Switzerland builds the world’s largest water battery to store surplus renewable energy
Large energy storage projects like water batteries are particularly useful for storing surplus energy from intermittent energy sources like solar and wind.
Today (2017 C.E. - 2025 C.E.)
This archive spans one of the most eventful periods in recent history, from 2017 through 2025. Browse more than 4,100 articles documenting scientific breakthroughs, policy wins, social progress, and human ingenuity from the present era. Each story highlights what people and communities around the world are building, solving, and achieving right now.
California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plastic
California’s single-use plastic law sets a binding target to cut throwaway plastic 25% by 2032, and it puts the bill where it belongs: on the companies making the stuff. A new producer-led organization will run recycling programs and pay $500 million a year into a fund that helps clean up the mess and address its health impacts. That’s a real shift, because for decades the cost of plastic pollution has fallen on cities and taxpayers, not the businesses profiting from it. As the largest U.S. state, California tends to pull markets and other states along with it — making this a hopeful template for tackling plastic pollution far beyond its borders.
Rhode Island passes soonest 100% renewable electricity commitment in USA
Governor Daniel McKee signed a new bill into law that commits Rhode Island to get 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources no later than 2033.
Rhino population gets a new sanctuary in Mozambique
This project, which was started by the Peace Parks Foundation more than six years ago, aims to create a sanctuary in the Zinave National Park of Mozambique, which experienced a drop in wildlife in part due to the 1977 civil war which lasted 15 years.
U.K.’s opens its largest carbon capture project which will turn 40,000 tons of CO2 into baking soda
The $24 million investment has been completed by U.K.-based Tata Chemicals Europe, one of Europe’s leading producers of sodium carbonate, salt and baking soda, and they expect it to lower their carbon emissions by more than 10%.
Colorado will not cooperate with other states’ abortion investigations after governor issues executive order
The Department of Regulatory Affairs was also instructed to protect people working in Colorado from disciplinary action against a professional license for providing reproductive health care
University of Arizona offers free college tuition to Native students
The introduction of such a program, which is offered to any students registered to any of the state’s 22 federally recognized tribes, is the first of its kind in an Arizona public university.
Slovenia set to be the first former communist country with marriage equality
Slovenia’s Constitutional Court ruled that the Balkan nation’s ban on LGBTQ marriage equality and adoption is “inadmissible discrimination against same-sex couples.”
Brazil’s High Court first to declare Paris Agreement a human rights treaty
As a result of the ruling, if Brazil’s Congress passes a law that conflicts with the Paris Agreement, the Paris Agreement should take precedence.
World’s first commercial sand battery begins energy storage in Finland
The company claims an efficiency factor up to 99 percent, a capability to store heat with minimal loss for months on end, and a lifespan in the decades.