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Five amazing renewable energy projects

June 11, 2025 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Worldwide investment in renewable energy topped $2 trillion in 2024. For Climate Solutions Week, we wanted to highlight some amazing projects around the world that showcase innovative technology, ambitious scale, and the commitment to a cleaner and sustainable future.

In Morocco, the Noor Solar Power Station is a huge concentrated solar power facility that generates power for more than a million Moroccans. The facility stores some of the heat generated by the sun in molten salt so it can continue to produce power after sunset.

The Three Gorges Dam in China is the world’s largest power plant by installed capacity. The 32 turbines generate enough electricity to power millions of homes.

The Alta Wind Energy Center in California is one of the largest onshore wind farms in the world. The 600 turbines at the facility provide clean electricity for up to 450,000 homes.

The Yamakura Dam Floating Solar Project in Japan has more than 50,000 solar panels that provide electricity for about 5,000 households. The plant is located atop the surface of the Yamakura Dam reservoir and is one of the largest floating solar installations in the world.

The Hellisheiði Power Station in Iceland is one of the world’s most technologically advanced geothermal energy plants. It taps into Iceland’s volcanic geology and draws both high-pressure steam and hot water to provide both electricity and heat to thousands of local homes and businesses.

These five projects are just a sampling of the renewable energy development going on all over the world.

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Powering the Future: Innovative Renewable Energy Projects Around the World

Photo, posted December 1, 2019, courtesy of Richard Allaway via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Olive oil and climate change

June 18, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained by mashing whole olives and extracting the oil. A superfood staple of the Mediterranean diet, olive oil is used in kitchens around the world for frying, sauteing, baking, and as a condiment. It can also be widely found in cosmetics, soaps, and pharmaceutical products.

Globally, 2.6 million tons of olive oil were consumed last year. Spain is currently the world’s largest producer of this “liquid gold,” accounting for 44% of global production. The second largest producer of olive oil is Italy, followed by Greece, Tunisia, Turkey, and Morocco.

But recently, the price of olive oil has been rocketing up. Droughts, wildfires, floods, and heat waves, combined with pests, have punished olive-producing regions around the world. The climate-fueled extreme weather has significantly impacted olive oil production in southern Europe. Olive trees are exceedingly vulnerable to climate change.

Spain, for example, typically produces somewhere between 1.3 to 1.5 million metric tons of olive oil each harvest. However, officials expect a production range of only 830,000 to 850,000 metric tons this season.

This shortage has sent prices soaring. According to the International Monetary Fund, the average price of olive oil has doubled over the past two years. In fact, the price is currently hovering at or around $10,000 per metric ton. And there doesn’t seem to be much relief in sight.

The record-breaking price has also unsurprisingly fueled a surge in crime, with criminals targeting supermarkets, oil mills, and olive groves.

The changing climate continues to threaten food security around the world.

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‘Liquid gold’: An olive oil shortage is fueling record prices and food insecurity fears

Extra virgin olive oil prices tipped to top £16 a litre next month

Photo, posted October 29, 2015, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Natural hydrogen

February 26, 2024 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Hydrogen is considered to be a potential substitute for conventional fossil fuels in applications where electricity cannot easily be used such as in blast furnaces, cement works, industrial heating, long-distance aviation, and shipping. But most hydrogen is manufactured by separating it from methane, which is energy-intensive and produces carbon dioxide. So-called green hydrogen is made by splitting water using electricity. It is a carbon-free process if the electricity is from renewable sources, but it is pretty expensive.

A small community in Mali gets its electricity by burning natural hydrogen, which bubbles up from underground into a village well. It has long been known that processes in the Earth’s crust can make hydrogen gas from water under certain circumstances. But conventional wisdom has been that this occurrence is rare and that the hydrogen produced is either inaccessible or seeps away.

An increasing number of geoscientists now are convinced that there is actually an enormous quantity of hydrogen beneath the planet’s surface and that we just haven’t been looking for it in the right places, or at all, for that matter. Some say that there could be trillions of tons of hydrogen, and more is being generated all the time.

Prospectors have recently been drilling for hydrogen in France, Australia, Morocco, Brazil, and in the United States, in Nebraska, Arizona, and Kansas. Will extracting natural hydrogen be practical at the scale required and will it be economical? The jury is still out on all of this, but if it turns out as proponents claim, natural hydrogen could be a very big deal.

