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.
Tesla’s new Gigafactory is as high-tech as you might have expected—and more
When it’s fully complete, Tesla’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, will be the largest building in the world, sprawling over 15 million square feet on a plot of land more than three times larger than Central Park. The building, which Elon Musk has called “the machine that builds the machine,” Read More...
Scientists come up with device that generates electricity from snowfall
These days it seems scientists are finding ways to produce energy out of just about anything, from sunlight and wind to waves and cow manure. Generating electricity from falling snow can now be added to that list after scientists at UCLA developed a small device that does just that. Apparently, Read More...
Community solar projects are finally including low-income households
Although community solar projects are on the rise in America, there’s one major flaw: less than half of US community solar projects have any participation from low-income households, and of the projects that do include lower-earning families, only about 5 percent involved a sizable share above 10 Read More...
Washington state commits to running entirely on carbon-free energy by 2045
What do Hawaii, California, New Mexico, and now Washington have in common? All four have made commitments to 100 percent clean energy. Last week, Washington’s state legislature officially passed one of the most ambitious clean energy bills in the nation. Washington is now committed to making the Read More...
Germany fancies turning coal plants into giant batteries that store clean energy
As clean energy continues to rise in Germany, the country’s massive coal plants are becoming increasingly idle. But instead of letting those coal plants sit there and rot, Germany wants to refashion the plants as giant batteries for storing wind and solar power. Germany aims to phase out coal Read More...
The city council of Chicago just committed to 100% clean energy by 2040
The Windy City is going all-in on renewable energy. That’s right, the city of Chicago has just committed to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040, making it the largest US city to make such a commitment towards clean energy. The resolution, which was unanimously passed by the city council, points Read More...
Norway pulls the plug on plans to drill massive oil reserve
Western Europe’s biggest petroleum producer is falling out of love with oil. To the dismay of the nation’s powerful oil industry and its worker unions, the opposition Labour Party over the weekend decided to withdraw its support for oil exploration offshore the sensitive Lofoten islands in Read More...
Paris just made the biggest purchase of electric buses Europe has ever seen
Paris has taken a huge step forward in achieving its goal of cleaning up its entire bus fleet by 2025 in a grand effort to curb air pollution. The current bus fleet is mostly made up of old diesel buses, but that’ll change soon after Paris’ public transport operator announced it has ordered up Read More...
Report: Clean energy now accounts for one-third of global power capacity
When the Optimist Daily was just getting started, powering the world via renewable energy was still somewhat of a pipe dream. In the last few years, we’ve witnessed rapid progress when it comes to renewables for a number of reasons. First, the cost of producing solar panels and wind turbines, as Read More...
This Dutchman drove his electric car from Amsterdam to Sydney
In an attempt to prove to the world that electric cars are perfectly feasible transportation, Dutchman Wiebe Wakker set out on a three-year, 59,000-mile journey from Amsterdam to Sydney, Australia back in 2016. This past week, the “world’s largest electric car trip” came to a close after Read More...