Promising solar energy breakthrough could replace steel making blast furnaces
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Dirty industrial processes use huge amounts of energy and heat to create cement, glass, and steel, and now we have a way to replace them with green energy. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. Creating cement, glass, and...
Dutch startup unveils the world’s first long range commercial solar car
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future cars won’t run on batteries, now we have a pathway to create solar panels with up to 80% efficiency the future is battery-less. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. I’ve been saying for a long...
Scientists find a way to boost solar efficiency to 80 percent
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Solar is already one of the cheapest forms on the planet, and this makes it a slam dunk. Interested in the Exponential Future? Connect, download a free E-Book, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. I’m just going to say it right here right now – solar will win...
JAXA and Toyota team up to create a Moon buggy with a 10,000km range
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It’s a question of when, not if, we go back to and live on the Moon, and we’ll need transportation… Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. As more nation states, space agencies and billionaires, like China and NASA, Elon...
First of a kind material lets solar panels generate electricity from snow
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our knowledge of materials and how they behave improves we can generate electricity from almost anything. Scientists have announced that they’ve developed a first of its kind material that generates electricity from nothing other than, wait for it… snow. Based upon the principles...
Scientists create a liquid fuel that can store the Sun’s energy for 18 years
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the number of solar energy installations increase storing the energy they produce, so it can be released to the grid when the Sun goes in, is still holding the industry back from world domination. Recently renewable energy became the cheapest form of energy...
China reveals plans to build a space based solar power plant by 2025
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to collect solar energy in space and beam it back down to base stations on Earth is a very efficient way to harvest it, and we have the technology. Let’s face it humanity uses a lot of energy, and while solar power here on...
Shooting lasers at drones helps DARPA keep them airborne forever
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more companies field drones one of their biggest hurdles is keeping them airborne for long periods of time, DARPA’s latest program hopes to solve that. DARPA, the bleeding edge research arm of the US Military that’s bought and bringing you everything from conscious robots and autonomous...
Google X spins off its molten salt grid scale storage business
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Renewable energy sources only generate electricity when the sun shines or the wind blows, so companies have to find a way to store it so it can be used in times of scarcity. One of the biggest problems with renewable energy is that when...
Hyundai unveils the worlds first car with a solar power panoramic roof
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF In the future electric cars won’t solely be reliant on Lithium Ion batteries, as battery technology and new materials evolve we’ll see the emergence of battery-less electric vehicles. If you ever watch one of my keynotes on the Future of Transportation, like the one...
Record breaking solar powered aircraft stays aloft for 26 days straight
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The aviation industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters so companies around the world are trying to find new ways to power aircraft. Recently I talked about SolarStratos, a company that’s looking to produce “the world’s first commercial solar aircraft,” and a couple...
Featured Futurist, TV Interview: The Future of Aviation 2020 to 2070, APEX Insider
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The pace of change is accelerating, and new technologies are re-writing the narrative for many industries, including aviation. In the coming decades the aviation industry will, arguably, see more change than it has in the past century, whether it’s because of the introduction of...
Second hand electric vehicle batteries help Engie accelerate renewable energy uptake
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Renewable energy is clean and green, but when the sun goes down and the wind drops energy output falls, which means sustainable renewable energy needs grid scale battery storage to support it. Multinational energy utility Engie has launched a new grid connected storage project...
Breakthrough solar charged battery could revolutionise the solar industry
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Despite solar power’s increasing popularity until now customers it’s been difficult and expensive for customers to store the excess energy from their solar panels to use later, meaning they often still have to be attached to the energy grid. Recently we passed the 1...
Scientists produce smart windows that generate their own electricity
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The use of glass is increasing around the world and scientists are trying to find new ways to enhance its properties. Recently we saw new research that lets windows turn into mirrors at the flick of a switch, and now researchers from the Institute...
Renewable energy smashes a major installation milestone, hits 1 Trillion watts
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The rise of renewable energy is on a tear, and it’s now looking unstoppable. Global wind and solar developers took 40 years to install their first trillion watts of power generation capacity, and, as electric vehicles get ready to take off, and as renewables...
Solar panels made from cyborg bacteria promise even cheaper energy
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cyborg bacteria could be used to replace today’s silicon solar panels with higher efficiency, lower cost panels that help accelerate the renewable energy revolution. Although most life on Earth relies upon photosynthesis as its sole source of energy, the process has a weak link...
A solar panel the size of a book could soon power your entire home
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A three fold increase in the energy efficiency of solar panels could revolutionise almost every industry on Earth. In our efforts to make solar panels even more efficient a team of scientists in the UK have found a way of funnelling the Sun’s power...
World’s first commercial solar aircraft aims for the Stratosphere
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s aircraft will be battery powered, but future generations of aircraft could do away with the batteries entirely. While Elon Musk is invested in getting humans to different places, whether it’s from one side of the planet to the other in rocketships, or to...
Jeff Bezos wants to colonise the Moon and move heavy industry off Earth
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are an increasing number of billionaires who believe heavy industry should be moved off of Earth and onto the Moon, and Bezos might be one to help make it a reality. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is convinced that one day “we are going...
