Two computer scientists at the University of Waterloo in Canada believe changing 30 lines of code in Linux "could cut energy use at some data centers by up to 30 percent," according to the site Data Centre Dynamics.

It's the code that processes packets of network traffic, and Linux "is the most widely used OS for data center servers," according to the article: The team tested their solution's effectiveness and submitted it to Linux for consideration, and the code was published this month as part of Linux's newest kernel, release version 6.13. "All these big companies — Amazon, Google, Meta — use Linux in some capacity, but they're very picky about how they decide to use it," said Martin Karsten [professor of Computer Science in the Waterloo's Math Faculty]. "If they choose to 'switch on' our method in their data centers, it could save gigawatt hours of energy worldwide. Almost every single service request that happens on the Internet could be positively affected by this."

The University of Waterloo is building a green computer server room as part of its new mathematics building, and Karsten believes sustainability research must be a priority for computer scientists. "We all have a part to play in building a greener future," he said. The Linux Foundation, which oversees the development of the Linux OS, is a founder member of the Green Software Foundation, an organization set up to look at ways of developing "green software" — code that reduces energy consumption.
Karsten "teamed up with Joe Damato, distinguished engineer at Fastly" to develop the 30 lines of code, according to an announcement from the university. "The Linux kernel code addition developed by Karsten and Damato was based on research published in ACM SIGMETRICS Performance Evaluation Review" (by Karsten and grad student Peter Cai).

Their paper "reviews the performance characteristics of network stack processing for communication-heavy server applications," devising an "indirect methodology" to "identify and quantify the direct and indirect costs of asynchronous hardware interrupt requests (IRQ) as a major source of overhead...

"Based on these findings, a small modification of a vanilla Linux system is devised that improves the efficiency and performance of traditional kernel-based networking significantly, resulting in up to 45% increased throughput..."

CleanTechnicareports that last year Americans "bought 37% more air source heat pumps than the next most popular heating appliance — gas furnaces."

And Americans bought 21% more heat pumps than they did in 2023. Canary Media is quick to point out that in many homes, more than one heat pump is required, so that data should be interpreted with that in mind. Typically, a home uses only one furnace. Nevertheless, the trend for heat pumps is up. Russell Unger, the head of decarbonizing buildings at RMI, said, "There's just been this long term, consistent trend."

It's easy to understand why heat pumps are gaining in popularity. In addition to providing heated air in the winter and cool air in the summer, they are far more efficient than conventional heat sources — delivering three to four times more heat per dollar spent than oil- or gas-fired heating equipment or old fashioned electric baseboard heat. They also create far less carbon pollution. How much less depends on the source of electricity in the local area,
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the news.

2021: "Automotive Startup Canoo Debuts a Snub-Nosed Electric Pickup"
2025: Canoo "Goes Belly-Up After Moving to Texas"

"Its production volumes paled in comparison to Canoo's rate of cash burn, which was substantial, with net losses in 2023 totaling just over $300 million..." reports AutoWeek. "It was able to deliver small batches of vans to a few customers, but apparently remained distant from anything approaching volume production."

"Back in 2020, electric vehicle maker Canoo snagged a $2.4 billion valuation before it had shipped a single car," remembers SFGate. "Now, just months after yanking its headquarters from Los Angeles County to Texas, the company has gone belly-up." In its four-year span as a public company, Canoo battled investor lawsuits, Securities and Exchange Commission charges, executive departures and a mixed reception of its cars. Auto tech blogger Steven Symes recently likened Canoo's cargo-style van to an "eraser on wheels."
"Canoo is the latest EV startup to go bankrupt after merging with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) as a shortcut to going public," notes TechCrunch. "Electric Last Mile Solutions was the first in June 2022. But since then, Fisker, Lordstown Motors, Proterra, Lion Electric, and Arrival all filed for different levels of bankruptcy protection in their various home countries." In the years since it went public, [Canoo] made a small number of its bubbly electric vans and handed them over to partners — some paying — willing to trial the vehicles. The U.S. Postal Service, Department of Defense, and NASA all have or had Canoo vehicles.

Slashdot reader jenningsthecat writes: 3D printer manufacturer Bambu Labs has faced a storm of controversy and protest after releasing a security update which many users claim is the first step in moving towards an HP-style subscription model.
Bambu Labs responded that there's misinformation circulating online, adding "we acknowledge that our communication might have contributed to the confusion." Bambu Labs spokesperson Nadia Yaakoubi did "damage control", answering questions from the Verge: Q: Will Bambu publicly commit to never requiring a subscription in order to control its printers and print from them over a home network?

