An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Facebook and Google are hollowing out local communities by serving as vectors for misinformation while hobbling local journalism and collecting taxpayer subsidies, a new paper from progressive think tank the American Economic Liberties Project charges. Both companies cite benefits their platforms offer small businesses as a key defense against critiques of their size…
Tag: utilities
Bill Gates’ Nuclear Venture Plans Reactor To Complement Solar, Wind Power Boom
A nuclear energy venture founded by Bill Gates said Thursday it hopes to build small advanced nuclear power stations that can store electricity to supplement grids increasingly supplied by intermittent sources like solar and wind power. Reuters reports: The effort is part of the billionaire philanthropist’s push to help fight climate change, and is targeted at helping utilities slash their emissions…
Rolling Blackouts in California Have Power Experts Stumped
Energy experts are bewildered as to why the manager of California’s electric grid called on utilities to cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers over the weekend. “They said that the utilities had plenty of power available and that the blackouts weren’t necessary,” writes Ivan Penn via The New York Times. From the report: “They set it up like this…
Cluster of 295 Chrome Extensions Caught Hijacking Google and Bing Search Results
An anonymous reader writes: More than 80 million Chrome users have installed one of 295 Chrome extensions that have been identified to hijack and insert ads inside Google and Bing search results. The malicious extensions were discovered by AdGuard, a company that provides ad-blocking solutions, while the company’s staff was looking into a series of fake ad-blocking extensions that were available…
US Utilities Are Cleaning Up Their Act With Emissions Down 8%
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: U.S. utilities are producing less greenhouse gases as they continue to shift away from coal. Carbon dioxide emissions from the 100 biggest U.S. electricity producers fell 8% last year, according to a report (PDF) Wednesday from the environmental group Ceres. Sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, two other key pollutants produced by burning coal,…
What is a derecho? An atmospheric scientist explains these rare but dangerous storm systems
The derecho in the U.S. East on June 3, 2020, killed 4 people and left a million without power. A Colorado derecho on June 6 had winds in excess of 100 mph. Europe, Asia and South America also have derechos. Here’s what scientists know about them. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/what-is-a-derecho-storm-system…
Linus Torvalds Argues Against 80-Column Line Length Coding Style, As Linux Kernel Deprecates It
“The Linux kernel has officially deprecated its coding style that the length of lines of code comply with 80 columns as the ‘strong preferred limit’,” reports Phoronix:
The Linux kernel like many long-standing open-source projects has a coding style guideline that lines of code be 80 columns or less, but now that while still recommended is no longer going to be enforced….
In a First, Renewable Energy Is Poised To Eclipse Coal in US
The United States is on track to produce more electricity this year from renewable power than from coal for the first time on record, new government projections show, a transformation partly driven by the coronavirus pandemic, with profound implications in the fight against climate change. From a report: It is a milestone that seemed all but unthinkable a decade ago, when…
Amid Pandemic, US Renewable Power Sources Have Topped Coal For 40 Days
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Electricity generated by renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro has exceeded coal-fired power in the United States for a record 40 straight days, according to a report based on U.S. government data released on Monday. The boost for renewables is due to a seasonal increase in low-cost solar and hydro power generation,…
Oil Companies Are Collapsing, but Wind and Solar Energy Keep Growing
A few years ago, the kind of double-digit drop in oil and gas prices the world is experiencing now because of the coronavirus pandemic might have increased the use of fossil fuels and hurt renewable energy sources like wind and solar farms. That is not happening. From a report: In fact, renewable energy sources are set to account for nearly 21…