S. W. Lawrence, MD

Geothermal well drillers. Energy Secretary Wright also attended MAGMA. “The Trump administration has looked favorably upon this renewable energy even as it has smothered wind and solar.” The One Big Beautiful Bill Act preserved its tax credits through 2033, and the DOE recently announced $171.5 million for next-generation geothermal field tests. “Another DOE report released in 2024 showed the domestic geothermal workforce inching up to 8,870 people,” where globally, the industry employs around 145,000 workers. “Cindy Taff, CEO of geothermal startup Sage Geosystems, sees a broad range of fossil fuel workers, from drillers to geologists, who will fit right into the renewables sector, arguing that the same industry that evolved from simple land wells to offshore operations in water thousands of feet deep has a vast pool of technical expertise.” Apparently, major oil companies “haven’t made big investments” in this area while they wait for the technology to be proven out. “Companies boring thousands of feet into the earth, a technique called enhanced geothermal, can reach rock as hot as 750°F—hot enough to power buildings, factories, even communities.” This creates tremendous opportunities for oil and gas workers and others with drilling experience…as many as 300,000 people already possess the required skills, according to a 2024 U.S. Department of Energy report. I have strenuously criticized the Trump administration on multitudinous issues. but I offer grudging admiration in two areas: for ramping up geothermal + for preparing to lay down the keels to build Coast Guard cutters including icebreakers, additionally ordering 4 of the world’s universally acknowledged best ice-cracking ships, made in Finland. But I’m not going to get a MAGMA hat, I don’t care what you say.

CanaryMedia: “Oil and gas workers find an easy segue into geothermal jobs.” In 2025, Jamie Beard, executive director of the advocacy group Project InnerSpace, hosted an event called MAGMA—short for Make American Geothermal More Abundant—last year to bring together industry leaders, policymakers.

Award medallions on 2 books. Late last nite my wife returned from a trip to Mexico + Arizona; this morning I puffed out my chest + I told her I was a finalist for romance awards. In the plural. You know what she said, right? She said that makes me a two-time loser. Really, she said that.

Really, you can’t make up a story like this, even if you happen to be a writer. Coupla days ago I received notifications of having achieved Finalist status in Romance for both books

Paucity of snow. “Climate change is reducing snow cover duration in mountain regions, exposing young trees and shrubs to harsher winter conditions, including extreme cold, freeze-thaw cycles, and drought.” To investigate, “A snow removal experiment was carried out at 1700 m above sea level on saplings of five different species (Acer pseudoplatanus, Juniperus communis, Larix decidua,Picea abies and Sorbus aucuparia)” [One of these is new to me: the “Rowan tree (Sorbus aucuparia), or Mountain Ash, is a hardy, small deciduous tree known for its striking compound leaves, creamy-white flowers in spring, and clusters of bright orange-red berries in autumn, rich in Vitamin C and vital for wildlife.” Good to know, + its photos are pretty to boot]. Stem diameter was continuously monitored and compared with the 5 factors of spring hydraulic conductivity (PLCspring), living cell mortality (PLDspring), nonstructural carbohydrates (NSCs), growth and survival rates.” They “found that snow-free saplings experienced severe damage to their water-transport systems and living cells, leading to reduced growth and increased mortality the following summer.” Although some species could repair damage or regrow from roots, others struggled to recover. “These findings reveal that shorter snow cover threatens mountain forest regeneration because young plants may not survive successive harsh winters without adaptation mechanisms such as resprouting or hydraulic repair.” Resprouting, now that sounds like something older guys wish their scalp could accomplish. Although for saplings, this is absolutely no laughing matter.

New Phytologist: “Reduced snow cover at the alpine treeline: resistance and recovery of saplings.” The phrase ‘a blanket of snow’ is not just evocative, it actually describes how small, young plants survive high-elevation winters.

Peruvian fly. Their main defense strategies involve avoiding heat by finding shade or burrowing underground. “They can also synthesize ‘heat shock proteins,’ which help prevent other proteins from misfolding or breaking down when exposed to high temperatures.” Researchers behind the new study tested the responses of 2300 species living in a range of environments + elevations in Peru and Kenya. Ecologist Kim Lea Holzmann…[in] over three field seasons in the Peruvian Andes collected thousands of insects…and put them into small tubes. “Back at camp, she added them to a portable laboratory oven and ramped up the temperature…checked in every few minutes to see which of the various species had stopped moving, which they used as marker of the limit of heat tolerance.” In Peru, flies had the lowest heat tolerance, stopping their movements at an average of 39°C = 102°F. “Beetles could cope with up to 41°C on average, whereas bees and other social insects put up with a bit more.” Grasshoppers and other members of an insect order called Orthoptera were the hardiest: They stopped kicking at 44°C = 111 °F, on average. “In an analysis that backs up this pattern, Holzmann and colleagues looked at the thermal stability of proteins that are commonly found in major insect groups.” Working from genomic data for 677 insect species, they randomly selected 1000 proteins for each species and had a computer model estimate the temperature at which the protein structure would break down. “The overall pattern mirrored what the team observed in their field experiments: Flies were the most sensitive and orthopterans the most resilient.” In a projection of temperatures by 2100, they estimated up to half of the insects in tropical populations could suffer a ‘heat coma’ after 8 hours of exposure to typical temperatures predicted for the future. Sobering to say the least. Scary to say the most.

AAAS: “Many heat-stressed tropical insects are reaching their limits.” It seems intuitive that lowland tropical insects must have evolved to deal with brutal heat. “Compared with mammals, insects are more at the mercy of a hot environment because they can’t cool themselves by sweating or panting.”

