Lithium is the lightest metal on Earth, and it’s a key ingredient of the batteries that will power future cars and the grid.
Tennessee will soon have the largest lithium processing plant in the nation. North Carolina-based Piedmont Lithium is constructing a new facility in Etowah, near Chattanooga, to produce the component of electric vehicle batteries.
THE NIZARI GARRISON at Gird Castle resisted the Mongol horde of Hulagu Khan for 17 years before surrendering in December 1270. The fortress rose 300 meters above the surrounding plains of present-day eastern Iran, with three rings of fortifications enclosing its base. But dwindling supplies and an outbreak of cholera forced the defenders to abandon their posts after one of the longest sieges in medieval history.
Washington — Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.â€
Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,†the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by U.S. households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West’s plastic waste in 2018.
THE RACE TO remove CO2 from our atmosphere is on. In an effort to draw down carbon at a meaningful scale, people are looking to the ground. The top meter of the world’s soil holds over three times the amount of carbon currently in our atmosphere—and if we treat our land better, it could suck up even more.
Climate change is a prime suspect in a mass die-off of Alaska’s snow crabs, experts say, after the state took the unprecedented step of canceling their harvest this season to save the species.
According to an annual survey of the Bering Sea floor carried out by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, estimates for the crustaceans’ total numbers fell to about 1.9 billion in 2022, down from 11.7 billion in 2018, or a reduction of about 84 percent.
Microplastics, or tiny plastic particles, are ubiquitous pollutants found almost everywhere on earth. Scientists have detected microplastics near the peak of Mount Everest, in the Mariana Trench and even in baby poop. But researchers have now found a new vessel for microplastics: human blood.
In a paper published in Environment International, researchers found plastic in the blood of 17 of 22 of study participants, or about 77 percent.Microplastics have been detected in human breast milk for the first time, with researchers greatly concerned over the potential health impacts on babies.
Infants are especially vulnerable to chemical contaminants and the scientists said further research was urgently needed. But they stressed that breastfeeding remained by far the best way to feed a baby.First Solar, the largest solar panel maker in the United States, today announced that it will invest around $270 million in a dedicated thin film PV R&D innovation center. The new facility, which will be in Perrysburg, Ohio, is expected to be the first of its scale in the United States.
First Solar’s new R&D center will be near its existing Perrysburg manufacturing facility, and cover an area of around 1.3 million square feet. It will feature a pilot manufacturing line that will be able to produce full-sized prototypes of thin film and tandem PV modules. The facility is expected to be completed in 2024.Siemens Gamesa’s 14-222 DD offshore wind turbine prototype has, according to the Spanish-German wind giant today, set a world record for the most power output by a single wind turbine in a 24-hour period: 359 megawatt-hours.
MANY OF THE core challenges—and solutions—of the climate crisis have been clear to scientists for decades. It boils down to this: The planet is warming, most likely as the direct result of increased carbon dioxide and methane emissions that began to rise sharply at the outset of the industrial revolution. The clearest solution has long been for the nations of our world to come together to develop and implement new technologies and strategies that could reduce our dependency on the fossil-fuel consumption most responsible for those emissions. And the path to get there requires that leaders around the world understand the imminent effects of climate change—so they can make informed decisions that better protect their people and places from physical and socioeconomic risks.
