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The Future of Off-Grid Housing: A 2035 Solution to High-Priced Homes

September 19, 2025

by Futurist Thomas Frey

The Crisis That Sparked Change

By the mid-2020s, the housing crisis had become unbearable. In major cities across the globe, the cost of owning or renting a home far outpaced wage growth. Utilities—electricity, water, waste—were draining family budgets as grids aged and struggled to keep up with demand. Younger generations gave up on the dream of home ownership, while developing nations watched populations pour into cities faster than infrastructure could be built.

History tells us that when pressures mount, innovation follows. Out of this crisis came an idea once dismissed as fringe or utopian: off-grid housing.

Artificial Intelligence, Energy, new technology, New Viewpoints, Solar Power, Wind Power

Why the Next Tech Revolution Won’t Come From Silicon Valley

September 3, 2025

For decades, Silicon Valley has been shorthand for the future. From microchips to social media, smartphones to AI startups, the Bay Area has claimed center stage as the birthplace of disruptive technology. But the next leap forward will not come from another app or platform—it will come from power. Not just computing power, but literal energy.

Artificial Intelligence, Intellectual Property, quantum computing, Solar Power, Wind Power

Scientists Crack a 60-Year-Old Superconductor Challenge – and Open a Doorway to the Future

August 25, 2025

For six decades, a peculiar prediction has haunted physics like an unsolved riddle. In the 1960s, theorists suggested that superconductors—materials that conduct electricity without resistance—should hide exotic quantum vortex states. These were not ordinary vortices of swirling fluids or storm systems, but microscopic whirlpools of quantum activity, so deeply buried in the laws of physics that even the most advanced experiments couldn’t catch them in action.

Until now.

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen have achieved something audacious: they’ve cracked open this mystery by building a synthetic superconducting platform designed to act as a “backdoor” into these elusive states. Instead of straining to observe them in their natural habitat—where they are too faint, too small, and too fleeting—the team engineered a custom nanostructure that mimics the right conditions. In doing so, they created a stage on which the once-hidden vortices could finally be observed, controlled, and even manipulated.

Energy, People Making a Difference, Solar Power, Wind Power

Japan’s Machine Learning Breakthrough Could Make Power Cords Obsolete

August 8, 2025

Imagine a world where your phone, laptop, electric car, and even your kitchen appliances pull power from the air—no cords, no plugs, no hunting for the right charger. A research team at Chiba University believes they’ve just taken a major step toward making that world real.

Led by Professor Hiroo Sekiya, the team has developed a machine learning–driven design for wireless power transfer (WPT) systems that remain stable no matter what you plug—or don’t plug—into them. This “load-independent” operation means devices can receive a consistent stream of power without the efficiency loss and voltage swings that plague conventional wireless systems.

Wind Power

CRRC Unveils Powerful 20MW Wind Turbine for Offshore Market

October 2, 2024

Chinese state-owned manufacturer CRRC has revealed its plans to launch a 20MW wind turbine, one of the most powerful in the industry, aimed at the floating wind market. This groundbreaking model is designed to optimize the development of deep-water offshore wind resources, generating 40 kWh of electricity per rotation at full load wind speed.

The announcement was made at the WindEnergy Hamburg conference in Germany, where CRRC also showcased its latest advancements in wind turbine technology, supply chain management for wind power components, and integrated wind-solar-hydrogen-storage systems.

Wind Power

Expanding Horizons: Dogger Bank Wind Farm Set for Major Expansion

July 2, 2024

The Dogger Bank Wind Farm, already the world’s largest offshore wind farm with a capacity of 3.6 GW, is poised for a significant expansion. Developers SSE and Equinor have submitted a scoping report for phase D of the project, which could add over 2 GW of capacity, according to a recent press release.

As countries worldwide seek cleaner energy solutions, renewable sources like wind and solar are being adopted aggressively. For the UK, with limited land and inconsistent sunshine, offshore wind projects are a more viable option. The strong winds of the North Sea make offshore wind farms particularly effective, leading to the initial consent for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm in 2015. While the project is still under construction in its first three phases, developers are now seeking permission for a fourth phase to further boost its energy production capacity.

Wind Power

Airiva: Redefining Wind Power with Aesthetic Efficiency

March 28, 2024

In a bold departure from conventional wind turbine design, Joe Doucet’s visionary concept has materialized into Airiva, a company dedicated to revolutionizing wind power with elegance and efficiency. What began as a concept resembling a monumental dandelion has evolved into a strikingly innovative system of vertical turbines, poised to reshape the landscape of distributed wind energy.

The journey from concept to reality has been a meticulous process, spanning two and a half years of relentless research, design refinement, and rigorous testing. At its core, Airiva comprises eight vertical turbines arranged within a frame, each helix-shaped to maximize wind capture. Together, these turbines create a mesmerizing visual spectacle, resembling a rippling curtain in the wind—an aesthetic marvel that seamlessly blends form with function.

Analysis, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Wind Power

Our pathetically slow shift to clean energy, in five charts

January 10, 2020

We’d better pick up the pace in the 2020s.

