Reposted by Michael MullanyHannah Daly @hannahdaly.ie · 01/10/2026Here's the liquid gas industry framing its product as a "just transition". This would be sidesplittingly funny if it was not apparent that this message is getting through to politicians. 117328
Reposted by Michael MullanyT&E @transportenvironment.org · 28/09/2026As EU hauliers face soaring diesel prices, our new analysis shows that electric trucks are cheaper to operate than diesel for almost half of trucks sold in the EU. Electrification remains the only realistic option to protect against future oil crises. More from our new TCO calculator 👇 12615
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 23/09/2026A reminder that most over capacity Irish waste water treatment plants have no capacity upgrades scheduled . 000
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Crop engineering is not a solution to increased drought from climate change. For fundamental reasons, it can - at best- provide minor relief. 010
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Fortescue's low temperature alkaline electrolysis for green steel looks like it takes ¬6KWh per kg in benchtop testing with real Pilbara ores. At Western AU solar costs - that's likely cheaper than hydrogen DRI and probably half the cost of European green steel. arena.gov.au/assets/2026/...arena.gov.au 000
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I suspect the calls for an AI slowdown is just the warmup for an industry sponsored regulatory moat to keep open models out of the market. 010
Reposted by Michael MullanyTamar Haspel @tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 02/09/2026I found this @worksinprogress.bsky.social piece eye-opening. It makes a good case that a single-use plastic, discarded in a modern landfill, is a good environmental choice. worksinprogress.co/issue/just-b...worksinprogress.coJust bury your trash - Works in Progress MagazineWhat if everything we know about recycling is wrong? 761
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Lithium air batteries will offer 10x energy density compared to today's Li-ion batteries, but their key challenge will be slow recharging rates -> which means battery-swapping networks are going to become far more attractive. 010
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 10/08/2026Updated my Climate Tech Landscape for 2026 to reflect developments over the last year. Gaining: Electric Trucking, Grid Batteries, Fracked Geothermal Losing: Enhanced Rock Weathering CDR, Primary Steel Decarbonization, Insect Ag Feeds, Plant based meats New additions: Fusion power 040
Reposted by Michael MullanyParents For Future #EndFossilFuels 🪧🛢️❌ @parentsforfuture.de · 25/07/2026Somehow we need to monetise this - and quickly 8595235
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 22/07/2026Power from SMR’s will be devastatingly expensive (€200-500 per MWh) for the next two decades. Batteries (of all kinds), renewable overbuild and thermal storage for industry are a cheaper and less risky strategy. 131
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 20/07/2026Inside European Agribusiness's War on Public Health, Climate Mitigation and Nature: www.grilled.media/inside-copa-...grilled.mediaInside Big Ag’s plot to kill the EU Green DealDocuments from inside Europe's most powerful farming lobby reveal plans to block efforts to cut pesticide use and reduce factory farm pollution 021
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 16/07/2026A reminder that despite 30 years of trying, Crop Engineers have made very little progress on drought tolerant crops that also have high yields. My deep dive from last year: www.linkedin.com/pulse/crop-e... www.linkedin.com/pulse/crop-e...linkedin.comCrop Engineers vs. Climate Drought (Part 1)This week I'm taking a break from my series of articles on climate solutions to write about drought, crop yields and genetic engineering. Specifically, how climate change is changing the frequency and... 010
Reposted by Michael MullanyRichard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 09/07/2026“Crop-based biofuels were not effective at reducing emissions once the wider effects on land use were taken into account… When you take food out of the global food market, you have to replace it elsewhere… Allowing crop-based fuels into aviation would be a huge step backwards”ft.comUK ministers changed stance on biofuels after officials’ US lobbying tourRevelation raises concerns that US commercial pressure could weaken Britain’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions 27223
