How Oman's Rocks Could Help Save the Planet

In Paris, about 7,500 buildings are heated using geothermal energy, a cost-saving and carbon neutral energy source. Water is drawn from deep below ground at a central location and heated by the earth, and then sent via underground pipes to individual buildings. The Bagneux and Chatillon district has scaled up the system, providing heat to over 40,000 people. Districts created joint ventures to reduce construction costs and residents do not notice the energy source shift because when the temperature drops to a point where geothermal energy is not viable, gas boilers automatically keeps the heat flowing.

Canopy works to preserve the untouched Broadback Forest, which stores twice as much carbon as the Amazon and is central to the Cree Nation. The nonprofit works with 750 corporations, including fashion brands, commercial printers, and publishers to reduce the amount of packaging they use and eliminate sourcing from biodiverse, ancient, and endangered forests. They help source waste from grain and other food harvests for packaging, paper, and fabric production and enlist companies’ support of conservation initiatives. They also partner with other groups to lobby the government to protect the Broadback forest.

Climeworks is focusing on pulling carbon dioxide directly out of the air to store or reuse in some capacity as a way to lower global greenhouse gas emissions. The Swiss company has 16 plants around Europe, with their biggest one in Switzerland that removes 900 tons of carbon dioxide a year that is then sold to Coca-Cola Co. to put in soft drinks or to local industrial greenhouses for plant growth. Scaling the operations to capture more carbon is costly, but the startup recently raised $76 million from investors.

Acknowledging that most coal plants world wide are likely to continue to operate for decades as the world's demand for energy only increases, solutions to climate change become ever more pressing. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is one of the few approaches that can receive bipartisan support in shaping energy policy and - despite a few early experimental failures - the method making a comeback as a viable way to combat the release of C02 into the atmosphere. The Petra Nova plant in Texas may serve as a model for moving CCS forward.

Small towns across America are leading the shift towards renewable energy. Part of a series called "American Futures", this video visits Kansas, Pennsylvania, and California to learn more about green initiatives in biofuel, wind, and solar power. Although each solution is different, each are a new way of generating income for the residents of the towns and often comes with societal acceptance as well.

Solar power is an important renewable energy in Germany, but when the sun is out, it can overpower the grid. Likewise, when the sun is not out, the reception of solar power decreases. Germany has piloted battery installations that store solar energy for use when the sunlight is not plentiful and has successfully incentivized citizens to use them to lower costs.

The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has designed a new technology that captures carbon dioxide at power plants before it goes into the air. This new method, which is much more efficient and affordable than other carbon dioxide capturing methods, uses microcapsules filled with a fluid that absorbs carbon dioxide. While it’s not going to solve climate change entirely, this new technology has shown promising results for at least slowing it down.

Boston Metal is transforming how steel is made by replacing coal with electrons. Instead of using the fossil fuel in furnaces to melt iron ores, the Massachusetts-based company uses electric currents to heat the ore, which doesn’t create any greenhouse gas emissions. So far, the company has made only several tons of steel, but it recently received investor funding to expand its work.

SkyCool Systems manufactures panels that can be incorporated into existing cooling systems to reduce the amount of electricity needed to turn hot air into cold air. The technology is based on radiative cooling and utilizes a thin, mirror-like film engineered using nanotechnology to send heat into space while absorbing almost no radiation. It lowers the temperature of objects by more than 10 degrees and doesn’t require electricity or special fuels, so it does not produce greenhouse gases. While piloting the panels, a grocery outlet saved over $3,000 in electricity costs over the course of just one summer.

In an experimental garden in Arizona, scientists are seeing how to produce sustainable and local food in a desert environment. They’re growing plants under a photovoltaic “canopy” of solar panels that provide necessary shade for the crops and, at the same time, generate cheap, renewable energy for irrigation systems and farm equipment. So far, they’ve been able to grow basil, Anasazi red beans, and a special bell pepper. While not all crops will work in this system and scaling the garden has its challenges, learning how to grow food in the desert is necessary to adapt to a future with climate change.