During his 2018 State of the Union Address to Congress, President Trump declared he has “ended the war on beautiful, clean coal”. Peter Dykstra joins Steve Curwood to talk about other topics mentioned in the speech – and those left out. For this week’s history lesson, the pair look into a still-missing disarmed atom bomb lost in a US Air Force accident near Savannah, Georgia.

The most popular global beer brand is going green, with a sustainable power purchase agreement to make all its U.S. products with energy from an Oklahoma wind farm. Living on Earth’s Jenni Doering found cheers for the decision among Bud drinkers at a bar in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Budweiser’s Vice President of Global Marketing, Brian Perkins, told host Steve Curwood why the company feels it’s a smart move for business as well as the planet.

The Brazilian government is planning to build dozens of new hydroelectric dams in the Amazon river basin. It wants to develop the interior, and prevent power outages during the upcoming World Cup and the Olympics. Living on Earth's Bobby Bascomb visited a dam project on the Madeira River and reports on the environmental repercussions of hydropower in the Amazon.

Virginia is the first coal producing state to take steps to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative – known as RGGI – and New Jersey’s new Democratic Governor has vowed to bring his state back into the compact. RGGI is a Cap-and-Trade carbon-pricing program already shared by nine Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Since 2009 it has reduced greenhouse gas emissions some 40% and produced nearly $3bn for clean energy improvements. Host Steve Curwood discussed these developments to the RGGI program with Jackson Morris, Eastern Energy Project director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Big dams have been big business in Brazil for the last decade or so but in the wake of scandals and protests the Brazilian government recently called a halt plans for more mega dam construction. Mongabay reporter Sue Branford tells host Steve Curwood that the news is welcomed by both environmentalists and indigenous peoples.

Solar energy is a renewable resource, but the sun doesn’t always shine. Using molten salt to capture and store heat captured from the sun promises to save solar energy for use well into the night. Reporter Rob Dieterich joins host Steve Curwood to explain why this technology can compete with natural gas-fired power and is cheaper than grid-scale battery arrays for photovoltaics.

Maintaining concrete structures can be expensive and time consuming. Living on Earth’s Hannah Loss reports on new research that suggests using fungi that can grow to repair cracks could provide an effective and sustainable solution to crumbling infrastructure.

Living on Earth gives voice to Orion magazine’s longtime feature where readers celebrate their favorite places. In this week’s edition, Ameerah Arjanee describes the sights and sounds of her childhood home town of Rose Hill in Mauritius, a small island off Africa’s east coast, and why she’s now looking at it with new eyes.