Common Ground In the new Conservation in the West poll, voters in eight Western states deliver a resounding bipartisan message on the importance of public lands and conservation.

It’s impossible to say how these stated preferences translate to voting choices, but during a press conference held on February 18, one pollster made the case that conservation of public lands is getting up there with perennial top-shelf issues like the economy, health care, and education.

I use those features but I would love for the car to learn my preferences. Every time I drive home I have to cancel a turn to go a different way than the car wants me to go.

Good morning with good news: Battery costs plunged 27% in 2025, a bigger fall than 11% forecasted 2025 decline!

Global battery deployment jumps 33% in 2026 to 122.5 GW in 2026!

Battery costs fall 25%; solar costs 30%; onshore wind 23% & offshore wind 20% by 2035!
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 EV was spotted with surprise upgrades that look more like a Tesla Hyundai’s electric SUV appears to be undergoing a considerable overhaul after a mysterious model was caught with several major upgrades. The prototype looks more like a Tesla than the current IONIQ 5 on the inside. more…

The Hyundai IONIQ 5 EV was spotted with surprise upgrades that look more like a Tesla

Big battery capacity jumps globally 12-fold in four years The global capacity of utility-scale batteries has increased by more than 12 times between 2020 and 2024, according to the International Energy Agency Electricity 2026 report.

Global utility-scale battery capacity just grew 12× in four years. Costs down ~58%. Duration rising.

This isn’t incremental — it’s exponential. Storage is moving from grid support to grid backbone.

Solar changed generation. Batteries are rewriting architecture.

This is #Bettrification 🔋⚡

#GraphicOfTheWeek: Advances in geothermal technology mean it is no longer limited to volcanic regions like Iceland.

43 GW of geothermal capacity is already cost-competitive with coal and gas, and up to 42% of EU coal and gas power could be replaced.

ember-energy.org/lat...

"The benchmark levelized cost of electricity for a standalone four-hour battery project declined 27% in 2025 from a year earlier to $78 per megawatt-hour and is expected to fall to $58 per megawatt-hour by 2035, BloombergNEF said in a report"
🔋🔋🔋
#alwaysbecharging #battchat

This state’s power prices are plummeting as it nears 100% renewables South Australia is proving to the world that relying largely on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap, with electricity prices tumbling by 30 per cent in a year and sometimes ...

You want lower electricity prices? Check our South Australia where these are down 30% in 1 year as the State nears 100% renewables - proving to the world that relying on wind and solar energy with battery back-up is incredibly cheap

www.newscientist.com/article/2514...

2025 EV Share of New Car Sales, Top 10 Countries
1 Norway 97%
2 Nepal 73%
3 Denmark 69%
4 Sweden 61%
5 Iceland 57%
6 Finland 56%
7 Netherlands 56%
8 China 53%
9 Singapore 47%
10 Belgium 43%

EVs are now mainstream across much of the world

www.visualcapitalist.com/ev-share-new... (SG data added)

YouTube video by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Rep. James Talarico On Confronting Christian Nationalism, And Strange Days In The Texas Legislature

You can still watch it. Over a million views already

Already approaching 1 million now

We tend to think of batteries as the ones in our phones. But the real shift is happening at grid scale.

Utility-scale “mega batteries” now have hundreds of millions of times the capacity of a smartphone battery.

Costs are down ~40% since 2024, and capacity in 2024 was 12x higher than in 2020.

Probably getting a Rivian next for this very reason

"How Bidirectional Charging Kept the Lights On Amid Cold and Blackouts"

"The US now has more than 600,000 EVs that can feed power to houses during an emergency."

During blackout, “We were like, screw it. We got electricity and we can run all day long.”
www.bloomberg.com/news/newslet... #energysky

UK EVs At 34.6% Share In 2025 - Tesla Model Y Best-Seller - CleanTechnica December saw plugin EVs at 43.8% share in the UK, up from 40.0% year on year, with BEVs alone taking 32.2% share. FY 2025 saw EVs at 34.6%.

UK December EV share just hit 43.8% 🇬🇧⚡
+3.8 pts YoY

(2025 full-year: 34.6%, +6.6 pts YoY)

🔋 BEVs: 32.2% (+1.2 pts)
🔌 PHEVs: 11.6% (+2.6 pts)

That’s real acceleration — December ran well ahead of the annual average.

