News Feeds

Understanding how ecosystems work is a crucial first step in protecting the things people value most: clean air, clean water, and a healthy, resilient environment for future generations. But the...

• Many transit agencies are unlikely to fully recover from the pandemic anytime soon, particularly since remote work appears here to stay, at least for white-collar workers who used to ride commuter rail to their downtown office. The long-term trend looks better, though, as long as young people keep flocking to cities. (Governing)
• Amtrak is an exception, with ridership up almost 6% between October and April, and smaller operating losses than projected. (Trains)
• Speeding kills 12,000 a people a year in the U.S., leading some states to mandate devices on repeat offenders’ cars that limit how fast they can go. (Jalopnik)
• After testing cargo e-bikes for deliveries in New York, Amazon is expanding their use to other cities. (NY Times)
• The Texas Supreme Court sent a lawsuit challenging Austin transit expansion Project Connect back to a lower court to rule on a jurisdictional issue. (KVUE)
• Texas transportation officials are negotiating potential routes for high-speed rail between Dallas and Fort Worth and Dallas and Houston (Fort Worth Report). The attorney general’s lawsuit is one reason why costs keep rising and Project Connect’s centerpiece, a downtown light rail line, keeps shrinking (Texas Tribune).
• Transit ridership in Atlanta almost doubled in March to 4 million, after MARTA changed how it collects ridership data (11 Alive). GoTriangle ridership in the Raleigh area was up by a third in April, which officials attributed to high gas prices (ABC 11).
• The chairman of Atlanta Journal-Constitution owner Cox Enterprises, who comes from generational wealth and has probably never ridden transit in his life, came out against Beltline light rail, even though it’s been part of the plan going back to the Beltline’s inception in the late 1990s.
• Seattle Bike Blog challenged a nonsensical op-ed in the Seattle Times that claimed bike lanes make drivers “fatigued” and blamed safety projects for sending drivers into road rage.
• It wasn’t a surprise that Oregon Democrats’ proposal for small hikes to the gas tax and payroll tax to fund transportation failed, but the fact that 83% of voters rejected it was a shock. What does that mean for November elections? (KGW 8)
• Downtown Phoenix has hundreds of broken parking meters. (AZ Family)
• San Diego residents took advantage of Amtrak to avoid crowded roads over Memorial Day weekend. (KSBY)
• Toronto’s frequent bus service, even in relatively low-density neighborhoods, made it the only North American transit system where ridership rose in the decades following World War II, showing that suburbanites will ride the bus if it’s convenient. (Infrastory)
• A European human rights court ruled that a food courier’s viral TikTok rant against bus-only lanes in Tbilisi, Georgia crossed the line between free speech and personal abuse. (Courthouse News Service)

Just one year ago, Lars Christian Bacher said his career embodied the energy transition – moving from CFO of Norway’s state-controlled oil company Equinor to leading one of Europe’s few home-grown battery makers.

Morrow Batteries was on a mission to compete alongside the industry’s dominant Asian, mainly Chinese, battery producers as Europe sought to reduce its reliance on imports, Bacher told a group of foreign journalists on a sunny day in Oslo last May.

But seven months later, Bacher stepped down as CEO, and earlier this month, Morrow Batteries said it had filed for bankruptcy after its financial situation “deteriorated”.

Coming a year after Swedish battery maker Northvolt filed for bankruptcy, industry analysts said Morrow’s descent into financial difficulties would likely deal a fresh blow to investor confidence in European battery manufacturers – potentially keeping Europe dependent on Chinese energy transition technology for longer.

While bigger European battery makers such as ACC, Verkor and PowerCo – linked to car-makers Stellantis, Renault and Volkswagen, respectively – are still in business, Europe needs to reduce its reliance on China, experts say.

“It’s just such a critical technology that you cannot rely on somebody else,” said Julia Poliscanova, batteries lead at the Brussels-based advocacy group Transport & Environment.

Lars Christian Bacher talks to journalists in Oslo on 13 May 2025 (Photo: Joe Lo) State-backed eco-batteries

Established in 2020, Morrow Batteries expanded its workforce to more than 200 and has the ability to produce three million batteries a year at its factory in the forest outside the coastal city of Arendal, on Norway’s picturesque southern tip. 

