Scientists have taken another important step toward making next-generation solar panels more powerful and longer lasting. An international team of researchers has developed a new chemical treatment that helps perovskite solar cells convert sunlight into electricity more efficiently while also improving their durability. The breakthrough allowed the experimental solar cells to reach a power conversion […]
Researchers at the University of Toronto Engineering have developed six new metal alloys using an artificial intelligence-driven discovery platform that could improve the durability of parts used in jet engines, nuclear power plants, and other extreme environments. The findings show that the AI-assisted system identified promising alloys within just a few weeks, significantly speeding up the search for high-performance materials.
These new alloys also work well with 3D metal printing, enabling the production be complex parts that are hard or impossible to produce with traditional methods.
AI speeds up alloy discovery
Led by Yu Zou, Canada Research Chair in Materials and Manufacturing for Extreme Environments, the team worked with Jason Hattrick-Simpers to build a system that uses computer modeling, machine learning, and robots to help with manufacturing.
Their method, called active learning, acts like a self-driving laboratory. Rather than testing thousands of metal combinations by hand, the system picks the best options, makes them, tests how they perform, and uses those results to guide the next experiments.
“There’s enormous demand for materials that can stand up to huge swings of temperature and pressure, such as what you would find inside a jet engine or in the steam generators inside nuclear power plants, anywhere conventional steel just can’t survive,” said Yu Zou, who led the project.
“We also need materials that can be printed layer by layer, enabling us to make components that can’t be created by traditional manufacturing processes. For example, to make a material that is both lightweight and strong, you can vary the composition: a hard, tough alloy on the outside to something softer and lighter on the inside.”
The project was partly supported by the University of Toronto’s Acceleration Consortium, a group that uses AI and automation to accelerate the discovery of new materials.
Active learning cuts the need for massive datasets
Most AI systems need a large amount of experimental data to make accurate predictions. This becomes a problem when researchers look at materials that have not been tested yet.
“One problem you often run into when trying to use AI to design materials is that most machine learning models require lots of data about material properties to learn from,” revealed Ajay Talbot, a Ph.D. student in Zou’s lab and lead author of the study.
“But if you’re working in part of the design space that hasn’t been explored yet, that data doesn’t exist, so you’re kind of flying blind.”
“The way we get around that challenge is to use data-lean models that essentially feel their own way along. Our active learning model strategically selects a few samples to manufacture and test, and the data from those experiments is fed back into the model to inform where we go next. It really speeds things up.”
To demonstrate the system, the researchers focused on compositionally complex alloys made from nickel, cobalt, and chromium. Within weeks, the automated platform identified six new alloy formulations with strong performance.
“One of the properties we were targeting was puncture resistance at temperatures of up to 1,112°F (600°C), which is what you’d find in the front section of a jet engine,” Talbot said.
“The industry standard in this space is nickel-based alloys such as Inconel 625. But we found one made of 12 percent nickel, 62 percent cobalt, and 26 percent chrome that was great for retaining hardness at extremely high temperatures. Even with just three components, our alloy outperformed Inconel 625, an alloy of more than 10 different elements, by 4.5 percent in our lab tests.”
The team also developed another alloy designed for hotter sections of jet engines, where temperatures can reach 1,832°F (1,000°C).
“One of the things that happens in an environment like that is the formation of oxide scale, which essentially means that your material is just getting burned away,” Talbot explained.
“We found a material made of 36 percent nickel, 14 percent cobalt, and 50 percent chrome that was extremely good for oxidation resistance at these high temperatures: It even outperforms Inconel 625 by 85 percent. We’re eventually aiming to ramp up to even higher temperatures, up to 2,192°F (1,200°C).”
Researchers plan to expand to more complex materials
The researchers say the current alloys represent an early demonstration of what the AI-driven discovery platform can achieve.
“This nickel-cobalt-chrome system has just three elements in it. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a relatively simple system,” he added.
“But it’s great for showing that this whole closed-loop discovery platform really works. What we want to do next is ramp up the complexity a bit more to make even crazier stuff, with maybe up to 10 or 12 different elements.”
“As you add more components, you can get different strengthening mechanisms, different kinds of useful properties. There’s a lot more out there just waiting to be discovered.”
