Answer: coffee grounds can replace much of the sand in concrete, making it stronger. This solves a couple problems: Sand is scarce: You’d think with places like the Sahara Desert, we’d never run out of sand, but actually desert sand is too smooth, from being blown around for millennia, for cement. Fresh sand, from rivers and coastlines, is so valuable, people are stealing it.

Sixty eight percent more, over 200,000. And that’s in addition to the 800,000 private ones installed in Californian homes. And zero emission truck sales represented 25 percent of sales in 2024. Governor Gavin Newsom said, “In the state of California, 94% of people now live within just 10 minutes of an EV charger,” said Newsom. “We’re proving that electric vehicles are here to stay – even as Trump sells out American innovation and jobs to China.”

The 354 MW Elderado Project combines solar, row crops, pollenator habitat and STEM education. The panels can track the sun, boosting performance. Working with American Farmland Trust (AFT) and The Land Institute, the project will plant Kernza®, a perennial grain, beneath portions of the solar array. This research-driven agrivoltaics program will: Establish large-scale pollinator habitats to support biodiversity; Improve soil health with native and perennial plantings; Test row-crop performance under solar panels beginning Fall 2025.

Some people are concerned about how much land it will take to power our world with solar panels. Janta Power decided to go up, not out, stacking panels vertically and then putting them on stands that can track the sun. This not only reduces the footprint on the ground; it increases their productivity by around 45 percent. The towers are also able to reach a…

We know from studies of the Amish and Hutterites, early exposure to microbes in soil and barns improves the immune system. So in Finland, they’re experimenting with rewilding daycare. Kids are encouraged to get muddy, not scolded. And this boosted their immune systems, potentially providing lifelong benefits. A year later, it found children playing in the green kindergartens had less disease-causing bacteria – such as…

Have you heard any of these 16 myths/misleading statements about solar? Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com FALSE Solar power is an ‘unreliable source of energy’ FALSE ‘Solar and wind power are expensive’ FALSE ‘As nations use more solar, bills get more expensive’ FALSE Solar farms ‘pump out more carbon over their lifetimes than they save’ FALSE Solar power is ‘a serious threat to agriculture and food security’

This podcast/video is a fascinating look at what AI is doing to us. The issues are a deeper than co-opting all our energy and land for data centers, and gathering data on us to manipulate us. In the end, these two experts in living systems and psychology don’t advocate for avoiding the technology; that only puts more power into the hands of tech bros and their labs to manipulate our attention and use it to gain power and make money.

In northern Afghanistan, over 200 micro-forests are being planted, and they hope to double that number for 2030. These little forest plots, no larger than 2 hectares (about four acres), include 25 different tree species. These should restore biodiversity and help to cool the region. This in turn may reduce the loss of snowpack in the mountains. These micro-forests also help the local people by creating microclimates for growing food.

Your heat pump or air conditioner is likely the biggest source of electricity in your home. So why not embed a battery storage system into them? Carrier is currently experimenting with this approach and they hope that utilities will help pay for them. Why would they want to? Because they could eliminate peak loads, the hot afternoons when everyone’s AC kicks on or the cold mornings when the heat comes on.

Zohran Mamdani’s election may give the US a taste of European life. Time will tell if our individualistic, materialistic, winner-take-all culture will embrace it or smother it. Here, taking care of one another through public programs isn’t radical socialism. It’s Tuesday. Dutch environmentalist and government advisor, Alexander Verbeek Europeans don’t understand what the controversy is about. His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal childcare and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive.

We were walking our dog past some portable toilets at the school soccer field while they were being cleaned and I almost gagged. What if these and pit toilets near our hiking trails didn’t stink? What if instead of creating toxic waste that has to be pumped, they made compost? Researchers at the University of British Columbia are making a better toilet and the world may soon be beating a path to its door.

Colin Ash, a landscaper in the UK, has purchased an electric excavator that he can charge at home from his solar panels. The equipment is quiet and doesn’t belch diesel fumes. But he’s discovered even more benefits. Those benefits aren’t just making Ash’s workday better, they’re generating fresh opportunities for his business to grow, as well. “On site there’s no fuel to manage, no risk of diesel spills, and far less risk assessment & method statement paperwork.

Humans like their habits, and this can lead to suboptimal policies. Right now, there’s a push to switch internal combustion engines to electric, and most of the work is being done on passenger cars. So many of us are used to jumping in our cars to go somewhere. But is there a better way? Electric vehicles are better for the planet, but people affected by the new types of mining that support them are pushing back.