Reposted by Michael MullanyDeSmog @desmog.com · 09/07/2026🔴 NEW: Northern Ireland Turned Into ‘Sacrifice Zone’ to Feed UK’s Appetite for Meat Nearly two thirds of country’s pig & poultry farms leach polluting manure into lough supplying half region’s drinking water, latest research finds. 📝 @shaunacorr.bsky.social👇 www.desmog.com/2026/07/08/n...desmog.comNorthern Ireland Turned Into 'Sacrifice Zone’ to Feed UK’s Appetite for Meat, New Report FindsA version of this article also appeared on investigative site The Detail Northern Ireland’s largest source of drinking water is besieged by toxic pollution linked to a government drive to accelerate p... 14131
Reposted by Michael MullanySustainable Water Network (SWAN) @swanireland.ie · 06/07/2026“There should be a zero tolerance approach to issues like this moving forward” – Dr Puneeta Sreenivas, SWAN. The issue of wastewater featured heavily at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Tuesday. Watch back some of points raised by SWAN and the Irish Environmental Network. 042
Reposted by Michael MullanyElla McSweeney @ellamcsweeney.bsky.social · 05/07/2026“Restoration without pollution control is not a policy, it’s a gesture, and an incoherent one at that. It spends public money cleaning up what private and public polluters are permitted to dirty, in a publicly-funded loop without end.” By me for @irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2...irishtimes.comIreland punishes tax evaders. Pollution should be just as riskyNature absorbs the impact of polluters because the political will isn’t there to make the consequences serious enough to stop them 16822
Reposted by Michael MullanyFintan Kelly @fintankelly.bsky.social · 03/07/2026Gold plated environmental standards? In a country where: 90% of protected habitat types are in unfavourable conservation status 371,884 t of peat exported in 2025, with no compliance with env or planning law At least 9 env cases in the CJEU & 16 infringements www.irishtimes.com/ireland/hous...irishtimes.comTop Government adviser calls for action to roll back ‘gold-plated’ environmental legislationLaws exempting key projects from national climate goals should be followed by moves to curtail environmental screening, says taskforce chief 22012
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 01/07/2026Private Credit incentivizes managers to allocate $$ to higher interest rate/riskier loans even if those loans are paying out interest as payment-in-kind. The mess is unsurprising. www.ft.com/content/7db5...ft.comWhat Medallia’s faceplant tells us about private creditEquity wipeout, debt distressed . . . trebles all round? 010
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 30/06/2026I used Claude to code up a Water Quality dashboard that can take hydrochemistry downloads from catchments.ie and visualize them. Here is one with data from the Folly Stream in Killarney (one of Ireland’s three worst rivers). follystreamwaterquality.netlify.appfollystreamwaterquality.netlify.appRiver Water Quality Dashboard 010
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 29/06/2026Our third "Worst Irish River" is the Clareen Stream It's a short ¬1km tributary of the Nenagh River (Nenagh, Tipperary). It rises south of the town and is culverted for half its course under Nenagh. It carries treated wastewater from the Nenagh WWTP and an Arrawbawn creamery. 100
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 29/06/2026Ok part 2 of the Worst Irish Rivers deepdive: This is the Ahavarraga Stream in County Limerick. It is a small stream draining agricultural land and running through the large village of Dromcollogher and on into the Deel river. 100
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 29/06/2026The Irish Times had a recent story on the EPA's 2025 Water Quality Report. The story mentions the three worst river segments in the country: the Folies Stream (Killarney), the Ahavarraga Stream (Limerick) and the Clareen River (Tipperary). Here's my data deepdive on each of them: 100
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 28/06/2026$1.5 trillion in capital spending has resulted in just a *4 month* time to market lead for the big US AI model-makers on standard performance benchmarks vs. open source models? That seems ... unsustainable. 030
Reposted by Michael MullanyThe Onion @theonion.com · 27/06/2026GOP Urges Democrats To Tone Down Rhetoric Used To Quote President Verbatim theonion.comGOP Urges Democrats To Tone Down Rhetoric Used To Quote President VerbatimWASHINGTON—Imploring their colleagues across the aisle to be mindful of how the highly charged language might elevate national tensions, congressional Republicans urged Democrats Tuesday to tone down ... 282264396
