An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Sweden's incoming government will ask state-run utility Vattenfall AB to add nuclear power stations as the economy becomes increasingly electrified. "New reactors will be built in Sweden," Ebba Busch, whose Christian Democrat party belongs to an alliance that won the most seats in last month's general election, said at a news conference Friday. The right-wing bloc is slated to become the Nordic nation's government in a parliamentary vote next week. Swedes have debated nuclear energy for decades, but the source has garnered popular support recently amid the ongoing global crunch.

The Nordic nation currently has six reactors, operated mainly by Vattenfall. Atomic energy, hydro power and wind turbines meet virtually all of Sweden's electricity demand. New reactors could be built at the Ringhals facility on the west coast, said Jakob Magnussen, global head of credit research at Danske Bank A/S. But success is far from certain, given recent examples of new reactors in Finland, France and the UK running massively over budgets and construction schedules. For Vattenfall, "it will mean a considerable boost to capex with a very long payback time," Magnussen said. The Swedes' love-hate relationship with the technology began with the first commercial reactor in 1972. But mounting grassroots opposition in subsequent years culminated in a 1980 referendum that ordered lawmakers to dismantle reactors. Polls ahead of last month's election showed that 60% of the population wanted new reactors to complement the drive to expand clean energy. While there is plenty of power when the wind blows, the current crisis has exposed the shortage of stable power, particularly in the south.

Vattenfall decommissioned two units at its Ringhals plant in 2019 and 2020. There were fierce debates through the election campaign as the Moderates accused the government of intervening in the utility's decision. The government maintained it was a commercial decision by Vattenfall. The company has been preparing for a nuclear revival for some time. The first additions could be a new breed of small modular reactors, known as SMRs, which are about a quarter in size compared with the current units. In June, just after the government warned that Sweden was facing an acute power crisis, Vattenfall said it would start an 18-month study into the technology. The first could come online in the early 2030s, the firm said.

Greece was powered entirely by renewables for the first time ever last week, according to the country's independent power transmission operator (IPTO). Electrek reports: On Monday, IPTO said that renewables accounted for 100% of power generation in Greece for at least five hours, reaching a record high of 3,106 megawatt hours at 0800 GMT: "For the first time in the history of the Greek electricity system, the demand was covered 100% from renewable energy sources. With the interconnections implemented by IPTO on land and sea, new electrical capacity is created for even greater [renewable energy sources] penetration that will make our energy mix even greener in the coming years." Reuters notes: Greece aims to attract about 30 billion of euros in European funds and private investments to upgrade its electricity grid and more than double its green energy capacity to account for at least 70% of its energy mix by 2030. It plans to have 25 gigawatt of installed renewable energy capacity from about 10 gigawatt now but analysts say Athens might reach that target sooner.

Honda Motor and LG Energy Solution on Tuesday said a new multibillion-dollar plant to produce batteries for electric vehicles will be located in Ohio. CNBC reports: Construction of the new facility -- located about 40 miles southwest of Columbus -- is expected to begin in early 2023, followed by mass production of lithium-ion batteries by the end of 2025. The battery plant is expected to cost $3.5 billion, with overall investment by the unnamed joint venture eventually reaching $4.4 billion, the companies said. Honda and LGES announced plans for the joint venture and battery plant last year, but had not revealed a location. The facility is expected to employ about 2,200 people, the companies said.

In addition to the new battery plant, Honda on Tuesday said it plans to invest $700 million to retool several of its existing auto and powertrain plants for production of EVs. The Japanese automaker expects to begin production and sales of EVs in North America in 2026. Honda has plans to phase out traditional internal combustion engines and exclusively offer battery-electric and fuel cell electric vehicles by 2040 in North America. It's part of the company's plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

General Motors is creating a new energy business to sell batteries, charging equipment, solar panels, and software to residential and commercial customers in a broad-based effort to create a range of accessories that can help sell its lineup of electric vehicles. The Verge reports: The new division, GM Energy, is also a direct shot at Tesla as a major player in renewable energy generation and storage. GM has said it intends to eventually overtake Elon Musk's company in vehicles sales -- and now it wants to challenge it on the energy front as well. Travis Hester, GM's chief EV officer, said the company is making a serious grab for a piece of what is potentially a $120-150 billion market for energy generation and storage products. The aim is to make GM's brand synonymous with not just electric vehicles, but a whole host of products and services in orbit around EVs and their rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

