Environment and energy

Latest articles

Opening ceremony of carbon neutrality research centre at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing

China sets out its climate ambitions

A photo of a snowboarder travelling down a snowy slope filled with cracks. A plume of snow spray behind the boarder hints at the slope's instability

Slab avalanches resemble strike-slip earthquakes

A combination of mechanisms triggers the formation of cracks in snow layers

Could this revolutionary plane turn air travel green?

The airline industry is emerging from COVID-19 with progress on de-carbonizing air travel, as James McKenzie discovers

Research headlines

Water harvesting gel works at low humidity levels

Material is low cost and easy to make, say researchers

Atmospheric helium levels are on the rise

While not a worry in itself, the increase could serve as an indirect indicator of fossil fuel usage

Weather satellite sheds light on ‘Great Dimming’ of Betelgeuse star

Chance observations corroborate hybrid explanation for drop in brightness

Thermophotovoltaic cells top 40 per cent efficiency

Two-junction devices could be integrated into renewable-energy systems for low-cost thermal-grid storage

Undersea muon detectors monitor variations in water depth

Meteotsunami is detected in Tokyo Bay

Machine learning detects seismic activity in noisy cities

UrbanDenoiser algorithm is trained to filter out traffic and other human activity

Podcasts about environmental physics

How we know climate change causes extreme weather, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Higgs-boson discovery

How climate change is affecting human and natural systems, test your knowledge of artificial intelligence

Black-hole physics and that iconic ‘shadow’ image, balloons and rockets probe the atmosphere’s acoustic duct

Environment and energy – Browse the ebooks collection

Connecting you to the most comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date research in this globally-expanding field.

Browse the most recently published titles.

Opinion and reviews

Architect render of InterGen’s battery facility

Why we need to tackle renewable energy’s storage problem

Racing to save the planet

Diandra Leslie-Pelecky reviews Racing Green: How Motorsport Science Can Change the World by Kit Chapman

Business and industry must rise to the challenge of climate change

James McKenzie believes the climate crisis offers opportunities to business – but warns that solutions will only be found with the help of governments and financ...

Explore more in environment and energy

Characterization of Li-ion battery thermal runaway in ESSs and EVs

Available to watch now, The Electrochemical Society, in partnership with UL Research Institutes, explores thermal runaway with lithium-ion cells and batteries

Flow cells: advanced electrodes via 3D printing and tomography

Available to watch now, The Electrochemical Society in partnership with TA Instruments – Waters, Hiden Analytical and Royal Society of Chemistry, explores the importance and characteristics of electrochemical flow reactors

The dilemma of corrosion and better corrosion management

Available to watch now, The Electrochemical Society, in partnership with Hiden Analytical, explores the relationship between the efficient management of corrosion protection and clean-energy strategies

Green supercomputer with abstract binary code overlay

Cutting the carbon footprint of supercomputing in scientific research

More efficient coding and quantifying climate impacts are among the solutions

Solar cell keeps going after sunset

New device produces power at night thanks to an integrated thermoelectric generator

Freeze–thaw battery could help store solar and wind energy

Device uses low-cost and abundant materials

Oscillating temperature gradient boosts heat flow in fluids

Discovery could improve climate models

Honeycomb-like nanopatterning boosts efficiency of ultrathin solar panels

“Hyperuniform disordered” design delivers 66.5% solar absorption

Weather could be controlled by making tiny changes to chaotic system

Small perturbations could prevent extreme events like tornadoes

A helicopter flying through the steam above Old Faithful geyser

Geophysical surveys reveal Yellowstone’s hydrothermal underworld

Natural plumbing system beneath the famously volcanic US national park mapped for the first time

Solar geoengineering is a ‘fire extinguisher’ for global warming, shark’s skin inspires underwater vehicles

In this podcast we chat with experts on hydrodynamics and climate-change mitigation

Research infrastructures found to have an astronomical impact on astronomy’s carbon footprint

Study finds that research facilities emit at least 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year

The huge carbon footprint of large-scale computing

Physicists working on large-scale experiments may have to consider the significant environmental impact of the computer power they require. Michael Allen investigates

Electrification and decarbonization of chemical synthesis

The Electrochemical Society, in partnership with Hiden Analytical, The Royal Society of Chemistry and Cell Press, explores the decarbonization of the physical world