Connect with us

Published

1 year ago

on

Today is the first day of Amazon’s Big Spring Sale event, with today’s green deals all seeing new and returning low prices as a result. Headlining the best discounts today is the Hiboy EX6 Step-Thru Fat-Tire e-bike at a new $800 low. It is joined by the Greenworks Pro 80V 580 CFM Cordless Electric Axial Leaf Blower also falling to a new $306 low, as well as Jackery’s Explorer 500 Portable Power Station returning to its $349 low. Plus, all of the other best new Green Deals landing this week.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Hiboy’s EX6 Step-Thru Fat-Tire e-bike hits new $800 low

As part of its Big Spring Sale event, Amazon is taking up to 49% off a selection of Hiboy e-bikes and e-scooters. A notable offer amongst the bunch is the EX6 Step-Thru Fat-Tire e-bike for $799.99 shipped. Down from a $1,580 price tag, this bike saw few discounts during 2023 outside of holiday sales like Black Friday where it first fell to the former $900 all-time low. Today it comes in as a 49% markdown off the going rate, beating our previous mention by $100 and marking a new all-time low.

The EX6 Step-Thru e-bike comes equipped with a 500W Brushless Geared Motor alongside a removable 48V waterproof battery to reach top speeds of 25 MPH for up to 75 miles on a single six to seven-hour charge. Sporting an ergonomic riding design, it features 20-inch all-terrain fat-tires in conjunction with a hydraulic suspension fork for a smooth ride wherever you go. It also has an integrated rear cargo rack, fenders over both wheels, dual disc brakes, an LCD display, a bright headlight, a 7-speed Shimano drivetrain, and three riding modes.

More Hiboy EV discounts:

Greenworks Pro 80V 580 CFM Cordless Electric Axial Leaf Blower with two batteries at new $306 low

As part of its Big Spring Sale event, Amazon is taking up to 45% off a selection of Greenworks mowers, blowers, trimmers, pressure washers, and more. A notable standout amongst the bunch is the Pro 80V 580 CFM Cordless Electric Axial Leaf Blower for $306.14 shipped. Down from $408, this model has seen much in terms of discounts since 2024 began, with today’s sale being the first deal of the new year. It comes in as a 25% markdown off the going rate and lands as a new all-time low.

Equipped with a brushless motor that is standard in all Greenworks power products, this axial blower can reach airflow speeds of 145 MPH at 580 CFM, with its variable speed trigger ensuring better handling and a turbo mode for maximum output power. It comes with two batteries, a 2.5Ah and a 2.0Ah that are interchangeable with any of the power products within the Greenworks family, and provides this blower up to 30+ minutes of continuous runtime on a single charge – using both batteries in succession. Also includes a charger to complete the package.

Greenworks lawn and garden care discounts:

Greenworks bundle discounts:

More pellet grills and smokers seeing discounts:

Jackery Explorer 500 Portable Power Station returns to $349 low

As part of its Big Spring Sale event, Amazon is taking up to 41% off a selection of Jackery power stations, bundles, and solar panels. A notable deal amongst the bunch is the Explorer 500 Portable Power Station for $349 shipped. Down from its $530 price tag, this power station saw various discounts over 2023, with the vast majority of them falling to the same $400 low and a select few falling $51 lower during winter holiday sales. Since the start of 2024, we’ve already seen two major backup sales that brought the price down to the same $359 rate. Today’s deal comes in as a combined 34% markdown off the going rate, beating out both of our previous mentions by $10 and returning the price down to the all-time low that matches the winter holiday sales.

The Explorer 500 offers a 518Wh capacity that can provide a 1,000W max power output. It is able to fully charge from 0 to 100% in up to 7.5 hours via a wall outlet or car port and in up to 9.5 hours by using a SolarSaga 100W solar panel (when bundled or purchased separately). It provides seven ports to cover your device’s charging needs: three USB-As, two DCs, one AC, and one car port. You’ll also be able to sync your smartphone with the power station in order to monitor and adjust settings in real-time via the app, allowing you to see remaining battery levels, customize settings and manage power consumption wherever you roam.

More Jackery power station discounts:

Jackery bundle discounts:

Spring e-bike deals!

Man carrying River 2 Pro portable power station

Other new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Environment

Trump wants coal to power AI data centers. The tech industry may need to make peace with that for now

Published

4 hours ago

on

May 17, 2025

By

Trump wants coal to power AI data centers. The tech industry may need to make peace with that for now

Energy Sec. Wright: Trump's duties provide 'no tariffs on energy'

President Donald Trump wants to revive the struggling coal industry in the U.S. by deploying plants to power the data centers that the Big Tech companies are building to train artificial intelligence.

Trump issued an executive order in April that directed his Cabinet to find areas of the U.S. where coal-powered infrastructure is available to support AI data centers and determine whether the infrastructure can be expanded to meet the growing electricity demand from the nation’s tech sector.