A: For our current product line, yes. We will never require a subscription to control or print from our printers over a home network...

Q: Will Bambu publicly commit to never putting any existing printer functionality behind a subscription?

Yes...
Bambu's site adds that the security update "is beta testing, not a forced update. The choice is yours. You can participate in the beta program to help us refine these features, or continue using your current firmware."

Hackaday notes another wrinkle: This follows the original announcement which had the 3D printer community up in arms, and quickly saw the new tool that's supposed to provide safe and secure communications with Bambu Lab printers ripped apart to extract the security certificate and private key... As the flaming wreck that's Bambu Lab's PR efforts keeps hurtling down the highway of public opinion, we'd be remiss to not point out that with the security certificate and private key being easily obtainable from the Bambu Connect Electron app, there is absolutely no point to any of what Bambu Lab is doing.
The Verge asked Bambu Labs about that too: Q: Does the private key leaking change any of your plans?

No, this doesn't change our plans, and we've taken immediate action.
Bambu Labs had said their security update would "ensure only authorized access and operations are permitted," remembers Ars Technica. "This would, Bambu suggested, mitigate risks of 'remote hacks or printer exposure issues' and lower the risk of 'abnormal traffic or attacks.'" This was necessary, Bambu wrote, because of increases in requests made to its cloud services "through unofficial channels," targeted DDOS attacks, and "peaks of up to 30 million unauthorized requests per day" (link added by Bambu).
But Ars Technica also found some skepticism online: Repair advocate Louis Rossmann, noting Bambu's altered original blog post, uploaded a video soon after, "Bambu's Gaslighting Masterclass: Denying their own documented restrictions"... suggesting that the company was asking buyers to trust that Bambu wouldn't enact restrictive policies it otherwise wrote into its user agreements.
And Ars Technica also cites another skeptical response from a video posted by open source hardware hacker and YouTube creator Jeff Geerling: "Every IoT device has these problems, and there are better ways to secure things than by locking out access, or making it harder to access, or requiring their cloud to be integrated."

"For years, renewable energy proponents have hoped to build a U.S. electric grid powered by wind, solar, geothermal and — to a lesser extent — nuclear power..." writes the Washington Post. In America's power markets "the economics of clean energy are strong," with renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuel plants in many jurisdictions.

But the Post spoke to the "electricity modeling" director at nonpartisan clean energy think tank Energy Innovation, who offered this assessment. "The technology is ready, and the financial services are ready — but the question nobody really put enough thought into was, could the government keep up? And at the moment, the answer is no." [R]enewable developers say that the new technologies are stymied by complicated local and federal regulations, a long wait to connect to the electricity grid, and community opposition... "The U.S. offshore wind business is at a very nascent stage versus Europe or China," Rob Barnett, a senior analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said in an email. "With the new permitting pause, it's doubtful much progress for this emerging industry will be made...." After the Inflation Reduction Act passed, Rhodium Group — an independent clean energy research firm — estimated that between 2023 and 2025, on average, the country would add between 36 and 46 gigawatts of clean electricity to the grid every year. Late last year, however, the group found that the country only installed around 27 gigawatts in 2023. The U.S.'s renewable growth is now expected to fall on the low end of that range — or miss it entirely.

"It actually is really hard to build a lot of this stuff fast," said Trevor Houser, partner in climate and energy at Rhodium Group. As a result, Rhodium found, the country only cut carbon emissions by 0.2 percent in 2024... A significant amount of this lag has come from wind power, where problems with supply chains and getting permits and approval to build has put a damper on development. But solar construction is also on the low end of what experts were expecting...

Developers point to lags in the interconnection queue — a system that gives new solar, wind or fossil fuel projects permission to connect to the larger electricity grid. According to a report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, it can now take nearly 3 years for a project to get through the queue. The grid operator that covers the Mid-Atlantic and parts of the Midwest, PJM, had over 3,300 projects in its queue at the end of 2023. The vast majority of these applications are for renewables — more than the entire number of active wind farms in the nation... There are possible solutions. Some developers hope to reuse old fossil fuel sites, like coal plants, that are already connected to the grid — bypassing the long queue entirely. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has instated new rules to make it easier to build transmission lines.
Part of the problem is that wind and solar facilities "sometimes need to be built hundreds or even thousands of miles away" — requiring long transmission lines. Sandhya Ganapathy, CEO of EDP Renewables North America, tells the Post that in America, "The grid that we have was never designed to handle this kind of load." And yet last year just 255 miles of new transmission line were built in the U.S., according to the American Clean Power Association. And Ganapathy also complains that approval for a new renewable energy project takes "anywhere between six to eight years" — which makes developers hesitant to build. "Why are we taking a big risk of a massive investment if I will not be able to sell the electrons?"

