Environmental

World’s First Solar Speedboat Does 30 Knots Gas-Free

Looking to zoom through the oceans in a stylish, but also somewhat environmentally friendly, manner? Check out the Czeers MK1 prototype solar speedboat, a 10-meter long rig that manages to pack in 14 square meters of solar panels to power an 80kw electric motor. The MK1 plows through the water at a breakneck 30 knots,…

Tech News Elaine Chow May 24

Crispy Noodles Fuel Next-Gen Hydrogen Cars

Crispy noodles are the missing link between today’s carbon-emitting cars and tomorrow’s clean hydrogen cars. It turns out that the structure of crispy noodles — rigid, twisty, and porous — perfectly matches that of a new polymer developed to trap and reuse hydrogen atoms in new “green” cars. University of Manchester researcher Peter Budd helped…

io9 Annalee Newitz May 6

Bioplastics: Environmentally Unfriendly, Contributing To The Food Crisis

About those bioplastic bags – you know, the ones you’ve been using to assuage your eco-conscious guilt – turns out not only are they not as green as you think, they could also be partially responsible for the global food crisis. A worldwide effort by bag-heavy industries to replace petroleum-based plastics with plant-based plastics could…

Tech News Elaine Chow Apr 26

Sungevity Web App Makes Installing Solar Panels a Piece of Cake

Eco start-up company Sungevity is launching a new web application on Earth Day (three days away, people!) that will take the guess work out of solar panel installations. Enter your address on Sungevity’s website and satellite-imaging software will zoom in on your home, calculate your roof’s dimensions, select the right sized solar arrays and calculate…

Tech News Elaine Chow Apr 19

Now Your Car Can Pollute an Environmentally-Friendly Garage

Could this parking garage in Santa Monica, California, become the first certifiably “green” parking garage in the U.S.? LEED, a green building organization that awards certifications to structures that are demonstrably eco-friendly, says it may grant its certification to the garage any time now. According to Inhabitat, there’s good reason to call this building green:…

io9 Annalee Newitz Apr 14

Viatek CFL Makes Your Rooms Brighter, Less Smelly

If you’ve ever thought of your light bulb as a serious underachiever without enough features, maybe it’s time to spring for Viatek’s new Ionic 15 watt compact fluorescent. This bulb pulls double duty, both brightening up your life and cleansing the air, all the while saving you money on your electric bill. The CFL uses…

Tech News Elaine Chow Apr 12

$20 Disposable Cell Phones Coming to Europe

Phone maker Hop-on Inc. apparently found success at CTIA in Las Vegas with its disposable cell-phone concept, a $20 (13 euros) phone with no LCD screen that can be thrown away or recycled after use. The company said on Thursday that a European distributor has purchased 10,000 of the phones for an initial test run.…

Gadgets Elaine Chow Apr 12

Smart Green Cell Station Makes Africa a Cleaner Place To Ask “Can You Hear Me Now?”

In an effort to clean up Africa’s dirty and diesel-reliant mobile network, Swedish start up Flexenclosure has designed a green version of a cellular base station. Called the E-site, it runs primarily on wind and solar power and utilizes an intelligent operating system that adapts to local conditions. The new design comes at the request…

Gadgets Elaine Chow Apr 5

Giant Tree-Powered Machine Supplies Energy, Air to Madrid

This industrial environmentalist building/machine in Madrid is packed with solar cells and trees, and will apparently generate enough energy to sell to local electric companies. Called an “Air Tree,” and created by Urban Ecosystems, the mega-device is supposed to have a significantly beneficial impact on the climate. Plus it just looks seriously badass, as you…

io9 Annalee Newitz Jan 24

A Frozen Water Planet Begins Its Thaw

Amado Becquer Casaballe is a photographer who recently had the chance to work on an ice-breaking ship as it floated around Antarctica. He wanted to capture the beauty of this frozen desert before climate change transforms it forever. His images of glowing icebergs and shattered glaciers are truly otherworldly. You can see some in our…

io9 Annalee Newitz Jan 14

By 2050, Smog Monster Will Be Eating Mostly Cars

A new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that about 20-25% of greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and ozone) are coming from railway, shipping, and car or truck transportation. But the most interesting part of the study are its future projections. “In 2050, as much as 30-50% of total…

io9 Annalee Newitz Jan 7

Airborne Wind Turbines Are Floating Eco-Powerhouses of Tomorrow

Wind turbines produce energy by harnessing the wind, and usually they look like windmills. But a new breed of airborne wind turbine is heading into production. Many of them are house-sized and blimp-shaped, inflated with helium and left to churn in the rapid winds that are always blowing 1000 feet off the ground. Others are…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 13

Microwaving Old Tires to Brew Fuel

Now you can use a microwave to transform old tires into energy. Here you see Jay Gill, an employee of New Jersey company Global Resource Corporation, doing just that using an awesomely homebrew-looking setup. The process is completely revolutionary, and the company has just announced it’s about to get a ton of money to expand.…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 13

