Solar, Mining & Outages: Top 5 Stories in Energy
IBM and NASA have created an open-source AI foundation model called Surya to predict solar flares and protect technologies like satellites and power grids.
The phenomena of solar flares and coronal mass ejections carry the potential to crash satellites, disrupt aviation systems and even lead to widespread power outages.
IBM and NASA have joined forces to develop an open-source AI foundation model designed to decode high-resolution solar observation data and predict how solar activity affects technologies.
Named Surya, this tool aims to protect technologies from GPS navigation to power grids.
"Think of this as a weather forecast for space," explains Juan Bernabe-Moreno, Director of IBM Research Europe, UK and Ireland.
"Just as we work to prepare for hazardous weather events, we need to do the same for solar storms.
āSurya gives us unprecedented capability to anticipate what's coming and is not just a technological achievement, but a critical step toward protecting our technological civilisation from the star that sustains us."
Codelco and SQM have formed a joint venture to produce refined lithium in Chile that can support climate technologies like battery energy storage.
Codelco, Chile’s state-run copper producer, is working with SQM to extract lithium in Chile from 2031 to 2060.
Lithium is vital to a variety of climate technologies, particularly Li-ion batteries used for energy storage and electrification.
“Just as we have contributed to making Chile the world leader in copper production, we will now contribute to making our country a leader in the production of lithium, another mineral critical to the energy transition, which will allow us to fight the climate emergency,” says Codelco Chairman Máximo Pacheco.
Two Kimberly-Clark manufacturing facilities in the UK will make use of green hydrogen to create Andrex and Kleenex products with less fossil fuels.
Kimberly-Clark, known for its Andrex and Kleenex brands, has reached a green hydrogen agreement in the UK worth a combined £125m (US$169m).
This deal is one of the UK’s first long term offtake agreements for green hydrogen in consumer goods manufacturing.
This is set to cut Kimberly-Clark’s natural gas consumption in UK operations and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from 2027.
Dan Howell, Vice President and Managing Director at Kimberly-Clark UK & Ireland, says: “This is a significant investment into a green hydrogen solution, and alongside other investments that support our ambition to move our UK manufacturing operations to 100% renewable energy by 2030."
What ChatGPT Outages Mean for the Energy Sector
03 September
OpenAI’s ChatGPT suffers a long global outage affecting millions of users around the world, highlighting the potential risks of AI service reliability.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT was down for several hours from another outage, affecting users globally at a time when energy and sustainability sectors heavily rely on AI systems to manage and optimise operations. Outages emphasise the need for reliable AI systems in energy businesses.
The interruption occurred during critical business hours, impacting professionals from London to Mumbai as they initiated their workday, emphasising the critical dependency of the energy sector on AI tools.
Starting around 4:00 AM EST, OpenAI’s ChatGPT users began expressing their frustration on social media with reports that the AI tool was unresponsive to their inputs.
Tracking platforms such as Downdetector reported over 500 disruptions in India, with more than 2,000 complaints emerging from the US, showcasing the widespread influence of outages on global energy operations.
This outage was particularly confusing due to its nature.
Users were able to log in and input questions, but the AI remained silent—no errors, no alerts; just an empty response box that typically offers solutions.
Why TotalEnergies & CMA CGM Use LNG for Shipping
03 September
TotalEnergies and CMA CGM have teamed up in Rotterdam to develop a new LNG bunkering operation designed to improve marine fuel logistics and decarbonise shipping.
This is the first time a shipping company and energy provider will co-develop and operate refuelling infrastructure for maritime transport.
This 50/50 partnership will introduce a 20,000mĀ³ LNG bunker vessel within the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) port corridor by 2028, providing comprehensive supply chain logistics for liquefied natural gas as a marine fuel.
The essence of LNG bunkering, refuelling vessels with liquefied natural gas instead of traditional marine fuels, relies heavily on the establishment of appropriate storage, transport and delivery mechanisms.
The deal sets out to secure just that, with long-term logistics woven into a wider commitment to maritime decarbonisation.
