In 2024, technologies to combat climate change soared above the clouds in electricity-generating kites, traveled the oceans sequestering carbon, and permeated the earth to energy agritech in a brand new means. If these don’t ring a bell, fret not! We’ve gathered our high 10 climate tech tales of the previous yr right here so that you can discover.
Local weather tech is a quickly advancing interdisciplinary area—we right here at IEEE Spectrum are excited to see what tales about these applied sciences we’ll be writing about for you in 2025.
Stuart Bradford
These breathtaking views of the aurora borealis this yr had been a harbinger of harmful electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) from photo voltaic storms. EMPs can destroy digital methods and overload energy grids, inflicting blackouts. They aren’t simply generated by photo voltaic exercise; human attackers might additionally generate EMPs, for instance by detonating a nuclear weapon excessive within the environment. Thankfully, researchers like Yilu Liu, who’s at Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory in Tennessee, are engaged on the issue. In a Q&A with IEEE SpectrumIEEE Spectrum, she explains the risks of EMPs and the way her lab is engaged on designing buildings that shield delicate tools inside.
Kitepower
In distant or inaccessible areas, the place a wind turbine simply isn’t possible, there’s a new option for renewable energy era: Kites. Kitepower, primarily based within the Netherlands, is working to implement an electricity-generating kite system, known as the Hawk. Because the wind pulls on their kites’ floor tether, it generates a drive that’s transformed into electrical energy. The 60-square-meter kites can fly as excessive as 350 meters (over twice the peak of a wind turbine) to catch stronger and steadier winds. The kites include a 400-kilowatt-hour battery, and the complete system suits into a regular delivery container. Kitepower hopes to ship the Hawk to distant communities that at present depend on diesel turbines, offering them with a cleaner supply of energy that takes up a lot much less area than a wind turbine.
Trane Applied sciences
Traditionally, heat pumps have struggled to operate within the chilly, with most working at a lowered capability round 4 °C, and failing at about -15 °C. However now, with enhancements of their compressors, heat-pump producers say they’ve the know-how to heat homes just as efficiently in bitter cold as they do in milder winter temperatures. Warmth pumps work by transferring and compressing fluids which have a really low boiling level. The compressor is the factor that will increase the fluid-turned-vapors’ temperature and stress, so enhancements within the compressor’s motor velocity and timing of injecting extra vapor have made warmth pumps extra environment friendly in colder temperatures. The U.S. Division of Power in partnership with Pure Assets Canada is internet hosting the Cold-Climate Heat Pump Technology Challenge, the place eight heap pump producers are testing their warmth pumps, with a objective of acting at most capability—even at -15 °C.
Smart agriculture IoT units assist farmers perceive the massive image thought of what’s going on throughout their land by measuring GPS coordinates, moisture ranges, temperatures, acidity, vitamins, and extra. The issue is supplying sufficient energy to these scattered sensors. However what if we used one thing that already connects the entire units? That’s proper—the soil. Researchers at Tennessee Technological University designed a way of transmitting energy by the bottom. The researchers’ 2-acre take a look at community transmitted energy at 60 hertz, expending solely 0.1 kilowatt-hour per day. If they’d paid retail charges for that energy, it might have value them simply over a penny a day.
Ebb Carbon
Ebb Carbon is a California-based startup poised to begin eradicating tons of of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air. Their carbon dioxide removal plant in Port Angeles, Washington, known as Project Macoma, will use an electrochemical course of to separate seawater into acidic and fundamental parts. The acidic stream shall be neutralized or shipped out, and the essential stream shall be launched into the ocean. There, it can combine with carbon dioxide to create bicarbonate, a steady technique to retailer carbon. Because the venture captures and shops CO2 from the ocean, the ocean would have the ability to draw extra CO2 from the air. Though many ocean scientists are skeptical of marine geoengineering tasks like this one, The U.S. Division of Power has developed a US $100 million Carbon Shot program that can fund carbon dioxide removing and storage, together with in ocean reservoirs.