Tropics Expand and Stem Cells Repair Major Skull Damage

It’s official: the Earth is getting more tropical. Global warming has expanded the tropical band around the center of the planet over the past two decades, and it looks like it will expand more over the next century. [Reuters] Researchers repaired major skull damage in mice using human embryonic stem cells. They grew new bone…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 3

GE Sponsors Your Cyber-Spine

We’ve got some artificial body parts, some bad brains, and some serious toxic sludge in the state of Washington for you in today’s science news headlines. General Electric is investing in artificial spinal discs that could replace parts of your diseased backbone. The springy metal discs are inserted directly into your spine and use a…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 27

Wind Power Sucks But Brain Damage Is Okay

I’ve got some good science news for you, and some bad. Wind power may not be a clean energy source of the future after all. Though Sweden has just built a massive wind farm at sea, most countries have found wind an inefficient and unreliable energy source. [New York Times] Why brain damage is okay…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 23

Environmentalist Nation Secedes from Union, Institutes 20-Hour Workweek

Written in the 1970s at the height of the last eco-craze, Ernest Callenbach’s classic utopian novel Ecotopia will intrigue anyone who wants to see what a sustainable environmentalist country might look like. Surprisingly prescient, and unafraid to look at the dark side of eco-fanaticism, Callenbach shows us a believable alternate United States whose commitment to…

Books & Comics Annalee Newitz Nov 21

Cities Will Save the Planet and Suburbs Are Racist

If we want to survive as a species, we will have to live in massive mega-cities. Living at one with nature is just crap idealism from the past, and the suburbs are nothing more than archaic residue of racist white flight patterns. So says futurist-environmentalist Van Jones. He isn’t afraid to piss people off, and…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 12

Reaping the Flip Flop Harvest on Kenya’s Polluted Coast

Plastic flip flop sandals discarded in the oceans off the coast of Asia have formed a new kind of fauna on the coast of Northern Kenya. So many sandals wash ashore that over the past decade locals have begun harvesting them, turning them into colorful toys, and selling them for more money than they could…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 12

Weather Engineers Remove CO2 From Atmosphere, Stop Global Warming

Some Harvard scientists suggest that we could turn back the clock on global warming by sucking CO2 out of the air and de-acidifying the oceans. Says weather engineer Kurt Zenz House: The technology involves selectively removing acid from the ocean in a way that might enable us to turn back the clock on global warming…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 9

World’s First Solar Speedboat Does 30 Knots Gas-Free

Crispy Noodles Fuel Next-Gen Hydrogen Cars

Bioplastics: Environmentally Unfriendly, Contributing To The Food Crisis

Sungevity Web App Makes Installing Solar Panels a Piece of Cake

Now Your Car Can Pollute an Environmentally-Friendly Garage

Viatek CFL Makes Your Rooms Brighter, Less Smelly

$20 Disposable Cell Phones Coming to Europe

Smart Green Cell Station Makes Africa a Cleaner Place To Ask “Can You Hear Me Now?”

Giant Tree-Powered Machine Supplies Energy, Air to Madrid

A Frozen Water Planet Begins Its Thaw

By 2050, Smog Monster Will Be Eating Mostly Cars

Airborne Wind Turbines Are Floating Eco-Powerhouses of Tomorrow

Microwaving Old Tires to Brew Fuel

Tropics Expand and Stem Cells Repair Major Skull Damage

GE Sponsors Your Cyber-Spine

Wind Power Sucks But Brain Damage Is Okay

Environmentalist Nation Secedes from Union, Institutes 20-Hour Workweek

Cities Will Save the Planet and Suburbs Are Racist

Reaping the Flip Flop Harvest on Kenya’s Polluted Coast

Weather Engineers Remove CO2 From Atmosphere, Stop Global Warming

Skyscanner Offers Summer of Soccer Travel Deals, Book Now and Avoid Overpaying

Absolute Robin Is a Giant Goddamn Robot

Apple Watch Ultra 3 Hits Record Low in Its First Big Price Cut of the Year Amid 2025 Smartwatch Clearance

ICE Reportedly Acknowledges Its Use of Notorious Graphite Spyware

Intel Jumps On Board Elon Musk’s Terafab Chipmaking Project

Anthropic’s New Model Is So Scarily Powerful It Won’t Be Released, Anthropic Says

Musk Asks Court to Give Potential Winnings in OpenAI Suit to OpenAI’s Nonprofit

Pro-Iran Hackers Target Critical U.S. Energy and Water Infrastructure

Aqara Thermostat Hub W200 Review: Almost Better than My Ecobee

HP Omen Max 45L Review: 4K60 Gaming Has Never Been So Easy

Ecovacs Winbot W3 Omni Review: Window Cleaning Robots Have a Long Way to Go

AirPods Max 2 vs. Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen): Which ANC Headphones Win?

The Best Gadgets of March 2026

AirPods Max 2 Review: Still Ridiculously Expensive and Ridiculously Nice

DJI Osmo 360 Review: The Best 360 Camera for the DJI-Pilled

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