Corporate water withdrawals. A new “water sustainability index” or WSI scores companies based on water source, local watershed stress, discharge quality, and reuse practices. The score also rewards water reuse technologies + penalizes companies drawing from areas of drought. Carrot + stick approach, as it were. “Thousands of companies around the world now regularly disclose [incomplete] aspects of their water use as part of corporate commitments to environmental, social, and governance goals [ESG.]” Thus, weighting factors were devised based on the level of stress of the local watershed. “Analyzing data from the London Stock Exchange Group…[researchers] found that while 14% of major companies reported their greenhouse gas emissions, only 9% provided explicit data on total water withdrawals…more tellingly, only 1% disclosed whether their operations utilized recycled water.” Stressed watersheds were defined as either regions where withdrawals exceed 40% of available freshwater, or alternatively, for exploitation of groundwater, which is more difficult to replenish than surface water. The new index is an easy-to-calculate, reproducible, single number ranging from 0 to 3.0. “Approximately 25 percent of the global population lives in extremely high stress watersheds, increasing [risk + responsibility] for water-intensive industries.” Notably, this new index aligns corporate reporting with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6. Clearly, heat stress, drought, + agricultural failures will progress with climate weirding. Let’s make companies such as the new data centers ‘own’ their impacts on ecosystems. This is not unglamorous—it is critical. Think about this the next time you turn on your kitchen faucet.

Stanford: “New metric reveals true corporate water footprints.” While carbon dioxide emissions are a global issue, water is an intensely local one. To address this, Stanford + Korea University researchers developed a scoring system that weighs where companies draw water and how it’s utilized.

3 refuseniks. Here are three who refused to come under his spell. David Agus, “a professor of medicine and bioengineering, never met or spoke with Epstein…but he spent 7 years saying no to him.” Agus visited New York City regularly in his role as a medical correspondent for CBS News, and he says Epstein would often email him after a piece had aired with the same request. “Agus told his assistant to keep putting Epstein off, saying he was too busy.” Scott Aaronson, a computer scientist at UT Austin, met “one of Epstein’s emissaries [who] took him to lunch at a Cambridge, Massachusetts, deli and then sent him an email describing how Epstein wanted to give him money to do research on cryptography using DNA and other molecules, a topic that interested both men.” Instead of Googling Epstein, “Aaronson, then 29, turned to what he considered an even more reliable source: his mother.” She did some checking. “Be careful not to get sucked up in the slime-machine going on here,” she wrote back, adding, “Since you don’t care that much about money, they can’t buy you.” Sean Carroll, a Johns Hopkins University theoretical physicist and science popularizer, says he was also ignorant of Epstein’s criminal past in 2010, when someone associated with the California Institute of Technology, where Carroll was then a physics professor, invited him and his wife to dinner. “His host interrupted the meal to call Epstein and then handed Carroll the phone.” He says, “It was a 2-minute conversation, and frankly, it didn’t make much of an impression on me at the time.” But Carroll says when he told others about the call, including his wife, science writer Jennifer Ouellette, we “were rolling our eyes.” I had never wanted to post about the “slime-machine” who was Epstein, as I usually shy away from information extensively covered by mainstream media. I suspect I’ll never post about him again. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

AAAS: “Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein.” The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude.” In the recent trove of released emails related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, hundreds of scientists were mentioned.

Kraftblock heat battery. Over the last yr, “Tata Steel [has used] a 20-megawatt-hour [MWh] thermal-storage system, developed by the German startup Kraftblock, at a massive steel mill in Jamshedpur.” Waste heat from an early stage of the steelmaking process is stored in the thermal battery at up to 500ºC = 932ºF, then tapped for process heat in later stages to partially obviate use of fossil [methane] gas. “Based on how well the system has performed so far, the cleantech firm expects its thermal-storage technology will reduce the site’s carbon dioxide emissions by 22,000 tonnes per year—about the same as taking 5,100 gas-fueled cars off the road—and will eliminate about 110 gigawatt-hours of fossil-gas use per year.” The project is likely the first of its kind within the steel industry, has performed better than expected, + stores heat not in specialized bricks, rocks, or salt, but rather a “stonelike” storage material from byproducts such as steel slag and copper-mine waste. “Manufacturers in other industrial sectors are increasingly testing out thermal-storage technology as they look for cleaner ways to produce the scorching heat they need to make ceramics, chemicals, dairy products, and processed food and drinks.” At the Tata Steel site, two Kraftblock units are connected to the ​“sinter” plant by a maze of thick [insulated] silver pipes. “Sintering is a highly energy-intensive process in which iron ore, limestone, and other materials are heated together to make lumps that are fed into blast furnaces—the hulking coal-fueled facilities that produce iron, the main ingredient in steel.” India itself is set to launch a carbon-credit trading scheme this year, and the European Union recently enacted a carbon-border tariff on polluting imports, which applies to metal from India. Kraftblock has also deployed its thermal-storage technology at the Netherlands PepsiCo plant and at a ceramic manufacturing facility in Germany. Not merely a block of Kraft cheese.

