
Britain to Ban New Diesel and Gas Cars by 2040
Victoria Embankment in London. There are rising concerns over air pollution in Britain, particularly in large cities. Credit Daniel Leal-Olivas/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images LONDON — Scrambling to combat a growing air pollution crisis, Britain announced on Wednesday that sales of new diesel and gas cars would reach the end of the road by 2040, the latest step in Europe’s battle against the damaging environmental impact of the internal combustion engine. Britain’s plans

New York Gov. Cuomo Plans Transmission Rebuild With Renewables In Mind
In an effort to strengthen the reliability of New York’s electric power grid and enable more upstate renewables to connect to the statewide power system, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, D-N.Y., has announced plans to rebuild 78 miles of power transmission infrastructure in the North Country (the counties in the extreme north of the state). According to the governor, the newly rebuilt transmission line, called the Moses-Adirondack Smart Path Reliability project, would help the state mee

Per capita residential electricity sales in the U.S. have fallen since 2010
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual and U.S. Census Bureau Population estimates Following sustained growth through 2010, U.S. residential electricity sales have declined in both absolute and per capita terms. Although changes in the weather are a key driver of year-over-year fluctuations, energy efficiency improvements and economic factors have contributed to the decline in per capita residential electricity sales since 2010. Residential elec

Third-hottest June puts 2017 on track to make hat-trick of hottest years
June 2017 was beaten only by June in 2015 and 2016, leaving experts with little hope for limiting warming to 1.5C or even 2C The latest figures cement estimations that warming is now at levels not seen for 115,000 years. Photograph: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images Last month was the third-hottest June on record globally, temperature data suggest, confirming 2017 will almost certainly make a hat-trick of annual climate records, with 2015, 2016 and 2017 being the three hottest

If You Fix This, You Fix a Big Piece of the Climate Puzzle
Before you read the article, which single action do you think would be most effective in addressing climate change? 1)Build more wind farms 2)Eat less meat worldwide 3)Improve air conditioners 4)Switch to mass transit Fixing air-conditioning is, let’s face it, not the most exciting solution to climate change. Perhaps for the same reason that remodeling a kitchen is more enticing than replacing a water heater, devising greener refrigerant chemicals will never make headlines li

Massive iceberg breaks away from Antarctica
A massive iceberg weighing more than one trillion tons has broken away from western Antarctica, according to a UK-based research team. Scientists from Project MIDAS had been monitoring a break in the Larsen C ice shelf -- the fourth largest in Antarctica -- following the collapse of the Larsen A ice shelf in 1995 and had observed significant advances in the rift over the past 12 months. The rift, then spanning 70 miles, on Larsen C pictured in November last year. Experts said

Volvo, Betting on Electric, Moves to Phase Out Conventional Engines
A Volvo plug-in hybrid at an auto show in Beijing in 2014. Credit Diego Azubel/European Pressphoto Agency Volvo Cars on Wednesday became the first mainstream automaker to sound the death knell of the internal combustion engine, saying that all the models it introduces starting in 2019 will be either hybrids or powered solely by batteries. The decision is the boldest commitment by any major car company to technologies that currently represent a small share of the total vehicle

Electric Cars to be Cheaper than Gas-Powered Cars by 2025
Energy efficient, battery-powered cars will, by 2025, be cheaper to buy than conventional, gasoline-powered cars. Bloomberg New Energy Finance recently reported that the price of the zero emission cars is largely due to falling battery costs. The report says that “batteries currently account for about half the cost of EVs, and their prices will fall by about 77 percent between 2016 and 2030.” Automaker Renault predicts ownership costs of electric vehicles will, by the early 2