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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.

 

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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 →

Europe’s far right is on the rise. Right-wing populist movements have recently undergone an exponential growth in public support and a systematic rise to power within mainstream political platforms, securing about 25 percent of seats in the European parliament in 2024 (European Parliament, 2024). Despite their promotion of traditionalist views of gender and active opposition of feminism and “gender ideology,” right-wing conservative parties across Europe have been relying on a paradoxical weaponization of feminist ideas to defend the supposed superiority of Western values and target migrant communities (Vieten, 2025). This selective invocation of women’s rights, used to ostracize and alienate ethnic and religious minorities, was conceptualized by British sociologist Sara Farris as “femonationalism” (Farris, 2017). Farris argues that femonationalism reinforces negative stereotypes about Muslim immigrants and informs policies and laws, leading to systematic discrimination and hostility towards these communities that become a target for a hate campaign.

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), a political party founded in 2013, has become one of the most influential forces in contemporary German politics, despite being officially categorized as “right-wing extremist” in a report issued by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Notably, the AfD has one of the lowest proportions of female membership compared to its opponents, yet women still hold positions of power where they enjoy a certain degree of visibility and renown in its public image and political communication. This paradox raises a central question: How does the AfD actively shape the boundaries of women’s political representation while advancing anti-feminist and anti-immigrant agendas? More specifically, how does gender function as an integral element of the party’s nationalist project rather than a contradiction to it? The concept of femonationalism illuminates how the selective invocation of women’s rights becomes a mechanism for legitimizing xenophobic and exclusionary policies.

The stakes here are high. Populist far-right groups in Western Europe have been able to attain an enormous amount of power and political capital in recent years. Germany’s AfD has gained immense public support during the 2025 national elections, becoming the second-largest political force in the country. This marks a significant shift that suggests a resurging normalization of right-wing populism within the country’s parliamentary politics (Arzheimer, 2015). According to a 2025 report, the share of women among political party members in Germany as of December 2021 varied by party, with the Green Party having the highest number of female members at roughly 42 percent, followed by 37 percent in the Left party and 33 percent in the SPD (Statista, 2025). The AfD share of female members was the lowest at only 18.7 percent. Despite this severe gender imbalance, women continue to be strongly featured at the forefront of the AfD’s public image, embroidering a perceived sense of progress that sharply contradicts the party’s conservative agenda. Porzycki (2025) argues that radical-right parties often use their female members and leaders to portray themselves as modern and moderate in the public eye, a method that is commonly referred to as strategic image management. Yet at the heart of this strategy, there lies a clear irony: While women in the AfD are enabled and encouraged to acquire positions of power within the public political sphere, their presence in these spaces is leveraged to advance anti-feminist agendas. These women typically target female voters by appealing to their concerns about issues of safety and protection. As showcased by the concept of “the heartland” in populist German politics, radical-right parties equally appeal to nationalist fervor through a carefully curated vision of Germany that is partially fueled by a chronic idealization of the country’s problematic past (Porzycki et al., 2025), dismissing the inflammatory nature of such an ideal in the context of a “post-nazi” Germany.

As a language that makes it easy to create compound words, German has a surplus of derogatory terms used to refer to migrants and asylum seekers of ethnic descent. Terms like Überfremdung (Over-foreignization), Asylkriminalität (Asylum Criminality), Schuldkult (Cult of Guilt), and Parallelgesellschaften (Parallel Societies) are often used in political and online discourse to dehumanize migrants, criticize the nation’s culture of memory/remembrance, and generate panic within German society, thus creating further polarization in both official and unofficial public opinion. In fact, this misleading and offensive manipulation of language occurs so often that there is a German linguistic initiative that annually selects a word or a phrase deemed inappropriate and commonly misused, in order to raise awareness about inflammatory language posing a threat to democracy and human dignity. Unwort des Jahres (Non-word of the year) dates back to 1991, the year it was launched to draw attention to questionable use of loaded vernacular. In response to the resurgence of Germany’s far right, numerous “Unwörter” selected by the Unwort des Jahres’s independent panel have been linked to political actors such as the AfD, whose frequent use of populist neo-nazi lingo has left its permanent trace on contemporary trends in German slang. In 2024, Biodeutsch (Bio-German) was named “non-word” of the year, referring to people with German citizenship who do not have an ethnic German background. This further illustrates the importance of language in political discourse, particularly in the context of political mobilization. As exemplified by the German far right, language possesses a transformative capacity, enabling the establishment of a normalization of narratives previously considered extremist (Zajak et al., 2025).

The AfD utilizes a racialized ideal image of the “emancipated white woman” to frame Muslim women as inherently oppressed, unfree, and therefore incompatible with German society.

Doerr (2021) empirically investigates the construction of migrant Muslim communities as a “threat” to German society and to the supposed homogeneity of its native culture. The study emphasizes the role of the AfD in propagating a stereotypical image about these communities through physical street advertisements, digital platforms, mobile displays, and both national parliament elections and state-level campaigns. Doerr essentially argues that the AfD utilizes a racialized ideal image of the “emancipated white woman” to frame Muslim women as inherently oppressed, unfree, and therefore incompatible with German society. A primary example of this is the 2017 AfD campaign poster which exhibited an image of three white women in bikinis, accompanied by a slogan that reads: “Burkas? Wir steh’n auf Bikinis (Burkas? We prefer bikinis)” (Doerr, 2021). While the bikini is meant to symbolize freedom of choice and self-determination, Doerr (2021) argues that the AfD deploys a sexualizing chauvinistic male gaze that partially targets young male voters, portraying German women as governable subjects in need of protection from the likely dangers of Muslim invasion. Similar patterns emerge when we analyze speeches and press releases from the party, as its members consistently claim exclusive ownership of women’s rights and leverage gendered issues of public safety to amass voters and public supporters.

Women as victims of migration

One of the most assertively direct iterations of femonationalist ways of arguing is evident in Alice Weidel’s October 2025 press release titled: “More and more women live in fear—The AfD is ready to restore security” (Alternative für Deutschland, 2025). The title itself claims a causal chain before presenting any empirical data to support such a fallacious assertion: German women are unsafe in the public sphere and only the AfD is capable of reimposing order and security. Weidel states, “More than half of all women in Germany no longer feel safe in public spaces. This alarming figure from the representative Civey survey is further proof of the government’s failure in migration and security policy.” This statement proceeds without delay to pin the blame of a security issue on a particular ethnic minority: Syrians. She continues, “As the Federal Ministry of the Interior had to admit, between 2015 and 2024, according to official data, 135,668 Germans were victims of crimes committed by Syrian suspects.” The juxtaposition of women’s nocturnal fear with failure in border policy lacks empirical support from scholarly research. The primary objective of such a statement, however, is to evoke emotional responses rather than logical reasoning. According to Farris’s framework, this is a classic femonationalist move, as it reduces women to a quantifiable populace of nationalist subjects whose survival ostensibly counts on the AfD’s electoral victory. Weidel specifies that “the ones who suffer most are especially young women and children, who are often defenselessly exposed to violent assaults” (Alternative für Deutschland, 2025). Such word choices perform a crucial role, as they highlight the vulnerability of German women in the face of a persistent influx of migrants who are, in the eyes of Weidel and her fellow party members, the sole perpetrators and aggressors against such a precarious demographic. At the same time, these outlandish claims carry out the ideological work of concealing migrant and racialized women from the AfD’s ostensibly feminist narrative on women’s public safety issues. In a manner that can only be described as dehumanizing, these women are deemed unworthy of protection or dignity. The only presence that the ethnic/racialised woman is allowed in the AfD’s official pseudo-feminist discourse is one where she is depicted as a rhetorical device or an object with no agency, used only to advance the party’s xenophobic and racist agenda.