CanaryMedia: “Global giant Tata Steel is using a heat battery to curb emissions.” Worldwide, steelmaking accounts is responsible for 7% – 9% of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Technician identifying trypanosomiasis. “In the early 2000s, already overstretched hospitals in war-torn Sudan frequently faced particularly difficult patients: soldiers with sleeping sickness, who would rage against nurses or simply wander off in the middle of treatment.” When the parasite reaches the brain, this can trigger dramatic behavior changes, including aggression and psychosis, and these patients had often been in military prison before diagnosis. “Sleeping sickness is caused by two parasite subspecies spread through the bites of tsetse flies: Trypanosoma brucei gambiense, which causes most cases and is prevalent in West and Central Africa, and T. brucei rhodesiense, which occurs mostly in East Africa.” While initial symptoms are fever + headache, ‘behavioral changes—including a reversed sleep-wake cycle that gives the disease its common name—start to occur once the parasite reaches the brain.’ Untreated, this stage almost always is fatal. “Newer treatments and tsetse fly control programs have helped lower transmission to fewer than 600 reported cases last year, two-thirds of them in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).” Because current treatments are so complicated, often including a lumbar puncture, ‘they are given only to people confirmed to have parasites in their blood, a process that requires microscopes and trained technicians—not easy in poor, remote regions—and that misses an estimated 15% of infections.’ “Experts hope [the new drug] acoziborole could be given to all people who test positive on a rapid test for antibodies to the parasite, doing away with the need for microscopy. “A phase 2/3 clinical trial in 208 patients in Guinea and the DRC, published in 2022, showed the drug cured all mild and intermediate cases and 95% of severe cases.” Thus, acoziborole, given as 3 pills in 1 dose, coupled with control of the tsetse fly, may bring another ancient scourge to its knees.

AAAS: “‘Truly spectacular’ drug for sleeping sickness simplifies treatment, raising hopes for eradication.” European regulators greenlight new one-dose compound that could help African countries get rid of an ancient burden.

Baby post surgery in womb. “In past, surgery to enclose the exposed spinal cord performed after birth, but a landmark study in 2011 showed significant benefits of carrying out the procedure in utero.” More than half still couldn’t walk independently by 2.5 years. though none are yet approved.” Stem cells are harvested from placenta-derived mesenchymal stem cells (PMSCs), which are generated from donated placental tissue. “Pediatric surgeon Diana Farmer and biomedical scientist Aijun Wang at UC Davis…had previously shown that in a lab dish, these cells can protect neurons from injury and prompt their growth.” The PMSCs in the lab are embedded in a patch that includes a matrix of the proteins and other molecules that surround normal cells. “Adding the patch directly onto a spinal wound during reparative surgery helped protect neurons and reduced problems with mobility after birth.” “Although many of these defects can be prevented by taking folic acid supplements before and during pregnancy, they still affect some half a million babies around the world each year.” The researchers “checked for complications, including leaking of cerebrospinal fluid into tissues surrounding the spine, evidence of infection, problems with wound healing, and tumor formation—a concern with treatments involving stem cells.” Late complications of spina bifida include ‘predisposition to kidney disease, certain cancers, and other health issues that emerge in adulthood.’ The couple in the photo learned their fetus had severe spina bifida at an ultrasound at 20 wks [a term 40 wk pregnancy is 37 to 42 wks]. Their son, after intrauterine surgery supplemented with a stem cell patch, now 4 yrs old, walks + runs normally. As always, more research is needed, but don’t I always say that?

AAAS: “Treating fetuses with stem cells proves safe in milestone spina bifida trial.” Neural tube defect called spina bifida becomes apparent in the early embryo [first 8 wks, not yet identified as a fetus], where embryonic spine or spinal cord is open to the amniotic fluid after failing to close.

Uruguayan turbine installation. Physicist Ramon Méndez Galain led the transformation, his insight being that is was as much about economics as it was about climate. “Uruguay’s shift to renewables, he argues, demonstrated that clean energy can be cheaper, more stable, and create more jobs than fossil fuels.” Once the country adjusted the playing field that had long favored oil and gas, renewables outperformed on every front: halving costs, creating 50,000 jobs, and protecting the economy from price shocks. “When Méndez Galain began thinking about Uruguay’s energy system, the country faced a classic small-nation dilemma: high electricity demand growth, almost no domestic fossil fuel resources, and a rising dependence on imported oil and gas.” Hydropower had already been tapped, and blackouts were beginning to creep into both industrial and residential sectors. “Uruguay…with a population of 3.5 million…has a gross domestic product of around $80 billion, and the highest per capita income in Latin America.” Its economy relies on agriculture, livestock, forestry, and a growing services sector rather than heavy industry. “Today, Uruguay produces nearly 99% of its electricity from renewable sources, with only a small fraction—roughly 1%–3%—coming from flexible thermal plants, such as those powered by natural gas.” The energy mix is diverse: while hydropower accounts for 45%, wind can contribute up to 35% of total electricity, and biomass—once considered a waste problem—now makes up 15%. “Solar fills the gaps.” Small country with a big lesson.

Forbes.com: “Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World.” Uruguay accomplished what most nations still think is impossible: “it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels.”

Home battery. Residential, commercial, and industrial ratepayers scramble for solutions.“The timing is perfect for new sodium-ion batteries, which offer improvements in cost and safety while enabling electricity users to take full advantage of rooftop solar panels, low off-peak electricity rates, virtual power plants, or all three.” Until now, “lithium-ion energy storage has been the gold standard for on-site energy storage, with Tesla’s Powerwall among the industry leaders.” Back in November of 2024, “the Energy Department launched a new consortium aimed at tweaking sodium-ion technology for grid-scale uses…called SAGES for Sodium-ion Alliance for Grid Energy Storage.” Fortunately, sodium is an abundant, widely available, and cost-effective element. Additionally, “sodium-based batteries have high thermal stability, reducing the risk of overheating and fire, making them a practical option for widespread use.” “Although rising star Natron crashed and burned last year, Inlyte Energy, Unigrid, Alsym Energy, and Peak Energy are among the domestic startups to pick up the slack.” The North Carolina firm Syntropic Power has also added itself to the list. Besides stationary energy storage, sodium-ion batteries are beginning to seep into the electric vehicle field. “China’s CATL was in the vanguard, initially introducing the new battery as a replacement for the conventional lead-acid batteries used in diesel trucks.” Last May CATL also announced its ambition to position sodium-ion as a competitive alternative to LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate) batteries in passenger cars. Another new battery chemistry in the works is LMR (lithium manganese-rich) EV batteries. The battery field is popping like Fourth of July fireworks. But without any more actual fireworks.

