Environment / Alternative Energy

Our Wonderful Age of Abundance, in 9 Striking Infographics

Technology is driving us toward 
an era of exhilarating freedom,
 economic opportunity, and the profound gift of health. 04.24.2012

4 Bold Ideas to Make America’s Energy Supply 
Safer, Cleaner & 
Virtually Inexhaustible


A group of experts charts out a path for navigating through humanity's painful energy transition. 02.16.2012

#46: Solar Power in Peril


Solar in trouble after a recent mini-boom. 12.20.2011

#7: Japan Quakes; Nuke Power Stays Steady

This year enthusiasm for nuclear power in some developed nations 
seemed to vanish after Japan’s nuclear disaster. But while those countries 
recoil from atomic energy, others are committing to a nuclear future. 12.20.2011

China's Upcoming Nuclear Power Boom

The emerging superpower is developing a different type of reactor that should be less prone to dangers like those that emerged recently in Japan. 09.01.2011

The Planet Fixers

A corporate executive, an environmental engineer, an evangelical-
Christian scientist, and a youth organizer join NBC moderator Tom Brokaw for a spirited debate on solutions to climate change. 08.08.2011

The Hardcore Nuclear-Waste Containers That Can Stand up to Airplane Crashes

When it comes to spent nuclear fuel, no solution is perfect—but the U.S's dry casks are pretty tough. 08.02.2011

Building the Green-Collar Economy

The lure of renewable energy sources is that they help fight climate 
change. Four experts argue that the transition to a clean economy could also jump-start economic growth and put a new generation to work. 
 08.02.2011

Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Bioplastics: 2 Birds With 1 Stone?

One chemist says he can slash atmospheric carbon dioxide to preindustrial levels in a decade, harnessing the sun's power to make useful products at the same time. 08.01.2011

Bringing Power to the People—by Plugging Into the Sahara

"Where there are few people, there is lots of renewable energy," says one clean-energy engineer. 07.29.2011

3 Bugs That Can Teach Us a Lot About Solar Power

The modern solar panel is 
woefully inefficient, converting 24 percent of sunlight's energy into electricity, at best. Mother nature can do much better, owing to 3 billion years of hard-won evolution. 07.26.2011

Pursuing Plant Power

Chemical engineers are looking to leaves as they try to make better, more efficient solar cells. 05.09.2011

Is the Coal Killer Flying Thousands of Feet Up in the Sky?

JoeBen Bevirt is building an inventive, flying turbine in a bold bid to make wind power practical. 02.08.2011

Turning Tough Trash Into Food-Friendly Fuel

Researchers are making steps toward producing biofuels from plant material we don't eat. 02.07.2011

The Dark-Horse Lab That Just Might Figure Out Fusion

It is the energy source that could change the world. It has eluded every effort to master it. But Glen Wurden thinks he knows how to tame the heart of the sun. 01.26.2011

We're Looking for a Few Clean War Machines

In order to protect supply lines, the U.S. military is making a big push into green energy, from biofuel-burning planes to geothermal-powered bases to an all-green carrier strike group. 01.24.2011

The Age of Extreme Offshore Oil Is Just Beginning

As the demand for oil surges, companies push farther under the ocean, finding a bonanza of crude far beneath the ocean. Can we safely drill through miles of water, rock, and salt without more terrible blowouts? 01.18.2011

The 100 Top Science Stories of 2010

Every year DISCOVER sorts through the scientific accomplishments of the past 12 months, and assembles a list of the coolest experiments, most brilliant discoveries, and most world-changing events. As you page through the countdown to the #1 science story, we think you'll come to the same conclusion we did: 2010 was quite a year. 12.16.2010

7 Visions of Our Hot, Awful Future

A bounty of 2010 books predict the future in a globally warmed world. Among the forecasts: boom town Detroit, abandoned Miami, an Arctic black gold rush, and a weirdly strong dried fruit market. 12.13.2010

Black Is the New Green

Scientists are learning to mimic nature to produce clean energy, by re-creating photosynthesis in the lab. 12.05.2010

The End of Easy Oil

Canada’s tar sands will soon be our top source of imported oil. But will that energy be worth the costs? 12.01.2010

A New Effort to Capture Coal's Dirty Breath & Bury It Underground

An experimental power plant in New Jersey could give the coal an attractive (and lucrative) makeover—if the technology, policy, and economics come together. 11.29.2010

The Big Potential of Micro Nukes

Downsized, simplified reactors are poised to revive nuclear energy and bring carbon-free power to where it is needed most. 11.22.2010

4 Bold—and Realistic—Plans to Fix Our Energy System

Eight leading thinkers offer visions of how to move from a history of squandering resources to a cleaner, more efficient, and more abundant energy supply. 11.17.2010

How Solar Power Could Become Cheaper Than Coal

Engineers are using leading-edge physics to try to make photovoltaic cells a mainstream power source. 11.01.2010

Can Geothermal Power Our Future—Without Shaking Our Cities?

