Energy

Solar, wind, batteries, green hydrogen and power grids

The Energy section of ECOnews covers solar and wind power, offshore wind farms, batteries and energy storage, green hydrogen, nuclear power and power grids. Follow the projects, records and innovations changing how the world produces and uses electricity.

Soviet nuclear submarine K-27 afloat in Stepovogo Bay before it was sunk in 1981

The Soviet Union sank a nuclear submarine with its fuel still aboard about 100 feet down in the Arctic, and the material sealing its reactors has a lifespan no one can pin down

By ECONEWS

—

November 10, 2026 at 12:28 PM

Aerial view of the grid-scale battery containers beside the cooling towers of Huntly Power Station in New Zealand

New Zealand’s largest power station just switched on a grid-scale battery that can power 60,000 homes for two hours, and the second one is already budgeted for less

By ECONEWS

—

November 7, 2026 at 8:00 PM

Aerial visualization of the heat storage basin planned in the former Kulomäki gravel pit in Hyvinkää, Finland

Finland is pouring 100 million gallons of water into an old gravel pit to build the world’s largest pit heat storage, and the summer warmth it saves will heat homes in winter

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 7, 2026 at 6:35 PM

Bladeless wind turbine prototype, a white vertical mast, mounted on the edge of a brick rooftop above a town

A bladeless wind turbine that sways in the wind could safely produce 460 watts in computer simulations, and the most efficient design turned out not to be the most powerful

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 7, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Illustration of ammonia molecules split by a lightning bolt into hydrogen, showing how MIT turns ammonia into pure hydrogen

Chemists are turning ammonia into pure hydrogen at 482°F, far cooler than standard cracking, and the trick is using electricity to pull the gas through a palladium membrane

By ECONEWS

—

November 4, 2026 at 8:50 AM

Air source heat pump outdoor unit running while covered in snow beside a house

Heat pump vs furnace: Maine’s 2026 fuel survey priced heat pump warmth at roughly $31 to $32 per million Btu against $13 to $25 for piped gas, so the furnace still wins in gas homes while propane, oil and baseboard households save

By Javier Niño

—

November 3, 2026 at 9:12 AM

CSIRO researchers Lingping Zeng and Regina Sander review orange hydrogen modeling results on a screen in a laboratory

Australia’s ancient rocks could make orange hydrogen while burying carbon dioxide underground, and the catch shows up once the heat climbs past 392°F

By Adrian Villellas

—

November 3, 2026 at 7:30 AM

Solar tower of the Noor solar complex rising behind rows of curved trough mirrors near Ouarzazate, Morocco

Morocco built the Noor solar complex to keep the lights on after sunset, and the World Bank says a cracked molten salt tank at its 820-foot tower caused two long outages

By ECONEWS

—

October 31, 2026 at 6:40 AM

Cyclist riding over the dark solar panel lane of the SolaRoad solar bike path in Krommenie, Netherlands

Goodbye to the solar bike path: the Netherlands paved a cycle lane with solar panels that reportedly made 9,800 kilowatt-hours in a year, and the weak spot was the surface cyclists rode on

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 30, 2026 at 9:00 PM

A hand holds a dark, round graphite pebble about the size of a billiard ball in front of a blurred autumn forest.

Amazon will fund the development of 12 small nuclear reactors on the site of a former coal plant on Indiana’s Wabash River, 960 megawatts in all, but no decision to build them has been made and no construction date or cost has been given

By Javier Niño

—

October 29, 2026 at 9:31 AM

Maryland blue crabs piled in a wooden basket, the kind of seafood shells that supply chitosan for zinc battery gels

Shells left after a seafood dinner can become a gel for zinc batteries that lasted more than 1,000 cycles, and the most surprising part is what happened to it in soil

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 29, 2026 at 6:31 AM

Machinery inside a rock tunnel at the Onkalo nuclear waste repository in Finland.

Finland has granted the world’s first operating licence to permanently bury spent nuclear fuel, in copper canisters about 1,410 feet down in the bedrock of Olkiluoto island, and the last tunnels are not due to be sealed until after the 2120s

By Javier Niño

—

October 27, 2026 at 11:55 AM

Aerial view of the molten salt solar thermal plant and its linear Fresnel mirror field at China Three Gorges' Hami complex in Xinjiang

China Three Gorges began commercial trial operation of a 1-gigawatt solar complex in Xinjiang’s Gobi that stores heat in 1,022°F molten salt, and its 100-megawatt thermal unit can generate for eight hours after dark

By ECONEWS

—

October 26, 2026 at 5:01 PM

Workers line the rebar grid of the Unit 2 reactor building foundation at the Zhaoyuan nuclear plant as concrete pump booms start the first pour

A 60-hour pour of about 311,000 cubic feet of concrete started the second reactor at China’s Zhaoyuan nuclear plant, and each of six planned units will get a 666-foot cooling tower

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 25, 2026 at 6:31 PM

Balcony solar systems hanging from the railing of an apartment block in Leipzig, Germany

An estimated 4.2 million balcony solar systems are now plugged in at homes and apartments in Germany, and in Croatia the same small kit still needs a certified installer, design documents and paid metering

By ECONEWS

—

October 23, 2026 at 1:46 PM

Illustration of the KIT heat-driven cooling system, with a heated nickel-titanium film pulling a second film that cools a computer chip

At Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a prototype cooling system uses heat instead of an electric motor to stretch an ultrathin metal film, and it reached a 4°C temperature difference across the device