The end result? The Washington Post writes that "Experts once hoped that by the end of the decade the United States could generate up to 80 percent of its power with clean power... Now, some wonder if the country will be able to reach even 60 percent."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Late last month, researchers revealed a finding that's likely to shock some people and confirm the low expectations of others: Renewable energy facilities throughout Central Europe use unencrypted radio signals to receive commands to feed or ditch power into or from the grid that serves some 450 million people throughout the continent. Fabian Braunlein and Luca Melette stumbled on their discovery largely by accident while working on what they thought would be a much different sort of hacking project. After observing a radio receiver on the streetlight poles throughout Berlin, they got to wondering: Would it be possible for someone with a central transmitter to control them en masse, and if so, could they create a city-wide light installation along the lines of Project Blinkenlights?

The first Project Blinkenlights iteration occurred in 2001 in Berlin, when the lights inside a large building were synchronized to turn on and off to give the appearance of a giant, low-resolution monochrome computer screen. The researchers, who presented their work last month at the 38th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, wondered if they could control streetlights in Berlin to create a city-wide version, though they acknowledged it would likely be viewable only from high altitudes. They didn't know then, but their project was about to undergo a major transformation.

After an extensive and painstaking reverse-engineering process that took about a year, Braunlein and Melette learned that they could indeed control the streetlights simply by replaying legitimate messages they observed being sent over the air previously. They then learned something more surprising — the very same system for controlling Berlin's lights was used throughout Central Europe to control other regional infrastructure, including switches that regulate the amount of power renewable electric generation facilities feed into the grid. Collectively, the facilities could generate as much as 40 gigawatts in Germany alone, the researchers estimate. In addition, they estimate that in Germany, 20 GW of loads such as heat pumps and wall boxes are controlled via those receivers. That adds up to 60 GW that might be controllable through radio signals anyone can send.

When Braunlein and Melette realized how much power was controlled, they wondered how much damage might result from rogue messages sent simultaneously to multiple power facilities in strategically designed sequences and times of day. By their calculation, an optimally crafted series of messages sent under certain conditions would be enough to bring down the entire European grid. [...] The grid security experts Ars talked to for this story said they're doubtful of the assessment. "A sudden deficit of 60 GW will definitely lead to a brownout because 60 GW is far more than [the] reserves available," said Albert Moser, a RWTH Aachen professor with expertise in power grids. "A sudden deficit of 60 GW could even lead to a blackout due to the very steep fall of frequency that likely cannot be handled fast enough by underfrequency relays (load shedding)." He wasn't able to confirm that 60 GW of generation/load is controlled by radio signals or that security measures for Radio Ripple Control are insufficient.

Jan Hoff, a grid security expert, was also doubtful there'd be enough electricity dropped quickly enough to cause a brownout. "He likened the grid to the roly-poly toys from the 1970s, which were built to be knocked around but not fall over," said Ars.

Sony will cease production of recordable Blu-ray discs at its last factory in February, ending an 18-year manufacturing run amid declining demand for physical media. The Japanese electronics giant will also halt production of MiniDiscs and MiniDV cassettes. The company had already stopped making consumer recordable Blu-ray and optical disks in mid-2024, maintaining production only for business clients.

Longtime Slashdot readers smooth wombat and AmiMoJo shares a fusion energy breakthrough from China. Charming Science reports: China's "artificial sun," officially known as the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), has achieved a groundbreaking milestone in fusion energy research. According to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), EAST recently sustained high-confinement plasma operation for an unprecedented 1,066 seconds, shattering the previous world record of 403 seconds, also set by EAST in 2023. [...] The 1,000-second mark is considered a critical threshold in fusion research. Sustaining plasma for such extended durations is essential for demonstrating the feasibility of operating fusion reactors. This breakthrough, accomplished by the Institute of Plasma Physics under the CAS, signifies a major leap towards realizing the potential of fusion energy. [...] The success of EAST's recent experiment can be attributed to several key advancements. Researchers have made significant strides in improving the stability of the heating system, enhancing the accuracy of the control system, and refining the precision of the diagnostic systems. Warning: the source originates from China Daily, an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party. It's rated "questionable" by Media Bias/Fact Check because of its association with the CCP.