The study was published in the journal npj Advanced Manufacturing.
A process called Alkaline Thermal Treatment (ATT) has been tested to turn mixed plastic waste into high-purity hydrogen fuel.
Researchers from the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and Ewha Womans University in South Korea undertook this new study. This process eliminates the costly and laborious step of sorting plastic waste before recycling.
The single-reactor method successfully processes a mixture of the three most common, hard-to-recycle plastics: polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polyethylene (PE), and polypropylene (PP).
“We are solving two urgent global problems at the same time,” said Ah-Hyung “Alissa” Park, the Ronald and Valerie Sugar Dean of UCLA Samueli and a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
“Plastic waste is accumulating at alarming rates, and clean hydrogen is essential for decarbonizing energy. This technology tackles both of these challenges in a creative and scalable way,” the co-corresponding author added.
Mixed plastic processing
Look around you. The water bottle on your desk, the crinkly shopping bag in your pantry, and the sleek dashboard of your car all share a drawback. Once you throw them away, the waste is almost impossible to recycle as a single stream.
A persistent challenge in global recycling is the labor-intensive requirement to sort plastics by type before processing. It leads to 79 percent of plastic waste ending up buried in landfills, while another 12 percent is burned away into atmospheric pollution. Only 9 percent ever get a second life.
But the new study overcomes this challenge. The team demonstrated a chemical technique that takes a chaotic, unsorted cocktail of the world’s three most common plastics and transforms it into hydrogen fuel. Interestingly, the method does it without releasing a single puff of carbon dioxide.
Alkaline Thermal Treatment uses heat to trigger a reaction between sodium hydroxide and organic matter, generating hydrogen fuel in the process.
It was originally designed to extract hydrogen fuel from ocean biomass, such as seaweed. The researchers wondered if the same principles could dissolve our mounting plastic problem.
While plastic bottles (PET) broke down easily during the process, shopping bags (PE) and food containers (PP) resisted the chemical attack due to highly stable, stubborn carbon-hydrogen bonds.
To overcome this chemical defense, a thermal oxidation pretreatment was introduced. In this process, the mixed plastic was briefly exposed to mild heat in the air. After this, oxygen was introduced into the stubborn polymer chains, which created the reactive weak spots needed for the treatment to dismantle all three plastic types.
Eco-friendly process
Once activated, the unsorted plastic soup degrades beautifully inside a single reactor, pumping out hydrogen gas with a purity level exceeding 90 percent.
ATT process changes the game for environmental footprints by operating at temperatures around 400 degrees Celsius (752 F), which are cooler than those of extreme gasification methods.
Furthermore, the technique uses a sodium hydroxide reagent to capture the plastic’s carbon rather than venting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The carbon is permanently bound into a stable, solid mineral called sodium carbonate.
The researchers have already outlined a simple secondary process to turn that byproduct into calcium carbonate. That is the exact mineral used by the concrete and construction industries, locking the plastic’s carbon away forever in infrastructure.
The breakthrough is currently confined to precision laboratory settings. Significant optimization is required to scale the technology up for municipal recycling plants, and its long-term economic viability still needs to be rigorously tested.
Wisconsin has committed up to $55 million in incentives to help Realta Fusion build its new headquarters and fusion research facility in Madison, a move aimed at strengthening the state’s position in the emerging fusion energy industry.
The funding package will support development of “The Realta Forge” at OM Station, the site of the former Oscar Mayer plant. Realta plans to build its prototype magnetic mirror fusion machine, called Hammir, at the facility and expects to create more than 600 technical and non-technical jobs.
According to the company, the incentive package includes about $37.5 million in state sales and use tax exemptions, up to $15 million in performance-based enterprise zone tax credits from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation, and $2.8 million in tax increment financing from the City of Madison.
Realta said it evaluated sites in Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee, and other states before deciding to keep the project in Wisconsin, where it was founded.
State backs fusion
The company expects to break ground on the facility before the end of the year. Once completed, The Realta Forge will serve as Realta’s headquarters and dedicated research and development center for advancing its compact magnetic mirror fusion technology.