Investors in the startup included industrial engineering companies Siemens and ABB, and it received a 550 million krone ($59 million) loan from state development agency Innovation Norway. State-owned energy and investment companies were also among its shareholders.

Morrow has promoted its batteries as particularly sustainable, with solar and hydropower supplying energy to the factory. Its lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries do not contain nickel or cobalt, distancing them from the environmental and social problems often linked to critical minerals mining.

“From a sustainability point of view, this is as good as it gets,” Bacher said last May.

He did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the company’s decision to file for bankruptcy proceedings.

Morrow’s LFP battery pack and cells (Photo: Morrow)

It aimed to sell these batteries for energy storage, increasingly important as variable solar and wind power comes to dominate European grids, and for off-road and commercial vehicles. Those sectors, rather than electric cars and motorbikes, were being targeted because they were subject to less ferocious competition from Asia, Bacher said.

Industry experts say Morrow started smaller and slower than Northvolt, was selective about its target customers and secured deals with Finnish environmental technology company Proventia Oy and an unnamed German defence company.

But it still ran into financial trouble.

Cash crunch proves costly

In a statement announcing the bankruptcy, Morrow’s board said it had been trying to secure a new industrial investor and finance, and that “several of the ongoing efforts had reached an advanced stage”.

But these talks “could not be concluded within the constraints imposed by the group’s liquidity situation”, it said, blaming the failure on “the capital requirements inherent in an early industrialisation phase” combined with “increased capital costs, delays in the industrialisation process and a more restrained investment market”. 

Northvolt’s bankruptcy may have also damaged Morrow’s attempts to raise money. Last May, Bacher himself acknowledged that it “didn’t help”. 

Morrow also cited oversupply in the global battery market, and the resulting downward “price pressure”. The price of LFP batteries fell by nearly half between 2022 and 2025, eating into producers’ profit margins, according to the International Energy Agency.

Morrow’s factory near Arendal pictured in June 2024 (Photo: Morrow)

The hefty state investment in Morrow has generated controversy in Norway following its bankruptcy. The leader of the right-wing Progress Party (FrP), Sylvi Listhaug, has said Norwegian taxpayers’ money was wasted on an unviable business. 

But others, like Poliscanova and the head of the European Battery Alliance trade association Emma Nehrenheim, told Climate Home News that if Europe wants a battery industry, it will need to back home-grown manufacturers whole-heartedly.

“Valley of death” kills startups

As European battery manufacturers work to perfect and scale up their technology and processes, they face “a valley of death” with severe competition and little patience from investors or battery customers who “can easily buy them from China”, Poliscanova said.

Startups like Morrow typically raise project financing to get them off the ground, according to Nehrenheim. In the period between that finance ending and reaching profitability, they have to rely on money they set aside as a project reserve. 

If they underestimate this reserve, which she said is easy to do when setting up a new factory making a new product, they need more money to bridge the gap. This can come from specialised bridging investors, from customers or from governments.

For Morrow, however, the money did not arrive in time.

Nehrenheim – who was previously Northvolt’s chief environmental officer – said it was a characteristically European failure from investors.

“We’re not good at this,” she said. “We’re not bold enough to compete with Silicon Valley or the Asian (countries), who have been scaling industry now for decades.”

Clean energy sovereignty vs price

Since Northvolt’s bankruptcy filing, the European Union has announced policies to support European battery makers.

It is introducing a €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion) “battery booster“, providing interest-free loans to battery manufacturers. It is considering putting tariffs on imported batteries, subsidising European battery makers and tying electric car incentives to locally made batteries through the Industrial Accelerator Act. None of these policies are yet in place.

With trade disputes rising up the agenda of UN climate talks, Poliscanova conceded that such moves are protectionist, although she said she prefers to call them industrial policy.

“Honestly,” she said, “the EU and the UK are the two large global blocks left that don’t have such industrial protectionist policies. India has it, Brazil has it, China has it, the US has it – we’re literally the last fool standing thinking that [the World Trade Organization] is the way to go.”

Li Shuo, China Climate Hub director at the Asia Society Policy Institute, said that the trade-offs between cheap foreign batteries and more expensive European ones “need to be discussed honestly”.

