Skip to main content
All Stories Tagged:

Environment

Melting ice, missing seconds.

University of California geologist Duncan Agnew published research in Nature saying the melting of ice in Greenland and Antarctica has contributed to slowing Earth’s rotation, reports Space.com.

While timekeepers have already agreed to stop adding leap seconds by 2035, Agnew claims a negative one will be necessary by 2029 and would’ve been required sooner if not for the effects of climate change. If that’s true — and not everyone agrees that it is — international timekeeping guidelines and the world’s computers will need updates.


Graph showing the time differences including or excluding melting accelerated by climate changes.
An adapted graph based on Agnew’s research.
Image: Nature.com
J
External Link
What do soaring Bitcoin prices mean for the power grid and the environment?

Soundside, a daily broadcast program from Seattle’s NPR news station KUOW, breaks it down in this episode. Catch my interview about the energy and environmental costs of Bitcoin mining in the US, and the legal battle that killed the Department of Energy’s survey of miners’ electricity consumption.


E
External Link
England’s... redwoods?

“At the moment they’re some of the tallest trees in the UK and they are starting to poke above the forest canopy,” says an expert. But they’re still just babies by redwood standards. The Victorians brought back a bunch of redwoods from California and they’re starting to do what redwoods do: get real big.


J
External Link
The first major offshore wind farm in the US just started powering homes in New York.

This is BIG in more ways than one. With blades longer than the Statue of Liberty is tall, these are 12 massive next-generation turbines towering over the Atlantic. Together they should be able to generate 130 megawatts of clean energy for some 70,000 homes. For comparison, the US only had the capacity to generate 42 megawatts from offshore wind until now. More big offshore projects are on the way (and just a reminder, there’s no evidence to show they’re harming whales).


J
External Link
Is anyone surprised Shell is walking back its commitments to pollute less?

We are talking about the the same industry profiting by creating the climate crisis. Shell previously promised to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, which is impossible unless the company pivots away from dirty energy. Shell’s blaming consumers for its own lack of follow through, saying “investment in oil and gas will be needed” to meet demand.


J
External Link
Fossil fuel companies are using AI to drill faster.

They’ve used AI for years to find new oil and gas reserves. Now, more advanced AI is helping them drill oil wells more efficiently. Within a few years, a significant chunk of wells could be drilled autonomously, Bloomberg reports. That brings costs down and helps dirty energy compete with renewables like solar and wind, which have become cheaper alternatives to fossil fuel power plants that wreck air quality and cause climate change.


J
External Link
AI, Bitcoin mining, and clean tech manufacturing could push US power grids to the brink.

Electricity shortages could become a big problem over the next several years unless the US races to get more sources of clean energy online, The Washington Post reports. Data centers for AI and crypto mining are huge energy vampires. And the resurgence of domestic manufacturing for everything from semiconductors to EV batteries and solar panels are also expected to put extra strain on aging power grids.


J
External Link
Don’t believe all the hype about AI helping fight climate change, a new report warns.

Because of all the energy it consumes, AI might actually make things worse by driving up greenhouse gas emissions. There’s also the risk of AI being weaponized to spread climate disinformation. You don’t have to take my word for it; this report from the Climate Action Against Disinformation coalition brings together current research on the issue.


J
External Link
Ice-free Arctic summer days could be here in the next decade.

A new study published in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment warns that the by 2100, we could be looking at ice-free conditions between May and January if emissions remain high, or from August to October under a “low-emission scenario.” An “ice-free Arctic,” by this study’s definition, is when sea ice covers under 1 million square kilometers. That’s down from a historical average of 6.5 million sq kms seen at summer’s end.


The price of Bitcoin hit a new peak, rising above $69,000 today.

That’s the highest it’s been since 2021, before the long, cold crypto winter brought that price crashing down to less than $20,000.

A friendly reminder: the higher that price gets, the more energy Bitcoin mining typically burns through and the greater its greenhouse gas emissions.


