After the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s crippled China’s economy, the country began to open its markets to the outside world. The aim was to bring in technological know-how from abroad that domestic firms could then assimilate. By the early …Continue reading
We could still prevent 1.5 ˚C of warming—but we almost certainly won’t
A new study finds the world could still avoid 1.5 ˚C of warming, achieving the aim of the landmark Paris climate accord. The bad news is we almost certainly won’t. If we immediately began phasing out fossil-fuel infrastructure at the end of …Continue reading
The day I tasted climate change
In early November, gale-force winds whipped a brush fire into an inferno that nearly consumed the town of Paradise, California, and killed at least 86 people. By the second morning, I could smell the fire from one foot outside my door in …Continue reading
A long-awaited battery that would cut electric-vehicle costs may finally be close
In 2010, a pair of MIT materials scientists helped launch 24M, promising to deliver cheaper, better batteries by stripping out inactive materials in the electrodes. Eight years later, you still can’t buy the startup’s products. But in an interview last week, chief …Continue reading
The record for high-temperature superconductivity has been smashed again
Superconductivity is the weird phenomenon of zero electrical resistance that occurs when some materials are cooled below a critical temperature. The best superconductors have to be cooled with liquid helium or nitrogen to get cold enough (often as low as -250 °C …Continue reading
California needs to reinvent its fire policies, or the death and destruction will go on
A week after flames first ripped through Paradise, California, nearly destroying the ridgeline community in the Sierra Nevada foothills, thousands of firefighters are still battling to contain the deadliest and most destructive fire in the state’s history. The Camp Fire, which has …Continue reading
A powerful new battery could give us electric planes that don’t pollute
Brightly colored molecular models line two walls of Yet-Ming Chiang’s office at MIT. Chiang, a materials science professor and serial battery entrepreneur, has spent much of his career studying how slightly different arrangements of those sticks and spheres add up to radically …Continue reading
A new way to make steel could cut 5% of CO2 emissions at a stroke
Alumpy disc of dark-gray steel covers a bench in the lab space of Boston Metal, an MIT spinout located a half-hour north of its namesake city. It’s the company’s first batch of the high-strength alloy, created using a novel approach to metal …Continue reading
Bill Gates has added a geothermal startup to his clean energy fund’s first bets
Bill Gates’s $1 billion clean energy fund just opened up its checkbook for the first time. Breakthrough Energy Ventures will announce today it’s investing in a host of startups developing technology that can confront the growing dangers of climate change. Among the …Continue reading
One secret to building affordable nuclear: stick with tried-and-true designs
Nuclear power could be the key to cleaning up the electricity sector, since it’s carbon free and delivers steady power around the clock. But hardly anyone wants to build reactors these days. “The fundamental problem is cost,” says a new report from …Continue reading