The AfD’s selective protective paternalistic narrative is deeply rooted in Samuel Huntington’s post-cold war “clash of civilizations” theory, which was subsequently adopted by contemporary political figures like Thilo Sarrazin whose essentialist views on migration and social integration have consistently contributed to the normalization of such exclusionary discourse within mainstream politics (Sprengholz, 2021). This view promotes a rigid concept of cultural identity, which is ultimately weaponized to exclude migrant communities deemed ‘incompatible’ with the host culture. Within this theoretical structure, gender is once again weaponized under the assumption that German society has already achieved absolute gender equality, thus instrumentalizing this flawed premise to draw racialized boundaries of citizenship and belonging that exclude all non-white Germans. The paradox herein is clear as day: Whereas anti-migration policies are presented as effective solutions to a gender-related issue, they often exacerbate gender inequalities by aggravating socioeconomic vulnerabilities among migrant women, with little regard to the consequences of such laws against non-constituent, non-white, non-Western —mostly Muslim—women.

Whereas anti-migration policies are presented as effective solutions to a gender-related issue, they often exacerbate gender inequalities by aggravating socioeconomic vulnerabilities among migrant women, with little regard to the consequences of such laws against non-constituent, non-white, non-Western —mostly Muslim—women.

This sentiment is reverberated in one of Alice Weidel’s most controversial press statements as she states: “The alarming scale and the high proportion of foreign suspects in sexual offenses against women are a warning signal. Since the Union opened the gates in 2015, especially to men from societies shaped by archaic and misogynistic norms, women have become fair game” (Weidel, 2024). The language used in this context is extremely offensive and dehumanizing, as the term Freiwild in German implies that women have been left unprotected and “available” for harassment and sexual violence due to the absence of stringent border measures. This kind of alarmist and sensitive language aligns with the AfD’s broader strategy of appropriating feminist rhetoric in the Bundestag —the federal parliament of Germany—to conceal its anti-feminist position and divert the public’s attention from its own conservative and traditionalist views of gender (Sprengholz, 2021). Analogously, internal conflicts within the AfD regarding the party’s stance on homosexuality are omitted from official statements (Arzheimer, 2015).

The racialization of sexism and male violence

The phrase “men from societies shaped by archaic and misogynistic norms” (Weidel, 2024) betrays a form of cultural essentialism that homogenizes entire societies and depicts them as inherently regressive and backwards, thus establishing a civilization hierarchy placing German culture and people above racialized migrant men and their cultures. In 2018, Alice Weidel used the term Messermänner auf Sozialhilfe or “Knife-wielding men on welfare” in reference to high-profile knife crimes that the country has witnessed, calling for waves of mass deportations of asylum seekers and refugees. In media coverage of stabbing crimes in Germany, systematic regularities seem to be permanently present across different outlets as reporting often emphasizes the ethnic background/origin of the perpetrators, thus constructing alarmist narratives that villainize and alienate migrant communities.

Similarly, AfD board member Dennis Hohloch claimed that “multiculturalism means a loss of traditions, a loss of identity, a loss of home, murder, killing, robbery and gang rape” (Baumgärtner et al., 2025). Scrinzi (2023) refers to a political and social process called “the racialization of sexism” through which misogyny is ascribed to racialized migrant communities and is therefore externalized and treated as an issue of foreign origins. While predominantly employed by right-wing political actors, racialized gender-based framings have also been passively endorsed by left-wing movements and secular groups. In France, for instance, the movement Ni Putes Ni Soumises (Neither Whores Nor Subaltern), dubbed progressive, played a crucial role in detaching gender-based violence from “middle-class white masculinity” (Scrinzi, 2023, p. 48). Despite it being spearheaded by French women of North African origins, the movement’s framing of sexual violence against women as a problem associated with Islam and the nation’s immigrant population greatly helped construct a narrative positioning racialized men as the hypersexualized aggressors of white women and the inherent oppressors of racialized women (Scrinzi, 2023, p. 49). Such accounts revive the ideological frameworks that colonial powers once used to rationalize territorial conquest and economic extraction of goods from the Global South. By failing to address gendered suburban violence as a multifaceted systemic issue and choosing to pathologize Islam instead, the Ni Putes Ni Soumises movement engages in a form of “carceral feminism” used by the republic to justify state racism and fortify the racist apparatus of the prison-industrial complex. The NPNS’s call for banning the veil is a prominent example of how femonationalist movements, emerging from Western feminisms, often reproduce racist and neoliberal narratives that either victimize or pathologize Muslim women (Farris, 2017, p. 62).

Far-right pro-natalism and women as “breeding machines”

The racialization of sexism constitutes a key element of the AfD’s populist mobilization strategy, which allows it to adopt a feminism that claims to protect German women while actively supporting policies that undermine their basic rights, such as access to abortion. This dynamic is closely intertwined with far-right pro-natalist rhetoric, which treats women’s bodies as reproductive tools tasked with “resisting” demographic change that is seen as a direct consequence of migration, thereby reducing women to agents of national preservation rather than autonomous rights-bearing individuals.

A 2017 campaign poster for the AfD made a huge commotion nationwide due to its disturbing message; The poster features the image of a pregnant white woman lying in a field of flowers with a bold-fonted caption that reads: “Neue Deutsche? Machen wir selber (More Germans? We’ll make them ourselves).” Critics have argued that this slogan was entrenched in the xenophobic nativist rhetoric, which deliberately excludes racialized communities from Germany’s national fabric. However, few were able to point out the misogynistic undertones hidden in plain sight. Such language and imagery exposes a pattern within populist right-wing politics that reveals a strong commitment to a pro-natalism that treats women as “breeding machines” for the “right” kind of citizens.

AfD politician Mariana Harder-Kühnel shared an official statement as a response to the German government’s 2024 family report, criticizing its failure to address “a long-known demographic crisis” and its reverberations on the skilled-labor market which has been witnessing a severe shortage of domestic workers (Alternative für Deutschland, 2024). Harder-Kühnel argues in favor of kontrollierten Bevölkerungsentwicklung liegen (controlled population development), presenting it as a more potent cure for the country’s economic and demographic woes than immigration ever was. Within this particular statement, Mariana Harder-Kühnel strategically deploys a language of pseudo-feminist “choice” that conveniently and suspiciously aligns with her imperative. Despite her insistence on the implementation of pro-choice-in-parenting policies, she fails to admit the coercive nature of her proposed measures she is suggesting (for example, the ban on abortion, promotion of the traditional family, and opposition to children’s rights in the constitution).

