Headline News:

• “Solar Park Powering Astronomical Observatory In Chile’s Atacama Desert” • A solar plant with a capacity of 9 MW has now been completed at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. The PV installation is also intended to power the world’s largest telescope, which is currently under construction at the site. [CleanTechnica]

Rendering of ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, to be solar powered (ESO image)

• “Emergency Declared As Wildfire Rages Near Yosemite National Park” • A state of emergency has been declared in part of California as a wildfire continues to rapidly spread near Yosemite National Park. The Oak Fire has exploded in size since starting on Friday, and it has already burned 11,900 acres (4,815 hectares) of land. [BBC]
• “PNM Inundated With Companies Seeking Clean Energy” • Public Service Company of New Mexico announced that it commissioned a 50-MW solar facility to provide clean energy to a Facebook data center in Los Lunas. PNM is supplying nearly 400 MW of clean power to Facebook, but other companies are expected to follow. [Albuquerque Journal]
• “Bacteria Could Help To Capture Greenhouse Gases” • In a paper published in Nature Chemical Biology, King and others from Simon Fraser University examined the important role CO₂ plays in cyanobacteria, photosynthetic organisms found in water. Cyanobacteria use carbon to create essential nutrients that sustain their life cycle. [CleanTechnica]
• “New Mexico Submits First Infrastructure Bill EV Charging Plan, Ignorance Breeds Controversy” • Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that New Mexico is the first state to submit its EV charging plan to the federal government, a requirement to get funding from the infrastructure bill’s EV charging fund. But the plan wasn’t without controversy. [CleanTechnica]

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