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Rising energy and fertiliser prices linked to the conflict in the Middle East are increasing the risk of global food insecurity, prompting renewed questions about how to strengthen food security and reduce dependence on fragile global supply chains.

The biggest data centre in Australia will be built in its only 100 pct net renewables grid. And it could have a major impact, including eliminating negative demand.

The post AI giant chooses Australia’s first 100 pct (net) renewable grid to build country’s biggest data centre appeared first on Renew Economy.

State commits nearly $18 million to the establishment of collection, transport and processing pathways for end-of-life solar panels and batteries.

The post Solar recycling: State tips $17.8 million into waste PV and battery collection, processing appeared first on Renew Economy.

In an exclusive interview, Tesla Energy's Asia Pacific boss Josef Tadich discusses energy abundance (read solar), the role of batteries big and small, hybrids, the EV surge and the arrival of V2G.

The post Energy Insiders Podcast: Tesla Energy boss on energy abundance, EVs, V2G and big and small batteries appeared first on Renew Economy.

Critical policies that could unlock funding for cycling and pedestrian infrastructure across America have cleared the first hurdle in Congress — and the advocates who fought for them are launching a national nonprofit to promote a model that they hope can get the bill across the finish line and achieve similar wins.

Last month, advocates for the bipartisan Sarah Debbink Langenkamp Safety Act celebrated after legislators folded several key provisions of the bill into the House’s latest major transportation law, the BUILD America 250 Act.

That bill passed out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on May 22, and will now make its way through a months-long legislative gauntlet known as the federal “reauthorization” process. If the Langenkamp provisions survive those negotiations on Capitol Hill, though, they will explicitly encourage communities across America to spend their guaranteed Highway Safety Improvement Program dollars on filling gaps in their active transportation networks for the first time.

Even better, these provisions will allow communities to fortify their bike lanes and greenways with federal money alone. In years past, the same process required an onerous local match that many governments pointed to as an excuse to neglect people outside of cars in their HSIP plans.

“There is tremendous bipartisan support in the country for making our roadways far more pedestrian and cyclist friendly,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), who introduced the legislation, in an interview with Streetsblog. “And this is especially true at a time of soaring gasoline prices. The pressure has been on for us to make sure that our tax dollars go to help people who are using every conceivable kind of transportation — including walking and bicycling.”

Recommended New Law Would Honor Legacy of Slain Cyclist Sarah Langenkamp By Helping Cities Fill Bike Network Gaps Kea Wilson March 30, 2023

They might sound wonky, but the measures outlined in the Langenkamp Act have topped many advocates’ policy wishlists for years. Proponents say they could unlock millions of dollars and catalyze countless active transportation projects that wouldn’t otherwise happen.

But they’ve been particularly urgent since the 2022 death of the mother, diplomat and cycling advocate for whom the bill is named — and the advocacy rides her family have organized in her memory every year since.

Known as the Ride For Your Life, these rolling protests have flooded D.C. streets with thousands of cyclists who turned out to demonstrate their support for Langenkamp’s namesake law and other measures to end traffic violence.

Langenkamp’s family recently established a nonprofit that will fight for similar legislation across the country. With each campaign, they’ll organize similar advocacy rides, which the family described as the cornerstone of their efforts. Raskin said these rides were essential to “mobilize focus and attention” around his legislation.

“People keep getting killed on our roads, and almost everywhere that happens, there’s a huge community of people who want to do something about it,” said Dan Langenkamp, Sarah’s husband. “I hope that we can work with those people to help channel their grief and anger into advocacy.”

Recommended Essay: Sarah Langenkamp Loved Biking. She Shouldn’t Have Died Because of It. Dan Langenkamp December 1, 2022

Of course, Ride For Your Life isn’t the first or only organization to adopt the humble group ride as a tool for policy change.

Cyclists who participated in Amsterdam’s Stop De Kindermoord protests in the 70s, for instance, helped transform the Netherlands into the biking capital of the world by laying down alongside their bikes in the street — long before the word “die-in” was common parlance.

More recently, the Magnus White Cycling Safety Act gained significant momentum after the Ride for Magnus: Ride For Your Life turned out more than 4,300 cyclists across 48 states. The provisions of that bill, which would require new cars to carry automatic braking systems capable of detecting cyclists and pedestrians, also appear in the current draft of BUILD America 250.

But Langenkamp says that other bike advocates still struggle to identify the kind of hyper-specific demands that could truly save lives on the road — or to meaningfully engage the powerful people who can fulfill those demands. And even well-intentioned organizes sometimes struggle to successfully tie “awareness” rides to their cause, he said.

With support from an organization that’s done all three, though, he hopes Ride for Your Life can help organizers conduct advocacy rides with real impact — and pass laws with real teeth.

“What we’re trying to do is affect real change on the ground by pairing our rides with legislation or policy asks,” Langenkamp stressed. “We bring in not only the families or people impacted by traffic violence, but also sympathetic legislators, the general public, and advocates to this effort. It actually works in getting things done.”

Recommended Memorial Ride For Teen Cycling Phenom Killed by Driver Hopes to Inspire National Change Kea Wilson August 5, 2024

Both Langenkamp and Rep. Raskin acknowledged that their bill alone won’t end the epidemic of cyclist deaths in America, and that group rides alone aren’t always enough to get good legislation off the ground. Even with much of the Langenkamp act included, the larger bill to which their legislation belongs drastically overfunds highways at the expense of other modes, and it will take all kinds of organizing to change that, including flipping seats in Congress itself.

“That’s really what elections need to be about,” added Raskin. “We need to have a rigorous public conversation about whether or not we are doing enough to invest in our transportation infrastructure in a way that benefits everybody in the country — and not just motorists.”

With Ride For Your Life events planned in Madison, Boston, and D.C. this autumn, Langenkamp hopes his group will continually refine their recipe for demanding change through more rides and smart organizing — and, in the process, potentially create a powerful new community of advocates on wheels.

“We all know that there are more than 100 people killed a day on U.S. roads — and it’s not just cyclists and pedestrians, it’s everybody,” said Langenkamp. “There’s no reason why there should not be more people interested in this subject … I think that we can actually help change the narrative and make this a higher priority issue, if we organize better.”

Construction of the LTESA-winning battery is set to start this year after the federal government gave the project the environmental green light.

The post Contested big battery with up to 10 hours of storage gets final green light appeared first on Renew Economy.

