White House Panel Votes to Block New Nuclear Weapons

Arc One Electric Speedboat delivers zero-emission performance, quiet operation, and reduced maintenance, leveraging battery propulsion, aerospace engineering, and venture-backed innovation to cut noise pollution, fuel costs, and water contamination in high-performance marine recreation.

Key Points

Arc One Electric Speedboat is a battery-powered, zero-emission craft offering quiet, high-performance marine cruising.

✅ 475 hp, 24 ft hull, about 40 mph top speed

✅ Cuts noise, fumes, and water contamination vs gas boats

✅ Backed by Andreessen Horowitz; ex-SpaceX engineers

A team of former SpaceX rocket engineers have joined the race to build the first commercial electric speedboat.

The Arc Boat company announced it had raised $4.25m (£3m) in seed funding to start work on a 24ft 475-horsepower craft that will cost about $300,000.

The LA-based company, which is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (an early backer of Facebook and Airbnb), said the first model of the Arc One boat would be available for sale by the end of the year.

Mitch Lee, Arc’s chief executive, said he wanted to build electric boats because of the impact conventional petrol- or diesel-powered boats have on the environment.

“They not only get just two miles to the gallon, they also pump a lot of those fumes into the water,” Lee said. “In addition, there is the huge noise pollution factor [of conventional boats] and that is awful for the marine life. With gas-powered boats it’s not just carbon emissions into the air, it’s also polluting the water and causing noise pollution. Electric boats, like electric ships clearing the air on the B.C. coast, eliminate all that.”

Lee said electric vessels would also reduce the hassle of boat ownership. “I love being out on the water, being on a boat is so much fun, but owning a boat is so awful,” he said. “I have always believed that electric boats make sense. They will be quicker, quieter and way cheaper and easier to operate and maintain, with access options like an electric boat club in Seattle lowering barriers for newcomers.”

While the first models will be very expensive, Lee said the cost was mostly in developing the technology and cheaper versions would be available in the future, mirroring advances in electric aviation seen across the industry. “It is very much the Tesla approach – we are starting up market and using that income to finance research and development and work our way down market,” he said.

Lee said the technology could be applied to larger craft, and even ferries could run on electricity in the future, as projects for battery-electric high-speed ferries begin to scale.

“We started in February with no team, no money and no warehouse,” he said. “By December we are going to be selling the Arc One, and we are hiring aggressively because we want to accelerate the adoption of electric boats across a whole range of craft, including an electric-ready ferry on Kootenay Lake.”

Lee founded the company with fellow mechanical engineer Ryan Cook. Cook, the company’s chief technology officer, was previously the lead mechanical engineer at Elon Musk’s space exploration company SpaceX where he worked on the Falcon 9 rocket, the world’s first orbital class reusable rocket. In parallel, Harbour Air's electric aircraft highlights cross-sector electrification. Apart from Lee, all of Arc’s employees have some experience working at SpaceX.

The Arc boat, which would have a top speed of 40 mph, joins a number of startups rushing to make the first large-scale production of electric-powered speedboats, while a Vancouver seaplane airline demonstrates complementary progress with a prototype electric aircraft. The Monaco Yacht Club this month held a competition for electric boat prototypes to “instigate a new vision and promote all positive approaches to bring yachting into line” with global carbon dioxide emission reduction targets. Sweden’s Candela C-7 hydrofoil boat was crowned the fastest electric vessel.

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Ontario Battery Energy Storage anchors IESO strategy, easing peak demand and boosting grid reliability. Projects like Oneida BESS (250MW) and nearly 3GW procurements integrate renewables, wind and solar, enabling flexible, decarbonized power.

Key Points

Provincewide grid batteries help IESO manage peaks, integrate renewables, and strengthen reliability across Ontario.

✅ IESO forecasts 1,000MW peak growth by 2026

✅ Oneida BESS adds 250MW with 20-year contract

✅ Nearly 3GW storage procured via LT1 and other RFPs

Ontario’s electricity grid is facing increasing demand amid a looming supply crunch, prompting the province to invest heavily in battery energy storage systems (BESS) as a key solution. The Ontario Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has highlighted that these storage technologies will be crucial for managing peak demand in the coming years.