The leveraging of traditionalist domestic ideals to nurture white supremacist and nativist agendas is inseparable from the gendered pro-natalist language that blames women for social decline, therefore coercing them into abandoning their natural right to reproductive choice.

The AfD’s documented efforts of promoting familialism – a state-driven ideology that treats the nuclear family as the foundation of the national community and the main mechanism for social cohesion and welfare – and mobilizing post-feminist common sense narratives (Sprengholz, 2021) suggest that its pro-natalist agenda is inherently ideological and ethnonationalist in nature. This problematic language has been linked to the party’s electoral success, particularly in East Germany which has experienced a dramatic long-term population decline since the 1990 reunification (Höhne et al., 2025). The party has been relentless in its efforts to advance traditionalism, fueled by a commitment to preventing demographic collapse and ensuring the dominance of the so called “Aryan” race, a term so commonly misused that it has become synonymous with Nordic racial grouping, despite historically referring to ancient Indo-Iranian peoples. The leveraging of traditionalist domestic ideals to nurture white supremacist and nativist agendas is inseparable from the gendered pro-natalist language that blames women for social decline, therefore coercing them into abandoning their natural right to reproductive choice. While online discourse around reproductive health seems to be primarily focused on the United States, pro-natalist ideas in Germany stem from the party’s proper ideological evolution and the country’s homegrown völkisch (folkish/ethnic) nationalism (Heinemann, 2022). Pro-natalism comprises political, religious, and socioeconomic pressures that undermine women’s reproductive autonomy and freedom of choice, often culminating in legislative restrictions on contraception and abortion access (Bajaj & Stade, 2022). It is no surprise therefore that right-wing factions often adopt the infamous alarmist “fertility crisis” narrative to push for more control on women’s bodies.

Conclusion

The AfD’s rhetoric and actions push the boundaries of Western democracy and free speech and confirm the significance of language in politics, yet femonationalism extends far beyond German populist politics. Radical-right populism heavily relies on antagonistic framing and the strategic invocation of gender, which allows politicians to align themselves ideologically with their target audience, or at the very least to shift public discourse, normalize racist rhetoric, and strongly dominate the media landscape.

Works Cited

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Alternative für Deutschland. (2024, May 15). Mariana Harder-Kühnel: Familienreport 2024 enthält kein Konzept zur Lösung des Geburtenmangels und der Demografie-Katastrophe. Alternative Für Deutschland. https://www.afd.de/mariana-harder-kuehnel-familienreport-2024-enthaelt-kein-konzept-zur-loesung-des-geburtenmangels-und-der-demografie-katastrophe/

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Scrinzi, F. (2023). The Racialization of Sexism. Routledge. https://www.perlego.com/book/4270023

Sprengholz, M. (2021). Post-feminist German heartland: On the women’s rights narrative of the radical-right populist party Alternative für Deutschland in the Bundestag. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 28(4), 486-501. https://doi.org/10.1177/13505068211007509 (Original work published 2021)

Statista. (2025, November 29). Share of women among political party members in Germany 2021. https://www.statista.com/statistics/955972/women-share-political-party-members-germany/?srsltid=AfmBOooYDhCC25ugDxGodJBVoMKgVeAutFUSDA4IqRS4lnwnpqRK5Bd7

Törnberg, P., & Chueri, J. (2025). When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries. The International Journal of Press/Politics, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/19401612241311886

Vieten, U. M. (2025). The Far-Right, Gender In/Equalities and Liberal Feminism: Scrutinising EU Narratives of Gender Equality in Italy, France and Germany. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/07256868.2025.2592306

Weidel, A. (2024, November 20). Alice Weidel: Migrationskrise macht Frauen zu Freiwild. presseportal.de. https://www.presseportal.de/pm/110332/5913293

Zajak, S., Meuth, A., & Best, F. (2025). The Dynamics of (De-)Normalization of the far Right: perceptions in the German population. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-025-09532-6

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”
Featured Image credit: Olaf Kosinsky; modified by Tempest.

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Headline News:

• “Renewable Energy Just Broke A 100-Year-Old Streak” • When Thomas Edison’s Pearl Street electrical station fired up in Lower Manhattan in 1882, it ran on coal. Since then, Coal has survived the oil era, the nuclear era, and natural gas. Now it has been surpassed by renewable energy, according to Ember’s Global Electricity Review 2026. [MSN]

Interior of Pearl Street Station (Energy.gov, public domain)

• “Strait Of Hormuz Turmoil ‘Serious’ Risk For Europe, Top UAE Adviser Warns” • Dr Anwar Gargash said at a conference in Prague that the Strait of Hormuz is a European energy problem, not a distant regional one, as the region faces the worst instability in decades. It is a direct challenge to European energy supply and trade. [Euronews]
• “Pope Calls For Robust Regulation Of AI In Manifesto” • In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV has called for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for common good rather than profit. He issued the sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war. [ABC News]
• “Evacuation Zone Shrinks After ‘Worst-Case Scenario’ Of Southern California Chemical Tank Explosion Averted, Officials Say” • About 16,000 people remain under evacuation orders for a possible tank explosion, Garden Grove Police Chief said at a press briefing. That’s down from 50,000. The tank’s temperature has been reduced. [ABC News]
• “Uber: Getting Hard to Justify High AI Costs” • Tech companies and large corporations are all gung-ho about using AI, so there’s a lot of early adoption underway. But how useful is the rush to adopt, and is it providing a positive return on investment? Uber is apparently starting to ask these questions, as AI does not seem to deliver as expected. [CleanTechnica]

For more news, please visit geoharvey – Daily News about Energy and Climate Change.

Istilah slot gacor digunakan untuk menggambarkan mesin slot yang sedang berada dalam kondisi “mudah menang”. Biasanya, game dianggap gacor ketika sering memberikan free spin, scatter, wild, atau kemenangan beruntun dalam waktu tertentu.

Namun, pemain profesional tidak hanya mengandalkan keberuntungan. Mereka cenderung memperhatikan beberapa faktor seperti:

• RTP (Return to Player)
• Volatilitas game
• Jam bermain
• Pola spin
• Manajemen modal

Pendekatan ini membuat permainan terasa lebih terukur dan tidak sekadar mengandalkan insting.

Pola Spin yang Sering Digunakan Pro Player

Salah satu rahasia yang paling sering dibahas adalah penggunaan pola spin tertentu. Strategi ini dipercaya membantu membaca ritme permainan sebelum pemain menaikkan taruhan.