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from MotorTrend: A coming ground-fault circuit-interrupter revision could make slow-charging your car nearly impossible. The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) publishes a new National Electric Code every three years, and we almost never notice or care. But the next one, NFPA 70 2026, has the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) electric-vehicle charging subcommittee, OEMs, and companies in the EV Supply Equipment (EVSE, or charger) biz mightily concerned. That's because it proposes to require the same exact ground-fault circuit-interrupter protection that makes you push that little button on your bathroom outlet every time the curling iron won't heat up. Only now, that reset button will often be down in an electric panel, maybe locked in a room where you can't reset it. If EV drivers can't reliably plug in and expect their cars to charge overnight at home or while at work, those cars will become far less practical. [...]

The national code doesn't care what you're plugging in, but vehicle chargers deserve their own carve-out. That's because no current ever flows until the charger has verified a solid ground connection from car to charger and from charger to electrical panel. They also include their own GFPE (Ground Fault Protection of Equipment), which is intended to protect equipment and is permitted to trip at values larger than 5mA, often in the 15-20mA range. That's why this new code REALLY needs to set a higher supply-side cutout (like what is allowed for marine vehicle shore power, which is up to 30mA). Because even if the Special Purpose GFCI with its 15-20mA trip level were allowed, it would be a 50/50 chance that any fault would trip the electrical-supply breaker or the device's internal breaker. But while the device is programmed to automatically reset and try again, the panel requires a manual reset. There is one EV-charger carve-out: Bi-directional chargers are exempt.

This problematic application of 5 mA trip to most 240-volt equipment was added into this regulation late, during a second draft, and now the only way to head it off is for interested parties (SAE, OEMs, and EVSE manufacturers) to register their notice of motion in February for consideration in March. This isn't a government regulation, so it's utterly unaffected by the change in federal administration. These are functionary folks with minimal experience of EV charging, so the arguments must aim to convince the NFPA that implementing this code as is could grossly embarrass the Agency. (Understanding that any such embarrassment will only arise after buildings and projects are completed under the new code.)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: TerraPower, a nuclear energy startup founded by Bill Gates, struck a deal this week with one of the largest data center developers in the US to deploy advanced nuclear reactors. TerraPower and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) are working together on a plan to run existing and future facilities on nuclear energy from small reactors. A memorandum of understanding signed by the two companies establishes a "strategic collaboration" that'll initially look into the potential for new nuclear power plants in Texas and the Rocky Mountain region that would power SDC's data centers. [...]

There's still a long road ahead before that can become a reality. The technology TerraPower and similar nuclear energy startups are developing still have to make it through regulatory hurdles and prove that they can be commercially viable. Compared to older, larger nuclear power plants, the next generation of reactors are supposed to be smaller and easier to site. Nuclear energy is seen as an alternative to fossil fuels that are causing climate change. But it still faces opposition from some advocates concerned about the impact of uranium mining and storing radioactive waste near communities. TerraPower's reactor design for this collaboration, Natrium, is the only advanced technology of its kind with a construction permit application for a commercial reactor pending with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to the company. The company just broke ground on a demonstration project in Wyoming last year, and expects it to come online in 2030.

Intel is advocating for modular PC designs to improve repairability, reduce e-waste, and align with the right-to-repair movement. A trio of executives makes their case for such designs in a recent blog post. The Register reports: Intel's approach to the problem is to draft three proposals targeting different market segments, saying that a one-size-fits-all approach would not be able to address the nuanced demands of these varied segments. Those three segments comprise "Premium Modular PC" (actually a laptop design); "Entry/Mainstream Modular PC" (another laptop); and "Desktop Modular PC."

The first envisages a three-board system, comprising a core motherboard plus universal left and right I/O boards, the latter engineered to be common across fan-less Thin & Light designs with a 10W power envelope, and premium fanned designs for up to 20W or 30W. The Entry/Mainstream Modular PC is similar, with a core motherboard and left and right I/O boards, although in this segment, Intel says these can be redesigned to allow multiple SKUs of the design. The circuit boards are also cost-optimized here to cater to the mainstream segment, it says.