“How much higher are Europeans willing to pay?” he said. “How much delay in climate deployment is acceptable? Can we really decarbonise and de-risk at the same time? How long can politicians condemn cheap Chinese imports while consumers simultaneously demand affordability?”

While European policymakers want to fight China, the average European just wants a cheap battery, he added.

Closing the cost gap

But once European battery makers scale up, the price gap with Chinese batteries will shrink, Poliscanova said.

While German LFP battery cells are 90% more expensive than those made in China, scale-up could close this gap to a “sovereignty premium” of just 25% by 2030, Transport & Environment estimates.

Nehrenheim acknowledged that most of Europe’s batteries will continue to come from Asia or the United States. “I’m very happy for that because they’re scaling fast and they get great support subsidies in their respective countries to supply us to help us in the [energy] transition,” she said.

But European-headquartered companies must make at least a quarter of the region’s batteries, she said, otherwise if supply is disrupted – whether by geopolitical factors, a pandemic or natural disaster – the industry will have nothing to scale up from.

Nehrenheim said she was almost 100% confident that Morrow’s factory will continue to produce batteries. The company said it expected a court-appointed bankruptcy administrator to assume control over the company’s assets and operations.

Citing investors’ €1.4 billion ($1.62 billion) reprieve of Swedish green steelmaker Stegra in April, Nehrenheim said there were reasons to be hopeful about Morrow’s survival as Europe demands batteries for diverse uses beyond cars – from energy storage to drones and forklift trucks.

“Somebody will pick this up,” she said.

The post After another battery startup bankruptcy, can Europe ever cut reliance on China? appeared first on Climate Home News.

Even before the summer travel rush began this Memorial Day weekend, Yosemite National Park was seeing enormous crowds—more than 836,000 visits so far in 2026, according to National Park Service data, about 100,000 more than this time last year.

During the pandemic, Yosemite started using some form of reservation system to manage crowds. Yosemite had one of its busiest seasons in 2025, with about 2.9 million visits through August, up 7% from the same period in 2024. Despite the high visitation rates, the National Park Service announced in February that Yosemite would not require timed-entry reservations in 2026, saying a review of 2025 traffic and parking data showed that a season-wide reservation requirement was not the most effective approach.

Last weekend, wait times to get into the park exceeded 90 minutes, and in some cases visitors were told to turn around. Once inside, visitors experienced completely full parking lots and overcrowding at popular sites within the park. Andranik Arakelyan, a visitor who previously opposed reservation systems acknowledged their value, saying, “There’s just not enough capacity, like infrastructure and the employees to handle all of this traffic.”

“Without any limits on the amount of vehicles, the amount of people, it becomes overwhelmed,” said John Buckley, Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center executive director. “The best accessibility is when there’s managed park conditions so that the number of vehicles is balanced with the amount of parking and the capacity of the roads,” said Buckley.

Quick hits Yosemite overwhelmed by traffic and crowds as park ends reservation system

ABC7 News | San Francisco Chronicle

Wyoming lawmaker aims to block future roadless areas despite overwhelming support for roadless protections

WyoFile

Billionaire buys Idaho state trust land to keep it undeveloped

Jackson Hole News & Guide

Residents of Mountain West towns warned they could run out of water after a terrible winter turns to a summer of drought

New York Times

Could changes at the U.S. Forest Service impact wildfire response in Oregon?

KATU

Wyoming BLM in a bind between DOGE firings’ impacts and energy development push

Cowboy State Daily

Essay: Treat water like family, not profit

High Country News

Podcast: The most underrated sites at America’s national parks

Vox

Quote of the day

The Forest Service’s own assessment found that building roads in these areas would actually increase the risk of fire, and another analysis shows that 85% of wildfires are human-caused.”

—Representative Andrea Salinas of Oregon, WyoFile

Picture This

@usinterior

Waves shimmer beneath the cliffs of Channel Islands National Park, where golden wildflowers bloom brightly above the Pacific.

Have a peaceful Sunday!

