⚡️ Energy
Energy production and consumption is becoming cleaner, cheaper and decentralized. With connected devices you as a consumer can take control of your energy consumption. Here you will also find content about batteries, smart grids, nuclear and other innovation in the energy field.
🎙️ Interview with Jonas Birgersson about EnergyNet & Project Energy Society
In the Volts podcast, Jonas Birgersson explains why today’s power grid is built for yesterday. What is referred to as EnergyNet in the conversation is Project Energisamhället in practice: a digital, local, electricity-first grid designed for electrification.
🍽️ The naive optimist who turned out to be right – lunch with Ramez Naam
Two failed hugs framed an interesting conversation with the polymath and renewable energy expert Ramez Naam.
☀️ Renewable energy is the scientific breakthrough of the year – surpasses coal as power source worldwide
The journal Science has named the advance of renewable energy as the breakthrough of the year after solar and wind power surpassed coal as a power source globally. In 2004, it took a full year to install 1 gigawatt of solar power capacity globally – today twice that amount goes online every day.
🏭 China builds fewer coal power plants as renewable energy takes over
China approved 41.8 gigawatts of new coal power capacity during the first three quarters of this year, the lowest pace since 2021. Wind and solar power can now cover all of China's increased electricity demand. Expectations for coal power profitability have dropped, leading to fewer new plants.
☀️ Despite political headwinds: American investments in carbon-free energy set record in 2025
Investments in carbon-free energy and transportation reached $75 billion in the third quarter of 2025, the highest quarterly figure ever. The full year 2025 is expected to exceed last year's total investment of $267 billion. Wind power investments rose 31% and reached the highest level since 2020.
📉 Coal has decreased from half to one-seventh of US electricity production in 15 years
Carbon dioxide emissions from US electricity production have decreased by approximately 40 percent since 2005. Solar and wind power now produce more electricity than coal and employ more American workers. This has prevented over one million asthma attacks and 60,000 premature deaths.
🛰️ Startup successfully transmits solar energy with laser from aircraft – a step toward space-based solar power
Overview Energy has tested transmitting thousands of watts from an aircraft to a ground-based receiver using near-infrared laser light. The technology makes it possible to deliver solar energy to existing ground-based solar facilities when the sun is not shining.
🔋 Battery storage has become cheap enough for solar power to be delivered around the clock
The cost of large-scale battery storage fell by 40 percent in 2024 and continues to drop in 2025. Over the past decade, battery costs have fallen by an average of 20 percent per year while deployment has increased by 80 percent per year.
⚛️ New cooling technique increases antimatter production eightfold at CERN
CERN can now produce over 15,000 antihydrogen atoms in under seven hours, compared to ten weeks previously for similar quantities. With larger quantities of antihydrogen available, researchers can now investigate atomic antimatter in greater detail and at a faster pace than before.