Renewable Energy

URB has unveiled the "world’s largest ocean restoration project" on the Dubai coast, the stunning and sustainable Dubai Reefs. The floating community is intended to be the center of marine research, eco-regeneration and eco-tourism worldwide.

We've seen some inventive ideas around how giant turbine blades might be saved from landfill at the end of their lives, and scientists have just thrown another one into the mix with some wide-ranging, and delicious, potential.

Many renewable energy technologies require metals that are mined through environmentally destructive processes. Now, Oxford scientists are investigating a new way to mine valuable metals trapped in hot brines beneath volcanoes.

A simple home test for breast cancer and a UV energy-harvesting window made of recycled materials are the big winners of this year’s James Dyson Awards. The annual competition encourages university students to develop innovative solutions to problems.

​Could renewable sources meet 100 percent of our energy demand? Yes, according to new research which scrutinises the arguments against. “There are no roadblocks on the way to a 100-percent renewable future,” the research finds.

Budapest startup Platio has spent the last couple of years developing a modular, self-contained paving panel that harvests the sun's energy to produce electricity. The panels have recently been rolled out in front of a shopping mall, at a harbor and integrated into outdoor seating.

One of the biggest offshore wind farms in the world has just started turning in the North Sea, off the coast of the Netherlands. Hidden over the horizon, the Gemini wind farm isn't visible from the mainland or the neighboring islands, and is set to produce about 2.6 TWh of electricity every year.

​​Back in 2015, Google launched a clever venture called Project Sunroof that used Google Maps data to assess the solar potential of individual roofs. It has now expanded to cover every US State and the data makes a compelling case for solar power indeed. ​

​Electric vehicles are hitting the roads in greater numbers every year, but in the meantime, scientists are working on ways to clean up existing fossil fuels. A new refining process uses a potassium catalyst to reduce the amount of sulfur in gasoline and diesel to a fraction of their current levels.

A V164 offshore wind turbine from MHI Vestas Offshore Wind has produced almost 216,000 kWh over a 24-hour period during tests at its site near Østerild, Denmark​ in December. In doing so, the ​9 MW prototype takes the energy generation record for a commercially available offshore wind turbine.​

The 600,000 Dutch that travel daily by train will now do so thanks purely to wind energy, with the national rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS) announcing that 100 percent of its passenger trains will be powered by the renewable source from January onwards.

Swiss researchers have created a system that stores heat captured during summer for use in winter, with the added benefit that the captured energy can be physically transported anywhere it may be needed.