Interesting Ideas

Humpback had been found deceased on Friday after rescue attempt criticised as ‘pure animal cruelty’

Timmy the whale has been confirmed dead by Danish authorities two weeks after the beached humpback was transported to the North Sea in a rescue attempt criticised as “pure animal cruelty”.

Denmark’s Environmental Protection Agency said a whale had been found dead on Friday near ​the small ⁠island of Anholt in the Kattegat, a broad strait between Denmark and Sweden, and confirmed it was Timmy on Saturday.

An Energy Research & Social Science paper crossed my screen recently that put structure around something visible to anyone who has compared nuclear forecasts with build rates. Nuclear power has been projected to grow faster, cheaper and more broadly than it actually has, not once or twice, but across decades, ... [continued]

The post Nuclear Imaginaries, Hydrogen Assumptions, And The Grid Reality Models Still Miss appeared first on CleanTechnica.

US gas prices have gone up, and up, and up since the country bombed Iran in late February. In March, I reported that the average price of gas in the country had gone up from $2.89/gallon to $3.48/gallon. Now, the average price of gas in the US is $4.517/gallon. That’s ... [continued]

The post Gas Prices Up 56% In USA appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Ah, it’s the important stuff. Titans of industry are in China this week with Donald Trump to meet with the most powerful man in the world, Xi Jinping. Something is afoot. Maybe. I’ll get to that in a moment. But first, what gets attention from one of the biggest newspapers ... [continued]

The post Elon Musk Gets A Whole New York Times Article For Making Faces At A Chinese Luncheon appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Cranbrook, Kent: The swarm has gathered in a plum tree, looking for a new home. And I have just the place

There comes this moment in May when I’m still anticipating the fresh green of spring, but looking up at the oak see it in a lustreless summer hue. A little rain would renew its sheen, but it’s been dry for weeks and there is no reprieve from this fleeting sense of loss.

Abruptly, there comes a noise, a rising hum almost mechanical in tone, but as I look for the contraption responsible, I see instead a mass of insects flowing over the line of hawthorns. The honeybee swarm swirls in a cloud before the queen, imperceptibly landing, triggering a leisurely implosion. Guided by pheromones, thousands of worker bees join her to form a solid ball, hanging precariously from the twig of a plum tree.

Experts say the unseasonably hot weather across south Asia shows the impact of the climate crisis

An intense and prolonged heatwave has been causing misery for millions across Pakistan and India.

In southern Pakistan throughout April and May, temperatures have risen far above seasonal norms. In Sindh, daytime temperatures have frequently crossed 44C to 46C, forcing residents indoors during peak afternoon hours and severely affecting outdoor labourers, transport workers and farming communities.

Thames at Ham designated as one of 13 new swimming areas across England to be monitored for water quality

The first designated bathing water area on the River Thames in London will welcome swimmers for the official start of the bathing season on Friday as one of 13 new monitored swimming areas across England.

The Thames at Ham, in south-west London, has been designated as a new river bathing water area after campaigners gathered evidence to show thousands of people use the river for swimming throughout the year.

Canvey Island foreshore, Essex

East Beach at West Bay, Bridport, Dorset

Falcon Meadow, Bungay, Suffolk

Granville Parade Beach, Sandgate, Kent

Little Shore, Amble, Northumberland

New Brighton Beach (east), Merseyside

Newton and Noss Creeks, Devon

Pangbourne Meadow, Berkshire

Queen Elizabeth Gardens, Salisbury, Wiltshire

River Dee at Sandy Lane, Chester, Cheshire

River Fowey in Lostwithiel, Cornwall

River Swale in Richmond, Yorkshire

River Thames at Ham and Kingston, Greater London

This new entrant to the Australian market has shot into the top ten consistently over the last few months — with 1,845 units sold since its launch early this year. Jaecoo is a sub-brand of Chery. For a first-time EV owner’s point of view, I reached out to one of ... [continued]

The post Our New Jaecoo J5 Battery Electric Vehicle! appeared first on CleanTechnica.

In this episode of Cleantech Talk, Scott Cooney talks with Britt Zwierzchowski Tisler, COO of the Conservative Energy Network, and Bradley Pischea, National Director of Land & Liberty Coalition (L&LC), a project of CEN. They discuss: Who the Conservative Energy Network is, why they came to the clean energy space. ... [continued]

The post The Importance of Conservative Leadership in Clean Energy appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Butterfly Conservation poll is open until 7 June with choice of 60 species from small tortoiseshells to purple emperors

Will it be the rapidly disappearing former garden favourite, the small tortoiseshell? Or the poet John Masefield’s “oakwood haunting thing”, the charismatic purple emperor? Or perhaps the brimstone, the ultimate harbinger of spring?