The Desktop Modular PC design appears from Intel's diagram to use a midplane that has the Platform Controller Hub (PCH) silicon, with other modules connecting to this. These include CPU, memory, and GPU modules, removable using slide rails, along with hot-swappable storage, all designed to fit inside a 5 liter desktop chassis. Intel also said it is introducing subsystem-level replaceable modules. In practice, this means something like a Type-C connector on a flexible printed circuit (FPC) or an M.2 circuit board. The idea is that the module can easily be swapped out if the port or connector is damaged.

A Tanzanian entrepreneur is transforming cement bags into solar-powered backpacks, helping students study after dark in areas without electricity. Innocent James's company, Soma Bags, sold 36,000 solar backpacks across Africa last year, with prices ranging from 12,000 to 22,500 Tanzanian shillings ($4-8), according to CNN. The innovation comes as 600 million Africans lack electricity access. In Tanzania, fewer than half of mainland households have power, forcing families to rely on expensive kerosene lamps.

The backpacks, manufactured in James's Bulale factory employing 65 staff, feature flexible solar panels that charge during students' walks to school. One day of sunlight provides six to eight hours of reading light, making them more cost-effective than kerosene lamps commonly used in Tanzania, where fewer than half of mainland households have electricity access.

At Galaxy Unpacked today in San Jose, California, Samsung unveiled the new Galaxy S25 series of flagship smartphones loaded with AI capabilities and LLMs. "Currently, the Galaxy S25 range is comprised of the Galaxy S25 ($800), Galaxy S25+ ($1,000), and Galaxy S25 Ultra ($1,300)," reports Wired. "The phones are available for preorder today and will officially go on sale February 7." Since the hardware is relatively unchanged from last year's Galaxy S24 series, here's what Wired has to say about the new AI smarts: The Galaxy S25 is a tale of two AIs: Gemini and Bixby. Yes, while Google's Gemini AI assistant sits at the forefront -- it can finally be triggered through a long press of the power button-- Samsung is bringing its original Bixby voice assistant out from the shadows. Bixby has been enhanced with large language models but is still designed to handle phone functions, like changing device settings. Gemini is meant to be used for general web queries and more complex actions. You can even have two hot words, one for each assistant. I foresee all of this being confusing [...].

The highlight AI feature debuting on the Galaxy S25 series is "cross-app experiences." These are tasks you can ask Gemini to perform, even if the task requires multiple apps. For example, you can ask for the schedule of this season's Arsenal matches and then add it to your calendar; Gemini will then search and add every Arsenal FC game in the season to your schedule. Or you can ask it to find pet-friendly vegan restaurants nearby and text the list to a friend. It even works with images too -- snap a pic of your fridge and ask Gemini to find you a recipe based on the available ingredients. These cross-app experiences work with Google apps, Samsung's Galaxy apps, and select third-party apps, like WhatsApp and Spotify.

All these AI features have culminated in a new app: Now Brief. Samsung calls this proactive assistance (remember Google's Now on Tap?) where a morning brief arrives with the weather, upcoming calendar events, stock details, news articles, and suggestions to trigger routines. There's also an evening brief with a summary of the day's events with photos. Since the feature can plug into email, it'll send reminders about expiring coupons and upcoming travel tickets. Samsung claims it can even suggest changing an 8:45 am alarm even earlier if it sees a 9 am meeting on the schedule. On the lock screen, a "Now Bar" widget persists at the bottom, much like Apple's Live Activities. It'll offer quick access to the Now Brief app, but it will also show updates for favorite sports teams, along with glanceable directions from Google Maps.

The rest of the AI features are playing a bit of catch-up to Apple and Google's Pixel phones. There's Drawing Assist, a generative AI tool to craft new images in different art styles based on sketches or text prompts. AI Select works with the S Pen stylus on the S25 Ultra and understands what is selected -- for example, if a video is selected, it will suggest turning it into a GIF. Audio Eraser is an editing tool to cut out background noise in videos post-capture, canceling out the sound of a crowd's chatter or an ambulance's siren. Finally, Samsung's Generative Edit feature, which lets you erase unwanted objects in images, now works locally on the device and is much more accurate and faster. A full list of specs can be found here. You can watch a recording of the event on YouTube.

