Trump moves to close government lab that tracks planet-warming pollution
The Trump administration is planning to cancel its lease at a government laboratory in Hawaii, a site where scientists process key observations of surging greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, according to a list obtained by Democratic members of Congress and shared with The Washington Post.
The Global Monitoring Laboratory in Hilo, Hawaii, is on a list of dozens of National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration facilities whose leases are set to expire later this year. The lab is connected to the Mauna Loa Observatory, where scientists gather data from atop a volcano to produce the famed Keeling Curve, a chart on the daily status of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.
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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
Fusion Energy Is The Key To World Hegemony
What would it take for the United States to lose its hegemony to a rising power like China? Right now, America appears to be ahead economically and militarily. However, there is a stark difference between America's national strategy (insofar as one exists) and China's. The US under President Trump calls for regression. It seeks to restore a manufacturing economy that peaked in the 1950s—like an elderly man trying to restore hair where it hasn't grown for decades. It is doubling down on domestic oil, gas and coal. Through tariffs, disparagement of NATO and aggression towards allies like Canada and Denmark, the administration has alienated partners that long supported a US-led world order. Fusion will be a key element to become an energy superpower. (Wal van Lierop) China, meanwhile, has a tremendous lead in developing the economy of the future. It has a near monopoly on rare earth minerals, which are needed for electronics, renewable energy systems, defense technologies and more. China leads in solar, wind and batteries, the energy systems growing at the fastest rate. It is ahead in electric vehicles, industrial robotics and drones as well. It probably has achieved parity in artificial intelligence and may surpass the US soon. If China were to take Taiwan, it would control the global market for advanced chip manufacturing. In the background, but probably most importantly, China may be on track to commercialize fusion energy before the US or its disgruntled allies. Unlike the US, China has no domestic energy industry with vocal lobbyists (and purchasable politicians) to slow progress. It is funding fusion as a national strategy while private fusion companies in the West are at the mercy of investors that, for the most part, chase low risk and quick returns. Fusion promises cheap, plentiful, baseload energy without carbon emissions. AI, data centers and industrial robotics powered by fusion would produce goods and services at much lower costs than value chains dependent on fossil-fired electricity. Militaries built on swarms of small, cheap, electronic drones and robots—powered by small, distributed fusion facilities deep underground, safe from attack—would have an edge over competitors using large, expensive, petroleum-powered vehicles with vulnerable supply chains. I cannot overstate the ramifications of China developing fusion first. As an analogy, imagine if Japan and Germany had uncovered vast reserves of oil at home in the 1920s. American and Soviet oil gave the Allies a strategic advantage over the Axis powers. Had the situation been reversed, World War II could have ended differently. While private fusion companies in the West have raised about $8 billion total, China is investing at least $1.5 annually into fusion projects—double what the US government spends. Japanese and German investments in fusion don't even come close. Canada, for the record, has no fusion funding strategy. Moreover, the government of British Columbia, home of industry leader General Fusion, seems not to understand the value of this crown asset.* On all fronts nuclear, China is leaping ahead. In April, its scientists added fresh fuel to an operational thorium molten salt reactor—a first. The thorium reserves found in Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of China, could theoretically meet Chinese energy demand for thousands of years. The kicker: this reactor design originated in the US. As project lead Xu Hongjie put it, 'The US left its research publicly available, waiting for the right successor. We were that successor." Moreover, in January, China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) sustained a fusion reaction for 1,066 seconds, setting a new record. Its Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST) fusion reactor could come online by 2027 and is expected to produce five times the amount of energy it consumes. When BEST announces this milestone, Western fusion companies may be announcing that they've run out of funding. To China, fusion is not a startup project—it's a matter of national interest and security. Its scientists are patenting more fusion-related technologies than any other single country and graduating more doctorates in fusion-related fields. And because China is the top refiner and exporter of the critical minerals needed in fusion reactors (e.g., for magnets), no external force is going to slow their progress. In the meantime, China has a cheap gas station next door—Russia—supplying all the fossil fuels China could need in exchange for support in its war with Ukraine. That support includes critical minerals needed by Russian arms manufacturers. Is fusion energy, along with other Chinese-dominated technologies, enough to end US hegemony? In 1988, historian Paul Kennedy published The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a book that tried to explain the relative success (and failure) of powerful states. According to Kennedy, their rise and fall '…shows a very significant correlation over the longer term between productive and revenue-raising capacities on the one hand and military strength on the other.' Essentially, states must balance economic prosperity with strategy. Technological breakthroughs are vital to both. Innovation creates wealth, which enables the state to invest in defense and win wars. While underinvestment in defense leaves the state vulnerable to other powers, overextension and overspending on defense can run an economy into the ground, leaving it unable to sustain a strong military. Now, picture a great power—China—with a military to rival the US and fusion reactors that provide virtually unlimited energy. Imagine the clout China would have in establishing ports, military bases and consumer markets around the world if it could license that fusion technology. A China that exceeds the US in energy, industry, intelligence, mobility and defense is positioned to usurp it. Of course, China could bungle its advantage. Authoritarian regimes have a habit of mismanaging internal dissent, falsifying reality and making preventable mistakes. The rise of China is inevitable, but the self-inflicted decline of the US and its allies isn't. Rather, it's a choice reflecting how societies invest their resources and envision their future. *Disclosure: The author is an investor in General Fusion and sits on its board of directors.
