The Verge spoke with Bill Gates about AI, misinformation, and climate change.
The South Dublin County Council rejected the proposal, Bloomberg reports. Google reportedly didn’t provide sufficient information about “how the proposal will impact the power supply once operational.”
New data centers being built with the boom in AI have raised concerns about straining the power grid. Ireland is a hot spot for that construction, where data centers already use more electricity than urban households.
Mining trucks, cement mixers, and terminal tractors all seem like the perfect use of hydrogen fuel cells. But they run into the same challenges around price and fueling.
6
Verge Score
The Wave 2 heat pump is very capable for its size, but EcoFlow’s absurd marketing sets unrealistic expectations.
Roughly half of customers lost power yesterday. As of this morning, more than 30 percent of customers are still without service, according to power utility Luma Energy.
It shows how vulnerable the US territory’s grid is after Hurricane Maria hit in 2017 and left residents without electricity for up to 11 months. In July, Puerto Rico filed a $1 billion suit against fossil fuel companies.
[The Washington Post]
They’re on different sides of a debate over how to counteract pollution from data centers’ energy use, Financial Times reports.
Amazon and Meta are part of a lobby group that wants more lax standards for renewable energy certificates, which can pose similar risks as carbon offset credits. Google, meanwhile, backs a different strategy for bringing more renewables online wherever data centers operate.
[Financial Times]
SunPower helped kick off a solar boom in the US, Canary Media explains. But the company was hit hard by soaring interest rates and faced allegations of mismanagement, CNBC reports. Solar companies in the US have grappled with inflation and supply chain kinks pushing up projects costs in recent years, and have struggled to compete with more affordable panels made in China.
Scientists discovered ‘dark oxygen’ in the ocean’s abyss, where companies want to mine battery metals.
AES has given its Atlas solar robot some AWS smarts and redubbed it “Maximo.” It helped complete an Amazon-backed solar farm in Louisiana and is now moving on to Bellefield, California, home of the largest solar-plus-storage project in the US. According to Amazon, it can “reduce solar installation timelines and costs by as much 50 percent:”
Besides automating heavy lifting, Maximo can also perform in nearly any weather or lighting condition, which is especially useful for the Bellefield project, which is located in a sandy desert area known for extreme heat. Once Maximo arrives there later this year, the robot will work alongside crews to lift hundreds of heavy solar panels into place.
Trump’s new running mate went from saying “we have a climate problem” in 2020 to being “skeptical of the idea that climate change is caused purely by man,” The New York Times reports. (Research shows greenhouse gas emissions from human activity are to blame.) Vance suddenly threw his support behind Trump, pushed to repeal EV tax credits and rollback pollution regulations.
[The New York Times]
Sharing this solar generator’s batteries with a 3-in-1 solar fridge, freezer, and ice-making combo is a good idea that might get better.
8
Verge Score
A mini power plant that turns a standard power outlet into a solar power inlet.
