A record month for solar and wind power in the UK saved £1 billion in gas costs and the equivalent of 18 LPG tankers, currently stuck in the Strait of Hormuz. While you’re visiting Carbon Brief for that story, have a look at their broader work on Trump’s Iran crisis and how countries are responding. They’ve been busy.
“When America goes to war, the costs are distributed broadly, onto every American who drives a car or heats a home. The benefits are distributed narrowly, flowing to a small group of men whose compensation is designed to capture exactly this kind of windfall.” Emily Atkin on how oil executives profit directly from war.
I made a passing mention of how refills have failed to go mainstream in the UK in a post this week. Until they do, refill shops are holding a space for those wanting to bring their own containers, and Recycle Now just launched a refill locator to find your nearest shop. Still none near me.
The story of the fishing industry off the US West Coast demonstrates how fish stocks can recover when you just leave them alone. Having collapsed entirely by 2000, today it has a smaller and sustainable fishing industry.
Scientists have discovered that data centers produce so much waste heat that they can create local micro-climates and heat island effects. More reasons why we should locate them in cold places, and capture and use that heat.
It’s been a quiet couple of weeks round here with the Easter holidays and my writing time directed to other things, but here are some recent articles.
Recent highlights
Polestar’s progress on a zero carbon car
In 2022 I wrote about how Swedish EV brand Polestar had committed to creating a zero carbon car. Note that this isn’t a ‘net zero’ car, but a truly zero carbon process from start to finish. It was industry-leading in its ambition, and also the kind of thing that some companies make a big noise…
The emerging story of citizenship
If you’re not familiar with Enter Shikari, they’re a band from my hometown and the most badass thing to happen in St Albans since Boudicca sacked the Roman city of Verulamium in 61AD. Not the kind of thing I generally write about on the blog, but there’s a song on their new album that caught…
The invisible leaders on clean energy
Last week I received a press release titled ‘the countries leading the world in clean electricity’. Like most of the press emails I get, it was a list put together to generate links rather than present new information, and so I won’t name the website involved. It did get my attention though, and not for…
The Earthbound Report 