It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Empty Yacht Found High and Dry on Cornish Coast
A yacht with sails still set was found grounded high on the rocks off Cornwall; when the tide went out, it was left high above the water (HM Coastguard)
The UK's HM Coastguard and the RNLI launched an extensive search for survivors after finding a yacht high and dry on the rocks of the Cornish coast, its sails still set but with no one aboard.
At about 2015 hours on June 13, the HM Coastguard station at Mevagissey, Cornwall received a report of a yacht that had run aground at Chapel Point, near the southern entrance of the English Channel.
Coast guard and RNLI responders went out to check on the boat. Wearing dry suits for protection, they boarded the vessel and found no one on board, suggesting the need for a SAR operation.
Courtesy Fowey RNLI
Under the direction of the Falmouth Coastguard station, the service launched an extensive onshore and offshore search with assistance from the RNLI.
The RNLI Falmouth lifeboat, Fowey lifeboat, Devon & Cornwall Police, RNLI Looe Lifeboat Station and Coastguard helicopter and fixed wing aircraft joined in the effort. The Fowey lifeboat crew deployed for more than 10 hours and conducted a search pattern between Chapel Point and the Lizard up to 25 nautical miles from home port.
Aerial search pattern over the waters off Chapel Point (Mevagissey Coastguard)
The coastal search team stood down Saturday, while at-sea search continued until 0630 the next morning. The authorities do not plan to release further details at this point.
"We’d ask people to consider the family and friends of those involved and not to speculate online until the facts are known," Mevagissey Coastguard requested in a statement.
The Port of Los Angeles has agreed to stop the discharge of effluent and restore the city’s harbor as part of settling a lawsuit in which the port was accused of violating the federal Clean Water Act. A U.S. District Court judge has approved the settlement, which resolves a suit brought by Environment California last year.
In the lawsuit, the group had alleged that the port had repeatedly discharged untreated wastewater with illegal levels of toxic copper and fecal bacteria into the harbor since 2019. During the period, the port is alleged to have conducted over 2,000 illegal discharges. The group had also alleged that the port’s stormwater treatment system was undersized and that, as a result, untreated wastewater frequently bypassed the system entirely, ending up in the harbor.
Environment California had filed the suit under the Clean Water Act’s “citizen suit” provision, which allows private citizens affected by violations to sue. The Act requires permitted facilities, including ports, to monitor their discharges and to submit publicly available reports to the government with the results of the monitoring. Environment California carried out an analysis of the publicly available records and found that the Port of Los Angeles violated the Act over 2,000 times since 2019, all at a single stormwater outfall.
The Port of Los Angeles, the busiest container port in the western hemisphere, has agreed to a settlement and committed to improving its management of stormwater and groundwater. The port will be required to treat stormwater to ensure that fecal bacteria stay out of the harbor, and it must redirect groundwater contaminated with pollutants to the Terminal Island Water Reclamation Plant for treatment before it can be reused.
As part of the settlement, the port will pay $1.3 million to the Rose Foundation For Communities & The Environment to restore the Los Angeles Harbor and San Pedro Bay. The majority of funds will be earmarked for a multi-year project to remove tonnes of trash from San Pedro Bay. Port of Los Angeles will also pay a $130,000 civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury.
“Californians count on having a clean, vibrant coastline, but that’s not compatible with contaminated effluent that can lap up on our world-renowned shores,” said Laura Deehan, Environment California’s state director. “This settlement is a great step toward a cleaner, safer San Pedro Bay, and it demonstrates the vital role that citizen lawsuits play in the enforcement of our federal environmental laws.”
Located in San Pedro Bay, the Port of Los Angeles covers 7,500 acres of land and water along 43 miles of waterfront and is one of the worlds’ busiest seaports. In 2024, the port handled a total of 10.3 million container units, a 20 percent increase compared to 8.6 million TEU in 2023.
The settlement comes as studies show that U.S beaches are some of the most contaminated. In 2022, 1,761 out of 3,192 tested beaches in the country (55 percent) experienced at least one day on which fecal contamination reached potentially unsafe levels. In California alone, the problem is entrenched with fecal bacteria being found in 193 beaches out of 256 beaches that were tested.
Yes, in my back yard: people who live near large-scale solar projects are happy to have more built nearby
Scientists studying the impact of solar power on local neighborhoods find that most people living close to large-scale solar plants wouldn’t mind if a new plant was built nearby
Would you like living next door to a solar farm? Traditionally, it’s been thought that although people like the idea of renewable energy plants, they don’t want them close by. Now research investigating how people who live near large-scale solar projects feel about them has found that 82% of people living within an hour’s walk of current projects would support, or are neutral towards, new projects in their area.
