online game slot OTTAWA — After being blanked 4-0 by host Canada the night before, Finland bounced back with a gritty 3-1 win over Germany during Friday's second day of competition at the World Junior Hockey Championship in Ottawa. Emil Pieniniemi, Arttu Alasiurua and Jesse Kiiskinen scored for Finland, which outshot the winless German crew 43-32. Clemens Sager scored for Germany, which lost 10-4 to the defending champion United States on Boxing Day. Finland led 1-0 after the first period and 2-1 heading into the third. Germany's goaltender Linus Vieillard stopped 40 of 42 shots directed at him, while Petteri Rimpinen stopped 31 of 32 shots for Finland. Both teams play their next games Sunday when Finland plays the U.S. and Germany faces Canada. Earlier on Friday, Slovakia bounced back from a 5-2 opening-day loss to Sweden to edge Switzerland 2-1. Jan Chovan's goal with 3:18 left in the third period snapped a 1-1 deadlock and lifted Slovakia to the victory. Daniel Jencko also scored for Slovakia. Eric Schneller scored for winless Switzerland, which lost 5-1 on Thursday to Czechia. Both teams had 29 shots on goal. Both teams play again Sunday when Slovakia faces Czechia and Switzerland plays Sweden. In later games Friday, Sweden will square off with Kazakhstan, while Canada will face Latvia. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 27, 2024. The Canadian PressNASSAU, Bahamas — Scottie Scheffler brought a new putting grip to the Hero World Challenge and felt enough improvement to be satisfied with the result, a 5-under 67 that left him three shots behind Cameron Young on Thursday. Young was playing for the first time since the BMW Championship more than three months ago and found great success on and around the greens of Albany Golf Club, chipping beautifully and holing four birdie putts from 15 feet or longer for his 64. He led by two shots over Justin Thomas in his first competition since his daughter was born a few weeks ago. Thomas ran off four straight birdies late in his round and was a fraction of an inch away with a fifth. The big surprise was Scheffler, the No. 1 player in golf who looked as good as he has all year in compiling eight victories, including an Olympic gold medal. His iron play has no equal. His putting at times has kept him from winning more or winning bigger. He decided to try to a "saw" putting grip from about 20 feet or closer — the putter rests between his right thumb and his fingers, with his left index finger pointed down the shaft. People are also reading... "I'm always looking for ways to improve," Scheffler said. Scheffler last year began working with renowned putting instructor Phil Kenyon, and he says Kenyon mentioned the alternative putting grip back then. "But it was really our first time working together and it's something that's different than what I've done in the past," Scheffler said. "This year I had thought about it from time to time, and it was something that we had just said let's table that for the end of the season, take a look at it. "Figured this is a good week to try stuff." He opened with a wedge to 2 feet and he missed a 7-foot birdie putt on the par-5 third. But he holed a birdie from about the same distance at the next par 5, No. 6, and holed a sliding 6-footer on the ninth to save par. His longest putt was his last hole, from 12 feet for a closing birdie. "I really enjoyed the way it felt," he said. "I felt like I'm seeing some improvements in my stroke." Young, regarded as the best active player without a PGA Tour victory, is treating this holiday tournament as the start of a new season. He worked on getting stronger and got back to the basics in his powerful golf swing. And on this day, he was dialed in with his short game. He only struggled to save par twice and kept piling up birdies in his bogey-free round on an ideal day in the Bahamas. "The wind wasn't blowing much so it was relatively stress-free," Young said. Patrick Cantlay, along with Scheffler playing for the first time since the Presidents Cup, also was at 67 with Ludvig Aberg, Akshay Bhatia and Sahith Theegala. Thomas also took this occasion to do a little experimenting against a 20-man field. He has using a 46-inch driver at home — a little more than an inch longer than his regular driver — in a bid to gain more speed. On a day with little wind, on a golf course with some room off the tee, he decided to put it in play. "Just with it being a little bit longer, I just kind of have to get the club out in front of me and get on top of it a little bit more," Thomas said. "I drove the hell out of it on the back, so that was nice to try something different and have it go a little bit better on the back." Thomas said the longer driver gives him 2 or 3 mph in ball speed and 10 extra yards in the air. "It's very specific for courses, but gave it a try," he said. Conditions were easy enough that only four players in field failed to break par, with Jason Day bringing up the rear with a 75. Be the first to know

