Clean Energy

Studying how bacteria interacts with the environment, a microbiology team discovered a powerhouse of an enzyme that consumes hydrogen and turns it into electricity. Researcher Rhys Grinter told New Atlas what the findings could mean for clean energy.

In a highly unexpected approach to renewable energy, researchers in Korea have developed a low-cost, easily-manufactured advanced membrane that actually generates electricity as it turns wastewater, seawater or groundwater into drinking water.

Most current fusion power projects require tritium – an incredibly scarce and problematic fuel. TAE is targeting cheaper, safer hydrogen-boron (H-B) fusion, and it's just announced a world-first measurement of H-B fusion in magnetically confined plasma.

Denver's Keystone Tower Systems says it can cut the cost of wind energy with tech borrowed from pipemaking. It uses spiral welding techniques to roll sheet steel into huge turbine towers on-site, stronger, faster and cheaper than current techniques.

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have developed an unusual way to harvest wave power, with a gently rolling cylinder designed around the triboelectric effect that causes static shocks after you walk on certain carpets.

A rolling compressor from Japan has extracted water from plants without the need for a heat source, creating water-soluble antiviral compounds from cedar and ginger while turning the plants into clean, efficient fuels.

Australian company 5B has developed a hinged, folding solar array for ridiculously quick and easy installation at industrial scale. In May, 5B showed just how quick: a team of 10 covered the area of a soccer field with a 1.1-MW array in a single day.

Russia is the only country that sells the HALEU fuel that some next-generation nuclear plants will rely on, and with sanctions now in place due to the war in Ukraine, TerraPower has now conceded its demo timeline will blow out by at least two years.

Sweden's Eco Wave Power has been proving its relatively simple, jetty-mounted wave energy devices for at least 10 years now, and has now inked a conditional deal for a 77-megawatt installation in Turkey - the world's largest wave power plant.

Floating wind turbines are crucial to the future of offshore wind, but they require radically different thinking. French company Eolink is building a full-scale pyramid-style floating wind turbine that reduces materials and weight by more than 30%.

If all the major green ammonia projects on our shortlist are completed on schedule, their combined production total will be more than half of today's global ammonia industry by the mid-2030s – eliminating nearly 1% of global carbon dioxide emissions.

Denmark's Hyme Energy wants to save shut-down fossil-fuel heat and power plants by repurposing them as renewable energy storage and release facilities using technology borrowed from the advanced nuclear sector. Its first plant will be online by 2024.