“We spent the better part of the past two years searching across the country to find the most favorable business environment and the most attractive site to build our R&D facility, and we found it in our own backyard,” said Realta CEO Kieran Furlong.
The company says its CoSMo fusion systems are based on the magnetic mirror concept, which uses magnetic fields to confine high-temperature plasma. Unlike conventional power plants, fusion aims to generate electricity by fusing light atomic nuclei, producing large amounts of energy without carbon emissions during operation.
Realta added that the Hammir prototype will help demonstrate the company’s fusion approach before commercial deployment.
“In terms of cash today, avoided costs tomorrow, and accelerating progress, this is the most impactful state-supported fusion deal ever done in the United States,” said Realta VP of Technical Development Dominick Bindl.
Building regional hub
The announcement follows Wisconsin’s passage of Act 165 earlier this year, becoming the first standalone state law in the United States to exempt capital expenditures on fusion energy projects from state sales tax. State officials say the legislation is intended to attract companies developing next-generation energy technologies.
“Fusion energy is not only good for our planet and our power grid, but it plays to all of our strengths as a state with our world-class research universities, research laboratories, and an incredible manufacturing and supply chain network supported by our dedicated and highly skilled workforce,” said Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers.
Madison also approved $2.8 million in tax increment financing tied to job creation at the OM Station redevelopment. According to the company, it is the city’s first tax increment financing package for private-sector job creation in a decade.
With construction expected to begin later this year, Realta said the facility will become the center for development of its magnetic mirror fusion technology while helping establish Wisconsin as a growing hub for fusion research, advanced manufacturing and high-skilled engineering jobs.
Electra has selected Safran Helicopter Engines to supply the turbogenerator for its EL9 Ultra Short aircraft under a production agreement that will run for the life of the program. The deal gives the Virginia-based aircraft developer a key propulsion partner as it works toward Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certification and commercial service by 2030.
The agreement includes an initial order for 250 TG600 turbogenerators. Electra expects production to increase as demand grows for the EL9, a hybrid-electric aircraft designed to operate from landing areas as short as 150 feet. The capability could allow flights from locations that cannot support conventional commercial aircraft.
Hybrid system selected
Safran’s TG600 will generate 600 kilowatts of electrical power for the EL9’s hybrid-electric propulsion system. Engineers based the unit on the company’s Arrano helicopter engine, which delivers an 18% improvement in fuel efficiency over the previous generation of engines.
The system also integrates two GENeUS electric generators developed by Safran Electrical & Power. Earlier this month, Safran completed the first bench test of the flight-ready turbogenerator at its facility in Bordes, France. The company plans to use that hardware during the EL9’s initial flight-test campaign.
Electra CEO Marc Allen called the agreement an important milestone for the aircraft program. He said Safran’s expertise in hybrid-electric propulsion and long-term commitment would help bring the EL9 into commercial service.
Safran Helicopter Engines CEO Cédric Goubet said the contract formally launches the company’s turbogenerator business. He added that combining Safran’s engine technology with its electrical systems expertise creates a propulsion package tailored for the EL9’s performance goals.
Designed for short fields
Unlike conventional regional aircraft, the EL9 relies on hybrid-electric propulsion and blown-lift technology to achieve extremely short takeoffs and landings. Electra says the aircraft needs only about 150 feet of runway, opening access to small airfields and other locations closer to population centers.
The company believes that capability could reshape regional transportation by reducing dependence on major airports for shorter trips. Electra describes the concept as “Direct Aviation,” allowing travelers to fly closer to their origin and destination instead of connecting through large airport hubs.
FAA certification work is already underway under Part 23 regulations. Electra expects the aircraft’s first flight in late 2027 or early 2028 before targeting entry into service in 2030.
Growing production plans
The Safran agreement follows other commercial milestones for the EL9 program. Earlier this year, Bristow Group signed a pre-delivery payment agreement that secured the first production delivery slot through binding commercial terms, subject to aircraft certification. Electra also released market projections suggesting demand for between 12,000 and 16,000 aircraft during the first decade of Direct Aviation operations across the United States.
If those forecasts materialize, the EL9 would represent a new category of regional aircraft that combines electric propulsion with conventional turbine power. Electra and Safran aim to deliver an aircraft capable of connecting communities that currently lack practical commercial air service while reducing fuel consumption compared with traditional regional aircraft.
