An anonymous reader quotes a report from OilPrice.com: China installed its highest solar power capacity for a single month in May, according to official data, which showed mind-boggling figures that the country installed more solar capacity in a month than any other nation did for the entire 2024. With 93 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity installed in May, China smashed its own record of 71 GW in December 2024, per data from the National Energy Administration cited by Bloomberg.

China's solar capacity additions in May were rushed ahead of a new government policy -- effective June 1 -- to remove pricing protection for solar power projects. Under these protections, solar projects had all but guaranteed profits when they start operations. Another new rule, effective May 1, made connecting rooftop panels to the grid more difficult. These new policies are expected to moderate the growth in solar power additions this summer, analysts say. A separate report notes that China's cumulative installed solar capacity has surpassed 1 TW, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). "By the end of May 2025, solar capacity had reached 1.08 TW (1,080 GW), up 56.9% year on year," reports pv magazine.

"NEA data show total power generation capacity stood at 3.61 TW at the end of May, an 18.8% increase from a year earlier."

New York will construct the first major new U.S. nuclear power plant in more than 15 years, with Governor Kathy Hochul directing the state's public electric utility to add at least one gigawatt of nuclear generation capacity. The New York Power Authority will identify an upstate location and determine reactor design, either independently or through private partnerships.

The project tests President Trump's May executive orders aimed at accelerating nuclear development through regulatory overhaul, expedited licensing, and expanded use of federal lands for reactors. Only five new commercial reactors have come online since 1991, while nuclear capacity has declined more than 4% from its 2012 peak. Potential sites include grounds of New York's three existing plants owned by Constellation Energy. The state is already collaborating with Constellation on federal grant applications for reactor additions at the Nine Mile Point facility in Oswego and studying Ontario's small modular reactor initiatives.

The classic VW bus got an all-electric update — but that was just the beginning. Now there's an autonomous driving version (that's intended for commercial fleets, reports Jalopnik, "a level 4 vehicle that drives set routes" that's "going into full production" as the ID Buzz AD. (The AD stands for "autonomous driving") The AD version sports a longer wheelbase and a higher roofline than its mere human-driven sibling, which helps it to fit in the 13 cameras, nine LiDARs, and five radars that will (hopefully) allow the car to drive without crashing into anybody. These are intended for large-fleet customers providing taxi services, either ones run by local governments or private companies. [Volkswagen Group software subsidiary MOIA] has already lined up its first customer, the German city of Hamburg, which will provide the automated Buzz as a public transit option alongside traditional bus and subway services. If all goes well, after Hamburg MOIA "will bring sustainable, autonomous mobility to large-scale deployment in Europe and the U.S.," according to VW Group CEO Oliver Blume. Down the road, VW has also signed an agreement for rideshare juggernaut Uber to use the ID Buzz AD across America, starting with Los Angeles in 2026.

The ID Buzz AD is the first vehicle in Germany to reach SAE International's threshold for Level 4 autonomous driving, meaning that the car can drive itself, with no need for a driver behind the wheel, within designated areas.
It comes with "a full suite of tools for public and private transit providers," notes the EV news site Electrek. "That includes everything from the self-driving tech to fleet management software, passenger support, and operator training. That will allow cities and companies to launch driverless fleets quickly, safely, and at scale."

And Christian Senger, a member of the board of management of VW Commercial Vehicles, tells DW the vans will be manufactured in very large numbers. The Hannover VW factory is set to produce more than 10,000 commercial vehicles. "We believe we can be the leading supplier in Europe," Senger says.... [Senger] does not expect the top dog of Germany's beleaguered auto industry to make any money, at least at first. In the long term, though, he explains that autonomous driving is the lucrative field of the future, one that promises to be much more profitable than the traditional automotive industry...

The exact price has not yet been announced but the ID. Buzz AD is unlikely to come cheap. According to Senger, buyers will have to pay a low six-figure sum (in euros) per vehicle. That means it's going to be expensive for transport companies. The Association of German Transport Companies or VDV, is calling for a nationally coordinated strategy of long-term financing, and a market launch supported by public funding, to establish the country's supremacy in this market.

U.S. consumers "rank problems with public electric vehicle charging and the time it takes to recharge as their top two reasons for rejecting electric vehicles," writes the New York Times, citing figures from data analytics firm J.D. Power.

