** The US announced new sanctions on entities and people securing machinery for Iran’s defense. The move is meant to weaken Iran’s military amid the conflict, and comes as countries warn Iran is close to developing a nuclear weapon after it increased its production of near weapons-grade uranium.
** A team of chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a new process to separate crude oil components, potentially bringing forward a replacement that can cut its harmful carbon pollution by 90%.
** Nvidia, through its venture capital arm NVentures, has joined Bill Gates and HD Hyundai in raising $650 million to back TerraPower, Gates’ nuclear power startup founded in 2006 that’s been working on small modular reactor (SMR) technology to standardize, miniaturize, and scale nuclear power.
** A Louisiana bill passed by the state legislature would allow natural gas to be redefined as “green energy” and instruct utility companies to use energy produced using hydrocarbons, the main component of fossil fuels.
** In a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity and other petitioners challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) Program for the years 2023, 2024, and 2025, The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that the EPA’s use of outdated data for greenhouse gas emissions was arbitrary and capricious.
World
** BYD, China’s top producer of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, is offering Brazilian car shoppers relatively low-priced options in a market where the green-car movement is still in its infancy. Brazilian auto-industry officials and labor leaders worry that the vast influx of cars from BYD and other Chinese automakers will set back domestic auto production and hurt jobs.
** While no one was killed in the Iranian missile strike on the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel early Sunday, it caused heavy damage to multiple labs on campus, snuffing out years of scientific research and sending a chilling message to Israeli scientists that they and their expertise are now targets in the escalating conflict with Iran.
** Japan is back in the spotlight for liquefied natural gas producers as the boom in artificial intelligence, rising costs for cleaner energy and a new national energy plan drive appetite for long-term LNG deals.
** Eight suppliers from six states have contributed to an astounding 60-foot-tall superconducting magnet crucial to a fusion experiment in France, according to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the agency overseeing the project.
