarter in the sector’s history. According to the ... [continued]

The post REPORT: U.S. Adds 10 GWh of New Energy Storage Capacity in 1st Quarter, Best Q1 on Record appeared first on CleanTechnica.

What does a surge in ocean temperatures, compounded with El Niño, bode for the summer?

An enormous marine heatwave off the US west coast is ringing alarm bells among ocean and atmospheric scientists as new data shows its ecological and environmental effects are intensifying.

The unusual area of warm water has persisted since peaking in size during September 2025 and still stretches thousands of miles from the California coastline – more than halfway across the Pacific – affecting a vast triangle-shaped region of oceanic habitats from Hawaii to British Columbia and southward to Mexico.

Cambridgeshire: It was nearly ready to fly but it was partly out of its chrysalis and partly still in it

On Sunday morning, I was pottering in the garden wondering what to do. I saw a flapping coming from my wildflower patch, so I went to my clump of clover. I pushed it away, only to reveal a large white butterfly fresh out of its chrysalis. It had been drying its damp wings in the sun.

Then I realised that part of the butterfly’s chrysalis was still on its wing, and the other wing was already dry and ready to fly. I watched the butterfly for a while. The butterfly tried to get the chrysalis off, but it had used up all its energy. I realised that it needed some help, so I tugged the chrysalis as gently as I could. The butterfly didn’t move but the chrysalis did, so I tugged a little bit harder and off it came.

Clean energy myths abound, but Earth.org has five strategies for countering disinformation that have proven effective.

The post Earth.org Debunks Clean Energy Myths appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Temperature reaches 30.5C in Kent as amber health alerts issued before bank holiday temperatures rise

The UK has recorded its hottest day of the year so far, with temperatures reaching 30.5C in Kent as forecasters warned more extreme heat could follow over the bank holiday weekend.

The temperature in Frittenden also marked the first time since 2012 the UK has reached 30C in May, according to the Met Office.

Department for Transport is understood to back reducing levy, which critics have called a ‘pavement tax’

• Business live – latest updates

Government officials considered cutting the VAT charged on electricity used at public EV chargers from 20% to 5% at the last budget, but the Treasury under chancellor Rachel Reeves rejected the proposal amid disagreement between departments.

Officials in the Department for Transport encouraged electric car charge point operators to write to the Treasury explaining how they would respond to a VAT cut, according to three industry sources. The charger companies said that they would pass the tax cut on to consumers.

Increasing coastal erosion has hit communities’ livelihoods and put lifestyles under threat

The remains of the road linking two towns in south Devon lie crumbled on the foreshore in a mess of tarmac, steel and concrete.

The dramatic coastal road, known as the Slapton Line, has an environmentally protected freshwater lake on one side and the sea on the other, and links the towns of Kingsbridge and Dartmouth. But this year, winter storms demolished a section of the A road between Torcross and Slapton, which is at the frontline of rising sea levels and coastal erosion, fulfilling a destiny that was predicted more than 30 years ago, but that has not been prepared for.