GM Energy will be comprised of three units: Ultium Home, Ultium Commercial, and Ultium Charge 360, which is the company's EV charging program. The division will sell a range of products to residential and commercial customers, including bi-directional charging equipment, vehicle-to- home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) equipment, stationary storage, solar products, software applications, cloud management tools, microgrid solutions, and hydrogen fuel cells. GM Energy will also be in the virtual power plant business. Many EVs with high-capacity batteries are being marketed for their ability to serve as backup power in the event of a blackout. (Hester notes that the Chevy Silverado EV, with its 200kWh battery pack, can power an average sized home for 21 days.) EVs can also feed power back into the grid during times of peak demand. GM Energy will be the entity that sells that power back to the utilities during times of high-energy consumption.

For solar energy, GM is teaming up with San Jose-based SunPower to sell solar panels and home energy storage products to residential customers. SunPower and other partners will supply the solar panels and perform the installations, with GM developing the complimentary software. Over time, as GM's battery factories come online and production of its Ultium-branded battery systems ramps up, the company intends on swapping in its own battery cells and storage units, Hester said. The automaker is also planning on manufacturing its own line of backup power generators using its Hydrotec-branded hydrogen fuel cells. (Ultium is the name of GM's electric vehicle battery and powertrain technology. Last year, the company said the Ultium Charge 360 network would be the name given to GM's own vehicle apps and software with a variety of third-party charging services, such as Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, Flo, Greenlots, and SemaConnect.) "But much like its approach to EVs, the dates for the launch of these new products are still a ways off in the future," adds The Verge. "GM is still testing its V2H service in partnership with PG&E with a small sample of residential customers in California, and plans on expanding it to more homes in early 2023. And its solar products won't be available until 2024."

An anonymous reader shares a report: In case you follow the smartphone industry, particularly on YouTube and Twitter, you'd know that there have been recent reports of Samsung phones that are ... "blowing up", or at least about to. Of course, to most, that'd probably bring immediate Galaxy Note 7 flashbacks - we all remember when Samsung's 2016 flagship phone became the subject of universal entry checks, jokes, and legitimate fires. Despite trying, in the end Samsung wasn't able to handle the Note 7 battery crisis. The company recalled the defective phones and released a fresh batch of Note 7s (after having changed its battery supplier). The issues persisted, and the Note 7 was eventually officially discontinued less than two months after its official launch. But this time, the case is slightly different... The recently reported battery issues seem to be affecting any Samsung phone (as recent as 18 months old) that isn't used/charged regularly. Simply put, you could have a Samsung phone that's been sitting in a drawer for some time (without having been charged). This device could then suddenly start expanding and might eventually start looking like it was split in half due to a bloated battery. At this point, the cell would be expanding further and further until it's taken care of or... not (which could lead to an explosion or/and a fire). Popular YouTuber Arun did a video on this late last month and has corroborated his account with several other people.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: The attorney general of New York has changed the rules of a state gun buyback program, after a participant exploited the system by using a 3D printer to make firearm parts in bulk that he then exchanged for $21,000 in gift cards. The seller, who identified himself by a pseudonym, said he traveled from West Virginia to a gun buyback on August 27 in Utica, New York, to take advantage of a loophole in the program -- and to demonstrate that buybacks are futile in an era of printable weapons.

At the buyback, the seller turned in 60 printed auto sears, small devices that can convert firearms into fully automatic weapons. Under the rules of the buyback, hosted by the office of the attorney general, Letitia James, and city police, that entitled him to $350 for each of the printed parts, including a $100 premium, since they were deemed "ghost guns" lacking serial numbers. The seller, who declined to provide his real name, said in an email on Monday the prospect of making money was enticing, but that the big reason he took part in the buyback was to send a message.

James' office said it responded to the loophole by giving buyback personnel more discretion to determine the value of weapons being handed in, and setting a standard that all 3D-printed guns accepted by the program must be capable of being fired more than once. The new rules were in place by September 17, when the attorney general's office hosted a gun buyback in a Syracuse suburb, Camillus. "It's shameful that this individual exploited a program that has successfully taken thousands of guns off the streets to protect our communities from gun violence," the attorney general's office said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Intel is planning a major reduction in headcount, likely numbering in the thousands, to cut costs and cope with a sputtering personal-computer market, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The layoffs will be announced as early as this month, with the company planning to make the move around the same time as its third-quarter earnings report on Oct. 27, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private. The chipmaker had 113,700 employees as of July. Some divisions, including Intel's sales and marketing group, could see cuts affecting about 20% of staff, according to the people.