It was no surprise when Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair was fined for his hit on Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence. It is a surprise that in the melee that followed, only one other player faced any league discipline. The NFL announced today that it has fined Jaguars tight end Evan Engram $11,255 for unnecessary roughness. Engram decked Al-Shaair after Al-Shaair hit Lawrence. But the lack of fines for anyone else is shocking. A huge melee broke out with players on both teams pushing and shoving, and Jaguars defensive back Jarrian Jones was ejected for throwing a punch. Yet no one except Engram was fined. Al-Shaair got a three-game suspension for the hit, a significant punishment for a significant foul. The lack of significant punishments for the rest of the players involved in the fight after the play is a confusing decision by the league’s disciplinary department.Stocks closed higher on Wall Street as the market posted its fifth straight gain and the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched another record high. The S&P 500 rose 0.3%. The benchmark index’s 1.7% gain for the week erased most of its loss from last week. The Dow rose 1% as it nudged past its most recent high set last week, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.2%. Markets have been volatile over the last few weeks, losing ground in the runup to elections in November, then surging following Donald Trump’s victory, before falling again. The S&P 500 has been steadily rising throughout this week to within close range of its record. It’s now within about 0.5% of its all-time high set last week. “Overall, market behavior has normalized following an intense few weeks,” said Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide, in a statement. Several retailers jumped after giving Wall Street encouraging financial updates. Gap soared 12.8% after handily beating analysts’ third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations, while raising its own revenue forecast for the year. Discount retailer Ross Stores rose 2.2% after raising its earnings forecast for the year. EchoStar fell 2.8% after DirecTV called off its purchase of that company’s Dish Network unit. Smaller company stocks had some of the biggest gains. The Russell 2000 index rose 1.8%. A majority of stocks in the S&P 500 gained ground, but those gains were kept in check by slumps for several big technology companies. Nvidia fell 3.2%. Its pricey valuation makes it among the heaviest influences on whether the broader market gains or loses ground. The company has grown into a nearly $3.6 trillion behemoth because of demand for its chips used in artificial-intelligence technology. Intuit, which makes TurboTax and other accounting software, fell 5.7%. It gave investors a quarterly earnings forecast that fell short of analysts’ expectations. Facebook owner Meta Platforms fell 0.7% following a decision by the Supreme Court to allow a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against the company. It stems from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm. All told, the S&P 500 rose 20.63 points to 5,969.34. The Dow climbed 426.16 points to 44,296.51, and the Nasdaq picked up 42.65 points to close at 2,406.67. European markets closed mostly higher and Asian markets ended mixed. Crude oil prices rose. Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.41% from 4.42% late Thursday. In the crypto market, bitcoin hovered around $99,000, according to CoinDesk. It has more than doubled this year and first surpassed the $99,000 level on Thursday. Retailers remained a big focus for investors this week amid close scrutiny on consumer spending habits headed into the holiday shopping season. Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, reported a quarter of strong sales and gave investors an encouraging financial forecast. Target, though, reported weaker earnings than analysts’ expected and its forecast disappointed Wall Street. Consumer spending has fueled economic growth, despite a persistent squeeze from inflation and high borrowing costs. Inflation has been easing and the Federal Reserve has started trimming its benchmark interest rates. That is likely to help relieve pressure on consumers, but any major shift in spending could prompt the Fed to reassess its path ahead on interest rates. Also, any big reversals on the rate of inflation could curtail spending. Consumer sentiment remains strong, according to the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index. It revised its latest figure for November to 71.8 from an initial reading of 73 earlier this month, though economists expected a slight increase. It’s still up from 70.5 in October. The survey also showed that consumers’ inflation expectations for the year ahead fell slightly to 2.6%, which is the lowest reading since December of 2020. Wall Street will get another update on how consumers feel when the business group The Conference Board releases its monthly consumer confidence survey on Tuesday. A key inflation update will come on Wednesday when the U.S. releases its October personal consumption expenditures index. The PCE is the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation and this will be the last PCE reading prior to the central bank’s meeting in December. Stocks closed higher on Wall Street as the market posted The owners of a Colorado funeral home who let nearly The Supreme Court on Friday stepped into a major legal Oil company Phillips 66 has been federally indicted in connection