• A chemical in tires that’s already known to kill spawning salmon when it runs off into rivers may be harmful to humans as well, according to Yale researchers. (E360)
• If the future of transportation is privately owned autonomous vehicles and not fleets of robotaxis, traffic could grind to a complete halt. (City Lab; paywall)
• Buses and trains are a cheaper and more efficient way to move people around than cars, but transit agencies need to figure out how to compete with the fact that a car can take you exactly where you want to go. (Pedestrian Observations)
• The Vision Zero Network recommends addressing inequities in traffic stops by focusing on serious, potentially deadly offenses like speeding and drunk driving, rather than minor equipment infractions like broken taillights.
• Drivers kill thousands of people a year in places like parking lots and driveways that don’t count as roads. (Jalopnik)
• Uber is capping the amount of money employees can spend on AI after the company blew through its AI budget for the year in four months (Tech Crunch), but insists that announcement of layoffs is unrelated (CNBC).
• Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson proposed increasing bus frequency by doubling a 0.15 percent sales tax for King County Transit. (The Urbanist)
• The Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority delayed the unveiling of new train cars, and it’s unclear whether they’ll be ready in time for the World Cup. (11 Alive)
• The redevelopment of Baltimore’s Penn Station is on hold. (Banner)
• Pittsburgh transit advocates rallied in the Pennsylvania capital of Harrisburg demanding more funding for paratransit to help disabled residents. (WTAE)
• Contrary to the advice of experts like Donald Shoup, Cleveland is lowering the cost of on-street parking. (19 News)
• Drivers keep blocking an East Nashville bike lane. (WKRN)
• The head of Milwaukee County’s government authorized deputies to impound vehicles for owners’ reckless driving. (Urban Milwaukee)
• A California authority signed a contract to electrify 119 miles of high-speed rail. (Railway Age)
• Honolulu’s bikeshare is down to less than 500 bikes from 1,300, partly due to vandalism. (Civil Beat)
• Seattle train service was disrupted when a 70-year-old driver followed her car’s GPS onto elevated tracks. (KIRO)
• Santa Clara prosecutors issued a warrant for 49ers star Brandon Aiyuk’s arrest after he posted a video of himself speeding. (ESPN)
• Bogota, which has the largest bus rapid transit system in the world, is finally getting its metro. (High Speed)
• The UK nationalized the country’s largest private passenger train operator. (LBC)
• London cyclists are being forced to swerve around a billboard in the middle of a new bike path. (Telegraph)

China’s carbon emissions bounced back up in early 2026 as “inflexible” grid management caused the country to waste vast quantities of clean power and burn more fossil fuels instead, new analysis shows.

After recording a first full-year decline in 2025, China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from energy and industry grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026, according to analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) for Carbon Brief.

China burned more coal and gas to generate electricity than in the same period a year earlier, despite building record wind and solar capacity. Instead of being integrated into the network and used, clean power equivalent to more than France’s entire electricity output for the quarter was discarded.

Coal power plants protected

Lauri Myllyvirta, CREA’s lead analyst, said the paradox was primarily caused by China’s inflexible operation of coal and gas power plants, which supply electricity through long-term contracts that remove any incentive to reduce output when cheaper solar and wind power is available.

Electricity trading between Chinese provinces, also based on annual contracts, prevents surplus renewable energy from flowing to other areas in real time, the analysis found.

Santa Marta process can confront trade protection for fossil fuels, experts say

Myllyvirta said all operators should be required to sell electricity in real time so that coal power plants would face competition from very low prices during hours of strong renewables output and have an economic incentive to cut down generation. “But that has not made a lot of progress in China,” he added.

Curtailment rates rising

The intentional reduction of renewable energy generation, a process known as curtailment, saw a significant increase in China at the start of 2026, reaching 9.2% for solar and 8.5% for wind respectively, according to Bloomberg.

Myllyvirta noted that real curtailment rates are likely to be even higher than those reported in official statistics. He added that, until tracking improves, there won’t be enough political pressure to fix the issue.

The findings highlight Beijing’s failure to make full use of its record renewables build-out to accelerate the country’s transition away from fossil fuels.

If curtailments had not risen, increased capacity means wind and solar could have generated an extra 170 terawatt hours of electricity (TWh) in the first quarter, more than satisfying the growth in power demand, CREA’s analysis found. But, instead, clean power generation rose by just 60 TWh, with wind showing almost no growth.

Electricity generation from solar (left) and wind power (right) in China, terawatt hours per 12-month period. Red: Electricity actually fed into the grid. Yellow: Generation before reported levels of “curtailment”, where some electricity is discarded due to grid congestion. Blue: Generation if the rate of curtailment had stayed constant. Source: China Electricity Council monthly data on installed capacity and utilisation; National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center data on curtailment Electricity generation from solar (left) and wind power (right) in China, terawatt hours per 12-month period. Red: Electricity actually fed into the grid. Yellow: Generation before reported levels of “curtailment”, where some electricity is discarded due to grid congestion. Blue: Generation if the rate of curtailment had stayed constant. Source: China Electricity Council monthly data on installed capacity and utilisation; National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center data on curtailment Global problem

China is not alone in under-utilising its full renewable energy potential. Curtailments have risen in countries including the UK, Australia, India, Chile and Brazil, primarily as a result of bottlenecks in national transmission systems unable to accommodate additional clean power output.

After failing to keep up with the installation of renewable generation capacity, annual investments in updating grids need to increase by around 50% by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency. The watchdog said that, if power networks fail to prevent high levels of curtailments, clean energy operators risk facing significant revenue losses, threatening the investment case for renewables.

One of South America’s largest clean power generators said on Wednesday that it was putting plans for $1 billion in new renewables investment in Brazil on hold as the country’s grid operator rejected up to 25% of the power its existing projects could produce, Reuters reported.

The post China’s carbon emissions rise again as more clean power is wasted appeared first on Climate Home News.

Snowy has commissioned a report saying how important its Snowy 2.0 project is for the grid. Actually, we just want to know the size of the bill.

The post Snowy preps market for very big blowout in Snowy 2.0 costs, with response to a question no one is asking appeared first on Renew Economy.

Claims that climate scientists have abandoned their most dire scenario have been widely misunderstood. While the highest emissions pathway is now considered unlikely, evidence suggests the climate system may still be tracking toward dangerously high levels of warming.

by David Spratt, first published at Pearls&Irritations

Figure 1: RCPs and SSPsOccasionally, climate science is big news. On 26 May, the New York Times headlined: “Why scientists retired the dire climate scenario used for over a decade”. A good story!

The Australian, true to form, went with “Climate doomsday scenarios just got a major rewrite”, and in Jeff Bezos’s Washington Post it was  “The climate apocalypse? Don’t count on it”. There were a host of similar headlines.

Climate deniers and Donald Trump used an old playbook to claim scientific fraud (surprise!), but were called out, with ‘Trump twisted a climate debate beyond recognition’ and ‘Factcheck: Trump’s false claims about the IPCC and ‘RCP8.5’ climate scenario’.

So what’s the real story? Did scientists get it wrong, and is warming now likely to be less severe than previously thought?

As in engineering and business and government, scenarios are used by climate scientists to think about plausible alternative futures and their risks. The commonly-used climate scenarios are based on different possible trajectories for human greenhouse gas emissions and the social path humanity takes, and the consequences. And remember, scenarios in the end are simply a product of the minds that imagined them.