Intel is facing a steep decline in demand for PC processors, its main business, and has struggled to win back market share lost to rivals like Advanced Micro Devices Inc. In July, the company warned that 2022 sales would be about $11 billion lower than it previously expected. Analysts are predicting a third-quarter revenue drop of roughly 15%. And Intel's once-enviable margins have shriveled: They're about 15 percentage points narrower than historical numbers of around 60%. During its second-quarter earnings call, Intel acknowledged that it could make changes to improve profits. "We are also lowering core expenses in calendar year 2022 and will look to take additional actions in the second half of the year," Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger said at the time.

Intel's last big wave of layoffs occurred in 2016, when it trimmed about 12,000 jobs, or 11% of its total. The company has made smaller cuts since then and shuttered several divisions, including its cellular modem and drone units. Like many companies in the technology industry, Intel also froze hiring earlier this year, when market conditions soured and fears of a recession grew. Gelsinger took the helm at Intel last year and has been working to restore the company's reputation as a Silicon Valley legend. But even before the PC slump, it was an uphill fight. Intel lost its long-held technological edge, and its own executives acknowledge that the company's culture of innovation withered in recent years. Now a broader slowdown is adding to those challenges. Intel's PC, data center and artificial intelligence groups are contending with a tech spending downturn, weighing on revenue and profit.

Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners said on Tuesday they would acquire nuclear power plant equipment maker Westinghouse Electric in a $7.9-billion deal including debt, amid renewed interest in nuclear energy. Reuters reports: The deal for one of the most storied names in the American power industry at an equity value of $4.5 billion comes at a time when nuclear power is seeing an uptick in interest amid an energy crisis in Europe and soaring crude oil and natural gas prices. Nuclear power is also key for countries to meet global net-zero carbon emission goals and could be on the cusp of a boom seen after the 1970s oil crisis.

Cameco will own 49% of Westinghouse, while Brookfield Renewable and its institutional partners will own the rest. Westinghouse was acquired from Toshiba by Brookfield Business Partners , an affiliate of Canadian asset manager Brookfield, out of bankruptcy in 2018, for $4.6 billion, including debt. Brookfield Business said in a separate statement it expects to generate about $1.8 billion in proceeds from the sale of its 44% stake in Westinghouse, with the balance distributed among institutional partners. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2023. Brookfield Renewable and its partners will pay about $2.3 billion for the deal, whereas Cameco will incur equity costs of about $2.2 billion. Westinghouse's existing debt structure will remain in place.

Intel and Google Cloud on Tuesday said they have launched a co-designed chip that can make data centers more secure and efficient. From a report: The E2000 chip, code named Mount Evans, takes over the work of packaging data for networking from the expensive central processing units (CPU) that do the main computing. It also offers better security between different customers that may be sharing CPUs in the cloud, explained Google's vice president of engineering, Amin Vahdat. Chips are made up of basic processors called cores. There can be hundreds of cores on a chip and sometimes information can bleed between them. The E2000 creates secure routes to each core to prevent such a scenario. Companies are running increasingly complex algorithms, using progressively bigger data sets, at a time when the performance improvement of chips like CPUs is slowing down. Cloud companies are therefore looking for ways to make the data center itself more productive.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: Siemens Gamesa's 14-222 DD offshore wind turbine prototype has, according to the Spanish-German wind giant today, set a world record for the most power output by a single wind turbine in a 24-hour period: 359 megawatt-hours. This would be enough energy, according to the company, for a mid-sized electric vehicle -- think a Tesla Model 3 -- to drive around 1.12 million miles (1.8 million km). Siemens Gamesa's huge wind turbine achieved this power output milestone only 10 months after it produced its first electricity and delivered it to the grid at the test center in Osterild, Denmark.

The SG 14-222 DD is a 14 megawatt (MW) offshore wind turbine with a capacity of up to 15 MW with Power Boost. It features a 222-meter (728 feet) diameter rotor, 108-meter-long (354-feet-long) B108 blades that are cast in a single piece and can now be recycled, and a swept area of 39,000 square meters (419,792 square feet). The SG 14-222 DD can provide enough energy to power around 18,000 households annually. In June, Siemens Gamesa was awarded a firm order for 60 of its SG 14-222 DD offshore wind turbines, which will be installed at the 882-megawatt (MW) Moray West offshore wind farm in Scotland. It will be the first installation of this model. Siemens Gamesa writes: "By increasing the rotor diameter to 222 meters with 108 meter-long blades, the SG 14-222 DD delivers more than 25% [annual energy production] AEP compared to its predecessor."