CleanTechnica: “A US Sodium-Ion Battery Maker Challenges Powerwall For Home Energy Storage.” The sharp, shameless U-turn in federal energy policy is credited with pushing up the cost of electricity across the US, which helps explain why the energy storage business has been taking off like a rocket.

Graph of deployment rates in energy sectors. Nonetheless, “conservatives support expanding solar because it lowers costs, strengthens American manufacturing, and delivers energy security.” A recent poll from Fabrizio, Lee & Associates, chief pollster—for Trump—found that a clear majority of Republicans support expanding solar power in America. “In the survey, 68% of GOP voters agreed that “we need all forms of electricity generation, including utility solar, to be built to lower electricity costs,” while 70% said they support utility-scale solar deployment when projects use American-made materials.” Another poll from Kellyanne Conway’s KA Consulting showed that three-quarters of Trump voters (75%) in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Texas believe that solar energy should be used in our country. “Red states are leading the nation in new solar deployment because competitive markets are choosing the lowest-cost and fastest-to-build resources.” It’s simple really, conservative states are allowing competitive markets to choose the lowest-cost and fastest-to-deploy resources, and the market is choosing solar. “Arkansas Senator John Boozman credited his state’s “reliable, affordable, and all-of-the above energy supply, including solar” for attracting a multi-billion-dollar data center to Little Rock.” Data centers cannot wait a decade for new generation; they require scalable resources now. Dare I say it? It’s not just all about affordability. What else? Well—conservatives love the free market [as do I]. Anything else? Well—I guess speed counts as well. My new bumper sticker: Scale Solar at Speed.

CleanTechnica: “Despite Political Rhetoric, Conservative Support for Solar Is Solidifying. Here’s Why.” The energy debate in Washington is vehement + often misleading.

Dewdrops. “Plants grown in greenhouses, for example, do not flower earlier if the thermostat is cranked up to match the increase in temperature caused by global warming.” According to findings published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, tiny water droplets that come into contact with the surface of leaves set off a cascade of chemical signals that tell a plant it’s time to bloom. “Zare and co–lead author Bolei Chen, an environmental chemist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, discovered that when water microdroplets form on a solid, inorganic substrate such as a soil grain, chemical reactions on the surface spawn highly reactive molecules with unpaired electrons, which are known as radicals.” They decided to study Arabidopsis thaliana, a small, flowering species in the Brassicaceae family, which also includes cabbage, broccoli, and radish. Droplets on Arabidopsis’s leaves produce hydrogen atoms and hydroxy radicals, some of which “recombine to create hydrogen peroxide, which in turn reacts with amino acids to make nitric oxide (NO)—a signaling molecule in both plants and animals.” In 12 million field records of Brassicaceae plants’ flowering times, collected between 1990 and 2023…analyzing 11 meteorological parameters, [they] found strong correlations with not only temperature and length of day, but also dew point. I’d like to see confirmation by other scientists, but this may have implications for climate change + agriculture. Note the photo shows dewdrops on a pretty flower, not the leaves before flowering, but I’m just nitpicking now, aren’t I?

AAAS: “Could dewdrops explain why plants are flowering earlier?” Climate change seems the obvious culprit for earlier flowering, yet warming temperatures alone do not account for the shift.

Annualized mortality data nr. nukes. As of 2023, “the U.S. [operated] 93 commercial nuclear reactors across 54 plants in 28 states, providing a significant portion of the nation’s electricity.” Researchers assessed “using nationwide mortality data from 2000-2018… long-term spatial patterns of cancer mortality in relation to proximity to nuclear facilities—while accounting for socioeconomic, demographic, behavioral, environmental, and healthcare factors.” The problem is that “nuclear power plants emit radioactive pollutants that can disperse into the surrounding environment, leading to potential human exposure through inhalation, ingestion, and direct contact.” Counties located closer to operational nuclear power plants have higher cancer mortality rates, with stronger associations observed among older adults. “Proximity was calculated by summing the inverse-distance weights from all nuclear plants within 200 km of each county center.” Given the largest distances ever used in this sort of study, often multiple reactors were seen to contribute to the alleged risk. “The burden increased progressively with age, peaking in the 65–74 age group for females (13,976; 95% CI: 6885, 20,959) and the 65–74 age group for males (20,912; 95% CI: 12,591, 29,109).” [Note that I added to the graph the mean annualized estimated excess mortality to these 2 peak county-year-age-sex units]. The parent journal Nature is highly respected + the oldest extant science journal in the world. Open source, so I invite you to dive into it. Looking forward to all the comments with only minor trepidation.

NatureCommunications: “National analysis of cancer mortality and proximity to nuclear power plants in the United States.” Understanding the potential health implications of living near nuclear power plants is critical given the renewed interest in nuclear energy as a low-carbon power source.

Graph of threats to birds. Overall, wind turbines are a relatively minor threat to birds. Billions of birds are killed by human sources each year, but turbines are only a small fraction of them—as depicted in the bar graph. “In context…power lines, automobiles, windows, and even cats kill many times more birds than wind turbines.” Renewable energy opponents cherry-pick + give inordinate emphasis to turbine bird deaths. “What about the effects of wind turbines on large birds, like eagles and falcons?” Large birds are overrepresented in recorded wind turbine casualties, and there’s even some evidence that wind turbines can cause declines in the numbers of certain bird species. “Such declines have been recorded in both North America and Europe.” Clearly, these claims “often coms from groups who are less interested in the environment than in simply obstructing renewables—such as fossil fuel interests, who benefit from avoiding competition with other energy sources.” “In fact, fossil fuels are likely far deadlier to birds than wind turbines, [even when we only] account for the air pollution from burning fossil fuels.” In 2012 a study estimated bird fatalities per gigawatt-hour—enough to supply a neighborhood or small town for a year. It found that wind turbines caused 0.3 bird fatalities per gigawatt-hour on average, while nuclear power stations [including the entire nuclear fuel chain both in front of the nuclear reactors + in the back end] were responsible for 0.6 and fossil-fuel power plants for a significantly higher 9.4. Time to put a red collar + bell on opponents of wind with their ‘catty’ remarks about this wonderful suites of technologies.