Beberapa pola yang populer di komunitas pemain antara lain:

10 Spin Manual Dilanjut Auto Spin

Pola ini digunakan untuk melihat apakah mesin sedang aktif memberikan kombinasi kemenangan kecil. Jika dalam 10 spin awal muncul scatter atau wild secara konsisten, pemain biasanya melanjutkan dengan auto spin.

Strategi ini dianggap efektif karena membantu pemain menghindari pemborosan modal sejak awal permainan.

Kombinasi Bet Rendah dan Naik Bertahap

Banyak pro player tidak langsung memasang taruhan besar. Mereka memulai dari nominal kecil sambil memantau pola kemenangan. Ketika permainan mulai menunjukkan tanda-tanda gacor, taruhan dinaikkan secara perlahan.

Cara ini dinilai lebih aman dibanding langsung bermain agresif sejak awal.

Pola Turbo dan Normal Bergantian

Sebagian pemain percaya perubahan mode spin dapat memengaruhi ritme permainan. Karena itu, mereka sering mengganti mode turbo dan normal setiap beberapa putaran.

Walau tidak ada bukti teknis bahwa pola ini menjamin kemenangan, strategi tersebut cukup populer di kalangan pemain aktif.

Pentingnya Memilih Game dengan RTP Tinggi

Pro player umumnya lebih selektif dalam memilih permainan. Mereka cenderung memainkan slot dengan RTP tinggi karena secara teori memiliki peluang pengembalian yang lebih baik dalam jangka panjang.

Game dengan RTP di atas 96 persen sering menjadi pilihan utama karena dianggap lebih stabil dibanding slot dengan RTP rendah.

Selain RTP, volatilitas juga menjadi pertimbangan penting:

• Volatilitas rendah: kemenangan lebih sering tetapi nominal kecil
• Volatilitas tinggi: kemenangan lebih jarang namun berpotensi besar

Pemain profesional biasanya menyesuaikan pilihan game dengan modal dan gaya bermain mereka.

Jam Bermain yang Dianggap Paling Efektif

Di komunitas slot online, terdapat anggapan bahwa waktu bermain tertentu memiliki peluang lebih baik. Beberapa pemain aktif memilih bermain pada jam-jam sepi seperti dini hari atau pagi hari.

Alasannya sederhana, mereka percaya sistem permainan lebih stabil ketika jumlah pemain tidak terlalu ramai. Meski belum ada data resmi yang membuktikan hal tersebut, kebiasaan ini tetap banyak diterapkan.

Jam yang sering dianggap efektif antara lain:

• 00.00 – 03.00
• 09.00 – 11.00
• 13.00 – 15.00

Bagi pro player, konsistensi membaca pola permainan jauh lebih penting dibanding sekadar mengikuti tren waktu bermain.

Manajemen Modal Jadi Kunci Utama

Salah satu perbedaan terbesar antara pemain biasa dan pro player terletak pada pengelolaan modal. Pemain berpengalaman jarang menghabiskan seluruh saldo dalam satu sesi permainan.

Mereka biasanya sudah menentukan:

• Batas kekalahan harian
• Target kemenangan
• Jumlah spin maksimal
• Nominal taruhan yang aman

Dengan manajemen modal yang disiplin, pemain dapat mengurangi risiko kerugian besar sekaligus menjaga permainan tetap terkendali.

Jangan Mudah Percaya Pola Instan

Di media sosial dan forum online, banyak beredar klaim pola slot anti kalah atau bocoran pasti maxwin. Pemain perlu lebih kritis terhadap informasi seperti ini.

Perlu dipahami bahwa sistem RNG membuat hasil permainan bersifat acak. Tidak ada pola yang benar-benar bisa menjamin kemenangan mutlak. Strategi yang digunakan pro player lebih berfokus pada efisiensi permainan dan pengendalian risiko, bukan mencari kepastian menang.

Karena itu, pemain disarankan tetap bermain secara bijak dan menjadikan slot online sebagai hiburan, bukan sumber pendapatan utama.

Kesimpulan

Rahasia pola slot gacor yang sering dipakai pro player sebenarnya bukan sekadar soal keberuntungan. Pemain berpengalaman lebih mengandalkan kombinasi strategi, pemilihan game, pengelolaan modal, dan kemampuan membaca ritme permainan.

Meski tidak ada metode pasti untuk menang terus-menerus, pendekatan yang disiplin dapat membantu pemain bermain lebih efektif dan terhindar dari keputusan impulsif. Dalam dunia slot online, kontrol diri dan strategi tetap menjadi faktor penting yang membedakan pemain biasa dengan pemain profesional.

On Friday, May 22nd, a crowd of approximately 40 residents and community supporters gathered for a press conference and rally outside of Tahanan Homes, a...

The post Tahanan tenants on rent strike against 8% rent increase first appeared on Spring.

BYOP is increasingly evolving into a collaborative utility-customer model for serving large load growth. 

FERC 1920 requires rigorous long-term planning, transforming how planning activities produce results.

When it comes to California’s climate future, the most important figure in the state’s chaotic governor’s race may not be any of the candidates on the debate stage. It may not even be outgoing governor Gavin Newsom or President Donald Trump. 

Instead, it might just be Chevron, the multinational oil company that was founded in the Golden State more than 100 years ago. It is among the largest producers, refiners, and sellers of petroleum products in a state rapidly shifting toward electric vehicles. Depending on which candidate is talking, the company is an example of how Big Oil is strangling consumers or an example of how climate regulations are strangling the state economy. 

The behemoth — it reported $12.3 billion in profit last year — took the spotlight last month when an interviewer asked leading Democratic candidate Xavier Becerra about Chevron’s contributions to his campaign. The former state attorney general and Biden-era health secretary gave what seemed to be a candid response:

“Chevron, that’s the problem with politics. They’re not the bad guy. Does everybody here drive an electric vehicle? You need Chevron. I need Chevron. My people of the state of California need Chevron … Chevron wants to give me a check, that’s — that’s their prerogative.”

The phrase “I need Chevron” soon appeared in anti-Becerra videos by the likes of climate hawk Jane Fonda, implying that the candidate was saying he needs Chevron to get elected. Progressive billionaire Tom Steyer, Becerra’s lead Democratic opponent, urged him to return the contribution and said he is “doing [the] bidding” of Big Oil. Representative Katie Porter, another leading Democrat, said in a statement that she “hasn’t made millions off Big Oil or taken their checks.”

Becerra is not entirely wrong. California consumes around 13 billion gallons of gasoline annually, all of it specifically formulated to meet the state’s stringent clean air standards. Most of it comes from just six refineries, and Chevron owns two that account for one-third of the state’s production. That gives the company and its peers tremendous leverage. But California’s gas consumption has declined by about 15 percent from a peak in 2004 due to improved fuel economy in conventional vehicles and growing adoption of electric vehicles. It could fall by half over the next two decades. 

The primary is June 2. The challenge for the next governor will be to continue the energy transition while retaining the infrastructure needed to move and refine oil. This has never been accomplished in a place as large as California, which was the world’s fifth-largest economy in 2025. The risks are tremendous: If the state moves too quickly, it could create shortages and price spikes for drivers already paying the highest prices in the country. If it moves too slowly, it could lock in decades of air pollution and hinder global climate progress.

