Pollution

"As well as embracing ‘beautiful coal’, the president has set about obliterating clean energy projects"

"Tech companies’ use of PFAS gas at facilities may mean datacenters’ climate impact is worse than previously thought"

"Datacenters’ electricity demands have been accused of delaying the US’s transition to clean energy and requiring fossil fuel plants to stay online, while their high level of water consumption has also raised alarm. Now public health advocates fear another environmental problem could be linked to them – PFAS “forever chemical” pollution.

"Earth’s nastiest and costliest wildfires are blazing four times more often now than they did in the 1980s because of human-caused climate change and people moving closer to wildlands, a new study found."

"Globally, investors are pouring more money into renewable energy than ever — even as they pull back on spending in the U.S."

"Worsening sand and dust storms, wildfires intensified by record-setting winds, and increasingly severe hurricanes, derechos, short-lived convective storms, and other extreme weather events are impacting people’s lives, health and property around the world."

"The Environmental Protection Agency announced earlier this month that it would stop making polluting companies report their greenhouse gas emissions to it, eliminating a crucial tool the US uses to track emissions and form climate policy. Climate NGOs say their work could help plug some of the data gap, but they and other experts fear the EPA’s work can’t be fully matched."

"For much of the 20th century, a sprawling complex in the desert of southeastern Washington state turned out most of the plutonium used in the nation’s nuclear arsenal, from the first atomic bomb to the arms race that fueled the Cold War. Now, after decades of planning and billions of dollars of investment, the site is turning liquid nuclear and chemical waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation into a much safer substance: glass."

"When faced with testimony that Zug Island’s EES Coke Battery is one of Michigan’s worst sulfur dioxide polluters, an attorney for the facility said Monday: “So what?” The DTE Energy-owned facility was “permitted to do so,” said Michael Hindelang, attorney for the utility and its subsidiaries that are defendants in the EPA’s Clean Air Act lawsuit over the emissions."

"The Trump administration has begun prioritizing the review of new, potentially hazardous chemicals used in data centers that public health advocates and environmental attorneys warn could endanger workers, communities and the environment."

"The state repealed the utility’s 2030 emissions target in July. Duke’s response? A plan to slash solar and wind, double down on gas — and burn more coal."