Santee Cooper, the big power provider in South Carolina, has tapped financial advisers to look for buyers that can restart construction on a pair of nuclear reactors that were mothballed years ago. From a report: The state-owned utility is betting interest will be strong, with tech giants such as Amazon.com and Microsoft in need of clean energy to fuel data centers for artificial-intelligence capabilities. The details Santee Cooper announced Wednesday it is seeking proposals for buyers to complete the project at South Carolina's sprawling V.C. Summer Nuclear Station, confirming an earlier report from The Wall Street Journal.

The utility is working with bankers at Centerview Partners, which will accept proposals until May 5. Santee Cooper will likely look to tap a consortium that could include a construction firm, a tech company that will use the power and an additional partner for capital, according to people familiar with the matter. It is also looking for another power company partner because it doesn't plan to own or operate the units once they are up and running.

Beijing will host the world's first human-robot half-marathon in April, with dozens of humanoid robots competing alongside 12,000 human runners in the capital's Daxing district. The robots, from more than 20 companies, must be between 0.5 and 2 meters tall, bipedal, and capable of walking or running without wheels, according to local authorities. Both remote-controlled and autonomous robots can participate, with battery changes permitted during the 21km (13 miles) race.

"Engineers have showcased a prototype electric vehicle that can drive for up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) per day using just solar power," reports LiveScience. The production-ready "Aptera Launch Edition" made its first appearance this month at CES 2025, and "also offers up to 400 miles (640 km) of range from a single charge via an electrical output, company representatives said in a statement."

LiveScience describes the vehicle as "lighter and more energy-efficient than conventional EVs, while offering a 50% reduction in aerodynamic resistance," with an energy efficiency rating of 100 Watt-hours per mile (Wh/mile). By contrast, a Tesla Model S (released in 2022) consumes 194 Wh/mile in the city in mild weather and 288 Wh/mile on the highway in mild weather, according to the EV Database. At a maximum range of 440 miles — including 40 miles using solar power and 400 miles using electricity — the Aptera EV may also overtake the current longest-range vehicles in production. The Mercedes-Benz EQS 450+ has a maximum range of 425 miles (684 km), according to the EV Database, followed by the Lucid Air Grand Touring at 410 miles (660 km).
Aptera says it's raised $135 million "through equity crowdfunding" to fund its pre-production progress. "Since its launch, the Company has accepted $1.7 billion in pre-orders with nearly 50,000 vehicles reserved by future Aptera owners in the U.S. and internationally."

MotorTrend writes that "nearly two decades in the making, the otherworldly three-wheel Aptera is headed to production this year as a $40,000, 400-mile EV that can capture up to 40 miles worth of free solar energy every day. Maybe." The California startup made similar promises in 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2022 and yet it has never delivered a single vehicle. Is anything different this time...?

At CES, co-CEO (and one of Aptera's original founders) Chris Anthony told MotorTrend it will take another $60 million to finish the development work, buy the tooling, and build out the Carlsbad, California, assembly plant. "We're still in fundraising mode and we hope that we inspire some people in this beautiful building (Las Vegas Convention Center) to invest in Aptera," Anthony said. "We're trying to raise $20 million in the first quarter of this year. That will basically kick off all the long-lead items to get into production, but it's a $60 million plan to get into volume production." Anthony said the company has already made one of its largest purchases, the molds for the carbon-fiber sheet-molding composite body structure and the fiberglass sheet-molding composite body panels that will be made in Italy. The next $20 million will cover the tooling for the diecast metal suspension arms and the injection-molded interior components...

It would be relatively easy for Aptera to hand build cars in a garage and announce the start of production, but the plan calls for building up to 80 cars per day per the guidance of engineering consultant and YouTuber Sandy Munro, who is an Aptera investor and adviser. "He really helped shepherd the design from what was an early prototype prove-out design into how to make the most manufacturable vehicle ever," Anthony said. The structure is built from just six parts and the entire car has been designed to be put together in a factory with just 12 stations. But that radical simplicity complicates the job at hand right now. In addition to developing the car, the small engineering team also has to create the machine that makes it. Anthony's plan has the factory ramping up to build 20,000 vehicles a year within nine months of starting production at the end of 2025.

Before that can happen, Aptera needs to clear the same hurdle that tripped it up in 2011 and sent the company stumbling into liquidation — the money. "We would love one investor to be so inspired by what we're doing that they just hand us a $60 million check," Anthony told MotorTrend. "But it could be something that's kind of piecemeal over the next nine months to get that $60 million into the company." Are you convinced?