Photo by Tim Hauf

Featured image: Source: Yosemitenps

The post Yosemite overwhelmed by traffic, crowds as park ends reservation system appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

At a time when other public officials and the media are talking less about climate change, Sheldon Whitehouse remains fiercely outspoken. He delivered his 307th climate speech on the Senate floor this month and is pushing back against the recent trend of “climate hushing.”

Read more on E360 →

The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food) recently published a special report warning that rising food prices will persist alongside global geopolitical instability. They call for nations to build “resilient self-reliance” across global food and agriculture systems to ensure greater food security and economic sovereignty.

In an increasingly interconnected global market, food commodities are exposed to supply chain volatility risk caused by geopolitical instability, the report says. Retaliatory tariffs, military conflict, and the recent reduction in foreign food aid packages have exacerbated economic issues facing farmers today. The report notes that attacks in the Gulf region threaten global food security due to volatile energy markets: “Over one-third of global urea and sulfur exports—key ingredients for nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers, respectively—pass through the Strait of Hormuz.” Such disruptions “will likely have global consequences due to rising oil prices that could spill over into food and fertilizer prices,” the report asserts.

“The impact of high energy prices will likely drive up the cost of food more than fertilizer alone because our food systems are so fossil fuel-dependent,” says Jennifer Clapp, a member of the IPES-Food panel and lead author of the special report. In places like the United States, these additional costs come as farmers are projected to experience an approximate 2.6 percent loss in real income (inflation-adjusted dollars) relative to last year.

The report discusses the efficacy of supply management policies—market intervention strategies including quotas and importation limits—in high-income nations like Canada. “The food system has become so volatile, and we are so vulnerable to food price inflation that we feel like we need to do something,” says Clapp. In Canada, for example, public management of dairy products helps to insulate local farmers from global market volatility by allowing them to sell their commodities at profit-generating prices.

But rising food insecurity rates in Canada indicate that diversifying the range of supply-managed commodities can help improve local resilience. Clapp, who serves as a Professor and Research Chair at the University of Waterloo, Canada, tells Food Tank that “as one in four [Canadians] face food insecurity, diversification is a really important policy for us to ensure access to more fresh fruits and vegetables.”

The report highlights public food stockholding programs as pragmatic policy options for nations at risk of food insecurity. By pooling agronomic resources from primarily small producers, West African nations are able to collaboratively store food to quickly disseminate based on the needs of municipalities within the region.

To decouple local food production systems from global markets, nations must reconcile the demand of consumers with systemic policy transitions. “Thinking about diversity of diets is important because it can change those demand patterns. If people were eating more beans, tofu [etc.], there’s a way in which we can envision dietary change helping to facilitate more diverse production systems,” Clapp tells Food Tank.

For example, U.S. livestock production depends on corn and soybeans as inputs, two crops that currently serve as the largest users of nitrogen fertilizers and herbicides. Because of this structural reliance, Clapp argues that a diverse, plant-based diet puts eaters “already way ahead” in terms of both ecological impact and resilience to energy shocks.

This need for resilient self-reliance is even more urgent in the global South. As the special report notes, “The impacts of rising food prices are highly uneven. Net food-importing countries in the Global South have been hit the hardest, with inflation peaks reaching up to 30% in May 2023.”

While these nations have a massive opportunity to insulate themselves from global market turmoil by pioneering localized, self-reliant food strategies, doing so effectively requires international debt relief. Ultimately, as the report emphasizes, “the most vulnerable countries have the most to lose from the way the current system is organized, they also have the most to gain from leading the transition towards self-reliance and protection from dependency.”

Central to this transition is a food sovereignty approach that prioritizes equity, diversity, and local agency. By using market management tools to protect smallholders, nations can transition away from cash-crop dependence and cultivate traditional crops. The report highlights that these mechanisms “act as stabilizing buffers, support smaller-scale and more diverse producers, and improve access to food for marginalized and vulnerable people,” building deep ecological and economic resilience against future global shocks.

Meanwhile, recent U.S. dietary guidelines recommend increased protein intake for healthy adults, which many interpret as a push for greater meat and animal product consumption. This focus on animal protein runs counter to calls for the diverse, plant-based systems needed to build global food resilience.