Trump has repeatedly promoted coal as power source for data centers. The president told the World Economic Forum in January that he would approve power plants for AI through emergency declaration, calling on the tech companies to use coal as a backup power source.

“They can fuel it with anything they want, and they may have coal as a backup — good, clean coal,” the president said.

Trump’s push to deploy coal runs afoul of the tech companies’ environmental goals. In the short-term, the industry’s power needs may inadvertently be extending the life of existing coal plants.

Coal produces more carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt hour of power than any other energy source in the U.S. with the exception of oil, according to the Energy Information Administration. The tech industry has invested billions of dollars to expand renewable energy and is increasingly turning to nuclear power as a way to meet its growing electricity demand while trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that fuel climate change.

For coal miners, Trump’s push is a potential lifeline. The industry has been in decline as coal plants are being retired in the U.S. About 16% of U.S. electricity generation came from burning coal in 2023, down from 51% in 2001, according to EIA data.

Peabody Energy CEO James Grech, who attended Trump’s executive order ceremony at the White House, said “coal plants can shoulder a heavier load of meeting U.S. generation demands, including multiple years of data center growth.” Peabody is one of the largest coal producers in the U.S.

Grech said coal plants should ramp up how much power they dispatch. The nation’s coal fleet is dispatching about 42% of its maximum capacity right now, compared to a historical average of 72%, the CEO told analysts on the company’s May 6 earnings call.

“We believe that all coal-powered generators need to defer U.S. coal plant retirements as the situation on the ground has clearly changed,” Grech said. “We believe generators should un-retire coal plants that have recently been mothballed.”

Tech sector reaction

There is a growing acknowledgment within the tech industry that fossil fuel generation will be needed to help meet the electricity demand from AI. But the focus is on natural gas, which emits less half the CO2 of coal per kilowatt hour of power, according the the EIA.

“To have the energy we need for the grid, it’s going to take an all of the above approach for a period of time,” Kevin Miller, Amazon’s vice president of global data centers, said during a panel discussion at conference of tech and oil and gas executives in Oklahoma City last month.

“We’re not surprised by the fact that we’re going to need to add some thermal generation to meet the needs in the short term,” Miller said.

Thermal generation is a code word for gas, said Nat Sahlstrom, chief energy officer at Tract, a Denver-based company that secures land, infrastructure and power resources for data centers. Sahlstrom previously led Amazon’s energy, water and sustainability teams.

Executives at Amazon, Nvidia and Anthropic would not commit to using coal, mostly dodging the question when asked during the panel at the Oklahoma City conference.

“It’s never a simple answer,” Amazon’s Miller said. “It is a combination of where’s the energy available, what are other alternatives.”

Nvidia is able to be agnostic about what type of power is used because of the position the chipmaker occupies on the AI value chain, said Josh Parker, the company’s senior director of corporate sustainability. “Thankfully, we leave most of those decisions up to our customers.”

Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said there are a broader set of options available than just coal. “We would certainly consider it but I don’t know if I’d say it’s at the top of our list.”

Sahlstrom said Trump’s executive order seems like a “dog whistle” to coal mining constituents. There is a big difference between looking at existing infrastructure and “actually building new power plants that are cost competitive and are going to be existing 30 to 40 years from now,” the Tract executive said.

Coal is being displaced by renewables, natural gas and existing nuclear as coal plants face increasingly difficult economics, Sahlstrom said. “Coal has kind of found itself without a job,” he said.

“I do not see the hyperscale community going out and signing long term commitments for new coal plants,” the former Amazon executive said. (The tech companies ramping up AI are frequently referred to as “hyperscalers.”)

“I would be shocked if I saw something like that happen,” Sahlstrom said.

Coal retirements strain grid

But coal plant retirements are creating a real challenge for the grid as electricity demand is increasing due to data centers, re-industrialization and the broader electrification of the economy.

The largest grid in the nation, the PJM Interconnection, has forecast electricity demand could surge 40% by 2039. PJM warned in 2023 that 40 gigawatts of existing power generation, mostly coal, is at risk of retirement by 2030, which represents about 21% of PJM’s installed capacity.

Data centers will temporarily prolong coal demand as utilities scramble to maintain grid reliability, delaying their decarbonization goals, according to a Moody’s report from last October. Utilities have already postponed the retirement of coal plants totaling about 39 gigawatts of power, according to data from the National Mining Association.

“If we want to grow America’s electricity production meaningfully over the next five or ten years, we [have] got to stop closing coal plants,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s “Money Movers” last month.

But natural gas and renewables are the future, Sahlstrom said. Some 60% of the power sector’s emissions reductions over the past 20 years are due to gas displacing coal, with the remainder coming from renewables, Sahlstrom said.