“It’s messy,” said Emily Grubert. She is a civil engineer and sociologist at Notre Dame who has studied fossil fuel transitions and advised the state government on oil infrastructure. “As soon as you realize that actually transitioning away from fossil fuels means you have to close things, people get really freaked out.”

Newsom spent much of his governorship going after Big Oil, an effort that included a series of executive actions to restrict fracking in Kern County oil fields. When the war in Ukraine sent gas prices surging, Newsom and Democrats in the Legislature passed a series of bills to stop what he called “price gouging.” These laws empowered a new oil-focused watchdog agency, created a tool that could impose refinery price caps, and required refineries to maintain certain storage reserves, all of which cut profit margins for Chevron and others. The new refinery rules added to multiple carbon taxes that make selling gasoline in California more expensive.

However, there is some evidence refiners have overcharged Californians. Even after accounting for state taxes, environmental fees, and production costs, a gap remains between gas prices in the Golden State and everywhere else. This gap appeared in 2015 after a refinery fire in Torrance and has come to be known as the “mystery gasoline surcharge.” It now averages about $1. Last fall, a state regulator concluded that refiners’ monopoly power may be the reason for the price spikes.

Oil companies accused Newsom of trying to regulate them out of existence, and many threatened to leave. Two major refiners, Wilmington and Benicia, announced last year that they would close their operations, forcing a state that already imports about 60 percent of its oil to rely on imports of gasoline refined in Asia. Chevron relocated its corporate headquarters from the San Francisco suburb of San Ramon to Houston in 2024, and it has delivered a series of ominous warnings this year as climate regulators have revised the state’s almost 15-year-old carbon tax.

“The proposed regulation will cripple the survivability of the state’s remaining refineries, which will result in California losing the entire industry,” Andy Walls, the president of Chevron’s refinery business, wrote in an open letter to Newsom in March. The implication was clear: unless you relax your regulations, we will leave the state and strand you without gasoline. That would mean paying Asian refiners to produce more of the state’s specific blend, at significant cost.

The Newsom administration spent much of 2025 trying to work out a grand bargain with the industry. The Legislature eased rules governing drilling in Kern County oil fields, helping maintain a stable supply of crude to refineries. It also delayed implementing a refinery profit cap and allowed the temporary sale of gasoline with higher concentrations of ethanol. The state’s climate regulator has also suggested giving refineries free allowances under the state’s cap-and-trade system, even if it means less money for big projects like high-speed rail and sustainable housing. The idea is to give investors enough certainty that they’re willing to remain in California even as the state uses less gasoline.

Experts believe it will take a lot more than that to manage inevitable changes.

“You actually can’t have a smooth and safe and effective transition without some form of coordinating function for that decline,” said Grubert. She believes a degree of state ownership of refineries will be necessary to keep facilities open if they stop being profitable. The wrong approach, she says, would be to respond to each potential refinery closure with ad hoc subsidies and state support, since that would allow refiners to extort the state one by one. 

That point was reinforced this month by a report from the California Energy Commission that has not received much notice. The analysis of the state’s shaky fuel system found that “California cannot sustainably manage this transition through repeated crisis interventions at an asset-by-asset level.” It suggested options that included “legal obligations to operate,” “centralized planning of closures,” and “direct state management or ownership of assets.”

The Iran war will accelerate a decline in both the supply of, and demand for, oil. Gas retailers like Chevron are already struggling to find additional imports of refined fuel, and some experts predict shortages if the Strait of Hormuz does not open within weeks. Meanwhile, electric vehicles continue gaining market share, and Newsom plans to roll out subsidies for them this year. Wider adoption of these vehicles, and hybrids, will further crimp demand, making any remaining refineries more likely to shutter. 

Chevron’s Kern River Oil Field near Bakersfield is one of the largest oil fields in California. The state’s climate policies have helped reduce gasoline demand by more than 15 percent over the past decade. Mark Ralston / AFP via Getty Images

All of this helps explain the showdown between the leading Democrats in the governor’s race, who are each trying to find a lane in a field that at one time included more than 50 candidates.

Becerra has given lip service to clean energy, but many public statements suggest a friendliness toward oil producers. As attorney general, he initiated a few lawsuits against petroleum companies, and supported other state climate lawsuits, but punted on major investigations. He has focused his gubernatorial campaign on vows to fight Donald Trump and protect healthcare, and has made controversial promises to freeze utility and insurance rates. On decarbonization, he has noted that “climate action only succeeds if it is affordable, reliable, and fair.”

After the chaos of the early primary, many oil producers have decided that Becerra is their candidate. Chevron last month contributed the maximum allowable amount of $39,200 to his campaign, the first time in a decade it has backed a gubernatorial candidate. Last week, the company contributed another $500,000 to an independent political committee supporting Becerra. California Resources Corporation, the state’s largest driller, also gave $500,000 to a Becerra committee. And gas companies like Sempra are among the donors to an anti-Steyer political committee that has raised more than $24 million.

Steyer, meanwhile, has made attacking Big Oil the focus of his campaign, as it was during his 2020 presidential run. He says he would lower gas prices by activating the refining profit cap that Newsom has declined to use, investigating what is causing high gas prices (something the state has already done), and taxing private jet fuel. When refineries “inevitably” close, he says he will stockpile an oil reserve and import more refined fuel for as long as California needs it.

Steyer has also had to address his own fossil fuel ties. The hedge fund he founded, Farallon Capital, remains a major player in coal power finance abroad, including in Indonesia and Australia. Steyer still holds a stake in the firm, which he left in 2012, but his campaign says he no longer receives dividends from its fossil fuel investments. 

California uses a “jungle primary” in which the top two candidates advance to the general election, regardless of party. The latest poll shows Becerra essentially tied with former Fox News host Steve Hilton, a Republican, with Steyer trailing at around 15 percent. The most likely outcome is that Becerra or Steyer will make it to the general election. (The other Democrats, including Porter and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, trail behind in the double digits.)

Railing against Big Oil has long proven to be good politics in California. But in the wake of Trump’s second election victory, Democrats have sought to downplay climate issues and focus instead on affordability. The question in the governor’s race is how best to achieve that in the long run. Is it better to use a bully pulpit against companies like Chevron in an effort to break their market power, or conciliate them in the hope that they don’t flee?

Mike Madrid, a veteran California political operative, believes Becerra’s approach will resonate more with the young and Latinos, both of whom often decide statewide elections.

“This attack on Chevron, it works for the base Steyer already has,” he said. “Young Latino working-class men are the demographic most affected by gas prices. Do you think they’re saying we need to get rid of Chevron? Of course not.”

Steyer’s campaign may not get him over the line in the primary, but he has at least been consistent. In a 2013 blog post for this very publication, he celebrated the result of the Virginia governor’s race, where a climate-focused Democrat beat a fossil-fuel-friendly Republican with help from Steyer’s own war chest.