But are things getting better? Automakers and charging companies are building new stations and updating their cars to allow drivers to more easily and quickly recharge their vehicles. They're also outfitting charging stations with items such as food and bathrooms, and making the devices more reliable. Because chargers are only as fast as the cars they connect with, automakers are designing new cars to absorb electricity at higher speeds. In addition, many automakers have cut deals with Tesla to allow owners of other cars to use the company's fast-charging network, the largest in the country and widely considered the most reliable.

Early evidence suggests efforts to improve electric vehicle charging are paying off. In recent years, J.D. Power surveys showed about 20% of attempts to charge electric vehicles at all public stations ended in failure because of faulty chargers, long lines or payment glitches. But in the first three months of 2025, overall failure rates fell to 16%, the biggest improvement since the surveys began in 2021. "The industry is finally elevating as a whole," said Brent Gruber, an executive director at J.D. Power.

The number of chargers has also increased. There were about 55,200 fast chargers in the United States in May, up from 42,200 a year earlier, according to federal data.

In February, a former Phillips 66 gas station in Apex, N.C., near Raleigh, became the first "Rechargery" from Ionna, a company created by eight automakers, including General Motors, Hyundai Motors, BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Their chargers can deliver up to 400 kilowatts of juice, much more than Tesla's 250-kilowatt Superchargers. Some cars can replenish a battery in 30 minutes or less at the higher charging speeds. When connected to chargers of 350 kilowatts or more, including those at Ionna and Electrify America, another fast-charging network, a Hyundai Ioniq 5 can fill its electric "tank" from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes...

Some models from BMW, Hyundai and Kia have also enabled a national "Plug and Charge" standard that lets car owners begin charging their vehicles at Ionna stalls without first having to use a smartphone app or swipe a credit card, eliminating a step that sometimes results in errors. Tesla's chargers have long worked this way for Tesla cars and now work with some other vehicles, including Rivian's SUVs and pickups. More cars and charging stations are expected to have plug-and-charge capability in the coming months... Nearly every major automaker is redesigning their cars with plug outlets and software that are compatible with Tesla chargers.
Infrastructure upgrades are happening elsewhere too, according to the article.Texas-based gas chain Buc-ee's is offering "premium" charging using renewable power (working with Mercedes), while Waffle House plans to install BP Pulse fast chargers next year.

J.D. Power's Gruber says that while America's federal charger program only helped construct a tiny fraction of new chargers, it did also published guidelines which helped automakers and charging companies work together and address technical problems.

With no one behind the steering wheel, a Tesla robotaxi passes Guero's Taco Bar in Austin Texas, making a right turn onto Congress Avenue.

Today is the day Austin became the first city in the world to see Tesla's self-driving robotaxi service, reports The Guardian: Some analysts believe that the robotaxis will only be available to employees and invitees initially. For the CEO, Tesla's rollout is slow. "We could start with 1,000 or 10,000 [robotaxis] on day one, but I don't think that would be prudent," he told CNBC in May. "So, we will start with probably 10 for a week, then increase it to 20, 30, 40."

The billionaire has said the driverless cars will be monitored remotely... [Posting on X.com] Musk said the date was "tentatively" 22 June but that this launch date would be "not real self-driving", which would have to wait nearly another week... Musk said he planned to have one thousand Tesla robotaxis on Austin roads "within a few months" and then he would expand to other cities in Texas and California.
Musk posted on X that riders on launch day would be charged a flat fee of $4.20, according to Reuters. And "In recent days, Tesla has sent invites to a select group of Tesla online influencers for a small and carefully monitored robotaxi trial..." As the date of the planned robotaxi launch approached, Texas lawmakers moved to enact rules on autonomous vehicles in the state. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, on Friday signed legislation requiring a state permit to operate self-driving vehicles. The law does not take effect until September 1, but the governor's approval of it on Friday signals state officials from both parties want the driverless-vehicle industry to proceed cautiously... The law softens the state's previous anti-regulation stance on autonomous vehicles. A 2017 Texas law specifically prohibited cities from regulating self-driving cars...

The law requires autonomous-vehicle operators to get approval from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles before operating on public streets without a human driver. It also gives state authorities the power to revoke permits if they deem a driverless vehicle "endangers the public," and requires firms to provide information on how police and first responders can deal with their driverless vehicles in emergency situations. The law's requirements for getting a state permit to operate an "automated motor vehicle" are not particularly onerous but require a firm to attest it can safely operate within the law... Compliance remains far easier than in some states, most notably California, which requires extensive submission of vehicle-testing data under state oversight.
Tesla "planned to operate only in areas it considered the safest," according to the article, and "plans to avoid bad weather, difficult intersections, and will not carry anyone below the age of 18."

