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submitted 14 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

LG Energy Solution’s new lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) battery plant in Holland, Michigan, marks a significant step for clean energy in the US. Opened in early May 2025, this facility shifts focus from electric vehicles (EVs) to energy storage systems (ESS) as EV demand cools. This article explores the plant’s impact on jobs, the economy, clean energy, and how policies like the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the One Big Beautiful Bill, tariffs, and competitors shape its future.

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submitted 15 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

On a vast property in Lee County, in the heart of southwest Georgia, Tyler Huber raises sheep.

As the flock grazes, the sheep need somewhere to take a break from the Georgia sun.

“It is incredibly hot, the sun is just unavoidable, and the fact that they’ve got shade every fifteen feet out here — it’s just the ideal environment, to have shade so close,” he said on a recent hot day.

The shade comes from solar panels, using that same relentless sunshine to generate energy. The sheep, in turn, cut down on mowing costs for the solar farm. The flock loves chowing down on the vegetation under and around the panels, Huber said.

Before solar developer Silicon Ranch bought this land, it used to have row crops — mostly corn and cotton — and beehives. Farmers can’t grow corn and cotton under solar panels, but this is still farmland for sheep and bees.

Scenes like this are increasingly common as power companies add more and more solar energy to keep up with rising demand for renewable electricity. Many of those solar panels are being built on farmland. The American Farmland Trust, which tracks the conversion of farmland to other uses, projects that 80 percent of the acreage needed to scale up solar energy could be agricultural land. The trend has given rise to a wave of opposition from local activists to state legislatures and the White House.

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submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

The newest, hottest power couple doesn’t live in Hollywood. It’s actually the marriage of solar panels and water reservoirs: Known as floating photovoltaics, or floatovoltaics, the devices bob on simple floats, generating power while providing shade that reduces evaporation.

One primary advantage of the technology is that you don’t have to clear trees to make way for solar farms. As an added bonus, the water cools the panels, increasing their efficiency. Research has shown that if societies deployed floatovoltaics in just a fraction of the lakes and reservoirs of the world, they could generate nearly a third of the amount of electricity that the United States uses in a year.

As floatovoltaic systems rapidly proliferate — the market is expected to grow an average of 23 percent each year between 2025 and 2030 — scientists are investigating how the technology might influence ecosystems. The shading, for instance, might stunt the growth of algae that some species eat — but at the same time, it might also prevent the growth of toxic algae. The floats might prevent waterbirds from landing — but also might provide habitat for them to hide from predators. By better understanding these dynamics, scientists say that if companies are willing, they can work with manufacturers to customize floatovoltaics to produce as much electricity as possible while also benefiting wildlife as much as possible.

“Renewable energy, low-carbon electricity, is a really good thing for us, but we shouldn’t be expanding it at the cost of biodiversity loss,” said Elliott Steele, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of a recent paper about floatovoltaics and conservation in the journal Nature Water. “This is a great opportunity for us to increase our research and develop smart design ideas and better siting practices in order to have this happy marriage between a healthy, biodiverse ecosystem and renewable energy expansion.”

11
submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

‘Solar-powered’ sea slugs have specialized depots in their cells that store photosynthetic equipment looted from algae, a study reports. These depots provide just the right chemical environment to keep the stolen apparatus, called chloroplasts, alive and working to turn sunlight into nutrients.

“It was the wildest thing that we had seen,” says study co-author Nicholas Bellono, a biologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The authors also found that, in lean times, the slugs can raid these compartments to consume chloroplasts.

The compartment “is basically like a moving refrigerator of chloroplasts where, after a period of starvation, the slugs can switch from storage to consumption to survive”, Bellono says.

The findings were published in Cell.

3
submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Alia, a precocious police detective, is feverishly hunting the killer responsible for the first-ever murder in the city of Sequoia located within the Arctic Circle in Scandinavia. The city was, specifically, created for millions of climate refugees in the aftermath of a catastrophic heat wave. Then the second one happens. The only similarity between the two victims threatens the very future of Sequoia. The killer is willing to go to any lengths to avoid capture. As Alia races against time to save the city, she discovers a deadly secret which turns her life upside down. Will she solve the two murders? Will the city survive?

The author ( @[email protected] ) lists the following comparable novels:

Neal Stephenson’s “Termination Shock”

Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Ministry for the Future”

Steven Markley’s “The Deluge”

Jens Liljestrand’s “Even if Everything Ends”

Amitav Ghosh’s “Gun Island”

Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station Eleven”

From the book's About section :

The subscription fee is $1 per year.

The novel is being published in a serialized manner. I shall upload the latest chapter(s) on this website every week starting 1 April 2025. You will also get the latest chapter(s) in your inbox. Each week's chapter(s) would be about 2,000-4,000 words (~6-12 pages) long. Since, the first novel is about 150,000 words (~500 pages) long, it will be released over the course of a year.