Elon Musk has reportedly acquired APR Energy, a company known for supplying rapidly deployable power generation systems. The move could help meet the growing electricity demands of his artificial intelligence venture, xAI. Details of the deal surfaced through regulatory filings rather than an official announcement from Musk or his companies.
APR Energy specializes in temporary and mobile power solutions, offering gas turbine and reciprocating engine systems that can be transported quickly and brought online in a short period. The company’s fleet is capable of generating more than one gigawatt of electricity, making it a valuable asset for organizations requiring large amounts of power without waiting for permanent grid infrastructure.
Strategic step to support xAI’s expanding computing operations
The reported acquisition is widely viewed as a strategic step to support xAI’s expanding computing operations. As AI models become larger and more sophisticated, the data centers that train and run them require enormous amounts of electricity. Securing reliable power has become one of the biggest challenges facing AI developers, especially as utilities struggle to keep pace with rising demand.
The turbines could emit over 2,000 tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides, according to the environmental groups. In Boxtown, the predominantly Black neighborhood closest to the facility, the cancer risk already runs four times the national average. xAI officials said they planned to “copy and paste” the same turbine strategy for Colossus 2, reported Electrek.
Unlike traditional power plants that often take years to construct, APR Energy’s modular systems can be installed much more quickly. This flexibility could allow xAI to expand its computing capacity faster by providing temporary or supplemental electricity while permanent infrastructure is developed.
Increasing importance of energy security in AI industry
The move also reflects the increasing importance of energy security in the AI industry. Rather than relying entirely on local power grids, technology companies are exploring alternative ways to guarantee uninterrupted electricity for their data centers. Owning a company with mobile generation capabilities could give xAI greater control over its future expansion plans.
However, the reported deal has also drawn attention because APR Energy’s portfolio primarily relies on natural gas and diesel-powered generation. While these technologies offer dependable and rapid deployment, they also raise environmental concerns due to greenhouse gas emissions. The acquisition highlights the ongoing debate between the immediate energy needs of AI infrastructure and longer-term sustainability goals.
Industry analysts believe the purchase is another example of Elon Musk’s strategy of integrating critical parts of his businesses. By combining AI development with direct access to power generation assets, xAI could reduce operational risks associated with electricity shortages and accelerate the deployment of new computing facilities.
Although the reported transaction has generated significant interest, several details remain unclear, including the financial terms of the acquisition and how APR Energy’s assets will be integrated into xAI’s future operations. Neither Musk nor xAI had officially commented on the reported purchase at the time the information became public.
As competition in artificial intelligence continues to intensify, access to reliable energy is increasingly becoming as important as access to advanced chips and computing hardware. If the reported acquisition is confirmed, it could signal a broader trend in which leading AI companies invest directly in energy infrastructure to support their long-term growth.
Apocalyptic footage shows a Canadian train crew trapped in their locomotive as it’s devoured by a wildfire.
Through the engine’s windows, the towering inferno can be seen raging through the treeline just a few feet away from the unmoving train, the world around them rendered completely orange. Some of the flames come close to licking the glass, as the wildfire blows across the tracks.
“This could potentially overtake us here, this has gotten a little scary,” one worker filming the video said, sounding surprisingly nonchalant. “Holy s***.”
“Y’all need to hurry up here. Like, seriously, we’re encased in flames now,” the cameraman adds.
“This has got to move f***ing quick here,” he added, after communicating with someone on the radio.
This is near Armstrong, Ontario.
When will the Canadian National Railway Company make a statement about this incident? pic.twitter.com/6bKJYugeR0
The incident took place near Armstrong, Ontario, said Sol Mamakwa, an Ontario lawmaker who uploaded the video. Wildfires have been scouring their way across northern Canada this week, with at least 54 fires active in the country, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center. Some 4.7 million acres of land have been burned by wildfires this year.
The train engineers in the video reportedly made it out safe. The Canadian National Railway Company (CN) confirmed that the train was stopped in Armstrong, telling Global News that all employees in the area were evacuated overnight Monday.