“A new political dynamic is emerging,” he wrote at the time. “Climate change is a winner, not a loser,” and is “no longer electoral Kryptonite.”

If Chevron has its way, next week’s primary results will prove otherwise.

toolTips('.classtoolTips4','The process of reducing the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that drive climate change, most often by deprioritizing the use of fossil fuels like oil and gas in favor of renewable sources of energy.');

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline ‘I need Chevron’: The oil company at the center of the California governor’s race on May 26, 2026.

• May 26, 2026

WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY CASE MOVES CLOSER TO HEARING

This Energy Month, the legal challenge between Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative, The Green Connection, and Natural Justice (the Applicants), and the government together with TGS Geophysical Company UK Ltd (the Respondents), concerning authorisation for offshore seismic surveys along South Africa’s West Coast and Northern Cape coastline, has entered a critical new phase. The Applicants and Respondents have now filed their Heads of Argument and joint practice note in the Western Cape High Court ahead of hearings scheduled for next month.

According to The Green Connection’s Outreach Ambassador, Neville van Rooy, “This case is not about asking the court to decide whether oil and gas is good or bad in general. The question before the Court is whether government decision-makers had and considered all the relevant information before approving this project. Our case is that they did not. Expert evidence before the Court aims to show that several important issues were not properly considered, particularly the potential impacts on small-scale fishing communities and coastal livelihoods. This includes the cumulative effects of seismic blasting over extended periods, as well as scientific evidence indicating that underwater noise impacts may travel far further than suggested in the environmental reports relied upon by the decision
makers.”

The proposed TGS survey would involve seismic blasting using airguns that release extremely loud sound pulses into the ocean every few seconds for months at a time to map the seabed for possible oil and gas deposits.

“Small-scale fishers and coastal communities depend on access to a healthy ocean for food, income and survival. However, we believe that the approval process failed to adequately consider how exclusion zones created around survey vessels could prevent small-scale fishers from accessing traditional fishing areas for extended periods, placing livelihoods and food security at risk. So, as we can see, if decisions are made without properly considering the social and economic risks, these communities could carry the consequences. This case is fundamentally about accountability and ensuring that government decisions, that come with long-term impacts, are based on all the relevant facts,” says Walter Steenkamp from the Aukotowa Fisheries Primary Co-operative in Port Nolloth Northern Cape.

This case follows earlier successful litigation against Searcher Geodata’s proposed West Coast seismic survey, where the High Court found serious flaws in the decision-making and consultation process underpinning the project approval. In that matter, the court recognised the risks posed to small-scale fishing communities and marine ecosystems and held that important environmental and social impacts had not been adequately considered before authorisation was granted. Similar concerns arise in the TGS case.

“Government decisions that affect the public must be made on a properly informed basis. We are challenging this decision because we feel that key questions were not adequately tested before approval was granted. This includes whether the project would meaningfully contribute to energy security, whether it would genuinely help address future energy supply concerns, and whether the long-term economic and climate risks were properly understood,” adds van Rooy.

The Applicants also argue that government failed in its duty to protect the coastline as a shared public resource held in trust for all South Africans, rather than primarily for private industrial interests. They further argue that decision-makers failed to properly consider South Africa’s climate commitments and the potential conflict between new fossil fuel exploration and the country’s carbon reduction obligations.

“These are not minor issues. South Africans are already experiencing the impacts of climate change through drought, flooding, extreme heat and growing pressure on livelihoods. At the same time, people need energy solutions that are affordable, realistic and capable of meeting demand. If major projects are approved on the promise that they will solve an energy problem or would bolster local economies, good governance requires that all claims be properly scrutinised before any irreversible decisions are made.”

The matter will be heard in the Western Cape High Court on 1 and 2 June 2026. 

For More Information
Court proceedings will be live streamed on YouTube on 1 & 2 June 2026, from
10:00am(SAST).

TGS Geophysical Company West Coast Seismic Survey Factsheet.

Court Papers
TGS Court Case
TGS – 12391 Applicants’ Heads of Argument 2026-05-05
Third Respondents Heads of Argument_ Aukotowa_ DDG DMPR
State Respondents HoA

The Green Connection administrator September 4, 2024 Archive THE GREEN CONNECTION AND NATURAL JUSTICE NOW HAVE THE RECORD OF DECISION TO PROGRESS LEGAL CHALLENGE AGAINST TOTALENERGIES

September 4, 2024 THE GREEN CONNECTION AND NATURAL JUSTICE NOW HAVE THE RECORD OF DECISION TO PROGRESS LEGAL CHALLENGE AGAINST

The Green Connection administrator October 30, 2024 Archive COASTAL COMMUNITIES AND ECO-JUSTICE GROUPS’ OFFSHORE DRILLING APPEAL HIGHLIGHTS THREATS TO LIVELIHOODS, MARINE ECOSYSTEMS, AND CLIMATE GOALS

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The Green Connection administrator November 6, 2024 Archive TO PROTECT OCEANS AND LIVELIHOODS, WESTERN CAPE HIGH COURT SET TO HEAR ANOTHER CASE AGAINST TOTALENERGIES DRILLING PLANS IN SOUTH AFRICAN WATERS

November 6, 2024 TO PROTECT OCEANS AND LIVELIHOODS, WESTERN CAPE HIGH COURT SET TO HEAR ANOTHER CASE AGAINST TOTALENERGIES DRILLING

The Green Connection administrator November 17, 2024 Archive WITH CLIMATE TALKS UNDERWAY, WHY MUST CIVIL SOCIETY STILL FIGHT TOTALENERGIES’ FOSSIL FUEL DRILLING IN COURT?

November 17, 2024 WITH CLIMATE TALKS UNDERWAY, WHY MUST CIVIL SOCIETY STILL FIGHT TOTALENERGIES’ FOSSIL FUEL DRILLING IN COURT? As

The Green Connection administrator January 24, 2025 Archive Eskom’s Proposed Retail Tariff Plan: The Green Connection Joins Calls For Energy Justice And Stakeholder Engagement

January 24, 2025 Eskom’s Proposed Retail Tariff Plan: The Green Connection Joins Calls For Energy Justice And Stakeholder Engagement. Photo

The Green Connection administrator February 28, 2025 Latest News Eco-Justice Organizations Reject Draft Scoping Report For Offshore Drilling On SA’S West Coast (TEEPSA DWOB South).

February 28, 2025 Eco-Justice Organizations Reject Draft Scoping Report For Offshore Drilling On SA’S West Coast (TEEPSA DWOB South). Just

The post WEST COAST SEISMIC SURVEY CASE MOVES CLOSER TO HEARING appeared first on The Green Connection.

In the concluding installment of this discussion series, Tom Murphy and Dave Murphy wrestle with whether a just energy transition can truly be sustainable, or whether modernity itself is a dead end on a finite planet.