New kinds of high-tech heat carriers could help plants achieve both efficiency and safety. 04.12.2010

#38: A Smart Makeover for the Electrical Grid

“The grid needs to evolve from one-way wires and cables... We need the marriage of energy technology and information technology.” 01.26.2010

#37: Algae Might Be a Source of Clean, Renewable Diesel Fuel

“At the beginning we’d tell people, ‘I know this sounds crazy,’” says Bryan Willson, a Colorado State University engineer and cofounder of Solix Biofuels. 01.26.2010

#9: Experimental Coal Plant Stashes CO2 Underground

If FutureGen can successfully sequester its emissions, it could be a model for clean energy in the future. 01.25.2010

#19: New Battery Tech Could Transform the Car

More power, faster charge, happier atmosphere. 01.25.2010

#26: Biologist J. Craig Venter

The pioneering scientist/entrepreneur on biology's next leap: digitally designed life-forms that could produce novel drugs, renewable fuels, and plentiful food for tomorrow’s world. 01.25.2010

8 Big Ideas That Could Pave the Road to Clean Energy

Leading thinkers offer visions of how to make our energy supply cleaner, more efficient, and more abundant. 01.19.2010

#69: Science Sets Its Eyes on the Prize

Big money awaits innovators who can build rockets, sequence genomes, predict people's movie preferences, harvest energy from the tides, or explore the Moon. 12.25.2009

#74: Hydrogen Energy Gets Two Big Boosts

One research group has found that an iron-based catalyst works just as well as the platinum catalysts used in fuel cells today. 12.23.2009

#78: California to Get Some Star Power—Literally

The National Ignition Facility starts warming up for its main act: nuclear fusion research. 12.22.2009

The Tiny German Village That Went Off the Grid

A small town in Saxony has figured out how to run entirely on biomass—and create an energy surplus. 10.14.2009

Five Questions: Turning Microbes Into Micro Refineries

Synthetic biologist Reshma Shetty predicts that we will eventually engineer organisms to grow everything that we manufacture today. 10.12.2009

Introducing the Most Efficient Solar Power in the World

It's taken 25 years, but a new solar-thermal plant in New Mexico has finally broken the old efficiency record. 10.08.2009

3-D Scanning: How to Put the Real World Into Your Computer

The recent imaging of two 300-million-year-old proto-spiders was just the tip of the iceberg: Here are 12 new scanning technologies that are bringing amazing 3-D images into Hollywood, medical care—and home PCs. 08.12.2009

Can Botanical Tweaking Turn Jatropha Into a Biofuel Wonder Plant?

One company sets out to domesticate the wild, oil-producing weed. 07.21.2009

Hydrogen Headway

The Obama administration has turned away from fuel cells, but there's still promising research in the field. 06.18.2009

Forget Lightning. How Do We Catch Sunshine in a Bottle?

Renewable power is inspiring clever new ways to store electricity—and to uncork it exactly when and where it is needed. 06.17.2009

Building an Interstate Highway System for Energy

Tomorrow’s smart grid will keep the lights on and factories humming with clean (but fickle) renewable energy. 06.10.2009

New Tech Could Make Nuclear the Best Weapon Against Climate Change

Two new designs aim to make nuclear reactors safer and vastly more efficient. 06.08.2009

10 Zany (or Genius?) Plans for Green Cities of the Future

Floating cities. A building with a million residents. An oil rig turned into a tourist getaway. Some architects are dreaming of a wild green revolution. 05.26.2009

The Next Source of Green Energy: Your Car Itself

A new MIT invention turns shock absorbers into electric generators. 05.03.2009

Countdown to Fusion: National Ignition Facility in Pictures

Researchers at Livermore National Lab expect to be producing energy with a controlled, self-sustaining fusion reaction within three years. 04.14.2009

Can Smart Tech Keep Chevy Volt's Battery Running Longer Than Your Laptop's?