BETHANY – Ronald E. Andrews, 82, of Bethany, passed away peacefully at home on Dec. 4, 2024, surrounded by the love of his family, after a valiant battle with pancreatic cancer. He was born Nov. 13, 1942, to the late Edward and Emma (Zimmer) Andrews. He was the beloved husband of Mary Anne Andrews and devoted father of Kevin, Joan and Mark Andrews. Ronald was a Vietnam era veteran, having served his country from 1961 to 1965 as a Navy corpsman. In March of 1965, he married the love of his life, Mary Anne Haas. He went on to work as a nuclear medicine technologist for many years. Ronald was involved in the establishment of the Society of Nuclear Medicine Technologists and was a past president of the Long Island chapter. Ronald and Mary Anne lived in Syosset, N.Y., for 20 years and raised their children there before moving to Bethany. Until this past June, Ronald stayed busy working at Macy’s/Bloomingdale’s distribution center in Cheshire two days a week. For the past 15 years he was an active member of the Waterbury Chorale and loved singing with them at their spring and Christmas concerts. Ronald was a lively man with a great sense of humor. He had many different hobbies ranging from making beer, wine, sourdough bread, and limoncello, to being an avid reader and genealogist. Ronald was able to date his family’s ancestry all the way back to the late 1500s. He was a big New York Yankees fan and watched many home games. He also had a love for traveling with Mary Anne and close friends, going on cruises to Europe, Alaska and the Caribbean, and family vacations to Montauk and the Catskills. Ronald leaves behind to cherish his memories, his wife Mary Anne of almost 60 years; his children Kevin Andrews and his spouse Rebecca Smith, Joan Andrews and her husband Paul Banelis, and Mark Andrews and his significant other Omaira Bernard; his grandchildren, Nicolas Andrews, Alexander Andrews, Oscar Andrews, and Maximilian Banelis; close friend and former daughter-in-law Maria Antonia Andrews, mother of Nicolas, Alexander and Oscar; numerous nieces and nephews; and his beloved cat Rocky. He was predeceased by his four brothers and one sister. Family and friends are invited to gather Dec. 12, 2024, from 4 to 7 p.m. at Prospect Memorial/The Palmerie Family Funeral Home, 122 Waterbury Road, Prospect, CT 06712. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated for Ronald Dec. 13, 2024, at noon at St. Anthony Church, 4 Union City Road, Prospect, CT 06712; all are welcome to meet the family at the funeral home that morning at 10:45 a.m. Inurnment will follow Mass at the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetery, 317 Bow Lane, Middletown, CT 06457, where military honors will be accorded. Prospect Memorial/The Palmerie Family Funeral Home is honored to care for and assist Ronald’s family, and invites you to share your words of comfort for them on his tribute wall at prospectmemorial.com.NASSAU, Bahamas — Scottie Scheffler brought a new putting grip to the Hero World Challenge and felt enough improvement to be satisfied with the result, a 5-under 67 that left him three shots behind Cameron Young on Thursday. Young was playing for the first time since the BMW Championship more than three months ago and found great success on and around the greens of Albany Golf Club, chipping beautifully and holing four birdie putts from 15 feet or longer for his 64. He led by two shots over Justin Thomas in his first competition since his daughter was born a few weeks ago. Thomas ran off four straight birdies late in his round and was a fraction of an inch away with a fifth. The big surprise was Scheffler, the No. 1 player in golf who looked as good as he has all year in compiling eight victories, including an Olympic gold medal. His iron play has no equal. His putting at times has kept him from winning more or winning bigger. He decided to try to a "saw" putting grip from about 20 feet or closer — the putter rests between his right thumb and his fingers, with his left index finger pointed down the shaft. "I'm always looking for ways to improve," Scheffler said. Scheffler last year began working with renowned putting instructor Phil Kenyon, and he says Kenyon mentioned the alternative putting grip back then. "But it was really our first time working together and it's something that's different than what I've done in the past," Scheffler said. "This year I had thought about it from time to time, and it was something that we had just said let's table that for the end of the season, take a look at it. "Figured this is a good week to try stuff." He opened with a wedge to 2 feet and he missed a 7-foot birdie putt on the par-5 third. But he holed a birdie from