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Natural Hydrogen: A Potential Clean Energy Source Beneath Our Feet

Photo, posted November 4, 2012, courtesy of Heather Paul via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Clean Energy From North Africa | Earth Wise

April 7, 2023 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Europe is hungry for clean energy. The war in Ukraine has amplified Europe’s desire to end its reliance on Russian natural gas. Increasingly, Europe is pushing to install giant solar energy farms in sunny North Africa and transport the energy through underwater cables.

Solar panels in sunny North Africa generate up to three times more energy than those in Europe. As a result, solar farms and wind farms as well are proliferating south of the Mediterranean Sea. Morocco’s Noor and Egypt’s Benban solar farms are among the largest in the world. Many of these farms were initially built to boost domestic power supplies and reduce dependence on coal. But now these farms are increasingly supplying green energy to industrial neighbors in Europe.

Morocco has signed deals with the European Union to expand power exports. Egypt is considering proposals for cables to link to Greece. Another planned cable would link new solar farms in Tunisia to Italy’s grid. These projects would certainly bring money and jobs to North African countries, but it isn’t all good news.

There are growing concerns about the environmental impacts of Europe outsourcing its energy needs. Desert ecosystems could be greatly compromised. And much of this development is likely to happen with only minimal community consultation or ecological assessment. Half of Africa’s population does not have access to reliable power grids. Electricity becoming a major export is not likely to improve this situation.

Europe has long obtained many resources from the developing world. Now it is tapping into the sunshine and wind in other lands. It remains to be seen if North Africa’s countries will achieve the large potential gains those resources can offer them.

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In Scramble for Clean Energy, Europe Is Turning to North Africa

Photo, posted October 17, 2019, courtesy of Richard Allaway via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Seeds And Climate Change | Earth Wise

August 19, 2021 By EarthWise Leave a Comment

Farmers and agricultural communities around the world are on the frontlines of climate change. They are among the first to feel the impacts of hotter temperatures as well as more frequent and intense droughts and precipitation. These challenges pose a massive threat to both farmer livelihoods and global food security.

As the planet continues to heat up, many arid regions that already have marginal conditions for agriculture will be increasingly under stress. As a result, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the King Mohammed VI Polytechnic University in Morocco are working on a promising new way to protect seeds from this stress during their crucial germination phase. Their simple and inexpensive process, which was recently described in a paper published in the journal Nature Food, also provides plants with extra nutrition at the same.

The research team has developed a two layer coating for seeds designed for tackling issues related to drought. Drawing inspiration from natural coatings that occur on some seeds like chia seeds, the first layer is designed to protect the seeds from drying out. It provides a gel-like coating that grips any moisture that comes along and surrounds the seed with it. The second (inner) layer of the coating contains preserved microorganisms called rhizobacteria, as well as some nutrients to help the seeds grow.

The materials for the coatings are biodegradable, readily-available, and often used in the food industry already. According to researchers, early tests using common beans have demonstrated encouraging results in Morocco, and more field tests of the seeds are currently underway.

As the climate continues to change, more innovations like this will be necessary for global food security.

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Engineering seeds to resist drought

Photo, posted September 17, 2010, courtesy of Stacy via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

The Return Of The Bald Ibis

September 6, 2018 By EarthWise 1 Comment

The northern bald ibis, also known as the waldrapp, is a strange-looking bird with a long, curved beak, a naked head, and feathers that point straight into the air like a Mohawk haircut. In former centuries, it occurred widely in northern and eastern Africa, Asia Minor, Arabia, and parts of Europe. The ancient Egyptians considered it to be an afterworld divinity and its likeness can be seen in hieroglyphs dating back thousands of years.

Saving Saharan Oases

February 6, 2017 By EarthWise

An oasis is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source such as a pond or a small lake. Oases can provide habitat for animals as well as people. Oases have long been essential for trade and transportation routes in desert areas; caravans typically travel via oases so that supplies of water and food can be replenished.

[Read more…] about Saving Saharan Oases

The World’s Largest Solar Plant

March 16, 2016 By WAMC WEB

Morocco has switched on what is going to be the world’s largest concentrating solar power plant. The plant is located near the city of Ouarzazate, an area previously famous as a filming location for blockbusters like Lawrence of Arabia and Gladiator. When fully online in 2018, the plant will produce enough energy to power over a million homes. It will also cut carbon emissions by 760,000 tons a year.