GM says that tightly controlling how the battery charges will keep it alive for 10 years/150,000 miles. 04.09.2009

The Weirdest New Source of Alternative Energy: Underwater Vibrations

Researchers say this longtime bane of offshore drilling is more cost-efficient than wind and solar. 02.25.2009

Where Every Windmill Is a Gusher: Offshore

Wind power from the sea could provide an alternative-energy breakthrough. 02.01.2009

Can Clean Coal Actually Work? Time to Find Out.

The first "clean coal" power plant is now up and running. 01.25.2009

The Best and Worst of the Latest Science News

Endangered humpback whales may be saved, but Navy sonar can still cause them problems. 01.18.2009

Super Trees Clean up Superfund Sites

One remarkable forest is busy purifying the planet. 12.26.2008

#1: The Post-Oil Era Begins

Electricity may be what fuels our future—electricity from renewables, nuclear, and even from burning biomass. 12.22.2008

#21: Plants Inspire a Better Way to Store Solar Energy

Using the principles of photosynthesis, scientists create more efficient storage for solar power. 12.18.2008

#26: Sun Catcher Promises Cheaper Solar Power

Using laser technology, scientists build a low-cost solar concentrator. 12.17.2008

Go Green This Thanksgiving: Turn Turkey Guts Into Oil

A Missouri plant successfully turns practically anything into black gold. But profitability is another matter. 11.25.2008

20 Best Brains Under 40

Young innovators are changing everything from theoretical mathematics to cancer therapy. 11.20.2008

6 Blue-Sky Ideas for Revolutionizing the Automobile

Eclectic visionaries imagine an alternate reality where cars walk, fly, and drive themselves. 10.20.2008

How—and Where—Will We Live in 2015?

The future is now for sustainable cities in the U.K., China, and U.A.E. 10.08.2008

Can Engineers Achieve the Holy Grail of Energy: Infinite and Clean?

All they need to do is tame 200-million-degree plasma—without using too much energy. 10.06.2008

Anything Into Ethanol

Forget about corn—future biofuels will be made of wood chips and trash. 10.03.2008

The Element That Could Change the World

Making green energy work may depend on three unlikely heroes: an Australian engineer, a battery, and the element vanadium. 09.29.2008

The King of Green Architecture

William McDonough aims to create buildings that produce oxygen, sequester carbon, and produce more power than they use. 09.28.2008

From Booze to Garbage to Fusion: The Future of Energy

How will we fuel the world in 50 years? By putting everything from wood chips to balloons to liquid plasma to work for us. 09.24.2008

High-Flying Windmills Blow Away Their Ground-Based Cousins

Next-generation turbines may catch all the energy we need, thousands of feet up. 09.24.2008

Turning the "Freight Trains of the Ocean" Into Hybrids

As the fuel crisis continues, container ships look to innovation to clean up their act. 09.23.2008

Powering the Planet With Sun-Harnessing Balloons

One innovator says the greatest threat to a clean-energy world is kids with BB guns. 09.19.2008

The Second Coming of Biofuels

Plant-based fuels have been a big disappointment to date, but new "green biofuels" might fulfill their promise. 09.02.2008

Can Future Olympic Cities Go Greener Than Beijing?

After China's last-minute push to clean up for the games, the next three hosts aim to do better. 08.25.2008

Wind Turbine That Imitates Flippers Could Increase Efficiency

The bumps on a humpback's flipper prevent the beast from stalling as it turns. 08.15.2008

10 Ways Genetically Engineered Microbes Could Help Humanity

Fighting cancer, producing renewable fuels, and making your clothing glow in the dark. 08.06.2008

20 Things You Didn't Know About... Oil

Learn more about the world's biggest fuel source—while it's still around. 06.28.2008

Under the Hood of the First Real Fuel-Cell Car

The Honda Clarity is for real, but it's not zero-emissions. 06.08.2008

Two Strokes and You're Out

Impressive new tech reduces pollution from small engines by almost 90 percent. 05.21.2008

The Next Steps Toward a Sustainable Planet

Environmental activist Laurie David gives a state of the union on the environment. 05.16.2008

Is Nuclear Energy Our Best Hope?

Even the creator of the holistic Gaia hypothesis has come around. 04.25.2008

Biofuel Farming Looks to Be an Environmental Disaster

Growing corn for ethanol may increase greenhouse gases for over a century. 04.03.2008

The Great Forgotten Clean-Energy Source: Geothermal

The U.S. uses less than 1 percent of our available geothermal energy. 04.03.2008

Has Science Found a Way to End All Wars?

