NEW TECHNOLOGIES

NEW technologies

Successfully mitigating climate change and adapting to the coming unavoidable environmental changes are going to require continuing technological advancements. Here, find the latest in solar technology, carbon capture, flood safety, and much more.

How each sub-discipline of machine learning can help fight climate change, where the darker colors represent more opportunities to pursue. SOURCE: MIT Technology Review

CURRENT NEWS

KEY RESOURCES

10 technologies that could combat climate change as food demand soars

A new study from the World Bank and UN finds we’ll need ways to boost yields faster than ever before to prevent agricultural emissions from soaring.

Climate – Data.gov

Here you can find data related to climate change that can help inform and prepare America’s communities, businesses, and citizens. You can currently find data and resources related to coastal flooding, food resilience, water, ecosystem…

The Next Renewable Energy Source Could Be Rain

The team behind the new raindrop power generator has pushed these limits further. The researchers, from City University in Hong Kong and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, spent two years working on the energy density of…

Why Renewable Energy Is a Technical Reality But An Economic Disaster

Why are utilities and governments sinking so much money into giant batteries? In two words: wind and solar. Renewable energy sources like wind and solar are notoriously fickle. Back when they contributed only a tiny…

Climate Solutions: Technologies to Slow Climate Change

But experts say there is no silver bullet to protect the climate — and that keeping fossil fuels in the ground is the surest known way to prevent further warming.

5 tech innovations that could save us from climate change

So he, along with some of the world’s richest people, have launched a fund to invest in solutions driven by technology. It will bring together governments and research institutions and billionaire investors who will try to limit…

The Tech Innovations We Need to Happen if We're Going to Survive Climate Change

Eliminating the carbon emitted in the production of electricity is a crucial step toward keeping the world from heating to dire levels. It is also among the most straightforward, largely thanks to the innovations of…

MORE NEWS

Could geoengineering strategies help tackle climate change?

A range of technologies — loosely defined as ‘geoengineering’ — are being explored as responses to climate change….

triple pundit

Carbon Capture Gives Way to Carbon Recycling

By Tina Casey 1/28/20

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy kicked off a new campaign to promote carbon capture technology, in partnership with a fossil energy advocacy organization called the U.S. Energy Association. The new campaign is clearly…

WIRED

Automated Solar Arrays Could Help Incinerate Global Warming

By Laura Mallonee 1/21/20

Plenty of days, temperatures in California’s Mojave Desert climb above 120 degrees Fahrenheit. A measly figure. These 400 silvered glass panels, tucked into the western edge of that hot, hot desert, are there to generate…

one zero

Swarms of Teeny Robo-Tractors Will Outmaneuver Tesla’s Driverless Cars

By Sarah Kessler Photo by Janet Mac 1/13/20

While Elon Musk and Waymo get all the attention — and regulations — autonomous vehicles for farming face fewer tech barriers and could be just as important

The Next Climate Tech Breakthrough May Have Already Happened, We Just Didn’t Notice

How biomimicry and evolution can offer sustainable solutions for adaptation and resilience. …

MIT Technology Review

The US government has approved funds for geoengineering research

by James Temple Photo: Cristian Baron on Unsplash 12/20/19

NOAA will get at least $4 million for a research program, which will include efforts to assess “climate interventions.”

medium

A Once-Iffy Form of Carbon Capture Is Getting a Lot Better

By Peter Coy Photo by Gabriel Lamza 12/18/19

Companies appear to be working faster than expected to commercialize a controversial climate weapon

The Epoch Times

20-Year-Old Inventor in India Creates Biodegradable Plastic Substitute Made From Banana Leaves

By Robert Jay Watson Photo courtesy of Tenith Adithyaa 12/13/19

Adithyaa has been winning awards for his designs and tech accomplishments since he was a boy and has devoted his considerable talents and time to solving one of the 21st century’s big challenges: plastic pollution.

