Posts Tagged → Renewable Energy

EuroNews: A Japanese Inventor is Turning Soil Into a Source of Electricity

EuroNews: A Japanese Inventor is Turning Soil Into a Source of Electricity

Well grounded? Japanese designer Satoshi Nakagawa is using soil, compost and other everyday materials to generate small amounts of electricity that could power sensors, lights, and other low-energy devices in off-grid settings.

EuroNews via AFP reports:

Glinting in the night, halfway up a hill in Japan, the greenhouse-like ‘Ku-An’ test lab is lit by electricity harnessed from 1,500 wooden boxes of soil and compost.

Designer Satoshi Nakagawa has long battled sceptics, but believes that the technology powering the 800 LEDs has a role to play in solving humanity’s energy conundrum. Failing that, it at least looks nice and gets people thinking.

“As the population moves toward 10 billion, energy issues will become just as critical as food issues,” says Nakagawa, chief executive of design firm Tripod Design. “Even if it’s just a small contribution, I want people to be able to produce their own electricity using the soil around them,” the Japanese product designer and engineer told news agency AFP.

Link.

IEA Report: EV Sales Surge in Q1, Double Year on Year in Some Major Markets in First Half of 2026

IEA Report: EV Sales Surge in Q1, Double in Some Major Markets in First Half of 2026

More specifically, since Trump and Netanyahu launched their dimwitted war on Iran.

Global sales of electric cars fell in the first quarter of 2026, largely reflecting lower sales in [China and the US]. But according to the report, they rebounded sharply in the second quarter – rising 35% compared with the first three months of the year as second quarter sales reached record levels in 50 countries. In Australia, Brazil, India, Korea and Viet Nam – all sizeable electric car markets – sales roughly doubled between March and June compared with the same period in 2025. Overall, more than 90 countries recorded year-on-year growth in electric car sales during the first half of 2026.

The report, ‘Electric Car Markets in a Time of Uncertainty‘, was released on 30 July.

Press release link.

Carbon Brief Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever

Carbon Brief Analysis: Wind and solar power overtake fossil fuels in Germany for first time ever

More evidence to illustrate that the transition to renewables is succeeding, despite political blowback and weakening commitments. In 2025, for the first time, most of the electricity in Germany came from wind and solar power than from fossil fuels. From a Carbon Brief analysis:

Together, wind and solar power generated 225 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity – accounting for 44% of the total in 2025 – with just 217TWh (43%) coming from fossil fuels.

Solar and onshore wind have grown rapidly under Germany’s “Energiewende” strategy over the past two decades, as the nation transitions away from both coal and nuclear power.

Renewables have recently faced mounting opposition from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and the current coalition government has been trying to develop new gas-power plants.

Nevertheless, Carbon Brief analysis of Energy Institute data illustrates how wind and solar have continued growing, emerging as the nation’s largest power source.

Nevertheless, Carbon Brief analysis of Energy Institute data illustrates how wind and solar have continued growing, emerging as the nation’s largest power source.

And

The success of renewables in Germany mirrors the EU as a whole, which also saw wind and solar overtake fossil-fuel power generation in 2025 for the first time.

Link.

Oxfam: Fossil fuel companies projected to earn almost $3,000 a second in 2026

Oxfam: Fossil fuel companies projected to earn almost $3,000 a second in 2026.

From a report released on the eve of the first global conference on ‘Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels‘, which takes place in Santa Marta, Colombia:

Six of the biggest fossil fuel companies are projected to earn $2,967 a second in profits in 2026, new Oxfam research finds, ahead of the first global conference this week on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia. This marks an increase of almost $37 million a day compared to the 2025 profits of these six corporations – Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and TotalEnergies. Their total projected fossil fuel profits of 2026 are $94 billion: enough to provide solar power for the energy needs of almost 50 million people in Africa.

Link.

AP: Energy fallout from Iran war signals a global wake-up call for renewable energy

AP: Energy fallout from Iran war signals a global wake-up call for renewable energy.

It’s a simple equation: more renewables, less shocks. Reporting for the AP, Aniruddha Ghosal, Anton L. Delgado and Allan Olingo write:

The war in Iran is exposing the world’s reliance on fragile fossil fuel routes, lending urgency to calls for hastening the shift to renewable energy.

And

Unlike during previous oil shocks, renewable power is now competitive with fossil fuels in many places. More than 90% of new renewable power projects worldwide in 2024 were cheaper than fossil-fuel alternatives, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

It’s obvious, but bears repeating: countries that have built out or invested in renewables have also invested in a cushion from oil shocks, which are a trait of the fossil fuel-based energy system. These include China and India, and other Asian countries, too, including:

Pakistan’s solar boom has preempted more than $12 billion in fossil fuel imports since 2020

And

Vietnam’s current solar generation will help the country save hundreds of millions of dollars in potential coal and gas imports in the coming year, based on current high prices.

