nick.nigro@atlaspolicy.com

In the desert outside of Las Vegas, the Gemini Solar Project took a gentler approach, instead trying to preserve the ecosystem. According to a new study, it paid off for the threecorner milkvetch: Before the development, scientists found 12 plants on the site, and afterward in 2024 found 93, signifying that the seeds survived construction. Compared to a nearby plot of land, the plants at Gemini grew wider and taller, and produced more flowers and fruits. That might be because the solar panels shade the soil, slowing evaporation, which makes more water available to the plants to grow big and strong. “So you just have the potential for a lot more plants,” said Tiffany Pereira, an ecologist at the Desert Research Institute and lead author of the paper, which was published late last year. “There’s seedlings of so many other species coming up as well. And so the fact that seed bank survived is phenomenal.” It’s yet more evidence that solar farms can be built in ways that minimize disturbances to ecosystems. (The company behind the Gemini project, Primergy, did not respond to requests for comment.) This technique is called ecovoltaics: Instead of blade-and-grade, facilities are built with native species in mind. To give the ecosystem a boost, for instance, a crew can seed the soils with native grasses and flowers. “Some of those seed mixes do quite well at solar facilities, and they attract pollinators, birds, and other wildlife as a result,” said Lee Walston, an ecologist at Argonne National Laboratory who wasn’t involved in the new paper. “Sort of asking that umbrella, Field of Dreams, question, right: If you build it, will they come?”

Overlake Medical Center and UMC undertook a comprehensive Energy Use Intensity (EUI) reduction initiative within an active hospital environment. Our goal was to improve energy efficiency without disrupting critical healthcare services, targeting measurable reductions in energy consumption across heating, cooling, and water systems.

For Donna Moodie at the restaurant Marjorie, her climate activism is rooted in the memory of her mother, Marjorie, and is driven by Moodie’s concern for the world her own son is inheriting. Trailing her mom—a warm and generous host—around the kitchen as a young girl in Jamaica and Chicago’s South Side, Moodie went on to start celebrated restaurants doing “scratch” cooking using only the highest quality ingredients, supplied largely by local merchants and farmers. It is this thread of stewardship that connects her passion for food, community, and family, and also animates her deep commitment to the climate-friendly movement towards electrification at her new restaurant in Seattle’s Central District—a storied Black community and vibrant center of economic and cultural life that is rejuvenating itself there.

In both his life and career, José Garzon has become well-practiced in reinvention. A childhood in Guayaquil, Ecuador and the Galapagos, a front man in world-touring punk bands, and now a celebrated U.S. chef and restaurateur, his improbable journey has at many turns demonstrated a hunger for new challenges. Now in his first brick-and-mortar restaurant, Garzon has tackled another one—including adopting an all-electric commercial kitchen—in creating an impressive offering in a small, but bustling eatery in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Three Cuyahoga County school districts are set to split more than $1.3 million in federal funding to install rooftop solar arrays, a move officials say will cut energy costs, allow students hands-on learning opportunities and position the districts as leaders in renewable energy adoption.

Three Cuyahoga County school districts are set to split more than $1.3 million in federal funding to install rooftop solar arrays, a move officials say will cut energy costs, allow students hands-on learning opportunities and position the districts as leaders in renewable energy adoption.

For as long as 55-year-old Hopi Chairman Tim Nuvangyaoma has been alive, high-voltage power lines have cut across Hopi lands in northeast Arizona, carrying vast amounts of power long distances throughout the Southwest. But residents of the Hopi Reservation have never been connected to that grid. Instead, tribal members have relied on a single power line that runs roughly 30 miles east and west across high desert punctuated by three distinctive mesas, home to 12 distinct villages, including some of the oldest inhabited communities in the United States. Those who live more than a mile away from that line — nearly 3,000 people — have no access to electricity. Families need to rely on generators to power everything from refrigerators to medical devices.

An Upstate New York school district received funding for an energy manager with a “whole-school approach.” Working as a team, the district increased efficiency and awareness, created a pathway to net-zero heating and cooling, and received federal accolades in the process. In 2022, the Canajoharie Central School District (CCSD) superintendent applied for funding to hire an on-site energy manager (OsEM) through NYSERDA’s Clean Green Schools Initiative. In early 2023, CCSD’s application was approved and they brought on Francis D’Ambrosio. Fran worked with district administration to create an energy team, an energy management plan, and to help make the necessary changes and upgrades.

"A Future Forged of Steel" takes us to Cleveland-Cliffs Butler Works, where a historic Pennsylvania steel mill is manufacturing key components of our electrical grid while actively reducing its emissions.

Nearly every night for the past two weeks, Puerto Rico’s grid operator has called on tens of thousands of batteries scattered across the island to overcome energy shortfalls and help deliver power to approximately three million residents — and it’s working. What started as a modest pilot program in 2023 has grown into the first operational behind-the-meter virtual power plant in Latin America and the Caribbean, and a crucial support for the territory’s dilapidated energy infrastructure, said Javier Rúa-Jovet, chief policy officer of the Solar and Energy Storage Association of Puerto Rico.