There’s concerns that homes with solar panels are reducing their utility bills at the expense of their neighbors without solar panels. The phenomenon is referred to as “cost shifting”: the idea that the credits utilities pay to solar homes for the energy they produce ultimately results in higher bills
It’s been nice to see the growing popularity of electric vehicles these last few years, but EVs need batteries and batteries don’t last forever. In fact, the first generation of EV batteries are already dying, and there's an absolute dead battery typhoon coming. Lithium battery recycling
In a recent heat pump video I covered how air source heat pumps are getting so much better in the cold, but in my new house I decided not to go with one. Instead I went with the more expensive option: a geothermal heat pump. Why did I decide it
For years, special kinds of semiconductors called perovskites have promised revolutionary improvements compared to traditional silicon solar cells. Perovskites could hold the key to higher efficiency at lower costs. In some cases perovskites have been shown to offer a 250% performance boost. But scientists have been working on this tech
There’s no shortage of potential solutions to the world’s critical need for renewable energy storage. But there is a shortage of accessible and cheap resources to use for those solutions. With the limitations of materials like lithium and vanadium in mind, it’s logical to look for alternatives
Hey, want to hear the most annoying sound in the world? Okay, “most annoying” may be subjective, but according to a 2017 study from NASA’s Langley branch, humans find the buzz of a drone’s propellers to be more annoying than any other machine-based sound on earth, which really
With the recent news of China producing one of the largest wind turbines yet, with a rotor diameter of 260 meters (853 feet) and a rating of 18MW, it got me wondering why they’re so big. They’re almost defying imagination at this point. Bigger is always better in
Adding solar panels to your home is a bright idea, but according to one report from 2020 only about 6% of installed residential solar systems included battery storage.1 2 That’s a bit of a power outage in the world of renewable energy. But with a home battery, you&
The vast majority of the world’s plastic isn’t recycled … and when it is, we spend more money to achieve less quality. It’s currently cheaper to keep producing newer plastics — at the much higher cost of human and environmental health. But nature has evolved in response. Several species
As our needs for energy and food continue to rise, we’re revisiting the sunny topic of Agrivoltaics - or using land to grow food and host solar panels at the same time. Experiments in this hot space have had some really promising results over the last year, like using
Last November I published a video about Hotel Marcel and how they went with DC wiring and power instead of the traditional AC wiring we're all familiar with. When a building has solar and battery storage it can make a lot of sense to go DC instead of
To live, people need food to eat and water to drink. That’s a simple fact. But with growing water scarcity around the world and an ever increasing population, we have to find better ways to produce the food we all need to survive. The solution could lie in one