Euronews: Portugal tops EU leaderboard as over 80% of electricity in January came from renewables

Euronews: Portugal tops EU leaderboard as over 80% of electricity in January came from renewables

Fossil fuel merchants can keep throwing hurdles in the way, but the transition to renewables can’t be stopped.

Portugal has topped the EU leaderboard for renewable electricity thanks to surges in hydro and wind power. According to the Portuguese Association for Renewable Energies (APREN), a staggering 80.7 per cent of electricity generated in January 2026 came from renewable energy.

It marks the best record in nine months, since Portugal suffered a mass blackout that triggered nationwide chaos, and bumps the country up to second in Europe overall. Non-EU Norway came first, with 96.3 per cent renewable electricity production last month, while Denmark dropped to third place with 78.8 per cent.

Link.

Mother Jones: Putin Tried to Freeze Ukraine. Instead, He Sparked an Energy Revolution

Mother Jones: Putin Tried to Freeze Ukraine. Instead, He Sparked an Energy Revolution

Russia is bombing fossil-fueled power plants, so the country is building solar and wind. From the story:

Wind and solar arrays with independent transmission lines are scattered over the landscape, which makes them harder to hit and easier to repair. “A coal power station [is] a large single target that a single missile could take out,” says Jeff Oatham of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest energy company and its largest private energy investor. “You would need around 40 missiles to do the equivalent amount of capacity damage at a wind farm.” 

“Attacking decentralized solar power installations is not economically rational,” says Ukrainian energy expert Olena Kondratiuk. “Missiles and drones are expensive, and significantly disrupting such systems would require a large number of strikes, while the overall impact on the energy system would remain limited.”

Link.

Yale Environment 360: Europe to Ramp Up Offshore Wind in Push for Energy Independence

Yale Environment 360: Europe to Ramp Up Offshore Wind in Push for Energy Independence

A group of European leaders pledged Monday to build 100 gigawatts of offshore wind,enough to power more than 50 million homes. As Europe faces a hostile Russia and an increasingly bellicose U.S., experts see deepening risks in its reliance on imported fossil fuels.

“Historically, interferences by the U.S. government in gas markets to exert pressure on Europe were considered unthinkable,” said Raffaele Piria, of the Ecologic Institute, a think tank based in Berlin. “In the current geopolitical context, this assumption is questionable.”

Link.

Ember Report: Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for EU power generation in 2025, for the first time

Ember Report: Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for EU power generation in 2025, for the first time

We’re winning.

A study by the energy think tank Ember found that the EU’s electricity transition reached a new milestone in 2025 with wind and solar generating more power than fossil fuels for the first time. From the Guardian report:

Turbines spinning in the wind and photovoltaic panels lit up by the sun generated 30% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, according to an annual review. Power plants burning coal, oil and gas generated 29%.

EU solar generation reached a record 369 TWh in 2025, 20% higher than in 2025 and wind and solar generated more electricity than fossil fuels in 14 of the 27 EU countries.

The report, Ember’s 10th annual, is here.

Yale Environment360: Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout

Yale Environment360: Photos Capture the Breathtaking Scale of China’s Wind and Solar Buildout

Astounding photos by Chinese photographer Weimin Chu.

Last year China installed more than half of all wind and solar added globally. In May alone, it added enough renewable energy to power Poland, installing solar panels at a rate of roughly 100 every second. The massive buildout is happening across the country, from crowded eastern cities increasingly topped by rooftop solar panels to remote western deserts where colossal wind farms sprawl across the landscape.

“From the ground, it’s hard to grasp the scale of these power plants,” said Chinese photographer Weimin Chu. “But when you rise into the air, you can see the geometry, the rhythm — and their relationship with the mountains, the desert, the sea.”

A Year of Clean Energy Milestones

YaleEnvironment360: A Year of Clean Energy Milestones.

In spite of the Trump administration’s worst intentions at home and policy bullying abroad, there is good news to be found around the transition to cleaner energy. From The Yale School of Environment’s 2025 review:

“Wind, solar, and electric vehicles made huge strides globally in 2025. For the first time, wind and solar supplied more power than coal worldwide, while plug-in vehicles accounted for more than a quarter of new car sales.

These milestones reflect the dramatic drop in the price of clean energy over the last decade and a half. Today, wind and solar are cheaper than coal and natural gas, and increasingly, they are boosted by ever more affordable batteries, which have gotten 90 percent cheaper over the last decade.”