Renewables surged in 2024 — but so did fossil fuels
The world is grappling with an energy crisis — not one of scarcity, but one created by overwhelming demand. More energy-hungry data centers and AI algorithms are coming online. Developing countries are using more energy to support their people and industries. And as the world electrifies — replacing gas cars with electric vehicles, for instance — it will use ever more power. So the electrical grid doesn't just need renewables (and batteries to store their energy) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but also to meet growing demand.
A new analysis from the Paris-based International Energy Agency puts some hard numbers to the challenge, finding that in 2024, electricity consumption jumped by 4.3 percent worldwide, almost double the annual average over the last decade. Power use in buildings accounted for nearly 60 percent of the growth last year, with other drivers including the ballooning of energy-intensive industries and the electrification of transportation.
'What is certain is that electricity use is growing rapidly, pulling overall energy demand along with it to such an extent that it is enough to reverse years of declining energy consumption in advanced economies,' said Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, in a press release announcing the findings. 'The result is that demand for all major fuels and energy technologies increased in 2024, with renewables covering the largest share of the growth, followed by natural gas.'
The good news is that the installation of renewables like wind and solar hit a record in 2024 for the 22nd consecutive year, according to the analysis, while 33 percent more nuclear capacity came online compared to 2023. Renewables and nuclear power combined for 80 percent of the increase in worldwide electricity generation. Together, the two sources handled 40 percent of overall generation for the first time, which meant energy-related carbon dioxide emissions rose by just 0.8 percent last year, compared with 1.2 percent in 2023.
At the same time, the global economy grew by more than 3 percent in 2024. Carbon dioxide emissions, in other words, didn't keep up with economic growth, so CO2 emissions and economic growth are increasingly 'decoupled,' the report notes. Beneath the headline numbers, however, the story varies region to region. While countries like the U.S. can easily deploy more renewables to reduce their emissions and still maintain economic growth — renewables actually encourage that growth — in 2024 the bulk of the rise in emissions came from developing economies. 'We can have more energy and less emissions — we need to have more energy and less emissions,' said R. Max Holmes, president and CEO of the Woodwell Climate Research Center, who wasn't involved in the analysis. 'There are encouraging signs in this report that that decoupling is starting to take place.'
Still, no matter the country, renewables aren't growing fast enough to displace fossil fuels: Oil demand rose by 0.8 percent in 2024 and coal by 1 percent. Natural gas demand went up 2.7 percent, far above the annual growth rate of 1 percent between 2019 and 2023. That was thanks to the growth of heavy industries along with brutal heat waves, especially in China and India. The hotter the world gets, the more people switch on their air conditioners, creating demand that power plants have to meet by burning fossil fuels, leading to even more warming and more AC use.
Even so, the report reveals that the world is making some progress in weaning itself off fossil fuels. In 2024, EVs accounted for a fifth of all car sales around the world. In the U.S., sales of electric heat pumps — which move heat from outdoor air into a home — jumped 15 percent last year, and now outsell gas furnaces by 30 percent. All told, since 2019, the deployment of solar and wind energy, nuclear power, EVs, and heat pumps now prevents the release of 2.6 billion metric tons of CO2 each year. 'That's about half the U.S. economy's worth of emissions, and that's just five solutions in five years,' said Jonathan Foley, executive director of Project Drawdown, a Minnesota-based climate nonprofit that wasn't involved in the report. 'We're still far behind. All the bad news is still true — climate change is still happening, it's bad, it's ugly, we're not doing enough. But I'm seeing an inflection point here.'The big question in the U.S. is whether the new Trump administration, which has been aggressivelydismantlingclimateprogress in its first two months in office, can kneecap this shift to clean-energy. Experts say that there are fundamental market forces beyond the control of the federal government, namely that renewables are now cheaper to deploy than more fossil-fuel infrastructure. 'The world is transitioning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable and non-greenhouse-gas-emitting energy sources, period,' Holmes said. 'It is going to happen. What the Trump administration right now is doing can slow that transition, but it certainly can't stop that transition.'
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Renewables surged in 2024 — but so did fossil fuels on Mar 27, 2025.
