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.
Why Japanese golf courses are turned into solar energy farms
Japan is known for its expensive, upper-crust golf clubs. But golf participation is down more than 40 percent from its high in the early 1990s. Now, the country is facing a severe over-development of golf courses. One solution: turning them into solar power plants. And so the multinational Kyocera Read More...
Wind power generates 140% of Denmark's demand
It is sometimes said that wind energy can't produce all the energy required. But late last week, on an unusually windy evening, Denmark produced 116% of its national electricity needs from wind turbines alone. By 3 amonFriday, when electricity demand dropped, that figure had risen to 140%. The Read More...
Facebook's newest data center to run on wind energy
Your social media use has a carbon footprint, too. Numerous servers in a steadily growing number of gigantic buildings called data centers require electricity to keep us all connected with others and, ideally, liked by them. So it's good news that Facebook's newest data center, in Fort Worth, Read More...
Solar power is mostly for the rich. Here’s how Obama wants to change that.
So far, solar energy is a toy for the affluent. The George Washington University Solar Institute reported earlier this year that of the some 645,000 U.S. homes and businesses with rooftop solar panels, no more than 5 percent were households earning less than $40,000 a year. On Tuesday, the Obama Read More...
Energy storage: the missing link of solar energy adoption
With solar panels on your roof you can generate your own energy. However most of that energy you won’t use yourself. The sun shines during the day when most people are at work. Their solar systems produce energy that’s exported back to the grid. Home energy storage systems allow people to use Read More...
Generating solar energy from noise barriers
Noise barriers along highways can be used as a source for clean energy. Used to dampen the loud sounds of traffic, these noise barriers just sit there, usually not even very pretty. So engineers at the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands created barriers with colored panels that Read More...
Sustainable production of hydrogen can change renewable energy revolution
The hydrogen fuel cell is the perfect instrument to power an electric car. The burning of hydrogen in a fuel cell is perfectly clean, producing nothing but water out of the tailpipe of the car. The problem is that almost all commercial hydrogen is produced in an energy-intensive process called Read More...
From Formula One to Formula E: The first electric car championships
This weekend, some 60,000 people will watch the final race in the first Formula E championship in London. Organizers claim the race is the world’s first to use cars regularly charged on solar. The cars will be charged in the pit lane by batteries that are linked to 26 solar panels. These panels Read More...
Plants show the way to solar cells that generate and store energy
A solar can turn sunlight into electricity, but it cannot store the energy. That’s why we need batteries that come with all kinds of additional pollution challenges and inefficiencies. A new study by chemists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) published in Science describes how a Read More...
Germany boosts renewables with clever virtual power stations
Vested power barons argue that we continue needing their fossil fuel- and nuclear-powered plants to guarantee the supply of electricity. Their arguments: The sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow, and renewable energy projects are small scale and unreliable at times of high Read More...