The Hole in the Ice at the End of the Earth

Won Sang Lee, right, and a colleague after setting up a tent on the Thwaites glacier

By Raymond Zhong, The New York Times

The glacier’s rippling mass sprawled from the hills and volcanoes of the Antarctic interior out into the Southern Ocean, covering an area the size of Britain. Won Sang Lee stood on its ice, his tall frame wrapped in a red polar suit, and watched his team at work. Nine scientists, engineers, and guides, some of whom had been planning this mission with him for more than half a decade. Now, they were at its final stage: drilling through the melting glacier to reach the vast ocean cavity beneath it.

They were tired and hungry. They kept themselves going with tea, crackers, and protein bars. They’d crossed the world’s wildest ocean, flown in helicopters over the wasteland of the glacier’s wounded ice, then toiled for days through lashing winds, all for a shot, a single shot, at piercing the ice at the bottom of the Earth. Periodically, they heard booms as the glacier shifted and crevassed under their feet.

The team’s scientists knew that warm currents were eating away at this glacier, the Thwaites, from below. They also knew that, sometime in the coming decades, Thwaites could give out entirely, causing so much ice to heave into the ocean over several centuries that it might raise global sea levels by more than 15 feet

Read the full story here

Raymond Zhong spent two months aboard the research ship Araon

The Hole in the Ice at the End of the Earth Read More »

Opinion: PJM Data Conflicts With The Perception Of A Power Crisis 

By Bill Wolf in Wolfenotes

Why are NJ ratepayers paying billions of dollars and outrageous PJM “capacity charges”, when PJM is exporting power and maintaining HUGE and EXPENSIVE reserve margins?

Who will ask Gov. Sherrill those questions?

Virtually every news article and statement by public officials about rising electric energy costs – especially including NJ “energy emergency” Gov. Sherrill – emphasizes an alleged growing crisis due to increasing power demand (mostly from data centers) outstripping available supply (due to coal plant retirements).

They claim that this mismatch between growing demand and shrinking supply explains skyrocketing electricity prices and threatens “grid reliability”.

The regional grid operator, PJM, even threatens that rolling blackouts and brownouts are likely.

But PJM’s own data belie these claims.

It’s mostly exaggerations, spin, and falsehoods used to justify skyrocketing energy prices, PJM’s rigged market, and outrageous corporate profits, and to pressure governments to enact fossil and nuclear power-dominated “reliable” “base load” generation capacity and reduce the role of renewable energy options.

The so-called “growing data center demand” is an unreliable projection and an exaggeration.

Read the full essay here

Related: New Jersey’s soaring electricity rates may be rigged

Bill Wolfe is a former NJDEP official and a long-time environmental blogger

Opinion: PJM Data Conflicts With The Perception Of A Power Crisis  Read More »

GOP leader wants NJ to withdraw from RGGI, like Pennsylvania

 

New Jersey Senate Republican Leader Anthony M. Bucco (R-Morris, Passaic) is urging immediate action to address rising energy costs, calling on Governor Mikie Sherrill to consider Republican-led proposals that would deliver immediate relief and sustained relief for New Jersey families.

     “Ending New Jersey’s decades-old moratorium on nuclear power plants was a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done to actually bring energy costs down,” said Senator Bucco. “I’ve heard from concerned constituents in my district, and the dollar amount that people are paying on their monthly bills is not decreasing. That is a clear sign that the current policy of freezing electricity rates is not working.”

     According to a new report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, New Jersey experienced the largest regional spike in energy bills in 2025 (16.9%) compared to Pennsylvania (12.1%) and Delaware (6.1%). Experts are warning that additional price spikes could occur in the coming months.

     Senator Bucco and fellow Republican lawmakers in the Senate have proposed a series of initiatives to directly lower energy bills, which were frequently dismissed by Governor Sherrill’s predecessor.

     Among the Republican-led proposals is Senator Bucco’s legislation, S2463, to withdraw New Jersey from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). Recognizing that RGGI was causing consumer energy bills to skyrocket, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D), pulled out of RGGI in 2025.

     “For months, I’ve warned that New Jersey’s participation in RGGI only serves as a hidden tax on energy that gets passed directly onto residents who are already struggling to afford their bills,” said Senator Bucco. “If other Democrat governors are pulling out of RGGI, why can’t we? Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize an ideological agenda that is making our state less affordable and less competitive.”