Electrical Generation by Renewables Expanded by Over 11% in First Quarter Over The Coming Year, US EIA Projects New Utility-Scale Solar, Wind, and Battery Storage Capacity to Grow by Over 80.6-GW As Nuclear and Fossil Fuel Capacity Falls by 4.3-GW EIA & FERC Analyses Foresee Strong Renewables + Battery Growth Through 2030 and Beyond

Washington DC – New data recently released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign, reveals growth of more than 11% in electrical generation by renewable energy sources in the first quarter of 2026. Moreover, utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage are projected to add more than 80.6 gigawatts (GW) of new generating capacity in the U.S. by March 31, 2027 while total fossil fuel and nuclear power capacity will fall by over 4.2-GW. In addition, multiple new studies by EIA and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) forecast continued strong growth by renewables and battery storage each year through 2030 and beyond.

Electrical generation by renewables sources grew over 11% and was nearly 29% of the U.S. total in the first quarter of 2026.

According to the EIA’s latest “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through March 31, 2026), renewably-generated electricity during the first three months of 2026 was 11.1% greater than in the first quarter of 2025. The growth was led by utility-scale (i.e., >1 megawatt (MW)) solar (up 23.9%), hydropower (up 21.9%), small-scale solar (i.e., <1-MW) (up 11.9%), and wind (up 2.1%). [1]

In addition, utility-scale battery energy storage capacity increased by 8.5%. [2]

By comparison, the electrical output of the nation’s coal plants fell by 11.4% while natural gas and nuclear both experienced weak growth – 1.1% and 0.9% respectively.

The mix of all renewables, including biomass and geothermal, accounted for over 28.6% of total U.S. electrical generation during the first quarter.

The combination of just wind and solar, including small-scale solar, provided over a fifth (20.3%) of domestic electrical production. Moreover, they out-produced nuclear power by 14.3% and coal by 31.1%. [3]

Renewable energy to add more than 57-GW of new capacity in the coming year.

As of April 1, 2026, renewable energy’s share of total U.S. utility-scale (i.e., >1-megawatt (MW)) generating capacity was 33.6%. EIA projects this to grow to 36.6% by March 31, 2027. Utility-scale solar will add 42,626.1-MW thereby expanding its share from 12.8% to 15.7% while wind will grow by 14,157.4-MW (including 4,155.0-MW of offshore wind), increasing from 13.0% to 13.6%. The mix of other renewables (i.e., hydropower, biomass, and geothermal) will add 297.1-MW.  

The combined capacity growth of all utility-scale renewable energy sources for the 12-month period (57,080.6-MW) is almost double that added during the previous 12 months (30,843.5-MW) – i.e., an increase of 85.1%.

Meanwhile, EIA projects no new generating capacity by nuclear power and a net decline of 4,266.2-MW in fossil fuel capacity. [4]

With the inclusion of new small-scale solar, renewables’ capacity will surpass natural gas by early 2027 – or sooner.

The figures cited above do not include small-scale solar. [5] The capacity of small-scale solar systems grew by 6,358.2-MW during the last year, bringing its total to 60,978.4-MW. EIA does not provide a forecast for small-scale solar but the SUN DAY Campaign assumes it will roughly equal that of the past year (i.e., an additional 6,000-MW or more). [6]

If small-scale solar does add approximately 6,000-MW more by April 1, 2027, it will bring renewable energy’s installed capacity up to about 533,319.7-MW. By comparison, natural gas’ generating capacity would total 514,868.4-MW.

Solar power’s share alone will be almost one-fifth (19.9%) of total U.S. capacity.  

Battery energy storage is projected to increase by over 50% by next spring:

Battery storage increased by 17,301.8-MW in the past 12 months and EIA foresees another 23,523.8-MW being added by April 1, 2027, bringing the total up to 69,971.1-MW – an increase of over 50%.

Thus, the combination of utility-scale renewable energy sources and battery energy storage will provide 80,604.4-MW of new clean energy capacity by early spring 2027. With the inclusion of small-scale solar, that figure could rise to close to 87,000-MW.

EIA forecasts continued strong solar, wind, and battery growth at least through the end of 2027.

In its latest “Short-Term Energy Outlook” report, EIA forecasts installed utility-scale solar capacity to rise 43.3% from 150 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2025 to 215-GW by the end of 2027. Actual electrical generation would increase by a comparable amount (41.6%) – expanding from 0.293 billion kilowatt-hours (BkWh) to 0.415 BkWh.

Similarly, wind capacity would grow 12.6% from 159-GW to 179-GW while generation would increase by 12.5% from 0.464 BkWh to 0.522 BkWh.

The capacity of battery storage was 42-GW at the end of 2025 and is expected to double and reach 85-GW by the end of 2027.

FERC foresees rapidly growing renewable energy capacity at least through the end of 2028.

In its latest “Energy Infrastructure Update” report, FERC notes that between January 2026 and December 2028 (i.e., effectively the remainder of the Trump Administration’s term), net “high probability” additions of utility-scale solar could total 86,126-MW while those for wind might be 19,821-MW. The mix of hydropower, biomass, and geothermal could add another 540-MW.

Taken together, these additions would increase renewables’ share of installed utility-scale generating capacity from 33.0% at the end of 2025 to 38.8% by the end of 2028.

Meanwhile net natural gas additions during the three-year period would total only 8,154-MW. This would be more than offset by reductions in coal and oil capacities of 40,828-MW and 1,590-MW respectively. FERC does not foresee any new nuclear capacity during the period.

Renewable energy growth projected to continue through 2030 and beyond.

In its latest “Annual Energy Outlook” report, EIA expects utility-scale solar capacity to expand from 154.5-GW at the end of 2025 and to reach 257.7-GW by the end of 2030 – an increase of over two-thirds. Likewise, annual electrical generation would more than double from 275.3 BkWh to 578.7 BkWh during the five-year period.  

Meanwhile, installed wind capacity would expand from 159.0-GW to 204.4-GW, including a nearly ten-fold increase in offshore wind capacity (i.e., from 1-GW to 9.7-GW). Annual electrical generation would rise from 463.9-BkWh to 662.8-BkWh by the end of 2030, with almost 5% coming from offshore turbines.

The total capacity of all utility-scale renewables would rise almost 40% from 400.2-GW to 559.4-GW. Combined, their actual generation would reach 1,564.0-BkWh, up from 1,118.8-BkWh at the end of 2025.

“The Trump Administration has now passed the one-third mark and largely failed to stop the clean energy transition,” noted the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director Ken Bossong. “By a wide margin, renewables and battery storage will continue to dominate new growth in electrical capacity and generation.”

Notes:   

[1] In January-March 2026, wind produced 136,360-GWh (12.3%) of total U.S. electrical generation while utility-scale and small-scale solar combined produced 89,728-GWh (8.1%), hydropower produced 77,293-GWh (6.9%), biomass produced 11,340-GWh (1.0%), and geothermal produced 4,014-GWh (0.36%).

[2] EIA presents its capacity data as “summer capacity” defined as the maximum output that generating equipment can supply to system load at the time of summer peak demand. See Table 6.1 in the “Electric Power Monthly” report.

