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.
The German reinsurance group Munich Re will no longer invest in or insure the planning, financing, construction or operation of new oil and gasfields, new oil-fired power plants or developments in “midstream” oil infrastructure, beginning in April 2023.
For at least five hours on Friday, renewables accounted for 100 per cent of Greece’s power generation, reaching a record high of 3,106 megawatt hours.
Clean energy storage just took a major leap forward, and it happened without a single fossil fuel involved. China’s new compressed air facility in Zhangjiakou runs entirely on thermodynamic processes, storing up to 400 MWh and operating at 70.4% efficiency — well above the 40–52% typical of existing systems. That’s enough to supply more than 132 GWh to the local grid annually, while avoiding roughly 109,000 tons of CO₂ each year. Proving that utility-scale, non-lithium storage can work commercially gives the global clean energy transition a powerful new tool to build on.
Compared to traditional petroleum-based aviation kerosene, bio jet fuel can reduce carbon emissions by up to 50% throughout the entire lifecycle.
Longi Green Energy Technology Co., the world’s biggest solar technology manufacturer, will send panels into space as the first step in plans to test the feasibility of harnessing the sun’s power in orbit and transmitting it back to Earth.
French power producer HDF Energy is constructing a 3.1 billion Namibian dollar (USD $181.25 million) hydrogen plant powered by solar panels.
Hydrogen-powered passenger trains now cover an entire regional rail network in Lower Saxony, Germany — 14 Alstom Coradia iLint trains that have fully retired the diesel locomotives once used on the Cuxhaven-to-Buxtehude lines. Each train pulls oxygen from the air, combines it with hydrogen stored on the roof, and emits only water vapor, traveling roughly 1,000 kilometers between refuels. The regional operator has pledged to never buy another diesel train, citing both climate goals and the cleaner air passengers breathe at small-town platforms. It’s a modest fleet in a single corner of Germany, but it’s the first proof anywhere that diesel regional rail can be fully replaced — a template other countries with long, lightly used routes can now follow.
In 2020, Hawaii’s Legislature passed a law banning the use of coal for energy production at the start of 2023.
The amount of CO2 emitted during kerosene combustion in a jet engine equals that consumed during its production in the solar plant.
The solution produces clean energy by fusing together atomic nuclei. Unlike nuclear fission, there is also no risk of radioactive waste and reactor materials can be recycled within 100 to 300 years.
