Huffington Post: Presidential Debate Ignores Climate Change...Again

Wednesday night’s presidential debate came and went -- again -- with no mention of climate change. That makes three chances for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to talk about the issue, and three missed opportunities where they didn’t.

Moderators made time for questions about what the candidates admire about one another and the sexual trespasses of Bill Clinton (who is not running for office). But there somehow hasn’t been any time to ask about what is arguably the most pressing global issue currently facing humanity.

Vox: The WikiLeaks Emails Reveal Why Hillary Clinton Wouldn't Support a Carbon Tax

During the Democratic primary, one of the major climate policy differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton was a carbon tax. He supported one. She didn’t. Now we have a little insight into why, via WikiLeaks’ recent release of thousands of hacked personal emails from Clinton campaign manager John Podesta.

“We have done extensive polling on a carbon tax,” Podesta apparently told Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan back in January 2015. “It all sucks.”

Some of that polling can be found in this leaked presentation by Anzalone Liszt Grove Research to the Clinton campaign dating March 2015. (Note that the campaign has avoided commenting on the veracity of any of the WikiLeaks emails.) The survey found that when people initially heard about a carbon tax, 58 percent supported it. But after hearing more detailed arguments for and against, support plunged to 46 percent.

MIT Technology Review: What We’re Doing Wrong in the Search for Better Batteries

If the world is going to get off of fossil fuels, we’re going to need batteries -- big batteries, and lots of them, to smooth out intermittent power sources like wind and solar. But we aren’t doing nearly enough to develop the technologies that will allow us to build the cheap, grid-scale storage we need, according to Don Sadoway of MIT.

Sadoway is the co-founder of a grid battery startup called Ambri that’s trying to find a solution. Its technology, inspired by aluminum smelters, uses two liquid metals as electrodes and a salt electrolyte to form a battery cell. But it’s not alone: Other startups, including Eos Energy Storage, Aquion, and Sun Catalytix, are all trying to build similar devices.

AutoBlog: A Look Inside the New Prius Hybrid System

Beyond the best-yet fuel efficiency of the fourth-generation Toyota Prius lies a happy new dimension: Unlike previous-generation Priuses, this one actually can be fun to drive. Toyota's New Global Architecture provides much better ride and handling, while its redesigned propulsion system adds perceptively more pep and responsiveness.

A pleasant surprise, indeed. Not so pleasant is its somewhat angry, overly aggressive, tortured-sheetmetal new look, though that's a subjective judgment. At least it's no longer bland.

But the single most important thing worth knowing about this all-new Prius is that it delivers the highest EPA fuel economy numbers of any U.S.-market vehicle without a plug: 54 mpg city, 50 highway, and 52 combined. And the extra-economical Prius Two Eco model tops even that at 58/53/56 mpg.

Fortune: These Are the U.S. Companies With the Most Solar Power

Target is now the U.S. company that produces the most solar power at its facilities, beating out Wal-Mart for the first time, according to a new report looking at corporate solar power usage in the United States.

Other companies with large installations of onsite solar panels include Prologis, Apple, Costco, Kohl’s, and Ikea, says a report released on Wednesday by the solar group the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The report, which tracks the largest onsite solar systems in the U.S., demonstrates how companies -- from retailers to tech companies -- are increasingly turning to the sun to power buildings as the cost of solar panels has declined dramatically in recent years. But the report does not look at the amount of solar power that a company could buy from an offsite facility.