Interesting Ideas

Concerns about coming wildfire risk, and temperatures also remain high on other side of Pacific where rare tropical cyclone has formed

After a historically warm winter across nine states in the US, the first month of meteorological spring again brought exceptionally high temperatures, with numerous states recording new all-time high temperatures in March. The remarkable intensity and longevity of the warmth have left much of the mountain snowpack, a crucial source of water for millions in the American west, at critically low levels.

Though precipitation totals tend to increase in spring, the low snowpack has raised concerns about a potentially severe wildfire season if conditions do not improve soon. And with further spells of abnormally warm, dry weather expected this week, the outlook is becoming increasingly worrying heading into the late spring and summer months.

Malaysian national carmaker Proton achieved its highest quarterly sales volume since 2004 by delivering 49,140 units in the first three months of the year. This meant 40.1 percent year-on-year growth, a feat made more impressive by the fact that the broader Malaysian automotive market actually contracted by 4.9 percent during ... [continued]

The post Proton EVs Sell Well In Malaysia, Where Fuel Is Subsidized & Cheap appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The shock of the oil crisis is playing out on Australian streets, where bike sales are up and cycle lanes are busier

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Before the 1970s global oil crisis, city planners in Copenhagen were considering removing bike lanes. Bicycles were considered outdated now car was king, and just 10% of locals were cycling regularly.

But as economic shock waves reverberated around the world, Denmark, which almost entirely relied on imported oil, took a dramatic U-turn, with citizens staging mass protests in the middle of highways demanding better cycling infrastructure.

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The most talked-about economics book of 2026 fits in your jacket pocket. Here are the five things you need to know. Gabriel Zucman is having a moment. The Paris-born Berkeley economist who coined the term “tax haven” and mapped the hidden wealth of nations is now one the most famous ... [continued]

The post We Need To Tax Billionaires At 2%, & Economist Gabriel Zucman Just Explained Exactly How appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The Fife, Scotland, hydrogen trial is moving forward at Easter 2026, and that timing matters more than it might seem. Easter is a season associated with renewal, honesty, sacrifice, and the choice to leave behind what no longer serves the common good. Against that backdrop, SGN is advancing a project ... [continued]

The post The Scottish Home Hydrogen Trial And The Ethics Of Delay appeared first on CleanTechnica.

My odometer on my 2019 Model 3 now reads 171,696 miles. In the 6 ½ years we have owned the car; we have driven from Utah to Wisconsin round trip 6 times and have driven it coast to coast visiting our daughter in North Carolina and friends in Palm Springs, ... [continued]

The post Tesla Full Self-Driving History: Where It Stands Today With V12 On HW3 Cars And V14 On HW4 Cars appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Exclusive: research finds Jackdaw field would provide only about 2% of current demand, and Rosebank only 1%

Opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports, research has shown.

The Jackdaw field, one of the largest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace only 2% of the UK’s current imports of gas, which would leave the UK still almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and a few other sources.

Harsh weather is nothing new in Kenya but the country’s climate is showing clear signs of getting hotter and drier

The day is hot and dry but the soil underfoot is soft. “After four months of drought, we received the first rains yesterday,” says Maasai elder Abraham Kampalei. “All we can do now is pray that they continue.”

Kampalei has lived for more than 50 of his 70 years with his family and animals in Oldonyonyokie, a hamlet in southern Kenya’s Kajiado county. He has witnessed the slow decline of the pastures. “I came here because of the abundance of grass for my livestock to graze. Today, there is almost nothing left of it,” he says.

Under Anne Hidalgo – mayor for 12 years until last week – the French capital added bike lanes, cut traffic and reclaimed public space, but not without resistance

When Corentin Roudaut moved to Paris 10 years ago, he was too scared to cycle. The IT developer had biked everywhere as a student in Rennes but felt overwhelmed by the bustling French capital. Cars were everywhere. Cyclists had almost no protection.

But once authorities carved out space for a segregated bike lane on Boulevard Voltaire near his home in the 11th arrondissement, Roudaut returned to the two-wheel commute and did not look back.

Tebay, Cumbria: A planned reintroduction of these apex predators has got us upland farmers worried. We’re still not convinced they won’t harm our flocks

The years seem to be coming around very quickly – this will be my ninth spring at this farm. As the days get longer and the grass begins to grow, my mind turns to lambing. We have a short growing season here, so we plan for lambing to start mid-April, hoping the grass will have started growing by then. The tiny Ouessant sheep, which have to lamb indoors due to predation, started lambing on April Fools’ Day.

