California’s record drought has parched crops, but hasn’t yet dimmed lights or choked the flow of electricity, even though the Golden State, with more than 300 dams, has long been a hydroelectricity leader among U.S. states.
Categories: Energy, Environment, National Geographic • Tags: California, Climate Change, drought, electricity, extreme weather, hydropower, natural gas, renewables, water
An interactive map reveals where energy companies are using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to force tightly trapped oil and gas from fine-grained sedimentary rocks known as shale.
Categories: Energy, Miscellaneous, Smithsonian • Tags: California, Fracking
The huge Ivanpah solar plant is part of a push to expand renewable energy on U.S. federal land. The developer took steps to relocate a population of the threatened desert tortoise.
Categories: Energy, Environment, National Geographic, Technology • Tags: BrightSource, California, Ivanpah, Mojave, Solar
Over the past 13 years, California has added more than 15,000 megawatts of natural gas-fired electricity generation, which helped ensure supply when a heat wave hit this summer.
Categories: Energy, National Geographic
To manage a surplus of intermittent power in the Pacific Northwest, scientists propose underground compressed air storage in porous volcanic rock.
Categories: Energy, National Geographic, Science, Technology
The path toward cleaner cars will be walked in tiny steps. There’s a place for all-electric and even semi-autonomous vehicles, but tweaks to designs that burn gasoline will deliver much of the fuel-economy gains expected in the coming decades.
Categories: Energy, Mobility & Transport, Smithsonian, Technology
Two years after the accident at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi, can the nuclear renaissance regain its momentum?
Categories: Energy, Smithsonian
Drought, rampant wildfire in the outback, and the degradation of the treasured Great Barrier Reef have forever altered how Australia views its energy endowment. Facing a future as one of the places on Earth most vulnerable to climate change, and one of the nations with the world’s highest per capita carbon emissions, Australia has taken steps to change its fate.
Categories: Energy, Environment, National Geographic, Policy
By turns demonized as a catastrophic environmental threat and glorified as a therapy for our foreign oil addiction, fracking has become a flashpoint in our national energy policy. But how does fracking really work?
Categories: Energy, Grist, Technology
Josie Garthwaite