More details from UPI: To get started using the robotaxis, users must download the Robotaxi app and use their Tesla account to log in, where it then functions like most ridesharing apps...

"Riders may not always be delivered to their intended destinations or may experience inconveniences, interruptions, or discomfort related to the Robotaxi," the company wrote in a disclaimer in its terms of service. "Tesla may modify or cancel rides in its discretion, including for example due to weather conditions." The terms of service include a clause that Tesla will not be liable for "any indirect, consequential, incidental, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, including lost profits or revenues, lost data, lost time, the costs of procuring substitute transportation services, or other intangible losses" from the use of the robotaxis.
Their article includes a link to the robotaxi's complete Terms of Service: To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Robotaxi, Robotaxi app, and any ride are provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied... The Robotaxi is not intended to provide transportation services in connection with emergencies, for example emergency transportation to a hospital... Tesla's total liability for any claim arising from or relating to Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app is limited to the greater of the amount paid by you to Tesla for the Robotaxi ride giving rise to the claim, and $100... Tesla may modify these Terms in our discretion, effective upon posting an updated version on Tesla's website. By using a Robotaxi or the Robotaxi app after Tesla posts such modifications, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.

As recently as 2021, GM "all but eliminated" hybrids from its future product plans, reports the New York Times. "But then a funny thing happened." Car shoppers balked at the high prices of fully electric models and the challenges of charging them. In the last few years, sales of electric vehicles have grown at a much slower rate than automakers once expected. And hybrids have stepped in to fill the gap, accounting for a large and growing share of new car sales... In the first three months of this year, hybrids — including cars that can and cannot be plugged in — made up about 14 percent of all light vehicles sold in the United States, according to the Department of Energy. That was around twice the market share of fully electric vehicles in that period...

Several automakers are slowing the introduction of new electric vehicles, and have accelerated development of new hybrids.
Robb Report looks at the current status of hybrids — and a possible future: "The charging infrastructure in most countries is not yet mature enough to support convenient mass adoption of battery-electric vehicles, and in some territories never will be," says Jonathan Hall, head of research and advanced engineering at U.K.-based consulting group Mahle Powertrain....

Porsche, active in this space since 2010, just hybridized its iconic 911 for this model year. Lamborghini also joined the trend with the debut of its 1,000 hp Revuelto hybrid in 2023. "The company doesn't plan to give up the internal-combustion engine anytime soon," says CTO Rouven Mohr. "We are also considering synthetic fuels to keep ICE vehicles running after 2030."

Hall concurs: "With the emergence of bio-based and even fully synthetic fuels, the link between the ICE and climate change can be broken." Combined with the development of better batteries, this progressive hybrid model could offer the best of both worlds for years to come.

It's not just Amazon's CEO predicting AI will lower their headcount. "Top executives at some of the largest American companies have a warning for their workers: Artificial intelligence is a threat to your job," reports the Washington Post — including IBM, Salesforce, and JPMorgan Chase.

But are they really just trying to impress their shareholders? Economists say there aren't yet strong signs that AI is driving widespread layoffs across industries.... CEOs are under pressure to show they are embracing new technology and getting results — incentivizing attention-grabbing predictions that can create additional uncertainty for workers. "It's a message to shareholders and board members as much as it is to employees," Molly Kinder, a Brookings Institution fellow who studies the impact of AI, said of the CEO announcements, noting that when one company makes a bold AI statement, others typically follow. "You're projecting that you're out in the future, that you're embracing and adopting this so much that the footprint [of your company] will look different."

Some CEOs fear they could be ousted from their job within two years if they don't deliver measurable AI-driven business gains, a Harris Poll survey conducted for software company Dataiku showed. Tech leaders have sounded some of the loudest warnings — in line with their interest in promoting AI's power...

IBM, which recently announced job cuts, said it replaced a couple hundred human resource workers with AI "agents" for repetitive tasks such as onboarding and scheduling interviews. In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested on Joe Rogan's podcast that the company is building AI that might be able to do what some human workers do by the end of the year.... Marianne Lake, JPMorgan's CEO of consumer and community banking, told an investor meeting last month that AI could help the bank cut headcount in operations and account services by 10 percent. The CEO of BT Group Allison Kirkby suggested that advances in AI would mean deeper cuts at the British telecom company...