A graph shows fluctuating Bitcoin prices, peaking around $69,000.
A screenshot of Bitcoin prices tracked by CoinDesk.
Image: CoinDesk
J
External Link
No sir, your greenhouse gas is not allowed here.

A dude in California became the first person to be charged with smuggling greenhouse gases. He was actually lugging refrigerants into the US from Mexico: Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), to be exact. HFCs are “super” greenhouse gases up to thousands of times more potent than CO2. The US and other countries have pledged to phase down the use of HFCs under the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol.


J
The Verge
The methane-tracking satellite Jeff Bezos essentially paid for just launched.

But it’s not on one of his rockets. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is carrying MethaneSat, a satellite made to measure the potent greenhouse gas methane. The Bezos Earth Fund gave the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) $100 million to build and launch the satellite. Google is also partnering with EDF to create a global map of methane pollution coming from oil and gas infrastructure.


J
External Link
Lawsuits blame an electric utility in Texas for the state’s largest wildfire.

The devastating Smokehouse Creek fire has already burned more than a million acres, killing at least two people, and destroying hundreds of structures. Officials are still investigating the cause of blaze. But at least one homeowner and one rancher have filed suits against utility Xcel Energy. A pole owned by Excel subsidiary Southwestern Public Service Company reportedly fell within the area where the blaze might have started.


J
External Link
The US Department of Energy has to start over if it wants to survey Bitcoin miners’ electricity use.

The DOE reached a settlement with crypto miners who sued to block data collection. The agency tried to make companies disclose their energy use through an emergency data request. But a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order on it in February, saying the situation probably didn’t warrant emergency authorization. On Friday, the DOE agreed to destroy information it’s already collected. It can start over without emergency authorization, but would have to propose a new survey and give the public 60 days to comment.


J
External Link
The EPA is delaying final rules on power plant pollution.

Measures to curb greenhouse gas emissions from gas-fired power plants operating in the US probably won’t be finalized until November — after presidential elections. It’s a risky gamble for environmental groups pushing the Biden administration to take more time to tighten proposed regulations. If Donald Trump is elected, policies to tackle climate change could just go out the window like they did during his last stint in office.


AI is making data centers more power hungry.

AI eats up a lot of electricity, and that’s driving up data centers’ energy use. It’s also changing the physical footprint of data centers and making it harder for companies to hit their sustainability goals, the New York Times reports. With the AI-fueled boom in new data centers, sites under construction in North America could eventually use as much power each year as the San Francisco metro area, according to a real estate report published yesterday.


A nuclear weapons facility is back online after a fierce fire forced non-essential workers to evacuate.

The blaze is still tearing through the Texas Panhandle after scorching 500,000 acres. The Smokehouse Creek Fire is now the second largest in state history, with 0 percent contained as of Wednesday morning. The facility responsible for disassembling a majority of the nation’s nuclear weapons shuttered briefly Tuesday night as flames drew near.


J
The Verge
Elizabeth Warren is still pushing crypto mines to divulge their electricity use.

Warren has been urging federal agencies to scrutinize energy-hungry Bitcoin mines. But crypto groups secured a temporary pause on the Department of Energy’s survey of their electricity consumption.

“The Department is asking cryptominers to report basic information about their energy usage—like other industries have done for decades—so the public and lawmakers better understand how cryptomining’s electricity use and carbon emissions affect the power grid and environment,” Warren said in a statement to The Verge after the news came out.


J
External Link
Clean energy projects are coming to tribal and rural communities in the US.

The Department of Energy announced $366 million for 17 clean energy projects across 30 Tribal Nations and 20 states. All of them are connected to “disadvantaged communities that are disproportionally overburdened by pollution and historically underserved.” That includes off-grid solar and battery storage for the Hopi and Navajo Nations, aiming to give 300 rural homes electricity for the first time. More than one-fifth of Navajo homes and one third of Hopi homes lacks electricity, according to the DOE.