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Swimming pools and the irrigation of gardens require significant amounts of water.

Tom Merton | Ojo Images | Getty Images

The unsustainable consumption of the rich — including the use of swimming pools, garden irrigation and washing cars — is a key driver of urban water crises, according to a new study that calls for a fresh approach to tackling the issue.

Published in the Nature Sustainability journal this week, the peer-reviewed research looked at the South African city of Cape Town, which has experienced severe drought in recent years.

For the study, researchers split Cape Town’s urban population into five social groupings and then modeled water consumption.

“Despite representing only 1.4% and 12.3% of the total population, respectively, elite and upper-middle-income groups together use more than half (51%) of the water consumed by the entire city,” they said.

“Informal dwellers and lower-income households constitute together 61.5% of Cape Town’s population but consume a mere 27.3% of the city’s water.”

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The consequences of such an imbalance are severe, according to the analysis.

“Overall, these results support the argument that domestic water consumption in unequal urban areas such as Cape Town is likely to become unsustainable as a result of excessive consumption among privileged social groups,” it said.

“Specifically, privileged water consumption is unsustainable because in the short term, it disproportionally uses the water available for the entire urban population.”

Longer term, the report described what it called privileged consumption as constituting an environmental threat to the status of local water sources.

The report’s abstract said Cape Town, with its “highly unequal metropolitan area,” served “as a case in point to illustrate how unsustainable water use by the elite can exacerbate urban water crises at least as much as climate change or population growth.”

The study, which was led by Elisa Savelli at Uppsala University in Sweden, proposes a new approach to preserving water resources centered around “altering privileged lifestyles, limiting water use for amenities and redistributing income and water resources more equally.”

The research comes as access to water continues to dominate headlines. According to the United Nations, 2 billion people did not have access to safely managed drinking water services in 2020.

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Hannah Cloke is a hydrologist at the University of Reading in the U.K. and was a co-author of the study.

“We have shown that social inequality is the biggest problem for poorer people getting access to water for their everyday needs,” she said in a statement.

Over 80 major cities across the world have been hit by water shortages over recent decades, she said, adding that the study highlighted how the crisis “could get worse still as the gap between the rich and the poor widens in many parts of the world.”

“This shows the close links between social, economic and environmental inequality. Ultimately, everyone will suffer the consequences unless we develop fairer ways to share water in cities,” she added.

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400 kW DC fast charging On The Run arrives in Canada – and it’s FREE!

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400 kW DC fast charging On The Run arrives in Canada – and it's FREE!

British Columbia got its first 400 kW DC fast charger last week at Canadian C-store chain On The Run, but that’s not the good part. As part of a limited time offer, these chargers are FREE!

The Canadian convenience store chain just took the wraps off its new, ABB-developed, 400 kW chargers earlier this month, but they’re already planning to bring the ultra-fast 400 kW dispensers to at least four more locations in BC this spring, and have them online just in time for the summer road trip season – something On The Run hopes its customers will appreciate.

“The A400 charger delivers an enhanced customer experience, with reliability and performance from a 32-inch screen to higher power charging sessions and power sharing,” reads the company’s official announcement, via LinkedIn. “Download the Journie Rewards app to start the charge – free for a limited time.”

On The Run’s new 400 kW ABB DC fast chargers are compatible with CCS and CHAdeMO plugs, and can accommodate Tesla and other NACS-equipped vehicles with an adapter. That said, the company seems to imply that Tesla drivers in particular will have a maximum charging speed of “just” 50 kW, which feel hilarious (given the current state of affairs between Tesla and the Canadian government), but probably isn’t.

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In addition to the ABB A400 400 kW units shown here, On The Run locations also employ the ABB Terra 184 dispensers rated at 180 kW. On The Run plans similar deployments at the four BC locations mentioned above, as well as two more each in Quebec and Ontario slated to go live towards the end of this year.

