| By Eamon Farhat and Francois de Beaupuy The heat wave across Europe this week is putting extra stress on electricity grids. In Spain, increasing power demand to cool homes is adding pressure to energy prices after the country's grid boosted its reliance on gas generation in the wake of a massive blackout. The output of Spanish gas-fired power plants has jumped 58% since the April 28 nationwide outage, according to data from Entso-E. This is being done to better stabilize the network, with cheaper wind generation curtailed to balance the power mix, while soaring temperatures across Europe increase the use of air conditioning. European power markets and grids are set up to favor the cheapest form of generation to help lower bills for households and businesses. However, Spain has shifted its focus to stability over costs after the blackout brought the nation to a halt. Wholesale power prices have spiked, and consumers eventually will have to foot the bill. In France, Electricite de France SA said a heat wave that's spreading across the country may force it to curb nuclear output from June 25 due to the rising temperature of the Rhone river that's used for cooling some of its reactors. Due to the high temperature of the Rhone, production restrictions are likely to affect EDF's nuclear output from June 25, particularly the Bugey power station, the state-owned utility said in a regulatory filing Thursday. The forecast will be reviewed on June 24. Scientists in New Zealand may have found a solution to a nasty contributor to global warming that no one wants to see: cow dung. Cow sheds are often hosed down to wash away the dung into large manmade ponds. In an attempt to recycle the water in the lagoons, two local scientists — Keith Cameron and Hong Di — began testing the addition of polyferric sulfate, a chemical that's been widely used in wastewater treatment to separate liquids from solids. The process worked, but that didn't prove to be their most interesting finding. When the pair of soil and physical sciences professors at Lincoln University ran checks to monitor for any impact on greenhouse gas emissions, they made a startling observation: Methane emissions from the wastewater had decreased by more than 90%. Manure accounts for roughly 10% of livestock methane emissions, a greenhouse gas that's more than 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Curtailing the pollution on smaller farms has remained challenging. but it's hoped Cameron and Di may have unwittingly found something that works for any budget. Read the full story on Bloomberg.com.  A dairy farm on the outskirts of Cambridge, New Zealand. Photographer: WILLIAM WEST/AFP Electric Vehicle Outlook 2025 | Global EV sales are on track for another record-breaking year, but the US market faces some roadblocks. Download the Executive Summary from BloombergNEF for global adoption patterns, the impacts of policy shifts, and key battery and charging insights.  Photographer: BNEF/Bloomberg When will China's emissions peak? The timing could make a big difference to the fate of the planet. And now Lauri Myllyvirta, co-founder of the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air, thinks that moment may have arrived. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi asks Myllyvirta how confident he is that this really is a peak. What's behind the decline in emissions? And how will the trade war with the US affect China's climate and energy policies in the years to come? Listen now, and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube to get new episodes of Zero every Thursday.  Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg | 