ScienceFeedback.org: “Bringing clarity to misleading claims about wind turbine impacts on birds.” The assertion that wind turbines kill birds is a common one from wind power opponents, notably Trump—on multiple occasions.

Bar graph of grid battery growth. “More than 13 gigawatts [GW] of energy storage [were] installed across the U.S. last year, per a new report from the Business Council for Sustainable Energy and BloombergNEF.” The meteoric rise of batteries is partly due to their quick-to-deploy nature, but also because they allow time-based arbitrage. “Storage enables the grid to bank electricity when it’s cheap and abundant—like when surplus solar is generated in the middle of a sunny day—and deploy it when prices are high and electrons are scarce.” Only a decade ago gird-sized batteries appeared distantly on the horizon; in 2017 only 500 megawatts [MW] were online. Nonetheless, the Energy Storage Association set a goal of reaching 35 GW of storage capacity by 2025. “Last year, the sector smashed that goal, hitting it in July and ending the year with nearly 45 GW of installed capacity.” So far, “most utility-scale batteries have been plugged into the grids of Texas and California, two solar-soaked states with radically different approaches to encouraging storage growth.” There remain some obstacles. “Federal tax incentives are now contingent on compliance with strict but vague anti-China supply-chain rules.” Developers also have to deal with volatile tariffs and increasing local opposition. Critics often trot out the hoary aphorism that batteries ‘don’t generate electricity,’ but they fail to acknowledge that adequate storage avoids “curtailment” of abundant sunshine or wind, which are variable but quite predictable sources of free primary energy. In turn this may prevent the construction of gas turbines + nuclear reactors. All I ask is a level playing field + respect for decisions by a free market. For those who want to remove all the subsidies, beware: the energy transition would only proceed faster + faster.

CanaryMedia: “Chart: Grid battery installations soared to a new high in 2025.” Note we are discussing solely Li ion batteries, not Na ion batteries, pumped storage or other modalities.

Precise timekeeper. Much fancier than you will see on any celebrity wrist. “The optical transitions of trapped ions and atoms occur at much higher frequency, effectively providing more ticks to the tock and thus higher precision.” If you are into metrology, it is exciting to realize this will be the first real upgrade in six decades, redefining the “second.” The International System of Units, [known round the world by the abbreviation SI, from the French Système international d’unités), is the modern form of the metric system. The basis of SI are the 7 “units of measurement, the second (symbol: s, the unit of time), metre (m, length), kilogram (kg, mass), ampere (A, electric current), kelvin (K, thermodynamic temperature), mole (mol, amount of substance), and candela (cd, luminous intensity).” Just in case you were curious. “Fortier et al. provide an up-to-date review of the progress made in developing optical clocks and discuss the emerging applications that the improved precision will enable.” The original article can be found here: Optica (2026) 10.1364/OPTICA.575770

AAAS: “Time for change.” The only constant, right? “Present-day time and frequency standards are based on the microwave transitions of atomic clocks, which are typically housed in national laboratories around the world.”

Nuclear facility.ed how several federal agencies were going about changing their standards, not with ample advice from outside experts in a methodical, public rule-making process, Instead, “the regulation changes are happening behind closed doors, frequently by people who are not experts in health physics, with a lot of pressure from commercial reactor companies,” says Caffrey. It has long been a cornerstone of radiation policy that people’s exposure to ionizing radiation should be kept “as low as reasonably achievable,” or ALARA. “Many nuclear safety experts believe there is no threshold below which radiation is harmless, and that as the dose goes up, so does the cancer risk, a view known as ‘linear, no-threshold,’ or LNT.” In fact, “the LNT model has been buttressed in recent years by monitoring the health of hundreds of thousands of nuclear workers exposed to much smaller doses of radiation over long time periods, and it has been reviewed repeatedly by U.S. and international panels.” Current regulatory thresholds used by DOE and NRC set exposure limits at 50 millisieverts (mSv) per year for nuclear workers and at 1 mSv for the general population, while more cautious international standards are 20 mSv per year for workers. “InWorks, which examines the health and exposures of 300,000 nuclear industry workers in the United States, France, and the United Kingdom…showed that even people who receive less than 50 mSv over their entire career—the equivalent of about 500 chest x-rays—have a slightly increased cancer risk.” For every additional 100 mSv, InWorks has found a roughly 5% increased risk. “Trump’s executive order instructed NRC to reconsider the use of “flawed” LNT models and the ALARA approach.” I suspect that under the push to start building small nuclear reactors or SMRS the White House is going to be willing to put nuclear workers and the general public at risk.

AAAS: “Scientists decry Trump’s rush to loosen radiation exposure standards.”Emily Caffrey, a nuclear engineer and health physicist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, had long been frustrated with radiation limits varying from one agency to another.