Fifteen years ago, four scenarios called representative concentration pathways (RCPs) were developed for the fifth IPCC assessment report in 2014, with RCP2.6 the lowest and RCP8.5 the highest. The numbers are radiative forcing (RF) values in 2100 for each scenario, where RF is the difference between the incoming radiation energy and the outgoing radiation energy in a given climate system, which is an indicator of total expected warming.

In conventional climate science terms, each one unit of RF (in watts per square metre) would in the long run be expected to result in around 0.75°C of warming. This relationship between change in radiative forcing and change in temperature is known as climate sensitivity.

RCP8.5 was sometimes called a ‘business as usual’ scenario, but this was a misnomer, and it was based on an assumption of little or no curbing of  greenhouse gases. Modellers estimated it would result in the end of warming of 5 to 6°C, with a range of 3.0 to 12.6°C.

The sixth IPCC report in 2022 focused on a modified system called Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), where the scenarios more explicitly considered social, economic, and technological trends. The SSPs were again expressed as RF values. Figure 1 illustrates both the RCP and SSP scenarios as they relate to total emissions.

Now, in preparation for the modelling project for the next IPCC report due in 2029, known as ScenarioMIP,  scientists have suggested that the highest, ‘worse-case’ RCP8.5 scenario be dropped, because emissions were tracking more in line with one of the middle scenarios, RCP4.5. Hence all those headlines.

So, the ‘worse-case’ global warming case is no longer realistic. Big sighs of relief!

Not so quick. The big question in the end is not the amount of emissions but how hot it gets: the temperature. The focus on emissions in RCPs/SSPs is a bit to one side.

And on the future temperature, here’s the bomb. In a recent post, Ryan Katz-Rosene showed CERES data where the effective radiative forcing (ERF) at the moment is tracking above RCP8.5:

Effective radiative forcing and SSP scenarios.

 CERES is a NASA project that uses satellite and other data to measure the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth and the amount of infrared energy emitted to space. As Katz says “current forcing observations from CERES really do appear to show a high current ERF value, which (at least at this point in time) does seem to be above the mean ERF expected in RCP8.5.”

[Technically, RF measures the immediate change in energy balance at the top of the atmosphere due to an external driver, while ERF accounts for adjustments in temperature and other factors after the initial change. ERF gives a more comprehensive understanding of the climate response to these changes.]

With the actual radiative forcing higher than the worst-case scenario, all those headlines about things getting better look like a lot of hot air.

So how can actual and future warming, indicated by RF, be tracking the worst case when the emissions trajectory is a middle-of-the-road scenario? The RCP/SSP scenarios were built around greenhouse gas emissions, not around the full suite of forcings and climate feedbacks that determine what the climate system actually does in terms of heating.

The assumptions about the relationship between emissions and temperatures have been too conservative. For example, what is not getting said is that the best estimate of the climate sensitivity has been rising, with perhaps the world’s most eminent climate scientist, Jim Hansen, taking it beyond the IPCC upper-range estimate. In fact, even the current range of modelling, known as CMIP6, produces a higher climate sensitivity than previously thought.

Other factors include reduced aerosol masking, ice-reflection loss, the release of permafrost carbon, and weakening ocean sinks that are not adequately captured by the IPCC or in model assumptions about future warming. Yet they’re showing up in the real-world numbers right now.

What is happening is way beyond IPCC projections. The rate of warming has accelerated by half over the last two decades, driven by reduced aerosols emissions and diminishing cloud cover. Warming has reached 1.5°C, and with an approaching strong El Nino, 2026-27 is likely to be around 1.7°C. Earth’s Energy Imbalance, an indicator of future warming, has doubled in the last 15 years and continues to increase, suggesting a warming trend of 2°C by 2040 is likely. Even global warming of 1°C, a threshold already passed, risks triggering some tipping points. At 1.5°C, six out of 10 studied climate subsystems already show large-scale abrupt shifts across multiple models.

Katz says: “We have such large uncertainty by end of century on climate sensitivity and carbon feedbacks, such that we can’t preclude mean warming of up to 4°C by 2100 even if we successfully pursue an emissions pathway resembling that in RCP4.5. So, again, if sensitivity or carbon feedbacks are not in our favour, there are plenty of scientific findings based on RCP8.5 which could turn out to be right on the mark in meteorological terms later this century, despite being way off on anthropogenic fossil emissions assumptions.”

Any reputable climate scientist over a drink at the bar will tell you that by far the majority of the human population would likely not survive 4°C. And that sounds like a worst case to me.

On Facebook, western Victoria is nothing but a hotbed of anti-renewables activism, but there are new efforts to unite farmers and developers to a single cause.

The post From wool, to cropping, to solar: How renewable energy can “grow the agricultural pie” appeared first on Renew Economy.

Plans to build a massive new big battery with up to four hours of storage has secured development approval from state government authorities.

The post Huge gigawatt-scale, four-hour battery secures state development approval for coal country appeared first on Renew Economy.

A record-breaking month of renewable energy generation has been set in three different states across Australia, as big batteries continue to smooth prices.

The post Wind and solar generation records tumble, despite drought, and as batteries continue to ramp up appeared first on Renew Economy.

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions grew by 2% in the first quarter of 2026, after a rise in the amount of “wasted” wind and solar power.

The country used more coal and gas to generate electricity than in the same quarter a year earlier, despite a record amount of new wind and solar capacity being built.

While the strait of Hormuz crisis has boosted China’s focus on energy security – including through clean energy and electrification – its electricity system is failing to keep up.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief shows that, while China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry increased in the first part of 2026, they remain below the peak in early 2024.

Other key findings for the first quarter of 2026 include:

• There was a 23% year-on-year rise in wind-power capacity and 33% for solar.
• There was also a sharp rise in the amount of wind and solar output being “wasted”, as it was not accommodated by the current electricity system.
• As a result, emissions in the power sector increased by 4% year-on-year.
• Power-sector CO2 would have been flat without the rise in “wasted” wind and solar. 
• Emissions in other sectors of the economy grew by 1%.

The key reason for “wasted” wind and solar generation was the inflexible management of coal power plants and power grids, not a lack of grid infrastructure.

In the first quarter of 2026, China’s energy system also began to adjust to the surge in oil and gas prices due to the blockade of the strait of Hormuz.

This continued through April and May, with sharp reductions in oil imports and oil-based chemicals production, as well as the share of gas in electricity generation.

However, the inability to make full use of new wind and solar power plants left China more exposed to the closure of the strait of Hormuz, by increasing the need for other fuels.

This exposure could become more acute if the “super El Niño” that is forecast for later this year limits the electricity output of hydropower, while fossil-fuel supplies remain tight.

Nevertheless, the Hormuz crisis could result in China following a lower-CO2 trajectory than previously expected, if key policies in its 15th five-year plan are fully implemented.

Emissions plateau continues

Recent analysis for Carbon Brief showed that China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industry had been “flat or falling” for nearly two years.

The latest analysis points to a rise of 2% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, as shown in the figure below. For now, however, emissions remain below the peak in March 2024.