Reposted by Michael MullanyDr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 25/06/2026I especially love this diagram. 5248542011
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 24/06/2026One of the EPA's three Irish river segments rated "Bad" in 2025. The Folly (or Folies) Stream that carries the discharge from the Killarney Waste Water Treatment Plant into Lough Leane. "Bad" means a dead river - the only insect life that can survive, can breathe surface air. 000
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 24/06/2026My new iPad might be the first badly designed product I’ve ever had from Apple. It’s too heavy, it runs hot, its protruding camera leaves scrapes if you leave it on soft wooden surfaces and it has poor background battery usage. 000
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 23/06/2026Small - usually rural - waste water treatment plants that are over capacity, are a significant contributor to poor river quality in Ireland, but most of them are not scheduled for an upgrade by Uisce Eireann. 100
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 23/06/2026I've been using Claude to help me build a water quality dashboard over the last few days. While it takes longer than doing one-offs in Excel, it's ridiculously more productive than doing it in R or hand-coding and it's highly re-usable for this class of data. 100
Reposted by Michael MullanyRichard K Broughton @richardkbroughton.bsky.social · 18/06/2026Very disappointing to see this continued profit-over-wildlife campaign from a major birdfood producer and seller. The RSPB/BTO guidance is very clear - do not put out seeds and peanuts between May and October. Not reduce, but stop. It is killing wild birds by the millions. #ukbirding 43011
Reposted by Michael MullanyEnvironmental Pillar @envpillar.bsky.social · 17/06/2026"Water quality will not improve unless nutrient pollution is reduced. Right now, there is no clear sign of long‑term reductions in nutrient levels, making it unlikely that we will see meaningful improvements in water quality anytime soon." www.irishtimes.com/environment/...irishtimes.comWater quality in Irish rivers and lakes remains ‘unsatisfactory’Assessment showing Ireland’s best rivers continue to deteriorate ‘must concern us all’, says EPA director 0136
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 16/06/2026A concern about using electrochemical batteries for long duration electricity storage is their relatively poor land use efficiency per kWh stored But lithium air batteries - CATL’s post 2030 tech direction, could deliver 12kWh per kg (~100x!) - which solves that! cleantechnica.com/2026/06/06/c...cleantechnica.comCATL Developing 12,000 Wh Per Kg Lithium-Air Battery - CleanTechnicaCATL said this week it is developing lithium air batteries that could have an energy density of up to 12,000 Wh/kg. 000
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 11/06/2026Ireland’s energy policy went badly off track last December with the Large Energy User policy. This is a succinct Summa Contra of what needs to happen to get back on track from Prof. Hannah Daly. 000
Reposted by Michael MullanyEoin Daly @eoinmauricedaly.bsky.social · 10/06/2026Deputy Malcolm Byrne is that sort of person who will say ‘oh you oppose data centre expansion but you have an IPHONE???’ and thinks it’s clever cc @hannahdaly.ie 44012
Reposted by Michael MullanyKetan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 11/06/2026A brand new piece for Crikey: digging into what happens now for Australia's data centre debate Anthropic, planning 20GW, would have to build 1.7x the amount of all renewable energy ever built in Australia to date, to meet the 100% mandate. www.crikey.com.au/2026/06/10/m... 513653
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 09/06/2026This is the projection of gas-fueled electricity generation through 2040 as a result of this government's LEU datacenter connection policy issued last December - an appalling betrayal of the country's climate committment. From Hannah Daly's and Teresa Bonsorio's working paper: 110
Reposted by Michael MullanySarah Foster @sarahjfoster.bsky.social · 08/06/2026On this #WorldOceansDay, The New York Times uses our research on the diversity of fishes caught in the worlds bottom trawls to argue why it is time to rethink this widespread and problematic fishing practice. @ubcoceans.bsky.social @projectseahorse.bsky.social @amandavincent.bsky.socialnytimes.comOpinion | 3,000 Different Species Are Killed for Supper. Why Do We Allow It? 13012