The question of which is Britain’s favourite butterfly is being put to a popular vote for the first time. The charity Butterfly Conservation is running the poll, which runs until 7 June, giving people the chance to choose their favourite from the 60 species that fly around Britain every summer.

It might not seem newsworthy for a site that typically covers national news, but every new public EV charger installation counts. Aspen, Colorado will be getting 14 new public EV chargers at seven new charging sites. The source says Aspen currently has 24 public EV charging “plugs,” so adding 14 ... [continued]

The post 14 New EV Chargers To Be Installed In Aspen, Colorado appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts

• This week’s question: You’re supposed to be quiet in the cinema. So why are the snacks so loud?

I was recently beset by a plague of clothes moths. After hours of research, I discovered the miracle that is the parasitic wasp, or Trichogramma evanescens – near-microscopic beasts that you can order online (in sachets of 2,000 wasps!), the life’s calling of which is to destroy clothes moth eggs.

It made me wonder: is there anything else in our daily lives that is so beneficial to us, but which few of us have heard of – or realise is there? John Forward, Brixton

Exclusive: Commission says alert would trigger coordinated international response that could help avoid millions dying

The climate crisis should be declared a global public health emergency by the World Health Organization, or millions more people will die unnecessarily, leading international experts have said.

The independent pan-European commission on climate and health, which was convened by the WHO, concluded the climate crisis was such a worldwide threat to health that the WHO should declare it “a public health emergency of international concern” (Pheic).

A vast and well-organized campaign is actively underway to suspend global wind energy discourse. The Financial Times calls it the US president’s “crusade against renewable energy.” WindEurope, who describe themselves as “the voice of the wind energy industry,” say attacks on wind power pose a “systemic risk to Europe’s security.” ... [continued]

The post Attacks On Wind Power Make No Sense — It’s Just Another Form Of Solar Energy appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Climate and transport organisations warn ministers not to ‘sleepwalk into crisis’ amid Iran war oil and gas shortages

Private jets should be banned and the speed limit on UK motorways reduced to 60mph as part of a pre-emptive effort to ease the looming fuel supply crisis, according to leading climate and transport organisations.

The group – including Greenpeace and Transport and Environment – are calling on ministers not to “sleepwalk into a crisis” that could lead to severe shortages of jet fuel and spiralling petrol prices at the pump in the coming months.

Crunch time has come for communities that rely on water from the Colorado River. California, Arizona, and Nevada will be directly affected.

The post US Plan To Allocate Water From The Colorado River Will Severely Impact California, Arizona, & Nevada appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Agrivoltaics has become one of those ideas that is simple enough to fit on a social media tile and complex enough to be mangled by one. The image that prompted this discussion showed a farmer kneeling beneath solar panels in front of vegetables, sheep, mountains, and an American flag, with ... [continued]

The post Solar & Farming Can Share Land, But The Details Matter appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Despite the ban on disposables, waste professionals say the mountain of discarded devices is a £1bn-a-year issue

It is 2pm and Ana, 47, has just started the afternoon shift at the Suez recycling plant near Birmingham city centre, standing beneath a sign reading “Non-ferrous sorting station” with a bucket of vapes in front of her. Sorting and dismantling them is part of her job as a site operative.

Recycling them is not simple. Each bucket holds between 40 and 50 devices, and over the course of a shift, she gets through about half a bucket. Using a hammer, she has to smash each vape open, pry out the batteries and separate each component into a different container.

China is dominating the energy transition with astonishing result, while fossil fuel fascists in the US try to turn back the clock

“Farewell,” the flag-waving Chinese children chanted to Donald Trump as he strolled along the red carpet back to Air Force One at the end of his summit with Xi Jinping in Beijing.

The US leader claimed he was leaving with a cluster of “fantastic” trade deals to sell US oil, jets and soya beans to China. That has not been confirmed by his smiling host, but one thing was crystal clear from the two days of meetings: the global balance of power is shifting, from the declining petrostate in the west to the rising electrostate in the east.

When Ethiopia banned the import of conventional cars two years ago, many were skeptical. But the policy has been highly successful.

The post Ethiopia Leads EV Revolution In Africa appeared first on CleanTechnica.