While geopolitics remain complicated and uncertain, structural shifts in consumption patterns could redefine agricultural dependency. As Clapp emphasizes to Food Tank, modifying these foundational demand patterns is essential: “If it’s going to be protein, it needs to be more plant-based protein.”

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 Jim Niakaris, Unsplash

The post A New World Order: How Nations Can Tackle the New Geopolitics of Food appeared first on Food Tank.

Nearly 1.15 million registered nurses (RNs) with active licenses are not working as nurses, announced National Nurses United (NNU). NNU reached this number by comparing the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics data, released on May 15, with data covering the same period from the National Council of the State Boards of Nursing.

More than half of the projects are driven by forecasted load growth, marking an evolution in transmission planning from an emphasis on accessing low-cost renewables to “now also reliably meeting growing customer demand,” CAISO said.

The approved portfolio includes about 3.8 GW of new capacity, anchored by 2,088 MW of gas generation, along with 1,100 MW of wind, 189 MW of solar and 472 MW/1.9 GWh of battery storage.

A baby whale doesn’t stand a chance against a speeding ship.

The Bay Area is facing its biggest threat to public transportation in decades. With a looming fiscal cliff, major transit agencies—including BART, Muni, Caltrain, and AC Transit—may soon have to make difficult decisions to close stations, reduce frequencies, and shorten hours of operation. 

A major grassroots campaign, however, might avert this crisis on the November ballot to secure long-term funding and ensure that our public transit can provide critical services to our communities.

On May 26, the Connect Bay Area campaign  announced it collected more than 305,000 signatures to qualify a regional transit funding measure for the November ballot—crushing the minimal threshold of 186,000 required signatures. the measure will create a ½ percent sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties; San Francisco County will have a 1-percent sales tax. Taxes collected from this measure will be used to fund the transit operations for BART, Muni, Caltrain, and AC Transit while also funding transit transformation improvements to safety, cleanliness, convenience, and seamless integration of transit services. 

“The success of this effort is built on one of the largest grassroots transit organizing efforts the region has ever seen and major support from business and labor organizations,” celebrated the campaign on a statement announcing the achievement.

Greenbelt Alliance is proud to be part of this grassroots coalition and endorse the Connect Bay Area Campaign, mobilizing volunteers and petition signers to achieve this important goal. 

"The Bay Area's public transit is a core pillar of our region's ability to usher in a climate-smart, affordable, and just future. Greenbelt Alliance is excited to be a part of this grassroots coalition to help protect and enhance our public transportation and reduce pollution."

Amanda Brown-Stevens, Executive Director

The campaign has grown in support over the last several months with more than 80 elected officials and more than 90 labor groups and advocacy organizations signing on in support. Major businesses from across the region have helped to fundraise over $5.5 million so far to get the measure on the ballot and prepare for the November election.

The more than 300,000 signatures will now be officially counted and validated by the Departments of Elections for each of the five counties over the next few weeks before the measure can officially be placed on the ballot.

How We Got Here

Funding for transit agencies in the Bay Area relies heavily on fares and local revenue sources, so when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and ridership plunged, a substantial amount of that funding disappeared. For a while, agencies were able to stay afloat due to the federal relief stimulus, but that has quickly dried up, and California has not stepped in to address those deficits. Without yearly State funding and with ridership only slowly recovering to pre-pandemic levels, agencies are not seeing the revenue needed to continue operating at full capacity.

To put this into perspective, here is what will happen in 2027 if we do not pass the transit measure:

Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)

• Red and Green lines will be phased down to just peak hours in January 2027. The Grey line will close at this time, too. The blue line will close in July 2027.
• 15 stations with the lowest ridership will close, including Millbrae and Warm Springs, by July 2027. 
• 70% reduction in train hours and 25% reduction in system miles by July 2027. 
• 30% fare increase in January 2027, and a 50% increase in July 2027. 
• The agency will face a $355-$385 million budget deficit (30% of the operating budget)
• Without a funding pathway by mid-2028, BART may have to stop all operations. See more details here.

