At least not reliably. What is going on?
I can see new messages in other IMAP clients, such as K9 Mail. But Thunderbird shows no new messages, despite F5 or Shift+F5.

TB never behaved this way before (102). New messages were automatically fetched.

Going offline by clicking the icon in the lower left makes TB prompt if we first want to download all messages; the blue list in the status bar keeps pulsing forever, but no new messages are fetched.

Restarted into "troubleshoot mode" - now it works. Ok, so could it be a problem with one of my extensions?

Seems not - I restarted Thunderbird with all extensions disabled, and it still will not fetch any messages from any email account. I have no time for this. I am reverting to v102 from my profile backup (always good to have a backup of your profile!).

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1425745
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1425572

Sverige

• In Skåramåla (Småland) eight wind turbines combined with 65k PV panels make up the largest "hybrid" renewable power plant in Sweden. In operation since 2024. Expected annual production from wind is 125 GWh, and from solar PV 2 GWh. 1, 2, 3
• In Tomteboda, Stockholm's largest PV roof-mounted plant, produces 400 MWh per year (1465 PV panels covering an area of 4000 m²). Co-owned by Areim and Blackstone and operated by Obligo Real Estate. (2021)
• The largest solar power plant in Sweden is built by a home-owner's co-op (HSB Södermanland) in cooperation with the energy company Energiengagemang. 41600 PV panels with a total power of 14 MW.
• In Morgongåva (40 km west of Uppsala) the logistics center of online pharmacy Apotea features Sweden's largest roof-mounted PV array with a capacity of 2.3 MW, enough to supply the building's entire annual electricity demand. Built by Solkompaniet. SVT.
• The ports of Stockholm and the port of Södertälje together have almost 4 GW of solar PV panels, and have plans for more.

Misr

• Benban solar park in southern Egypt is one of the world's largest PV plants, covers an area of 37 km² and has a power generation capacity of 1.65 GW (given the site's insolation expected to yield 3.8 TWh per year).
• In Kom Ombo, Egypt's largest privately-owned solar PV plant is expected to start commercial operation in January 2024. ACWA Power (Saudi Arabia) owns and operates the 200 MW utility-scale plant.

Europe

• Uniper (the recently nationalised German energy company) plans two PV plants near existing industrial sites in Wilhelmshaven (300 MW + 17 MW).
• Belgium's first floating PV plant. On a man-made lake on a site owned by Sibelco, a raw material producer.
• Spanish energy company Iberdrola commissioned a 500 MW solar PV park at Núñez de Balboa in the western Spanish region of Extremadura. At the time Europe's largest PV plant, as seen by NASA's Earth Observatory. The project cost €300 million and is made of 1.43 million PV panels. Via @S_Johan_Lindahl.

Asia

• I cannot find any updates on the status of the 1.1 GW Al-Henakiyah PV power plant that is supposed to go online in 2025 (or 2026 according to Masdar, which has a nice PDF summary of the project). NS Energy, Masdar
• Announcement of a large planned solar PV plant in Garadagh, Azerbaijan expected to produce 500 GWh annually. To be built by Masdar and it is co-funded by Abu Dhabi Fund for Development, the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and Japan International Cooperation Agency. NS Energy
• Oman seems to be on a roll. Their governmental energy company Hydrom (recently created to spearhead their green energy transition) is planning a massive green hydrogen project with a capacity to produce 750 kiloton/year (if I understand correctly). 1, 2.
• In Qinghai province, China, a 2.2 GW solar PV plant was connected to the grid in 2020 (at the time the world's largest solar plant).

Africa

• A large hybrid PV and battery plant has commenced operation in South Africa. The billion-dollar facility is owned by Norwegian Scatec ASA and South African investment company H1 Holdings (51% and 49%, respectively). The plant will supply the state-owned utility Eskom 150 MW of dispatchable power for 16.5 hours per day year-round. The facility comprises 540 MW PV and 1140 MWh battery storage. PV Magazine

Americas

• In the five first months of 2023 the United States power sector saw more electricity generation from wind and solar (combined) than from coal for the first time ever. Many other countries have already passed this particular milestone (or phased out coal entirely), so welcome to the club, yankees, and keep it up.