China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes, million tonnes of CO2, rolling 12-month totals until March 2026. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and industrial products, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, IPCC default emission factors for metals process emissions and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2025. Chemical industry process emissions are estimated from fossil fuel use, subtracting carbon embedded in products. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration. The consumption of petrol, diesel and jet fuel is adjusted to match quarterly total sales reported by Sinopec.

In previous quarters, emissions had fallen in almost every sector of the economy, with the exception of the coal-based chemicals industry.

The latest quarter saw more widespread increases, with the power sector by far the largest source of emissions growth, as shown in the figure below.

Year-on-year change in China’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and industrial processes, for the period January-March 2026, million tonnes of CO2. Source: Emissions are estimated from National Bureau of Statistics data on production of different fuels and industrial products, China Customs data on imports and exports and WIND Information data on changes in inventories, applying emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, IPCC default emission factors for metals process emissions and annual emissions factors per tonne of cement production until 2025. Chemical industry process emissions are estimated from fossil fuel use, subtracting carbon embedded in products. Sector breakdown of coal consumption is estimated using coal consumption data from WIND Information and electricity data from the National Energy Administration. The consumption of petrol, diesel and jet fuel is adjusted to match quarterly total sales reported by Sinopec.

Emissions from other sectors were relatively stable in aggregate, with some rising and others continuing to decline.

Coal consumption in the chemical industry continued strong growth, increasing by 20%, but showed no change in trend after the closure of the strait of Hormuz and surge in oil prices.

(This is contrary to some commentary arguing that the closure of the strait of Hormuz has resulted in a marked increase in the output of China’s coal-chemicals industry.)

The apparent consumption of oil products rebounded in January-February, driven by transportation, but declined slightly in March as oil prices surged.

Emissions from the cement and steel industries continued to fall, as real estate investment contracted another 11% in the first quarter of 2026, following a 17% reduction in 2025. Cement production fell 7% and crude steel output by 5%.

‘Wasted’ wind and solar power

After falling in 2025, power generation from coal and gas increased by 4% in the first quarter of the year.

Power demand grew at 5.2% and hydropower generation increased 9%. Under these circumstances, the record growth in solar and wind power capacity in 2025 should have covered demand growth and pushed fossil-power generation down.

The trend was accentuated in March, as power demand grew just 3.5%, hydropower output increased 9% and yet fossil-power generation increased 4.2%.

The reason for fossil-power generation growth was a sharp drop in the electricity output per unit of installed capacity for both solar and wind power, known as the “capacity factor”.

If capacity factors were stable, the increased solar and wind capacity would have been expected to result in 160 terawatt hours (TWh) of additional clean-power generation during the first quarter, compared with the same time last year, with nuclear and hydro bringing the total to 170TWh. This would have comfortably exceeded the 120TWh increase in power demand.

However, the actual increase in clean-power generation was just 60TWh, with wind showing almost no growth.

While wind power capacity grew by 23% from the first quarter of 2025 to the same period in 2026, an increase of 120GW, the average capacity factor fell from 27% to 22%, a reduction of 18%. This implies that power generation from wind only grew 1% year-on-year. In the case of solar, capacity grew by 33%, but the average capacity factor fell by 11%, resulting in 18% growth in solar-power generation.

It is normal for solar and especially wind capacity factors to vary year-to-year due to weather conditions, but the fall this year was an extension of a longer trend. The average capacity factors of solar and wind have fallen by 19% and 10%, respectively, from 2022 to 2025.

A quarter of the fall in capacity factors over the three-year period is explained by the increase in reported curtailment. This refers to the amount of electricity that is effectively “wasted”, or curtailed, because it cannot be accommodated by the power network.

Nor can the remainder of the fall in capacity factors be explained by the change in weather conditions, as both wind and solar conditions improved on a national-average basis from 2022 to 2025.

In the first quarter of 2026, approximately half of the drop in wind capacity factor and a quarter of the drop in solar capacity factor was explained by weather conditions, implying that the rest is due to increased curtailment resulting from inadequate grid management and integration. 

One clear symptom of increased curtailment is that in January-February, both solar and wind conditions were actually better than last year, but capacity factors still fell.

The fact that capacity factors have fallen significantly more than would be expected based on reported curtailment and weather conditions indicates that a lot of curtailment goes unreported, either because it is excluded from the statistical definition, or because there are gaps in reporting.

Market participants have long noted that actual curtailment is much higher than reported in official statistics.

Official data on curtailment only includes “system reasons”, while excluding some lost generation linked to market trading, grid-connection conditions and other “special” causes.

The figure below shows actual electricity generation from wind and solar plants (dark blue), the amount that would have been generated if reported curtailment had not taken place (light blue) and the level expected if the rate of curtailment had stayed the same (mid-blue).

In total, wind and solar could have generated an extra 170TWh of electricity in the first quarter of 2026, if the rate of curtailment had not gone up in the preceding years. This is more than the total power generation of France over the same period.

Electricity generation from solar (left) and wind power (right) in China, terawatt hours per 12-month period. Red: Electricity actually fed into the grid. Yellow: Generation before reported levels of “curtailment”, where some electricity is discarded due to grid congestion. Blue: Generation if the rate of curtailment had stayed constant. Source: China Electricity Council monthly data on installed capacity and utilisation; National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center data on curtailment; utilisation at constant curtailment projected by fitting a regression model between historical utilisation data and weather data from NASA Power and CFSv2 for power plant locations taken from Global Energy Monitor data.

The largest reductions in capacity factors, after controlling for variations in weather conditions, came from Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and Liaoning. In these northern provinces, the heating season is a challenging time for grid managers due to inflexible operation of plants that provide both heat and power.

More broadly, the key reason for curtailment is inflexible grid management. Flexible operation of coal and gas-fired power plants could very substantially increase the amount of solar and wind power the grid can accommodate.

Yet currently, coal-fired power generation is largely operated via medium- and long-term contracts to supply fixed amounts of electricity at fixed prices, meaning there is no incentive for adjustments in output to make space for solar and wind.

Similarly, electricity trading between provinces is predominantly contracted annually, preventing the variable output of solar and wind from being transmitted between jurisdictions in real time.

These issues have a clear impact on the amount of wind and solar that is curtailed. For example, power-system modeling carried out for the year 2023 indicates that flexible power-grid operation would have essentially eliminated the need for curtailment.

The government has also recognised solar and wind curtailment as one of the central challenges of the energy transition.

Recent policies have called for increased inter-province trading and improved flexibility of coal-power plants as the solutions, implicitly recognising these as key issues to address.

Recent large increases in storage capacity, including pumped hydro and batteries, should have improved the integration of wind and solar into the grid. But there is a lack of incentives for storage operators that limits the benefits the system can derive from the technology.

The government has implicitly recognised this and called for establishing electricity pricing that enables energy storage to “participate fairly”.

Meanwhile, China’s new renewable-pricing rules, which shifted existing solar and wind plants to selling electricity on the market, rather than being compensated directly by the grid operator, does not seem to have reduced curtailment so far.