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PSG are still spending a lot of money – but they're doing it very differently
Desire Doue's second goal just past the hour sealed it. Paris Saint-Germain would be European champions at last. At the forefront of it all was Doue, 19 years young and the poster boy of PSG's new era. That win over Inter in the Champions League final last month ended a near 15-year journey that began when Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), a subsidiary of the Qatari state's sovereign wealth fund, purchased a majority stake in the club in June 2011. Advertisement The season before QSI's arrival, PSG spent just €9million on new signings; a year later, that annual figure had shot up to €107m. That same season, the other 19 clubs in Ligue 1, the top division of French football, paid out just €140m combined on transfers. The money kept flowing. Over the next decade, PSG's new owners spent billions. The team won the Ligue 1 title almost every year, often by a wide margin. European-level glory, though, always eluded them. That ended in Munich's Allianz Arena just under two weeks ago, amid apparent irony. The expensive forward trio of Kylian Mbappe, Lionel Messi and Neymar deployed in previous seasons had come to symbolise PSG's largesse. Last summer, the last of those three still at the club, Mbappe, also left. The narrative shifted: PSG have finally found Champions League success by stepping back from the splurges of the owners' first decade, by spending less and by being smarter. The likes of Doue and central midfielder Joao Neves, both aged under 21, had replaced Mbappe, Messi and company. This view is not without some truth to it. That group achieved little in Paris other than extending the club's domestic dominance. In each of the two full seasons Mbappe, Messi and Neymar were together (2021-23), PSG were eliminated from the Champions League in its first knockout round. Between them, Mbappe and Neymar cost €401.9million (£342m/$465m at current rates) in transfer fees alone. Messi arrived on a free transfer after it ended, um, messily for him at Barcelona, but leaving it at that would be a gross misrepresentation; PSG were one of the only clubs in the world who could afford his wage requirements. Given all that, once those three had departed, it would be nigh-on impossible for PSG not to be spending less now than they once did. Yet a look at their recent transfer activity shows any suggestion of a move toward thrift is overblown. Across the past two seasons, according to Transfermarkt (figures from the club's published accounts are not yet available), PSG have spent €694million on new players — a figure which still comes to €344m on a net basis. Advertisement That €694million puts them second in world football for the largest outlay across those 2023-24 and 2024-25 campaigns, only eclipsed by Chelsea (reported new-player spend: €746m). On a net basis, PSG were also the second-highest spenders, behind Al Hilal of Saudi Arabia. In other words, the idea of the Qataris shutting off the monetary supply line to the French capital is pretty misguided. PSG are still spending, and still spending lots, continuing a theme that has been present at their Parc des Princes home ever since that mid-2011 takeover. From that time, €2.282billion has been spent by PSG on new players. Among Ligue 1 clubs, only Monaco, at €1.187bn, have also topped a billion euros on signings in the same period, and their net spend was actually negative — helped in no small part by the €180m they received from PSG for Mbappe (€145m in 2018, then a further €35m when Mbappe renewed his PSG contract in 2022). What has changed is how they are spending. Mbappe provides a decent reference point here. That €180million fee of seven years ago — we have kept the whole fee in 2018 as part of our analysis — was, even by modern football standards, a huge sum, only beaten by the €222m PSG paid Barcelona for Neymar a year earlier. It is also the highest fee ever paid for a teenager, well ahead of the €126million Atletico Madrid spent on Joao Felix of Portugal's Benfica in summer 2019. Spending so much on someone so young was very much out of kilter for PSG back then; before Mbappe, the club had only signed six players aged under 21 for fees, and they wouldn't do so again until 2021. Excluding the Mbappe fee, across 10 seasons from 2011 to 2021, PSG spent just €138.4million on under-21s, out of a total transfer spend in that time of €1.171bn. Just 12 per cent of the club's spending on new players went on youngsters not named Kylian Mbappe. In six of QSI's first 10 seasons in Paris, the club didn't pay fees on any players aged under 21. Advertisement There's been evidence of a shift since. Nuno Mendes' €7million loan fee to Sporting CP of Lisbon in August 2021 was hardly bank-busting, but it did set off a chain whereby a growing proportion of the club's spending — at least on transfers — has been directed at the game's