Idea Watch
Stories about the people and projects pushing the boundaries of climate mitigation and sustainability
Let the best of Anthropocene come to you.
The Future of the Grid Could Be Parked in Your Driveway
A growing fleet of electric vehicles could unlock a cheaper, cleaner alternative to fossil-fuel power plants—without building new infrastructure.
Contrails are a climate puzzle written across the sky
As airlines test new routes and researchers refine models, contrails are shifting from an afterthought of flight to a potential tool for cutting the carbon footprint of aviation.
Engineers turn fish biology into a breakthrough microplastic laundry filter
Inspired by the filter feeding mechanisms of basking sharks and manta rays, a startup called Cleanr has developed a filter that traps over 90% of microplastics released in each wash cycle.
Greener Steel Through Chemistry
In a lab outside Boulder Colorado, engineers are reinventing one of the dirtiest industrial processes on Earth—by swapping fire for modern alchemy.
Fixing Hydropower’s Deadly Spin Cycle
Dams are great for the climate but fatal for some fish. Here’s how that could change.
Shipping solar power at the speed of a freight train
By charging up battery cars where renewable energy is cheap and delivering the power to where it’s needed, this startup thinks railroads could break the clean energy transmission logjam.
Nuclear power is in a hole. To get out, this start-up kept digging
They’re betting that they can take the cost out of nuclear power—and solve it’s waste problem — by putting small reactors a mile underground.
Wheat on Repeat
A tantalizing new breed of climate-friendly crops never need replanting
The Anthropocene already exists in our heads
Even if it’s now officially not a geological epoch.
Why is it so hard to change our clothes?
You really are never going to feel the same way about your plastic disposable water bottle as you do about your clothes.