Most provinces only finalised their plans for implementing the policy in late 2025, which left little time for the market and operators to adapt.

China is aiming to build a “new type power system”, capable of integrating large amounts of wind and solar into the grid by 2027. In the meantime, the government has also called for “reasonably pacing” utility-scale “new energy” capacity additions to match the pace at which provinces think they are able to improve the “regulation capacity” of their grids.

How the Hormuz crisis is affecting China’s energy sector

China’s energy system has started, since March, to adjust to the surge in oil and gas prices triggered by the closure of the strait of Hormuz. There have been sharp reductions in oil imports, the share of gas in thermal power generation and in oil-based chemical production.

The consumption of gas fell overall in March, even as consumption in the power sector increased. The power sector fuel mix shifted from gas to coal, but the increase in overall thermal power generation still pushed gas use up in the sector.

High gas prices had already been straining household finances before the current crisis. Millions of households were shifted from coal stoves to gas-based heating as a part of efforts to tackle air pollution during the past decade. However, the gas-price subsidies created to enable this shift have expired in recent years, leading to a rise in heating bills.

China’s oil imports started falling sharply immediately after oil prices surged, with net imports falling even further as exports were restricted. The fall has continued into May, with shipments falling by over 40% year-on-year in the first three weeks of the month.

In the first quarter of the year, state-owned oil major Sinopec reported oil product sales up 4.8%. Apparent consumption of oil products had increased 5.5% in January-February, but fell -0.3% in March, indicating an early impact of the price surge, although the late timing of the Chinese New Year also had an effect.

Electric vehicles have continued to gain market share in 2026, reaching 53% of vehicle sales in April, up from 47% a year ago.

Electricity demand for EV charging grew over 50% year-on-year in March. The large number of plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road means that drivers can switch from petrol to power quickly when there is more of an incentive to do so.

Moreover, 24% of highway trips during the 1 May holiday were made by EVs, even though they only make up 15% of all registered cars. This shows that EVs tend to be driven more than average, making a bigger dent in oil use than their share in the fleet would suggest.

Crude oil processing volumes fell by 2% in March and 6% in April, after growth in January-February. Plastics output growth moderated in March and turned into a decline in April.

The increase in oil prices has boosted the profitability of the highly carbon-intensive coal-to-chemicals industry. There has also been speculation that the industry would have forcefully increased output in response to the Hormuz crisis, enabling China to cut back on oil use. The industry was, however, already operating at high capacity utilisation before the current crisis, reported at an average of 87% in the first half of 2025. This means there was little headroom in the sector to raise output in the short term.

Coal use in the chemical industry increased 19% in January-February and 22% in March, showing a rapidly rising trend, but no step change after the start of the crisis.

The global fossil-fuel crisis is also affecting China’s clean-energy industry through overseas demand. Exports of solar, batteries and EVs recorded 56% growth year-on-year in the first quarter, reaching $55bn. This increase was partially driven by front-loading of shipments ahead of changes to tax rebates to solar and battery exports at the end of March, but the value of exports also grew 38% in April, an indication of strong underlying demand.

Implications of the crisis for China’s transition

The oil-and-gas crisis represents an opportunity for both clean energy and coal. The economics of electrification and clean-energy production, as well as of domestic coal production, have improved dramatically as imported fossil fuels have become more expensive.

At least as importantly, the closure of the strait of Hormuz and the resulting global fossil-fuel crisis closely mirror Chinese policymakers’ long-standing concern about reliance on seaborne fossil fuels. This is likely to reinforce their focus on energy security.

The previous fossil-fuel crisis, in 2021-2022, led to a new wave of coal-power plants, coal mines and coal-to-chemicals plants being built in China.

This time around, any expansion in coal mining is expected to be limited, both by the government’s “anti-involution” drive, which aims to stem harmful price competition, as well as by the carbon constraints in China’s climate goals.

Domestic coal production fell in the first four months of the year, despite a rise in oil and gas as well as coal prices. Rising coal prices will reduce the profitability of coal-fired power generation, at least for the next few months.

The perceived need for further new coal-power projects is also limited by the fact that, after record additions in 2025, there was still another 206GW of coal-fired capacity under construction in January, due to large volumes of permitting during the previous five years.

The energy regulator recently called on provinces to “strictly limit” the addition of new coal-power plants and other “regulating” power capacity in areas with sufficient firm capacity.

There is also a ceiling on the upside for coal in the current crisis, because gas plays a limited role in China’s energy system. This leaves little space for replacing gas with coal.

The exception is the coal-to-chemicals industry, which can replace oil and gas, albeit at the cost of very high carbon emissions. As a result, investment in the industry will likely get a further boost, even though the economic incentive is lower than it may seem.

While crude oil prices for delivery this summer have increased by more than $40 per barrel since the start of the year, 2030 prices are only up $5. This is a more relevant benchmark, given that a new coal-to-chemicals plant will take several years to build and commission.

The coal-to-chemicals expansion will also be limited by the new system to control carbon emissions. In particular, the requirement for local governments to compensate for carbon emissions from new industrial projects by closing down existing capacity, if these controls are implemented effectively.

Since the previous fossil-fuel crisis, the concept of energy security has become broader, encompassing clean energy and electrification, rather than being limited to coal and fossil fuels. This shift is also clear from how state media has been covering energy security in the wake of the war on Iran.

As such, the oil-and-gas crunch is likely to speed up the electrification of transportation and buildings. It also strengthens the case for “green fuels”, referring to green hydrogen and synthetic gaseous and liquid fuels produced from it, which are an important priority in the new five-year plan.

Solar and wind also become more attractive, economically and politically, as a result of the crisis. The upside may be limited by the dominant narrative that they have grown faster than the grid can manage, rather than being limited by institutional constraints. Nevertheless, they will benefit from fossil fuels – including coal – becoming more expensive and volatile.

Still, curtailment has become a key issue affecting the pace of China’s energy transition. It both reduces the immediate benefits of clean energy and undermines further investment in clean capacity, by increasing investment risks and cutting into returns.

The flipside of the current rise in curtailment is that when the installed wind, solar and energy storage capacity is put to full use, the supply of clean energy will increase substantially.

As noted, a key priority for the government in the next few years is to build a “new type of power system”, capable of integrating large amounts of variable renewable capacity.

The balance between how much the current crisis benefits coal or clean energy will depend on implementation of key climate and energy provisions in the 15th five-year plan.

If power-system reforms that benefit solar, wind and storage are implemented, while carbon-emission controls limit the expansion of coal-to-chemicals, then China is likely to follow a lower-CO2 emission trajectory than expected before the crisis.

About the data

Data for the analysis was compiled from the National Bureau of Statistics of China, National Energy Administration of China, China Electricity Council and China Customs official data releases, as well as from industry data provider WIND Information and from Sinopec, China’s largest oil refiner.

Electricity generation from wind and solar, along with thermal power breakdown by fuel, was calculated by multiplying power generating capacity at the end of each month by monthly utilisation, using data reported by China Electricity Council through Wind Financial Terminal.