How they got stuck is unclear. It appears that they’re waiting for another train to pass them, which is seen later in the video, so they can proceed on the single track ahead. A thread on the r/railroading subreddit has a more dramatic telling, claiming that the engineers had crashed into the train cars that they left behind after going back to rescue a foreman, causing the engines to shut down. Allegedly, they then tried to escape on a hi-rail, a truck that can drive on both roads and train tracks, but it caught on fire, forcing them to make it out on foot. A movie-worthy story if true, but we couldn’t independently verify this account.
Even with the hellish conditions bearing down around them, the engineers were able to find moments of levity. When the other train finally emerged through the inferno and lumbered past them, the camera man couldn’t help but exclaim.
Guardian analysis found the removals coincided with the Trump administration’s push to weaken efficiency rules
As millions of Americans prepare for another brutal heatwave, it’s now harder to find information about ways to stay cool while saving energy and keeping utility costs down.
At least 1,662 Department of Energy webpages offering guidance on protecting the electrical grid during heatwaves have gone dark as of 3 July, according to a Guardian analysis of a list of deleted URLs provided by researchers at the Internet Archive, a non-profit that hosts a repository of more than a trillion archived webpages.
Elon Musk has quietly bought APR Energy, a Jacksonville-based company that operates a fleet of mobile gas and diesel turbines totaling more than 1 GW of generation capacity.
The self-styled champion of a “solar electric economy” now owns a fossil fuel power company — and he’s buying it to feed the electricity-hungry data centers running xAI’s Grok.
Government to launch campaign to help people cope with events such as weather emergencies or cyber-attacks
The British public should begin taking “small but important steps” to secure and protect water, power supplies and basic phone signal in case of further severe weather emergencies, national crises or cyber-attacks, Downing Street has said.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, told MPs “the risks we face from climate change cannot be underestimated”, and warned of the “significant and prolonged disruption to essential services” extreme weather events could cause.
Europeans are being crushed by deadly temperatures.
Record-breaking heatwaves across much of the continent have claimed thousands of lives and created a perfect storm for destructive wildfires, as The New York Times reports.
A staggering number of these deaths, experts urge, are linked to climate change. Britain’s national weather agency, Met Office, said that of the 2,700 deaths in England and Wales believed to be the result of extreme heat so far this season — and we’re barely halfway through summer — around 42 percent were likely the result of the “human-caused” climate change.
“However, it is clear that human-caused climate change is leading to more frequent and more intense summer heatwaves,” said Mark McCarthy, Met Office’s manager of climate attribution, in a statement. “This intensification is driving many impacts, including those affecting human health and mortality and other issues, such as agriculture, effects on transport infrastructure and biodiversity.”
In addition to the thousands of deaths in England and Wales, France has estimated that roughly a thousand excess deaths and hundreds of hospitalizations were caused by extreme heat, while Germany announced last week that its unprecedented temperatures have so far been linked to about 5,100 deaths.
French authorities continue to fight multiple major wildfires. The country’s national weather service, Météo-France, said last week that “the intense heat and dry soil have created an exceptional risk of forest fires.” Wales, Spain, and Portugal are also facing fires, which have collectively burned through tens of thousands of acres. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced by the blazes.
This year’s European fire season has already eclipsed the historical average and threatens to surpass the record set last summer.
Worst of all: this summer isn’t even an outlier. Extreme weather is worsening year-round around the globe. As it stands, this is the new normal — and scientists are warning that people and nations need to adapt.
“People need to be aware that we are now seeing dangerous climate change fueled heat that is claiming lives, disrupting schools and hospitals and shutting down transport and infrastructure,” said Imperial College London researcher Clair Barnes, who works on climate change and extreme weather, in a statement.
“It’s time we woke up to the fact that we now live in a country with dangerously hot summers,” Barnes continued. “To protect people during future extremes, we must urgently adapt to the reality of the climate we now have, and double down on global efforts to reach net zero emissions to stop this from getting worse.”
Claims by the Coalition and One Nation that abandoning a net zero climate target would bring down power prices are contradicted in a new CSIRO report on the costs of generating electricity.
Generation costs will probably rise after 2030 regardless of Australia’s policy on net zero, according to the CSIRO’s annual GenCost report, but prices should then stabilise at levels below recent price spikes.
