Climate & Energy
Emissions, renewables, grids and energy consumption.
Swiss Solar Railway Pilot: Scaling Renewables Between the Tracks
A pilot project in Switzerland integrating photovoltaics on railway lines demonstrates how Space.com: NASA, Space Exploration and Astronomy News engineering principles can optimize terrestrial clean energy.
Earliest Evidence of Right-Handedness in 550-Million-Year-Old Spriggina Fossils
New analysis of over 100 exceptionally preserved Spriggina floundersi fossils from the Ediacaran Nilpena site demonstrates population-wide right-bending preference—earliest known evidence of behavioral handedness and lateralized nervous systems in bilaterian animals.
The AI Emissions Trap: Why Google and Amazon's Net-Zero Pledges Are Running Into a Wall
Both companies' latest sustainability reports reveal carbon emissions surging as AI-driven data center expansion collides with their climate commitments — and the path to net-zero just got far more expensive.
We Can Take Power From a Plasma: Realta Fusion’s Direct-Electricity Breakthrough
Realta Fusion powered a lightbulb using electricity harvested directly from fusion plasma—the apparent first by any private company—and showed how skipping steam turbines could slash the path to net-positive fusion.
The Hidden Carbon Cost of Your AI Requests
A granular breakdown of how AI infrastructure—beyond energy use—is driving emissions spikes at Google and Amazon, and why their net-zero pledges are unraveling under the weight of semiconductor manufacturing, data center construction, and Scope 3 emissions.
The Battery Wars Are Moving From Your Driveway to Your Wall
Residential energy storage is exploding — Lunar Energy's AI-powered home batteries are turning homeowners into grid participants, while GM bets on a dual chemistry strategy that could reshape both EVs and the grid.
Challenging the AI Oligarchy: Gary Marcus's Democratic Roadmap to Rein in Big Tech Power
An exploration of cognitive scientist Gary Marcus's proposed frameworks to regulate artificial intelligence, counter corporate oligarchy, and establish democratic oversight.
France’s Fast Breeder Bet: Why Phenix and Superphenix Failed—And Why Sodium Still Haunts Us
An examination of France's pioneering work in fast breeder reactor technology through the Phenix and Superphenix facilities, comparing their goals and outcomes to America's Integral Fast Reactor program.
Hybrid Forecasts: How Climate Scientists Are Taming AI with the Laws of Physics
While machine learning has brought massive speedups to weather forecasting, predicting long-term climate change requires physics-based guardrails. Researchers at Caltech's CliMA are merging neural networks with physical equations to prevent AI from fabricating impossible weather.
From Bits to Atoms: Gigascale Capital Secures $250 Million for Grid and Climate Hardware
Former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer's venture firm, Gigascale Capital, has secured its first institutional fund of $250 million, targeting cost-competitive deep-tech solutions in grid electrification, power electronics, and hardware.
The Joyful Climate: How Small Pleasures Are the Secret Weapon Against Climate Collapse
A practical, science-backed guide to turning climate anxiety into daily joy—through biking, thrift shopping, local voting, and eating more vegetables.
The First Land Vertebrates Never Had a Tadpole Stage — Fossils Rewrite 300 Million Years of Evolution
A new study of 300-million-year-old fossils reveals that early tetrapods developed directly from egg to miniature adult, skipping the aquatic larval phase biologists assumed was essential for the water-to-land transition — and suggesting amphibian metamorphosis is actually a later evolutionary innovation, not an ancient stepping stone.