Total generation from thermal power and generation from hydropower and nuclear power were taken from National Bureau of Statistics monthly releases.

Monthly utilisation data was not available for biomass, so the annual average of 52% for 2023 was applied. Power-sector coal consumption was estimated based on power generation from coal and the average heat rate of coal-fired power plants during each month, to avoid the issue with official coal consumption numbers affecting recent data. 

CO2 emissions estimates are based on National Bureau of Statistics default calorific values of fuels and emissions factors from China’s latest national greenhouse gas emissions inventory, for the year 2021. The CO2 emissions factor for cement is based on annual estimates up to 2024.

For oil, apparent consumption of transport fuels – diesel, petrol and jet fuel – is taken from Sinopec quarterly results, with monthly disaggregation based on production minus net exports. The consumption of these three fuels is labeled as oil product consumption in transportation, as it is the dominant sector for their use.

Apparent consumption of other oil products is calculated from refinery throughput, with the production of the transport fuels and the net exports of other oil products subtracted.

Estimated non-energy use of fossil fuels is subtracted from total chemical industry fossil fuel consumption, and process emissions are calculated based on fossil fuel consumption with carbon retained in products subtracted. Emissions from the incineration of plastics are based on a peer-reviewed estimate of plastics incineration in 2022, combined with growth rates in the overall power generation from waste-to-energy plants. Metals industry process emissions are calculated using industrial output data and IPCC default emission factors.

Reported curtailment, and capacity utilisation in the absence of reported curtailment, is calculated as the complement of the “offtake rates” (利用率) reported by National New Energy Consumption Monitoring and Early Warning Center monthly by province for solar and wind.

Total curtailment is estimated by comparing solar and wind capacity utilisation predicted based on weather conditions, and in the absence of curtailment, to reported utilisation. Utilisation is predicted by fitting regression models to reported monthly utilisation and weather conditions in 2020-2023.

Weather data used for predicting utilisation are hourly wind speed, temperature, solar irradiation and humidity at solar and wind power plant locations in each province from NASA Power and CFSv2. Locations are taken from Global Energy Monitor data.

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“No better day to ride the D (train) than election day,” posted Tom Steyer yesterday morning at 11:12 a.m. on X.

The problem isn’t that Steyer talked about transit on election day. The problem is that he waited until election day. California voters consistently support transit funding at the ballot box, yet no major candidate in the governor’s race made transit a centerpiece of their campaign.

In a crowded Democratic primary where candidates struggled to distinguish themselves from one another, a bold, unapologetic vision for better buses, trains, and public transportation could have provided exactly the contrast voters were looking for. Instead, candidates largely ceded the issue and spent the campaign talking about gas prices, taxes, and housing, leaving millions of transit riders without a champion in the race.

The impromptu election-day interview Steyer gave to Torched editor Alissa Walker may end up being the most substantive transit discussion of the entire governor’s race.

It almost certainly won’t be enough to save his campaign. As of election night, Steyer was running a distant third in California’s top-two primary. More mail ballots remain to be counted, but a deficit of nearly eight percentage points is a difficult gap to close.

Still, the election offered another reminder that transit remains a politically potent issue when candidates choose to talk about it.

Breaking: California Voters Back Transit Measure

Voters in Sonoma and Marin counties overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure extending the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) district’s quarter-cent sales tax for another 30 years. For more, visit, “Election Result Underscores Message: Bay Area Wants Car Dependence to End” at Streetsblog San Francisco.

The tax, first approved in 2008 and set to expire in 2029, generates roughly $51 million annually and serves as the backbone of SMART’s operating budget. Early returns showed support hovering around 70 percent in both Marin and Sonoma Counties, well above the simple majority needed for passage.

The victory comes as Bay Area leaders prepare for larger transit funding fights this fall. Regional measures for the November ballot to support both transit regionally, and SF Muni in particular, gathered nearly twice the signatures required.

As we’ve written before, supporting transit appears to be a politically popular position.

Many Tax Measures Didn’t Pass

That lesson becomes even clearer when viewed alongside the broader election results.

With people’s budgets stretched thin by inflation, it was overall a bad night for tax and fee measures throughout California, demonstrating that the passage of Measure B in the Bay was a true victory for transit.

Just miles away in the East Bay, Oakland voters rejected a parcel tax that would have funded general services. In San Diego, a measure to tax vacant homes is also failing. Funds from that tax would also go to the general fund. Throughout Monterey County, smaller municipalities were also rejecting non-transit taxes. Heck, even San Francisco rejected a CEO Tax.

In Los Angeles County, voters rejected a new tax to fund emergency services.

In the City of Los Angeles, a new tax on hotel occupancy also failed. Two measures that clarified that taxes on cannabis products applies to all sellers of said products and that hotel/transient taxes apply to all short-term rentals did pass.

Taken together, the results suggest that voters were generally skeptical of new taxes. That’s what makes the SMART victory stand out.

Candidates looking for a way to stand out in future statewide races might want to take note. If transit is going to be part of a campaign message, it should be embraced early and often. That’s how to stand out in a crowded field.

New research: It’s time to treat ultra-processed foods like tobacco Ketura Persellin June 3, 2026

A special health journal issue on ultra-processed food, or UPF, calls for bold policy action to address the growing public health crisis – and that efforts focused solely on personal responsibility are likely to fail.

The collection of 17 studies and editorials, just published in the American Journal of Public Health, brings together breaking research on the health harms of UPF.

The issue also sheds light on the tobacco industry’s lasting negative impact on today’s food landscape. It also shows why it might be time to start treating UPF with the same public health concern as tobacco, and shares policy and legal strategies that can help.

Health harms of UPF keep piling up

These studies add to a robust body of evidence linking UPF to chronic diseases like cancer, depression, Type 2 diabetes, and heart, kidney and gastrointestinal diseases.

One study provides new evidence that UPF could contribute to cognitive decline in older adults. It found that people who consumed the highest amount of UPF were at 58% higher risk of dementia, compared to those who consumed the lowest amount of UPF.

Researchers also call out the threats to public health from the UPF industry, which drives global plastic pollution, environmental degradation and greenhouse gas emissions. 

Get your free guide: EWG's Guide to Food Additives Tobacco research reshaped the U.S. food system

Multiple studies published in the special issue reviewed internal tobacco industry documents to reveal how it transformed the U.S. food system – for the worse.

In the 1980s, major tobacco companies like R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris acquired food and beverage giants like Kraft, Del Monte and Nabisco, bringing their research and technology with them to develop harmful UPF.

The new studies show that the tobacco industry used consumer research on cigarettes to help with developing new ultra-processed products for kids, including Lunchables. Food companies created “king size” and “light” versions of snack foods, mimicking “king size” and “slim” cigarettes.

The tobacco industry also revived its playbook for fighting public health protections. 