youngest players. Including Mendes' loan, and then his permanent move a year later, seven players aged 21 or under have joined PSG for fees over the past four seasons, with those totalling €243.9m. That comprises 26 per cent of the club's gross spend on new players — a doubling of the previous decade's (non-Mbappe) proportion. Neves and Doue have been the most expensive. Arriving from Benfica and fellow French side Rennes respectively last summer for a combined €110million, neither move can be described as a sign of PSG reining things in. Instead, they are a sign of the new strategy: keep spending big, but spend more of it on youth. The other end of the age scale has shifted, too. In QSI's first decade at the helm, €734.2million (54 per cent) of PSG's transfer spending went on players aged 25 or more. In the past four seasons, though, that figure has slumped to €171.5m out of €930.9m — 18 per cent. A source with knowledge of PSG's dealings, granted anonymity to protect relationships, told The Athletic the recent shift was undertaken with another motive beyond simply reducing the age of the first team: the improved ability to sell players at a future profit. Across much of QSI's reign, PSG's player profits have been low, at least relative to other big European clubs; signing older players limits resale value. PSG's whopping €181.4m player profits in 2023-24 were heavily aided by the €90million departure of Neymar to Al-Hilal, though that's plainly not the sort of transaction the club can rely on regularly. Advertisement More instructive was the recent €50million sale of then-21-year-old Xavi Simons to RB Leipzig, a deal which could ultimately total €80m. PSG had exercised a €6m buy-back clause to retrieve Simons from PSV Eindhoven, a year after selling him there, before banking a big profit. Reinforcing the youthful shift in transfer strategy has been a significant investment in the club's academy, with €350million sunk into a new training facility, Campus PSG. Last summer saw 17-year-old Joane Gadou sold from the youth ranks to RB Salzburg for €10m. The impact has been clear, and is in part why the curious narrative around their Champions League triumph was able to form. PSG really do have a much younger squad than before, and they really have stepped away from the strategy of signing more experienced, household names that dominated QSI's first 10 years in charge. It's just that after this shift in approach, their recruitment has remained extremely expensive. Luis Enrique's starting XI that routed Inter 5-0 in that final had an average age of 25.3 — over three years younger than the team which had lost to Bayern Munich in PSG's only previous appearance in the fixture five years ago. Their team beaten by Bayern in the competition's round of 16 in March 2023 had an average age of 27.9. The new transfer strategy has naturally flowed through to a younger team on the pitch. If PSG are signing players at lower ages, have they also changed who they're signing them from? The evidence suggests yes. In each of the past three seasons, the share of money spent on players from other Ligue 1 teams has grown; previously, PSG had only purchased players from their domestic rivals for a fee in four of 11 seasons under QSI. Mbappe, who they got from Monaco for massive money, once again skews things here. Excluding him, between 2011-12 and 2021-22, PSG spent just €72.2million (six per cent) on signings from fellow French clubs. Advertisement In terms of player quantity, the shift hasn't been huge. Doue was the only player recruited from within Ligue 1 this season, but the chunky fee spent on him was enough to comprise over a fifth of PSG's transfer spend for 2024-25. In the past three years, only Renato Sanches, Bradley Barcola and Hugo Ekitike have also been signed from French clubs, but their fees, alongside Doue's, comprise 15 per cent of PSG's spending in that time, a notable increase. Whether that trend continues remains to be seen. They continue to enjoy a level of dominance over their domestic peers unrivalled anywhere else in Europe's 'Big Five' leagues — an ongoing crisis enveloping the French league's television rights deal serves to further weaken the bargaining position of most Ligue 1 sides. PSG, stated-owned and, at least domestically, unencumbered by much in the way of financial regulation, are in a position of strength if they look to shop local. As reported in The Athletic's Transfer DealSheet earlier this week, they are keen on Bournemouth's 22-year-old central defender Illya Zabarnyi. That fits the trend we've already covered, both through Zabarnyi's relative youth and in terms of the fee it will take to get him — he won't come cheap. PSG have generally stayed away from the Premier League as a source of players previously during the QSI era, with only six players signing for fees from England's top flight. Angel Di Maria, at €63million from Manchester United in summer 2015, was both the most high-profile and most