SFMTA Muni

• There will be a 50% cut of Muni services 
• There will be an elimination of fare discounts and pass programs for youth and seniors
• The agency will face a $322-$398 million budget deficit (25% of the operating budget)

AC Transit

• There will be a nearly 40% cut to services
• The agency will face a $51-$72 million budget deficit (10% of the operating budget)

Caltrain

• The agency will run 1 train per hour and cut all weekend service
• The agency will face a $65-$76 million budget deficit (42% of the operating budget)

These monumental disruptions to operations are direct consequences of the fiscal cliff. However, it does not account for the myriad ramifications down the road for managing traffic, tackling climate change, meeting our housing needs, and ensuring an affordable California for all.

“Fuming” with Greenhouse Gases

With 41% of California’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from the transportation sector, losing major parts of our public transit system will allow for even more cars on the road and weaken our ability to fight the climate crisis. Without BART, drivers can expect their commute to extend by 12 more hours per week and see traffic across the Bay Bridge surging by 73%. This means less time with family and friends doing the things we love. 

In the long term, this may lead to worsening climate hazards, including droughts, flooding, and wildfires. More cars will also be a direct threat to our health and well-being, causing more air pollution, compromising air quality, and increasing respiratory-related illnesses. By maintaining our public transit system, we can reduce GHG emissions and avoid these catastrophic changes to our communities.

Communities Connected to Transit

Three words encapsulate our housing abundance strategy: transit-oriented development (TOD). In the last two decades, many urbanists have turned their attention to creating walkable, affordable, and resilient communities that are well-connected to the places where people work, study, and play. A cornerstone of this vision is built on the idea that we should promote more homes near our public transit corridors.

BART TOD projects like MacArthur Station provide residents access to the vibrant Temescal neighborhood, while allowing easy access to commute to downtown Oakland or San Francisco. Even new project proposals like the Caltrain-adjacent Hillsdale Reimagined in San Mateo demonstrate the durability of TOD in renovating underutilized buildings and turning them into lively community spaces. 

That is why Greenbelt Alliance co-sponsored Senate Bill 79 in the California legislature, which makes it easier and faster to build homes near public transit. While SB 79 is now law, the risks of public transit’s fiscal cliff diminish the law’s application by making fewer sites viable for TOD upzoning. Other proposed TOD projects funded by transit agencies will likely be reevaluated, too. This could all delay much-needed affordable housing in the Bay Area and worsen the housing crisis.

Saving public transit goes far beyond just our means of commuting. A healthy public transit system reduces traffic, protects us from pollution, reduces GHG emissions, creates resilient neighborhoods, and supports new housing. If the more than 305,000 signatures are validated by each county’s Department of Elections, the measure will officially be on the November ballot. For more information about the Connect Bay Area campaign or to get involved, please visit connectbayarea.com

The post Connect Bay Area Transit Funding Measure Crushes Signature Goal For November Ballot appeared first on Greenbelt Alliance.

By betting on efficiency, storage, long-term energy planning and grid flexibility, the Illinois’ Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act offers a blueprint for the state’s energy future, Vote Solar’s John Delurey writes.

Open, transparent debate is essential for the cooperative movement. Yet in many co-ops, criticism stays private, and praise goes public, leaving members in the dark, weakening collective decision-making, and enabling bad ideas and bad actors to proliferate.

Study shows that deforestation destroys important natural sinks that filter out deadly air pollution

Source

Residential sales fell 0.1% year over year while residential prices soared 10.2% in the same period, to 18.8 cents/kWh, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said.

Completed competitive transmission projects are also about 30% less expensive than comparable incumbent utility projects, according to a report from the think tank. 

No matter where you live in the United States or what your driving habits are, a battery electric vehicle is likely to have a smaller carbon footprint and cost less overall than a comparable gasoline-powered vehicle, according to a new analysis.

The study calls into question some persistent myths about EVs – and gives policymakers and individual drivers tools to evaluate the benefits for their specific situation.

It’s well known that the emissions savings from EVs vary due to a number of factors, such as the greenness of the local electricity grid, climate, and a person’s driving habits. EVs also tend to cost more upfront than gasoline cars, but have lower fuel and maintenance costs. How all these tradeoffs pencil out can be hard to figure.

Most previous studies have looked at just one or a few of these factors at a time. In the new study, the researchers gathered data from every U.S. zip code and systematically analyzed a host of factors that might affect emissions or costs: local climate, electricity sources, congestion, urban versus rural driving and traffic patterns, electricity and gasoline prices, and individual variations in driving habits.