about the same distance at the next par 5, No. 6, and holed a sliding 6-footer on the ninth to save par. His longest putt was his last hole, from 12 feet for a closing birdie. "I really enjoyed the way it felt," he said. "I felt like I'm seeing some improvements in my stroke." Young, regarded as the best active player without a PGA Tour victory, is treating this holiday tournament as the start of a new season. He worked on getting stronger and got back to the basics in his powerful golf swing. And on this day, he was dialed in with his short game. He only struggled to save par twice and kept piling up birdies in his bogey-free round on an ideal day in the Bahamas. "The wind wasn't blowing much so it was relatively stress-free," Young said. Patrick Cantlay, along with Scheffler playing for the first time since the Presidents Cup, also was at 67 with Ludvig Aberg, Akshay Bhatia and Sahith Theegala. Thomas also took this occasion to do a little experimenting against a 20-man field. He has using a 46-inch driver at home — a little more than an inch longer than his regular driver — in a bid to gain more speed. On a day with little wind, on a golf course with some room off the tee, he decided to put it in play. "Just with it being a little bit longer, I just kind of have to get the club out in front of me and get on top of it a little bit more," Thomas said. "I drove the hell out of it on the back, so that was nice to try something different and have it go a little bit better on the back." Thomas said the longer driver gives him 2 or 3 mph in ball speed and 10 extra yards in the air. "It's very specific for courses, but gave it a try," he said. Conditions were easy enough that only four players in field failed to break par, with Jason Day bringing up the rear with a 75. Get local news delivered to your inbox!Judge delays Donald Trump's hush money sentencing indefinitely

NewPeak Metals Limited (ASX:NPM) Insider Buys A$41,903.34 in StockIt’s just about time to call it quits on 2024 and already the previous year feels like a blur. Before we set our sights on the future, though, let’s take a moment to take a glance back. Interprovincial Manhunt One of the most startling stories to hit our region last year began in the wee hours of a summer morning, bringing tragedy to Niverville’s doorstep. On June 5, residents awoke to news of a police confrontation in front of the Shell station on the west side of town. As the day unfolded, locals learned that one man was dead as a result of RCMP gunfire and two more suspected criminals had fled the scene in a stolen vehicle. David Frank Burling, 29, was arrested in rural Saskatchewan after a chase across two provinces that ended later in the day. The woman in his company was eventually released without charges. Burling and his deceased accomplice, Tristan Mariash, had a long history with the law. Both had received early release from prison months prior. In February 2023, Burling was charged with attempted murder, assaulting a police officer with a weapon, flight from police, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, possession of stolen property, and two counts of theft. After serving just 72 days of a two-and-a-half-year sentence, Burling was at it again. The manhunt began just after midnight in Winnipeg. Working together, the Winnipeg Police Service and RCMP tracked the trio’s stolen F-350 with the aid of a police helicopter, leading them to Providence University College in Otterburne. One Otterburne resident recalled waking up to the sound of gunshots near his home on campus. Proof of the altercation could be seen in the form of a police cruiser on the side of the highway. It contained 14 bullet holes. The manhunt continued to Niverville, where the criminals were spotted attempting to steal a different vehicle parked at the Shell station. Some residents reported being awoken around 3:00 a.m. to the sound of a woman’s screams. Burling and his female companion successfully fled the scene, but Mariash died when attempts by Niverville EMS to resuscitate him failed. Stormy Rollout of Plan20-50 Perhaps the most tumultuous story came later in the summer, due to a high tide of public criticism over the Winnipeg Metro Region’s (WMR) proposed Plan20-50, a 127-page document intended to operate as a 30-year guide to regional planning for the 18 municipalities making up the capital region, including Niverville and the RM of Ritchot. Events came to a head on August 8 when a public hearing held by the WMR at the Niverville Heritage Centre was met with hundreds of disgruntled attendees. Many were turned away due to a lack of seating. RCMP were on site to maintain order. That August public hearing had to be cancelled. To date, no new hearing has been set and the future of the plan is highly uncertain. For many attending the meeting that day, Plan20-50 is anything but innocuous. Many believe it represents a threat to the freedom of movement Manitobans currently enjoy. Terms such as “15-minute city,” “density targets,” and “global agenda” cropped up in conversation and social media for