Keeping it cool: Malaysia looks to district energy systems.

Dams make for complex and often controversial infrastructure. While hydropower generated from large dam projects is currently providing the bulk of the planet's renewable energy, dams can also cause major environmental and social damage by interrupting animal migrations, displacing indigenous communities, and collecting toxins. A number of solutions are being implemented, however, to address the various issues caused by dams, to help make them a more eco-friendly and viable source of clean energy.

Micro-hydro projects in the United States have become much more accessible and more financially viable since Congress passed a law in 2013 making it easier for small hydroelectric projects to get federal approval. Specifically, water treatment plants that can retrofit their systems to generate electricity are an excellent energy opportunity. The plant in Grand Lake now produces more electricity than it consumes.

TARU, an Indian thinktank, has found that Indians cities have combined decentralized action and "multi-stakeholder engagement" in public policy to respond to problems of scarcity in water and power as well as climate change-related natural disasters. Municipalities are putting responsibility for improving local lives at the grassroots level; integrating disruptive technologies from the private sector; and fostering collaboration between government and citizens.

A new solar array called North Star in the Twin Cities will soon produce enough energy to power more than 20,000 homes. The project allows landowners to evolve beyond a deteriorating farming industry while maintaining native prairie plants under and around the panels for bees and other pollinators. The project is part of the state's 15-year energy plan to reduce carbon emissions by 60 percent and generate a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030.

The government wants more farmers turning waste methane into biogas to help combat the negative effects of global climate change. California is leading the initiative, largely through a cap-and-trade program.

The burning of coal for fuel is one of the world's largest contributors to CO2 emissions, and continues to worsen the detrimental effects of planetary warming. But while many feel hopeless in light of an administration that denies climate change and the billion-dollar companies that continue full steam ahead with mining and burning coal, a few clever individuals present a simple and straightforward solution: buy up the coal while it's still in the ground, and pay the government to keep it there.

An economic shift to renewable energy could take decades, but thanks to rapidly evolving disruptive technologies, dropping prices of solar and wind power sources, and increasing market demand for green business, the new age of renewable energy could encompass the world economy much more quickly.

Rahr Malting, a brewery in Shakopee, MN, has found a creative way to sustainably address their energy needs. The company partners with the Mdewakanton Sioux Community to use waste barley hulls from the malting factory to generate electricity for their facilities, selling excess power to the public grid while the waste heat sprouts the malt to make beer.

In Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council was formed after a severe drought to bring together federal, state and regional governments and bridge parochial concerns. It was meant to manage the basin as a whole and end overuse and salinization of farm land, leveraging new technologies to adapt to new realities.

The commercially-based Wind for Prosperity initiative may have devised a solution to meet growing demands for electricity in developing economies, where fossil fuels are expensive, difficult to access, and take a toll on environmental and human health. The venture works to refurbish wind turbines from Europe and re-deploy them in the developing world, providing clean and affordable power where it’s needed most.