Apple buys first batch of aluminum using Alcoa’s breakthrough, pollution-free technology

The metal was produced at Alcoa’s technical center in Westmoreland County through a joint venture with aluminum maker Rio Tinto….

Plastics Today

Plastics upcycler GreenMantra’s clean technology for a circular economy

By Rick Lingle 12/3/19

Diversion of plastics from landfills into reuse is one of the fundamental approaches to a circular economy that’s sparked fresh ideas and real-world innovation over the past months as to how to make that happen.

A new solar heat technology could help solve one of the trickiest climate problems

Heliogen’s demonstration tower in Lancaster, California. | Heliogen Making high-temperature industrial heat from sunlight. It’s pretty clear how we can reduce and eventually eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from some sectors of the economy. Electricity, transportation,…

PBS News Hour

This new ‘battery’ aims to spark a carbon capture revolution

By Nsikan Akpan Photo: Brett Ruskin/CBC 11/15/19

Think of the invention as a quasi-battery, in terms of its shape, its construction and how it works to collect carbon dioxide. You pump electricity into the battery, and while the device stores this charge,…

WIRED

Can Tiny Glass Beads Keep Arctic Ice From Melting? Maaaybe

By Eric Niiler Photo by Getty Images 10/18/19

A geoengineering nonprofit wants to spread silicate beads over polar sea ice to prevent the absorption of heat, but some scientists have their doubts.

MNN

Best use of drones ever? Planting a forest

By Starre Vartan 10/8/19

I’m not a fan of drones — at least not when they interrupt an otherwise quiet scene when I’m out hiking — but this news may change my mind. Those nettlesome little buggers are finally…

Los Angeles Times

Newsom will announce new plans for a satellite to track climate change

By Taryn Luna Photo by NASA 9/25/19

Former Gov. Jerry Brown famously said last year that California would launch its “own damn satellite” to track climate change in defiance of the Trump administration. On Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom will announce a new…

TED Talks

Emergency medicine for our climate fever

By Kelly Wanser 8/28/19

Learn more about the promises and risks of “cloud brightening” — and how it could help restore our climate to health.

MIT Technology Review

What is geoengineering—and why should you care?

by James Temple Photo: USGS Archives 8/9/19

It’s becoming clear that we won’t cut carbon emissions soon enough to prevent catastrophic climate change. But there may be ways to cool the planet more quickly and buy us a little more time to…

E&E News

Video game designer opens lab for renewable energy

By Robinson Meyer 7/1/19

A Dutch video game designer and entrepreneur has established a laboratory on the Big Island that is focused on developing alternatives to fossil fuels for energy, the Hawaii Tribune-Herald reported.

The Environmental Magazine

Could Turning Carbon Dioxide To Fuel Solve The Climate Crisis?

By Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss 6/26/19

With recent measurements detecting the highest levels of atmospheric CO2 in human history—and experts warning we have less than a dozen years to turn around our profligate emissions to avoid cataclysmic changes—the time is nigh…

CBC News

This house was built using 600,000 recycled plastic bottles

By Brett Ruskin 6/25/19

This week, the team from JD Composites unveiled its first home in Meteghan River on Nova Scotia’s southwest shore. It has walls made with 15-centimetre thick plastic slabs. More than 600,000 recycled plastic bottles were…

MIT Technology Review

Here are 10 ways AI could help fight climate change

By Karen Hao 6/20/19

Machine learning has the potential to make some real inroads against our biggest threat. Some of the biggest names in AI research have laid out a road map suggesting how machine learning can help save…

EPISODE: Future Consequences on TED Radio Hour

From data collection to gene editing to AI, what we once considered science fiction is now becoming reality. This hour, TED speakers explore the future consequences of our present actions.Guests include designer Anab Jain, futurist…

BBC

A simple online system that could end plastic pollution

By Justin Calderon 6/13/19

Poorer communities in the developing world bear the brunt of plastic pollution. Could a new digital payment system spark a clean-up revolution?