Despite corporate leaders' warnings, economists don't yet see broad signs that AI is driving humans out of work. "We have little evidence of layoffs so far," said Columbia Business School professor Laura Veldkamp, whose research explores how companies' use of AI affects the economy. "What I'd look for are new entrants with an AI-intensive business model, entering and putting the existing firms out of business." Some researchers suggest there is evidence AI is playing a role in the drop in openings for some specific jobs, like computer programming, where AI tools that generate code have become standard... It is still unclear what benefits companies are reaping from employees' use of AI, said Arvind Karunakaran, a faculty member of Stanford University's Center for Work, Technology, and Organization. "Usage does not necessarily translate into value," he said. "Is it just increasing productivity in terms of people doing the same task quicker or are people now doing more high value tasks as a result?"

Lynda Gratton, a professor at London Business School, said predictions of huge productivity gains from AI remain unproven. "Right now, the technology companies are predicting there will be a 30% productivity gain. We haven't yet experienced that, and it's not clear if that gain would come from cost reduction ... or because humans are more productive."
On an earnings call, Salesforce's chief operating and financial officer said AI agents helped them reduce hiring needs — and saved $50 million, according to the article. (And Ethan Mollick, co-director of Wharton School of Business' generative AI Labs, adds that if advanced tools like AI agents can prove their reliability and automate work — that could become a larger disruptor to jobs.) "A wave of disruption is going to happen," he's quoted as saying.

But while the debate continues about whether AI will eliminate or create jobs, Mollick still hedges that "the truth is probably somewhere in between."

"The carbon cost of asking an artificial intelligence model a single text question can be measured in grams of CO2..." writes the Washington Post. And while an individual's impact may be low, what about the collective impact of all users?

"A Google search takes about 10 times less energy than a ChatGPT query, according to a 2024 analysis from Goldman Sachs — although that may change as Google makes AI responses a bigger part of search." For now, a determined user can avoid prompting Google's default AI-generated summaries by switching over to the "web" search tab, which is one of the options alongside images and news. Adding "-ai" to the end of a search query also seems to work. Other search engines, including DuckDuckGo, give you the option to turn off AI summaries....

Using AI doesn't just mean going to a chatbot and typing in a question. You're also using AI every time an algorithm organizes your social media feed, recommends a song or filters your spam email... [T]here's not much you can do about it other than using the internet less. It's up to the companies that are integrating AI into every aspect of our digital lives to find ways to do it with less energy and damage to the planet.
More points from the article:

• Two researchers tested the performance of 14 AI language models, and found larger models gave more accurate answers, "but used several times more energy than smaller models."

• The data centers hosting AI models "can devour more electricity than entire cities."

• "Keeping those computers cool uses freshwater — about one bottle's worth for every 100 words of text ChatGPT generates."

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Over the past three years, companies have invested tens of billions of dollars toward making electric vehicles in the United States, buoyed by tax incentives aimed at helping American businesses compete with China. Now, those companies are facing a strange problem: too much manufacturing capacity, not enough demand.

As sales of electric vehicles slow and congressional Republicans take aim at EV tax credits and incentives, the United States is slated to have more battery and EV manufacturing than it needs, according to a report released Wednesday by the Rhodium Group, a research firm. That could leave factories — many of which are already operating or under construction — stranded if car sales continue to slump. "The rug is being pulled out from under these manufacturers," said Hannah Pitt, a director in Rhodium's energy and climate practice...

After [America's 2022 climate bill], battery investment in the U.S. skyrocketed. Companies went from investing about $1 billion per quarter in 2022 to $11 billion per quarter in 2024. Most of that battery investment went to red states, including in the South's "Battery Belt," where manufacturers were drawn to inexpensive land and a nonunionized workforce. Now, however, that battery boom is teetering. In the first three months of 2025, companies canceled $6 billion in battery manufacturing — a record. EV sales have slowed...

According to the new report, the United States has almost enough battery capacity announced or under development to meet demand all the way to 2030 if EV sales continue to slump. That might sound like a good thing — but if EV sales drop further, it means companies will be left with factories they won't be able to use. At the same time, China has excess battery capacity. The country has enough manufacturing to meet the entire world's demand for batteries — and may be looking to off-load them onto other markets... And if the incentives for using U.S.-made batteries disappear, the nation's manufacturers would be left high and dry.