Given adequate food, fuel, and gender equality, mass conflict just might disappear. 03.13.2008

5 Most Radical Ways to Squelch a Climate Crisis

Why we may need to reprogram the planet—and how we can do it. 02.25.2008

A New Source of Green Energy: Burning Tires?

If rubber recycling hits a glut, there may be little choice. 02.12.2008

The Latest Weapon Against Global Warming: Your Fridge

Smart appliances react to the grid to prevent blackouts—and pollution. 02.11.2008

If Life Gives You Methane, Make Methane Energy

The global warming risk that's also a great opportunity 01.31.2008

The Cheapest Way to Power Your Car

If you had the right ride, hydropower could lop 2/3 off your gas bills. 12.18.2007

Green House vs. Greenhouse

To save the environment, imitate mobile homes and go pre-fab. 11.29.2007

Solar Power, At Last?

The long-sought mechanism for a superior solar cell may now be at hand. 11.16.2007

Caging Carbon

A new device pulls the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. 10.30.2007

Caging Carbon

A new device pulls the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. 10.22.2007

Better Planet: Nuke Power is Earth's Friend

It’s time to replace coal power with wind and, yes, nuclear. 08.01.2007

The First Nuclear Refugees Come Home

Chernobyl-area natives return to find a city of ghosts. 06.08.2007

The Ultimate Garbage Disposal

A power station eats up dirty landfill and churns out clean electricity. 05.18.2007

Can Coal Come Clean?

How to survive the return of the world's dirtiest fossil fuel. 12.18.2006

Life After Oil

Everyone from GM to President Bush is suddenly infatuated with ethanol. Here's how Big Corn could really replace Big Oil. 08.01.2006

Homegrown Fuel

New research on reducing our dependence on foreign oil—with paper. 07.25.2006

A Better Energizer

An ultracapacitor is what really keeps going and going. . . . 05.28.2006

All Aboard The Cow Train

Natural gas from the manure of about 30 cows powers a train. 05.28.2006

Anything Into Oil

Turkey guts, junked car parts, and even raw sewage go in one end of this plant, and black gold comes out the other end. 04.02.2006

The Energizer

Amory Lovins has a vision: The U.S. economy keeps going and going and going—without any oil 02.20.2006

Wave Energy

Can a mechanical snake that surfs the ocean squeeze enough watts from water? 12.02.2005

Energy

Who needs oil or coal or gas when the world is full of plain old algae? 10.24.2005

Discover Dialogue: Chemist Rick Smalley

We are used to a world where we are rich in energy, driven by low-cost oil. That will not go on for much longer 02.06.2005

China Gets Greener

07.25.2004

Anything Into Oil

07.25.2004

Greenmark

On a tiny island off the Danish coast, life after oil is working out just fine 06.26.2004

Fire From Ice

05.29.2004

Catch the Fire!

Innovative dotcom engineers ReInvent Solar Power 08.01.2003

Anything Into Oil

Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year. 05.01.2003

Unplugged

Self-sustaining homes could mean the end of utility bills or even the end of utilities 04.01.2003

Future Tech

Fusion could solve all our energy problems, if only we could get it to work 03.01.2002

The (slow) Rise of Alternative Energy

Wind and solar power become increasingly important. 05.01.2001

Hot Fusion in a Can

03.01.2001

Future Tech

This tube of supercharged sound could make the biggest bang since internal combustion 05.01.2000

Future Tech

Hybrid cars are electric efficient, gasoline convenient, and the biggest auto innovation in a century 04.01.2000

The Tenth Annual Discover Magazine Awards for Technological Innovation TRANSPORTATION

WINNER MIT's MicroplasmatronInnovator: Daniel Cohn 07.01.1999

Plasmamobiles

12.01.1998

Edible Motor Oil

08.01.1998

Physics Watch: Fusion's Future?

Will tomorrow's power plants run on a few ounces of hydrogen and boron instead of several hundred tons of coal? Physicist Hendrik Monkhorst is betting on it. 05.01.1998

At Play on a Field of Trash

Hastily converted landfills can be unruly dragons, belching garbage, gas, and fire. But done right, a dump can be a thing of beauty. 06.01.1997

Their Game Is Mud

05.01.1997

Reinventing the Wheel

A flywheel may be the key to a car that's both powerful and efficient. 08.01.1996

The Amazing All-Natural Light Machine

Scientists are using a molecule hidden in pond murk to create sugar like a bacteria. 12.01.1995

Power Lunch

With a couple of million microbes and a little bit of sugar, Peter Bennetto hopes to produce enough electricity to run a watch, a car, or even a city. 03.01.1995