weeks. One Niverville public council meeting required an RCMP presence. Some Plan20-50 objectors were escorted out when they demanded their voice be heard in a session unrelated to plan. In the coming weeks, several councils expressed disenchantment with Plan20-50 and the WMR’s approach, among them the Town of Niverville and Ritchot mayor Chris Ewen. “This letter is not to express my position either for or against the plan itself, but to indicate my concern about the misinformation and the lack of clarification allowed from the WMR board members,” Ewen said in his public statement. In part, he referred to a letter from the WMR which requested that board members not communicate about Plan20-50 with their constituents during the public hearing process. Around the same time, a statement from Niverville’s council conveyed a list of specific concerns, including Niverville’s forced inclusion on the WMR board. Mandated participation from the 18 RMs had been made official in March 2023. Late in the summer, Premier Wab Kinew stated his intent to provide an opt-out option for municipalities. Tumult in Education The year also brought turmoil to local two school divisions. The Seine River School Division (SRSD) was assigned a provincial investigator in January to conduct a deep dive into the division’s troubled finances. This was in response to the revelation of a $3.1 million deficit reported by the division late in 2023. It was estimated that the deficit would grow to $5.3 million without some deep budget cuts. The coming weeks required hard work from the SRSD trustee board in terms of cutbacks and tax hikes. The board also faced the prospect of losing a number of teachers who were considering a move at the end of the school year. If that weren’t enough, a 15-day strike of custodial workers followed in February, which ended with the trustee board agreeing to a wage increase. By May, superintendent/CEO Ryan Anderson called it quits. He was replaced by Hanover School Division’s (HSD) Colin Campbell later that summer. HSD itself underwent a staffing shake-up this past year, with superintendent/CEO Shelley Amos giving notice early in 2024. The role was assumed by Joe Thiessen, a 28-year HSD veteran. And when Campbell left shortly after, he was replaced by Marlin Adrian. Other big administrative changes came to the Niverville High School when Principal Kimberley Funk gave her notice. Funk had been instrumental in opening the school in 2019 and played a significant role in the implementation of a project-based program. Funk was replaced by Paul Grosskopf, new to HSD after years serving as vice principal and instructional coach at École St. Adolphe. As in the case of the SRSD, the province deemed it necessary to appoint an advisor to the HSD trustee board last year, too. This was the result of accusations of discrimination by a group calling themselves the Hanover Parent Alliance for Diversity (HPAD). This was the second time in seven years that the HSD board faced such allegations. In both cases, the concerns revolved around the division’s lack of inclusivity for members of the LGBTQ community. HPAD alleged that the board was attempting to vet teachers who identified with or were sympathetic to the LGBTQ community, a role which traditionally does not fall into the trustees’ wheelhouse. Late last year, HSD announced staffing cuts for 93 educational assistants (EA) due to a lack of government follow-through on funding promised through Jordan’s Principle grants. “In early summer, the regional office for Indigenous Services Canada informed us that, based upon our renewal application for Jordan’s Principle funding, we could proceed with hiring staff for the start of the new school year,” superintendent-CEO Joe Thiessen said. “With this information, we proceeded in good faith that funding was secured. However, over the past few months, responsibility for administering the funding shifted to the federal office of Indigenous Services Canada. This change was introduced without our knowledge and now requires us to reapply for funding, which we intend to do.” In the meantime, a good number of HSD’s Indigenous students currently lack the EA supports they’ve become accustomed to in recent years. Infrastructure Starts and Stops Both Ritchot and Niverville saw some significant infrastructure improvements this year. After years of waiting on the province, residents of Île-des-Chênes are finally driving along a rebuilt Main Street, although construction wasn’t without its issues. It didn’t take some residents long to criticize the seemingly narrow lanes being created with the development of bump-outs, or parking bubbles, along the street. Following conversations between the construction company, the RM’s public works department, and an engineering team, it was concluded that wider lanes would be preferable. The already installed concrete curbing was removed and rebuilt, widening the lane from 10 feet, 8 inches to a full 12 feet. Meanwhile, tendering for St. Adolphe’s Main Street rebuild is scheduled to begin in spring 2025. Ste. Agathe residents are also