Articles 2020

Depleting THAAD and Patriot interceptor inventories threaten US extended deterrence, Gulf energy security, and the regional power balance amid sustained Iranian ballistic missile and drone assaults.

What is currently happening in Brussels under the guise of regulatory simplification is being presented as something technical and logical. Less regulatory pressure, more competitiveness. A series of so-called omnibus bills are intended to streamline legislation. Reporting obligations are being limited and reassessments of raw materials postponed. It sounds like administrative efficiency. In Washington, things are moving even faster: Trump is dismantling the basis for climate laws while the world continues to warm up. The framing is the same: rules slow down businesses, and a slowed-down business community makes us poor. But that reasoning assumes something that is not true: that everyone wants the same thing from the market.

En conditionnant l'aide internationale à l'agenda conservateur, l'administration américaine sacrifie la santé des populations les plus vulnérables au profit d'une guerre culturelle globale. Un nouveau soft power de la coercition.

Les stars sont de plus en plus nombreuses à s’insurger et les vacanciers à boycotter la destination… Le pays voit son soft power vaciller, abîmé par les outrances de Trump et l’ultraviolence des agents de l’ICE.

The activist and author of Here Comes the Sun discusses rapid advances in solar and wind power and how the US ceded leadership in the sector to its main rival

Il y a peu, la Commission de réglementation nucléaire (NRC) aux États-Unis a donné son accord pour la poursuite du projet Natrium de la société TerraPower. Cette société recevant le soutien de Bill Gates va pouvoir débuter la construction de la première unité de sa centrale à Kemmerer, dans l’état du Wyoming. Pour certains scientifiques, cette approbation arrive trop rapidement.

Much of today's sustainability discourse emphasizes efficiency, clean technologies, and smart systems, but largely underestimates fundamental physical constraints relating to energy-matter interactions. These constraints stem from the fact that Earth is a materially closed yet energetically open system, driven by the sustained but low power-density flux of solar radiation. This Perspective reframes sustainability within these axiomatic limits, integrating relevant timescales and orders of magnitude. We argue that fossil-fueled industrial metabolism is inherently incompatible with long-term viability, while post-fossil systems are surface-, materials-, and power-intensive. Long-term sustainability must therefore be defined not only by how much energy or material is used, but also by how it is used: favoring organic, carbon-based chemistry with limited reliance on purified metals, operating at low power density, and maintaining low throughput rates. Achieving this requires radical technological shifts toward l

The growth in US power demand is surging to its highest rate in decades, driven first by the electrification of oil and gas production and then by the build out of data centers. While still below the 5-10% growth seen in China, the world’s first “electrostate," the US power sector is experiencing rapid structural growth. The country is delivering more than a 3.5% annual power demand growth rate for the first time in several decades, potentially positioning the US as the world’s next “electrostate,” despite the strong oil and gas focus of the Trump administration.

A new report draws on internal company documents and other public records to comprehensively outline the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign to mislead the public and avoid paying for their products’ harms.

Researchers say Aardvark Weather uses thousands of times less computing power and is much faster than current systemsA single researcher with a desktop computer will be able to deliver accurate weather forecasts using a new AI weather prediction approach that is tens of times faster and uses thousands of times less computing power than conventional systems.

That’s now how separation of powers works under the U.S. Constitution.

En Bretagne sur plusieurs plages, une association a collecté des milliers de "powerchips green". De quoi s'agit-il exactement ?

Author Adam Greenfield demonstrates the power of mutual aid and community networks, but they lack to power to fundamentally change societyIn his book Lifehouse, Adam Greenfield shows that ordinary people are capable of organising themselves and running their own lives even in the most difficult circumstances.

A new study suggests that the Gulf Stream was stronger during the last ice age due to more powerful winds, indicating that future changes in wind patterns could weaken the Gulf Stream, affecting European climate and North American sea levels. This research enhances our understanding of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) and its vulnerability to climate change.

In the UK and around the world, those who challenge rich corporations are being hounded and crushed with ever-more inventive penalties, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

Link to climate activism is seven times stronger for anger than it is for hope, say Norwegian researchers

Le groupe d'électrolyseurs américain Plug Power prévoit la construction de trois usines d'hydrogène vert en Finlande, pour décarboner l'industrie tout en s'intégrant dans la "dorsale" européenne en cours de constitution autour de 31 opérateurs de réseaux de transport de gaz du Vieux Continent.

Machine learning is producing impressive results, and, for better or worse, researchers are now using it to address the climate crisis, writes Frederick Hewett.

“Combustion is the problem – when you’re continuing to burn something, that’s not solving the problem,” says Prof Mark Jacobson. The Stanford University academic has a compelling pitch: the world can rapidly get 100% of its energy from renewable sources with, as the title of his new book says, “no miracles needed”. Wind, water and solar can provide plentiful and cheap power, he argues, ending the carbon emissions driving the climate crisis, slashing deadly air pollution and ensuring energy security. Carbon capture and storage, biofuels, new nuclear and other technologies are expensive wastes of time, he argues.

A coal-fired power plant that had been mothballed has become the first of its kind to be put back on to the network in Germany, as debate rages over how Europe’s largest economy will cope without Russian gas. The facility in Lower Saxony, which is owned by the Czech energy company EGH, has received emergency permission to run until April in an attempt to boost energy production.