11.9 GW of wind capacity installed in the Americas in 2018
Total installed wind capacity in North, Central, and South America increased to 135 gigawatts (GW) in 2018 with the addition of 11.9 GW of new wind capacity, an increase of 12% on 2017.
2019 C.E.
Scientists are using AI to find hotel rooms being used for child sex trafficking
Washington University engineers developed AI that recognizes features of a hotel room from a photo and identify where it may have been taken, offering new leads to fight child trafficking.
Drax begins capturing carbon in ‘world first’ pilot
The Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering have estimated that Drax could capture 50 million tonnes of carbon per year by 2050 – about half the nation’s emissions target.
Grid-scale solar power tripled in Australia in 2018 as renewables met 20% of energy output
“2018 will go down as the year that fossil fuels began an inexorable decline in Australia’s electricity supply.”
Japanese city of Otsu is using AI to prevent youth suicides
The hope is that the AI will allow school officials to identify the bullying cases that are likely to escalate in seriousness so that they can intervene and diffuse the situation before it’s too late.
Researchers use healthy stem cells for future Type 1 diabetes cure for the first time
For the first time ever, researchers have successfully transformed human stem cells into mature insulin-producing cells, a major breakthrough in the effort to develop a cure for type 1 (T1) diabetes.
New Jersey will now require LGBTQ history to be taught in schools
Governor Phil Murphy signed a measure that would require all public schools to teach LGBTQ history, making New Jersey only the second state in the U.S. to do so, after California in 2017.
New study suggests universal basic income won’t make people work less
A two-year study in Finland found that people who received UBI worked no less than a control group — bolstering the case for a basic income as the world economy transitions to greater automation.
Plug-in electric car sales skyrocket in China
2018 PEV sales in China ended at over a million units. For some context, 2017 was the first year that plug-ins reached 1 million sales globally.
The U.S. Postal Service begins piloting its first ever all-electric vans
The first vehicle in the 1-year pilot is already running parcels around in Fresno, California, with 3 of the remaining vehicles planned for deployment in Fresno and the 3 remaining vehicles being deployed in Stockton later this year.