Latest Articles

China pours money into smart grid technology

Cross-posted from Center for American Progress. There is no way to get around this fact — China aims to modernize its energy infrastructure at home and dominate clean energy technology markets abroad. At the 2011 Smart Grid World Forum in Beijing late last month, China’s State Grid Corporation announced plans to invest $250 billion in […]

Happy warrior: Fighting coal where it’s hardest

Grist is proud to present the Change Gang — profiles of people who are leading change on the ground toward a more sustainable society and a greener planet. Some we’ve written about before; some are new to our pages. Some you’ll have heard of; most you probably won’t. Know someone we should add to the […]

Students and campus food workers unite for Food Day

Northwestern University dining hall workers celebrating new contract as part of the students’ living wage campaign.“They took our knives and gave us scissors to open bags of frozen food. I want my knives back so I can cook again.” That’s what a kitchen worker at a prominent university told me recently at one of a […]

Solar airship is most efficient way to fly, ever

How can you carry huge amounts of cargo thousands of miles with no fuel and no infrastructure? By combining an airship with an airplane, of course. The resulting wing-shaped blimp requires less helium than a conventional dirigible, but has a shorter takeoff than an airplane. Hybrid Air Vehicles has been proposing this for years, but upstart […]

Why are all the ‘most efficient states’ blue states?

    This year's list of the top 10 most energy-efficient states looks an awful lot like the map of red and blue states from the 2008 election. (Data were compiled by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.) We're not sure why. Got an opinion? Share it in the comments.

Let’s cover Mt. Everest with solar panels

Less atmosphere between solar panels and the sun equals more power converted into electricity, says a new map of global solar irradiance. That means high-altitude communities — like every mountain chain from the Andes to Patagonia — could be the next frontier in producing solar power. In addition, the cool temperatures at altitude make panels […]

7 billion, unpacked — a comic

The world population is hitting 7 billion. But what does that really mean? In this comic, we unpack some of the numbers and nuances. Click the image below to view the comic, and then click on each page to go to the next one: For those without javascript enabled, here are links to each page: […]

Tile your roof with solar shingles

If you want to generate some solar energy but don't want to have weird-looking solar panels on your roof, Dow Solar has a solution for you. The company has achieved solar shingularity: Its roof shingles are solar panels! The solar panels are shingles! The discerning homeowner can live out green dreams while still conforming to […]

Too lazy to go green? Hire an eco-concierge

Have you ever been sitting around the Drones Club, throwing rolls around, and thought to yourself, "gosh, going green is very hot right now, but it sounds hard! I wish I could use my gobs of money to pay someone else to do it for me." Well, if you have, you're probably not reading this […]

Solyndra, schmolyndra: The Obama administration’s hit rate is better than the private market’s

Making loans is a tricky business — sometimes you bet on the wrong horse. For example, there's the Obama administration, which doled out 1.4 percent of its Recovery Act cleantech investments to failed solar company Solyndra, in a move that everyone and their uncle is now calling a giant embarrassment. And then there's private venture […]