Anthropocene

A new PLASTIC to recycle and reuse

By Prachi Patel 5/16/19

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have now made a new plastic that can be broken down into its basic chemical building blocks and then rebuilt again and again without any loss in quality.

GreenBiz

Carbon capture legislation: a small step on the long corporate climate march

By William Murray 4/24/19

Away from the klieg lights and hot-takes of the political commentariat, more than a dozen senators from both parties support the Utilizing Significant Emissions with Innovative Technologies (USEIT) Act: legislation that seeks to remove barriers…

Washington Post

As seas rise, the U.N. explores a bold plan: Floating cities

By Ben Guarino 4/5/19

A company called Oceanix is building a prototype floating island as an experimental solution for crowded coastal cities threatened by climate change, the company told the United Nations habitat program Wednesday.

The Beautiful Future Power of Solar

By Marjan van Aubel 12/2018

The Sun delivers more energy to Earth in one hour than all of humanity uses in an entire year. How can we make this power more accessible to everyone, everywhere? Solar designer Marjan van Aubel…

Wired

Carbon Capture is Messy and Fraught–but Might be Essential

By Matt Simon 10/29/18

Direct air capture, as it’s known, is one of several negative emissions technologies, or NETs, that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine explored in a massive report released last week. On the bright…

The New York Times

Scientists Push for a Crash Program to Scrub Carbon From the Air

By Brad Plumer 10/24/18

With time running out to avoid dangerous global warming, the nation’s leading scientific body on Wednesday urged the federal government to begin a research program focused on developing technologies that can remove vast quantities of…

Bloomberg

Israel Startup Rolls Out Tiny Solar Panels for Smart Electronics

By Anna Hirtenstein 10/23/18

A startup in Israel is implanting tiny solar panels on electronic devices that allows the devices to sustainably generate their own power, the latest sign that falling costs are pushing renewable energy technologies deeper into…

$fracking_ccr19$

Climate Crocks

Carbon Negative Fuel is Startup Dream

By Peter Sinclair 10/21/18

A startup based in Squamish and funded by international investors has created revolutionary new technology has the potential to combat climate change if it could be implemented on a larger scale. As well, it could…

The Atlantic

Google’s New Tool to Fight Climate Change

By Robinson Meyer 9/25/18

The company will begin estimating local carbon pollution from cities around the world. “The first step toward taking climate action is creating an emissions inventory,” says Saleem Van Groenou, a program manager at Google Earth.…

Triple Pundit

Entrepreneurs Protecting Ocean Resources Find Support

By Jan Lee 8/9/18

The Ocean Solutions Accelerator, the brainchild of the nonprofit the Sustainable Ocean Alliance, identified five new ocean startups to join its inaugural accelerator program. They were selected based on their potential to “benefit the health…

Our Energy Policy

How Blockchain is Changing Energy

By Alex Kizer 8/8/18

Blockchain is a widely-hyped — but potentially disruptive — distributed ledger technology. The technology acts as a software for managing large volumes of transactions, settled quickly, securely, and at relatively low cost. This IT-based system…

The Atlantic

A Disappointing New Problem With Geo-Engineering

By Robinson Meyer 8/8/18

Over the past few years, I’ve heard dozens of scientists talk about solar geo-engineering, the once outlandish idea that humanity should counteract climate change by releasing special gases into the stratosphere to reflect away sunlight…

The New York Times

Designing the Death of a Plastic

By Xiaozhi Lim 8/6/18

Decades ago, synthetic polymers became popular because they were cheap and durable. Now, scientists are creating material that self-destructs or breaks down for reuse on command.

The New Yorker

Can Carbon-Dioxide Removal Save the World?

By Elizabeth Kolbert 11/20/17

Carbon-dioxide removal is, potentially, a trillion-dollar enterprise because it offers a way not just to slow the rise in CO2 but to reverse it. The process is sometimes referred to as “negative emissions”: instead of…