Agriculture
fromEarth911
2 days agoBiochar Was a Billion-Ton Dream, the Reality Is More Complicated
Biochar can store carbon and improve soil health, but recent analysis warns against overhyping its potential.
"We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to soon be joining Daimler Truck and Volvo Group as partners in building a hydrogen society," Toyota President and CEO Koji Sato said. "cellcentric which possess deep expertise in commercial fields together with Toyota's over 30 years of fuel-cell development in the passenger car sector, can combine their strengths to deliver one of the world-leading fuel cell systems for heavy commercial vehicles."
Metafuels' aerobrew technology converts renewable methanol into drop-in jet fuel, delivering up to 90% lower lifecycle emissions than conventional kerosene, with no modifications needed for existing aircraft.
At a young age, I learned quickly how oil wealth and power could burn the land while people struggled. I saw heat rise off the streets, the Nile strained, and the air thickened with injustice. In my teenage years, through Aotearoa, being on the edge of the Pacific, I felt the ocean breathing heavy, swallowing the shores of islands that have done the least to cause this harm.
At a meeting at the Paris headquarters of the intergovernmental body dedicated to global energy security, Wright referred to the "destructive illusion" of the IEA's commitment to massively reducing greenhouse gas emissions sourced from fossil fuels. The US, one of 45 member and associate countries of the IEA that represent 75% of the world's energy demand, is threatening to withdraw from the body if it does not quit its energy transition goals in the next year.
We are making sure that we have renewable energy powering all of our datacentre footprint. We have 100% renewable power today that is powering all of Azure, and we're very proud to build that base and essentially stimulate renewable energy around the world and in the UK.
When Obvious Ventures launched 12 years ago with a focus on "world positive" companies, the idea was a contrarian bet: that startups tackling climate, health, and economic resilience could deliver big returns, not just feel-good impact. Founded by Twitter cofounder Ev Williams and others, the firm backed companies like Beyond Meat, the AI drug discovery company Recursion Pharmaceuticals, and Diamond Foundry, which makes sustainable lab-grown diamonds.
Ammonia might be the world's most under appreciated chemical. Without it, crops would go unfertilized and billions of people would starve. Humans started making ammonia in large amounts just over a century ago, and since then the process used to make it, known as Haber-Bosch, hasn't changed much. A new startup, Ammobia, says that it has tweaked the Haber-Bosch process to lower the cost by up to 40%.
Tech companies are conflating traditional artificial intelligence with generative AI when claiming the energy-hungry technology could help avert climate breakdown, according to a report. Most claims that AI can help avert climate breakdown refer to machine learning and not the energy-hungry chatbots and image generation tools driving the sector's explosive growth of gas-guzzling datacentres, the analysis of 154 statements found.
Because the past three years have shattered temperature records, researchers have been exploring whether global warming is accelerating, and if so, why. Many scientists agree that the rate at which it is increasing has picked up. This is mainly because of a reduction in air pollution following the introduction of fuel regulations for international shipping (which has resulted in fewer pollutant particles that reflect sunlight into space and seed insulating clouds).
In the rolling hills of southeast Queensland, Australia, farmer and businessman Brent Finlay stands beneath turbines so tall they rival skyscrapers. "There's a lift inside that takes about 12 minutes to go from the bottom to the top," he said, pointing skyward. Forty-five of the giant turbines that now dot his property are part of the massive MacIntyre Wind Farm which will soon generate enough electricity to power 700,000 homes.
When the category-5 storm Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica in October, its path crossed communities that had varying levels of preparedness. Many with maintained coastal protections, upgraded drainage and reliable early-warning systems had power and water restored in days. Others were immobilized for weeks.
After two years of declines, United States greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2025-a change driven by increased electricity use, due in part to data centers and cryptocurrency mining, as well as cold winter temperatures that meant homes required more heating. Emissions increased 2.4% in 2025, according to preliminary data from the research firm Rhodium Group. That's higher than the country's GDP growth, which increased by a projected 1.9%.
A few months ago, Marjorie Taylor Greene, then a Georgia representative, held a hearing on her bill to ban research on geoengineering, which refers to technological climate interventions, such as using reflective particles to reflect away sunlight. The hearing represented something of a first a Republican raising alarm bells about human activity altering the health of the planet. Of course, for centuries, people have burned fossil fuels to power and feed society, emitting greenhouse gases that now overheat the planet.
The world spends 30 times more money destroying nature than protecting it. That's according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that exposes a massive gulf between so-called "harmful investments" and financing that promotes nature preservation. The global environment agency's latest "State of Finance for Nature" (SNF) report is calling to phase out the US$7.3 trillion (6.2 trillion) in global investments that damage nature including into high-emissions energy infrastructure and manufacturing, for example.