Plantible Foods took a major step towards bringing its duckweed-based protein into every grocery store, announcing that its 100-acre factory in Texas is now fully operational. The facility, called The Ranchito, could produce hundreds of metric tons of the company’s signature Rubi Protein. While the product is not in consumer goods just yet, the macros on duckweed (aka water lentils) are great: It contains 40% protein, 35% carbohydrates, and 20% minerals and has a taste that’s like a nutty sort of spinach. Duckweed is a market staple in many Southeast Asian countries, and, according to some analyses, is the most abundant protein on the planet.
Negotiations for a global plastics treaty are set to end today in Geneva, and the outlook is (long sigh) not-so-good. Despite broad agreement among scientists and nations who want an ambitious treaty that we cannot recycle our way out of the problem, lobbyists from oil-producing countries continue to force a stalemate over whether or not to cap production. The plastics industry has known that recycling was a false promise since the 1970s, according to documents recently obtained by DeSmog.
Some 60% of U.S. households could cut their overall electricity costs by an average of 15% with solar-plus-battery systems, according to a new study in Nature Energy. That savings includes accounting for the expense of installing and operating the equipment. The analysis, which looked at more than a half-million homes, also found that 63% of households could tap the systems to sustain themselves during blackouts. Here are the questions to ask to figure out if a battery-storage system is right for you. If it is, here’s what to know about cashing in on tax incentives before they go away at the end of the year.
The Trump administration has edited substantially more environmental information on government websites during its second term than it did last go-round, according to an analysis from Environmental Data and Governance Initiative (EDGI). In the first 100 days of this term, the administration tweaked the content, focus, or links on pages 632 times—a 70% jump compared to his first 100 days in 2017. “We really need to protect our information better. Websites are the primary means by which the government communicates with the public,” Gretchen Gehrke, co-founder of EDGI, told NPR.
The Department of Transportation appears to be tapping the brakes on its efforts to freeze $5 billion in funding for the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, reports Canary Media. Established in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, NEVI’s goal is to build out reliable charging along the nation’s highways. The funding freeze has been met with legal challenges from environmental groups and more than a dozen states. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has now said states can reapply for their funding. That’s progress, sure, but advocates also caution it’s a stalling tactic in disguise.