Ontario's energy demands have been on the rise, driven by factors such as population growth, electric vehicle manufacturing, data center expansions, and heavy industrial activity. The IESO's latest assessment, and its work on enabling storage, covering the period from April 2025 to September 2026, indicates that peak demand will increase by approximately 1,000MW between the summer of 2025 and 2026. This forecasted rise in energy use is attributed to the acceleration of various sectors within the province, underscoring the need for reliable, scalable energy solutions.

A significant portion of this solution will be met by large-scale energy storage projects. Among the most prominent is the Oneida BESS, a flagship project that will contribute 250MW of storage capacity. This project, developed by a consortium including Northland Power and NRStor, will be located on land owned by the Six Nations of the Grand River. Expected to be operational soon, it will play a pivotal role in ensuring grid stability during high-demand periods. The project benefits from a 20-year contract with the IESO, guaranteeing payments that will support its financial viability, alongside additional revenue from participating in the wholesale energy market.

In addition to Oneida, Ontario has committed to acquiring nearly 3GW of energy storage capacity through various procurement programs. The 2023 Expedited Long-Term 1 (LT1) request for proposals (RfP) alone secured 881MW of storage, with additional projects in the pipeline. A notable example is the Hagersville Battery Energy Storage Park, which, upon completion, will be the largest such project in Canada. The success of these procurement efforts highlights the growing importance of BESS in Ontario's energy strategy.

The IESO’s proactive approach to energy storage is not only a response to rising demand but also a step toward decarbonizing the province’s energy system. As Ontario transitions away from traditional fossil fuels, BESS will provide the necessary flexibility to accommodate increasing renewable energy generation, a clean energy solution widely recognized in jurisdictions like New York, particularly from intermittent sources like wind and solar. By storing excess energy during periods of low demand and dispatching it when needed, these systems will help maintain grid stability, and as many utilities see benefits even without mandates, reduce reliance on fossil fuel-based power plants.

Looking ahead, Ontario's energy storage capacity is expected to grow significantly, complemented by initiatives such as the Hydrogen Innovation Fund, with projects from the 2023 LT1 RfP expected to come online by 2027. As more storage resources are integrated into the grid, the province is positioning itself to meet its rising energy needs while also advancing its environmental goals.

Ontario’s increasing reliance on battery energy storage is a clear indication of the province’s commitment to a sustainable and resilient energy future, aligning with perspectives from Sudbury sustainability advocates on the grid's future. With substantial investments in storage technology, Ontario is not only addressing current energy challenges but also paving the way for a cleaner, more reliable energy system in the years to come.

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Global Coal Power Decline 2019 signals a record fall in coal-fired electricity as China plateaus, India dips, and the EU and US accelerate renewables, curbing carbon emissions and advancing the global energy transition.

Key Points

A record 2019 drop in global coal power as renewables rise and demand slows across China, India, the EU, and the US.

✅ 3% global fall in coal-fired electricity in 2019.

✅ China plateaus; India declines for first time in decades.

✅ EU and US shift to renewables and gas, cutting emissions.

The world’s use of coal-fired electricity is on track for its biggest annual fall on record this year after more than four decades of near-uninterrupted growth that has stoked the global climate crisis.

Data shows that coal-fired electricity is expected to fall by 3% in 2019, or more than the combined coal generation in Germany, Spain and the UK last year and could help stall the world’s rising carbon emissions this year.

The steepest global slump on record is likely to emerge in 2019 as India’s reliance on coal power falls for the first time in at least three decades this year, and China’s coal power demand plateaus, reflecting the broader global energy transition underway.

Both developing nations are using less coal-fired electricity due to slowing economic growth in Asia as well as the rise of cleaner energy alternatives. There is also expected to be unprecedented coal declines across the EU and the US as developed economies turn to clean forms of energy such as low-cost solar power to replace ageing coal plants.

