Mere weeks after achieving experimental airworthiness certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Universal Hydrogen has successfully taken its 40-passenger regional hydrogen electric plane to the skies. The aircraft took off from Washington state this morning and ascended to an altitude of 3,500 mean sea level (MSL) before safely landing, as you can see in Read more about 40-passenger hydrogen electric plane completes maiden flight[…]

Vestas, the world’s largest producer of wind turbines, says it has developed a chemical solution that allows the blades — made with durable epoxy resin — to be broken down and recycled. Bloomberg reports: “This signals a new era for the wind industry,” Vestas said in a statement. If it’s implemented at scale, the technology Read more about Wind Turbine Giant Develops Solution To Keep Blades Out of Landfills[…]

Researchers at the University of Adelaide announced this week that they made clean hydrogen fuel from seawater without pre-treatment. Demand for hydrogen fuel, a clean energy source that only produces water when burned, is expected to increase in the coming years as the world (hopefully) continues to pivot away from fossil fuels. The findings could Read more about Researchers can now pull hydrogen directly from seawater, no filtering required[…]

In France, solar just got a huge boost from new legislation approved through the Senate this week that requires all parking lots with spaces for at least 80 vehicles – both existing and new – be covered by solar panels. The new provisions are part of French president Emmanuel Macron’s large-scale plan to heavily invest Read more about In France, all large parking lots now have to be covered by solar panels[…]

To convert heat into electricity, easily accessible materials from harmless raw materials open up new perspectives in the development of safe and inexpensive so-called “thermoelectric materials.” […] The novel synthetic material is composed of copper, manganese, germanium, and sulfur, and it is produced in a rather simple process […] The powders are simply mechanically alloyed Read more about Team creates crystals that generate electricity from heat[…]

[…] in Memmott’s new reactor, during and after the nuclear reaction occurs, all the radioactive byproducts are dissolved into molten salt. Nuclear elements can emit heat or radioactivity for hundreds of thousands of years while they slowly cool, which is why nuclear waste is so dangerous (and why in the past, finding a place to Read more about BYU profs create new micro nuclear reactor to produce nuclear energy more safely[…]

China’s government-owned utility State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) has launched the world’s first commercial offshore floating solar that’s paired with an offshore wind turbine.   SPIC is one of five major electrical utility companies in China, and the world’s largest photovoltaic power generation enterprise. The pilot is located off the coast of Haiyang, a city in Read more about The world’s first offshore floating wind-solar pilot just came online in China[…]

Back in 2013, Techdirt wrote about “the monster lurking inside free trade agreements”. Formally, the monster is known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS), but here on Techdirt we call it “corporate sovereignty“, because that is what it is: a system of secret courts that effectively places companies above a government, by allowing them to sue Read more about Finally: Countries Start To Rebel Against Corporate Sovereignty, But Ten Years Too Late[…]

A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have made a serendipitous scientific discovery that could potentially revolutionize the way water is broken down to release hydrogen gas—an element crucial to many industrial processes. The team, led by Associate Professor Xue Jun Min, Dr. Wang Xiaopeng and Dr. Vincent Lee Wee Siang Read more about Revolutionary technique to generate hydrogen more efficiently from water[…]

The San Diego County Water Authority has an unusual plan to use the city’s scenic San Vicente Reservoir to store solar power so it’s available after sunset. The project, and others like it, could help unlock America’s clean energy future. Perhaps a decade from now, if all goes smoothly, large underground pipes will connect this Read more about A California project would store solar energy to use when the sun goes down in water batteries[…]

1. Fossil Fuels View the full-size infographic While the U.S. is a dominant player in both oil and natural gas production, China holds the top spot as the world’s largest fossil fuel producer, largely because of its significant production and consumption of coal. Over the last decade, China has used more coal than the rest Read more about Charted: 40 Years of Global Energy Production, by Country[…]