Nearly 43 percent of millions of devices studied by asset management provider Lansweeper are unable to upgrade to Windows 11 due to the hardware requirements Microsoft set out for the operating system. The Register reports: Lansweeper said 42.76 percent of the estimated 27 million PCs it tested across 60,000 organizations failed the CPU test, albeit better than the 57.26 percent in its last test a year ago. Altogether 71.5 percent of the PCs failed the RAM test and 14.66 percent the TPM test. "We know that those who can't update to Windows 11... will continue to use Windows 10," said Roel Decneut, chief strategy officer at Lansweeper, whose customers include Sony, Pepsico, Cerner, MiT and Hilton hotels. He said that even if enterprises are prepared to upgrade their PC fleet to meet the system requirements of Microsoft's latest OS, there are "broader issues affecting adoption that are out of Microsoft's control." "Global supply chain disruption has created chip a processor shortage, while many are choosing to stick with what hardware they have at the moment due to the global financial uncertainty."

Other findings from Lansweeper show adoption rates for the latest OS are improving, running on 1.44 percent of computers versus 0.52 percent in January. This means the latest incarnation has overtaken Windows 8 in the popularity stakes but remains behind market share for Windows 7, despite that software going end of life in January 2020. Adoption is, unsurprisingly, higher in the consumer space. Some 4.82 percent of the biz devices researched were running an OS that wasn't fully supported and 0.91 percent had servers in their estate that are end of life.

Global PC shipments declined in calendar Q3 by 15 percent year-on-year thanks to reduced demand and lingering supply chain issues, according to number cruncher IDC. From a report: The Q3 slowdown is similar to that seen in Q2 2022, when shipments crashed by 15.3 percent year-on-year. The slowed growth didn't just start this year. Signs first emerged in Q3 2021 as Chromebooks hit market saturation. For perspective, volumes still remain higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shipments also aren't as low as they could be thanks to companies like Apple that drove business with promotions. As industry-wide supply hit record lows, Apple supply increased to make up for lost orders during China's Q2 lockdowns, according to IDC research manager Jitesh Ubrani. [...] Apple came in fourth place in terms of market share for Q3 PC shipments behind Lenovo (first), HP (second), and Dell (third). While other companies declined in year-on-year growth, Apple soared with a net positive 40.2 percent increase in shipments year-on-year to 10.06 million Macs.

It's one of the largest airlines in the world. But now Futurism reports that United Airlines "is projecting it could have electric powered commercial flights by the tail end of this decade, potentially laying the groundwork for a much more environmentally friendly future for air travel." "Initially we want to fly on routes that are 200 miles or less," Mike Leskinen, president of United Airlines Ventures, told CNBC [at CNBC's ESG Impact Virtual Conference on Thursday]. "But as that energy density increases, that same aircraft will have a range of 250 miles, 300 miles, which is going to give us a lot more utility here connecting our hubs."

In other words, the battery-powered planes will get a chance to prove themselves in regional, short-haul flights, according to Leskinen.

United set their plans in motion last year, purchasing 100 battery-powered planes that can seat 19 passengers from the Swedish startup Heart Aerospace. Its founder Anders Forslund, who also attended the conference, said that the planes will be able to recharge in "under half an hour," which is about on par with industry standards. The airplane won't be taking off any time soon, however, as it still requires certification, but Forslund predicts they'll get approval by 2028.

For the long-haul flights, United has already announced plans to use sustainable fuel in its efforts to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Tom's Hardware reports: We recently broke the news that Intel's Alder Lake BIOS source code had been leaked to 4chan and Github, with the 6GB file containing tools and code for building and optimizing BIOS/UEFI images. We reported the leak within hours of the initial occurrence, so we didn't yet have confirmation from Intel that the leak was genuine. Intel has now issued a statement to Tom's Hardware confirming the incident:

"Our proprietary UEFI code appears to have been leaked by a third party. We do not believe this exposes any new security vulnerabilities as we do not rely on obfuscation of information as a security measure. This code is covered under our bug bounty program within the Project Circuit Breaker campaign, and we encourage any researchers who may identify potential vulnerabilities to bring them our attention through this program...."