Graph showing superiority of mRNA vaccine. Fortunately, due to overwhelming outcry from the general public + research establishment, this was quickly reversed. Flu vaccines are imperfect. Most years they reduce the risk of hospitalization by roughly 40–60%—but compare that to the measles vaccine, which achieves 97% effectiveness against severe disease. Katelyn Jetalina lists 2 advantages of mRNA technology: “[1] Speed: mRNA vaccines can be updated much faster than traditional flu vaccines (3 months vs. 6 months), so they could catch up to flu mutations more quickly.” “[2] Immune response: Early research suggests stronger immune responses, including T cell and memory B cell responses that were comparable to or stronger than those from enhanced flu vaccines used in older adults.” “So, Moderna invested an estimated $500–700 million to develop a new mRNA flu vaccine candidate, called mRNA-1010, and tested it in a Phase 3 trial involving more than 40,000 adults age 50 and older.’ The study compared the mRNA vaccine with a standard licensed flu shot. “Results showed 26% better protection in adults over 50 with the mRNA flu vaccine than with standard flu shots, a meaningful gain. Side effects such as fatigue + chills were more common (as they are with mRNA Covid-19 vaccines).” Note that other regulators—such as those in Europe, Canada, and Australia—have agreed to accept the application. If our FDA slow-walks the whole process then the U.S. will fall behind the world. Most countries I suspect would then have the privilege of receiving the novel mRNA vaccine while Americans would not be able to receive the new vaccine in time for next winter. This would be in dramatic contrast to how quickly the covid-19 vaccine was developed in that epidemic.

YourLocalEpidemiologist: “A slippery slope that could hurt vaccine innovation: Moderna vs. a new FDA.” Last week, Moderna asked the FDA to review its new mRNA flu vaccine after completing a large clinical trial. Instead of reviewing it, the agency sent a “Refuse to File” letter.

Drill site map. A team of 29 scientists, drillers, engineers and polar specialists living in tents on the snow at Crary Ice Rise had to first use a hot-water drill to melt a hole through 523 m of ice, then lowered more than 1300 m of “riser” and “drill string” pipe down the hole. “To our knowledge, the longest sediment cores previously drilled under an ice sheet are less than 10 m,” said Molly Patterson, co-chief scientist and associate professor of earth sciences at Binghamton University. “We exceeded our target of 200 m, and undertook this 700 km from the nearest base—this is Antarctic frontier science.” The first 2 seasons failed to strike pay dirt, but this time they pulled up “228 m of ancient mud and rock,” an archive of past environmental conditions at the site from warmer periods in Earth’s history, vital information for climate scientists to determine how much and how fast the ice sheet will melt in the future under our warming climate. “The vast West Antarctic Ice Sheet holds enough ice to raise global sea levels by 4–5 m if it were to melt completely…but there is uncertainty around the temperature increase that could trigger rapid loss of ice.” Preliminary dating of the sediment carried out in the field was ‘based on identification of tiny fossils of marine organisms found in some of the layers.’ Next, “a wider team of scientists from the 10 countries collaborating in the SWAIS2C project will apply a range of techniques to refine and confirm the age of the records.” Some levels show the ‘presence of shell fragments and the remains of marine organisms that require light to survive, implying the lack of ice above.’ But the beauty of this project is that we will now be able to nail down the dates + temperatures from a key, key period in geologic history. Which will allow us to forecast our future more plainly.

Phys.org: “Record-breaking Antarctic drill reveals 23 million years of climate history.” They were not collecting ice cores this time, rather sub-ice sediment cores.

Sectors of US grid growth.

LinkedIn: “𝟵𝟮% 𝗼𝗳 𝗻𝗲𝘄 𝗨.𝗦. 𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱–𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘄𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀.” The U.S. grid is transforming quickly—with storage playing a bigger role than ever before.

TOPcon solar cell manufacturing. This is highly ironic, as the global solar industry is “quickly adopting new ‘tunnel oxide passivated contact’ (TOPCon) solar cells, which are more efficient than the current industry standard.” This new technology also reduces the carbon footprint of solar cell manufacturing, busting the anti-solar movement’s favorite “solar pollutes” talking point even wider open than it is already. “Citizens for Responsible Solar…or CRS, has loomed large in the US anti-solar disinformation machine since its launch in 2019 by political operative Susan Ralston, known for her tenure at the White House during the George W. Bush presidency.” CRS has a fine grasp of the obvious, “the Sun is free, but harnessing the Sun’s power into usable energy requires industrial processes to make cement, steel, glass and other components…these processes emit CO2.” UK organization Carbon Brief, citing lifecycle emissions data from the United Nations, notes that “a typical ground-mounted solar project produces 19 times fewer emissions than a coal plant and 8 times fewer than a gas plant, per unit of electricity generated. Furthermore, “the shift to TOPCon solar cells has the potential to [further] widen the emissions gap between solar power plants and fossil fuels.” They are even leapfrogging PERC, which stands for ‘passivated emitter rear cell,” which arrived on the scene a decade ago. A research team at the University of Warwick in the UK, “using life-cycle assessment modeling…found that producing the newer TOPCon panels has lower environmental impacts in fifteen out of sixteen categories as compared to the incumbent PERC technology,” Focusing in,“this includes a 6.5% reduction in climate-changing emissions per unit of electricity capacity, with increased silver consumption being the only downside as it depletes critical minerals.” Time to reframe CRS as CARS, or Citizens Against Rational Solar.

CleanTechnica: “TOPCon Solar Cells Are Killing A Key Anti-Solar Talking Point.” Anti-solar groups + government officials never cease to spew falsehoods.

Cattle grazing in mist. “The prevailing narrative is that global rangelands, from grasslands to deserts, are being degraded by overgrazing due to overstocking…a [mis-] perception arises from scientific literature, which contains an order of magnitude more studies on overstocking than on reductions in stocking rates.” Anadón and Sala found that stocking rates have already declined over the past 25 years in many regions, including Europe, North America, Australia, and northern Africa. In fact, “42% of grazing livestock species are experiencing reductions in stocking rate, while stocking rates increased in other regions.” The duality of increases and decreases of stocking rates challenges the prevailing focus on overgrazing in research. These researchers offer a more ‘nuanced understanding of extensive livestock systems and highlight the urgent need to reconsider the role of global grazing in shaping food security, biodiversity, and the carbon, water, and energy dimensions of global environmental change.’ Thus they evaluated socioeconomic, technological, and climatic direct drivers, as well as indirect drivers, of global stocking patterns. “Trade and climate had no detectable effects, whereas technological shifts and meat consumption had an impact on stocking rates…direct drivers were largely controlled by human population and gross domestic product.” Individuals, policymakers, politicians + governments should beware of overgeneralizing when it comes to livestock. That said, clearly my bias is still to limit the total number of livestock + individual meat + milk consumption.