When experts began to sound the alarm about the health risks of smoking, the tobacco industry responded with what would become its signature script: deny harm, manufacture uncertainty with biased research and use political influence to prevent government action.

Some of the biggest producers of UPF are now using these tactics in seeking to block state food chemical laws.

It’s not you – it’s the UPF

An unhealthy diet is often framed as a personal failure. But in fact, many structural factors impact our ability to eat well. 

The journal issue authors argue that ultra-processed foods are prominent in our diets because they are widely available, relatively affordable and highly palatable.

UPF make up an estimated 73% of the U.S. food supply, and a new study from the special issue finds our food landscape is not changing for the better. During the past 20 years, the growth of restaurants and fast-food locations in so-called “food swamps” has far outpaced the growth of healthy grocery retailers.

Ultra-processed foods also tend to be more affordable than less processed alternatives. As a result, avoiding UPF may take more time, money and careful planning. These expectations are unrealistic, if not impossible, for households already experiencing food insecurity or concerned about the cost of groceries.

As several authors write, some UPF should be considered addictive. One study found that 90% of food with addictive potential were ultra-processed, and new polling shows that 70% of people believe UPF are addictive. These qualities likely stem from the “consumer-driven product development” the tobacco industry used to create foods with maximum pleasure and appeal. 

Policies for less processed food

Based on the parallels between UPF and tobacco, the path forward is policy – not personal responsibility.

The study authors recommend a range of interventions, including:

• A clear and scientifically supported federal definition of UPF, based on the NOVA classification system, that works for practical policy applications
• Front-of-pack labeling requirements and marketing restrictions, with a focus on child-targeted marketing
• Legal action by state attorneys general against food companies on behalf of the public, with settlement funds directed to health initiatives
• Institutional procurement and other policies that limit UPF and provide more minimally processed foods in places like schools.

Meaningful progress may be possible. A national survey featured in the special journal issue found broad bipartisan public support for a range of governmental and legal interventions to address the health harms of UPF.

What you can do now

Solving our UPF problem requires large, systemic change. In the meantime, people still need help shopping for their families.

Check ingredient lists and nutrition facts, usually found on the back of food packages. Look for more whole foods and avoid longer lists of additives and chemicals you probably wouldn’t find in a home kitchen.

For extra help, take a look at EWG’s Food Scores, which provides ratings for more than 150,000 foods and drinks based on nutrition, ingredients and processing. Food Scores also flags unhealthy UPF and can help with identifying healthier alternatives. 

Shoppers on the go can also use EWG’s Healthy Living app.

Finally, follow Fed UP! – a new coalition of scientists, researchers and public health advocates dedicated to exposing the harms of UPF and showing how our food system shapes our health.

Areas of Focus Ultra-Processed Foods Authors Sarah Reinhardt, MPH, RDN June 3, 2026

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

I’ve long been struck by how hard it is to predict the evolution of our energy system, even a few years in advance, never mind 25 or 30 years. I still remember the “peak oil” craze in the mid 2000s, when people were telling me the end of oil was nigh. It sounded convincing right up until it turned out to be wrong.

In this post, let me show you how bad previous predictions have been for the electricity sector.

evolution of our energy system in 6 charts

Each plot below shows annual predictions of how a particular source of electricity will evolve as well as what actually happened. The data come from the Energy Information Administration and cover the U.S. electricity sector.

We’ll start with coal. In the first plot, the black line shows actual U.S. coal-fired electricity generation. The colored lines are predictions made each year since 2008.

In 2008, coal was expected to produce increasing amounts of electricity into the future. Instead, it immediately started to decline and it took until 2023 before the EIA began to predict a long-term decline in coal, despite the fact that coal had been declining for 15 years.

Natural gas, by contrast, has generated an increasing share of U.S. electricity. This is largely due to the tidal wave of cheap natural gas from fracking. The predictions, on the other hand, did not anticipate this.

The takeaway here is that predicting the evolution of our energy system is not just hard in the long run, e.g., thirty years from now, but it’s hard even in the short run.

If we combine coal and gas, the forecasts look better. This reflects the fact that natural gas was replacing coal, so that the overestimate for coal was cancelled to some extent by the underestimate for natural gas.

But even for the combined category, the forecasts vary widely.

Here’s solar (including both utility and residential solar):

And here’s wind:

For both energy sources, predictions before 2015 were really bad.

Across all energy sources, the 2023 and 2025 forecasts differ sharply from the 2026 forecast. The predictions made for 2023/2025 assume Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, while 2026 predictions assume the reversal of those policies.

The difference between 2023/2025 and 2026 is an estimate of the role that politics plays in the future evolution of our electricity sector. Because we cannot confidently predict who will win future elections or what their policies will be, this is a very good reason why it’s so hard to predict the future of our energy system.

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the cost of energy

Why is it so hard to predict the energy mix in our electricity system? One big reason is that it is hard to predict the future rate of innovation. We can see this in a plot of the cost of energy1:

You can see that the price of wind and solar plummeted in the early 2010s, reflecting enormous innovation in the production of renewable energy. That was not predicted by most mainstream forecasts (as confirmed by predictions of wind and solar above).

There has also been a lot of innovation in fossil fuel production, most importantly hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling. These technologies drove down the cost of natural gas in the late 2000s and changed the economics of electricity generation almost overnight. Coal plants that had looked like safe long-term investments suddenly faced a cheaper competitor. Yet this, too, was largely missed. In the late 2000s, many utilities were still trying to build coal plants, unable to see that coal was entering a precipitous decline.

TXU didn’t see the end of coal coming. Most of these plants were never built.

And, as wind and solar costs fell, renewables began taking market share too. Coal was not beaten by a single technology; it was beaten by a sequence of technologies that forecasters failed to anticipate.

Based on economics, coal is now a stone-cold loser. Its remaining advantage is not cost, speed of construction, or flexibility. It is politics. The Trump Administration is forcing coal-fired plants to stay open and some recent reporting suggests these interventions are raising costs for consumers.

In the competition between solar, wind, and natural gas, solar and wind are the cheapest. The combination of low costs, short construction times, and natural gas’ price volatility gives wind and solar a huge market advantage, explaining their exponential growth. Yes, solar and wind are coming for natural gas.

The plot also shows the profound disadvantage nuclear faces. Nuclear energy costs nearly $200/MWh, around four times the cost of wind and solar. And it takes a decade or two to get it online. Without government mandates or heavy policy support, I believe there is little likelihood that we will see a nuclear renaissance.

what are the implications of this?

Much of the debate in climate policy centers on the cost, difficulty, and timeline for phasing out fossil fuels in order to achieve net zero. You constantly hear pundits and analysts throwing around eye-popping numbers, confidently claiming, e.g., that “it will cost XXX trillions of dollars to reach net zero in our economy by 2050.”

from McKinsey

But if the forecasting failures of the last twenty years have taught us anything, it’s this: we simply have no idea how much decarbonization will cost.