The BIOS/UEFI of a computer initializes the hardware before the operating system has loaded, so among its many responsibilities, is establishing connections to certain security mechanisms, like the TPM (Trusted Platform Module). Now that the BIOS/UEFI code is in the wild and Intel has confirmed it as legitimate, both nefarious actors and security researchers alike will undoubtedly probe it to search for potential backdoors and security vulnerabilities....

Intel hasn't confirmed who leaked the code or where and how it was exfiltrated. However, we do know that the GitHub repository, now taken down but already replicated widely, was created by an apparent LC Future Center employee, a China-based ODM that manufactures laptops for several OEMs, including Lenovo.
Thanks to Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm for sharing the news.

"Scammers are leveraging the vulnerabilities in the global supply chain, as well as the public's continuing need for new batteries, to sell a wide variety of counterfeits or unauthorized replicas online," warns America's FBI.

"Do not fall victim to online fraudsters or unauthorized dealers or manufacturers." Counterfeit batteries do not go through the same standardized testing as original equipment manufacturer batteries and can adversely impact the safety and health of the consumer....

Avoid aftermarket batteries when possible because they may be dangerous.... Consumers should avoid all third-party purchases of batteries, as they can appear to be legitimate OEM batteries but are likely counterfeit.... [B]atteries sold at deep discounts or at significantly lower-than-average prices are likely counterfeit.
The FBI warns you should always avoid batteries that:

• are not properly packaged;
• have misprinted or misspelled labels;
• have labels that peel off; or
• do not have official manufacturer batch numbers.

"The FBI's warning is not specific to laptops or smartphones," notes ZDNet, "which makes sense given that batteries are now found in everything from cars, scooters, e-bikes, e-cigarettes and trains to drones and more."

Thanks to Slashdot reader joshuark for sharing the story.

Despite warnings that AI will rob humans of jobs, "Somehow we sacks of meat — though prone to exhaustion, distraction, injury and sometimes spectacular error — remain in high demand," writes New York Times columnist Farhad Majoo. AI has yet to replace humans in supposedly at-risk professions like truck driving and fast-food services.

Majoo's conclusion? "Humans have been underestimated." It turns out that we (well, many of us) are really amazing at what we do, and for the foreseeable future we are likely to prove indispensable across a range of industries, especially column-writing. Computers, meanwhile, have been overestimated. Though machines can look indomitable in demonstrations, in the real world A.I. has turned out to be a poorer replacement for humans than its boosters have prophesied.

What's more, the entire project of pitting A.I. against people is beginning to look pretty silly, because the likeliest outcome is what has pretty much always happened when humans acquire new technologies — the technology augments our capabilities rather than replaces us. Is "this time different," as many Cassandras took to warning over the past few years? It's looking like not. Decades from now I suspect we'll have seen that artificial intelligence and people are like peanut butter and jelly: better together.

It was a recent paper by Michael Handel, a sociologist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that helped me clarify the picture. Handel has been studying the relationship between technology and jobs for decades, and he's been skeptical of the claim that technology is advancing faster than human workers can adapt to the changes. In the recent analysis, he examined long-term employment trends across more than two dozen job categories that technologists have warned were particularly vulnerable to automation. Among these were financial advisers, translators, lawyers, doctors, fast-food workers, retail workers, truck drivers, journalists and, poetically, computer programmers.

His upshot: Humans are pretty handily winning the job market. Job categories that a few years ago were said to be doomed by A.I. are doing just fine. The data show "little support" for "the idea of a general acceleration of job loss or a structural break with trends pre-dating the A.I. revolution," Handel writes.
Handel notes that despite AI's high performance in analyzing X-rays, the number of (human) radiologists keeps increasing, with worries that the supply of (human) radiologists may not keep up with demand.

One Stanford radiologist recently argued that instead, "The right answer is: Radiologists who use A.I. will replace radiologists who don't."

Shortages of gas, which generated 40 per cent of UK electricity last year, could mean planned three-hour blackouts in some areas to protect supplies for heating homes and buildings, system operators warned. From a report: The margins between peak demand and power supply are expected to be sufficient and similar to recent years in the National Grid Electricity System Operator's (ESO) base case scenario for this winter. But in the face of the "challenging" winter facing European energy supplies following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the grid operator is also planning for what would happen if there were no imports of electricity from Europe and insufficient gas supplies. To tackle a loss of imports from France, Belgium and the Netherlands, there are two gigawatts of coal-fired power plants on stand-by to fire up if needed to meet demand.

