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Energy

Dense energy that still obeys thermodynamics: fusion, geothermal, storage, hydrogen with the losses stated, fission, space solar, and why a closed machine cannot run forever. Also here, all from 2024 or later: sodium-ion grid batteries, TerraPower’s Natrium nuclear plant under construction in Wyoming, commercial floating offshore wind, perovskite-silicon tandem solar modules, and a carbon dioxide battery for long-duration storage that is working in Sardinia.

Aerial view of the ITER construction site at Cadarache, France, in 2018

Energy Research

ITER magnetic-confinement fusion

The world’s largest tokamak, the international fusion experiment, is being built in France as a physics experiment.

The target chamber at the National Ignition Facility, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Energy Research

National Ignition Facility, inertial fusion

On 5 December 2022 a laser shot at the National Ignition Facility made more fusion energy than it delivered to the target. The building still draws a large amount of power from the grid.

Geothermal plant at The Geysers, California, a working steam field of the kind enhanced geothermal wants to copy in new rock

Cape Station enhanced geothermal

Wells in Utah copy oilfield drilling and aim at the first commercial enhanced-geothermal megawatts in the United States. A 2026 schedule is still ahead of first power on the grid.

Containerized grid battery modules at a U.S. energy-storage project

Form Energy iron-air with Google and Xcel

A 300 megawatt, 30 gigawatt-hour iron-air project for Minnesota is announced as the largest battery by stored energy. It is still a plan.

Source: Utility Dive

A land drill rig on red earth, the surface kit around deep holes

Energy Research

Quaise millimetre-wave drilling

A gyrotron in Central Texas drilled 100 metres of granite in 2025, a field record for the method, and still far short of a power plant.

Source: Energy Global

A cutaway tokamak mock-up of the same family as the international fusion experiment

Energy Research

Commonwealth Fusion Systems SPARC

A compact tokamak in Massachusetts is about 80 percent assembled. The 2027 target is plasma gain above one, a physics milestone.

Containerized battery cabinets at a grid-storage site used for long-duration storage

Form Energy iron-air in Ireland

A 10 megawatt, 1 gigawatt-hour iron-air project in northwest Ireland, agreed in 2026 and aimed at 2029, is the first Form Energy yard announced outside the United States.

Source: Form Energy

A large cryogenic hydrogen storage tank, the kind of industrial hydrogen hardware already used at launch sites

Green hydrogen

Useful for steel, ammonia, and ships. Wasteful as a default way to heat homes or move cars.

An operating nuclear power plant, shown as context for modular fission

Modular and advanced nuclear

China’s high-temperature gas-cooled pebble-bed demonstration entered commercial operation in December 2023. Most Western small modular reactor projects are still before first concrete.

International Space Station solar arrays, the working cousin of proposed power satellites

Energy Research

Space-based solar power

A 2023 Caltech demo beamed a trickle of power from orbit. The physics works; the economics are the question.

Source: Caltech

A proton-exchange membrane fuel-cell stack, the hardware whose catalyst layers this work tries to thin

Energy Research

Nanostructured electrolyzer catalysts

Green hydrogen is limited by iridium and by the energy the stacks use. Nanotechnology is a way to use less of that metal.

Historical engraving of a water-screw perpetual-motion scheme, a closed cycle that cannot feed itself

Energy Myth-busted

Perpetual motion, and why it fails

A closed machine cannot run forever or make free infinite energy. The reason is thermodynamics.

A grid battery storage site next to the Desert Sunlight solar farm in Riverside County, California, with rows of battery units, a substation and power lines.

Sodium-ion grid storage

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) unveiled its TENER Sodium Energy Storage System in Munich on 22 June 2026. CATL says shipments should reach 1 gigawatt-hour by the end of 2026, and in April 2026 it agreed to supply 60 gigawatt-hours of sodium-ion batteries to the company HyperStrong over three years.

The Fast Flux Test Facility, a sodium-cooled test reactor at the Hanford Site in Washington State, looking northwest.

TerraPower Natrium

TerraPower’s Natrium plant at Kemmerer, Wyoming, pairs a 345-megawatt sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten salt energy storage system that can raise output to 500 megawatts. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the construction permit on 9 March 2026, and TerraPower announced the start of construction on 23 April 2026.

Source: TerraPower

Two floating wind turbines of the Hywind Scotland wind farm in the North Sea off Peterhead, Scotland.

Energy Deployed

Floating offshore wind

The Goto Offshore Wind Farm off Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture, began commercial operation on 5 January 2026. Its project company calls it Japan’s first commercial floating offshore wind farm: eight 2.1-megawatt turbines, 16.8 megawatts in total, on floaters made of steel and concrete.

Source: Chubu Electric

A gloved hand holding a small perovskite solar cell.

Perovskite-silicon tandem modules

On 5 September 2024 the solar company Oxford PV announced the first commercial sale of its perovskite-on-silicon tandem panels, shipped to a customer in the United States for a utility-scale installation. Oxford PV says the 72-cell panels have 24.5 percent module efficiency and can produce up to 20 percent more energy than a standard silicon panel.

Source: Oxford PV

Wind turbines of the Campeda wind farm near Bonorva in Sardinia, Italy, seen from a hillside.

Energy Deployed

Energy Dome carbon dioxide battery

Energy Dome’s plant in Ottana, Sardinia, began operating in July 2025. It stores electricity by compressing carbon dioxide gas into a liquid and later expanding it through a turbine, and IEEE Spectrum reports its capacity as 20 megawatts and 200 megawatt-hours, which is 10 hours at full power.

Source: IEEE Spectrum