finland
Zelenskyy to hold talks on Russia-Ukraine war with Witkoff, Europeans
Is the war entering a new phase? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to hold talks with United States special envoy Steve Witkoff and European leaders in Norway, aimed at ending the war with Russia. The prime ministers of Norway and Finland will attend the talks in Oslo on Tuesday, while President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is expected to attend remotely because of illness. Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said Zelenskyy requested that Witkoff and Kushner participate in Tuesday's discussions. In a post on X before the talks, Zelenskyy said he had engaged in a "substantive conversation" with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about missile interceptors, intelligence sharing and Starlink, a satellite internet service owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX.
Google told to halt work on datacentres in Finland over environmental concerns
Google has been ordered to temporarily stop work on two datacentres in Finland after failing to do the necessary environmental impact assessments on its construction sites. The planned datacentres in Muhos and Kajanni are part of a €13bn (£11bn) project across multiple sites in northern Finland by the technology company amid huge demand for space to house online infrastructure. It comes after it emerged that Tuike Finland Oy, the company representing Google, had felled 330 hectares (815 acres) of forest in Muhos without completing an environmental impact assessment (EIA). In Kajaani, the company has reportedly been logging across just under 200 hectares (494 acres) of land. The Finnish Association for Nature Conservation said the sites had been reduced to "sand", blaming the oversights on the "overheated" market for new datacentres.
Google picks Finland for its largest single investment in Europe
Google will buy up to half the electricity produced by one of Finland's nuclear power plants as part of a record €13bn (£11bn; $15bn) investment in the country's AI infrastructure, the company announced. The US tech giant said the package would fund three new data centres, expand an existing site and support energy projects to power growing demand for AI services. This is Google's largest single investment in Europe and a testament to Finland's leadership in responsibly building AI infrastructure, the company said on Wednesday. Google's decision is a clear testament to our strengths, Finland's Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said in a statement. As part of the deal, Google signed a 22-year contract with Finnish utility Fortum to buy up to 50% of the output from the Loviisa nuclear power plant.
'Look Mum, one point': Why does the UK keep getting Eurovision wrong?
'Look Mum, one point': Why does the UK keep getting Eurovision wrong? The UK has self-destructed at Eurovision all over again. Look Mum No Computer, aka musician Sam Battle, got one solitary point, ending up in last place. It's the third time we've been at the bottom of the table since 2020. We've made the top 10 once since 2010.
Finland ends drone alert amid regional fears of Ukraine war spillover
What are Russia's gains from the Iran war? 'We are not losers; we are winners' Finland has stood down its defence forces after sounding an alarm over suspected drone activities in its airspace. The authorities said on Friday that suspected drone activity above the Helsinki region no longer posed a threat and that the situation was returning to normal hours after launching an emergency response, including the launch of fighter jets and closure of the capital's airport. The Helsinki City Rescue Department had warned the nearly 2 million inhabitants of Finland's Uusimaa region to stay indoors starting about 4am local time (1:00 GMT), as fighter jets were scrambled. Helsinki's airport was also closed for about three hours. Later, President Alexander Stubb wrote on X that authorities had "demonstrated their readiness and capacity to react", adding that the country was now facing "no direct military threat". Kimmo Kohvakka, director general for rescue services at the Ministry of the Interior, called the response a "precautionary measure" and said "daily life can continue."
It's time to make a plan for nuclear waste
It's time to make a plan for nuclear waste With growing interest in nuclear power, handling waste should be part of the deal. Geologist Tuomas Pere walks down a disposal tunnel inside the Posiva Onkalo nuclear waste repository on the island of Olkiluoto, Finland, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026. Today, nuclear energy enjoys a rare moment of support across the political spectrum in the US. Interest from tech companies that are scrambling to meet demand for massive data centers has sparked a resurgence of money and attention in the industry. That newfound interest is exactly why it's time to talk about an old problem: nuclear waste. In the US alone, nuclear reactors produce about 2,000 metric tons of high-level waste each year.
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,392
What is in the 28-point US plan for Ukraine? 'Ukraine is running out of men, money and time' Can the US get all sides to end the war? Why is Europe opposing Trump's peace plan? Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital and warned people to stay in shelters late on Tuesday night as air defences worked to repel a Russian attack. Russian forces launched a "massive" drone attack on Ukraine's Sumy region, targeting energy infrastructure and causing electricity blackouts, Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram late on Tuesday night.
Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading in Dairy Farms using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Shah, Mian Ibad Ali, Victorio, Marcos Eduardo Cruz, Duffy, Maeve, Barrett, Enda, Mason, Karl
The integration of renewable energy resources in rural areas, such as dairy farming communities, enables decentralized energy management through Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading. This research highlights the role of P2P trading in efficient energy distribution and its synergy with advanced optimization techniques. While traditional rule-based methods perform well under stable conditions, they struggle in dynamic environments. To address this, Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning (MARL), specifically Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) and Deep Q-Networks (DQN), is combined with community/distributed P2P trading mechanisms. By incorporating auction-based market clearing, a price advisor agent, and load and battery management, the approach achieves significant improvements. Results show that, compared to baseline models, DQN reduces electricity costs by 14.2% in Ireland and 5.16% in Finland, while increasing electricity revenue by 7.24% and 12.73%, respectively. PPO achieves the lowest peak hour demand, reducing it by 55.5% in Ireland, while DQN reduces peak hour demand by 50.0% in Ireland and 27.02% in Finland. These improvements are attributed to both MARL algorithms and P2P energy trading, which together results in electricity cost and peak hour demand reduction, and increase electricity selling revenue. This study highlights the complementary strengths of DQN, PPO, and P2P trading in achieving efficient, adaptable, and sustainable energy management in rural communities.