Cities & Planning

The relationship between universities and urban neighborhoods must be strengthened.

On Riding Dublin's Human Transit-Redesigned Bus Network. // In last week's post, I wrote about the relative lack of rail transit in Dublin, a city with a population of 1.28 million (2.12 million in "Greater Dublin"). Much smaller cities in Europe have metro systems of their own; Dublin is

Fresh water from snow, at 70 below!

The city of Valencia has ambitious plans of developing the largest urban solar farm by using solar panels in its cemeteries.

Citizen coalitions prevented the 1963 freeway from being extended through the Central District, splitting a mostly Black neighborhood. Some ruins remain.

A new study suggests vehicle-to-grid technology and reused old EV batteries could meet all of the EU’s need for battery storage—and then some.

Tiny EVs come of age again in the third microcar renaissance.

The use of concrete and steel have both become the bedrock of modern-day construction, which of course also means that there is a lot of both which ends up as waste once said construction gets demo…

Sometimes design firms are commissioned to do concept work that never sees the light of day. As one example, Berlin-based agency XOIO was asked by Daimler to envision future mobility scenarios. The project yielded few images and is only published on XOIO's site, but I find these two shots, depicting

If you’ve spent any amount of time driving through any major American city, you know what it’s like to be stuck in bumper to bumper traffic. But if you’re from Los Angeles – the land of freeways, traffic and smog –  you know this struggle especially well.   But Jake Berman, the author of The Lost

The first in a series exploring the myths and realities surrounding heat pumps

Born in Seattle’s Japantown, he rose from hardship to build aspirational icons like the Pacific Science Center and the World Trade Center.

Editor’s note: This is the third entry in our theme for May, Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. by Alexandra Camille Schultz Introduction: From Edge to Center[1] In the early twentieth century, m…

They’re delivering solar power after dark in California and helping to stabilize grids in other states. And the technology is expanding rapidly.

For the last quarter century, those of us hoping we could slow global warming were anxious to see a quick conversion to electric vehicles (EVs). If we could get most people using electric vehicles, and have the energy coming from clean sources, we could radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The problem was that EVs were […]

Your neighborhood watering hole is more important than you think.

Economists calculate that the world's corporations produce so much climate change pollution, it could eat up about 44% of their profits if they had to pay damages for what they put out.

Producing food locally boosts food security and self-sufficiency, especially in urban areas. Beacon Food Forest and Tilth Alliance are advancing urban agriculture in Seattle, joining an international trend.

Two years ago, sodium-ion battery pioneer Natron Energy was busy preparing its specially formulated sodium batteries for mass production. The company slipped a little past its 2023 kickoff plans, but it didn't fall too far behind as far as mass battery production goes. It officially commenced…

State Sen. Norm Needleman championed the 2021 legislation designed to lure major data centers to Connecticut.

If we want prosperity for all, electricity must be cheap and consistent. The energy transition cannot leave ordinary people behind

A water-based battery design from China boasts increased safety and double the power, promising advancements in electric vehicle technology.

Hydrostor, a leader in compressed air energy storage, aims to break ground on its first large-scale plant in New South Wales by the end of this year. It wants to follow that with an even bigger facility in California.

A gravity battery is a type of electricity storage device that stores gravitational energy, the energy stored in an object resulting from a change in height due to gravity, also called potential energy. A gravity battery works by using excess energy (usually from sustainable sources) to raise a mass to generate gravitational potential energy, which is then lowered to convert potential energy into electricity through an electric generator. One form of a gravity battery is one that lowers a mass, such as a block of concrete, to generate electricity. The most common gravity battery is used in pumped-storage hydroelectricity, where water is pumped to higher elevations to store energy and released through water turbines to generate electricity.[1]

Every day, we are powering our lives using pumped storage hydropower—a unique and relatively unknown source of energy storage.

‘Aqueous batteries with high energy density are possible, offering a development option for grid-scale energy storage, and even electric vehicles’: researchers.

A new initiative invited student groups to design and plant gardens that will promote wildlife, and cultivate their visions for the future.

The 10 weekends of Bicycle Weekends for 2024 have been announced, with only 32 hours of opening up the street for walking, biking and rolling each weekend.

Project 529 bike registry now available to police agencies across B.C.