Get Ready for Another Mild Winter

Current conditions: Severe flooding in Sri Lanka has closed schools and forced thousands from their homes • The U.K. could be warmer than Spain this week • It will be 95 degrees Fahrenheit today in Phoenix, which just marked 20 consecutive days of record heat.

THE TOP FIVE

1. AccuWeather forecasts another warm winter

It’s looking like this winter will be another mild one. AccuWeather long-range experts are forecasting that most of the United States will see above-normal temperatures between December and February. The exception is the Northeast, which could be cooler and see more snow this year than last. Last winter, you may recall, was the warmest on record. In some southern states, temperatures this winter could run more than 3 degrees Fahrenheit above the historical average. “This will result in a noticeable reduction in heating demand, which could translate to lower heating bills for families and businesses,” AccuWeather said.

AccuWeater

2. Google teams up with Kairos to build new nuclear reactor plants

Google has signed an agreement with Kairos Power to build and operate a fleet of advanced nuclear reactor plants that will generate 500 megawatts of clean power by 2035. Kairos will sell that electricity to Google to power its data centers. While other tech giants are also investing in nuclear to address their surging electricity needs (Amazon bought Talen Energy’s Cumulus data center campus; Microsoft is backing the revival of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant), Google is the first to commission new nuclear power plants for this purpose. The plan is to have the first reactor online by 2030. The Financial Times noted that the U.S. has only brought three reactors online in the last 20 years.

3. Bill Gates: Climate tech has entered its ‘deployment era’

Bill Gates’ climate venture firm Breakthrough Energy is out today with its 2024 State of the Transition report. The firm has invested $3.5 billion into more than 110 climate tech companies over the last nine years, and the report mostly discusses those projects’ progress, along with climate-tech investment strategies. Perhaps the most interesting part of the report is the letter from Gates himself, in which he says 2024 saw climate tech enter its “deployment era.” He wrote:

“At Breakthrough Energy, we noticed a subtle, but important, perspective shift from both the investors and corporations we engage with. Major global investors … are finally getting off the sidelines and engaging in climate tech opportunities in meaningful ways. Meanwhile, corporate leaders increasingly understand that cleantech is not just about shrinking their carbon footprint. It’s also about strengthening their businesses and deploying their capital more efficiently.”

4. Report: Global South scaling renewables faster than Global North

Many of the world’s emerging economies are ramping up renewable energy deployment faster than more advanced economies, according to new analysis from think tank RMI. These countries, scattered across the Global South (and excluding China, Eurasia, and the Middle East), are all showing clear trends, such as a surge in clean tech investment, exponential renewables growth, and solar and battery storage cost parity with fossil fuels. Much of this is driven by a lack of fossil fuel reserves, and a need for alternatives. In a third of developing countries, demand for fossil fuels has peaked. With enough investment, these trends could be supercharged, and the developing world could catch up with advanced economies’ energy transitions within five years. Climate coalition Mission 2025 used the report as an opportunity to reiterate its call for governments in rich countries to massively scale finance for low-income countries to reach the goal of tripling renewables by 2030.

RMI

5. Research suggests Earth’s land absorbed almost no carbon last year

New preliminary findings from an international group of climate researchers found that, in 2023, the Earth’s land regions showed an “unprecedented weakening” in their ability to absorb carbon. Soil, grasslands, forests, and wetlands are some of the world’s greatest carbon sinks, helping to balance the climate. But last year, the hottest year on record, it looks as though they absorbed almost no carbon at all. The researchers say that if warming rates continue as they are, urgent action is needed “to enhance carbon sequestration and reduce greenhouse gasses emissions to net zero before reaching a dangerous level of warming at which natural CO2 sinks may no longer provide to humanity the mitigation service they have offered so far by absorbing half of human induced CO2 emissions.”

THE KICKER

Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robots, which were on full display at the company’s recent Cybercab event, reportedly were mostly controlled by humans.