Engadget
an hour ago
- Engadget
It turns out you can train AI models without copyrighted material
AI companies claim their tools couldn't exist without training on copyrighted material. It turns out, they could — it's just really hard. To prove it, AI researchers trained a new model that's less powerful but much more ethical. That's because the LLM's dataset uses only public domain and openly licensed material. The paper (via The Washington Post ) was a collaboration between 14 different institutions. The authors represent universities like MIT, Carnegie Mellon and the University of Toronto. Nonprofits like Vector Institute and the Allen Institute for AI also contributed. The group built an 8 TB ethically-sourced dataset. Among the data was a set of 130,000 books in the Library of Congress. After inputting the material, they trained a seven-billion-parameter large language model (LLM) on that data. The result? It performed about as well as Meta's similarly sized Llama 2-7B from 2023. The team didn't publish benchmarks comparing its results to today's top models. Performance comparable to a two-year-old model wasn't the only downside. The process of putting it all together was also a grind. Much of the data couldn't be read by machines, so humans had to sift through it. "We use automated tools, but all of our stuff was manually annotated at the end of the day and checked by people," co-author Stella Biderman told WaPo . "And that's just really hard." Figuring out the legal details also made the process hard. The team had to determine which license applied to each website they scanned. So, what do you do with a less powerful LLM that's much harder to train? If nothing else, it can serve as a counterpoint. In 2024, OpenAI told a British parliamentary committee that such a model essentially couldn't exist. The company claimed it would be "impossible to train today's leading AI models without using copyrighted materials." Last year, an Anthropic expert witness added, "LLMs would likely not exist if AI firms were required to license the works in their training datasets." Of course, this study won't change the trajectory of AI companies. After all, more work to create less powerful tools doesn't jive with their interests. But at least it punctures one of the industry's common arguments. Don't be surprised if you hear about this study again in legal cases and regulation arguments.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
House Oversight GOP shoots down Democratic attempt to subpoena Musk
Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shot down an attempt by the panel's Democrats to subpoena Elon Musk, seeking answers about his short stint in the Trump administration. The surprise move from Democrats to compel Musk to testify before the panel sought to examine government service that, while brief, was impactful and marred by controversy. Rep. Stephen Lynch (Mass.), the acting top Democrat on the panel, shifted the tune of a hearing on artificial intelligence by bashing the former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head, saying President Trump created 'disaster and danger … by turning our government over to his biggest campaign donor.' 'We cannot sit here, however, and have the traditional bipartisan conversation about federal IT modernization without acknowledging the fact that the Trump administration, Elon Musk and DOGE are leading technology initiatives that threaten the privacy and security of all Americans and undermine our government and the vital services it provides to red states and blue states,' he said. 'Musk may say he has stepped away from his role in the federal government, but his recklessness will continue to have devastating consequences for America for years, possibly decades to come,' Lynch continued. Republicans, very few of whom were in the room when the hearing began, suspended the hearing to give GOP colleagues more time to arrive and vote down the measure, delaying the hearing for more than 20 minutes. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who was overseeing the hearing, mocked Democrats, telling them they 'looked good' for social media clips as her Democratic colleagues sat before blown up photos of Musk. Lynch and other Democrats pressed Mace to move forward with a vote as the wait stretched on. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) criticized the delay, noting that 'it has historically never taken this long for the clerk to call roll.' The Thursday push was the second time the panel's Democrats have pushed to subpoena Musk, though the first since the DOGE leader has left government following the end of his term as a special government employee. His departure also came amid reports about Musk's alleged drug use, which he has denied. Lynch said Musk was given 'free rein to terrorize our civil servants and drive more than 275,000 federal employees from their jobs serving the American people' and said he was among those in the Trump administration who are 'more interested in self enrichment than public service.' Musk officially announced his departure from the Trump administration last week, bringing to a close a tumultuous four months in government for the Tesla CEO. The tech billionaire's role leading DOGE has been highly controversial, prompting numerous lawsuits challenging Musk and his staffers' authority and creating headaches for his business empire. The move comes amid a four-way race to determine the next top Democrat on the panel, replacing the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (Va.). Lynch has thrown his hat in the ring, as have Crockett and Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) and Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.). Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