[3] In January-March 2026, the mix of wind and solar, including small-scale solar, produced 226,088-GWh while nuclear power generated 197,731-GWh and coal provided 172,493-GWh.

[4] Capacity factors for fossil fuels and nuclear power are generally higher than for solar and wind. For 2025, EIA reported capacity factors of 48.7%, 58.4%, and 91.0% for coal, natural gas, and nuclear power respectively. By comparison, the capacity factors for wind and utility-scale PV were 34.2% and 24.4% respectively. See Tables 6.07.A and 6.07.B. Capacity factors for small-scale solar systems (10%-25%.) are usually lower than for utility-scale solar.

[5] In its “Electric Power Monthly” report, EIA refers to small-scale or distributed solar as “Estimated Small Scale Solar Photovoltaic.” Unless otherwise indicated, all calculations presented in this release include electrical generation by small-scale solar which EIA estimates to have totaled 21,437 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in January-March 2026. Utility-scale solar totaled 68,291-GWh for the same period.

[6] Between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, estimated small-scale solar accounted for 6,358.2-MW in new capacity additions. The SUN DAY Campaign is therefore assuming that at least 6,000-MW in new small-scale solar capacity will be added during the ensuing 12 months.

Cuba continues to show the world an alternative mode of development even in the face of US regime change, argues Helen Yaffe

The post Cuba stands firm appeared first on Red Pepper.

This can effectively be regarded as the first comprehensive nationwide survey since the founding of the Republic, reports IKP News

The post South Korea: Full-Scale Survey of Farmland Status Rolls Out appeared first on La Via Campesina - EN.

Another Memorial Day: boasts, insults, "self-defense strikes," cheap clichés from a "Secretary of War" prattling about dead boys "delivered from the battlefield into the arms of a loving Lord and savior." Spare us. And maybe revisit the war to end all wars, which didn't - its "infinity of waste" and trenches with skulls in the sides where "he who had a corpse to stand on was lucky." Pat Barker: “A society that devours its own young deserves (no) unquestioning allegiance.”

"Happy Memorial Day to all," babbled our ever-unseemly Idiot-In-Chief, "including the Dumocrats, who disrespect our Military and all of the tremendous success that it has had over the last year," because obviously the best way to honor the dead is to not acknowledge their sacrifice but to denigrate half the ravaged country they died defending. Also, at Arlington National Cemetery, the infinitely hollow, "Wherever the American soldier (falls), he does it for the destiny of a nation like no other - there’s never been anybody like you." Also, noted Private Bone Spurs, 18,000 Williams, over 20,000 Johns, and other names fell, but "not too many" Donalds. Huh.

Adding to the day's eloquence with a much-needed "monster truck rally vibe" was inexplicably non-veteran, Hegseth bestie, tawdry aging rock star Kid Rock. Because "Tokyo Rose wasn't available," he was chosen by the Pentagon to honor American service members' ultimate sacrifice in a hoodie, fedora, gold chain and sunglasses, looking like "a creature you’d expect to hiss at you from the dank depths of a garbage bin" and intoning, "We are remembering the sacrifice and service of so many who are not with us today...It’s a special day. We’re thinking of them... Keep on Kid Rocking in the free world."

Then there was bombastic, dime-store-cliché-spouting Christo-fascist Pete Hegseth urging we "remember our republic was forged and purchased with blood, American blood," evidently only male according to his pronouns. Ever a fatuous buffoon, he declaimed "the sacred names of bygone eras to the 13 souls of Epic Fury (who) answered the call when it mattered the most (and) gave the last full measure of devotion," even when he failed them in an Iranian strike in Yemen: "They stood against the darkness of the world wearing the breastplate of righteousness (and) raced to the brink so we could walk in freedom and prosperity (and) may almighty God bless our warriors." Jesus weeps.

It remains unclear how many of the up to 22 million dead, both military and civilian, and over 20 million wounded, "the butcher's bill" of World War One, came to be blessed by almighty God, especially in its Western Front's godforsaken trenches teeming with sludge, rats, mud, blood, water and disease. The war's "inconceivable loss" and "purposeless waste of a generation" is perhaps best exemplified by the Battle of Verdun, where the French, set upon by German forces, adopted a "They Shall Not Pass” mantra that in the end saw over 700,000 dead on both sides - ultimately, vast "heaps of bones."

For many, the horrors of "the greatest conflagration the world had seen" live on through the searing literature, both prose and poetry, that emerged from them. Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum Est epitomizes the bitter, bloody tone that often prevailed amidst its "guttering, choking, drowning" victims - Hegseth's benighted "warriors." "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ Knock-kneed, coughing like hags," cursing, gargling, limping bootless through sludge, "blood-shod...deaf even to the hoots/Of gas-shells dropping softly behind," they reject, "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori."

Siegfried Sassoon lived the privileged life of a British country gentleman, writing poetry and fox hunting, until the start of World War 1, when he served as an officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers in France. He was awarded a Military Cross, was later wounded in action, and refused to fight any longer to protest "a senseless slaughter." On June 15, 1917, he wrote "A Soldier's Declaration" as "an act of wilful defiance of military authority, because I believe that the War is being deliberately prolonged by those how have the power to end it. I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers."

"I have seen and endured the sufferings of the troops, and I can no longer be a party to prolonging those sufferings for ends which I believe to be evil and unjust," he wrote. He was protesting, he made clear, "against the political errors and insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed...against the deception which is being practiced on them. Also I believe that it may help to destroy the callous complacence with which the majority of those at home regard the continuance of agonies which they do not share, and which they have not sufficient imagination to realise."

His letter was read before the House of Commons and printed in The London Times. He expected to be court-martialed; instead, he was declared "mentally unsound" and sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital, where Dr. William Rivers was charged with restoring Sassoon’s “sanity” and sending him back to the trenches. The story of their real-life encounter, wherein Rivers came to diagnose war's "shell-shock" and share Sassoon's view, is powerfully told in Pat Barker's historical novel Regeneration, the first in a trilogy about the psychological carnage of war. "It (was) the Great White God de-throned. We assumed we were the measure of all things," Rivers says. "(But) nothing justifies this. Nothing nothing nothing."

Siegfried Sassoon's 1918 Suicide in the Trenches mourns "a simple soldier boy/Who grinned at life in empty joy" until he goes to war: "In winter trenches, cowed and glum/With crumps and lice and lack of rum/He put a bullet through his brain./No one spoke of him again./ You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye/Who cheer when soldier lads march by,/Sneak home and pray you'll never know/The hell where youth and laughter go." Too many of those young lie in a cemetery near Ypres, where one Inscription stands out in a sea of "For King and Country" headstones. It was written on the grave of Arthur Young by his father, a diplomat wiser than any vacuous Hegseth: "Sacrificed to the fallacy that war can end war."

Thirst case scenario for climate Channel News brendan 26th May 2026 Teaser Media