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Energy
While data centers strain power grids, consume water, and are a source of complaints on land, a San Francisco based company wants to move part of the artificial intelligence boom out to sea, inside floating wind turbines
Wind turbines were built to make electricity, but engineers now say their towers could do something far more unexpected. A new offshore design would place artificial intelligence data…
The table salt in your kitchen could play an important role in the next big energy battle, as Morgan Stanley is already forecasting annual demand of 830 gigawatt-hours for sodium batteries by 2030
Switzerland has just installed a small solar power plant between the tracks of an active railway line, and what seems impossible is that more than 11,000 trains have already passed over it without interrupting service
An experiment conducted in Canada has just demonstrated something that sounds incredibly strange: solar panels floating on a frozen pond continued to generate electricity thanks to a waterproof foam and underwater bubbles
An electric car’s used battery does not stop working when the car is no longer in use, and a megafactory in Vancouver wants to give it a second life to power hospitals, data centers, and microgrids
China’s massive “electric island” has no blades and doesn’t look like a windmill, but it transmits 1.1 gigawatts of offshore wind power from the Yellow Sea to the power grid
A town in Extremadura called Miajadas has just launched an initiative that seems like a laboratory experiment but is already yielding results: converting green hydrogen and captured CO2 into renewable gas that flows through actual pipelines
The French wind turbine, which aims to do away with giant towers, promises to bring electricity to farms, islands, and remote areas thanks to a modular 1-kilowatt design that requires no cranes or concrete
The latest trend in solar energy in Europe is no longer focused on rooftops, but on garden fences, and promises to turn a simple property line into a mini power plant
- A 15-year-old student has built a generator for just $12 using a propeller, a PVC pipe, and recycled parts, and her idea is once again drawing attention because it could provide lighting to coastal communities by harnessing the energy of water
- Switzerland dug a hole the size of two soccer fields to install the world’s most powerful underground battery, able to release 1.2 GW in milliseconds and store 2.1 GWh at a multibillion-dollar price tag
- A Montana county commissioner wanted to prepare his county in case coal revenues dried up, and voters ousted him from office in a Republican primary that served as a warning to other mining communities
- The U.S. power grid has just been given a 60-day ultimatum, as artificial intelligence data centers consume so much energy that they are already raising concerns about the impact on household electricity bills
- Puerto Rico had a $1 billion federal fund to install solar panels and batteries in vulnerable households, but now much of that money is being diverted to the old power grid
- Amazon’s sparkling cloud hides a dirty secret: its AI gulps more water than rivals and still calls itself “efficient
- A “floating city” proposal is back with a ship about one mile long designed to hold 80,000 people, and the uncomfortable detail is that it is being pitched as nuclear-powered while funding still decides whether it is real or just renderings
- In 2026, Japan will launch the first commercial engine that generates electricity by burning a mixture containing up to 30% hydrogen, with a warranty and upgrade option, after 11 months of testing in Kobe and with the promise of decarbonization without changing the pipes
- The “perfect” winter thermostat setting can keep you warm without exploding your power bill, and small changes can save big money
- Spain just put a wave-power buoy about 138 feet tall into the Bay of Biscay, and the twist is that the new tests suggest the ocean’s up-and-down motion can feed electricity to shore in a way that could actually scale
- Forty years after Chernobyl, its legacy still echoes across health, politics, and the land itself, and the disaster’s long tail has not stopped reshaping lives
- Closing vents in unused rooms sounds smart, but HVAC experts warn it can raise pressure, waste energy, and even damage your system over time
- Cement’s carbon problem may have a blunt fix, swap limestone for basalt, because modeling suggests energy demand could drop by more than 40% and emissions by over 80%, cutting CO2 from about 1,343 lb per ton of cement to roughly 110 lb with certain rock types
- Singapore covers about 111 acres of the Tengeh Reservoir with 122,000 floating solar panels, a bid to cut an energy dependence the city-state can’t afford
- A 100-word email written with ChatGPT may use about 17.6 fluid ounces of water, roughly the size of a stan
- A solar farm in southern England put 40 native sheep under 20,000 panels across about 30 acres to graze in winter, and the twist is that the flock didn’t just “mow the grass”, it helped protect wildflowers and pollinators while using the panels as storm shelter, turning a power site into a two-job landscape called agrivoltaics
- Can SUMED steal Hormuz’s spotlight? Saudi Arabia and Egypt move to secure oil routes into Europe and reduce reliance on the strait
- In Cuba, a 21-year-old builds a homemade solar panel “factory,” equips 15 electric trikes, and boosts their range, a local fix that kept multiple workers’ livelihoods alive
- A floating wind turbine could become the next AI data center, packing 10–12 MW of compute, a 15+ MW turbine, and seawater cooling into one offshore platform as land, power, and water constraints tighten toward 2030
- Bangladesh approves a 1.3-mile mega-dam to store about 2.35 million acre-feet of water and benefit 70 million people, amid rising pressure on the Padma River and growing water scarcity
- In 1982 the Soviet Venera 13 lander survived 127 minutes on Venus in about 855°F heat and pressure comparable to roughly 2,950 feet underwater, long enough to beam back two panoramas of basaltic rock under an orange sky
- Germany covers an artificial lake with solar panels without harming the ecosystem, and the experiment hints at a future where water becomes a rooftop for power
- Brazil could jump its oil reserves from 17 billion to 23.5 billion barrels with $30 billion a year in investment, and exploration along the Equatorial Margin is being pitched out to 2042
- A young Ethiopian turns trash into fashion using tires, cardboard, and electrical wire, and his viral videos look like luxury editorials while teaching recycling without speeches
- Plastic headed for landfills is being turned into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel in Mexico, and Petgas is sparking an uncomfortable debate about what “recycling” really means
- An oil and gas deposit is found nearly 20,000 feet below the sea off Brazil, and the depth explains why every drill is also a high-tech gamble