adjusting to new traffic flows thanks to the restoration of the Louis Riel Bridge. In its entirety, construction is expected to last well into 2026. This project, estimated at $48.6 million, will involve a major reconstruction of the structure’s foundation to bring it up to current federal standards. The deck and railings will be replaced, creating wider lanes and shoulders. The sidewalk will be separated from traffic by concrete barriers. The Louis Riel Bridge was first built in 1959, replacing a ferry system that had transported vehicles across the Red River. It has since served as a vital east-west link, connecting traffic from the east side of the river to Highway 75. Another significant infrastructure undertaking this year resulted in a large-scale refurbishment of the RM’s civic office building and grounds. The building is now twice as large and includes new council chambers, a brightly lit reception area, and new office spaces. A ribbon-cutting ceremony took place on October 16. However, another Ritchot project never made it off the ground. This was Legacy Park in Île-des-Chênes. For more than a decade, council had been working with a planning committee to establish the details of a 40-acre park to be built on land leased from TC Energy. In July, a statement from the RM revealed that TC Energy had had a change of heart. “Our plan was to use this land to develop a much-needed park space in the community,” the RM said. “Unfortunately, and to our disappointment, TC Energy has stated that they are unable to donate this parcel of land at this time but will work with the municipality to identify other areas they may be able to support the community.” One month later, a residential development was temporarily put on hold in St. Adolphe. The housing project at 420 Main Street was nearly ready to get underway when newly placed lot boundary markers uncovered an unexpected problem. On the development side of the markers lay a grave marked by a headstone with the name Marie-Thérèse Leclerc. Leclerc was seven years old at the time of her death and had been laid to rest here, next to the parish cemetery, more than a century earlier. The story took on a surprising twist when parishioners and longtime St. Adolphe residents began to speak up with knowledge of other historical graves on the site. It turned out that grave makers for many children once buried here had been washed away during the 1950 flood. All that had been left to memorialize them was a granite cairn, erected at the southeast corner of the parish property. On that cairn is etched the names of dozens of deceased who are listed in the parish’s records. In late September, the province sent in an excavation team to determine the degree to which these graves would be disturbed by the residential development. Later that same week, construction was finally able to get going. Water Hookups and Land Annexations In March, Niverville’s council was taken by surprise when hundreds of residents showed up to an informational open house on the topic of an opportunity for them to hook up to the town’s water system. At present, there are still about 700 households using private wells in Niverville. The goal of council that night was to glean public interest in municipal water treatment plant hookup if a significant grant could be obtained to help mitigate homeowner costs. Passions ran high for many who attended the meeting, worried they were being pushed into a very expensive hookup for a service they didn’t want. In the end, the mayor and council answered questions as best they could and provided a survey for well owners to fill out. Without an 80 percent buy-in, they said they would not proceed with water treatment plant mainlines through the older sections of Niverville. A few weeks later, the results were in. Based on responses from 51 percent of affected homeowners, the answer was a resounding no. Niverville was on the receiving end of another no late in the year. In November, the province officially declined council’s request for a 2,600-acre land annexation. The land in question runs to Niverville’s east, from the community’s current boundary all the way to Highway 59. If approved, it would have more than doubled Niverville’s current footprint and provided an answer to how the community can continue to grow over the next 50 years. For now, Mayor Myron Dyck says, the plan has gone back to the drawing board. Council first applied to the province for this annexation two years ago in response to a sustainable growth strategy report prepared for them by Urban Systems. According to that report, based on Niverville’s current rate of growth, the community would run out of developable residential land in the next 15 to 20 years. “Although 20 years may seem like a long time, it is important to plan proactively for the future to ensure sustainable growth for Niverville,” stated a 2022 council press release. “Transferring lands now will ensure that [the parcels] do not become fragmented or developed with incompatible uses, and more difficult to transfer or develop in the future.”

