Engineers at the University of Chicago have created a new kind of solar cell that efficiently converts atmospheric carbon dioxide into usable hydrocarbon fuel—and it does so using only sunlight for energy.

In a landmark revelation that’s about twenty years late, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has formally declared that greenhouse gas emissions from jet engines endanger the health of humans and the environment by contributing to climate change.

The United States, Canada, and Mexico are poised to announce an ambitious new energy pledge that would see 50 percent of North American electricity drawn from clean sources by 2025.

The natural gas leak at Aliso Canyon earlier this year was already one of the worst environmental disasters in US history. Several months later, however, it has now gained the additional distinction of being the first industrial methane point-source visible from outer space.

Elon Musk is on the brink of acquiring the the next critical component in a solar-electric transportation future. Tesla Motors just made a $2.8 billion stock-to-stock offer to buy SolarCity, one of the largest solar energy companies in the country. It also happens to be a company founded by Musk’s cousins and one…

In news that offers hope that human civilization won’t end up drowning in soda bottles and plastic wrap, Chinese chemists have developed a remarkably efficient method for converting polyethylene into liquid fuel. If it proves scaleable, it could make a real dent in global plastic pollution.

In a revelation that shouldn’t surprise anybody, Peabody Energy, the United States’ largest coal company, has been bankrolling think tanks, corporate lobbyists, trade associations, and individual scientists at the heart of the climate denial movement, a new Guardian investigation reveals.

If you try to imagine the most pathetic gathering of humans ever, it would probably look a lot like this group of people who have amassed their fortunes by stripping the Earth of its fossil fuels and are desperately trying to squeeze the last gasp of relevance out of a backwards-thinking, planet-strangling industry.

There’s a annoying theoretical limit on the efficiency of solar cells that limits the amount of electricity they can create from sunlight. But now a team of MIT engineers has developed a system that overcomes the problem by first converting light to heat—and it could double the efficiency of solar cells.

In 2006, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth spread the idea of human-caused climate change far and wide in what is now considered a watershed moment for the science. But today, on the ten-year anniversary of the film’s release, we’ve made little progress toward addressing the grave planetary concerns Gore raised. In…

Last week, the nation of Portugal achieved something remarkable. For 107 hours—about four days—the country ran on nothing but wind, solar and hydro power.

Solar Impulse has chalked up another 1,000 miles in its bid to circumnavigate the globe. The all-electric solar-powered airplane successfully flew from Phoenix to Tulsa, landing in the dead of night.

I suspect the Germans have an overwrought seven-syllable word for extreme irony, but even they’d have a hard time describing this. The Shenhua Group, the largest coal producer in China, the nation producing the most coal, is building a giant solar plant.