The Kennebec River in Maine used to be filled with spawning Atlantic Salmon and other fish. But twenty dams have prevented them from moving upstream. In September, The Nature Conservancy finalized an agreement to buy four of the low-producing streams closest to the ocean. Over the coming years, they will restore the flows to 800 miles of river, the largest project of its kind in the US, dwarfing the project on the Elwa which restored around 400 miles. Learn more about the project.

Ducati is a revered name in high performance motorcycles. They just released a model using a solid state battery, the Moto-e. A US-based solid-state battery developer and a Volkswagen Group subsidiary have just unveiled the world’s first live demonstration of solid-state lithium-metal batteries powering a Ducati electric motorcycle. PowerCo SE, Volkswagen’s battery subsidiary, showed the new battery innovation during a press conference at IAA Mobility in Munich, Germany. It demonstrated the technology in a Ducati motorcycle equipped with QSE-5 solid-state cells produced using the QS Cobra process.

Chinese researchers have developed a coating that when applied to a window, turns some of the light into energy while maintaining transparency. If refinements allow it to be scaled up, this approach could generate terawatts of electricity. Technically known as a "colorless and unidirectional diffractive-type solar concentrator" (CUSC), the coating directs some sunlight photons to the sides of the window panel where mounted photovoltaic cells…

A pilot site in South Africa is mining nickel not with explosives but with plants. They’re using a daisy that’s been engineered to grow larger. Their plants are able to suck up enough metal so that once dried, the concentrations are similar to the old pile-of-rocks method. Because of the relatively high concentrations of nickel in the soil, the site can’t be used for traditional crops.

It’s not very pretty, and it’s heavier/slower than kayaks you can buy. But it floats like cork. Shoemaker began working on his first mycelium boat in 2024 with harvested wild Ganoderma polychromum mycelium outside his Los Angeles studio. He modified a used fishing kayak to serve as his fiberglass mold, then grew the mycelium network inside the mold, which held over 300lbs of inoculated hemp substrate to support the cultivation.

When you think of leaders in electric vehicles, Ethiopia probably doesn't come to mind. But after they banned internal combustion cars last year, the sales of EVs, mostly China's BYDs, are taking off. Deghareg Bekele, an architect, is grateful that he no longer has to sit in gas lines for hours, only to find out the station is out of petrol.

At the Fortune Global Forum this week, billionaire and hedge fund manager Ray Dalio warned that our economy is splitting in two, with tech and finance leading and the rest of the population left in the dust. Dalio argued that the economy can no longer be treated as a single, coherent entity. Big Tech and high finance, dominated by a narrow slice of elites, drive virtually all growth, with the top 1% reaping the greatest economic rewards and the rest of the top 5-10% at least in a position to participate meaningfully.

Do you worry about what’s in your chemical sunscreen? Does your mineral based one make you look like a zombie? Thanks to research in Singapore, you may soon be able to get coral-friendly sunscreen made from camellia pollen. The researchers utilized "a proprietary water-based process that does not involve harsh chemicals or high heat" to remove the inner contents of individual pollen grains.

No, it wasn’t dragging solar panels. Without any modifications, Harley-Davidson motorcycles can use solar fuel. In May 2025, a company called Synhelion revealed that it had successfully fueled a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with an energy source known as solar fuel. Ridden by ETH Zurich professor Aldo Steinfeld, who has been studying solar fuel for more than a decade, the motorcycle operated much like one powered by normal fuel.

Water hyacinths are choking waterways around the world. A Kenyan entrepreneur is paying fishers to remove and dry the invasive species. Then he turns it into biodegradable food packaging and pots for saplings.

Right now, it's only available in Germany, but IKEA is selling solar systems for apartment dwellers, €449 for two solar panels and a microinverter, or €1229 with a battery system. The IKEA and Svea Solar partnership has been running since 2020, with heat pumps, solar panels and EV chargers already on offer. Now, the companies have teamed up again to offer various plug-in solar solutions.

Engineers have been trying to harness energy from wave action but the technology has struggled. Some methods can only be deployed in certain places like sensitive estuaries. Others have to be anchored offshore so are only practical where the sea floor drops slowly. Some systems break down in the real world. But this approach might be more practical. Los Angeles is attaching floaters along their breakwater.