“That’s a pretty powerful combination, and it’s hard for me to see people going backwards by putting more coal into the mix, particularly if you’re a hyperscale customer who has net-zero carbon goals,” he said.

Catch up on the latest energy news from CNBC Pro:

Continue Reading

Environment

Bollinger Motors circles the drain as court cases, debts pull it down

Published

5 hours ago

on

May 17, 2025

By

Bollinger Motors circles the drain as court cases, debts pull it down

Bollinger Motors was placed into receivership and could soon face liquidation.

A federal court judge in Michigan has placed the once-promising electric truck brand Bollinger Motors’ assets into receivership following claims that the company’s owners still owe its founder, Robert Bollinger, more than $10 million.

Bollinger Motors first came to fame in the “draw a truck, get a billion dollars” stage of the EV revolution that saw Nikola rise to a higher market cap than Ford for a brief time. Robert Bollinger wasn’t able to capitalize quickly enough to get his trucks into production, though – and a late stage pivot to sell the brand to Mullen Automotive and launch a medium-duty commercial truck doesn’t appear to have been enough to save it.

Now, Automotive News is reporting on some of the more convoluted details of the Mullen purchase deal, with Robert (for ease of distinguishing the man from the brand) claiming that Mullen Automotive owes him more than $10 million for a loan he made to the company in 2024.

Just how Robert ended up giving Mullen Automotive $10 million to take his eponymous truck brand off his hands is probably one of those capitalistic mysteries that I’ll never understand, but Mullen’s response was perfectly clear: they didn’t even bother to show up to court.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Bollinger claims that at least two suppliers are also suing Mullen for unpaid debts. As such, the Honorable Terrence G. Berg has put the Bollinger brand into receivership, and its assets have been frozen in preparation for everything being liquidated. Worse, for Bollinger, the official court filings reveal a company that is really very much doing not awesome:

The testimony and evidence—which Defendant’s counsel conceded accurately reflected Defendant’s finances—showed that Defendant is in crisis. For months Defendant has owed more than twenty million dollars to suppliers, contractors, service providers, and owners of physical space. These debts are owed to parties who are critical for Defendant’s functioning. CEO Bryan Chambers testified that Defendant was locked out of its production facilities on May 5, 2025, and that the owner of the production facilities was seeking to permanently evict Defendant. The Court heard that Defendant had been prevented from accessing its critical manufacturing accounting system for a short time at the end of April 2025, before making a partial payment to restart services.

US DISTRICT COURT EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

I’m not sure if you caught all that, but Bollinger’s CEO has been locked out the company’s facilities and getting evicted, the company is more than $20 million in debt, and that debt is owed to people Bollinger absolutely needs in order to keep going.

You can read the full court decision, which I’ve embedded here, below. Once you’ve taken it all in, feel free to rush into the comments to say you told me so, since I really thought hoped the Bollinger B1 had a shot. Silly me.

Bollinger v. Bollinger case

SOURCES: Automotive News, Justia, Yahoo!.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Environment

This vast 1.3 GW Indiana solar farm will power 200,000 homes

Published

19 hours ago

on

May 16, 2025

By

This vast 1.3 GW Indiana solar farm will power 200,000 homes

Indiana solar farm
Photo: Bechtel

Mammoth Solar, a 1.3 gigawatt (GW) solar farm in northern Indiana, is now powering into its biggest construction phase yet, cementing its place as one of the largest solar projects in the US.

The solar farm is set to increase Indiana’s solar capacity by more than 20% once it’s fully online. And with construction ramping up this month, developer Doral Renewables has given Bechtel Full Notice to Proceed on the design, engineering, and construction of three major phases of the project: Mammoth South, Mammoth Central I, and Mammoth Central II. Together, these phases will generate 900 MW of clean energy.

That’s enough electricity to power around 200,000 homes with clean energy, helping Indiana shift away from fossil fuels while boosting the local economy.

Construction is already underway, and over the next two years, Bechtel will install around 2 million solar panels, with about half of them made in the US. The company is also handling all engineering, procurement, and construction work, using its digital project management tools and autonomous tech to keep everything on track.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

At the peak of the buildout, Mammoth Solar is expected to create over 1,200 jobs, with at least 15% of those set aside for apprenticeships.

Bechtel says its success will hinge on strong collaboration with local trades and vendors. The company is working closely with craft professionals and is committed to being a reliable community partner throughout construction.

Once the solar farm is complete in 2027, Doral Renewables plans to roll out agrivoltaics across the site. That means livestock grazing and crop cultivation will happen right alongside energy production, giving farmers in the area a way to keep working their land while supporting clean energy development.

Read more: Solar adds more new capacity to the US grid in 2024 than any energy source in 20 years

If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –trusted affiliate link*

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Trending