carbonfree

Fervo Energy says it has achieved a breakthrough in technology. It carried out a 30-day well test at its site in northern Nevada and a "flowrate of 63 liters per second at high temperature that enables 3.5 megawatts of electric production." The company says the test resulted in flow and power output records for an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) and that it was completed without incident. A megawatt can power around 750 homes at once. Fervo is expected to connect its Project Red site to the grid this year. It will be…

Scientists have conducted research on discrete burning, a form of fire that jumps from one fuel source to another, using iron powder in zero gravity. The leftover product after combustion is iron oxide, a substance that doesn’t produce carbon dioxide and can be endlessly recycled. Following these microgravity experiments, efficient iron-burning furnaces have been developed, leading to the creation of a circular, carbon-free energy storage. A demonstration plant is operational in The Netherlands, and multiple start-ups are…

A version of this story appeared in Science, Vol 379, Issue 6633.Download PDF IN THE SHADE of a mango tree, Mamadou Ngulo Konaré recounted the legendary event of his childhood. In 1987, well diggers had come to his village of Bourakébougou, Mali, to drill for water, but had given up on one dry borehole at a depth of 108 meters. “Meanwhile, wind was coming out of the hole,” Konaré told Denis Brière, a petrophysicist and vice president at…

“We need nuclear energy to fight climate change,” says Alan Ahn, a senior fellow at Third Way, a think tank that advocates for the industry. But he acknowledges you might not share his opinion. Especially, he says, if you’re around his age and grew up watching Homer Simpson, a rather infamous member of the nuclear workforce, rolling around on top of a barrel “leaking something green and glowing.” (Maybe add to that Chernobyl and Fukushima, plus the rockets currently sailing over Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine.)But nuclear…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain As millions of Americans hop on airplanes heading to favorite vacation spots, the industry is gearing for a bigger journey—one that will tackle removing the carbon emissions from those flights over the next 30 years. To achieve that goal by 2050, a report released by an…