Lobby appeals to prospective PM’s reindustrialisation agenda as it pushes for Rosebank and Jackdaw approval
The UK’s North Sea oil industry has made a last-ditch attempt to curry favour with the Labour government by appealing to Andy Burnham’s reindustrialisation agenda just days before he is expected to become Britain’s next prime minister.
Industry lobbyists have written to more than 400 Labour MPs to call on the government’s new leaders to allow more oil and gas drilling in UK waters to support homegrown energy and show “a commitment to UK manufacturing, industrial capability and the skilled workforce that has powered the nation for generations”.
Operator brings in independent legal firm to look into whistleblower allegations relating to June heatwave
Great Britain’s grid operator has brought in independent investigators to look into accusations that its staff were involved in a cover-up over the power system being at a greater risk of blackouts during the heatwave.
The government-owned energy system operator will face the scrutiny of an external legal firm after a whistleblower claimed that control room staff were warned against leaving a paper trail relating to efforts to stabilise the power system during record high temperatures in late June.
As government agencies go, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has left a lot to be desired, often operating less like a government watchdog and more as an industry partner. There’s fee recovery, for example, which effectively mandates the industry pay its own regulators’ salary, as well as the NRC’s habit of trusting voluntary leak reports from reactor operators, not to mention its history of hiding internal safety data to protect its reputation.
As if those deficiencies weren’t bad enough, president Donald Trump is now stripping what’s left of the commission’s mandate down to the bone. Last week, the NRC proposed a bold amendment to its long-standing nuclear safety principles: deleting a line requiring nuclear plant operators to keep radiation exposure “as low as is reasonably achievable.”
According to the Hill, the NRC justifies the move by saying it will remove “unnecessary ambiguity.” But critics say this rule is the whole reason energy companies bother keeping radiation levels as low as possible in the first place.
“Facility owners felt like… ALARA [as low as reasonably achievable] was forcing them to go well below the allowable radiation limits and spend a lot of money to do that,” director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists Edwin Lyman told the Hill. “This is opening the door for sloppier practices,” Lyman continued, and “worse management.”
It gets worse. Also per the Hill, the NRC likewise announced plans to significantly weaken its approach to the National Environmental Policy Act, a foundational piece of legislation dating back to 1970. On Wednesday, the NRC said it wants to gut draft environmental reviews entirely — which, in practice, means kneecapping the public’s chance to weigh in before a reactor gets the green light.
If that weren’t enough, the commission also wants to wash its hands of its mandate to review basic environmental nuisances like noise, dust, and air pollution associated with nuclear facilities. That’s if they even do a review in the first place, as the proposed changes would exempt certain existing reactors, and even new reactors from regular inspection altogether, the Hill reports.
The proposed changes come just a few months after the US Department of Energy began stripping safety regulations that limited nuclear workers’ exposure to radiation. In effect, these changes allow energy companies to speed up productivity, unlocking higher profits at their workers’ expense.
The timing of it all is hard to overstate: with several new nuclear reactors gearing up for operations throughout the US, it’s clear the Trump administration is doing all it can to fast-track incoming nuclear facilities, consequences be damned.
Prof Myles Allen, Stephanie Loo and Toby Lockwood, and Olivia Powis, respond to an article by George Monbiot about ‘the great carbon capture con’
George Monbiot suggests that we can solve climate change without carbon capture and storage (The great carbon capture con: behold the wasted billions Burnham could claw back, 8 July). Physics says otherwise. The world is going to generate more carbon dioxide than we can safely dump into the atmosphere, and we can’t rely on our stressed biosphere and oceans to mop up the excess. Stopping global warming will therefore require capturing and durably disposing of carbon dioxide on a huge scale, which right now means injecting it back underground.
Where George does make a good point is in questioning whether carbon dioxide disposal should for ever be paid for using public money. Why should private companies be allowed to make large profits taking carbon out of the ground while the taxpayer foots the bill to put it back? The obvious solution: require those who extract fossil fuels to pay for the disposal of the carbon dioxide their products generate. If the fraction they store rises to 100% by mid-century, fossil fuel use would cause no further warming thereafter.
