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.
This solar farm is providing a habitat for desert tortoises to thrive in
Solar farms aren’t only good for generating clean energy. In the desert in Nevada, a solar farm is providing tortoises a habitat they can thrive in. Juvenile tortoises depend on plant cover to hide from predators, and fortunately for them, the shade below the solar panels allows many plants that Read More...
New molecule can harness over 50% more solar energy than current solar cells
For the first time ever, scientists have managed to develop a single molecule that can absorb energy from the entire visible spectrum of light, meaning it can harness over 50 percent more solar energy than conventional solar cells. That also means it can catalyze that energy into hydrogen. Read More...
Witnessing a neighbor install solar panels can shift one’s climate change beliefs
The policies we need to fight climate change rely on support from the public. According to a new study, one way in which people become more supportive of such policies is if they witness their neighbors putting solar panels on their roofs. The study, which analyzed five years of survey data Read More...
What if wind farms doubled as public art installations?
As absurd as it might sound, many wind energy projects have been denied over the years because people don’t want wind turbines to disrupt their view. To overcome this aesthetic opposition to wind farms, which is known as NIMBY (not in my backyard), the international design collective Prototype Read More...
A microgrid kept this tribal community’s lights on during California blackouts
In early October, Pacific Gas & Electric cut power to more than 2 million northern California residents to reduce the risk of wildfires. Amid the darkness, the lights stayed on in one region of Humboldt county thanks to a multimillion-dollar investment in a microgrid by the Blue Lake Rancheria Read More...
Coal plant closures led to direct drop in emissions across America in 2019
Emissions that cause climate change across the US economy fell an estimated 2 percent in 2019. According to a new report from Rhodium Group, the drop in emissions is entirely due to more coal-fired power plants closing. While it’s imperative that we see emissions drop faster, the reduction in Read More...
IBM has developed a sustainable successor to the dirty lithium-ion battery
Yesterday we published a story (emissary section) about a new lithium-sulfur battery that has a capacity five times higher than that of lithium-ion batteries, which means it can keep a phone charged for five days. Today, we bring you another major advancement in batteries: a battery-free of cobalt, Read More...
New battery could give smartphones a five-day life between charges
Imagine the comfort of having to recharge your phone only once every five days, or being able to drive your EV for hundreds of miles before having to stop and reconnect it to the grid. Well, soon that image might become reality as scientists have managed to create the world's most efficient Read More...
This clever box brings clean energy and water to Earth’s most rural places
After 15 years of experience in the renewables industry, Emiliano Cecchini set out on his biggest mission yet: help people in the most rural places meet their basic needs of power and water. Cecchini’s mission began in 2014 when he and his collaborator Davide Bonsignore discovered just how long Read More...
Denmark got a record-breaking 47% of its electricity from wind power in 2019
Even if wind energy can’t provide power 100 percent of the time, it can still provide a bulk of the energy needed annually to power a country. A testament to that is the nordic country of Denmark, which hit a huge renewable energy milestone in 2019 as nearly half of its electricity came from wind Read More...