Clean & renewable energy

This archive tracks real progress in clean and renewable energy — from solar and wind expansion to grid upgrades and policy wins. Each story focuses on what’s working, where, and why it matters for people and the planet.

Microsoft logo, for article on fusion power purchase agreement

Helion announces world’s first fusion energy purchase agreement with Microsoft

By / / Good News For Humankind

Fusion energy just took a big step from lab to grid: Helion Energy has signed the world’s first commercial fusion power purchase agreement, promising Microsoft at least 50 megawatts of electricity from a plant targeted to come online in 2028. That timeline is roughly a decade ahead of most expert projections for commercial fusion. Helion has already built six prototypes and reached the 100-million-degree plasma temperatures considered necessary for self-sustaining reactions, with Constellation handling the grid-side logistics. The engineering road ahead is steep, and nothing is guaranteed. But moving fusion from research aspiration onto a real buyer’s procurement list is a meaningful shift, hinting at a future where zero-carbon baseload power becomes a practical piece of the climate puzzle.

Silhouette of wind turbines, for article on UK wind power

British wind power overtakes gas for the first time

By / / Good News For Humankind

Wind power just crossed a historic line in the U.K., supplying 32.4% of the country’s electricity in the first quarter of 2023 — narrowly beating gas at 31.7%. It’s the first time on record that wind farms have outpaced gas plants over a full quarter, and renewables together delivered nearly 42% of Britain’s power. Decades of offshore wind investment, falling turbine costs, and the urgency triggered by Europe’s 2022 energy shock all helped get the country here. The lead researcher called it a “genuine milestone,” and rightly so. For climate movements everywhere, it’s quiet proof that energy transitions, however slow and contested, really do arrive — and once the turbines are built, the wind keeps blowing for free.

Blur of traffic lights in front of city skyline, for article on global EV sales

EVs to capture one-sixth of global market in 2023 amid record growth

By / / Good News For Humankind

Electric vehicles are on track to hit 14 million global sales in 2023, up from 10 million the year before — a jump that has analysts revising their forecasts upward yet again. The International Energy Agency now expects EVs to make up 35 percent of new car sales worldwide by 2030, a sharp leap from the 21 percent it predicted just one year earlier. The shift is showing up in unexpected places too: in India, more than half of all three-wheeled vehicles registered last year were electric, hinting at a faster, leapfrog path through the Global South. With oil demand now projected to peak as early as 2025, the economic logic of the transition is finally pointing the same direction as the climate logic.