Luigi Avantaggiato
Millions of tonnes of photo voltaic panels will attain the tip of their lives in 2025. They include silicon, silver, and copper—supplies which are very priceless however laborious to extract from the {hardware}. The very best present processes for solar panel recycling can get better 90 % of those metals, however they’re costly and infrequently use poisonous chemical substances. Startup 9-Tech has a recycling course of that recovers up to 90 percent of the supplies with out utilizing poisonous chemical substances or releasing pollution into the surroundings. Staff at 9-Tech’s pilot manufacturing facility manually take away the aluminum body, junction field, and tempered glass from the photo voltaic panels. Then the remaining supplies are fed right into a furnace at 400 °C, and rising pollution are captured with a filter. A sequence of sieves separates the glass and silicon, then the silicon is shipped to an acid bathtub the place ultrasonic waves cut up it from its hooked up silver. The method is dear, however the supplies recovered are prime quality, which ought to assist to offset the fee, says the startup founders.
McKibillo
If we wish to absolutely decarbonize the aviation business, we’re going to should assume outdoors of the field. Ian McKay presents a potential future the place we use stadium-sized microwave arrays to beam up energy to antennae on airplanes. These microwaves might go by clouds and never hurt passengers, although they’d warmth up the air significantly, probably damaging close by birds. Although nothing like this has ever been tried, technological enhancements recommend this can be potential, together with a CalTech startup that intends to make use of phased arrays to beam solar power from satellites to Earth. Even with big technological boundaries and potential regulatory points, this thought experiment is value contemplating, as a result of less-fanciful choices for decarbonizing aviation have their own problems.
Climeworks
Climeworks, a Zurich-based firm, says its new direct-air capture (DAC) know-how will take away hundreds of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide by the tip of the last decade. Their latest facility will ultimately pull 36,000 tonnes of CO2 out of the air every year. Their new DAC technology depends on a brand new sorbent (the fabric that absorbs CO2) with a geometry that has been modified to reveal extra floor space to the air, capturing twice as a lot CO2. The brand new design will modify their collector models’ construction from three-tiered racks to a cube-like design, with 4 partitions of collectors surrounding a central shaft. These shall be used within the Project Cypress DAC Hub, a venture funded by the U.S. Division of Power to create the primary one-million-tonne carbon dioxide removing hub in the US.
Alfred Hicks/NREL
Solar panels are constructed to final. With a view to stand up to harsh climate, altering temperatures, and the wear and tear and tear of many years of use, they want a decent seal on their photovoltaic supplies. Most producers create this seal by including sticky polymer layers between the glass panes. However these polymers develop into extremely tough to take away on the end of a photo voltaic panel’s life. Researchers on the U.S. National Renewable Energy Lab have discovered a technique to meld the glass and not using a polymer, melting it together with femtosecond lasers. This intense beam of photons adjustments the optical absorption of the glass, producing a small plasma of ionized glass atoms which soften the glass sheets collectively. This new methodology creates photo voltaic panels that last more and are simpler to recycle.
STDCT at NUS
Data centers are vitality guzzlers, particularly in hotter climates. However researchers in Singapore at the moment are testing methods to cool them sustainably. A collaboration of over 20 tech firms, universities, and authorities businesses are working collectively on the Sustainable Tropical Data Centre Testbed. They’re testing a brand new StatePoint Liquid Cooling system, the place a hydrophobic microporous membrane creates a liquid-to-air warmth exchanger that chills water. This method is simpler in scorching and humid environments because it produces chilly water as an alternative of chilly air. The researchers may also take a look at a prototype desiccant-coated heat and mass exchanger, coated in a desiccant materials that absorbs water vapor from the air passing over it, drying out the air to dehumidify the info middle. Sooner or later, they hope to convey these energy-saving applied sciences to tropical information facilities everywhere in the globe.
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