Clean Energy

Helion is inching closer to its goal of firing up the world's first fusion reactor to produce usable electricity. It's currently considering a property in the city of Malaga, Washington, to set up a 50-MW facility and power Microsoft's data centers.

MIT spin-off Quaise is still trying to use fusion technology to drill the deepest hole in history and unlock clean, virtually limitless, supercritical geothermal energy. But how does it work? And are they even close to realizing their vision?

Ammonia has enormous potential as a fuel of the future, but most current production methods make it a dirty source of energy. Yet a new method from MIT that would derive the compound using the Earth's rocks and natural heat cleans it up considerably.

Since founding TerraPower in 2008, Bill Gates has had his eye on developing a safe, efficient, and clean next-gen nuclear plant. That project, called Natrium, has already broken ground in Wyoming and has just leaped over a critical hurdle.

Mercedes-Benz has unveiled a list of research programs and future technologies it's working on – including a "new kind of solar paint" it says could generate enough energy for up to 20,000 km (12,427 miles) of driving per year under ideal conditions.

Back in 2022, Eco Wave Energy announced plans to relocate its wave energy array from Gibraltar to the Port of Los Angeles. Now the company has secured final approval for what will become the first onshore wave energy project in the US.

The prospect of virtually unlimited clean geothermal power is substantially brighter. EPFL’s Laboratory of Experimental Rock Mechanics has shown that the semi-plastic, gooey rock at supercritical depths can still be fractured to let water through.

Even on busy rail networks, the gap between lines can spend much of its time doing little but face skyward, so why not put that space to good use? Swiss startup Sun-Ways is looking to do just that by installing solar panels in between railway tracks.

Swedish company NoviOcean has tested a third-gen prototype of its combination wind/solar/wave energy platform, a floating platform rated for up to 1 MW of consistent clean energy around the clock, thanks to a fascinating buoyancy-driven mechanism.

Taking a leaf out of the plant book, scientists have used a method not unlike photosynthesis to harness the power of sunlight and turn two destructive greenhouse gases into useful, prized chemicals for renewable fuel and greener manufacturing.

Aeromine has installed a silent and motionless wind energy harnessing system on the roof of BMW's MINI manufacturing plant in Oxford, UK. They're meant to complement the factory's solar panels to produce clean energy, while taking up a lot less space.

Researchers at Switzerland's ETH Zurich have devised a cheap and safe way to store hydrogen in ordinary steel-walled containers for months without losing it into the atmosphere – using iron.