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Rows of white utility-scale battery storage containers at a solar-plus-storage site

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Does battery energy storage undercut the energy return of wind and solar?

Battery energy storage is scaling fast on the US grid. What a 2014 net-energy argument got wrong, what's changed, and what batteries still can't do.
Steam rising from the two cooling towers of the Byron nuclear plant in Illinois, behind a cornfield

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How many nuclear power plants are in the US? (2026)

The US has 94 operating nuclear reactors at 54 power plants in 28 states, EIA counted in March 2026. A plant is…
Rows of fan-topped cooling units on the roof of a data center

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How much water do data centers use?

US data centers consumed 66 billion liters of water on site in 2023, mostly to cool servers, and the power plants behind…
Aerial view of data center buildings in Ashburn, Virginia

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How many data centers are in the US? (2026)

The US has about 1,400 to 2,300 operating data centers, by the count of the two trackers that publish a national total:…
Two people riding in an electric automobile photographed in 1900

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The first electric car dates to the 1830s, but sources name different inventors

The first electric car is hard to pinpoint to one inventor or country, says the Department of Energy, but a Groningen museum…
The lithium-ion battery pack of a Nissan Leaf on display, with its cover lifted to show the modules

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What an EV battery costs, and how long it lasts

An EV battery is a pack of lithium-ion cells that stores the electricity an electric car drives on, and packs cost an…
Seawater from a high tide flooding a residential street lined with parked cars in Edgewater, Florida

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Climate change effects on oceans include record heat and rising seas

Climate change has put about 90% of the excess heat in the Earth system into the ocean, and that heat is raising…
An ethanol production plant with grain storage silos in Minnesota

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Biofuels explained through ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel

Ethanol, biodiesel and renewable diesel are three different products made three different ways. Ethanol comes from fermenting starch or sugar. Biodiesel comes from a chemical swap called transesterification, and renewable diesel comes from a refinery process called hydrotreating that produces a fuel nearly identical to petroleum diesel.
A wind turbine standing beside rows of solar panels on open farmland

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How to stop global warming by cutting emissions to net zero

Stopping global warming means cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net zero, and the IPCC's 1.5°C pathways reach net zero CO2 in the…
A logging truck loaded with cut tree trunks at a harvested forest site

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Is biomass renewable? Yes, when regrowth keeps pace with harvest

Yes, biomass counts as renewable energy as long as it's harvested no faster than plants regrow, and US timberland met that test…