They used the results of the analysis to update a freely available website that compares the life-cycle emissions and total ownership costs of almost any type of EV and gasoline vehicle. “We provide quantitative answers to common questions asked by prospective EV owners,” the researchers write.

EVs reduce emissions the most in areas with a green electric grid, heavier traffic, greater annual travel distances, and mild climate, the researchers found.

 

.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl , .IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {height: auto;position: relative;}.IRPP_ruby , .IRPP_ruby:hover , .IRPP_ruby:visited , .IRPP_ruby:active {border:0!important;}.IRPP_ruby .clearfix:after {content: "";display: table;clear: both;}.IRPP_ruby {display: block;transition: background-color 250ms;webkit-transition: background-color 250ms;width: 100%;opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: #eaeaea;}.IRPP_ruby:active , .IRPP_ruby:hover {opacity: 1;transition: opacity 250ms;webkit-transition: opacity 250ms;background-color: inherit;}.IRPP_ruby .postImageUrl {background-position: center;background-size: cover;float: left;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: 31.59%;position: absolute;top: 0;bottom: 0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text-area {float: right;width: 65.65%;padding:0;margin:0;}.IRPP_ruby .centered-text {display: table;height: 130px;left: 0;top: 0;padding:0;margin:0;padding-top: 20px;padding-bottom: 20px;}.IRPP_ruby .IRPP_ruby-content {display: table-cell;margin: 0;padding: 0 74px 0 0px;position: relative;vertical-align: middle;width: 100%;}.IRPP_ruby .ctaText {border-bottom: 0 solid #fff;color: #0099cc;font-size: 14px;font-weight: bold;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .postTitle {color: #000000;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;letter-spacing: normal;margin: 0;padding: 0;font-family:'Arial';}.IRPP_ruby .ctaButton {background: url(https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts-pro/assets/images/next-arrow.png)no-repeat;background-color: #afb4b6;background-position: center;display: inline-block;height: 100%;width: 54px;margin-left: 10px;position: absolute;bottom:0;right: 0;top: 0;}.IRPP_ruby:after {content: "";display: block;clear: both;}Recommended Reading:The Future of the Grid Could Be Parked in Your Driveway

 

In any given area, EVs reduce emissions more for those drivers who drive more often, drive bigger vehicles, and spend more time stuck in traffic.

In most parts of the country, an EV reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 40-60% compared to a gasoline car. Not surprisingly, the greenness of the local grid is the biggest factor in driving differences in emission savings from place to place.

Many members of the public assume that EVs are no better than gasoline cars if the electricity that powers them comes from fossil fuels. But grids have gotten greener, and even in areas with the most carbon-intensive electricity, EVs almost always come out ahead, the researchers found.

Moreover, because grids everywhere are getting even greener yet, this will become less of a source of variation in the future, and individual driving patterns will matter more and more. Already, in some instances individual differences in driving patterns can matter as much as all regional factors combined, the analysis shows.

EVs also reduce emissions even in the most unfavorable climate conditions, upending assumptions that they have little environmental benefit in cold climates. It’s true that battery function takes a hit in the cold, but considered over the course of a whole year the effect on emissions savings is pretty small.

The cost of electricity is the largest factor in determining the relative costs of the different types of vehicles. In most areas of the United States, EVs are cost-competitive with gasoline vehicles, even without tax credits for clean vehicles. In areas where electricity is relatively cheap, EVs tend to have a lower lifetime ownership cost than gasoline cars.

Source: Miotti M. and J.E. Trancik. “Determinants of electric vehicle emissions savings and costs across locations and individuals.” Environmental Research Letters 2026.

Image: ©Anthropocene Magazine.

 

Mill Industries and Amazon are partnering to keep grocery store food waste out of landfills. Mill’s recycling systems will roll out in Whole Foods Market stores in 2027, turning discarded food scraps into chicken feed for the retailer’s private-label egg suppliers.