By ECONEWS

—

October 21, 2026 at 5:01 PM

May Nyman and Doctor Stephen, co-authors of the zirconium and hafnium separation study, look at a computer screen at Oregon State University

In Corvallis, Oregon, chemists separated zirconium and hafnium in water with choline, a common food additive, reaching a separation factor of 33, and the solvent method used at two U.S. plants scores 6 to 7

By ECONEWS

—

October 20, 2026 at 7:32 AM

Artist's rendition of a tokamak plasma from PPPL's study on a lower-energy path to fusion ignition

Princeton physicists reworked a 70-year-old fusion rule and calculated heating plasma first is the lowest-energy path to fusion ignition, while a trace of tungsten can roughly double the pressure

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 17, 2026 at 1:46 PM

KiteX TWT-11 small wind turbine standing in a field in Denmark

When he was 15, he wanted to impress his mother with a kite, and that crazy idea ended up leading him to design a home turbine; what’s more, he has already sold his entire projected production for 2027

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 16, 2026 at 12:31 PM

Cooling fans on top of enhanced geothermal power plant units at Fervo Energy's Cape Station in Beaver County, Utah

Fervo’s Cape Station in Utah began commercial operation a day early at 33 MW, a first for utility-scale enhanced geothermal plants, and its co-founder traces the idea to overheating drill motors

By Adrian Villellas

—

October 16, 2026 at 7:31 AM

Energy

The Soviet Union sank a nuclear submarine with its fuel still aboard about 100 feet down in the Arctic, and the material sealing its reactors has a lifespan no one can pin down

New Zealand’s largest power station just switched on a grid-scale battery that can power 60,000 homes for two hours, and the second one is already budgeted for less

Finland is pouring 100 million gallons of water into an old gravel pit to build the world’s largest pit heat storage, and the summer warmth it saves will heat homes in winter

A bladeless wind turbine that sways in the wind could safely produce 460 watts in computer simulations, and the most efficient design turned out not to be the most powerful

Chemists are turning ammonia into pure hydrogen at 482°F, far cooler than standard cracking, and the trick is using electricity to pull the gas through a palladium membrane

Heat pump vs furnace: Maine’s 2026 fuel survey priced heat pump warmth at roughly $31 to $32 per million Btu against $13 to $25 for piped gas, so the furnace still wins in gas homes while propane, oil and baseboard households save

Australia’s ancient rocks could make orange hydrogen while burying carbon dioxide underground, and the catch shows up once the heat climbs past 392°F

Morocco built the Noor solar complex to keep the lights on after sunset, and the World Bank says a cracked molten salt tank at its 820-foot tower caused two long outages

Goodbye to the solar bike path: the Netherlands paved a cycle lane with solar panels that reportedly made 9,800 kilowatt-hours in a year, and the weak spot was the surface cyclists rode on

Amazon will fund the development of 12 small nuclear reactors on the site of a former coal plant on Indiana’s Wabash River, 960 megawatts in all, but no decision to build them has been made and no construction date or cost has been given

Shells left after a seafood dinner can become a gel for zinc batteries that lasted more than 1,000 cycles, and the most surprising part is what happened to it in soil

Finland has granted the world’s first operating licence to permanently bury spent nuclear fuel, in copper canisters about 1,410 feet down in the bedrock of Olkiluoto island, and the last tunnels are not due to be sealed until after the 2120s

China Three Gorges began commercial trial operation of a 1-gigawatt solar complex in Xinjiang’s Gobi that stores heat in 1,022°F molten salt, and its 100-megawatt thermal unit can generate for eight hours after dark

A 60-hour pour of about 311,000 cubic feet of concrete started the second reactor at China’s Zhaoyuan nuclear plant, and each of six planned units will get a 666-foot cooling tower

An estimated 4.2 million balcony solar systems are now plugged in at homes and apartments in Germany, and in Croatia the same small kit still needs a certified installer, design documents and paid metering

At Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, a prototype cooling system uses heat instead of an electric motor to stretch an ultrathin metal film, and it reached a 4°C temperature difference across the device

In Corvallis, Oregon, chemists separated zirconium and hafnium in water with choline, a common food additive, reaching a separation factor of 33, and the solvent method used at two U.S. plants scores 6 to 7

Princeton physicists reworked a 70-year-old fusion rule and calculated heating plasma first is the lowest-energy path to fusion ignition, while a trace of tungsten can roughly double the pressure

When he was 15, he wanted to impress his mother with a kite, and that crazy idea ended up leading him to design a home turbine; what’s more, he has already sold his entire projected production for 2027

Fervo’s Cape Station in Utah began commercial operation a day early at 33 MW, a first for utility-scale enhanced geothermal plants, and its co-founder traces the idea to overheating drill motors

Germany now has a truck with no cab hauling Lidl groceries on a public road up to three times a day, and one human job still travels with it in a separate vehicle

Farmers can plant this perennial grain once and harvest it for several years while its roots reach 10 feet deep, and researchers say the catch shows up in the grain bin after the second harvest

A farmer digging in a Swiss marsh took a 5,500-year-old board for a box lid or a bench, and it turned out to be one of the oldest preserved doors in Europe

A Patagonian sheep ranch that once held 40,535 sheep is now home to one of Argentina’s main Magellanic penguin colonies, and the twist is that the birds were already nesting there while the flocks grazed down their cover

Farmers in Australia are spreading recycled glass fertilizer made from empty bottles, its maker relays a farm manager’s claim of lower inputs, and its own savings figures are still being confirmed

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