Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Auke Hoekstra

Siem De Cleyn @siemdc.bsky.social · 1d

James Ball @jamesrball.com · 1d

I laid out the details of the extraordinary corruption case against Benjamin Netanyahu a few months ago in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social. It seems like it’s helped him bond with Trump.
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

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Ed Porter @edporter.bsky.social · 1d

A snippet from Cleaning up with @mliebreich.bsky.social

Around 19:45:

Yes, shifting to renewable systems lowers grid inertia (importantly not to below required levels)…

The £60 Billion Plan To Rewire Britain | Ep227: John Pettigrew

YouTube video by Cleaning Up Podcast

youtu.be

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 1d

Netanyahu: "I can stop butchering kids in Gaza, but that's my 'get out of jail card' right?"

Adam Schwarz @adamjschwarz.bsky.social · 1d

Trump calls on the Israeli President to pardon Benjamin Netanyahu:

"Cigars and champagne - who the hell cares about it?"

Netanyahu is currently on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust, including allegedly accepting 700,000 shekels (approx. $210,000) worth of luxury goods in bribes.

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Felix Hamer • electricfelix @electricfelix.bsky.social · 1d

"According to #ADAC, maintenance costs can be 20 to 30% lower than for a comparable combustion engine.

A test of "Auto Bild" even showed differences of up to 54 percent – in favor of a VW ID.3 compared to a Golf VII diesel.

Less mechanical parts, less effort, one would think."
#alwaysbecharging

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Ed Porter @edporter.bsky.social · 1d

How do batteries in the most advanced battery storage geographies make returns?

Once frequency response markets are saturated, they move into the next best market, often energy trading.

Their impact at peak is usually at the expense of thermal plant which will see reduced run hours.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 11d

The natural weathering of ALL THE ROCKS in the world removes almost 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year. Enhanced rock weathering is an attempt to use a minuscule fraction of ALL THE ROCKS to remove many times more CO₂.

How spreading rocks on fields could combat climate change

‘Enhanced rock weathering’ is a simple, but also hard to measure, way of capturing carbon

www.ft.com

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Ed Porter @edporter.bsky.social · 1d

Pretty cool to see Modo Energy data highlighting the growth of battery storage and storage’s expanding role from supporting frequency to energy balancing, reserve and future voltage support.

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Ember @ember-energy.org · 1d

#India recorded its LARGEST ever increase in both #solar and #wind in the first half of 2025 ☀️🌪️🇮🇳

Solar rose 17 TWh (+25%) and wind 11 TWh (+29%) 📈

Solar growth alone was bigger than demand growth, while wind matched it.

https://loom.ly/c-MNZSk

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 1d

Learn about learning curves and what they meant for cost off batt. EV and PV.

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George Dubya @itisgeorge.bsky.social · 3d

There's an old quote supposedly by the founder of Honda: "When Congress passes new emissions standards, we hire 50 more engineers and GM hires 50 more lawyers." Sounds like the Euro automakers do the same bullshit, and sounds like more or less the same result

Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

If you want an explanation of why China is kicking the EU car industry to the curb, look no further than the criminally knuckle dragging EU car makers demanding new loopholes so they don't have to meet any meaningful low emission targets for cars in the EU.
www.ft.com/cIfontent/5a...

Carmakers demand EU eases ‘rigid’ 2035 petrol car ban

Environmental groups say carmakers’ demands risk halving electric vehicle sales in Europe

www.ft.com

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Barry McMullin @autofac.bsky.social · 4d

To be clear: corporations are *agents* - they have agency to act in the world, over and above the agency of their constituent human components. But they are not sentient, and have no *moral* agency beyond what is built in by design. In the case of for-profit corps it is actively *omitted* by design.

Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

"Nestle quietly exits global initiative to reduce dairy methane emissions" Also not reporting its dairy methane emissions.
www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Nestle quietly exits global initiative to reduce dairy methane emissions

www.latimes.com

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Razzball @razzball.bsky.social · 6d

War is hell, Portland style

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

"Nestle quietly exits global initiative to reduce dairy methane emissions" Also not reporting its dairy methane emissions.
www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Nestle quietly exits global initiative to reduce dairy methane emissions

www.latimes.com

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Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 4d

Changing our diets is one of the best things we can do for ourselves … and for the planet.

Here is our assessment of how modest changes in diet could have big impacts on climate change.

drawdown.org/explorer/imp...

Improve Diets

The Improve Diets solution is coming soon.

drawdown.org

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Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 5d

Over 40% of corn grown in Indiana is used to make ethanol that cars burn. One acre of corn yields about 16,500 vehicle-miles per year of ethanol, which sounds high until you realize that one acre of solar yields about 2,700,000 vehicle-miles per year: 16,000% more driving for a given plot of land.

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 4d

"Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling productive capacity and setting the stage for the next crash."

Some real decadent-late-capitalism shit here.

Everything Is Becoming a Bank

Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling pro...

jacobin.com

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 4d

Not a silly idea at all. Utilities are going to be out looking for places to strategically install distributed solar & batteries. Xcel just kicked it off:

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

Became unnecessary with batteries that can store solar during night.

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

And now Chinese EVs are cheaper in the showroom (and MUCH cheaper to drive) than combustion engines.

Nobody will want to buy combustion engines in 2030, but these knuckle draggers want to lead the EU industry towards total annihilation by sticking their head in the sand.

Bah.

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

These are the same people that (together with EU politicians) hollowed out NEDC testing until cars emitted 40% more CO2 and 5-35x more NOx in reality than on paper.

It took #dieselgate (and the ICCT + US organizations that take car testing seriously) to end that charade.
theicct.org/dieselgate-e...

Dieselgate: Behind the scandal - International Council on Clean Transportation

The year 2025 marks ten years since the exposure of the Volkswagen emissions scandal, or “Dieselgate”, through ICCT research. To mark this occasion, which became a decisive moment for Europe’s automot...

theicct.org

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

If you want an explanation of why China is kicking the EU car industry to the curb, look no further than the criminally knuckle dragging EU car makers demanding new loopholes so they don't have to meet any meaningful low emission targets for cars in the EU.
www.ft.com/cIfontent/5a...

Carmakers demand EU eases ‘rigid’ 2035 petrol car ban

Environmental groups say carmakers’ demands risk halving electric vehicle sales in Europe

www.ft.com

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 4d

Giant mirror satellites to create extra moons at night?

Because we aren't destabilizing nature enough, see too much starlight at night, want to make it impossible to do astronomy, and need distracting moonbeams everywhere?

What an incredibly spectacularly bad idea!
mastodon.social/@sundogplane...

Prof. Sam Lawler (@[email protected])

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital's fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disas...

mastodon.social

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 4d

A story from last year about your Nobel Peace Prize winner.

The ‘Iron Lady’ of Venezuela Threatens to Unseat Its Autocrat (Published 2024)

www.nytimes.com

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Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 4d

Renewables have cut fossil-fuel imports for more than 100 countries, saving hundreds of billions of dollars, report @iea.org

- including UK, Germany and Chile etc

Story by @joshgabbatiss.bsky.social
www.carbonbrief.org/iea-renewabl...

IEA: Renewables have cut fossil-fuel imports for more than 100 countries - Carbon Brief

More than 100 countries have cut their dependence on fossil-fuel imports and saved hundreds of billions of dollars by continuing to invest in renewables

www.carbonbrief.org

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Auke Hoekstra @aukehoekstra.bsky.social · 6d

The strange case of Marjorie Taylor Greene. I view her as one of the most unhinged republicans in the US, but it's interesting to see she is increasingly bucking Trump and the Republican party. Maybe a warning not to put people in boxes too easily.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...

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