The program addresses the urgent problem of storing excess electricity generated on windy or sunny days, to make it available when demand exceeds supply. A new research collaboration aims to develop GPStore, a pioneering long-duration energy storage technology that could play a vital role in supporting the UK’s transition to net zero. The project, led […]

Snow blankets the ground around Sunderland’s Stadium of Light on 3 January 2026 (image credit: Graeme J Baty / Shutterstock.com). An Arctic blast of snow, sleet and hail has driven UK temperatures to -12.5°C, the coldest recorded this winter, sharply increasing electricity demand and placing stress on the GB power system. With Storm Goretti forecast […]

The findings appear to reveal an important role for the waste material – defined as plastic fragments smaller than five millimeters in size – in a process considered crucial to regulating the Earth’s temperature. The ubiquity of microplastics is now widely appreciated, even as significant gaps endure in our understanding of how exactly they arrive […]

A wool sweater exposed to thirdhand smoke is suspended within a custom-built Teflon film chamber for controlled ozone oxidation experiments (image credit: Liu Yang). While the dangers of secondhand smoke are widely recognized, a new study offers detail on a more persistent and stealthier hazard hiding in our indoor spaces: “Thirdhand Smoke.” This residue, which […]

Planning approvals for battery, wind, and solar projects in Great Britain (GB) almost doubled in 2025, with more than 45GW of capacity approved.1 This is 96% higher than the previous year’s 23GW, and enough to power 12.9 million homes. (Words: Cornwall Insight). Fresh analysis from Cornwall Insight reveals that this boom is being driven by […]

A sewage outflow An ambitious interdisciplinary project is aiming to develop and test a first-of-its-kind tool which can trace the sources of pollution in UK water bodies. By addressing the long-standing challenge of reliably distinguishing human faecal contamination from agricultural or wildlife sources, such a tool would provide a key missing ingredient in the effort […]

Image credit: Future Greens Sheffield-based startup Future Greens, which is building bioreactors to convert unavoidable food and brewery waste into heat and power, has received £500,000 in new funding, the group announced on 16 December. The combination of £340,000 equity and a £160,000 UK Government grant will be used to develop the Company’s proprietary approach, […]

UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) has released the latest version of its Carbon Accounting Workbook (CAW), providing companies with the consistent, science-backed data needed for accurate emissions reporting and critical decarbonisation strategies. The CAW supports regulatory reporting for companies across England and Wales and mandatory and voluntary climate related disclosure requirements under various legal frameworks, […]

New research has led to a method of turning ordinary household plastic waste into a building block for anti-cancer drugs. The work was led by the University of St Andrews Household PET (polyethylene terephthalate) waste, such as plastic bottles and textiles, can be recycled in two main ways: mechanically or chemically. Chemical recycling breaks down PET’s long polymer […]

Ireland has officially reached 2 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar capacity, marking a historic milestone in the country’s renewable energy journey and demonstrating that solar is now a core component of Ireland’s clean-energy mix, according to renewable energy consultancy Natural Power. This achievement has been made possible thanks to the recent energisation of three solar […]

The plant demonstrates how renewable power can be coupled directly to an ammonia plant, accommodating fluctuations in power production and dispensing with hydrogen storage. What’s described as the world’s first dynamic green ammonia plant is now in operation, in a collaboration between emissions-reduction expert Topsoe and partners Skovgaard Energy, a Danish developer of green energy […]

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) hosted its Tackling Empty Homes Conference in December, supported by Action on Empty Homes. Delegates heard how there are currently around 750,000 empty homes in England, and around 300,000 long-term empty (vacant for over six months). Bringing empty properties back into use can help meet housing needs and […]

A new paper in Nature Communications raises a red flag about fluorinated sorbents, a class of emerging materials for removing PFAS from water. The authors find that several of these materials can themselves release PFAS or PFAS-like compounds, potentially creating new contamination risks while attempting to solve existing ones. These fluorinated sorbents have been promoted […]

Campaigners from Friends of the Earth Scotland have raised the alarm about the omission of plastic from the Scottish government’s draft Circular Economy Strategy, published in October. The festive season brings a “plastic peak” for households, a situation that looks likely to remain unchanged in Christmas 2026, unless certain key holes in the legislative programme […]