“Most neighbors of existing large-scale solar projects either support or feel neutral about additional projects in or near their communities, with only 18% opposing it,” said Dr Sarah Mills of the University of Michigan, an author of the article in Frontiers in Sustainable Energy Policy. “Just as has been documented for wind energy, we found that the NIMBY — not in my backyard — explanation for opposition to solar was overly simplistic and unhelpful in explaining neighbors’ sentiments.”
Not in my backyard?
The US already has more than 4,000 large-scale solar energy plants which can produce more than a megawatt of electricity each. Some studies suggest that the country could increase its solar capacity by up to 70 gigawatts a year in the next decade, which would mean building approximately 1,650 projects annually. But if this transition to green energy is going to work, we need to understand what impacts solar plants have on communities.
The scientists sent out surveys to people living within three miles of large-scale solar projects installed between 2017 and 2021, asking about their support levels for new solar projects, as well as their experience of living near an existing solar project. They ultimately received 979 responses, covering 379 different solar projects ranging in size from one to 328 megawatts across 39 states.
“Large-scale solar projects require approximately five to eight acres of land per MW,” said Mills. “The projects we studied were on average about 400 acres. But some were over 2,000 acres, or three square miles.”
Green light
Overall, 43% of respondents said they felt positively about their local solar project, 42% were neutral, and 15% felt negatively. This almost exactly matched the support levels for new solar projects: 43% would support new projects, 39% remained neutral, and 18% said they would oppose additional solar projects.
To explore the factors influencing this, the scientists created two models. The first focused only on objective variables, such as the date a project was installed. The second model also included subjective variables like the reported impact on quality of life.
Most of the variables in the objective model only weakly correlated with support: the most influential was the size of the existing project. Respondents living near large projects were less likely to support additional projects. Subjective variables were much more strongly associated with support for additional solar projects, especially the perceived impact on community quality of life and aesthetics. There was one notable exception: residents who reported greater familiarity with the existing project were less likely to support a new one.
“We can’t be certain that more familiarity causes lower support for additional solar,” said Mills. “Rather, we find that more familiarity is correlated with lower support. Our hypothesis is that residents who see the project more regularly feel that their community already hosts their fair share of infrastructure.
“That said, most respondents rarely saw, or were totally unaware of, the project prior to receiving our survey. So it could be that most in the community are essentially unaffected, whereas a minority sees it frequently and does not wish to see more.”
A solar-powered future?
The researchers did find that many people living near solar projects seemed to be poorly informed about their local projects, suggesting that developers need to engage with locals more. But this research indicates that most people who live near solar projects are comfortable with their renewable energy neighbors. These findings could help guide energy infrastructure development, informing how we manage new renewable energy plants for a greener future.
“This survey was really just one snapshot in time,” cautioned Mills, calling for more follow-up research to understand how impacts on the community and local opinion change over time. “We strongly encourage future work to conduct longitudinal social science research — for example, to collect data throughout the planning, development, construction, and operational phases of large-scale energy plants.”
More Power to Them: U.S. Large-Scale Solar Neighbors' Support for Additional Solar
Article Publication Date
17-Jun-2025
START WITH PYTHOGARAS & EUCLID
Disconnected from math, students call for real-world relevance in RAND’s first-ever youth survey
In research funded by the Gates Foundation, new national data show widespread disengagement in math, highlighting a need for more relatable instruction and higher-quality curriculum
According to the first-ever survey fielded to RAND’s new American Youth Panel (AYP), 49% of students in middle and high school grades reported losing interest in math about half or more of the time, and 75% of youths reported losing interest for at least some class time.
Loss of interest in math is consistent across genders and racial and ethnic groups.
In the fall of 2024, RAND asked youths in grades 5 through 12 about their math class experiences with plans to measure these math attitudes annually to track trends over time. This nationally representative report was fielded to a group of almost 2,000 youth ages 12-21 who regularly complete surveys via email and text message about their attitudes, behaviors, school experiences, and other issues affecting their lives.
Thirty percent of middle and high school students said that they have never considered themselves a “math person.” Those who did identify as math people developed this view during elementary school, suggesting that elementary school math teachers have a large role in cultivating positive math attitudes.
“Student feedback offers one of many likely reasons for the slow post-pandemic recovery: students are frequently bored with math,” said Heather L. Schwartz, vice president and director of RAND Education and Labor. “Although boredom is not unique to math, routine boredom is a problem. These findings emphasize the importance of boosting student engagement to improve academic outcomes.”
The RAND survey also found that students who lose interest in math often want fewer online activities and more real-world applications in their math classes.
“It may sound surprising in today’s high-tech environment, but online math activities might be less motivating than face-to-face instruction,” said Robert Bozick, senior research scientist at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. “This emphasizes the need for high-quality math instruction, and we suggest a mix of engaging math activities combining face-to-face teacher-student interactions with a mix of offline and online activities and the use of more real-world applications in the classroom.”
