The understanding that climate change and air pollution affect the developing brain has grown exponentially in the last 20 years. Research has now linked prenatal as well as postnatal air pollution exposure to reduced IQ and other cognitive problems, developmental disorders such as ADHD and autism, depression and anxiety, and even structural changes in the brains of children. Research has also shown how climate-related displacement results in disruption of education and mental health problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression in children. These conditions often persist, affecting health and brain function in adulthood. They also add to the list of harms that have been more widely recognized as being related to climate change and air pollution: heat-related illness, drowning and physical trauma from severe storms and floods, premature birth and low birth weight, asthma, and other respiratory disease.

What Climate Change Is Already Doing to Children’s Brains | Time

As we learn more about the health impacts of climate change, it’s clear how much worse this is than we thought previously.

Osaka University in Japan is beginning a joint research project with civil engineering company Toda to develop the world’s largest floating wind turbine.

As Nikkei Asia reports, the goal is to have an experimental wind turbine capable of outputting 15 megawatts. In order to achieve such high output, the blade span of the new turbine is expected to be roughly 200 meters, making it about three times larger than existing wind turbines.

Japan to Create the World’s Largest Floating Wind Turbine | PCMag

The US East coast is unique in having a huge shelf to do offshore wind on, that’s easy to attach to. To really get Wind powers’ full potential, floating solutions like this are needed, as there are so many more places in the world that can work.

Japan is in a current energy bind as well, they have very little land, their power system is largely Coal and Natural Gas, all of which they import. Nuclear was out of favor the last two decades, which has made the current LNG price spikes hugely expensive for the country. Floating wind is a bet they need to pay off, because otherwise it’s very unclear how they meet their climate goals.

I also wonder if their reliance on Coal is one of the reasons the Japanese Government has been so luke warm on EVs, because they don’t really have any way to grow their electricity grid effectively.

CHPE is expecterd to deliver 1,250 megawatts of clean energy, or enough to power 1 million New York City homes — about 20% of the city’s electric demands.Power cable lines will be installed underground and underwater for an estimated cost of $2.2 billion. The transmission line is expected to start full operations in the spring of 2026. It’s expected to reduce carbon emissions by 37 million metric tons in its first 10 years.That’s equivalent to removing about 500,000 cars off New York roads, Hochul said, adding it will significantly reduce the state’s carbon footprint.

Work begins on 339-mile transmission line from Canada to NYC

When Indian Point was shut down it took 2 GW of power offline that powered a huge amount of NYC. That was replaced with more Natural Gas plants.

The completion of CHPE is going to reverse about 50% of that loss. The original completion date was 2025, so hopefully the delay doesn’t get worse, as NYC needs this clean power as soon as possible.