Power to the Pomies 🇬🇧🔥
The curve is bending hard now. #Bettrification

China’s coal utilisation has been declining over the past two decades as rapid #wind and #solar expansion pushes coal to a flexible role ☀️🌪️

China's coal capacity utilisation peaked at around 75% in 2005 📉

ember-energy.org/lat...

#GraphicOfTheWeek: UK wind power set a new record in January 2026, generating 10.6 TWh in a single month.

#Wind is playing an increasingly central role in delivering affordable, low-carbon electricity to Britain's power system.

Explore other graphics: ember-energy.org/lat...

China’s Emissions Fell Last Year in First Decline Since 2022 China’s carbon dioxide emissions fell 0.3% in 2025, the first annual decline since Covid-era restrictions in 2022 — and more importantly, a reduction that’s happened even as energy demand growth remai...

Good morning with good news: China’s CO2 emissions "fell 0.3% in 2025, the first annual decline since Covid-era restrictions in 2022, and more importantly, a reduction that’s happened even as energy demand growth remains strong."

Solar, wind & EV are key
www.bloomberg.com/news/article... #energysky

Why are Petrostate Supporters Desperate?

This graphic by @bistline.bsky.social shows US shift from new gas to solar, wind & batteries that took place from ~2010-2025.

US installed 54 GW in 2025, 96% clean!

The graphic (world is doing same) shows why Petrostate supporters are desperate. #energysky

Stunning Data!

"Solar power output increased by 43% year-on-year, wind by 14% and nuclear 8%, helping push down coal generation by 1.9%."

"Energy storage capacity grew by a record 75 gigawatts (GW), well ahead of the rise in peak demand of 55GW."
www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chi... #energysky

Geely is next, probably this year or next year

Next up to overtake Ford: GEELY

#alwaysbecharging

Good morning with good news: Renewables and nuclear will generate 84% of European Union's electricity by 2030!

RE rises from 48% to 63%!

Coal plunges 16%/year thru 2030!

Gas falls 6%/yr thru 2030!

EU will reach 100% RE & nuclear.

When?

2040-2045?

P.44: www.iea.org/reports/elec...
#energysky

China sold 11 million electric vehicles in one year, leaving less room for the oil it used to buy from Venezuela But there is a basic question lurking behind the headlines. Who will actually need that oil in the years ahead? For years, China has been one of Venezuela’s

More than half of the world’s new electric cars are now plugging into Chinese sockets instead of lining up at gas stations. By 2024, it is estimated that China’s EV sales were growing about 40% year on year, even as some Western markets stumbled.

www.ecoticias.com/en/china-sol...

Don’t mess with Texas ... solar, or market economics!

In February 2026, Texas took the crown as the #1 state for utility-scale solar: Solar went from 2% in 2020 to out-generating coal

They said it couldn't be done in the land of oil and gas. They were (of course) wrong

THREAD

Electric Cars Are Simply Better — Subsidies Or Not - CleanTechnica Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe. Or support our Kickstarter campaign! Since we cover electric vehicles continuously and are often analyzing market trends, we ...

EVs don’t win because of subsidies. They win because they’re simply better. Quieter, faster, cheaper to run, charge at home, far less maintenance, better software, better driving experience. Subsidies just accelerate what’s already inevitable. #Bettrification makes everything better ⚡️🚗🔋

For the first time ever, wind & solar have overtaken coal in global capacity. That doesn’t mean generation has flipped yet (soon)— it means the world is now building far more future power from sun & wind than from coal. Capacity leads. Generation follows. Storage finishes the job. #Bettrification

Grid scale batteries are booming. The Middle East alone deployed almost 12GWh of battery storage last year.

Analysis: Coal power drops in China and India for first time in 52 years after clean-energy records - Carbon Brief Coal power generation fell in both China and India in 2025, after each nation added record amounts of clean energy

Yes, coal still plays a very major role. But for the first time coal generation is down in China and is expected to decline further. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-coa...

As big batteries take over Australia’s evening peaks, coal and gas are being relegated to increasingly rare, expensive cameo roles. The future grid - everywhere - doesn’t need them and won’t have them

reneweconomy.com.au/big-batterie...