Finally some good news.
You may have been aware of the green hydrogen & ammonia production facility, INNA, proposed for construction on the Chilean coast, very close to Paranal & Armazones, home to ESO's VLT, VLTI, VISTA, & ELT telescopes.
It posed an existential light & atmospheric pollution threat to those world-leading astronomical facilities.
Fortunately, the concerns of the scientific community have been heard & the project cancelled.
This piece in the Chilean paper, Latercera, has more, albeit behind a paywall.
But the opening paragraph makes it clear that the decision by AES Andes to withdraw from the INNA project was in response to criticism from the scientific community & the new Chilean president-elect, José Antonio Kast.
Kast's politic are pretty far-right though, including rejecting the reality of anthropogenic climate change, so this victory for science comes with a degree of irony & shade.
La compañía eléctrica inició la tramitación del proyecto INNA, que involucraba una inversión de US$ 10 mil millones en la región de Antofagasta, en diciembre de 2024, pero enfrentó el rechazo de parte de la comunidad científica y de José Antonio Kast, en el último debate presidencial. “AES Andes informa que, tras un detallado análisis de su cartera de proyectos, ha decidido desistirse de la ejecución del proyecto INNA", informó ayer.
Personally, I don't know whether Kast's position on INNA was informed by an opposition to the green technologies it involved, or whether he is in favour of preserving Chile's status as perhaps the pre-eminent location on Earth for ground-based astronomy. Perhaps both.
Equally, most astronomers would certainly support the idea of green hydrogen & ammonia production, so opposing INNA came with some degree of nuance.
But Chile's coastline is very long & other locations must surely be possible.
Mark McCaughrean
Daniel Fischer
ESO