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 02/06/2026So if you don’t want SpaceX in your portfolio but like the convenience of index funds - you might want to check out frec.com - which offers index fund analogs via direct indexing but allows you to exclude specific companies.frec.comFrec Direct Indexing: Tax-aware investing for smart moneyFrec is making sophisticated investing strategies simple and accessible. Low-cost direct indexing with supercharged tax savings. Earn high interest on cash with Treasury. Next-level investing without ... 010
Reposted by Michael MullanyDamian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 25/05/2026ICYM - Almost all – 98% – environmental claims and commitments made by meat and dairy companies over 2021-24 could be categorised as “greenwashing” - research paper #climatecrisis HT @carbonbrief.org journals.plos.org/climate/arti...journals.plos.orgEnvironmental claims, climate promises, and ‘greenwashing’ by meat and dairy companiesAnimal agriculture has disproportionate environmental impacts relative to other forms of food production and accounts for at least 16.5% of all global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many of the large... 5232109
Reposted by Michael MullanyCrimethInc. Ex-Workers' Collective @crimethinc.com · 22/05/2026The last known caterpillar that could have become a Sacramento Mountains checkerspot butterfly has died. The term for an animal that is the sole survivor of a species is endling. In a sense, we are all endlings—each the last of our kind. All life is precious, irreplaceable. crimethinc.com/endlings 7309121
Reposted by Michael MullanyMatthew Yglesias @mattyglesias.bsky.social · 21/05/2026Forcing refiners to blend liquified corn into their gasoline is one of the dumbest policies on the books, raising the cost of food and fuel for nonexistent environmental benefits. www.slowboring.com/p/the-dumb-p... 819028
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 19/05/2026Turlough Hill - Ireland's first pumped hydro station was proposed in 1967, initiated in 1968 and operational by 1973. Silvermines Hydro - Ireland's second pumped hydro scheme was proposed in 2012, has not yet begun construction, and is targeted for commissioning in 2032. 010
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 17/05/2026Do renewables make wholesale electricity cheaper or more expensive? The answer: renewables share doesn't really move the needle - it's markets where natural gas generation sets the price that are the expensive markets. Aka more gas = more expensive electricity. Here's the mic drop graph: 03020
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 11/05/2026New economic analysis of trawling in European seas says it is a significantly negative economic contributor mainly due to carbon release from sediment disturbance. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 021
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 10/05/2026"... current LLMs are unreliable delegates: they introduce sparse but severe errors that silently corrupt documents, compounding over long interaction" Pre-print from Microsoft Research on LLM's ability to handle professional quality documents from multiple domains. arxiv.org/pdf/2604.15597arxiv.org 130
Reposted by Michael MullanyRichard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 09/05/2026The world now uses at least 40 million hectares of cropland, an area the size of Paraguay, to produce biofuels that account for only 4% of global transport energy In the US, we use 30-40% of our corn supply and 40-50% of our soybean oil supply to produce…about 6% of our transport fuel 510240
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 02/05/2026Rooftop solar is usually so much more expensive to produce than utility scale solar that it doesn't make much headway in most markets. But electricity costs in Ireland are dominated by grossly high distribution & transmission costs, so self-consumed rooftop IS highly competitive. 100
Michael Mullany @mmullany.bsky.social · 01/05/2026Great article on what a national Irish farm electrification strategy could look like - by Michael Barnard: cleantechnica.com/2026/04/21/i...cleantechnica.comIreland’s Fuel Protests Should Accelerate Farm Electrification - CleanTechnicaIreland’s fuel protests exposed farm diesel risk. Here’s why solar, heat pumps, contractor electrification, and charging can reshape Irish agriculture. 010
Reposted by Michael MullanyAndy Masley @andymasley.bsky.social · 01/05/2026Corn ethanol serves no purpose and is purely a handout to farmers. It costs more and emits more than normal petroleum. And it takes up half as much land area as all urban and suburban land in the US. If we replaced the land with solar, we'd get 3x as much power as the US uses. 932140664