The Mill grounds will make up 5 to 10 percent of suppliers’ total feed, and Whole Foods hopes to offer it at a lower cost than traditional feed, says Caitlin Leibert, Vice President of Sustainability at Whole Foods Market. The pilot will begin in the produce department, but Leibert notes the opportunity for expansion to other food waste streams. Whole Foods is working closely with farmers and cross-functional teams to validate the model and prepare for launch.

According to ReFED, food retailers in the United States generated an estimated 4.63 million tons of surplus food, worth US$30.3 billion. Despite donation and composting pathways, nearly 30 percent of that food ended up in landfills or incinerators.

Mill Co-Founder & President Harry Tannenbaum sees both an economic and environmental opportunity in reducing retail-level food waste. He tells Food Tank, “When we waste food, we’re wasting the water, energy, labor, land, and time it took to grow it, along with the opportunity to put those resources to better use. Tackling this issue head-on is a massive opportunity for impact.”

ReFED estimates that only 11.4 percent of surplus food was repurposed for animal feed. Adoption has been constrained by food safety concerns, logistical complexity, and limited infrastructure. But with proper processing, food waste can be converted into safe, nutritious, and cost-effective animal feed.

In South Korea, government-supported operations help divert more than 90 percent of the country’s food waste and turn over 42 percent into animal feed. “That really shows that with the right infrastructure, regulatory frameworks, monitoring systems, and government investment, you can manage some of the risks,” Sharyn Murray, Director of Impact Capital Programs at ReFED, tells Food Tank.

There is a common misconception that waste-feeding reduces production or compromises quality, says Ryan Martens, Livestock Director at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in New York. But the Center has operated a waste-feeding program for over a decade, and Martens reports they have not seen any decline in lay-rate or hen health. “We do blind tastings with the chefs and farmers and consistently the waste-fed eggs score higher on flavor compared to premium supermarket options,” he tells Food Tank.

Martens says that many farmers in the U.S. practice waste-feeding, but they must individually source, process, and formulate the feed. “In order for the U.S. to implement waste-feeding projects on a larger scale, we need to start formalizing and creating efficient processes for collecting, processing, and balancing waste-feeds,” he says.

Processing waste directly in stores could ease some of the logistical constraints that have limited waste-to-feed programs. Tannenbaum notes frequent collection and downstream management at centralized processing facilities as challenges Mill could help address. “By embedding decentralized infrastructure within stores, we can enable new recycling pathways that would have otherwise been economically or logistically inconceivable,” he says.

While preventing waste and donating food remain the best options for reducing hunger, converting unavoidable scraps into feed may become an increasingly important option for retailers.

Mill’s recycling systems are designed to turn discarded scraps into feed while helping stores identify and prevent waste upstream. The technology uses AI and computer vision to track waste types and volumes in real-time, offering retailers insights into inventory losses and waste drivers. “It’s not about simply processing food waste—it’s to prevent it from happening in the first place,” says Tannenbaum.

Murray emphasizes that retailers like Whole Foods occupy a unique position in the food value chain. “They are an important intersection point,” she says. “They’re connected to their suppliers, consumers, and ultimately to the farmers.”

If waste-feeding expands, it could reshape feed supply chains and improve margins for farmers. And the environmental upside may be substantial. In the U.S., decomposing food waste in landfills contributes greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to the annual emissions of 15 coal-fired power plants. “Even something as small as a 5 percent substitution of conventional feeds with waste-feed would take the burden off of millions of acres of corn and soy production while removing millions of pounds of food waste from our landfills in returning that food waste back to the soil,” Martens tells Food Tank.

“The reality is, this really isn’t waste at all,” Leibert tells Food Tank. “It’s a super valuable, nutrient-rich commodity.”

The project’s results may serve as an example for the industry’s potential to make waste-to-feed systems viable at scale, and to reframe the narrative around food waste.

“It’s an exciting opportunity to put a circular model on display,” Leibert says. “Nature and climate don’t work in a silo, and neither should we.”

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 Kristin O Karlsen, Unsplash

The post A Circular Solution for Retail Food Waste Takes Shape in U.S. Grocery Stores appeared first on Food Tank.

The risk of snakebites is increasing across the world as reptiles shift their habitats to cope with rising temperatures and growing human pressures, a study of venomous snakes has found.

Read more on E360 →