Energy
Transitioning to a world powered by renewable energy is key to tackling climate change. Here you can find the latest good news related to our clean energy transition, covering wind, solar, green hydrogen, hydropower, and more.
Climate change is so bad that the US and China agree on it
For years, China and the US have kept each other locked in a regulatory stalemate over climate change. As political rivals, neither one of the world’s biggest carbon emitters was going to budge unless it was sure any action it took to curb carbon dioxide emissions wouldn’t let the other Read More...
Solar power invades oil-rich Middle East
Solar energy is becoming a major power player in the Middle East In a patch of otherwise empty desert 30 miles south of Dubai, the outline of what is expected to become the Middle East’s largest photovoltaic solar project is taking form in the sands of the United Arab Emirates. The Mohammed Read More...
Walmart doubles down on renewable energy with wind deal
Walmart WMT is taking a big step toward fulfilling its long-term ambition of being wholly supplied by renewable energy with a new deal to buy more than half of the electricity generated by a new wind power facility in Texas for the next ten years. The world’s largest company will buy 58% of Read More...
How investors plan to make money in renewable energy
Renewable energy is going through a boom as big banks, private equity funds, and people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet invest billions of dollars in solar and wind technology. But by the end of next year, a federal initiative that gives residents and businesses a 30% tax credit for installing Read More...
Renewables overtake coal in the UK, wind and solar power capacity surge
There's something big happening in the UK. Al Gore and several business leaders grilled the country this week for cutting subsidies to solar and wind energy, but new government statistics show that Britain is already changing the way it produces electricity. For the first time in history, Read More...
What clean-energy innovators can learn from Apple
We noted in an earlier piece that Bill Gates’s “moonshot” investments to stop climate change, while well intentioned, are misdirected. We do need an Apollo Project for clean energy but it should be an effort that focuses on global deployment of technologies we already Read More...
Stanford researchers cool sunlight to improve solar cell efficiency
Solar panels must face the sun to function. Yet, ironically, they lose efficiency as they heat up. That's why researchers from Stanford University have developed a translucent overlay made of patterned silica that "cools" incoming light for solar panels, effectively dropping the temperature on the Read More...
Switching to 100% renewable energy by 2050 will save $1.1 trillion annually, Greenpeace says
Technically, it's possible to achieve 100% renewable energy around the world by 2050. It's economically viable, too. The Energy [R]evolution report, presented today by Greenpeace, provides a pathway for the energy transition by phasing out coal, oil, gas and nuclear within one generation. Read More...
Blankets convert solar energy to hydrogen fuel
Imagine if the pool in your backyard could become an energy harvester, with a floating blanket on its surface converting solar energy to hydrogen fuel. This is a long-term goal of an interdisciplinary research team led by Pelagia Gouma, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Read More...
More and more cities are replacing fossil fuels with renewables
In recent years, nations have been promising to cut back on fossil fuel use. Cities are doing so, too. And as cities consume around 78% of global energy, that's a good thing for reducing the world's carbon footprint. Latin America leads with the highest number of renewably-powered cities. Brazil Read More...