It’s cold in the U.S. Here’s why some buildings turned down the heat.

Washington on Sunday evening. The weekend storm dumped a foot or more of snow in at least 17 states from New Mexico to New Hampshire. Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

By Claire Brown, The New York Times

It’s cold in the U.S. Here’s why some buildings turned down the heat.

And they’ll get paid for it.

It’s part of a strategy called demand response, used by power grid operators during peak energy use, such as cold snaps and heat waves. The idea is to reduce power demand when supply is tight by incentivizing big electricity customers to use less.

That could mean a bitcoin mine shuts down for a few hours. Or a hospital might switch on a backup power generator, reducing the amount of electricity it pulls from the grid. Big box stores might adjust the thermostat, refrigeration, or lighting to save energy.

In theory, if enough large power customers signed up for demand response, an alert from the grid operator would swiftly trigger a significant, voluntary drop in regional electricity use, freeing up power to heat homes and avoid blackouts.

Think of it as subtracting a power plant’s worth of demand instead of adding a power plant’s worth of supply. The companies coordinating all that subtraction are known as virtual power plants.

Read the full story

If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it. Try it free for a whole month

It’s cold in the U.S. Here’s why some buildings turned down the heat. Read More »

Dead livestock, lost farms all due to PFAS in toxic sludge

Screenshot 2026-01-22 091420.png

Maine farmer, Fred Stone, lost his livelihood after he says he had to euthanize most of his herd of dairy cows because of the levels of PFAS in their milk.

by LISA FLETCHER, ANDREA NEJMAN & NATHAN AARON | SPOTLIGHT ON AMERICA

VIEW ALL PHOTOS

WASHINGTON (SOA) — America’s farmland may be facing a growing contamination crisis — one that farmers, environmental groups, and some lawmakers now say can no longer be ignored.

What was once considered a safe, low-cost fertilizer is now being linked to dead livestock, lost livelihoods, and families caught in the fallout of toxic “forever chemicals” spreading through agricultural land. It’s a story we’ve been following for years – that’s coming to a head in states that are dealing with the fallout of toxic PFAS.

“This should have been taken care of decades ago,” said attorney Laura Dumais, as she explained to me some of the nuanced language being used by the EPA to shield itself from responsibility for regulating PFAS. For years, farmers across the country have spread biosolid sludge — made from treated human waste — on their fields. The material was promoted as fertilizer. But mounting evidence shows it can contain dangerous levels of PFAS, a class of chemicals tied to cancer, reproductive harm, and developmental problems in children.

This past year, our series of investigations into PFAS contamination in farmland and food systems has examined how chemicals in sludge can move from soil to animals, food, and people.

Dumais, with the advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, or PEER, is leading a lawsuit accusing the Environmental Protection Agency of failing to protect farmers in Texas who say PFAS contamination destroyed their farms.

The allegations echo what happened in Maine, where farmer Fred Stone says he unknowingly poisoned his family — and lost both his livestock and livelihood — after PFAS-contaminated sludge was spread on his land.

“This is as real as it gets, folks,” said Stone as he stood inside a near-empty barn on his family farm.

Stone says the PFAS-contaminated sludge that he spread on his farm destroyed the life he built for his family. State testing found PFAS levels on his farm so high that he was forced to shut down operations, leaving him unable to sell his milk or continue farming.

Read the full story here

Dead livestock, lost farms all due to PFAS in toxic sludge Read More »

Is Trump losing his war against wind power?

By Jake Spring, Washington Post

The White House suffered three court losses last week, and the oil industry has grown alarmed by the president’s vendetta against the offshore wind industry.

And in recent months, an informal coalition of companies across the energy industry, including oil and clean energy firms, has emerged to push for an end to the targeting of wind energy, fearing they could fall prey to the same tactics in the future.

“We know what administrations can do to our projects when they have opposition to building pipelines or other energy infrastructure. This has never just been about wind,” said Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute lobby group.

The blocked wind projects have become inextricably linked to a push in Congress to overhaul the system for permitting infrastructure projects, a top legislative objective for oil firms. While a bill passed in the House, Senate debate broke down after the administration’s Dec. 22 stop-work orders for all five offshore wind projects under construction on the East Coast. Negotiations remain on hold.

“It’s time for both sides to put their weapons downand let’s work on getting comprehensive permitting reform done in this Congress,” Sommers said.

Still, analysts agree that Trump’s personal preferences are driving the anti-wind policy. More than a decade ago, he unsuccessfully sued to stop offshore wind turbines built near a Scottish golf course he owned and has apparently nursed a grudge ever since. The mounting court losses and industry pressure may not change his mind.

Read the full story

If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it. Try it free for a whole month

Is Trump losing his war against wind power? Read More »

When the sun sets on solar panels, these gas-filled domes kick in

A white oblong dome bigger than a sports stadium, multiple tanks and a photovoltaic array on a rural landscape
Energy Dome began operating its 20-megawatt, long-duration energy-storage facility in July 2025 in Ottana, Sardinia. In 2026, replicas of the system will begin popping up on multiple continents. 

By Luigi Avantaggiato, IEEE Spectrum

This giant bubble on the island of Sardinia holds 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. But the gas wasn’t captured from factory emissions, nor was it pulled from the air. It comes from a gas supplier and lives permanently within the dome’s system to serve an eco-friendly purpose: storing large amounts of excess renewable energy until it’s needed.

Developed by the Milan-based company Energy Dome, the bubble and its surrounding machinery demonstrate a first-of-its-kind “CO2 Battery,” as the company calls it. The facility compresses and expands CO2 daily in its closed system, turning a turbine that generates 200 megawatt-hours of electricity, or 20 MW over 10 hours. And in 2026, replicas of this plant will start popping up across the globe.

We mean that literally. It takes just half a day to inflate the bubble. The rest of the facility can be built in less than 2 years and can be done just about anywhere with 5 hectares of flat land.

This article is part of our special report Top Tech 2026.

The first to build one outside of Sardinia will be one of India’s largest power companies, NTPC Limited. The company expects to complete its CO2 Battery sometime in 2026 at the Kudgi power plant in Karnataka, in India. In Wisconsin, meanwhile, the public utility Alliant Energy received the all-clear from authorities to begin construction of one in 2026 to supply power to 18,000 homes.

And Google likes the concept so much that it plans to rapidly deploy the facilities at all of its key data center locations in Europe, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific region. The idea is to provide electricity-guzzling data centers with round-the-clock clean energy, even when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. The partnership with Energy Dome, announced in July, marked Google’s first investment in long-duration energy storage.

Read the full story

If you like this post, you’ll love our daily environmental newsletter, EnviroPolitics. It’s packed daily with the latest news, commentary, and legislative updates from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, Delaware…and beyond. Don’t take our word for it. Try it free for a whole month

When the sun sets on solar panels, these gas-filled domes kick in Read More »