It’s already difficult to conceptualize the scale of wind turbines themselves. It can be even harder to wrap your head around how much energy they can supply. Just one gigawatt is enough energy to power between 750,000 to a million US homes.1 Here in the United States,
Algae. It’s gross green goo that collects in still water…and can possibly make our future greener, too. Researchers are finding weird and unique ways to turn living algae into solar panels and hydrogen farms. So how exactly can algae do all this? And will they end up on
Growing the world’s renewable energy capacity has always been a delicate balancing act, and one of the many plates we have to spin during that act is land use. Utility-scale solar and wind parks are rapidly expanding in size and prevalence all over the world, including right near my
Ever heard of a quantum dot? What about an artificial atom? Though it might sound like technobabble from Star Trek (which of course I’m a fan of), this is a real piece of nano-technology that has the potential to revolutionize fields like medicine, consumer electronics, and especially solar energy.
About a year ago, I first talked about the Aeromine rooftop wind turbine and its unique “motionless” design. Now, a new rooftop turbine is hitting the scene. Norwegian company Ventum Dynamics just released its shrouded wind turbine, the VX175, to the market in February.1 It’s also deployed in
Did I get ripped off and scammed with my solar? According to the comments on my recent solar panel video, where I compared a Tesla Solar Roof to my more modular solar panel system, I surely did get scammed and ripped off. … but did I? The critical comments really boiled
Perovskites are often hailed as the next big thing for solar panels. They’re more efficient than silicon PVs could ever be, and they have higher yields. However, their fragility and short lifespans have relegated them to the lab…so far. But 2024 is looking to be the year of
Sand. It’s coarse, it’s rough, and it can make for a great battery. And as weird as that might sound, it’s just one example of the many earthy materials currently used for thermal energy storage (or TES). A while back, we covered the debut of the world’
Some of you may have seen Marques Brownlee’s video from a few months back about how he hasn’t paid for electricity in a year because of his Tesla Solar Roof. But…this got me wondering why I’m still not seeing a lot of Tesla Solar Roofs around.
Hydropower is a great source of energy that doesn’t suffer the same intermittency problems as other renewables. But dams fail. A lot. About 95% of the existing hydropower systems in the States were built before 1995, and over half operate using equipment designed over 80 years ago.1 This
You’re probably used to solar installations that look like this – solar panels facing up towards the sky, which makes sense. You want a wider area to catch more of that sweet solar energy, right? However, bifacial vertical solar panels have started to gain traction recently. Their more flexible-footprint has
This is the biggest solar plant in the United States, located in Kern, California. The Solar Star Plant is over 8 square miles and has a generation capacity of 579 megawatts, powering around 255,000 homes.1 This is impressive, but about 6,500 miles away, in this remote desert,