expensive. Despite that, across these 14 seasons, the club have spent most of their money on recruiting players from their fellow 'Big Five' leagues, with Spain's La Liga, the German Bundesliga and Serie A in Italy completing the set. That was still the case in the past two seasons, with nearly half of PSG's transfer spend being disbursed across those three countries mentioned above. Yet just as there's been a slight shift homeward in identifying new additions, so has there been a broadening of horizons and an added desire to dip into apparently less glamorous waters. Advertisement In five of seven seasons between 2013 and 2022, PSG didn't spend a penny on players from outside Europe's five biggest leagues; in 2022-23, the fees spent on bringing in Mendes and Vitinha from Portugal's Primeira Liga made up over half of their total spend that season, and a third of what they've paid has gone on non-'Big Five' divisions in the two seasons since. That said, the idea of broad horizons comes with the caveat that the vast majority has been spent in Portugal, and PSG's recent focus there followed the arrival of Luis Campos as an advisor in mid-2022. Transfer fees grab the media headlines, but wages continue to be a club's biggest cost, and it is here where we find the great unknown in assessing how much PSG continue to spend. On a historic basis, there's little uncertainty. Over the past 13 seasons, not including the recently finished 2024-25, for which we don't yet have reliable figures, clubs in France's top tier paid a combined €16.819billion in wages. Of that, PSG contributed €5.025bn — 30 per cent of Ligue 1's total wage spend in the period. For a while now, comparing clubs' wage bills in Ligue 1 has called for two different scales: one for PSG, one for everyone else. In each of the past three seasons, the gulf between theirs and the second-highest wage bill in France has topped €460million, and it nearly hit €600m in 2021-22. On an average basis, the gap between PSG's salary costs and those of other Ligue 1 clubs has widened from €31.8m in the season before QSI's takeover to €587.6m in 2023-24. With such a chasm to bridge, how do other Ligue 1 clubs compete? They largely don't. PSG have won Ligue 1 in 11 of the past 13 seasons, with an average gap to the side in second place of 13 points. In 2015-16, they finished a ludicrous 31 ahead of runners-up Lyon, having won 30 of their 38 matches and drawn six. Before the 2011 takeover, they had only won two domestic titles in their (albeit short, having been formed in 1970) history. Advertisement There is a huge wage disparity at play in Ligue 1. And PSG's wage dominance, if we can call it that, isn't just limited to domestic football. The gulf is far smaller if we look at Europe as a whole, but in three of the four seasons before 2024-25, their wage bill was the highest at that level, too. These included their world record €729million spend in 2021-22, which was the first season Mbappe, Messi and Neymar were at the club together. PSG's wage bill for 2023-24 was again top of the continental chart, coming in at €658million — over €100m higher than second-placed Manchester City's. Real Madrid, who won both La Liga and the Champions League that season, spent over €150m less on wages than the French side. Of course, that was also the final season in which Mbappe played in France's capital rather than Spain's. It would be of little surprise if Madrid usurped PSG in the wage table once the figures for 2024-25 are released. Mbappe's arrival at the Bernabeu has reportedly cost his new club at least €45million in annual payments to him (split between a minimum €15m salary, and the €30m annual cost of a €150m signing bonus spread over his five-year contract), while the saving to PSG will be hefty. Mbappe's basic salary in Paris cost PSG €75m annually after taxes and social security, while bonuses due to him, and the associated taxes on those, put their total cost of employing him in 2023-24 over the €200m mark. Exactly how much went into the club's overall €658m wage bill that year is unclear; Mbappe and PSG remain in an ongoing dispute, with the club's former striker claiming he is due €55m in unpaid wages and bonuses. Where their wage bill for this season will land is unknown, especially given the Champions League victory will have crystallised a slew of bonuses among the squad. Even if PSG's number here has fallen from last season, it's a stretch to label them any kind of beggars among Europe's elite. Chances are, the new European champions will remain one of football's biggest payers in terms of salaries. Advertisement This is not to say they have not impressed on the pitch, of course. They had a record-breaking margin of victory in the Champions League final and could achieve another first by winning the Club World Cup next month. But while the megastars have gone, the wealth is still there. Paris Saint-Germain continue to be one of the most handsomely backed teams in world football.
