Climate Technology

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  • Wind turbine suffers catastrophic failure; no one is irradiated

    Last month, a wind turbine on a North Dakota wind farm suffered a "catastrophic failure" when "oversight" and "human error" — features of energy infrastructure which scientists suggest are unavoidable — led to the enormous turbine falling off its mount. The most recent reports indicate that so far the only casualties are a wide swath […]

    Christopher Mims Technology

  • Military miracle turns fuel exhaust into water

    Man, if there's two things you don't have enough of when you're deployed in the desert and insurgents keep blowing up your fuel runs, it's beer and Wii. Wait no, it's diesel and water. Luckily researchers have devised a way for soldiers to turn one into the other. Membranes full of tiny tubes condense vehicle […]

    Jess Zimmerman Technology

  • Recycling robot is Terminator for trash

    Finnish company ZenRobotics has developed a robot that can sort out recyclables from construction trash … about half the time. Doesn't sound exciting? That's because you haven't seen the company's awesomely over the top trailer. IN A WORLD … WHERE CONSTRUCTION TRASH MAKES UP 50 PERCENT OF THE WASTE IN U.S. LANDFILLS … ONLY ONE […]

    Jess Zimmerman Technology

  • California solar has a sunny week

    A rendering of the future Ivanpah solar plant. Photo: BrightSource EnergyIt’s only Tuesday but two milestones have been reached this week in the long march toward a carbon-free future. On Monday, BrightSource Energy became the first solar power plant developer to complete the financing of a large-scale project in two decades. The United States Department […]

    Todd Woody Technology

  • Google goes all in on solar — to the tune of $168 million

    Google has saved you from getting lost, running out of email storage space, and not knowing trivial facts about 90s TV shows. And now it’s going to help save you from a dystopian Mad Max future by investing in solar energy. The company just bet $168 million on solar tech, in the form of the […]

    Christopher Mims Technology

  • Pro sports are going greener, and that means the rest of us are too

    The Seattle Sounders don’t just have crazy fans. Their facilities have a 57.6 percent landfill diversion rate.Photo: Mike HPro sports may not seem like a natural ally for environmentalists. Players fly from Boston to Los Angeles and back for a single game. Leagues and teams convince cities to build expensive and often unneeded new facilities […]

    Dan Watson Technology

  • FedEx’s Republican CEO wants you to buy an electric car [VIDEO]

    Clean energy: not a partisan issue, says FedEx's CEO. That's why he commissioned this slick little promo, which sums up everything that's wrong with our current transportation infrastructure but stops just short of mentioning peak oil. That's OK, because the facts speak for themselves: The U.S. uses a quarter of the world's oil. Seventy percent […]

    Christopher Mims Technology

  • The economic case for on-street bike parking

    This is the fourth column in a series focusing on the economics of bicycling.  Bicycling and driving have one thing in common that is almost universally frustrating, time consuming, friction causing, and potentially expensive. Parking. No matter how seamless your ride across town, no matter how well-timed the traffic lights or low-conflict the bike lanes, […]

    Elly Blue Technology

  • Car parts made out of mushrooms will — wait, what?

    Man, is there anything mushrooms can’t do? They make a damn fine fake meat, they make Mario bigger, caterpillars smoke hookahs on them, the whole nine yards. And now, thanks to a company called Ecovative, they can be used to replace styrofoam in some of Earth’s most persistent enemies: packing materials and car parts. The […]

    Jess Zimmerman Technology

  • Ford uses recycled carpet in engines

    I was going to write today about Facebook’s efforts to boost the energy efficiency of its Oregon data center by 38 percent. The social networking Goliath did that by redesigning servers and the operations of the facility, then broke with industry convention by sharing its secret sauce with competitors in a new initiative it calls […]

    Todd Woody Technology