You should treat numbers like McKinsey’s estimate above as guesses. They could be right, but historically speaking, they probably aren’t. To summarize, here are the reasons why the true cost of reaching net zero remains so uncertain:

• We can’t predict the foundational energy mix: As the charts above show, our ability to forecast the trajectory of the electricity sector even a few years out is abysmal. If forecasters cannot accurately predict the baseline scenario (how much wind, solar, or natural gas will be on the grid), it seems unlikely they will be able to make accurate predictions of how much additional solar and wind will be needed in 2050 to reach net zero.

• Innovation shatters financial models: Long-term cost forecasts rely heavily on estimates of how fast innovation will occur. Such predictions are incredibly hard to make. Almost no one foresaw the exponential drop in the price of solar energy since the late 2000s, nor did experts predict the current plummeting costs of battery storage. Falling battery costs could reshape the electricity system.

• Geopolitics rewrites the math: External shocks can alter energy economics overnight. Few energy forecasts anticipated wars in Ukraine and Iran, both of which are going to have an enormous impact on our energy mix going forward.

Overall, the uncertainty in these long-term forecasts is enormous. And if history is any guide, the errors are not random. They usually point in the same direction: they overestimate the cost of the energy transition.

One reason is that traditional forecasting models tend to assume slow, steady technological progress. But energy technologies do not always improve that way. Solar, wind, batteries, and fracking all show that costs can change fast when conditions line up. Most models, which assume gradual change, will miss these breaks.

Another problem is that fossil fuels are often treated as stable, low-risk alternatives. They are not. Their prices can swing wildly, and their supply chains are exposed to wars, political instability, and global market shocks. Those costs are real and hard to predict, so they are left out of these estimates.

That is the central point: estimates of the cost of the energy transition should be treated as conditional guesses built on assumptions about technology, fuel prices, politics, and geopolitics, all of which have repeatedly surprised us.

The lesson of the last twenty years is not that the energy transition will be easy or hard — we really don’t know. Anyone claiming to know the cost decades in advance should be treated with skepticism.

Code to reproduce the plots can be found here.

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related things

Is nuclear energy the answer? Nope.

Is renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels? Yup.

An explanation of how renewable energy saves you money. It’s not that complicated unless you’re being paid to push fossil fuels. Then it’s very complicated.

If you’re looking for a new Substack on energy, check out Bright Spots by Jan Rosenow. This recent post discusses how renewables change the price of energy.

Do you want to see how each U.S. state’s mix of electricity has changed? Brendan Pierpont has you covered here.

1 I’m using levelized cost of energy (LCOE) as my measure of the cost to produce power from each source. I understand the limitations of LCOE, but for an energy developer, LCOE is the number that counts. Yes, wind and solar are intermittent, but that’s a grid problem. All that matters to the developer is which low-LCOE energy source they can build.

Union nurses at MedStar Washington Hospital Center (MWHC) in Washington, D.C. are demanding that management stop the planned closure of an entire postpartum unit. The hospital notified the union on May 26, 2026 of its intention to eliminate 11 maternal health beds and displace eight nurses by July 26, 2026, leaving MWHC with one postpartum unit.

This article is part of Food Tank’s primer series, “Food Tank Explains.” Each installment unpacks the ideas, innovations, and challenges shaping today’s food and agriculture systems, offering clear insights into complex topics. To explore more articles in the series, click here.

Agroforestry is a land management system that integrates trees with crops or livestock, delivering benefits for food security, environmental outcomes, and farm incomes.

Unlike monocultures, where a single crop is grown over large areas, agroforestry allows different biological systems to interact and strengthen one another, mimicking natural ecosystems. Tree roots release carbon into the soil, improving soil health, and reduce erosion by helping to support soil structures. The trees provide fodder for livestock and corridors for wildlife, while the animals enrich the soil and help with seed dispersal.

Canadian forester John Bene coined the term “agroforestry” in 1973, calling for global recognition of the key role trees play on farms. But, according to World Agroforestry (ICRAF), the practice has ancient origins steeped in local wisdom and traditional knowledge from around the world.

East Amazon communities adopted agroforestry 4,500 years ago, according to research published in Nature Plants, cultivating multiple crops alongside edible forest species. Farmers in West Africa have practiced the parkland system, one of the oldest agroforestry techniques, for over 1,000 years, growing crops like millet and sorghum beneath scattered baobabs and shea trees.

Modern agroforestry systems vary widely across regions and communities, reflecting differences in environmental conditions, cultural traditions, available resources, and local needs.

Agroforestry systems can strengthen food security by increasing and diversifying yield and by improving the availability of micronutrient-rich fruits, seeds, and nuts during lean growing periods, Todd Rosenstock, Director of CGIAR Climate Action, tells Food Tank. They can also serve as an important source of income diversification, and help generate sales that enable the purchase of further food products.

A women’s cooperative, founded by a Lenca community in Honduras, grows fair trade organic coffee under fruit-bearing trees like mango, plantain, and jackfruit. This increases crop diversity and yield, providing the cooperative with fruits that they can barter or sell at the market.

Multi-species, multi-storied, and multi-purpose gardens located close to home are common to many parts of Indonesia. Referred to as “home gardens,” these plots were historically producing foods for home consumption. Now, home gardens play a fundamental role in providing income. They are also considered to have the highest biodiversity of any human-created ecosystem.

In South and Southeast Asia, rotational farming is deeply rooted in traditional knowledge, philosophy, and spirituality, and provides a crucial source of livelihood and food security for millions of people. Prasert Tralkansuphakon, Chair of Pgakenyaw Association for Sustainable Development and Inter Mountain People Education and Culture Association in Thailand, describes agroforestry as a means of producing both food and income “in a traditional and innovative way, managed both by humans and nature, or [just] by humans, but in a natural way.”

As farmers face more frequent extreme weather events, some agroforestry systems seek to offer protection while others help improve resiliency. Windbreaks include linear tree plantings that shelter crops and soil from wind, snow, and dust. In silvopasture systems, which integrate trees and livestock, trees provide animals essential shade and shelter from extreme heat.

Karina Gonçalves David, Co-founder of ProNobis Agroflorestal, tells Food Tank that the agroforestry system on her family’s farm helps their crops withstand extreme weather. By forming a protective microclimate, the system shields crops from winter freezes, limits soil erosion, and increases the soil’s water-holding capacity.

And ICRAF research suggests that agroforestry is linked with benefits for planetary health including prevention of both air pollution and heat exposure for farmworkers, and regulation of solar radiation and wind.

To expand agroforestry more widely, researchers suggest pairing locally adapted practices with stronger support systems. CIFOR-ICRAF calls for investments in extension services, market development, and institutional capacity, while Cornell University researchers suggest that integrated landscape management can help align efforts among farmers, researchers, policymakers, and the private sector to address persistent barriers.

Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.

Photo courtesy of Christopher Stites

The post Food Tank Explains: Agroforestry appeared first on Food Tank.

The Brattle Group’s report lays out a framework for increasing demand-side resources to mitigate the impacts of load growth, variable renewables and distributed electrification.