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Can Plankton Ferry Carbon to the Bottom of the Ocean?

Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council begins three teeny experiments.

Copepods.
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Scientists at England’s University of Exeter believe that masses of drifting crustaceans “may help to store enormous amounts of carbon in the ocean,” at once sucking CO2 from the atmosphere and slowing climate change, the BBC reports. Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council has funded three projects to investigate the idea that the small, H.R. Giger-looking creatures, known as copepods or zooplankton, can absorb significant amounts of carbon.

“Don’t be fooled by their size,” said University of Exeter professor Daniel Mayor. “These tiny but mighty life forms play a crucial role in regulating Earth’s climate by moving carbon out of the atmosphere and shunting it down into the deep ocean where it says for hundreds of years or more.” Dr Adrian Martin, of England’s National Oceanography Center, added, “The need to understand how the ocean stores carbon has never been stronger and we know that marine life plays an important role.”

The forthcoming research recalls the work of Running Tide, a Maine start-up that hopes to use kelp to similar ends. As Heatmap’s Robinson Meyer wrote in The Atlantic last year, kelp “absorbs a huge amount of carbon through photosynthesis. [It] could then be harvested, disposed of, or allowed to naturally drift to the bottom of the ocean.” Along with an array of other possible techniques, it seems that the ocean — and the living things within it — could play a key role in the fight against climate change.

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Sparks

Rhizome Raises $6.5 Million for AI Grid Resilience

The company will use the seed funding to bring on more engineers — and customers.

Power lines.
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As extreme weather becomes the norm, utilities are scrambling to improve the grid’s resilience, aiming to prevent the types of outages and infrastructure damage that often magnify the impact of already disastrous weather events. Those events cost the U.S. $182 billion in damages last year alone.

With the intensity of storms, heat waves, droughts, and wildfires growing every year, some utilities are now turning to artificial intelligence in their quest to adapt to new climate realities. Rhizome, which just announced a $6.5 million seed round, uses AI to help assess and prevent climate change-induced grid infrastructure vulnerabilities. It’s already working with utilities such as Avangrid, Seattle City Light, and Vermont Electric Power Company to do so.

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Sparks

Don’t Look Now, But China Is Importing Less Coal

Add it to the evidence that China’s greenhouse gas emissions may be peaking, if they haven’t already.

A Chinese coal worker.
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Exactly where China is in its energy transition remains somewhat fuzzy. Has the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases already hit peak emissions? Will it in 2025? That remains to be seen. But its import data for this year suggests an economy that’s in a rapid transition.

According to government trade data, in the first fourth months of this year, China imported $12.1 billion of coal, $100.4 billion of crude oil, and $18 billion of natural gas. In terms of value, that’s a 27% year over year decline in coal, a 8.5% decline in oil, and a 15.7% decline in natural gas. In terms of volume, it was a 5.3% decline, a slight 0.5% increase, and a 9.2% decline, respectively.

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Rewiring America Slashes Staff Due to Trump Funding Freeze

The nonprofit laid off 36 employees, or 28% of its headcount.

Surprised outlets.
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The Trump administration’s funding freeze has hit the leading electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, which announced Thursday that it will be cutting its workforce by 28%, or 36 employees. In a letter to the team, the organization’s cofounder and CEO Ari Matusiak placed the blame squarely on the Trump administration’s attempts to claw back billions in funding allocated through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

“The volatility we face is not something we created: it is being directed at us,” Matusiak wrote in his public letter to employees. Along with a group of four other housing, climate, and community organizations, collectively known as Power Forward Communities, Rewiring America was the recipient of a $2 billion GGRF grant last April to help decarbonize American homes.

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