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An update on EnergyNet
I caught up with Jonas Birgersson and got an update on the latest with Project Energy Society and EnergyNet.
EnergyNet is the idea of internetifying the power grid. In other words, building a new grid on the same logic as the internet, with many small networks connected into one big shared network.
I've followed the project from the start and written several updates. You'll find them here.
Here's the conversation with Jonas.
Mathias Sundin
Angry Optimist
😺 Don’t be so quick to write off the pointless as pointless
You might miss a Nobel Prize.
💡 Fact-based optimistic news of the week
💊 Next-generation weight-loss drug cut body weight by up to 21 percent
On the highest dose, people with a BMI of 35 or more lost 23.4 percent, nearly 28 kilograms.
People with type 2 diabetes who took the highest dose of retatrutide lost 20.8 percent of their body weight over 80 weeks, compared with 4 percent on placebo.
Six in ten in the highest-dose group no longer had obesity when the study ended.
About four in ten on the two highest doses reached normal long-term blood sugar, compared with 4 percent on placebo.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
💵 Poor, middle-income and rich Americans have all seen their incomes rise since 1979
Tax rates fell for every group, most of all for the lowest-income households.
For the fifth of households with the lowest income, income after transfers and taxes rose by 108 percent between 1979 and 2023.
Before transfers and taxes, the same group's average income rose from $19,000 to $28,500 a year, an increase of 50 percent.
In 2023, income before transfers and taxes for the lowest fifth rose by 5 percent, mainly because labor income increased.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🇱🇾 More than 14,000 explosives cleared so Libyans can return to their land
Italy pays for the clearance, which is done by Libyan and international teams.
Clearance teams removed 14,066 explosive items from the Al-Sweihli farming area in Misratah between January and September 2026.
In 2025, HALO Trust emptied six bunkers at an ammunition depot near the city's airport and destroyed more than 7,300 unexploded items.
After an explosion at an ammunition depot in Misratah in August 2025, 8,702 unexploded items were disposed of in less than three months.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🫁 Share of lung cancer caught early nearly doubled in 20 years
When found early, nearly two in three lung cancer patients are alive five years later.
The share of lung cancer cases in the US found at an early stage rose from 18 percent in 2003 to 33 percent in 2023.
The increase sped up after recommendations for annual CT scans for heavy smokers were introduced, and it was seen in every state.
Of those who got lung cancer in the late 1970s, 13 percent were alive after five years, compared with 29 percent of those diagnosed from 2016 to 2022.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🦅 Nepal's vultures are increasing again after a toxic drug disappeared
On average, 94.7 percent of adult vultures survive each year, GPS tags show.
The population of critically endangered White-rumped Vultures in Nepal has grown by 12.7 percent per year since 2012.
The increase comes mainly from birds that are born and survive in Nepal, not from vultures moving in from India.
Since 2012, veterinary diclofenac has not been available to buy in Nepal, and that same year the trend turned from rapid decline to rapid growth.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
👵 Life expectancy in the Americas has never been higher
Healthy life expectancy also rose, from 63.1 to 64.5 years.
Life expectancy at birth rose from 73.2 years in 2000 to 77.1 years in 2023.
The age-standardized disease burden in the region fell by 14 percent between 2000 and 2019.
Maternal and neonatal disorders fell from sixth to twelfth place among the causes of healthy years of life lost.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🧬 AI found CRISPR's likely ancestor in viruses
AI found the system in viruses, which use it to attack other viruses.
An AI-assisted search of 2.3 million protein structures led Jennifer Doudna's group to VIPR, which is likely older than CRISPR.
VIPR is the smallest RNA-guided system that has been found, which could make it easier to deliver into cells.
The researchers reprogrammed VIPR so that it silenced a gene and protected bacteria against viruses.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🔴 Mars rover has driven farther than any other vehicle beyond Earth
The mission was planned for no more than 20 kilometers. Now the rover has driven more than 45.
Perseverance passed Opportunity's record of 45.16 kilometers (28.06 miles) on its 2,006th Martian day and reached 45.22 kilometers (28.10 miles).
The rover covered the distance in about five and a half years, while Opportunity needed nearly 15 years.
NASA has extended the mission to roughly the end of 2028, and the rover has so far collected 29 samples from Jezero Crater.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
♻️ South Korea recycles 95 percent of its food waste, up from 2 percent in the 1990s
Since Seoul began charging by volume, its food waste has fallen 23.9 percent.
In 1997, 95.4 percent of South Korea's food waste ended up in landfills, and today about 95 percent is recycled.
Food waste that cannot be avoided becomes compost, animal feed or biogas instead of releasing methane in a landfill.
The network of more than 180 organizations that pushed for the change is an Earthshot Prize finalist and wants to spread the model in Asia.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
👁️ Blinding disease trachoma is no longer a public health problem in El Salvador
None of the 1,016 adults examined had the stage that causes blindness.
El Salvador is the first country in Central America and the second in the Americas that WHO has validated as having eliminated trachoma.
The country reached the goal in three years, with stronger primary health care, better water and sanitation, and vision screening for adults.
The number of people in the world who need interventions against trachoma has fallen by 94 percent since 2002, to 92 million in March 2026.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🇲🇽 Homicides in Mexico have been cut in half in two years
The decline shows up in 30 of 32 states. In Mexico City, homicides are at their lowest in 20 years.
In August 2026, Mexico averaged 40.8 homicides a day, compared with 86.9 in September 2024.
The preliminary homicide rate for 2026 is 12.9 per 100,000 people, compared with 25.4 in 2024.
High-impact crimes overall, such as kidnapping, extortion and violent robbery, have fallen from 636.6 to 391 per day.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
⚛️ An easier path to fusion: heat the plasma first
The same losses that make ignition harder also keep the plasma stable.
Physicists at PPPL in the US use calculations to show that a plasma heated first and then made denser reaches ignition with much less energy.
The model extends the more than 70-year-old Lawson criterion with helium ash, impurities from the walls, synchrotron radiation, and heat losses.
One tungsten atom per 10,000 particles can double the pressure required, and liquid lithium on the walls can keep the metal out.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🫀 Old hearts became biologically younger in younger bodies
Many such hearts are discarded today. The findings could mean more are used.
In mice, old hearts became biologically younger after four to six months in young bodies, according to three epigenetic clocks.
In eleven heart transplant patients, the heart's biological age tracked the recipient's age more than the donor's.
Genes for the cells' energy production became more active in old hearts moved to young mice.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
🧂 Salt tastes 71 percent saltier with a molecule from mushrooms
Machine learning helped the researchers sift through 6,092 peptides from the mushroom.
The strongest peptide, ASHGEGF, increased the perceived saltiness of a salt solution by 70.6 percent.
Two other peptides from the same mushroom, LDDGF and GDDWT, increased saltiness by 49.0 and 47.1 percent, respectively.
An electronic tongue measured higher saltiness for all three peptides than for a plain salt solution.
Read more on The Angry Optimist
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