This work was supported by the Gates Foundation
The AYP was launched in 2024 to augment RAND’s American Life Panel (ALP). Developed by RAND researchers in 2006, the ALP is a probability sample–based panel of approximately 8,000 regularly interviewed adults in the United States ages 18 and older. The AYP was developed to extend the age range of the ALP so that it can collect timely data on issues related to contemporary youths and their transition to adulthood.
RAND Education and Labor conducts research on early childhood through postsecondary education programs, workforce development, and programs and policies affecting workers, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and decisionmaking.
##
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. To sign up for RAND e-mail alerts: http://www.rand.org/publications/email.html
RAND is a registered trademark
...AND THE SOLUTION IS
LEGO improves maths and spatial ability in the classroom
A simple classroom activity involving a classic childhood staple, LEGO, could improve children’s maths and spatial ability, leading researchers to demand for policymakers to shake up the school curricula and teachers’ professional development.
A new study, led by the University of Surrey, tested incorporating LEGO building into the daily teaching curriculum, leading to tangible improvements and boosting abilities for students aged six to seven.
The study, which involved 409 children from schools in Surrey and Portsmouth, demonstrated that the six-week Spatial Cognition to Enhance mathematical learning (SPACE) programme - where teachers led LEGO-based activities - resulted in marked improvements in children's mental rotation skills (the ability to visualise and manipulate objects in their minds) and mathematics performance.
Professor Emily Farran, Professor in Cognitive Development at the University of Surrey and lead author of the study, said:
"We've known for some time that spatial reasoning and maths are closely linked, however, most spatial training has been conducted in laboratory settings. Our study shows that spatial training delivered by teachers in the classroom is effective, with positive outcomes for their students."
The SPACE programme involved training teachers on the importance of spatial reasoning and, via a booklet with visual instructions, how to guide their students through structured LEGO building exercises. Teachers were encouraged to prompt students to think spatially, for example, to visualise and mentally manipulate the blocks, fostering their spatial skills.
Professor Camilla Gilmore, Professor of Mathematical Cognition at Loughborough University and co-author of the study commented:
"Addressing underachievement and reducing disadvantage gaps in mathematics is an ongoing challenge for educators and policy makers. The results of this study were clear - children who participated in the SPACE programme showed significant improvements in their spatial and maths abilities compared to those who received standard instruction. This suggests that simple, hands-on spatial activities can have a powerful impact on learning and are an important avenue to improve children’s achievement and enjoyment of mathematics.
Professor Farran added:
"This research highlights the importance of spatial reasoning in mathematics education. By incorporating spatial activities into the curriculum, we will equip the next generation to meet the heightened demands for critical thinking, problem solving and data-use brought about by technological and AI-enabled change."
Spatial interventions such as SPACE have also been shown to support inclusion, particularly for children from disadvantaged backgrounds and children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). In fact, children from disadvantaged backgrounds often show larger gains in mathematics competence compared with their peers, suggesting that opportunities to think and work spatially could contribute to closing attainment gaps.
Credit: Chalmers University of Technology | Per Friberg
Cellulose-based textile material can make the clothing sector more sustainable. Currently, cellulose-based textiles are mainly made from wood, but a study headed by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology points to the possibility of using agricultural waste from wheat and oat. The method is easier and requires fewer chemicals than manufacturing forest-based cellulose, and can enhance the value of waste products from agriculture.
Making clothing from water-intensive cotton has a major impact on the climate. That’s why cellulose from other raw materials has come into focus in recent years as a more resource-smart method of textile production. Up to now, the efforts have concentrated on wood-based cellulose. But in a recently published study, researchers investigated a different path for cellulose fibre manufacture, by using waste products from agriculture, which Sweden has a lot of.
The researchers tested oat husks, wheat straw, potato pulp and sugar beet pulp. Oat husks and wheat straw turned out to work best to develop a pulp, called dissolving pulp, which is used to make clothing.
“With this method, which we further developed in this study, we show that you can make textile pulp from certain agricultural waste products,” says Diana Bernin, Assistant Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers and senior researcher in the study. “This is an important step towards being able to create textiles from waste products instead of using cotton, which isn’t climate-friendly, or wood, a material that we want to use for so many things while also needing to preserve it for the benefit of the climate.”
More sustainable manufacturing with lye
The team used soda pulping as one part of the process. This means that the raw material is boiled in lye, which makes manufacturing more sustainable.
“Lye doesn’t contain any toxins or substances that impact nature,” she explains. “Soda pulping doesn’t work for wood fibres, so making textile pulp from wheat straw and oat husks requires fewer chemicals than making forest-based cellulose. It’s also a simpler procedure, in part because it doesn’t require processing such as chipping and debarking. In addition, it increases the economic value of oats and wheat, when leftovers from their production can be used as raw materials for cellulose extraction.”
