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How old technology is finding new life in the renewable energy transition In the global conversation about energy storage, the spotlight shines almost exclusively on batteries — lithium-ion, sodium-ion, flow chemistries, and the latest innovations. Yet the technology storing most of the world’s grid energy is none of these. It is pumped hydroelectric storage, and

Iron-air batteries, flow batteries, and the technologies reshaping how grids store clean energy The rapid growth of solar and wind power has created an unprecedented demand for energy storage. Lithium-ion batteries — refined through decades of electric vehicle development — have become the dominant short-duration storage technology, with costs declining more than 85% since 2010

How the world’s most widely produced chemical could become clean energy’s global currency Hydrogen is widely described as the fuel of the future, but it has a problem: it’s extremely difficult to move around. The lightest element in the universe, hydrogen requires either enormous pressure, cryogenic temperatures approaching –253°C, or expensive specialized infrastructure to transport

Metal hydrides, chemical carriers, and the materials science revolution in hydrogen storage Hydrogen is the lightest element in the universe and contains three times the energy per kilogram of gasoline — but per liter, it stores dramatically less energy than liquid fuels. This density problem, combined with the safety challenges of handling highly flammable gas

The science, economics, and industrial promise of electrolysis-based hydrogen Hydrogen is the simplest element in the universe but producing it cleanly has proved surprisingly complex. Today, over 95% of the world’s hydrogen is made from fossil fuels — primarily via steam methane reforming — releasing substantial carbon dioxide in the process. ‘Green hydrogen,’ produced by

Over $15 billion has flooded into private fusion companies. Who’s closest to the grid? Fusion energy has long been the province of governments and national laboratories — ITER, the €25 billion international tokamak under construction in France, being the paradigmatic example. But over the past decade, a wave of well-funded private companies has entered the

Why Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X just broke the fusion record that matters most When most people think of fusion reactors, they picture a tokamak — the iconic donut-shaped device that confines superheated plasma in a toroidal magnetic field. Tokamaks, including the massive ITER project under construction in France, dominate fusion research funding and attention. But there

Inside NIF’s historic ignition milestone and what it means for fusion energy On December 5, 2022, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) achieved something that had eluded humanity for 60 years: a controlled fusion reaction that produced more energy than the laser energy delivered to the target. This ‘scientific breakeven’ generating

*How advanced reactor designs are transforming used nuclear fuel into clean energy* One of the most persistent criticisms of nuclear power is its waste: spent fuel rods that have remained dangerously radioactive for tens of thousands of years. But a growing class of advanced reactor designs — particularly sodium-cooled fast reactors — can use that