Yahoo
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Intel Veterans Raise $22M To Disrupt The Semiconductor Industry With The 'Baddest CPU In The World,' Backed By Apple And AMD Alum Jim Keller
Beaverton, Oregon-based semiconductor startup AheadComputing, founded by four former Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) central processing unit architects, announced in February that it secured $21.5 million in seed funding to develop a new class of high-performance processors based on the RISC-V architecture. The seed funding round was led by Eclipse Ventures, with participation from Maverick Capital, Fundomo, and EPIQ Capital. The company also added Jim Keller to its board of directors. Keller is widely regarded as one of the foremost chip designers in the world, having held engineering leadership roles at Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Advanced Micro Devices (NASDAQ:AMD), Intel, and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), The Oregonian reports. Don't Miss: Maker of the $60,000 foldable home has 3 factory buildings, 600+ houses built, and big plans to solve housing — Peter Thiel turned $1,700 into $5 billion—now accredited investors are eyeing this software company with similar breakout potential. Learn how you can The company, established in 2024, is aiming to design a scalable and power-efficient CPU that challenges x86 dominance in the data center and artificial intelligence sectors, The Oregonian says. Led by CEO Debbie Marr, AheadComputing intends to deliver what it calls the 'biggest, baddest CPU in the world.' RISC-V, a royalty-free, open instruction set architecture, is emerging as a credible alternative to proprietary platforms such as Intel's x86 and ARM's licensed designs. According to The Oregonian, the architecture enables companies to create customized processors without licensing restrictions or vendor lock-in. AheadComputing's team has grown to 80 employees, many of whom previously held senior roles at Intel. The company is targeting high-performance workloads in cloud infrastructure, AI inference, and edge computing applications. Its design leverages the modular 'chiplet' model, allowing for flexible system-on-chip configurations tailored to specific customer needs, The Oregonian reports. Trending: Invest where it hurts — and help millions heal:. Co-founder Jonathan Pearce told The Oregonian that the fragmentation of computing systems presents an opportunity for specialized vendors to offer optimized components within larger heterogeneous systems. 'You get the opportunity for a company like AheadComputing to provide that piece of the overall system. As opposed to the past 20 years where it was just one tech giant,' Pearce said. AheadComputing operates as a fabless semiconductor company, outsourcing chip fabrication to partners such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. This capital-efficient model allows the firm to focus resources on architectural innovation and design execution, The Oregonian reports. Intel's long-standing position as Oregon's largest private employer is undergoing transition, with multiple senior engineers departing to build independent ventures. According to The Oregonian, AheadComputing represents one of the most ambitious spinouts, combining advanced design experience with startup agility. Vice president of AheadComputing's design verification Alon Mahl said the hands-on startup environment allows engineering leaders to accelerate timelines and make immediate decisions without layers of corporate oversight. The Oregonian says that the team is already seeking larger office space in Washington County to accommodate growth and additional equipment to The Oregonian, AheadComputing joins a small group of Oregon-based chip startups led by Intel alumni, including Ampere Computing, which was recently acquired by SoftBank for $6.5 billion while retaining its Portland office footprint. Portland State University professor Christof Teuscher, an expert in microprocessor architecture, said the startup is taking a high-risk, high-reward approach. While RISC-V has traditionally been used in academic and embedded contexts, The Oregonian says that Teuscher expressed skepticism about its ability to succeed in high-performance commercial environments. According to The Oregonian, AheadComputing envisions its chips will eventually power PCs, laptops, and data centers, with possible clients including Google, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), and Samsung. Read Next: Here's what Americans think you need to be considered wealthy. Deloitte's fastest-growing software company partners with Amazon, Walmart & Target – Many are rushing to Image: Shutterstock UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets. Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga? APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report This article Intel Veterans Raise $22M To Disrupt The Semiconductor Industry With The 'Baddest CPU In The World,' Backed By Apple And AMD Alum Jim Keller originally appeared on © 2025 Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
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TGL indoor league adds Detroit team for 2027 season
Two months after the inaugural TGL season, the indoor golf league has expanded. Motor City Golf Club representing Detroit will be the seventh team in TGL, the league founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy as part of their TMRW Sports entertainment company. Advertisement Motor City will not start playing until 2027. It will join teams that represent Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Atlanta and Jupiter, Florida. Atlanta, with Billy Horschel and Justin Thomas, won the inaugural title. The Motor City ownership group is led by Middle West Partners. The principals are Michael Hamp, Peter Hamp and Kevin Kelleher, all with Detroit roots. The Hamp family has been longtime co-owners of the Detroit Lions. 'This is a great moment for Detroit sports and a proud moment for me personally,' Michael Hamp said. 'My grandfather, William Clay Ford Sr., was an avid golfer, and I believe bringing a new format of the game he loved would make him really proud.' Advertisement The ownership group includes Denver Broncos owner Rob Walton and Jordan Rose, president of Arizona-based Rose Law Group. Each team features four players (Woods is with Jupiter, McIlroy with Boston). A group representing Dallas was working on a bid last month. With Detroit not starting until 2027, it was unlikely for TGL to start next year with more than its current six teams.
