#electric grid

☝️😡 Fuck These Data Centers

Shut down every fucking data center 👇

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1. Crucial and heartwarming: see world’s first-ever wild jaguar translocation in Argentina

“Miní[, an offspring of rewilded jaguars,] is the first-ever release of a wild-born jaguar that’s been translocated for conservation purposes. […] Miní has joined two previously captive female jaguars [in a park] where a small, all-male wild population had been dwindling.”

2. Illinois Gov. Pritzker stands up for LGBTQ+ community in fiery HRC speech

“The governor particularly spoke out for transgender youth, saying we must not sacrifice the most persecuted for the most popular. [… “]Bullies respond to one thing, and one thing only, a punch in the face.”

3. The UK’s First ‘Stork Village’ Takes Flight

“For the first time in more than six centuries, white storks are calling Britain home again thanks to a dedicated conservation initiative to save the species. […] At the end of 2024, breeding numbers saw egg-straordinary results with 27 nests and 53 baby storks, doubling the previous year’s numbers.”

4. A quiet shift: The grid is being redefined by household consumers who no longer need it full time

“With rising adoption of rooftop solar, batteries, and electric vehicles, households are gradually altering their relationship with the grid. […] This redefined relationship doesn’t signal rejection — it reflects the growing capacity of households to meet part of their own needs.”

5. Europe’s Wolf Population On The Rise

““The recovery of wolves across human-dominated landscapes of Europe has been continuing during the past decade, with their population growing to over 21,500 individuals by 2022—a 58% increase in a decade,” the authors wrote. [… O]n average wolves killed 0.02% of livestock each year.”

6. Hospitals awarded funding for solar power work

“The investment of £8.5m by state-owned Great British Energy will enable rooftop panels and solar car ports to be installed at [several hospitals]. […] "Together, these panels will generate estimated savings of more than £635,000 a year."”

7. Nebraska Boards Sponsor Grain Bin Rescue Equipment, Training for Fire Departments

“[Nebraska Corn and Soybean boards are] donating two grain rescue tubes and two training sessions to fire and rescue departments in Nebraska. [… T]he initiative aims to equip rural fire and rescue teams with the knowledge and tools to respond to grain bin entrapments effectively.“

8. Sugar beet pulp fibers show potential for nutritional supplements and sustainable plastic alternatives

“New technology can separate the fibers in the sugar beet pulp left over after sugar production. Part of the fiber can be used as a nutritional supplement due to its anti-inflammatory properties[… and a]nother part of the fiber, the cellulose, can be made into components to replace, for example, plastic.”

9. Osmotic Power: The Next Wave of Renewable Energy

“Sweetch Energy’s technology could [produce] around 20 or 25 W/m2, a significant leap compared to the 1 W/m2 achieved by previous membrane devices. Moreover, by utilizing a biosourced material readily available within the industry for their membranes, the company anticipates the cost of materials would be reduced to one-tenth of the current price[….]”

10. Renegade Colorado Farmer Pushes Deeper into Unconventional Agriculture

“The grasshoppers stayed in the [pollinator] strips, and that triggered praying mantis to come in and eat. […] An agrivoltaic system […] has reduced moisture consumption by significant levels[….] “Local food nationwide is how to counter the industrial scale food industry.””

By Cliff Potts, CSOEditor-in-Chief, WPS News Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — May 1, 2026, 9:15 p.m. PHT Texas likes to think of itself as an energy state. Oil, gas, wind, solar — we have all of it. And yet, when the lights go out, when the heat becomes deadly, or when a winter storm knocks the grid flat on its back, we suddenly act surprised. As if this all came out of nowhere. It didn’t.…

The Baltic States have now joined the synchronous grid of Continental Europe, serving over 400 million customers. All electricity interconnections with Russia and Belarus have been permanently disconnected following years of meticulous preparation and collaboration among the Baltic States transmission system operators (TSOs): Elering (Estonia), Augstsprieguma tīkls (AST, Latvia), Litgrid (Lithuania), and their counterparts in Continental Europe Synchronous Area, with a particularly important role taken by PSE in Poland which is the system which physically now connects the Baltic States’ systems to Continental Europe.

Prime Minister of Latvia Evika Siliņa said:

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

The Biden administration on Thursday finalized a rule meant to speed up federal permits for major transmission lines, part of a broader push to expand America’s electric grids.

Administration officials are increasingly worried that their plans to fight climate change could falter unless the nation can quickly add vast amounts of grid capacity to handle more wind and solar power and to better tolerate extreme weather. The pace of construction for high-voltage power lines has sharply slowed since 2013, and building new lines can take a decade or more because of permitting delays and local opposition.

The Energy Department is trying to use the limited tools at its disposal to pour roughly $20 billion into grid upgrades and to streamline approvals for new lines. But experts say a rapid, large-scale grid expansion may ultimately depend on Congress.

Under the rule announced on Thursday, the Energy Department would take over as the lead agency in charge of federal environmental reviews for certain interstate power lines and would aim to issue necessary permits within two years. Currently, the federal approval process can take four years or more and often involves multiple agencies each conducting their own separate reviews.

“We need to build new transmission projects more quickly, as everybody knows,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said. The new reforms are “a huge improvement from the status quo, where developers routinely have to navigate several independent permitting processes throughout the federal government.”

The permitting changes would only affect lines that require federal review, like those that cross federally owned land. Such projects made up 26 percent of all transmission line miles added between 2010 and 2020. To qualify, developers would need to create a plan to engage with the public much earlier in the process.

“Federal permitting isn’t the only thing holding back transmission, but if they can cut times down by even a year, and if we have fewer projects that take a decade or more, that’s a big win,” said Megan Gibson, the chief counsel at the Niskanen Center, a research organization that recently conducted two studies on federal transmission permitting.