Timing of Devon switchoff ‘could not be worse’, says board, as members face an estimated £2m in lost revenue
Britain’s biggest community solar project has been forced to shut for the duration of its first summer by the government’s energy system operator to avoid overloading the local grid with renewable energy.
The north Devon solar farm was ordered to shut weeks before record high temperatures across Europe led to power supply warnings, due to concerns that the large amount of rooftop solar in the area could destabilise the power grid by triggering a “thermal overload”.
Last month, the United Nations warned that this year’s El Niño, a naturally occurring climate pattern characterized by unusually warm ocean surface temperatures throughout the Pacific, would be particularly extreme.
“The world must treat it as the urgent climate warning it is,” the World Metereological Organization cautioned at the time. “El Niño conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world.”
Indeed, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that there was a rising chance of a “very strong” El Niño, triggering drastic temperature swings and more frequent extreme weather events, from severe storms to major flooding. Meanwhile, human-driven climate change will only amplify these effects, making this summer particularly precarious.
But scientists say we’re not entirely helpless. According to a new study published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday by researchers at UC San Diego, weather-altering interventions — including the radical proposition of dimming the Sun — could tamp down El Niño’s impacts.
The concept, broadly referred to as geoengineering, is deceptively simple. By injecting special particles into the Earth’s stratosphere, more of the Sun’s rays are reflected back into space, allowing the surface below to cool. It’s the same basic principle as a volcanic eruption injecting chemicals that cause global temperatures to drop, like with the Krakatau blast in 1883.
In their study, the researchers argued that “marine cloud brightening,” a solar geongeering concept that involves using aerosols to make clouds over the sea brighter and therefore reflect more sunlight, could “theoretically mitigate extremes” of seasonal phenomena, including El Niño.
“As long-term anthropogenic warming and short-term natural variability often compound to produce extreme weather events, our findings suggest it may be worth considering interventions which target natural variability, rather than the forced response to greenhouse gases,” the paper reads. “Such an approach could result in similar physical risk reduction with shorter duration interventions that carry less sociotechnical risk than a sustained deployment.”
Geoengineering has proven highly controversial in the past, creating a major rift among climate scientists and public outcry that’s halted experiments before they even started. Critics argue it’s a distraction from more important solutions, like reducing the burning of fossil fuels, and that we still don’t have a full picture of possible knock-on environmental effects. There are also major questions of governance — who gets to decide where these aerosols are released and when?
While coauthor and UC San Diego climate scientist Kate Ricke would normally fall into this camp of scientists urging for more research to understand the risks, she and her colleagues argued that extreme but temporary events like El Niños could serve as the perfect testing ground for strategic marine cloud brightening.
“One of the biggest social concerns around geoengineering is the fact that if we use it to reduce long-term climate risks, we have to deploy it continuously for an indefinite period of time,” said coauthor and University of Chicago postdoctoral researcher Jessica Wan, who was a graduate student at Ricke’s lab, in a statement. “If we could target natural variability, we could get some of the benefits of geoengineering without having to employ it indefinitely.”
For their latest paper, Ricke and her team built on a 2023 study which found that bushfire smoke over the Pacific Ocean had emitted major amounts of aerosols, which brightened clouds and caused more solar radiation to reflect back into space.
The team simulated what would happen if cloud brightening chemicals would’ve been deployed intentionally during previous El Niños and found that it would indeed weaken the weather pattern’s effects.
Other experts were left unconvinced.
“These models are imperfect, and there’s the possibility that you’ll create an unpredicted problem that is worse than the problem you’re trying to solve,” Texas A&M University professor of atmospheric science Andrew Dessler, who was not involved in the research, told Wired. “I think this is a really interesting paper, and I learned a few things reading it, but I certainly would not say that this is a great idea and we should implement it.”
As such, considering the many unknowns, there still aren’t any concrete plans to test the idea out in the real world. But the authors argue it’s worth a shot nonetheless.
“It’s a different way of thinking about geoengineering,” said Ricke in the statement. “We need to understand a lot more, but if there is a way to use this in addition to the risk-reduction tools to mitigate El Niños, why wouldn’t we consider it?”
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