Environment

It’s the latest example of the Biden team approving massive loans for clean energy, battery, and electric vehicle projects as the clock winds down on the president’s time in office. The PG&E loan is the biggest to-date and will go toward investments in “hydroelectric power generation, batteries and power lines,” according to the New York Times.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) published its top 10 priorities for the incoming Trump administration and managed to omit any reference to climate change, Reuters reports. President-elect Donald Trump has called climate change a scam.

Carrboro, NC is suing for damages it expects to incur as climate change leads to more extreme weather. It alleges that Duke Energy has delayed a transition from the fossil fuels to renewable energy as part of a “campaign of deception.”

Google DeepMind researchers say their machine learning model “better predicts extreme weather, tropical cyclone tracks and wind power production” in a paper published today in the journal Nature.

The FBI is investigating, Reuters reports. Hackers allegedly targeted US nonprofits and activists who have spoken out against ExxonMobil. Lawyers for ExxonMobil wielded hacked documents to fight lawsuits filed against the company, according to Reuters.

A treaty could potentially put a cap on plastic production. Recycling just isn’t enough to stop the flood of plastic pollution building up in landfills, waterways, in marine life, and that’s even found in baby poop.

We’ve been saying this for a while at The Verge: filtering CO2 out of the air is absurdly expensive and not a realistic alternative to fighting climate change by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy.

Negotiations at the United Nations climate summit ended with a deal that falls well short of what vulnerable nations fought for — $1.3 trillion in climate funding that economists estimate is needed to help less affluent countries adapt to disasters and deploy clean energy.

“We don’t have anything there this year,” Meta told the Financial Times.

Elon Musk’s xAI has a rapidly growing supercomputer that other AI companies are worried about, The Information reports. Hopefully, they also find out how the facility affects the local environment.

Rivian released a short film today in which the company’s CEO RJ Scaringe issues a call to action on climate change, arguing the time is now to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy solutions.

Trump tapped former New York Representative Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. Zeldin has a 14 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters.

Hurricane Rafael cut off power across the island even before it made landfall on Wednesday as a Category 3 storm. Authorities are still working to restore power after weeks of widespread, prolonged blackouts exacerbated by another hurricane that struck Cuba in late October.

Utility planning documents show rising costs for customers in some regions of the US as tech companies build out energy-hungry data centers, the Washington Post reports:

Meta wanted to build a nuclear-powered AI data center in the US — until a rare species of bee was found at the site, according to the Financial Times.

The Quartz Corp CEO Thomas Guillaume said the company’s assets have been “largely preserved” after Hurricane Helene brought devasting flooding and power outages to the area.