AAAS: “Global destocking of extensive livestock: An overlooked trend with Earth system consequences.” A full one-quarter of the terrestrial land on our planet that is neither permafrost nor snow/ice-covered is used for ‘managed grazing.’

"They will deploy satellites, underwater drones, and a research icebreaker to study the fast-changing region.” They plan to probe everything from new shipping routes opened up because of seasonal sea ice loss to how changes in ocean circulation affect fish stocks, all over the next decade. Down south, “Germany’s Alfred Wegener Institute and international partners are gearing up for Antarctica InSync, a series of field campaigns in Antarctica and the Southern Ocean to commence in 2027.” American participation is tricky, because scientists have to figure out how to reframe this for Trump, who is recalcitrant about anything dealing with climate, so they will style this as being about national security. “For example, insights into coastal erosion and permafrost subsidence that threaten Alaskan villages could also apply to coastal radar stations.” Additionally, “national security requires a good understanding of sea ice movements, which also happen to be a critical component of climate dynamics.” Arctic change can also affect space-based assets. “In early February 2022, SpaceX lost some 40 Starlink satellites just days after launch after a geomagnetic storm heated and expanded the upper atmosphere over the polar caps, increasing drag and pulling the spacecraft down before engineers could boost them to a safer orbit.” It is essential to study how a warming planet influences the upper atmosphere’s chemistry + density to make such events more likely. “An especially big blow has been the loss of access to Russian sites monitoring carbon emissions from thawing permafrost, which by 2100 could rival those of a large industrialized nation, accelerating global warming.” To compensate for the loss of Russian data, new stations are being set up in Alaska and Canada. If Trump cannot be persuaded, this American pogrom against science will be another in a long list of tragedies authored by this administration.

AAAS: “Politics and war complicate global effort to study changes to Earth’s poles.” As part of the fifth International Polar Year (IPY-5), a global push to study the planet’s most remote regions, “Norway will fan out across the Arctic Ocean from Svalbard to the North Pole.”

Icy Northeast recently. Particularly during winter cold spells, when demand for fossil gas exceeds supply.’ And, grid operators have been eagerly awaiting ‘offshore wind capacity to come online to help meet the rising electricity needs of data centers and electrified homes and vehicles.’ The justification has been borne out: “The data from January shows that “the nation’s two operating utility-scale offshore wind farms—South Fork Wind and Vineyard Wind—performed as well as gas-fired power plants and better than coal-fired facilities, including during last month’s Winter Storm Fern.” Happily for the developers, ‘the 132-megawatt [MW] South Fork Wind farm delivered power to Long Island, New York City, at a level the puts it on par with New York state’s most efficient gas plants.’ Mikkel Mæhlisen, vice president of the Americas Generation division for Ørsted, which jointly owns South Fork Wind with Skyborn Renewables, said, “the wind capacity in the Northeast is absolutely amazing, particularly over the winter.” Vineyard Wind, about 95% installed, can already produce as much as 600 MW of clean electricity off the coast of Massachusetts. This + 4 other offshore wind farms were forced to halt construction late last year in response to Trump’s stop-work orders, which cited putative ​“national security” concerns. Fortunately, “federal judges have allowed all five projects to proceed as the developers’ complaints move through the legal system.” However, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says the Trump administration plans to appeal those court rulings, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday. Once Vinyard Wind is fully operational, it will deliver power at a price of $84.23 per MWh to the New England grid—markedly less than spot wholesale prices during the storm, which spiked to over $870 per MWh on Jan. 25. [Over 10-fold higher]. One could rationally argue that the White House is irrational in it opposition to clean, secure, homegrown power.

CanaryMedia: “Offshore wind showed up big during the East Coast’s brutal cold.” Energy experts have forecast that ‘offshore wind could deliver substantial amounts of power to densely populated, land-constrained communities along America’s East Coast.’

Mounded guano on islands. “With very little rainfall rinsing these islands’ rocks, a sticky mixture of seabird excrement, feathers, eggshells, and bird bones has accumulated in mounds up to 50 meters tall.” Research published today in PLOS One suggests that on these islands, this tradition of harvesting guano extends further back in time than historians previously realized. “According to the new study, seafaring precursors to the Inca known as the Chincha rafted to the islands some 800 years ago to collect seabird poop for enriching their arid coastal fields.” The Chincha’s skill at harvesting this valuable fertilizer—inferred from the chemistry of maize [corn] recovered from Chincha graves—may have earned them an elevated status when they were later absorbed into the Inca empire in the mid-1400s. “Claudio Latorre Hidalgo, a paleoecologist at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, agrees, noting that the waters off Peru and Chile are notably nutrient-dense because of ocean upwelling—which makes the local seabird poop especially potent.” Chincha tombs contain pottery and cloth decorated with geometric seabird designs, with some of the birds snacking on fish. “There are birds everywhere, on everything,” co-author Jo Osborn, a zooarchaeologist at Texas A&M University says—possibly out of “an appreciation that guano is one of the most powerful natural fertilizers.” After the islands were depleted, in the 20th century the Haber-Bosch process was invented for production of ammonia. A story for another time perhaps.

AAAS: “Pre-Incans collected seabird poop from remote islands to use as fertilizer.” In the 19th century Spain + Peru went to war over guano from a small archipelago off the coast of Peru.