By most measures that matter, clean energy had a stellar decade.

The cost of large wind and solar farms dropped by 70% and nearly 90%, respectively. Meanwhile, renewable-power plants around the world are producing four times more electricity than they did 10 years ago.

Similarly, electric vehicles were barely a blip at the outset of the 2010s. But automakers were on track to sell 1.8 million EVs this year, as range increased, prices fell, and companies introduced a variety of models.

But the swift growth in these small sectors still hasn’t added up to major changes in the massive global energy system, or reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. So far, cleaner technologies have mostly met rising energy demands, not cut deeply into existing fossil-fuel infrastructure, as the charts that follow make clear.

That’s a problem. Cutting emissions rapidly enough to combat the increasing threats of climate change will require complete overhauls of our power plants, factories, and vehicle fleets, all within a few decades.

Continue reading… “Our pathetically slow shift to clean energy, in five charts”

Batteries, Energy, Report, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Wind Power

Gas plants will get crushed by wind, solar by 2035, study says

November 18, 2019

Generators now on drawing boards will be left uneconomical

Natural gas-fired power plants, which have crushed the economics of coal, are on the path to being undercut themselves by renewable power and big batteries, a study found.

By 2035, it will be more expensive to run 90% of gas plants being proposed in the U.S. than it will be to build new wind and solar farms equipped with storage systems, according to the report Monday from the Rocky Mountain Institute. It will happen so quickly that gas plants now on the drawing boards will become uneconomical before their owners finish paying for them, the study said.

The development would be a dramatic reversal of fortune for gas plants, which 20 years ago supplied less than 20% of electricity in the U.S. Today that share has jumped to 35% as hydraulic fracturing has made natural gas cheap and plentiful, forcing scores of coal plants to close nationwide.

Continue reading… “Gas plants will get crushed by wind, solar by 2035, study says”

Batteries, Energy, Science & Technology News, Solar Power, Wind Power

Renewables meet 50% of electricity demand on Australia’s power grid for first time

November 14, 2019

For a brief moment solar, wind and hydro combined to deliver more than half the power into the National Electricity Market

Australia’s main electricity grid was briefly powered by 50% renewable energy this week in a new milestone that experts say will become increasingly normal.

Data on the sources of power in the National Electricity Market showed that at 11.50am on Wednesday, renewables were providing 50.2% of the power to Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia – the five states served by the market.

Continue reading… “Renewables meet 50% of electricity demand on Australia’s power grid for first time”

Batteries, Energy, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy, Wind Power

How cheap must batteries get for renewables to compete with fossil fuels?

November 4, 2019

Production of lithium batteries for environmentally friendly electric cars future of energy

While solar and wind power are rapidly becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels in areas with lots of sun and wind, they still can’t provide the 24/7 power we’ve become used to. At present, that’s not big a problem because the grid still features plenty of fossil fuel plants that can provide constant baseload or ramp up to meet surges in demand.

But there’s broad agreement that we need to dramatically decarbonize our energy supplies if we’re going to avoid irreversible damage to the climate. That will mean getting rid of the bulk of on-demand, carbon-intensive power plants we currently rely on to manage our grid.

Alternatives include expanding transmission infrastructure to shuttle power from areas where the wind is blowing to areas where it isn’t, or managing demand using financial incentive to get people to use less energy during peak hours. But most promising is pairing renewable energy with energy storage to build up reserves for when the sun stops shining.

The approach is less complicated than trying to redesign the grid, say the authors of a new paper in <emJoule, but also makes it possible to shift much more power around than demand management. A key question that hasn’t been comprehensively dealt with, though, is how cheap energy storage needs to get to make this feasible.

Continue reading… “How cheap must batteries get for renewables to compete with fossil fuels?”

Green Friendly, Science & Technology News, Shopping, Solar Energy, Wind Power

IKEA will produce more energy than it consumes by 2020

October 2, 2019

It hopes to be ‘climate positive’ by 2030.

Many companies are pouring money into renewable energy, but how many can say they’re producing more than they need? IKEA thinks it will, at least. Its holding company Ingka revealed that IKEA will generate more renewable energy before the end of 2019 than the energy its stores use. The firm only expected to draw even by 2020. The furniture chain added that it had invested about $2.8 billion in solar and wind energy over the past decade, and told Reuters that it intended to continue funding that renewable tech, including two stakes in American solar farms this week.

The retailer expects to offer home solar panels in stores across all its markets in 2025. Ultimately, it plans to be climate-positive (reducing more emissions than it puts out) by 2030.

IKEA’s timing isn’t a coincidence. Like Google, Amazon and other companies, it’s using both the Global Climate Strike and the UN’s Climate Action Summit to build goodwill and avoid controversy. This isn’t a selfless act. With that said, the move could illustrate the next step for companies hoping to burnish their ecological credentials. Instead of merely striving for neutrality, more companies might try to counter the effects of climate change. There’s no guarantee they’ll act in a timely fashion, but it might be more a question of “when” than “if.”

Via Engadget.com