French President Emmanuel Macron urged Europe to reassert itself as a global space power, warning that France risks being sidelined in the low Earth orbit satellite market dominated by players like SpaceX and China. Phys.Org reports: Macron spoke at the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget outside the French capital a day after France more than doubled its stake in satellite operator Eutelsat, the EU rival to Elon Musk's Starlink. Macron called for more investment as the European space industry struggles to remain competitive in the face of US and Chinese rivals. "SpaceX has disrupted the market, Amazon is also getting involved. China is not far behind, and I think we all need to be very clear-headed," Macron said. Europe must become "a space power once again, with France at its heart," he said. He warned that Europeans were "on the verge of being completely" squeezed out of the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation market.

Macron said France and its partners should not be reliant on non-European constellations in low orbit, calling it "madness." He called non-European players to team up with France. "This must be the solution for our major strategic partners in the Gulf, India, Canada and Brazil," he said. "We really need to succeed in increasing our collective investment effort," Macron added, noting the importance of private investors and public-private collaboration. He also said France planned to organize a space summit in early 2026 to "mobilize our public and private partners across the globe."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from MacRumors: To comply with a new regulation that takes effect today, Apple has added an energy efficiency label to its iPhone and iPad pages in EU countries. Apple is also required to start including a printed version of the label with the devices sold there. The label grades a given iPhone or iPad model's energy efficiency from a high of A to a low of G, based on the EU's testing parameters. However, Apple said that certain aspects of the testing methods outlined by the European Commission are "ambiguous," so it chose to be conservative with its scores until testing is standardized.

In a 44-page document (PDF) detailing its testing methodology for the labels, Apple said its current iPhone models qualified for the highest energy efficiency grade of A, but the company voluntarily downgraded these scores to a B as a cautionary measure. The label also provides details about a given iPhone or iPad model's battery life per full charge cycle, repairability grade, impact resistance, ingress protection rating for water and dust resistance, and how many full charge cycles the battery is rated for. Likewise, this information is based on Apple's interpretation of the EU's testing parameters.

On the web, the label can be viewed by clicking or tapping on the colorful little tag icon on various iPhone and iPad pages on Apple's localized websites for EU countries. It is shown on both Apple's main product marketing pages for all iPhone and iPad models that are currently sold in the EU, and on the purchase page for those devices. The label is accompanied by a product information sheet (PDF) that provides a comprehensive overview of even more details, such as the device's battery capacity in mAh, screen scratch resistance based on the Mohs hardness scale, the minimum guaranteed timeframe for availability of security updates, and much more.

Turning recently closed coalmines into solar energy plants could add almost 300GW of renewable energy by 2030, converting derelict wastelands to productive use, according to a new report. From a report: In a first of its kind analysis, researchers from Global Energy Monitor (GEM) identified 312 surface coalmines closed since 2020 around the world, and 134 likely to close by the end of the decade, together covering 5,820 sq km (2,250 sq miles) -- a land area nearly the size of Palestine.

Strip mining turns terrains into wastelands, polluted and denuded of topsoil. But if they were filled with solar panels and developed into energy plants, the report claims, they could generate enough energy to power as big and power hungry a nation as Germany.

SpaceX's Starship exploded on its test stand in South Texas ahead of an engine test, marking the fourth loss of a Starship this year. "In three previous test flights, the vehicle came apart or detonated during its flight," notes the Washington Post. No injuries were reported but the incident highlights ongoing technical challenges as SpaceX races to prove Starship's readiness for deep-space travel. From the report: In a post on the social media site X, SpaceX said that the explosion on the test stand, which could be seen for miles, happened at about 11 p.m. Central time. For safety reasons, the company had cleared personnel from around the site, and "all personnel are safe and accounted for," it said. The company is "actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials," the post continued. "There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue."

Starship comprises two stages -- the Super Heavy booster, which has 33 engines, and the Starship spacecraft itself, which has six. Before Wednesday's explosion, the spacecraft was standing alone on the test stand, and not mounted on top of the booster, when it blew up. The engines are test-fired on the Starship before it's mounted on the booster. SpaceX had been hoping to launch within the coming weeks had the engine test been successful. [...] In a post on X, Musk said that preliminary data pointed to a pressure vessel that failed at the top of the rocket. You can watch a recording of the explosion on YouTube.

