Congress is considering a bill that would establish an annual fee to be paid by owners of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid cars. The purpose is to have owners of these vehicles pay their fair share of the cost to repair roads.

Hydrogen has long been envisioned as the ideal clean energy source for society. Used as a fuel, it releases only water as it is burned. Thus, it could be a direct replacement for fossil fuels in applications where it is difficult to find viable clean alternatives. In fuel cells, hydrogen can be used to generate electricity. But hydrogen faces a major problem: where to obtain it.

The late May heatwave in Europe has broken records in more than half a dozen countries. For example, in Oxford, England, where a continuously operating weather station has been keeping records since 1815, a new May record was set on the 26th at nearly 93 degrees Fahrenheit. London reached 95 degrees; the highest temperature ever registered this early in the year.

On the global scale, renewable energy continues to grow by leaps and bounds. This past April saw an important milestone: for the first time ever, wind and solar power produced more electricity than natural gas did for a whole month.

The largest electric power plant in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China, that has a capacity of 22.5 gigawatts. The largest in the US is also a hydroelectric plant: the Grand Coulee Dam that has a capacity of nearly 7 gigawatts. But solar panels keep getting cheaper and developers keep getting better at installing them. As a result, there are bigger and bigger solar projects that are taking over the lead in giant power plants.

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (the AMOC) is a massive system of ocean currents that is essentially a global conveyor belt. It transports warm water from the surface in the tropics to the North Atlantic, where it cools and becomes denser, sinks down, and travels south. This circulating system is an essential element in regulating the Earth’s climate, particularly for keeping temperatures in Europe mild.

Old cars used to end up in landfills or be left to rust away on vacant land. That has changed dramatically over time. About 27 million vehicles are recycled globally each year and about 12 million of those come from the United States. In fact, vehicles are the most recycled objects in America.

Greenland is one of the fastest-melting iced-over regions on Earth. In fact, scientists say the large-scale melting of Greenland’s massive ice sheet is irreversible, and it’s happening now at an accelerating rate.

Lithium is driving the global energy transition, being used in the batteries that power electric cars and in the huge banks used for renewable energy storage. Demand for lithium continues to grow with the battery supply chain (from mining to recycling) being projected to reach a market value of $400 billion and create 18 million new jobs.

Geothermal energy is one clean energy source that has not been under attack by the Trump administration. Traditional geothermal systems tap into underground reservoirs of hot water. Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) generate electric power by injecting fluid into hot, impermeable rock underground. The rock is fractured, allowing the fluid to circulate after which it is pumped back up where its heat is used to drive turbines.