Renewable AI

Carbon Neutral Regulation in AI Training

  • What if you could turn a 60-minute lecture into a study guide, flashcards, a quiz, and even a podcast in minutes? You’re in luck, because that’s exactly what TurboLearn AI does. Built by two college students who were tired of spending more time organizing their study materials than learning, TurboLearn AI is a study tool […]

  • A groundbreaking study published in Current Psychology titled “Using attachment theory to conceptualize and measure the experiences in human-AI relationships” sheds light on a growing and deeply human phenomenon: our tendency to emotionally connect with artificial intelligence. Conducted by Fan Yang and Professor Atsushi Oshio of Waseda University, the research reframes human-AI interaction not just […]

  • Will the robots eventually take over? That’s still an open question, but if sheer ability is the criteria, the answer is a definite – yes. Already, robots can do almost anything a human can – no less a personage than Bill Gates describes their capabilities as “limitless” – and they are still in their infancy. For businesses, robots mean […]

  • Members of the armed services put their lives on the line to protect the citizens and borders of our country. But for many, the comfort of returning home is all too often marked by another confrontation: the battle with hearing loss due to the deafening nature of modern warfare. Over three and a half million US veterans […]

  • Artem Sokolov is the founder of Humanoid, as well as a global investor and entrepreneur. He successfully took over his family business and grew it to a $1 billion valuation. He later founded Humanoid to build safe and reliable humanoid robots that free humans from physically demanding work. Today, he leads a team of over […]

  • Apple is stumbling into its developer conference with broken promises, delayed features, and AI models that pale against competitors—risking an exodus of AI-first users who increasingly see their iPhones as expensive relics in an AI-powered world. The warning signs are everywhere. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple insiders expect WWDC 2025 to be a letdown. […]

  • 尽管中国电力需求快速增长，但清洁能源发电的增长首次使该国的二氧化碳（CO2）排放量出现下降。 Carbon Brief的最新分析显示，2025年第一季度，中国的碳排放量同比下降了1.6%，过去12个月则下降了1%。 新增风电、太阳能和核电的装机容量所带来的出力，足以应对电力需求激增，从而削减燃煤发电量；而此前的排放下降则主要被归因于经济增长放缓。 这项基于官方数据和商业数据的分析显示，中国的碳排放量一年多来一直保持稳定或下降。 不过，该排放量仅比最近的峰值低1%，这意味着只要出现短期反弹，中国的碳排放就可能创下新高。 其他主要发现包括： 清洁能源发电增长速度已经超过当前及长期电力需求增长平均值，从而压低了化石燃料的使用量。 截至2025年3月的12个月内，电力行业的碳排放同比下降了2%。 若这一趋势得以保持，意味着中国电力行业排放可能已达峰并开始持续下降。 美国总统特朗普发动的“贸易战”促使中国更加努力将经济重心从出口转向内需。 新出台的可再生能源电价政策催生了“抢装潮”，企业争相在政策实施前完成项目建设。 如果中国要实现在《巴黎协定》下承诺的2030年排放目标，仍面临日益扩大的差距需要弥补。 上微信关注《碳简报》 如果这种因清洁能源增长而带来的电力行业碳排放下降趋势得以延续，可能预示着Carbon Brief此前在分析中预测的结构性排放下降的开始。 电力行业碳排放下降的趋势很可能在2025年继续。 然而，未来的走势在很大程度上将取决于中国即将于明年公布的下一份五年规划中所设定的清洁能源与减排目标，以及中国对特朗普政府敌对贸易政策的应对策略。 中国碳排放因清洁能源而下降 过去十年来，尽管中国化石燃料和水泥行业的碳排放量有高低起伏，但总体上升了20%。 最新数据显示，该排放量可能已经接近达峰以及趋稳，甚至正步入结构性下降的阶段。 截至2025年第一季度的最新数据显示，中国的碳排放量已经连续一年多呈现稳定或下降趋势，如下图所示。 不过，由于该排放量仅比最近的峰值低1%，这意味着其仍有可能在短期内反弹并创下新高。 因此，中国未来的碳排放走向尚未确定，这取决于各经济部门的趋势，以及中国对特朗普关税政策的应对方式。 电力行业排放下降，其它行业却现反弹 2025年第一季度中国碳排放的下降主要源于电力行业排放下降了5.8%。尽管整体电力需求增长了2.5%，但火电（主要是燃煤和燃气发电）却减少了4.7%。 由于大量新建风电、太阳能和核电装机投入运行，发电量的增长足以弥补需求的增长。水电发电量也有所上升，虽然其受季节因素影响，但同样对化石能源的替代发挥了作用。 电力行业碳排放降幅超过化石能源发电量降幅，因为生物质和天然气的占比上升，同时燃煤电厂的平均能效也有所提升。 具体而言，燃煤电厂度电煤耗平均下降了0.9%。 下图底部显示了第一季度电力行业煤炭使用造成的碳排放量减少情况，该数据低于其他行业的碳排放量变化。 而在电力行业之外，碳排放量增长了3.5%，其中以金属和化工行业的煤炭使用增幅最大。 煤制化工产业正在快速扩张，背后的推动力包括对进口油气依赖的担忧。2025年第一季度，由于煤价走低而油价偏高，该产业的经济性更具吸引力。 粗钢产量同比增长了0.6%，金属制品增长6%，有色金属产量增长2%。这些增长主要集中在3月份，企业赶在关税生效前集中出口，带动金属需求激增，而高产出一直持续到4月。 房地产开工量同比下降24%，新房销售下降3%，反映出建筑行业对水泥、钢材和玻璃的需求持续疲软。 相比之下，汽车和机械制造的经济产出分别增长了12%和13%，表明对金属的需求正在上升。 水泥产量同比下降1.4%，降幅低于往年，可能是由于气温偏高使得依赖天气的施工活动提前启动。 由于燃气发电装机容量增长14%，尽管燃气发电的平均利用率下降，但电力行业的天然气消费量估计增长了6%。但在其他行业，天然气消费减少，总体上抵消了电力行业天然气需求量的增长。 石油制品消费略有上升，如图中最上方所示。由于天气偏暖，依赖天气的施工和农业活动与往年相比提前开工。 然而，从结构性角度来看，汽车电动化和货运行业改用液化天然气，预示着石油需求将持续走低。 中国是否已经碳达峰？ 在2025年第一季度排放量同比下降1.6%之际，中国的碳排放自2024年3月以来已连续一年多保持平稳或下降态势。 然而，截至2025年3月底的12个月内，排放量仅比近期峰值下降了1%，这意味着只要出现短期反弹，排放量就可能再创新高。 继一季度大幅下降后，电力行业过去12个月的排放量同比也出现下滑。 在过去40年里，这种情况曾经发生过四次——分别是在2009年、2012年、2015年和2022年。但此次下降首次主要得益于清洁能源发电的增长。 2025年一季度清洁能源发电增速不仅超过整体用电需求增长，也高于过去15年电力需求的平均增长，如上图虚线所示。 此外，过去六个月水电发电量同比保持稳定，这意味着这轮清洁能源的增长是由太阳能、风能和核电装机容量的增长所推动的，而非水电的逐年波动所致。 除发电行业外，2024年12月到2025年3月期间，各行业碳排放均有所下降，但煤化工是个例外。 要使中国整体碳排放量达峰并开始下降，各下降行业的减排总量需超过仍在增长行业的排放增量。 电力和化工以外的煤炭使用量与水泥行业同时达峰，但此后一直在反弹，目前已接近之前的峰值水平。 中国煤炭工业协会预计，钢铁和建材行业的煤炭使用量将下降，而化工行业的煤炭消费量将继续增长。 对煤炭未来需求增长的预期主要集中在化工行业，这也代表着煤炭从单纯的燃料向燃料和原料双重角色的转变。 该协会还认为，燃煤发电将至少在短期内恢复增长，但他们已将2025年的预测下调，与2024年底的展望相比有所保守。 “关税战”可能影响了预期。有分析指出，如果中国GDP因关税下降0.5到1个百分点，可能导致主要用于发电站的燃煤需求也出现类似的下降。 疫情后经济反弹到2024年3月结束，石油产品的消费量自此下降，较峰值减少了2%。尽管化工和航空领域的需求在上升，但由于交通运输领域电气化趋势增强，预计其长期仍呈下降趋势。 天然气的使用量近几个月有所下降，但总体趋势仍可能保持上升。 […]