If you would like to discuss the story, feel free to do so with other readers. The nice thing about the platform I am using - Ghost - is that it is “federating over ActivityPub to become part of the world’s largest publishing network.”

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submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Defying the headline-making bankruptcy of a yet another nationwide solar installation firm, many long-time solar installers have learned that staying in business requires remaining loyal to their local communities. Rather than over-extending their resources by expanding too broadly too quickly, these companies have grown steadily by relying on customer referrals and word-of-mouth.

These companies exemplify an adage Barry Cinnamon, host of The Energy Show podcast, calls “Cinnamon’s Law.” The bigger a solar installation company becomes, the less money it makes. The bigger its revenue and the more layers of management it needs to serve multiple jurisdictions, the bigger its losses. Some of these companies never recover.

pv magazine USA recently spoke with numerous small- to medium-sized installation companies to get a sense of how important remaining local has been to their success.

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submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Whisper Valley is a peek into what the future could look like.

The sweeping community in the Austin suburb of Manor is filled with modern homes, small manicured lawns, quiet streets and rooftops outfitted with solar panels. Hidden beneath it is a network of pipes and man-made reservoirs that heat and cool hundreds of households via geothermal technology — a source that currently provides less than 1% of the U.S. electrical demand.

When completed, Whisper Valley will consist of approximately 7,500 owner-occupied and rental homes and multi-family units ranging in price from $350,000 to $750,000; three schools; 2 million square feet of commercial space; and 700 acres of park and outdoor community spaces. Habitat for Humanity is set to build affordable housing, which will hook up to the geothermal network.

Zac Turov, business development manager for EcoSmart Solutions, which runs the community’s geothermal system, says savings on utility bills for residents here with geothermal-powered heat pumps that cool and heat buildings can run up to $2,000 a year — based on a third-party verified Home Energy Rating System.

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How to Dress and Undress your Home (solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Thermal insulation is a cornerstone of policies aimed at reducing the high energy consumption for heating and cooling buildings. 1 In many industrialized countries, building energy regulations require new and existing buildings to have insulated walls, floors, and roofs, as well as double- or triple-glazed windows. In cold weather, insulation slows down the heat loss from the interior to the exterior, reducing the energy use of the heating system. In hot weather, insulation delays the transfer of heat from the outside to the inside, thereby reducing the energy consumption of the air conditioning system.

Modern insulation methods involve the permanent addition of non-structural materials with high thermal resistance, such as fiberglass, cellulose, or mineral wool, to the building surfaces. Viewed in a historical context, this approach is unusual and stems from a shift in architectural style. 2 Preindustrial buildings often didn’t require extra insulation because they had a significant amount of thermal mass, which acts as a buffer to outside temperature fluctuations. Additionally, the building materials themselves could have high thermal resistance.

A return to vernacular buildings, which maintain interiors at a comfortable temperature through architectural design rather than energy-intensive technical installations, could significantly reduce energy consumption for heating and cooling. However, it’s not a short-term solution: it would require a large amount of time, money, and energy to replace the existing building stock.

Fortunately, history offers an alternative solution that can be deployed more quickly and with fewer resources: textiles. Before the Industrial Revolution, people added a temporary layer of textile insulation to either the interior or the exterior of a building, depending on the climate and the season. In cold weather, walls, floors, roofs, windows, doors, and furniture were insulated with drapery and carpetry. In hot weather, windows, doors, facades, roofs, courtyards, and streets were shaded by awnings and toldos.

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submitted 6 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Ricoh, a Japanese multinational imaging and electronics company, unveiled its initiative to source some of its headquarters' electricity with its first-ever off-site Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) power plant in a press release.

Notably, Ricoh has already powered its headquarters with 100% clean energy. The company says that through this move, it "aims to deepen its environmental impact while further contributing to local sustainability."

The PPA will leverage agrivoltaics, where solar panels are used in harmony with agricultural land. The power plant is hosted on repurposed farmland and will be led by local farmers with support from Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF).

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Light pollution has risen in recent years, mainly due to urban expansion, the proliferation of artificial lighting and the use of LED technologies, which allows to emit more light at the same cost. Artificial lights at night disturb many diurnal and nocturnal species alike, causing disruptions in dark-light cycles and reproductive, foraging and orientation behavior, among other issues.

Lighting at night also impacts human health, such as by disrupting people's sleep cycles. However, debates around public lighting tend to be "all or nothing"—with residents' needs on one side and those of biodiversity on the other—and revolve around urban lighting being turned off. The Montpellier Méditerranée conurbation emits light pollution that is potentially problematic due to its proximity to the Cévennes National Park.