     Senate Republicans have also introduced the following bills to address rising costs:

     * S2466, introduced by Senator Anthony Bucco (R-Morris, Passaic) and Senator Kristin Corrado (R-Bergen, Essex, Passaic). This bill would lower the state sales tax from 6.625 percent to 6 percent, effectively lowering costs on everything from energy to groceries; and

     * S1932, introduced by Senator Latham Tiver (R-Atlantic, Burlington) and Senator Joe Pennacchio (R-Morris, Passaic). This bill would suspend the sales and use tax and the Societal Benefits charge (SBC) on electric and gas bills, saving the average household hundreds of dollars in energy costs.

GOP leader wants NJ to withdraw from RGGI, like Pennsylvania Read More »

Drones can provide farmers with a less expensive mapping tool

By Jeff Mulhollem, Penn State University News

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Environmental scientists and water resource managers need precise, high-resolution maps to reveal areas that farmers should avoid when planting crops, to limit the pollution of waters with phosphorus from fertilizer or manure. Making those maps has depended on an expensive, sometimes unavailable technology, but a team led by Penn State researchers has developed a cheaper approach that can be just as effective.

The researchers’ novel system, detailed in a paper available online ahead of publication in the June issue of Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, uses drones and photogrammetry, a technology that develops reliable 3D spatial information by analyzing overlapping 2D photographs. With this system, the team can map hydrologically sensitive areas — locations where water tends to collect or flow, creating high runoff risk — and phosphorus critical source areas, where phosphorus is likely to wash into streams and pollute them. They found that the drone-photogrammetry approach was cheaper, more accessible and nearly as accurate as conventional mapping.

The team tested the accuracy and resolution of maps created with the new method against maps made using a technology called LiDAR, which stands for light detection and ranging. It is a remote-sensing technology deployed from aircraft or satellites that uses laser pulses to measure distances to the Earth, creating precise, high-resolution maps. LiDAR is accurate but expensive and not always accessible, according to study co-author and team leader Patrick Drohan, professor of pedology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

Read the full story here

Drones can provide farmers with a less expensive mapping tool Read More »

Ontario returns to large-scale renewable contracts

Ontario has awarded contracts for 14 new solar and wind projects under its LT2 procurement, marking a return to large-scale renewables as the province prepares for surging electricity demand.

By Derick Lila, PPV Buzz  April 10, 2026

Ontario has taken a decisive step back into large-scale renewable energy procurement, awarding contracts for 14 new wind and solar projects in what officials describe as the province’s most significant clean energy expansion in more than a decade.

The projects, selected through the first “Energy Stream” window of the province’s Long-Term 2 (LT2) procurement, will add roughly 1,315 megawatts of capacity and generate about 3 terawatt-hours of electricity annually—enough to power more than 350,000 homes.

The announcement marks a notable shift in Ontario’s energy strategy. Since 2018, when the provincial government canceled hundreds of renewable contracts amid concerns over high costs, large-scale wind and solar development had largely stalled.

IESO

Credit: Independent Electricity System Operator

Now, faced with electricity demand projected to rise by as much as 90% by 2050, the province is reintroducing renewables through competitive procurement, an approach designed to drive down costs and restore investor confidence.

Read the full story here

Ontario returns to large-scale renewable contracts Read More »

Harnessing old oil and gas wells to produce geothermal energy?

Three men in work suits and hard hats by a drilling rig
Drilling rig operators plug an abandoned oil well near Shelby, Montana, on behalf of the Well Done Foundation. (Adrian Sanchez-Gonzalez for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

By Maria Gallucci, Canary Media, May 12, 2026

As states seek out much-needed supplies of clean, reliable energy, some are looking to an unconventional source: abandoned oil and gas wells harnessed for geothermal heat.

Millions of inactive wells are littered across the United States, the relics of earlier eras of fossil fuel production. A large number of the sites have no official owner, and many continue to pollute groundwater and leak heat-trapping methane. The country has barely scratched the surface in dealing with this problem.

Policymakers in both Republican- and Democratic-led states are exploring whether these sites could instead be converted into new geothermal energy wells. The holes are already drilled in the ground, after all. And regions with widespread oil and gas development have rich subsurface data that geothermal firms need in order to determine where and how to build their carbon-free systems.

The concept is relatively new and largely untested, though scientists and startups are working to change that. States are also laying the groundwork for action by lifting regulatory hurdles and launching in-depth studies.

Read the full story here

Harnessing old oil and gas wells to produce geothermal energy? Read More »