Last year I put a large group of Ouessants outside to graze on the Roman fort when they were four days old, and they disappeared without a trace – 13 lambs lost. It wasn’t a fox or a badger, as we know what a predated carcass looks like, and it wasn’t the mink that had been killing hens, as that was leaving dead bodies.

A report by a top Chinese scientist suggests that space-based solar could also be used as a weapon to disrupt critical communications.

The post Microwaves From Space — What Could Possibly Go Wrong? appeared first on CleanTechnica.

As a child, Dominique Bikaba, was displaced by a new national park in the DRC. Now he is helping to secure land for wildlife and Indigenous groups against the backdrop of ongoing fighting

Mist hangs low over the forested slopes of Kahuzi-Biega national park, where the canopy still shelters one of the last strongholds of the eastern lowland, or Grauer’s, gorilla. It is a landscape of immense biological wealth and equally immense political fragility. For 54-year-old Dominique Bikaba, it was once home.

His family was among those displaced when their ancestral land was incorporated into the park in the 1970s. The protected area, in the lowlands of South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), harbours elephants and a remarkable range of wildlife, but it is best known as the principal home of the Grauer’s gorilla, the largest subspecies of primates, known to grow up to 250kg (39st) in weight. It is one of five great ape species found in the DRC’s vast forests, including mountain gorillas, which are also found in other parts of the Great Lakes region, such as Rwanda and Uganda.

I recently reported to CleanTechnica readers about the surge in EV sales in Australia. It appears the same thing is happening in New Zealand, with second-hand and demo EVs being snapped up and car yards emptying out. Here is one revealing photo: Car yards are advertising for second-hand stock. Thanks ... [continued]

The post New Zealand Car Yards Empty As Electric Vehicle Sales Surge appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Stock runs low as oil crunch increases enthusiasm for electric vehicles

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When a used vehicle rolls into a car yard, the usual trajectory for its price tag is down if it lingers too long.

That is the (almost) iron law of the secondhand market – until the oil crisis hit and dealers started raising asking prices for used electric vehicles.

The clean energy boom is also creating physically demanding work, and the Bavarian tech company German Bionic has the exoskeleton to power such work, such as manufacturing the components that make the energy transition possible; turbine housings and blades, nacelle assemblies, solar panel frames; which demands thousands of repetitive lifts ... [continued]

The post German Bionic Cracks The Energy Transition’s Back Problem appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Now that fuel prices have gone through the roof, online EV cost calculators like CLEAResult's ChooseEV are seeing a spike in page views.

The post It’s Decision Time For EV Fence-Sitters As Online Searches Surge appeared first on CleanTechnica.

The US has invoked national security to remove protections for the endangered cetacean, of which only about 50 are left

Since before modern humans existed Rice’s whales have been diving to the depths of the ocean to gorge on fat-rich fish while growing to leviathan proportions, their bodies spanning the length of a bus and weighing as much as as six elephants.

Unfortunately for these grand creatures, their only home became a patch of the Gulf of Mexico that the oil and gas industry, much later, became highly interested in for drilling. Only about 50 of these baleen whales still exist on Earth, surrounded by clanging aquatic highways of boats and shifting drilling infrastructure.

A new study deploys computational fluid dynamic models to describe how the solar panels in agrivoltaic systems can reduce wind damage and soil loss, outperforming natural windbreaks.

The post Agrivoltaics Can Save US Farmers In More Ways Than One appeared first on CleanTechnica.

Leaders say automated mowers’ blades threaten nocturnal animals as studies highlight risks to wildlife

German mayors have called for a nationwide ban on night-time use of robot lawnmowers to protect hedgehogs and other small nocturnal animals from being killed or maimed in the dark.

Recent studies have highlighted the threat lawnmower blades pose to wildlife active between dusk and dawn, prompting growing calls for regulation. Hedgehogs also tend to curl into a ball when threatened rather than running away, making them harder for a robot mower’s sensors to detect.

The fact that fossil fuels are the primary contributor to climate change, and climate change impacts potentially cost trillions of dollars to humanity and the planet, seem to not register much with millions of individuals around the globe. However, if gas and diesel prices at the pump rise and the ... [continued]

The post EV Driver “Fills Up” For Less Than $30 On Road Trip appeared first on CleanTechnica.