All articles tagged with #electricity
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he would cut Ukraine's emergency electricity supply unless Kyiv restarts Russian oil shipments, accusing Kyiv and the West over Nord Stream tensions. The move underscores Slovakia's role as a key electricity supplier to Ukraine and follows Hungary's blocking of a related EU loan amid shared energy ties to Moscow.
About a year into Trump’s second term, inflation sits 2.4% higher year over year with a 0.2% January CPI uptick, driven by food, housing and energy costs even as gasoline prices fall to near five-year lows. A price tracker shows eggs spiking due to bird flu before easing after targeted policies, bananas and oranges fluctuating with tariff changes, and ground beef hitting record highs amid cattle shortages. Tariff moves and trade policy continue shaping prices across 11 staple items, while electricity and natural gas bills rise for households even as fuel costs retreat.
Hoosier Energy warns of a serious regional power supply emergency in central/southern Indiana and parts of Illinois and urges immediate voluntary electricity conservation (turn off unnecessary lights, delay major appliances, set thermostats to 68°F or lower, and lower water heater settings) while state officials consider small modular reactors to meet growing demand.
The White House and a bipartisan group of Northeastern governors are pressuring PJM, the region’s power-grid operator, to hold an emergency 15-year electricity auction limited to technology companies building data centers. Proceeds would fund new power plants to meet data-center-driven demand over the next decade and a half, aiming to curb rising costs for consumers. PJM says it wasn’t invited to the plan and warned it cannot guarantee supply, highlighting an industry-wide surge in power use as AI infrastructure expands. Some tech firms, like Microsoft, have signaled willingness to cover grid upgrades and higher bills to support the system.
President Trump announced a Microsoft-led initiative to ensure AI datacenters do not raise local electricity bills or overuse water, with Microsoft agreeing to pay property taxes and forego tax breaks or electricity-rate discounts, as part of a broader plan to balance AI infrastructure growth with community costs and limited incentives for other tech firms.
Microsoft unveiled a five-point plan called Community-First AI Infrastructure to address concerns about its AI data centers, pledging to reduce energy and water use, train workers and create local jobs, contribute to local tax bases, and mitigate electricity-bill impacts as data-center demand fuels opposition and local politics.
Researchers suggest that tiny ripples in cell membranes could generate enough voltage through flexoelectricity to serve as a hidden power source for biological processes, potentially influencing cell communication and movement, and inspiring bio-inspired technologies.
NASA's Perseverance rover detected unexpected electrical activity in Martian dust devils using its microphone, revealing that electrical discharges are common on Mars and may influence atmospheric chemistry, including methane breakdown, with significant implications for future missions and our understanding of the planet.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced that starting January 1, residential electricity rates will decrease by about 5%, saving the average customer around $7 per month, with natural gas rates dropping by 3%. The rate cuts are part of PG&E's efforts to stabilize energy costs amid rising national prices, and residents in the Central Valley may see even larger savings.
The article explains how AI works by breaking down the process into steps involving energy generation, data center infrastructure, hardware like GPUs, and software, illustrating that AI's 'magic' relies on a complex stack of energy, hardware, and software working together to produce outputs like images or text.
Power was restored in Guilderland after an outage affected over 2,000 customers near the Albany border on Christmas morning, with the cause under investigation.
The IEA warns that global electricity demand is surging beyond emerging economies, driven by renewable growth and electrification, with significant implications for energy security and climate goals, despite political setbacks like the US's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement.
Ukrainian drones attacked an electricity substation in Russia's Vologda region, causing damage but not disrupting power, while another drone strike injured two people in Saratov. Russia reports downing 83 drones overnight, mostly near Ukraine.
Scientists have discovered that ordinary ice can generate electricity when bent, through a process called flexoelectricity, and also exhibits surface ferroelectricity at very low temperatures. This dual electrical behavior may help explain natural phenomena like lightning formation and could lead to new technological applications using ice as an active material. The findings, published in Nature Physics, reveal surprising electromechanical properties of ice that extend our understanding of its behavior in nature and potential uses in electronics.
China's rapid shift to renewable energy, including wind, solar, and storage, is transforming its energy landscape, reducing reliance on fossil fuels, and influencing global energy markets by driving down costs and accelerating electrification across sectors, with potential to trigger a worldwide decline in fossil fuel demand.