Bernin says it is likely that several other agricultural waste products can be used for textile manufacture using the method her team developed. She is currently involved in an international project that has found, using the method in this study, that press-cake from grass from fields works very well to create dissolving pulp.
In continued studies that have yet to be published, the researchers have also taken another step towards practical application of the dissolving pulps, creating textile fibres based on pulp from wheat and the press-cake from grass.
Hope of using existing industries
In the long run, she sees good opportunities to use the pulp-and-paper industry, which already has technology and processes in place, to make dissolving pulp from agricultural waste.
“If we can make use of our existing industry and adjust their processes instead of building new production facilities, we’ve already come a long way,” she says.
The lead author of the study is Joanna Wojtasz, former postdoc at Chalmers and now a researcher at the innovation company Tree To Textile, which is one of the partners in the project.
“The study shows that there is a lot of potential in agricultural waste,” Wojtasz says. “We really shouldn’t disregard the opportunity to use this type of cellulose streams for our future clothing.”
A new study from the Stockholm School of Economics finds that the competitiveness of green steel production in Romania partly hinges on hydrogen sourcing—requiring a 15 percent price premium if hydrogen is purchased externally as supposed to produced on-site. Without this premium, decarbonizing the country’s only primary steel producer could result in billions of losses.
The research, published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, evaluates the financial viability of Liberty Steel Galați’s transition to low-carbon steelmaking using green hydrogen and electric arc furnace-based technologies. The plant, one of the EU’s top 10 most polluting steel facilities, aims to become carbon-neutral by 2030.
“Our findings show that Romanian green steel production can be competitive—if hydrogen is produced on-site and electricity prices remain stable,” says Mara Bălașa, lead author and PhD Fellow at the Stockholm School of Economics. “But if hydrogen is purchased externally, a 15 percent price premium in the market would be needed to avoid steep value losses.”
The steel industry accounts for roughly 7 percent of global CO₂ emissions and is central to achieving the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goals. The transition of Liberty Steel Galați could significantly reduce Romania’s national carbon emissions and serve as a blueprint for green steel production in Central and Eastern Europe, a region often overlooked in climate transition research.
EUR100 per ton premium price swing
Using a novel dataset collected by the Energy Policy Group, a Bucharest-based non-profit independent think tank, the study shows that the premium required to produce green steel in Romania could swing by as much as EUR100 per ton depending on how hydrogen is sourced. If hydrogen is purchased externally, a EUR90 per ton premium would be needed for Liberty Steel Galați to avoid losing an estimated EUR3.3 billion in net value over a period of 20 years. But if produced on-site with relatively stable electricity prices, green steel could instead come with a EUR10 per ton discount, potentially making it cheaper than steel produced with today’s conventional blast furnace-based technology.
However, full on-site hydrogen production would likely triple annual electricity demand to an estimated 10.9 TWh from about 3.4 TWh today. That is equivalent to about 30 percent of the total electricity consumption by non-households in Romania in 2022. Such a jump in electricity demand could lead to spikes in electricity prices, making production costs higher. Also, the electricity would need to be sourced from fossil free energy sources to qualify as climate neutral—currently about 30 percent of Romania’s electricity is generated from fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal.
“Our results have practical implications for both industry and policymakers,” says co-author Rickard Sandberg, professor and head of the Center for Data Analytics at the Stockholm School of Economics. “For steel producers, they help inform risk assessments and future decarbonization strategies. For policymakers, they highlight the urgent need for stable electricity pricing, green energy production, hydrogen infrastructure development, and supportive policies to make low-carbon steel financially viable.”
The researchers note several limitations primarily stemming from forecasting uncertainties regarding future electricity prices, hydrogen infrastructure readiness, and policy interventions such as carbon contracts for difference (CCfDs).
The research was supported by financing from the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius Foundation.
Publication: “Pricing the Green Transition: An Investment Appraisal of Romanian Low-Carbon Steel,” Mara Bălașa and Rickard Sandberg, Journal of Industrial Ecology, online 17 June 2025, doi: 10.1111/jiec.70054
About the Stockholm School of Economics
The Stockholm School of Economics is rated as a top business school in the Nordic and Baltic countries and enjoys a strong international reputation. World-class research forms the foundation of our educational offering, which includes bachelor, master, PhD, MBA, and Executive Education programs. Our programs are developed in close cooperation with the business and research communities, providing graduates substantial potential to attain leading positions in companies and other organizations.
The School is accredited by EQUIS, certifying that all of its principal activities – teaching as well as research – maintain the highest international standards. The Stockholm School of Economics is also the only Swedish member institution of CEMS and PIM, which are collaborations between top business schools worldwide, contributing to the level of quality for which our school is known.
For more information about the Stockholm School of Economics, or to read all of our press releases, please visit our website.
