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Category Archives: Energy

New Online Dashboard to Track Global Steel and Aluminum Scrap Metal Trade

“The International Trade Administration has unveiled a new supply chain monitor, known as the Global Scrap Monitor, for tracking steel and aluminum scrap trade flows around the world. This online dashboard provides data on global aluminum and steel scrap trade flows from the top importing/exporting markets, allowing domestic industry stakeholders and consumers to better understand… Continue Reading

Greenhouse gas giants

Data is Plural: “Carbon Majors, run by the UK-based InfluenceMap, “is a database of historical production data from 122 of the world’s largest oil, gas, coal, and cement producers.” It attributes to these producers 1,421 metric gigatons of CO2-equivalent emissions from 1854 through 2022. Launched last month, the database provides downloads at several levels of… Continue Reading

Electricity 2024 – Analysis and forecast to 2026

International Energy Agency – Electricity 2024 Analysis and forecast to 2026 – “Electricity is central to the functioning of modern societies and economies – and its importance is only growing as technologies that run on electricity, such as electric vehicles and heat pumps, become increasingly popular. Power generation is currently the largest source of carbon… Continue Reading

Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks

“EPA develops an annual report called the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks (Inventory), that tracks U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and sinks by source, economic sector, and greenhouse gas going back to 1990. EPA has prepared the Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks since the early 1990s. This annual report, provides a… Continue Reading

State of the Air 2024 report

“The State of the Air 2024 report finds that despite decades of progress cleaning up air pollution, 39% of people living in America—131.2 million people—still live in places with failing grades for unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution. This is 11.7 million more people breathing unhealthy air compared to last year’s report. Nearly 4… Continue Reading

The reckless policies that helped fill our streets with ridiculously large cars

Vox – Dangerous, polluting SUVs and pickups took over America. Lawmakers are partly to blame. Cars, you might have noticed, have grown enormous. Low-slung station wagons are all but extinct on American roads, and even sedans have become an endangered species. (Ford, producer of the iconic Model T a century ago, no longer sells any… Continue Reading

Global study revealed world’s biggest known plastic polluters

Washington Post: “Every year, companies produce more than 400 million metric tons of plastic. Some of that plastic spills onto waterways or beaches, clogging streams or floating in huge gyres in the ocean. Some of it breaks down into tiny microplastics or nanoplastics that float in the air and enter human lungs, blood and organs.… Continue Reading

What Really Happens When You Trade In an iPhone at the Apple Store

Bloomberg [unpaywalled]: Apple touts its network of shredding robots and contractors as a greener way to reuse old gadgets. A lengthy court battle and a Businessweek investigation have cast some light on the recycling industry’s dirty secrets. Few workers at the recycling plant had access to the secure room that some called the “Apple cage.”… Continue Reading

Microplastics are everywhere — we need to understand how they affect human health

Microplastics are everywhere — we need to understand how they affect human health. Nat Med 30, 913 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-02968-x. “As evidence emerges describing the accumulation of small plastic particles in various organs and tissues of the body, a much deeper understanding of the effects of these particles on human health is urgently needed. The world… Continue Reading