James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.
August 19th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The ice sheets of Antarctica may be hiding the world's largest volcanic range, according to a new study from the University of Edinburgh. The new work discovered around 100 "new" volcanos in the Antarctic region, some of which are as tall as 3,850 meters
August 13th, 2017 | by James Ayre
While many people have pointed out the reality that cutting one's consumption of meat is a notable means of reducing one's carbon footprint, I haven't heard many people bring up the subject of meat consumption by pets
August 12th, 2017 | by James Ayre
While Norway has something of a reputation internationally as being "progressive" and "green," the country's well fed economy and society is largely the result of a highly productive fossil fuel extraction industry
August 12th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Intel's acquisition of outstanding ordinary shares of Mobileye NV is now complete, which should soon make some of the goals of the acquisition more clear. With that in mind, the newest press release (revealing the completion of the tender offer) states that Intel estimates the "vehicle systems, data, and services market opportunity to be up to $70 billion by 2030."
August 11th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The 2018 Nissan Leaf EV is slated to be released only a month or so from now, so it's a bit surprising that exact specs have remained a mystery until now. They have seemingly now been leaked though ... and they seem to be approximately what we've been expecting, which is certainly not a bad thing
August 11th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The Danish auto designer Henrik Fisker — the mind behind the original Fisker Karma plug-in hybrid, amongst a great many other cars — recently gave an interesting interview that seems worth sharing bits of here
August 11th, 2017 | by James Ayre
If global temperatures rise 4° Celsius over pre-industrial levels, then extreme heatwaves with "apparent temperatures" peaking at over 55° Celsius will begin to regularly affect many densely populated parts of the world, according to a new study from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre
August 9th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The self-driving vehicle startup Cruise has begun operating a "completely autonomous" on-demand taxi service for its employees in San Francisco, according to recent reports
August 9th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Parts of Greenland are on fire right now. Which is impressive when you consider that almost all of the massive body of land is covered by an enormous ice sheet. Apparently, wildfires aren't unknown in Greenland, but they are very rare
August 9th, 2017 | by James Ayre
In order to more easily "achieve" its renewable energy goals (formally, at least), the state of Massachusetts may implement a plan that would see the burning of wood pellets classified as renewable energy
August 9th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Roughly two out of every three people living in Europe will be affected yearly by extreme weather by the year 2100, according to a new study published in The Lancet Planetary Health. These findings are based on a scenario where greenhouse gas emissions aren't reduced from current levels, and where policies that would help to reduce the impacts of extreme weather aren't put into action
August 8th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The possibility of binding quotas for electric car sales should be seriously considered by the government of Germany, the country's deputy economy minister, Matthias Machnig, was recently quoted as stating
August 8th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Irizar e-mobility has been awarded the contract to supply Madrid with its first 15 electric buses, and to supply Barcelona with its first 4 electric articulated buses
August 8th, 2017 | by James Ayre
A relatively new venture capital fund focused on ground transportation, Autotech Ventures, has announced the successful close of its first fund. The fund has around $120 million in capital commitments now in tow
August 7th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The price of the base Tesla Model X has been slashed by $3,000 — bringing the price down to "just" $79,500 — going by the pricing listed on the company's website
August 7th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Editor's Note: Tesla Shuttle (I'm a cofounder), CleanTechnica (I'm the director), and Quriers are going to try to break the record in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned.... Just a few months after a team in Belgium broke the previous record, a team in Italy has now gone and set yet another new record for hypermiling in an electric car. The Tesla Owners Italia team managed to take a Tesla Model S 100D 1078 kilometers (~670 miles) on a single charge ... meaning that the record set in Belgium in June 2017 (~560 miles) was surpassed by a margin of around 110 miles
August 7th, 2017 | by James Ayre
Tesla will be looking to raise around $1.5 billion through a new bond offering, with the funds to be used to support the ramp-up of Model 3 production, the company revealed this morning. The new debt/bond offering follows pretty closely on the final reveal of the Tesla Model 3 and the official start of deliveries
August 7th, 2017 | by James Ayre
While the outward consensus of the auto industry now seems to be that a wide rollout of self-driving vehicles and electric cars is inevitable, even if projected timelines vary somewhat, there are still some people out there who remain skeptical
August 6th, 2017 | by James Ayre
A vast and rapid "invasion" of Europe will be taking place over the coming decades as the continued warming of the climate allows a large number of infectious diseases to expand into new territory, according to a new study from the University of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health
August 6th, 2017 | by James Ayre
The Greenland ice sheet is likely to be heavily contaminated with various globally emitted pollutants — such as PCBs, mercury, lead, PAHs, etc. — according to new research published in the journal Environmental Research Letters