In almost 40 years the world’s annual coal generation has fallen only twice before: in 2009, in the wake of the global financial crisis, and in 2015, following a slowdown in China’s coal plants amid rising levels of deadly air pollution.

The research was undertaken by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air , the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and the UK climate thinktank Sandbag.

The researchers found that China’s coal-fired power generation was flatlining, despite an increase in the number of coal plants being built, because they were running at record low rates. China builds the equivalent of one large new coal plant every two weeks, according to the report, but its coal plants run for only 48.6% of the time, compared with a global utilisation rate of 54% on average.

The findings come after a report from Global Energy Monitor found that the number of coal-fired power plants in the world is growing, because China is building new coal plants five times faster than the rest of the world is reducing their coal-fired power capacity.

The report found that in other countries coal-fired power capacity fell by 8GW in the 18 months to June but over the same period China increased its capacity by 42.9GW.

In a paper for the industry journal Carbon Brief, the researchers said: “A 3% reduction in power sector coal use could imply zero growth in global CO2 emissions, if emissions changes in other sectors mirror those during 2018.”

However, the authors of the report have warned that despite the record coal power slump the world’s use of coal remained far too high to meet the climate goals of the Paris agreement, and some countries are still seeing increases, such as Australia’s emissions rise amid increased pollution from electricity and transport.

The US – which is backing out of the Paris agreement – has made the deepest cuts to coal power of any developed country this year by shutting coal plants down in favour of gas power and renewable energy, with utilities such as Duke Energy facing investor pressure to disclose climate plans. By the end of August the US had reduced coal by almost 14% over the year compared with the same months in 2018.

The EU reported a record slump in coal-fired electricity use in the first half of the year of almost a fifth compared with the same months last year. This trend is expected to accelerate over the second half of the year to average a 23% fall over 2019 as a whole. The EU is using less coal power in favour of gas-fired electricity – which can have roughly half the carbon footprint of coal – and renewable energy, helped by policies such as the UK carbon tax that have slashed coal-fired generation.

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Franco-German Nuclear Power Divide shapes EU energy policy, electricity market reform, and decarbonization strategies, as Paris backs reactors and state subsidies while Berlin prioritizes renewables, hydrogen, and energy security after Russian gas shocks.

Key Points

A policy rift over nuclear shaping EU market reform, subsidies, and the balance between reactors and renewables.

✅ Nuclear in EU targets vs. renewables-first strategy

✅ Market design disputes over long-term power prices

✅ Energy security after Russian gas; hydrogen definitions

Near the French village of Fessenheim, facing Germany across the Rhine, a nuclear power station stands dormant. The German protesters that once demanded the site’s closure have decamped, in a sign of Europe's nuclear decline, and the last watts were produced three years ago. 

But disagreements over how the plant from 1977 should be repurposed persist, speaking to a much deeper divide over nuclear power, which Eon chief's warning to Germany underscored, between the two countries on either side of the river’s banks.

German officials have disputed a proposal to turn it into a centre to treat metals exposed to low levels of radioactivity, Fessenheim’s mayor Claude Brender says. “They are not on board with anything that might in some way make the nuclear industry more acceptable,” he adds.

France and Germany’s split over nuclear power is a tale of diverging mindsets fashioned over decades, including since the Chernobyl disaster in USSR-era Ukraine. But it has now become a major faultline in a touchy relationship between Europe’s two biggest economies.

Their stand-off over how to treat nuclear in a series of EU reforms has consequences for how Europe plans to advance towards cleaner energy. It will also affect how the bloc secures power supplies as the region weans itself off Russian gas, even though nuclear would do little for the gas issue, and how it provides its industry with affordable energy to compete with the US and China. 

“There can be squabbles between partners. But we’re not in a retirement home today squabbling over trivial matters. Europe is in a serious situation,” says Eric-André Martin, a specialist in Franco-German relations at French think-tank IFRI. 

France, which produces two-thirds of its power from nuclear plants and has plans for more reactors, is fighting for the low-carbon technology to be factored into its targets for reducing emissions and for leeway to use state subsidies to fund the sector.