SpaceX called the incident a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," which caught the attention of Slashdot reader hambone142. In a story submitted to the Firehose, they commented: "I worked for a major computer company whose power supplies caught on fire. We were instructed to cease saying that and instead say the power supply underwent a 'thermal event.' Gotta love it."

93 Escort Wagon writes: More proof that Amazon's leadership views the balance of power between itself and its workforce tilting decisively in its favor: Amazon's employees are being told they must relocate to one of the company's large hubs -- with the company specifying the required location -- or resign with no severance. CEO Andy Jassy did have the grace to give people 30 days to decide.

Investigators believe Air India Flight 171 had an emergency-power generator operating when it crashed last week, raising questions about whether the plane's engines functioned properly during takeoff. WSJ: The preliminary finding [non-paywalled source], according to people familiar with the probe, gives investigators a new line of inquiry as they study a crash that killed all but one of the plane's passengers. In all, at least 270 people died following the crash, including some on the ground in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad.

The emergency system is known as a ram air turbine. It is a small propeller that drops from the bottom of the 787 Dreamliner's fuselage to serve as a backup generator. Engines normally produce electricity for an aircraft and help run its flight-control systems. The power generated by the RAT can enable crucial aircraft components to function. The system can deploy automatically in flight if both engines have failed or if all three hydraulic system pressures are low, according to an airline's Boeing 787 manual reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

It can also deploy if cockpit instruments lose power or problems emerge with the aircraft's electric motor pumps. Pilots can manually deploy the RAT if needed. The most common occurrence is when a pilot thinks that both engines failed, according to Anthony Brickhouse, a U.S.-based aerospace safety consultant. Engine failures can result from a variety of causes, including bird strikes or problems with fuel.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: The Spanish government has said that the national grid operator and private power generation companies were to blame for an energy blackout that caused widespread chaos in Spain and Portugal earlier this year. Shortly after midday on April 28, both countries were disconnected from the European electricity grid for several hours. Businesses, schools, universities, government buildings and transport hubs were all left without power and traffic light outages caused gridlocks. While schoolchildren, students and workers were sent home for the day, many other people were stuck in lifts or stranded on trains in isolated rural areas.

In the immediate aftermath, the left-wing coalition government did not provide an explanation, instead calling for patience as it investigated. Nearly two months after the unprecedented outage, the minister for ecological transition, Sara Aagesen, has presented a report on its causes. She said the partly state-owned grid operator, Red Electrica, had miscalculated the power capacity needs for that day, explaining that the "system did not have enough dynamic voltage capacity." The regulator should have switched on another thermal plant, she said, but "they made their calculations and decided that it was not necessary."

Aagesen also blamed private generators for failing to regulate the grid's voltage shortly before the blackout happened. "Generation firms which were supposed to control voltage and which, in addition, were paid to do just that did not absorb all the voltage they were supposed to when tension was high," she said, without naming any of the companies responsible. The day after the outage, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez suggested that private electricity companies might have played a role, saying that his government would demand "all the relevant accountability" from them. However, the new report on the blackout also raises questions about the role of Beatriz Corredor, president of Red Electrica and a former Socialist minister, who had previously insisted that the grid regulator had not been at fault. Aagesen said there was no evidence of a cyberattack behind the blackout. The government also maintained that Spain's renewable energy output was not to blame.

Denmark has deployed four uncrewed robotic sailboats (known as "Voyagers") for a three-month trial to boost maritime surveillance amid rising tensions in the Baltic region. The Associated Press reports: Built by Alameda, California-based company Saildrone, the vessels will patrol Danish and NATO waters in the Baltic and North Seas, where maritime tensions and suspected sabotage have escalated sharply since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Two of the Voyagers launched Monday from Koge Marina, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of the Danish capital, Copenhagen. Powered by wind and solar energy, these sea drones can operate autonomously for months at sea. Saildrone says the vessels carry advanced sensor suites -- radar, infrared and optical cameras, sonar and acoustic monitoring. Their launch comes after two others already joined a NATO patrol on June 6.

Saildrone founder and CEO Richard Jenkins compared the vessels to a "truck" that carries sensors and uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to give a "full picture of what's above and below the surface" to about 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 kilometers) in the open ocean. He said that maritime threats like damage to undersea cables, illegal fishing and the smuggling of people, weapons and drugs are going undetected simply because "no one's observing it." Saildrone, he said, is "going to places ... where we previously didn't have eyes and ears." The Danish Defense Ministry says the trial is aimed at boosting surveillance capacity in under-monitored waters, especially around critical undersea infrastructure such as fiber-optic cables and power lines.

