Supplying electricity used to be so simple: some big coal plants, a few gigawatts of nuclear, maybe a hydroelectric dam for good measure—all of them capable of churning out a steady supply of watts. These days, more solar and wind energy means the electricity supply is often unpredictable and the power grid far more challenging [...]

Energywise Green Tech Wind Makani Power, long one of the leaders in the growing field of airborne wind energy, now has a very large and rich parent. A statement on the company’s website announced yesterday that Google would acquire Makani for an undisclosed amount; Google—or more specifically, Google.org, the company’s philanthropic arm—had previously backed Makani [...]

Steven Cherry: Hi, this is Steven Cherry for IEEE Spectrum’s “Techwise Conversations.” The world’s first assembly line was developed at the Ford Motor Co. in 1913, making this its centenary year. We think of it as the moving production line—it’s what we see Charlie Chaplin racing against in the movie Modern Times and Lucy and [...]

Energywise Energy Environment Last Thursday, global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, as measured atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano, reached 400 parts per million. The good news is that most educated people now have a sense of what that means—which would not have been the case 10 years ago. The bad news is that the world [...]