For Germany, which closed its last nuclear plants this year and, having turned its back on nuclear, has been particularly shaken by its former reliance on Russian gas, there’s concern that a nuclear drive will detract from renewable energy advances.

But there is also an economic subtext in a region still reeling from an energy crisis last year, reviving arguments for a needed nuclear option for climate in Germany, when prices spiked and laid bare how vulnerable households and manufacturers could become.

Berlin is wary that Paris would benefit more than its neighbours if it ends up being able to guarantee low power prices from its large nuclear output as a result of new EU rules on electricity markets, amid talk of a possible U-turn on the phaseout, people close to talks between the two countries say.

Ministers on both sides have acknowledged there is a problem. “The conflict is painful. It’s painful for the two governments as well as for our [EU] partners,” Sven Giegold, state secretary at the German economy and climate action ministry, where debates about whether a nuclear resurgence is possible persist, tells the Financial Times. 

Agnès Pannier-Runacher, France’s energy minister, says she wants to “get out of the realm of the emotional and move past the considerable misunderstandings that have accumulated in this discussion”.

In a joint appearance in Hamburg last week, German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron made encouraging noises over their ability to break the latest deadlock: a disagreement over the design of the EU’s electricity market. Ministers had been due to agree a plan in June but will now meet on October 17 to discuss the reform, aimed at stabilising long-term prices.

But the French and German impasse on nuclear has already slowed down debates on key EU policies such as rules on renewable energy and how hydrogen should be produced. Smaller member states are becoming impatient. The delay on the market design is “a big Franco-German show of incompetence again”, says an energy ministry official from another EU country who requested anonymity. 

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Northern Pass Hydropower Project Rehearing faces review by New Hampshire's Site Evaluation Committee as Eversource seeks approval for a 192-mile transmission line, citing energy cost relief, while Massachusetts eyes Central Maine Power as an alternative.

Key Points

A review of Eversource's halted NH transmission plan, weighing impacts, costs, and alternatives.

✅ SEC denied project, Eversource seeks rehearing

✅ 192-mile line to bring Canadian hydropower to NE

✅ Alternative bids include Central Maine Power corridor

Groups supporting and opposing the Northern Pass hydropower project in New Hampshire filed statements Friday in advance of a state committee’s meeting next week on whether it should rehear the project.

The Site Evaluation Committee rejected the transmission proposal last month over concerns about potential negative impacts. It is scheduled to deliberate Monday on Eversource’s request for a rehearing.

The $1.6 billion project would deliver hydropower from Canada, including Hydro-Quebec exports, to customers in southern New England through a 192-mile transmission line in New Hampshire.

If the Northern Pass project fails to ultimately win New Hampshire approval, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources has announced it will begin negotiating with a team led by Central Maine Power Co. for a $950 million project through a 145-mile Maine transmission line as an alternative.

Separately, construction later began on the disputed $1 billion electricity corridor despite ongoing legal and political challenges.

The Business and Industry Association voted last month to endorse the project after remaining neutral on it since it was first proposed in 2010. A letter sent to the committee Friday urges it to resume deliberations. The association said it is concerned about the severe impact the committee’s decision could have on New Hampshire’s economic future, even as Connecticut overhauls electricity market structure across New England.

“The BIA believes this decision was premature and puts New Hampshire’s economy at risk,” organization President Jim Roche wrote. “New Hampshire’s electrical energy prices are consistently 50-60 percent higher than the national average. This has forced employers to explore options outside New Hampshire and new England to obtain lower electricity prices. Businesses from outside New Hampshire and others now here are reversing plans to grow in New Hampshire due to the Site Evaluation Committee’s decision.”

The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Coos County Business and Employers Group also filed a statement in support of rehearing the project.

The Society to Protect New Hampshire Forests, which is opposed to the project, said Eversource’s request is premature because the committee hasn’t issued a final written decision yet. It also said Eversource hasn’t proven committee members “made an unlawful or unreasonable decision or mistakenly overlooked matters it should have considered.”

As part of its request for reconsideration, Eversource said it is offering up to $300 million in reductions to low-income and business customers in the state.