[…] To avoid taking water from an already strained local supply, a team led by Gang Kevin Li, senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne, Australia, has built a system which extracts water from airborne vapor using a hygroscopic electrolyte, in this case sulfuric acid. The approach then uses solar-generated electricity to split the water Read more about Hydrogen could be harvested from thin air in the desert[…]

A nuclear fusion reaction has lasted for 30 seconds at temperatures in excess of 100 million°C. While the duration and temperature alone aren’t records, the simultaneous achievement of heat and stability brings us a step closer to a viable fusion reactor – as long as the technique used can be scaled up. Most scientists agree Read more about Korean nuclear fusion tokamak reactor achieves 100 million°C for 30 seconds[…]

Hydrogen fuel promises to be a clean and abundant source of energy in the future – as long as scientists can figure out ways to produce it practically and cheaply, and without fossil fuels. A new study provides us with another promising step in that direction, provided you can make use of existing supplies of Read more about Scientists Find a Simple Way to Produce Hydrogen From Water at Room Temperature[…]

A major breakthrough in nuclear fusion has been confirmed a year after it was achieved at a laboratory in California. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s (LLNL’s) National Ignition Facility (NIF) recorded the first case of ignition on August 8, 2021, the results of which have now been published in three peer-reviewed papers. Nuclear fusion Read more about Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough Confirmed: California Team Achieved Ignition[…]

Virtually all wind turbines, which produce more than 5 percent of the world’s electricity, are controlled as if they were individual, free-standing units. In fact, the vast majority are part of larger wind farm installations involving dozens or even hundreds of turbines, whose wakes can affect each other. Now, engineers at MIT and elsewhere have Read more about A new method boosts wind farms’ energy output, without new equipment[…]

“Switch to solar panels to help save the planet,” they say. And they’re (mostly) right. Solar panels are a great source of clean energy because, unlike fossil fuels, solar energy doesn’t produce harmful carbon emissions while creating electricity. But how “clean” is the process of creating solar panels? Ironically enough, solar panel production is reliant Read more about The Environmental Impact of Solar Panels[…]

The aviation industry’s attempts to go green are getting a boost from an unlikely place: carbon-neutral jet fuel pulled from thin air. That may seem far-fetched, but it’s a concept that engineers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) have not only proved experimentally, but apparently proven again at scale. Even better, the fuel Read more about Pull jet fuel from thin air? We can do that, say scientists[…]

Wave Swell Energy’s remarkable UniWave 200 is a sea platform that uses an artificial blowhole formation to create air pressure changes that drive a turbine and feed energy back to shore. After a year of testing, the company reports excellent results. New Atlas reports: As we’ve discussed before, the UniWave system is a floating device Read more about Wave Swell Blowhole Wave Energy Generator Exceeds Expectations In 12-Month Test[…]

TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION (“Toyota”) and its subsidiary, Woven Planet Holdings, Inc. (“Woven Planet”), have developed a working prototype of its portable hydrogen cartridge. This cartridge design will facilitate the everyday transport and supply of hydrogen energy to power a broad range of daily life applications in and outside of the home. Toyota and Woven Planet Read more about Toyota and Woven Planet Have Developed a New Portable Hydrogen Cartridge Prototype[…]

Turkey announced last week it discovered a massive rare earth reserve almost as big as the world’s largest in China. The find is reportedly so large that it could on its own satisfy global demand for decades. According to the Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, the country found a supply of 694 million Read more about Turkey’s Newfound Cache of Rare Earths Could Supply the World’s EVs and More[…]

Finnish researchers have installed the world’s first fully working “sand battery” which can store green power for months at a time. Using low-grade sand, the device is charged up with heat made from cheap electricity from solar or wind. The sand stores the heat at around 500C, which can then warm homes in winter when Read more about Finnish ‘Sand battery’ built in Tampere[…]

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have managed to run a computer for six months, using blue-green algae as a power source. A type of cyanobacteria called Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803 – commonly known as “blue-green algae,” which produces oxygen through photosynthesis when exposed to sunlight, was sealed in a small container, about the size Read more about A colony of blue-green algae can power a computer for six months[…]