Electrek’s Take

Tesla’s controversial CEO Elon Musk once mocked 350 kW charging speed as being “for a child’s toy,” despite the fact that, nearly nine years later, his own cars and Superchargers can barely make it to 325 kW while others have sailed right on past. I made fun of that fact on the Quick Charge episode shown, above – and, while I do think it’s funny and relevant, the much more relevant piece of news here is that companies like BP Pulse, Revel, and Wallbox are actively deploying 400 kW solutions, today (while others hit the same mark as far back as 2017).

It’s just a fact: Tesla has fallen way behind.

SOURCE | IMAGES: On The Run, via Electric Autonomy.

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Terawatt opens its first electric charging truck stop in California

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Terawatt opens its first electric charging truck stop in California

Terawatt Infrastructure‘s first medium- and heavy-duty electric charging truck stop in California is now online, in Rancho Dominguez.

Located 12 miles north of the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, the private Rancho Dominguez site, which is shared among multiple fleets, will support electric trucking fleet operations in and out of the largest container ports in the US.

First customers include Dreaded Trucking, Hight Logistics, PepsiCo, Quick Container Drayage, Southern Counties Express, Tradelink Transport, and WestCoast Trucking & Warehousing.

Terawatt’s electric charging truck stop features 20 pull-through and bobtail DC fast charging stalls with a capacity of 7 megawatts (MW), enabling charging for up to 125 trucks per day using a simple reservations system. Terawatt’s site features a proprietary charge management system, in-house technicians, 24/7 customer service, and onsite parts management.

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“This launch underscores growing collaboration between enterprises, shippers, carriers, and charging infrastructure providers to advance sustainable technologies across logistics and transportation operations, especially in the medium and heavy-duty sectors,” said Neha Palmer, CEO and cofounder of Terawatt. Palmer added that the company will bring another charging site online in Rialto, California, in June.

Terawatt joined some of the world’s largest shippers and carriers in September 2024 to launch the I-10 Consortium heavy-duty EV operations pilot, the “first-ever US over-the-road electrified corridor.” Terawatt is providing charging infrastructure, including software, operations, and maintenance support at six of its owned charging hubs along the I-10 corridor.


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Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build

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Trump admin halts  billion NY offshore wind project mid-build

In its most aggressive attack against offshore wind yet, the Trump administration halted the $5 billion Empire Wind 1, already under construction off New York’s coast.

Norwegian developer Equinor announced yesterday that it received notice from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) ordering Empire Wind 1 to halt all activities on the outer continental shelf until BOEM has completed its review. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum posted this tweet yesterday:

Burgum gave no indication of what insufficiencies there were in the approval process for the fully permitted offshore wind project, despite Trump’s recent declaration of a national energy emergency that speeds up permitting processes.

The commercial lease for the 810-megawatt (MW) Empire Wind 1’s federal offshore wind area was signed in March 2017 during the first Trump administration. It was approved by the Biden administration in November 2023 and began construction in 2024.

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The project is being developed under contract with the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). Empire Wind 1, which was due to come online in 2027, has the potential to power 500,000 New York homes.

“Halting construction of fully permitted energy projects is the literal opposite of an energy abundance agenda,” said American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet in a statement. “We encourage the administration to quickly address perceived inadequacies in the prior permit approvals so that this project can complete construction and bring much-needed power to the grid.”

As Electrek reported, Equinor secured $3 billion to finance Empire Wind 1 in January. The total amount drawn under the project finance term loan facility as of March 31 was around $1.5 billion. 

As of March 31, Empire Wind has a gross book value of around $2.5 billion, including South Brooklyn Marine Terminal (pictured above), which was expected to become the US’s largest dedicated port facility for offshore wind.

In response to BOEM’s stop work order, New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued the following statement:

Every single day, I’m working to make energy more affordable, reliable and abundant in New York and the federal government should be supporting those efforts rather than undermining them. Empire Wind 1 is already employing hundreds of New Yorkers, including 1,000 good-paying union jobs as part of a growing sector that has already spurred significant economic development and private investment throughout the state and beyond.

As Governor, I will not allow this federal overreach to stand. I will fight this every step of the way to protect union jobs, affordable energy and New York’s economic future.

Equinor says it’s considering appealing BOEM’s order.


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