People are being encouraged to sign up with their electricity supplier for a scheme which will give them money back on their bills to shift their use of power away from times of high demand to help prevent blackouts. That could mean putting on the dishwasher or washing machine overnight or charging an EV at off-peak times. In addition, larger businesses will be paid for reducing demand, for example by shifting their times of energy use or switching to batteries or generators in peak times. The "demand flexibility service" will run from November to March, and it is expected to swing into action 12 times whatever happens to ensure people get rewarded for being part of the scheme - with additional use if needed to protect supplies. It is hoped it will deliver 2GW of power savings to balance supply and demand.

Without the scheme, there might be days when it was cold and still â" creating high demand and low levels of wind power -- when there would be a potential need to interrupt supply to some customers for limited periods, National Grid ESO's winter outlook said. The ESO also warned that if there is not enough gas to keep the country's power stations going in January it could force distributors to cut off electricity to households and businesses for three-hour blocks during the day. It said the number of people left without electricity would depend on how many gas power stations would be forced to shut down because there is not enough gas. But this was the worst-case scenario that the grid operator presented. Its base case assumes that when Britain needs more electricity, cables that link the country to its European neighbors will be enough to keep the lights on. It does not assume that there is any "material reduction of consumer demand due to high energy prices."

Tesla's long-delayed semi-truck has started production, and the company will begin making deliveries as soon as December 1st, Elon Musk has announced on Twitter. Engadget reports: The first batch of Semis will be delivered to Pepsi, which ordered 100 vehicles from the company back in December 2017. As TechCrunch notes, other big companies had also ordered trucks from the automaker, including Walmart and UPS. And in May this year, the automaker opened reservations to more customers for a deposit of $20,000. A Semi costs between $150,000 and $180,000, depending on the range, and it could go as far as 500 miles on a single charge. The Tesla Semi was unveiled back in 2017, with production expected to start by 2019. "While that obviously didn't happen, Musk told employees in an email back in early 2020 that the vehicle was already in limited production and that it was 'time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production,'" notes Engadget.

Deliveries were delayed yet again to 2021 and then to 2022 due to the global supply chain shortages affecting the tech and auto industries.

Amazon is shutting down tests of its home delivery robot, the latest sign that the e-commerce giant is starting to wind down experimental projects amid slowing sales growth. From a report: Work on Scout, an autonomous machine launched about three years ago, has already been halted, according to a person familiar with the situation. Amazon spokesperson Alisa Carroll said the Scout team was being disbanded and would be offered new jobs in the organization. About 400 people were working on the project globally, according to the person, who requested anonymity to discuss a private matter. A skeleton crew will continue to consider the idea of an autonomous robot, but the current iteration isn't working.

[...] The Seattle-based company began testing the cooler-sized bots on suburban sidewalks outside Seattle in 2019, before expanding the trials to Southern California, Georgia and Tennessee. The slow-moving devices, accompanied by human minders during tests, were designed to stop at a front door and pop open their lids so a customer could pick up a package. Amazon said the battery-powered robots were part of an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in its delivery operations.

To reach net-zero emissions by 2050 and limit global warming to 1.5C, investment in renewable energy sources needs to surpass finance flows to fossil fuels by a factor of four over the next decade, according to research from BloombergNEF. From the report: Currently, about 90 cents goes to low-carbon energy sources for every $1 put toward fossil fuels. That ratio needs to change dramatically by 2030, with an average $4 invested in renewables for every $1 allocated to high-polluting energy supplies, analysts at BNEF said. For context, that ratio has never before crossed the 1:1 mark. The numbers show that the decarbonization of the global economy is an undertaking with few parallels in modern history. Investment in the global energy system may climb to as much as $114.4 trillion by 2050, as dollars pour into renewable energy sources including wind and solar, according to BNEF.

This decade "is a vital time to kick-start investing in the energy transition and prevent back-loading emission reductions," the BNEF analysts wrote in a report published Thursday. Scientists have said global greenhouse-gas emissions need to halve by 2030 to avoid catastrophic impacts of climate change. BNEF's research was commissioned by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, a coalition of banks, asset managers and insurers overseeing a combined $135 trillion of assets. The analysis was aimed at determining the level of investment required to reach net zero and limit global temperature increases to no more 1.5C under seven scenarios from the International Energy Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Network for Greening the Financial System. Comparing investment in low-carbon energy supplies with fossil fuels "offers a new view on how corporations, state and non-state organizations and financial institutions can align their financing activity to climate scenarios," BNEF said.