  •   This article contains sponsored content. The brewing sector has seen a number of specific sustainable technology developments, and has also effectively made use of larger initiatives. Due to fermentation, as well as the large amount of water that is used on a daily basis at breweries, there can be a large amount of trade […]

  • Wandering the streets of Shenzhen, a city which has earned the title of China’s “first city of ‘new-energy vehicles’” (NEVs), you will not miss the scene of numerous NEVs parking under slogans promoting “green and low carbon” lifestyles.  Shenzhen, a city of nearly 18 million people bordering Hong Kong, is known for pioneering China’s economic […]

  • Artificial intelligence systems like ChatGPT provide plausible-sounding answers to any question you might ask. But they don’t always reveal the gaps in their knowledge or areas where they’re uncertain. That problem can have huge consequences as AI systems are increasingly used to do things like develop drugs, synthesize information, and drive autonomous cars. Now, the […]

  • As large language models (LLMs) rapidly evolve, so does their promise as powerful research assistants. Increasingly, they’re not just answering simple factual questions—they’re tackling “deep research” tasks, which involve multi-step reasoning, evaluating conflicting information, sourcing data from across the web, and synthesizing it into a coherent output. This emerging capability is now being marketed under […]

  • For the past several weeks, headlines have been screaming about the looming threat and potential impact of U.S. import tariffs being imposed on semiconductors. Truthfully, I don’t think implementation of these tariffs will ever happen because they would result in such significant supply chain disruption, the nasty effects of which are still all too fresh […]

  • For weeks, the whiteboard in the lab was crowded with scribbles, diagrams, and chemical formulas. A research team across the Olivetti Group and the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub (CSHub) was working intensely on a key problem: How can we reduce the amount of cement in concrete to save on costs and emissions?  The question was […]

  • The Sabin Center’s newest publication, Legacy Liabilities for Oil and Gas Wells under the Mineral Leasing Act, examines the laws and regulations that allow the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) to pursue the prior owners and operators of oil and gas wells on federal land for the costs of plugging those wells, removing other infrastructure, and […]

  • When you’re trying to communicate or understand ideas, words don’t always do the trick. Sometimes the more efficient approach is to do a simple sketch of that concept — for example, diagramming a circuit might help make sense of how the system works. But what if artificial intelligence could help us explore these visualizations? While […]

  • The post One Big Blackout Bill? The House Reconciliation Bill Threatens Grid Reliability appeared first on Energy Innovation.

  • The finance industry has always valued speed and precision. Historically, these characteristics depended wholly on human foresight and spreadsheet sorcery. The emergence of autonomous AI agents is poised to fundamentally transform this landscape. AI agents are already widely employed across industries: to automate customer service, write code, and screen interview candidates. But Wall Street? That’s […]

  • Dr. Ryan Ries is a renowned data scientist with more than 15 years of leadership experience in data and engineering at fast-scaling technology companies. Dr. Ries holds over 20 years of experience working with AI and 5+ years helping customers build their AWS data infrastructure and AI models. After earning his Ph.D. in Biophysical Chemistry […]