"As large-scale solar farms crop up across the U.S.," reports ABC News, "the booming solar industry has found an unlikely mascot..." Sheep. In Milam County, outside Austin [Texas], SB Energy operates the fifth-largest solar project in the country, capable of generating 900 megawatts of power across 4,000 acres (1,618 hectares). How do they manage all that grass? With the help of about 3,000 sheep, which are better suited than lawnmowers to fit between small crevices and chew away rain or shine. The proliferation of sheep on solar farms is part of a broader trend — solar grazing — that has exploded alongside the solar industry. Agrivoltaics, a method using land for both solar energy production and agriculture, is on the rise with more than 60 solar grazing projects in the U.S., according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The American Solar Grazing Association says 27 states engage in the practice. "The industry tends to rely on gas-powered mowers, which kind of contradicts the purpose of renewables," SB Energy asset manager James Hawkins said... Because solar fields use sunny, flat land that is often ideal for livestock grazing, the power plants have been used in coordination with farmers rather than against them....

Some agriculture experts say [solar sheepherders'] success reflects how solar farms have become a boon for some ranchers. Reid Redden, a sheep farmer and solar vegetation manager in San Angelo, Texas, said a successful sheep business requires agricultural land that has become increasingly scarce. "Solar grazing is probably the biggest opportunity that the sheep industry had in the United States in several generations," Redden said. The response to solar grazing has been overwhelmingly positive in rural communities near South Texas solar farms where Redden raises sheep for sites to use, he said. "I think it softens the blow of the big shock and awe of a big solar farm coming in," Redden said.

A new law is being considered by New York's state legislature, reports a local news outlet, which "if passed, will require anyone buying a 3D printer to pass a background check. If you can't legally own a firearm, you won't be able to buy one of these printers..." It is illegal to print most gun parts in New York. Attorney Greg Rinckey believes the proposal is an overreach. "I think this is also gonna face some constitutional problems. I mean, it really comes down to a legal parsing of what are you printing and at what point is it technically a firearm...?"

[Ascent Fabrication owner Joe] Fairley thinks lawmakers should shift their focus on those partial gun kits that produce the metal firing components. Another possibility is to require printer manufacturers to install software that prevents gun parts from being printed. "They would need to agree on some algorithm to look at the part and say nope, that is a gun component, you're not allowed to print that part somehow," said Fairley. "But I feel like it would be extremely difficult to get to that point."

Longtime Slashdot reader sfcat shares a report from the Associated Press: Hundreds of people were ordered to evacuate and part of Highway 1 in Northern California was closed when a major fire erupted Thursday afternoon at one of the world's largest battery storage plants. As the fire sent up towering flames and black smoke and showed no sign of easing by Thursday night, about 1,500 people were instructed to leave Moss Landing and the Elkhorn Slough area, The Mercury News reported.

The Moss Landing Power Plant, located about 77 miles (about 124 kilometers) south of San Francisco, is owned by Texas-company Vistra Energy and contains tens of thousands of lithium batteries. The batteries are important for storing electricity from such renewable energy sources as solar energy, but if they go up in flames the blazes can be extremely difficult to put out. "There's no way to sugar coat it. This is a disaster, is what it is," Monterey County Supervisor Glenn Church told KSBW-TV. But he said he did not expect the fire to spread beyond the concrete building it was enclosed in. According to reports, the fire originated in the 300-megawatt Phase I section of the 750-megawatt facility, located on the site of a retired PG&E natural gas plant.

It's unclear what caused the fire, but officials said a full investigation will begin after it's out. Thankfully, everyone at the site was evacuated safely. Videos and images of the fire can be found here.

Sweden has begun constructing a long-term storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Forsmark, making it only the second country after Finland to build such a site. It is not expected to be completed until the 2080s, but once finished, it will securely house radioactive waste for up to 100,000 years. Reuters reports: The Forsmark final repository, about 150 kilometers north of Stockholm on Sweden's east coast, will consist of 60 km of tunnels buried 500 meters down in 1.9 billion year old bedrock. It will be the final home for 12,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel, encased in 5 meter long, corrosion-resistent copper capsules that will be packed in clay and buried. The facility will take its first waste in the late 2030s but will not be completed until around 2080 when the tunnels will be backfilled and closed, Sweden's Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) said. [...]

The Forsmark repository will cost around 12 billion crowns($1.08 billion) and be paid for by the nuclear industry, SKB said. It will have room to hold all the waste produced by Sweden's nuclear power plants. However, it will not hold fuel from future reactors. Sweden plans to build 10 more reactors by 2045.