In Tokyo Mitsubishi is deploying "an innovative new battery swap network for electric cars" in a multi-year test program reports the EV news site Electrek.

But it's not just for electric cars. Along with the 14 modular battery swapping stations, Mitsubishi is also deploying "more than 150 battery-swappable commercial electric vehicles" from truck maker Fuso: A truck like the Mitsubishi eCanter typically requires a full night of AC charging to top off its batteries, and at least an hour or two on DC charging in Japan, according to Fuso. This joint pilot by Mitsubishi, Mitsubishi Fuso Trucks, and [EV battery swap specialist] Ample aims to circumvent this issue of forced downtime with its swappable batteries, supporting vehicle uptime by delivering a full charge within minutes.

The move is meant to encourage the transport industry's EV shift while creating a depository of stored energy that can be deployed to the grid in the event of a natural disaster — something Mitsubishi in Japan has been working on for years.
The article's author also adds their own opinion about battery-swapping technology. "When you see how simple it is to add hundreds of miles of driving in just 100 seconds — quicker, in many cases, than pumping a tank of liquid fuel into an ICE-powered car — you might come around, yourself."

"Cooper Taylor is only 17 years old, but he's already trying to revolutionize the drone industry," writes Business Insider: His design makes the drone more efficient, customizable, and less expensive to construct, he says. He's built six prototypes, 3D printing every piece of hardware, programming the software, and even soldering the control circuit board. He says building his drone cost one-fifth of the price of buying a comparable machine, which sells for several thousand dollars. Taylor told Business Insider he hopes that "if you're a first responder or a researcher or an everyday problem solver, you can have access to this type of drone."

His innovation won him an $8,000 scholarship in April at the Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, funded by the Defense Department. Then, on May 16, he received an even bigger scholarship of $15,000 from the US Navy, which he won after presenting his research at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair...

It all started when Taylor's little sister got a drone, and he was disappointed to see that it could fly for only about 30 minutes before running out of power. He did some research and found that a vertical take-off and landing, or VTOL, drone would last longer. This type of drone combines the multi-rotor helicopter style with the fixed wings of an airplane, making it extremely versatile. It lifts off as a helicopter, then transitions into plane mode. That way, it can fly farther than rotors alone could take it, which was the drawback to Taylor's sister's drone. Unlike a plane-style drone, though, it doesn't need a runway, and it can hover with its helicopter rotors.
Taylor designed a motor "that could start out helicopter-style for liftoff, then tilt back to become an airplane-style motor," according to the article.

And now this summer he'll be "working on a different drone project through a program with the Reliable Autonomous Systems Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."

Thanks to Slashdot reader Agnapot for sharing the news.

In a world first, a research team used 2D materials — only an atom thick — to develop a computer. The team (led by researchers at Pennsylvania State University) says it's a major step toward thinner, faster and more energy-efficient electronics.

From the University's announcement: They created a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) computer — technology at the heart of nearly every modern electronic device — without relying on silicon. Instead, they used two different 2D materials to develop both types of transistors needed to control the electric current flow in CMOS computers: molybdenum disulfide for n-type transistors and tungsten diselenide for p-type transistors... "[A]s silicon devices shrink, their performance begins to degrade," [said lead researcher/engineering professor Saptarshi Das]. "Two-dimensional materials, by contrast, maintain their exceptional electronic properties at atomic thickness, offering a promising path forward...."

The team used metal-organic chemical vapor deposition (MOCVD) — a fabrication process that involves vaporizing ingredients, forcing a chemical reaction and depositing the products onto a substrate — to grow large sheets of molybdenum disulfide and tungsten diselenide and fabricate over 1,000 of each type of transistor. By carefully tuning the device fabrication and post-processing steps, they were able to adjust the threshold voltages of both n- and p-type transistors, enabling the construction of fully functional CMOS logic circuits.

"Our 2D CMOS computer operates at low-supply voltages with minimal power consumption and can perform simple logic operations at frequencies up to 25 kilohertz," said first author Subir Ghosh, a doctoral student pursuing a degree in engineering science and mechanics under Das's mentorship. Ghosh noted that the operating frequency is low compared to conventional silicon CMOS circuits, but their computer — known as a one instruction set computer — can still perform simple logic operations.