No. 5 UCLA snaps No. 1 South Carolina's 43-game win streak

2024 was another banner year for a source of electricity that is better for people’s lungs, better for climate change and may be reaching your home when you turn on the lights or turn up the thermostat — large banks of batteries. This ability to store large amounts of electricity in batteries was essentially nonexistent a decade ago, but the country had about 24 gigawatt-hours operating as of the end of November, up a whopping 71% over the same date in 2023. This is welcome news to clean energy advocates including Dariella Rodriguez. She has seen what happens on days when demand for air conditioning or heating spikes and extra power plants fueled by natural gas, located in Port Morris and Mott Haven, fire up not far from where she works in Hunts Point in the South Bronx, New York. Batteries can jolt into service, sending electricity onto overhead wires, instead of these dirty “peaker” plants. Rodriguez hasn’t seen that transition yet, but she hopes to. “The people that are exposed to these plants are the most vulnerable people in environmental justice communities already,” said Rodriguez, a director at THE POINT Community Development Corporation there, noting that lower-income people and communities of color often live near peakers. The nation’s 1,000 peaker plants can be very dirty, inefficient and expensive, according to an analysis by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a watchdog group that works for the U.S. Congress. Some 63 million people are estimated to live within a three-mile radius of one. Although peakers run only a small part of the time, they release more harmful nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide per unit of energy, the agency said. Those two pollutants cause asthma and other breathing problems. Peakers also release more greenhouse gases than other power plants do per unit of electricity. Batteries are “a really obvious solution” to reducing need for peakers, says Daniel Chu, senior energy planner for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance. Storing extra power in batteries also extends the hours of the day that you can use clean energy. “It’s not always sunny, the wind’s not always blowing, but energy storage can help move that generation to when it’s most needed,” said Tim Fox, managing director at research firm ClearView Energy Partners. That’s why at least half of battery storage facilities in the U.S. are co-located with, or in some other way support solar, an AP analysis of Energy Information Administration data shows. The amount of solar energy in the U.S. is growing and surpassed the 100-gigawatt mark this year. Another way that the addition of these batteries is helpful to the American electrical grid and grids around the world is that forecasting is getting more difficult. “With weather patterns changing, the old ways of essentially figuring out how much capacity you need on the grid for extreme events just doesn’t work,” said Oliver Garnett, director of energy services product at the technology company Fermata Energy. Last, global electricity demand is slated to increase — by about one-third to three-quarters by 2050, according to the Energy Information Administration . Data centers for artificial intelligence, switching vehicles to electricity and population growth are all contributing. “‘Do we have enough power plants?’ is the classic question every utility asks every year,” said Mike Jacobs, senior energy analyst at the science nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “The beauty of the batteries is that if there’s energy in them, they can be used for unexpected needs.” Otherwise, if utilities have to find more power generation, they may keep investing in plants that burn gas or coal and account for one-quarter of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions , instead of retiring them. Leading the charge for adding new batteries to the grid this year was California with more than 11 gigawatt-hours operating. One way to think about this is roughly the amount of electricity that a nuclear power plant would put out over 11 hours. Then the batteries would need to be recharged to do the same thing again. It’s a limited, but meaningful amount of power. In Texas, 6 gigawatt-hours were online. Arizona saw nearly 2 gigawatt-hours humming and Nevada — the fourth-largest deployer of storage in the U.S. — had 1.1 gigawatt-hours operational. Yet many states aren’t using storage yet. As of November, 86% of large-scale battery storage in the U.S. was operating in just those four states. Some states haven’t set targets telling utilities to go out and build or buy energy storage on their own. Only 18 states have 50 megawatt-hours or more operating. Others don’t have as much clean electricity to pair with the batteries, or claim storage isn’t reliable in times of crisis. It can also be challenging to connect storage to the grid. Still, experts expect more momentum. Especially in California and Texas, “That investment and that experiment is paying off very well,” said John Hensley, senior vice president of markets and policy analysis at American Clean Power. “The word is getting out,” he said. “We’re increasingly seeing the technology move to other parts of the country.”

Yes, it's illegal to take pictures of a movie at the theatersNone