Archive for December 2020
In Boost for Renewables, Grid-Scale Battery Storage Is on the Rise
Driven by technological advances, facilities are being built with storage systems that can hold enough renewable energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes. The advent of “big battery” technology addresses a key challenge for green energy — the intermittency of wind and solar.
Read MoreNew York Announces Plan to Divest From Oil And Gas
New York State has announced plans to eject oil and gas stocks from its $226 billion financial portfolio, becoming the first U.S. state and the biggest pension fund anywhere to divest from fossil fuels.
Read MoreHuman-Made Stuff Will Soon Outweigh All Living Things on Earth
The combined weight of human-made objects will likely exceed that of all living things on Earth by the end of this year, weighing a total 1.1 trillion metric tons, or teratons, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. The study also found that the amount of new objects being manufactured every week weighs as much as all 7.7 billion people on the planet.
Read MoreFilthy Water: A Basic Sanitation Problem Persists in Rural America
Residents of Alabama’s Lowndes County lack adequate wastewater systems and must contend with sewage backing up into their yards and homes. Environmental activist Catherine Coleman Flowers says this problem affects many low-income, rural parts of the U.S. and can no longer be ignored.
Read MoreWall Street Begins Trading Water Futures as a Commodity
Wall Street has begun trading water as a commodity, like gold or oil. The country’s first water market launched on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange this week with $1.1 billion in contracts tied to water prices in California, Bloomberg News reported.
Read MoreHow Non-Native Plants Are Contributing to a Global Insect Decline
The impact of introduced plants on native biodiversity has emerged as a hot-button issue in ecology. But recent research provides new evidence that the displacement of native plant communities is a key cause of a collapse in insect populations and is affecting birds as well.
Read MoreRising Temperatures Driving a Shift to All-Female Sea Turtle Populations
Whether marine turtles are born male or female is dependent on the temperature of their nest during incubation. As global temperatures rise, scientists have found that the sand around the Red Sea is now warm enough to cause hatchlings in the area to be born almost entirely female, threatening the future survival of the region’s sea turtle population.
Read MoreScientists Create Open Source Technology to Track Plastic Pollution
How Biden Can Put the U.S. on a Path to Carbon-Free Electricity
Even without strong action by Congress, President-elect Joe Biden will have a wide array of tools — from expanding renewables on federal lands to pushing the financial industry on climate change — that could put the U.S. on a trajectory to decarbonizing its electricity sector by 2035.
Read MoreFlood Risk for Low-Income Housing in U.S. Could Triple by 2050
The number of affordable housing units in the United States at risk of flooding could triple over the next three decades due to climate change, to nearly 25,000 by 2050, according to a new study from the research group Climate Central. Low-income residents in New York, Massachusetts, and New Jersey are particularly vulnerable, with each state containing thousands of affordable housing units at risk of chronic coastal flooding in the coming decades.
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