Oceania

• In southern Australia, a 4 MW concentrating PV plant combined with 50 MWh thermal storage for almost round-the-clock power generation is now in operation. The Carwarp power plant is run by RayGen. The site uses triple-junction GaAs solar modules with almost 38% efficiency paired with water-based thermal energy storage. Each tower (there is four of them) has just over 4 m² of photoactive area producing 1 MW of electricity and 2 MW of heat (ΔT=90℃).
• 10 GW of solar power in Australia for Singapore.
• The largest PV plant in New Zealand sits atop a wastewater pond.
• The Nauru Solar Power Development Project - Battery Energy Storage System is a 6 MW solar plant and a 2.5 MWh battery storage system that will increase the share of renewable electricity in Nauru from 3% to 47% (like many other Pacific islands, Nauru relies almost entirely on diesel generators for power), which is expected to fully cover the island nation's current daytime electricity needs.

In related news

• A look at the major floating solar energy farms across the world, NS Energy Business magazine (2019).
• https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150232/solar-takes-a-swim

• An overview of redox flow battery manufacturers, video by "Just Have a Think", Youtube (2023).

On the political arena, the Egyptian government has established a "National Council for Green Hydrogen and its Derivatives", chaired by the prime minister and counting among its members: the minister of electricity and renewable energy, the minister of petroleum and mineral resources, the minister of justice, the minister of planning and economic development, the minister of finance, the minister of environment, the minister of housing, the minister of utilities and urban communities, the minister of transportation, the minister of trade and industry, the minister of irrigation, the minister of state for military production, the chairman of the Suez canal authority, the chairman of the general authority for the Suez canal economic zone, the first assistant to the prime minister, the CEO of the general authority for investment and free zones, and the executive director of Egypt's Sovereign Fund.

I must admit I wonder what the point is forming a special council if it includes what appears to be most of the government. No word on permanent members from industry or academia.

On the council's first meeting an executive committee was formed (unclear who its members are) and tasked with speeding up the approval process for green hydrogen projects and to entice companies to invest in such projects, using investment incentives such as 33%–55% less tax, and exempting most equipment and supplies from VAT tax, an exemption from real estate tax on buildings, and waived fees for registering the companies in Egypt.

To date, the government has signed memoranda of understanding (MoU) with among others ACWA Power (Saudi Arabia), Benchmark Alliance (?), China Energy company, the national holding company for chemical industries (the Egyptian one, I assume), DAI global company (Germany), OCIOR Energy company (India), Voltalia-TAQA alliance (sounds Italian?), and British Petroleum.
The stated ambition of the government is to produce green hydrogen at 1.7 USD/kg by 2050 and to capture 8% of the global market. The government expects that total foreign investment into green hydrogen projects to reach 81 billion USD by 2035.

The national strategy for green hydrogen is yet to be published, as far as I can tell.

Utforska den biologiska mångfalden!
Här samlar och presenterar vi vår och andras kunskap om djur och natur. Vi arbetar på att beskriva de cirka 60 000 arterna som finns i Norden och Baltikum.

Presentationen på denna sajt är dock ganska torr. Många sidor saknar beskrivning. Länkar för all del till Wikipedia och andra sajter.

En mycket mer visuell presentation av "livets träd" är den på OneZoom.

En annan (sidindelad som Naturforskaren men med mer visuella element) är Tree of Life web project.

• The UK has designated a project to build a 3800 km undersea cable from Morocco as having "national significance". The project is owned by Xlinks. (2023-10-01)
• The government of Egypt is set on building a subsea cable to Greece to sell solar and wind power to Europe. The GREGY interconnector would be 1400 km long and able to transmit 3000 MW. I wonder if power transmission would be strictly uni-directional or if it is meant to also allow power export to Egypt? (2023-09-30)

Feels like I keep hearing about new FOSS tools and services interfacing with Mastodon every day.
I need some place to keep track of them.

• https://github.com/toelke/mastodon2rss - Serve your mastodon home feed to RSS (including boosts!)
• https://rstockm.github.io/mastothread - split your long text into bitesize posts. Via @vicgrinberg.
• https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-find-accounts-to-follow-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse-how-do-i-find-my-friends
• https://streetpass.social a browser extension that helps you find Mastodon users as you browse
• https://github.com/nathanlesage/academics-on-mastodon - a collection of various lists of academics on Mastodon servers.