American Drought Note that D3 or Extreme Drought is affecting many of the contiguous 48 states as of several days ago, but if you look carefully there is also D4 or Exceptional Drought in 2 small areas in southern Texas + another 2 in NE Arkansas. “There was a strong east-to-west temperature gradient again this week, with below-normal temperatures across much of the East and above-normal temperatures across the West.” Another week of localized precipitation that missed large portions of the country led to expanding precipitation deficits. “Although some mountain snow fell, critically low snowpack with snow-water equivalent levels below the 15th percentile continues to dominate much of the [western U.S.] and support ongoing drought expansion.” Many areas have drying soil, thus vegetation, also lower streamflows, contributing to the problem. One of my brothers-in-law lives on the Big Island of Hawaii, where “strong trade winds brought heavy precipitation and wind to the windward slopes of Molokai, Maui and the Big Island, where 4 to 10 inches of rain fell at lower elevations and snow at higher elevations, supporting ‘one-class’ improvements in those areas.” Lot more granular detail on the site, + I invite you to check this out + perhaps refer to the website from time to time. Any guesses as to how this map will look come summer? Or would you prefer to keep your head stuck in—the sand? Which is getting hot + dry.

U.S. Drought Monitor: “Map released: February 12, 2026.” May seem odd to be concerned about drought almost smack dab in the middle of our northern hemispheric winter. The color key developed by the National Drought Mitigation Center lies near the bottom.

Fire in LA 2024. Fortunately, success followed after months of speculation that proposed White House cuts to NASA’s budget would mean the program would only fund a single mission. “Ross Salawitch, an atmospheric chemist at the University of Maryland, attributes the selection of both satellites to scientists’ lobbying efforts to maintain research funding.” Last month Congress passed a $7.25 B budget for NASA’s science programs for the current fiscal year—a 1.1% reduction from last year, rather than the 47% cut the White House requested. “One of the missions, the Earth Dynamics Geodetic Explorer (EDGE), will map the elevation of the planet’s ice and land to within 3 cm on flat ground…a laser instrument on the satellite will measure height across five 120-m strips, allowing it to cover almost all of the planet’s surface more quickly than current instruments in orbit.” This will allow researchers to map the growth and harvesting of crops, the thickness of sea ice and ice sheets, and the canopies of forests before and after wildfires. “The second mission, called the Stratosphere Troposphere Response using Infrared Vertically-resolved light Explorer (STRIVE), will target the upper atmosphere, between 5 and 50 kilometers above the surface.” STRIVE will look ‘sidelong,’ through the ‘limb’ of the atmosphere, to take a vertical profile of the temperature and chemistry of the upper troposphere + lower stratosphere with an infrared sensor, “It will collect more profiles of the atmosphere in 2 months than a comparable instrument now in orbit on NASA’s Aura satellite has collected in 2 decades.” Earth-directed missions critically needed. Way to go, NASA.

AAAS: “NASA greenlights two earth science missions, to researchers’ relief.” The photo shows the sort of phenomenon we desperately need to study.

Shrimp staring you down. But snapping shrimp have another weapon: “To stun prey and fight one another for mates and territory, the tiny crustaceans shoot out high-speed jets of water that trigger supersonic shock waves with the snap of a claw.” These crustaceans are of the class Malacostraca and order Decapoda—related to crabs, lobsters + crayfish—decapodal means they have 10 walking legs. But why do they not succumb to the intense blast they generate? “It turns out that like professional football players, snapping shrimp shield their brains and eyes from concussive forces with protective headgear, according to a study published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.” Scientists from the University of South Carolina and the University of Tulsa discovered snapping shrimp in the Alpheidaegenus have transparent hoods built into their exoskeletons that soften the impact to the crustaceans’ heads. The researchers “found that the hooded structure was half as stiff as the hard shell [exoskeletons], making it twice as effective at dissipating the stress from a blow as the hard shells.” Consistent with computer modeling, earlier behavioral experiments revealed that “shrimp with the shields were unharmed by shock waves, whereas shrimp without their hoods were disoriented and lost some of their mobility.” Some obvious implications for protecting athletes in contact sports. My bias? Tennis + swimming are lifetime sports without risk of blunt head trauma.

AAAS: “Snapping shrimp use headgear to protect their brains from shock waves.” The undersea world is ‘full of claws, sharp teeth and stingers.’

New Changan EV. “The world’s first mass-produced sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery for cars has entered mass production and will be sold in China in the upcoming Changan Nevo A06 EV.” This battery technology, developed by CATL [world’s largest manufacturer of EV batteries], has just finished winter testing in Inner Mongolia, where temperatures regularly drop well below what most EVs are designed to handle. “According to Gizmochina, the Nevo A06 was able to charge without issue at around -30°C (-22°F) and continued operating at temperatures as low as -50°C (-58°F).” The company states that at -40°C (-40°F), the battery retained more than 90% of its original capacity, a level of performance that is very hard to achieve with conventional lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. Incidentally, LFP are the batteries that we had installed in case of grid outages in a rental home next door. “The CATL Naxtra sodium-ion battery pack is claimed to be the first that’s certified for use in passenger vehicles and the version selected by Changan has a capacity of 45 kWh, which means it only delivers around 250 miles of range on China’s CLTC test cycle.” You may scoff, but I have been driving a 2022 Hyundai Kona EV on trips up + down the West Coast with exactly this EPA-rated range. Let me hasten to add—driving range—not temperature tolerance. But then I don’t plan to drive around Inner Mongolia. Especially not in wintertime. Shudder at the very thought.

Techradar.com: “World’s first EV with a sodium-ion battery has landed—and it beats traditional lithium batteries in one key way.” Cheaper sodium-ion batteries are rapidly becoming a reality.