It also is offering to allocate $95 million from a previously announced $200 million community fund — $25 million to compensate for declining property values, $25 million for economic development and $25 million to promote tourism in affected areas. Another $20 million would fund energy efficiency programs.

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Site C Dam Controversy highlights Peace River risks, BC Hydro claims, Indigenous rights under Treaty 8, environmental assessment findings, and potential impacts to agriculture and the Peace-Athabasca Delta across Alberta and the Northwest Territories.

Key Points

Debate over BC Hydro's Site C dam: clean energy vs Indigenous rights, Peace-Athabasca Delta impacts, and agriculture.

✅ Potential drying of Peace-Athabasca Delta and wildlife habitat

✅ Treaty 8 rights and First Nations legal challenges

✅ Loss of prime Peace Valley farmland; alternatives in renewables

One of the leading opponents of the Site C dam in northeastern B.C. is sharing her concerns with northerners this week.

Proponents of the Site C dam say it will be a cost-effective source of clean electricity, even as a major Alberta wind farm was scrapped elsewhere in Canada, and that it will be able to produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 450,000 homes per year in B.C. But a number of Indigenous groups and environmentalists are against the project.

Wendy Holm is an economist and agronomist who did an environmental assessment of the dam focusing on its potential impacts on agriculture.

On Tuesday she spoke at a town hall presentation in Fort Smith, N.W.T., organized by the Slave River Coalition. She is also speaking at an event in Yellowknife on Friday, as small modular reactors in Yukon receive study as a potential long-term option.

Worried about downstream impacts, Northern leaders urge action on Site C dam

"I learned that people outside of British Columbia are as concerned with this dam as we are," Holm said.

"There's just a lot of concern with what's happening on the Peace River and this dam and the implications for Alberta, where hydro's share has diminished in recent decades, and the Northwest Territories."

If completed, BC Hydro's Site C energy project will be the third dam on the Peace River in northeast B.C. and the largest public works project in B.C. history. The $10.7-billion project was approved by both the provincial and federal governments as B.C. moves to streamline clean energy permitting for future projects.

Amy Lusk, co-ordinator of the Slave River Coalition, said many issues were discussed at the town hall, but she also left with a sense of hope.

"I think sometimes in our little corner of the world, we are up against so much when it comes to industrial development and threats to our water," she said.

"To kind of take away that message of, this is not a done deal, and that we do have a few options in place to try and stop this and not to lose hope, I think was a very important message for the community."

Drying of the Peace-Athabasca Delta

Holm said her main concern for the Northwest Territories is how it could affect the Peace-Athabasca Delta. She said the two dams already on the river are responsible for two-thirds of the drying that's happening in the delta.

"These are very real issues and very present in the minds of northerners who want to stay connected to a traditional lifestyle, want to have access to those wild foods," she said.

Lusk said northerners are fed up with defending waters "time after time after time."

BC Hydro, however, said studies commissioned during the environmental assessment of Site C show the project will have no measurable effect on the delta, which is located 1,100 kilometres away.

Holm said the fight against the Site C dam is also important when it comes to First Nations treaty rights.

The West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations applied for an injunction to halt construction on Site C, as well as a treaty infringement lawsuit against the B.C. government. They argue the dam would cause irreparable harm to their territories and way of life, which are rights protected under Treaty 8.

Agricultural land

While the project is located in B.C., Holm said its impacts on prime horticulture land would also affect northerners, something that's important given issues of food security and nutrition.

"This is some of the best agriculture land in all of Canada," she said of the Peace Valley.

According to BC Hydro, around 2.6 million hectares of land in the Peace agricultural region would remain available for agricultural production while 3,800 hectares would be unavailable. It has also proposed a number of mitigation efforts, including a $20-million agricultural compensation fund.

Holm said renewable energy, including tidal energy for remote communities, will be cheaper and less destructive than the dam, and there's a connection between the dams on the Peace River and water sharing with the U.S.

"When you run out of water there's nothing else you can use. You can't use orange juice to irrigate your fields or to run your industries or to power your homes," she said.

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