Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Innovation / Energy

The mockup of a Heat Harvest-enabled table

One Day, Your Cup of Coffee Could Charge Your Phone

A pair of students has proposed the idea of embedding furniture with pads to absorb latent heat and convert it into electricity

A Soccket is only one ounce heavier than a standard-issue soccer ball and generates three hours of power after one hour of play.

These Soccer Balls and Jump Ropes Can Generate Power

Uncharted Play, a New York City-based startup, enables children in developing countries to build reserves of energy through play

Age of Humans

The Age of Humans: Living in the Anthropocene

A special look at the ways humans are transforming the planet and the projects that may shape a more sustainable future

Kirigami-cut solar cells

Future of Energy

Using Kirigami, the Japanese Art of Paper Cutting, to Build Better Solar Panels

Researchers have used the art technique to make light panels that twist to follow the sun

Age of Humans

Are Floating Farms in Our Future?

A Barcelona design firm imagines a two-million-square-foot barge that would yield tons of vegetables, fruit and fish each year

A mock-up of an electric road

England Is Going to Test Roads That Actually Charge Electric Cars

Highways of the future may have special lanes that recharge the batteries of electric cars as they go

Rendering of Juncal Viaduct with turbines

Could a Wind Turbine Be Coming to a Bridge Near You?

Engineers find, in a simulation, that two wind turbines mounted under a bridge in the Canary Islands could power hundreds of homes

An aerial view of part of the Idaho National Laboratory.

Tour the World’s First Nuclear Power Plant

The historic site in a remote desert is now a museum where visitors can see the instruments that made nuclear history

The Honda Smart Home, on the University of California, Davis, campus, is an experiment in efficiency.

What It’s Like to Live in This Smart, Energy-Efficient Home of the Future

Nine months in, a family of four adjusts to life in the Honda Smart Home, a testing ground for new technologies at University of California, Davis

Wang with the toy jeep

This New Nanogenerator Could Make Cars Much More Efficient

Electrodes placed on a car’s tires can harness the energy generated when rubber meets road

EcoLogicStudio's 430-square-foot gazebo, called the Urban Algae Folly, is on display at the Expo 2015 world's fair in Milan.

Will Buildings of the Future Be Cloaked In Algae?

Built by a London architecture firm, a new gazebo has a living “skin” that produces oxygen and absorbs considerable amounts of carbon dioxide

Evan Creelman, Newlight COO; Mark Herrema, Co-Founder and CEO; and Kenton Kimmel, Co-Founder and CTO, with a few products made of AirCarbon.

Smart Startup

Creating Plastic From Greenhouse Gases

Newlight Technologies is turning carbon emissions into plastic for everyday items

Future of Energy

6 Projects That Make a Sustainable Future Seem Possible

From an algae-powered building to a playground of recycled steel drums, these spots give designers, urban planners and others hope

Flower power—how viable an option is it?

Turning Energy Plants Produce Into Usable Electricity

Plant-e, a company in the Netherlands, is placing conductors in the soil underneath plants to collect excess energy from photosynthesis

This winter jacket is light, thin and made of the same special ingredient that insulates astronaut spacesuits.

This Week in Crowdfunding

A Winter Jacket Made From the Same Material as NASA Spacesuits and Other Wild Ideas That Just Got Funded

Plus, a high-tech update to the tried-and-true jump rope

Before it departed from Abu Dhabi, the plane carried out an inaugural flight, taking off from the Payerne airport in Switzerland.

This Solar-Powered Plane is Currently Circumnavigating the World

With 17,000 solar cells in its wing and tail, the aircraft relies solely on sunshine to keep its motors running

Scientists Turn Packing Peanuts Into Battery Components

Chemical engineers at Purdue University have found a surprising way to repurpose the foam pieces

A Norwegian Company is Transforming Deserts Into Farmland

Solar power plants in Qatar and Jordan, not far from the sea, are powering desalination systems that irrigate plants in and around greenhouses

Solar Panels in the Screens of Smartphones Could Power the Devices

Kyocera unveils a prototype for a phone with a layer of transparent crystals in its screen that helps to charge it both indoors and outside

One of two newly installed wind turbines at the Eiffel Tower.

The Eiffel Tower Gets a Green Upgrade

The landmark now has two wind turbines above its second level

Page 8 of 12