This week: Lessons from plunging platinum prices; China's solar knockout round; Hydrogen-powered big rigs

Welcome back. Microsoft sees great potential for artificial intelligence to boost sustainability. WSJ Pro sat down with Melanie Nakagawa, the company’s chief sustainability officer, to discuss the topic. “We’re obviously incredibly optimistic about the future of AI…[but] we're just at the beginning of this AI journey,” she said.

Key takeaways

Nakagawa highlights “three unique capabilities of AI” which are outlined in the company’s new white paper. First, AI can help measure, predict and optimize complex systems such as energy grid utilization, tracking biodiversity or predicting weather.

Third, AI can improve the efficiency and satisfaction of the sustainability workers who are currently in such short supply. Developers using GitHub’s AI-powered assistant were happier and finished 55% faster. Another study of Boston Consulting Group consultants led by Harvard and MIT academics found AI boosted workers’ productivity by as much as 40%.

However, there are also some sustainability challenges to address. AI uses a lot of energy and water—Microsoft estimates AI currently generates about 1% of all global emissions—so significant growth in the tech could have a big environmental footprint. Shifting to renewables will help but it says innovation in things including cooling systems and processing technologies will be vital. Governance of AI is another thorny challenge, along with addressing big gaps and a lack of standardization in the underlying data.

Why it matters 

AI has great potential to boost sustainability, but it needs work to assess its impact on the environment and jobs, as well as oversight of how to develop such a powerful tool. It can be tough to separate fact from fiction in such a hyped market, but Microsoft does have years of AI experience.

Tell me what you think: Send me your feedback and suggestions at rochelle.toplensky@wsj.com or reply to any newsletter. If you were forwarded this newsletter, you can sign up here.

Plunging prices for platinum and other critical metals could derail mining investment needed to develop new supplies, posing a significant threat to decarbonization targets set by countries around the world, writes Yusuf Khan.

Platinum is used to make the electrolyzers that produce hydrogen and the sharp down cycle in South Africa’s platinum mining sector demonstrates how low prices and a lack of investment could slow the energy transition.

China’s newest solar-energy manufacturers include a dairy farmer and a toy maker, write Sha Hua and Phred Dvorak.

The new entrants are examples of a green-energy spending binge in China that is fueling the country’s rapid build-out of renewable energy while also creating a glut of solar components that is rippling through the industry and stymying attempts to build such manufacturing elsewhere, particularly in Europe.

Many truckers are focused on battery-cell rigs that essentially bulk up electric-vehicle technology from the passenger-car industry for 18-wheelers, writes Paul Berger. Hydrogen is gaining a following, however, among some heavy-duty truck operators who see it as the industry’s best path toward zero-emissions technology, especially for rigs traveling long distances.

• Power demand is climbing as industrial users connect to the grid, populations grow and weather gets more extreme
• Climate change’s $150 billion hit to the U.S. economy
• The path to green energy is getting messier
• Toyota Camry, America’s bestselling sedan, to be exclusively hybrid
• Blackstone's ‘broad’ clean-energy strategy
• California startup-diversity law requires firms—including some outside the state—to report portfolio company diversity data
• Midwest towns are ‘drier than the dust bowl’
• Medical studies are too white. Diversifying clinical trials to ensure devices, drugs and prevention work for all
• EU drafts rules to cut energy-sector methane emissions
• Exxon's EV play: Producing battery-grade lithium in Arkansas by 2027
• Company owned by one of the U.A.E.’s royal families lines up African carbon-credit deals ahead of COP28 climate summit

• Walgreens wants the corner drugstore to become an online delivery hub.
   
• A California law to collect diversity data from venture funds could potentially apply to a wider pool of assets and asset managers.
   
• EY picks Janet Truncale as its global chair as the accounting firm looks to put its failed split behind.

• NuScale's project failure is a blow to nuclear's future (Barron's)
• Climate tech investing surges in the third quarter (Greenbiz)
• We won’t tackle the climate crisis unless we transform financing (FT) 
• Sweden's state-of-the-art plant for sorting plastics for recycling (AP)
• New York sues PepsiCo in new plastic pollution fight (Politico)
• Climate finance for developing countries is rising but is still short of the $100 billion a year promise (OECD)

WSJ Pro Sustainable Business covers environmental, social and governance issues. Send comments to Bureau Chief Rochelle Toplensky at rochelle.toplensky@wsj.com and follow her on X @RToplensky.