In a study published in the journal Nature Cities, researchers conducted a spatial analysis of species' needs for reduced light pollution and acceptance among urban residents of changing public lighting.

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

The plunging cost of solar PV and battery storage has opened up a new frontier in the transition to green energy, according to a new report, with cities and industries around the world now able to access low cost, 24-hour solar generation.

According to the UK-based energy think tank Ember, the combined cost of solar and battery storage has fallen 22 per cent in the last year alone (see graph below).

“This is a turning point in the clean energy transition,” says lead analyst Kostansta Rangelova. “Around-the-clock solar is no longer just a technical possibility and distant dream, but an economic reality.

“It unlocks game changing opportunities for energy-hungry industries like data-centres and manufacturing. Solar will be unleashed. The change is new – the costs and quality of grid batteries have improved so much in the last 12 months. Now it’s time for policy and investment to catch up.”

The concept is not entirely new. Some of leading investors, such as the Australian-based Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, have already identified the combination of solar and battery storage as a winner, particularly for large energy users in Australia.

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submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Solar energy used to be something that only the rich can afford. Even if you wanted to try using more sustainable sources of energy, it wasn’t something easily accessible or affordable. But now, with just a few components and some basic tools, anyone can create a solar-powered generator that provides clean, renewable energy. Whether you want backup power for emergencies, need a portable power source for camping, or simply want to cut down on your electricity costs, a solar generator is a smart investment.

If you’ve ever wondered how you can save money on your energy bills, reduce your impact on the environment, and have a bit of fun building something useful, a DIY solar generator might be just the project for you. Inspired by the same technology NASA uses for its space missions, this solar generator is not only practical but also a fascinating way to bring a little bit of science and innovation to your home. In a video posted on the Concept Crafted Creations, you will be able to follow along if you want to create your own.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

The article is focusing on California as an example so that doesn't seem entirely necessary but you could look to Norway to discover how they deal with this:

Vertical Panels are one solution as are Snow Repellent Panels and heated solar panels

[-] [email protected] 18 points 5 months ago

The article could definitely use an editor

[-] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

One advantage over wordpress is that it avoids bringing its parent company, Automatic, into the Fediverse.

From Wikipedia:

In February 2024, Automattic announced that it would begin selling user data from Tumblr and WordPress to Midjourney and OpenAI.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

I've heard a lot about Palestinians using solar to power several electronic devices in Gaza but it was primarily from Arab media sources like Al Jazeera. While this was on the much more corporate and mainstream news it was easy to miss without actively looking for it. You bring up a good point and I wonder if there's more use of solar energy happening there, especially in dire conditions, that we're missing out on as it's not typically covered by major news sources. Hopefully we'll be reading more stories like this in the future.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago

A better example of a pogrom might be the killing of over 30,000 civilian Palestinians and simultaneously starving them to death with blockade following 75 years of occupation and a century of colonialism. Proportionality matters and it doesn't favor your argument

[-] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago

One need not pretend something that is already factually accurate. This was a retaliation and direct response for Israel bombing Iran's consulate in Syria on April 1. This is why Iran targeted and struck the Negev air force base ( which contains US F-35s used to bomb Gaza ) as that is the base from which that attack originated. This is also why Iran says it now considers the matter "concluded" and warned the US and Israel against further reprisals. Those are facts and not "pretending" so if you are going to "pretend" this isn't true and try to distort the matter I'm not interested.

[-] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

The best part is the UN charter clearly states that when a country is attacked, it has aright to self defense. Let's watch Israel talk their way around that as they vindicate Iran and incriminate themselves.

[-] [email protected] 91 points 1 year ago

If you liked "Florida Man", you're gonna love "Florida Woman"

[-] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago

Finally we have corporate sponsorship!

[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago

I don't think it's just you. It does seem a bit pessimistic / fatalistic at first glance, especially the headline, but it's clearly a more complicated issue once you read through. You're right, the issue isn't solar energy but more about being careful about how it's put to use and the impact thereof. If anything it shows the dangers of expecting capitalism to save us and issues we run into if we try to take the easy way out. We know the issue exists now so it's more a question of what next.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

The article calls the allegations agains UNRWA "explosive" yet they are completely unconfirmed . WME was once the agency of Charlie Chaplin who sympathetically depicted immigrants and refugees and was forced into exile by Washington during the McCarthy era witch hunts. If they currently find it controversial for one of their clients to share a fundraiser for people in need, they are allowing those same cycles to repeat and it may be time to find a new agency.

[-] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago

There was never any lag in service. I'm on that instance. I believe the person was raided due to their activism and had a backup of some data but not the actual server. They made an announcement and told people to change their passwords. Many lost a degree of trust but are being as transparent as possible with members. https://kolektiva.social/@admin/110637031574056150

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SteveKLord

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