Thomas Frey: Seven teams failed to win NASA’s “Beam Power Challenge”, a competition designed to create a solution for powering the space elevator. There may have been a number of reasons why no one won either of these challenges, but the amount of money they were offering as a prize was insulting [...]

Wind turbines will join oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas coast under a new plan to build the first U.S. offshore wind energy farm, the state announced on Monday.

Taking a long-term view isn’t easy nowadays.

With the flick of a switch, a searchlight beam illuminated a photovoltaic array, and a prototype space elevator called Snow Star One lifted off the ground. As the humble assemblage of solar cells, metal braces and off-the-shelf rollers rose slowly from the launch pad and up a long blue tether, a small crowd of spectators [...]