a 12 months in evaluation – This Week in Cleantech

This Week in Cleantech is a weekly podcast masking basically probably the most impactful tales in clear energy and native climate that features Paul Gerke of Subject This and Tigercomm’s Mike Casey.

This week’s episode choices explicit customer Dana Clare Redden from our “Cleantecher of the Yr” committee, who launched our “Cleantechers of the Yr.”

Chip instruments maker ASML Holding NV performs such an needed operate in superior computing that its fortunes can kind every the Dutch financial system and the worldwide advance of AI. Now, the company needs to assemble a model new campus inside the Eindhoven space that may make use of as a lot as 20,000 people, however it certainly relies upon upon whether or not or not they will entry {an electrical} vitality connection.

It is just considered one of 12,000 corporations inside the Netherlands trying to find interconnection, and congestion factors are vulnerable to proceed for as a lot as a decade, even with grid operators investing the equal of $9.3 billion yearly. Till the Dutch grid is strengthened further quickly, the nation may lose between €8 billion and €30 billion yearly in monetary train and sustainability benefits. That’s as so much as €1,800 per particular person yearly.

Ford has halted manufacturing of its all-electric F-150 Lightning pickup truck, opting to as a substitute consider making hybrid cars and a means ahead for smaller and cheaper EVs. Ford talked about this dedication is following weaker than anticipated purchaser demand and that the F-150 Lightning was a money-loser.

The company will pivot to a hybrid mannequin of the F-150 with a gasoline engine and a generator that allows cars to keep up driving even when the battery runs out, giving it larger than 700 miles of differ. Ford is specializing in a price degree of $30,000 and expects them to roll out a couple of 12 months from now.

The Earth makes small portions of hydrogen when water reacts with iron-rich rocks underground, nonetheless the course of is sluggish and usually happens deep beneath the ground or in parts too small for enterprise curiosity. Startup Vema Hydrogen’s thought is to rush this course of up by pumping water and a catalyst into iron-rich rocks nearer to the ground, producing greater, commercially viable portions of what it calls “orange hydrogen.”

The company is saying a 10-year conditional offtake settlement with off-grid info coronary heart vitality startup Verne to supply over 36,000 metric tons of orange hydrogen for info amenities yearly. This comes after Vema’s $13 million seed spherical earlier this 12 months, which helps the company’s plans to take its hydrogen experiments into the sphere.

The Trump Administration has talked about it’s going to dismantle considered one of many world’s most important atmospheric and native climate evaluation labs, the Nationwide Center for Atmospheric Evaluation, established in 1960 for evaluation in atmospheric chemistry and bodily meteorology.

The Administration talked about it needs to lower “inexperienced new rip-off evaluation actions,” nonetheless “necessary options” paying homage to local weather modeling and supercomputing will in all probability be moved to a distinct entity.

The evaluation lab has about 830 employees, nonetheless it is unclear what variety of jobs this dismantling would affect. Purposes flagged by the Administration embrace an Indigenous science coronary heart, a water-focused paintings sequence, and evaluation on how local weather and native climate affect offshore wind manufacturing.

2025 began with the raging wildfires in Los Angeles. Then, upon taking office, Trump quickly began overhauling environmental corporations and nixing environmental pointers. His One Huge Beautiful Bill moreover tore up the Inflation Low cost Act. We observed the 4th of July weekend flash flooding in Texas, killing not lower than 135 people, and Hurricane Melissa destroying parts of The Caribbean.

The market share for model spanking new EVs in Oslo, Norway elevated from 13.6% to 95.8% over a decade, photograph voltaic panels have gotten so low price it’s now further economical to deploy renewables than assemble fossil gasoline vegetation, and wind and photograph voltaic are exceeding the worldwide rise in demand for electrical vitality.