Enlarge Earth Day was April 22, and its usual message—take care of our planet—has been given added urgency by the challenges highlighted in the latest IPCC report. This year, Ars is taking a look at the technologies we normally cover, from cars to chipmaking, and finding out how we can boost their sustainability and minimize […]
Enlarge / Kites could make it possible to build wind farms on land that isn’t windy enough for conventional wind turbine towers. (credit: Peter Cade | Getty Images) Any kid who’s ever flown a kite has learned the lesson: Once you can get the kite off the ground and high into the air, you’re more […]
Enlarge / Solar power and habitat preservation are likely to conflict, but only in some areas. (credit: Zhi Hao ) Compared to fossil fuel plants, renewable energy facilities cover a lot of ground. That ground can be put to additional uses; many wind farms are also farms, and even solar plants can work well with […]
Enlarge / An eastbound manifest freight swoops through an S curve in Lombard Canyon, just east of Toston, Montana, on September 11, 2011. The tracks here snake along the Missouri River between Toston and Lombard. (credit: Mike Danneman / Getty Images ) With the rapid pace of development in electric vehicles, we will likely get […]
Enlarge / Heavy equipment moves coal into piles at PacifiCorp’s Hunter coal-fired power plant outside of Castle Dale, Utah. (credit: GEORGE FREY / AFP ) The US is expected to burn 22 percent more coal than last year, marking the first annual increase in the use of the polluting fossil fuel since 2014, the Energy […]
Enlarge / Coal plants at the end of the line? (credit: Ryan Pyle / Getty Images) Chinese President Xi Jinping used his speech to the United Nations General Assembly to announce a major new step towards controlling global emissions. After reiterating his own country’s climate pledges, Xi said that China would start making it easier […]
Enlarge / See these solar panels in space? They’re way too heavy to economically provide power to Earth. (credit: NASA) “This is an idea that’s older than even the space program,” Caltech’s Harry Atwater told Ars over Zoom. Citing Asimov and Clarke, Atwater conjured an image of gleaming solar panels floating above the Earth on […]
Enlarge / A Coradia iLint hydrogen fuel-cell powered prototype railway train, manufactured by Alstom SA, travels in Salzgitter, Germany. (credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images ) If you were paying attention at the start of this century, you might remember the phrase “hydrogen economy, ” which was shorthand for George W. Bush’s single, abortive attempt to take climate […]
Enlarge / New Jersey hopes to be the home of scenes like this, where French workers are building the foundations for offshore wind turbines. (credit: Bloomberg/Getty Images) By the end of the decade, New Jersey’s beaches are set to have a view of something other than crashing waves. The state is pushing for aggressive development […]
Enlarge (credit: Jose Luis Stephens | Getty Images) To limit global warming to 1.5˚C by the end of the century, the world has to deploy clean technologies en masse while slashing investment in new oil, gas, and coal supplies, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency. Getting to net zero carbon emissions […]