KONNICHI WA

After the nuclear crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor in 2011, the region faced an energy reckoning. Officials in the region decided to bet big on clean energy, vowing to power the prefecture with 100 percent renewable energy by 2040 and developing clean energy as an export product. 

For the country as a whole, clean energy may soon be an important part of its trade with the United States. But with President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate accords, the United States may not be as interested in buying Japanese clean tech. 

A wind and solar power test site at the Fukushima Renewable Energy Institute in Japan

Bug Engineering

Bacteria are powerful and resilient little machines. Scientists are working on tweaking these microorganisms to do things that are useful to people. In a recent paper, researchers outlined a way to make bacteria take in carbon dioxide and emit methane. This effectively reverses the combustion process and could become an important biofuel pathway. 

Moonshot

One of the big discussions in clean energy right now is whether we should run with the technologies we have now or focus on developing better ones. For an urgent problem like climate change, several prominent investors say they would like to fund research that could one day yield a breakthrough instead of deploying the wind turbines and solar panels already on the market.

Fire down below

Iceland leads the world in terms of meeting its energy needs with geothermal energy, but the United States actually comes in first in overall capacity. Drawing heat from underground provides dispatchable renewable energy, but finding viable pockets of heat is a challenge and in some instance, geothermal energy can emit greenhouse gases.

Researchers in Iceland have recently confirmed that they can sequester carbon dioxide from geothermal power plants underground by turning it into rock. 

Hellisheiði Power Station outside of Reykjavik, Iceland

You'll have to wear shades

Oil major BP released its annual energy assessment, finding that fossil fuel prices remained flat due to a surge in supply. However the report also projected a bright future for renewable energy, an interesting result given that BP closed its own solar power division several years ago because it didn't generate enough returns. 

A sign greeting travelers at Keflavik International Airport in Iceland

The path forward

Climate scientists who ostensibly agree on the scale and scope of climate change are at odds over the best solution to the problem. In particular, several scientists have adamantly debated the role of nuclear energy and renewable energy.

I put together a three-part series on this issue, looking at the case for nuclear energy, profiling a scientist who says we can save the world with just renewables, and examining why the debate has become so heated. 

A cooling tower at the Callaway Nuclear Power Plant in Missouri

Energiewende-wende

Germany is rolling back its vaunted feed-in tariff for renewable energy as the country sets records for solar and wind power generation. Legislators say that the policy has grown too expensive and now are developing other models to encourage renewable energy deployment. 

A wind turbine in Saerbeck, Germany