Quilicura is a community in Chile that is facing water scarcity, in large part because so many water-cooled AI data centres are located there. To raise awareness of the problem, they brought together a group of local experts to answer people’s AI queries for a day. It’s an imaginative campaign and a good reminder that humanity’s greatest reserves of true intelligence lie in people, relationships and community.
The Climate Fiction Prize has announced its shortlist for 2026. Some intriguing entries on this impressively international selection.
Earlier this week I mentioned that net zero requires a certain degree of offsetting for some essential industrial processes that can’t be decarbonised. For balance, here’s an example of offsetting as a disingenuous distraction: a new platform from Aerovolt allows people to buy carbon credits from electric plane flights. Someone flies an electric plane, and you can pay to pretend it was you – though that’s not how the marketing blurb describes it of course. No carbon has been reduced, so this isn’t real offsetting. Worse, at this point almost all electric planes are tiny and flown for leisure, so this scheme essentially subsidises wealthy hobbyists and calls it climate action.
Edible spoons are an idea that the internet got excited about almost exactly a decade ago, as an attempt to replace single use plastics. They’re available but haven’t exactly caught on. Now the first firm to make them in the UK is having another go, with Eddy’s providing edible spoons to a deli in London, with the hope of rolling them out more widely.
The world’s largest compressed air energy storage facility has come online in China. Air is pumped into salt caverns when renewable energy production is abundant, and released through a turbine to generate electricity when needed. It is large enough to power 600,000 homes.
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Why EV battery swapping matters
Octopus, the UK’s leading green energy supplier, recently announced a move into trucking. Partnering with Chinese battery company CATL, they’re planning a network of battery swapping stations for trucks. It will be called Swaptopus – of course it will – and the first one will open next year. Eventually there will be a network of…
Positive travel experiences with Flight Free Schools
Last week I wrote about the expansion of Luton Airport and the vast increase in emissions that would come with it. This week I thought I’d post something more solutions-focused about aviation. The government is will do anything for economic growth and won’t stand in the way of growth in flying. That puts the attention…
The carbon cost of expanding Luton Airport
This week the UK’s Supreme Court waved away the last remaining opportunity to halt the expansion of Luton Airport. With all legal options exhausted, it will now go ahead with its plans to double passenger numbers to 32 million a year by the early 2040s. The court are the latest in a long line of…
The Earthbound Report 
Eddy’s Teaspoons of Change!! I remember the post from 10 years ago and still think it is a great idea… If only I was a capitalist marketing mogul 😉