Fossil Fuels News

October 25, 2025

Top Headlines

Lighting the Way for Electric Vehicles by Using Streetlamps as Chargers

Oct. 5, 2025 — A Penn State research team found that streetlights could double as affordable EV charging stations. After installing 23 units in Kansas City, they discovered these chargers were faster, cheaper, and more eco-friendly than traditional stations. Their ...

This Ultra-thin Solar Tech Could Power Everything from Phones to Skyscrapers

Oct. 2, 2025 — A team in Sweden has unraveled the hidden structure of a promising solar material using machine learning and advanced simulations. Their findings could unlock durable, ultra-efficient solar cells for ...

Toxic Waste Could Become the Next Clean Energy Breakthrough

Sep. 26, 2025 — Bio-tar, once seen as a toxic waste, can be transformed into bio-carbon with applications in clean energy and environmental protection. This innovation could reduce emissions, create profits, and solve a major bioenergy industry ...

America Is Throwing Away the Minerals That Could Power Its Future

Sep. 18, 2025 — America already mines all the critical minerals it needs for energy, defense, and technology, but most are being wasted as mine tailings. Researchers discovered that minerals like cobalt, germanium, and rare earths are discarded in massive amounts, ...

Scientists Found a New Way to Turn Sunlight Into Fuel

Aug. 26, 2025 — A research team created a plant-inspired molecule that can store four charges using sunlight, a key step toward artificial photosynthesis. Unlike past attempts, it works with dimmer light, edging closer to real-world solar fuel ...

The Real-life Kryptonite Found in Serbia—and Why It Could Power the Future

July 28, 2025 — Deep in Serbia's Jadar Valley, scientists discovered a mineral with an uncanny resemblance to Superman's Kryptonite both in composition and name. Dubbed jadarite, this dull white crystal lacks the ...

Breakthrough Battery Lets Physicists Reverse Entanglement—and Rewrite Quantum Law

July 7, 2025 — Scientists have finally uncovered a quantum counterpart to Carnot’s famed second law, showing that entanglement—once thought stubbornly irreversible—can be shuffled back and forth without loss ...

A Shocking New Way to Make Ammonia, No Fossil Fuels Needed

July 5, 2025 — Australian scientists have discovered a method to produce ammonia—an essential component in fertilizers—using only air and electricity. By mimicking lightning and channeling that energy through a small device, they’ve bypassed the traditional, ...

You Hear the Beep, but Can’t Find the Car: The Hidden Flaw in Electric Vehicle Safety

June 18, 2025 — As electric vehicles grow more popular, their warning sounds may not be doing enough to protect pedestrians. A Swedish study shows that these signals are hard to locate, especially when multiple ...

Groundwork Laid for Designer Hybrid 2D Materials

May 30, 2025 — Materials scientists have succeeded in creating a genuine 2D hybrid material called ...

Solitonic Superfluorescence Paves Way for High-temperature Quantum Materials

May 28, 2025 — A new study in Nature describes both the mechanism and the material conditions necessary for superfluorescence at high ...

Cryogenic Hydrogen Storage and Delivery System for Next-generation Aircraft

May 28, 2025 — Researchers have designed a liquid hydrogen storage and delivery system that could help make zero-emission aviation a reality. Their work outlines a scalable, integrated system that addresses several engineering challenges at once by enabling ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:44pm EDT

Accidental Lab Discovery Reveals Gold’s Secret Chemistry

Aug. 11, 2025 — Scientists at SLAC unexpectedly created gold hydride, a compound of gold and hydrogen, while studying diamond formation under extreme pressure and heat. This discovery challenges gold’s reputation ...

AI Cracks a Meteorite’s Secret: A Material That Defies Heat

Aug. 5, 2025 — A rare mineral from a 1724 meteorite defies the rules of heat flow, acting like both a crystal and a glass. Thanks to AI and quantum physics, researchers uncovered its bizarre ability to maintain ...

Scientists Unveil Bioplastic That Degrades at Room Temperature, and Outperforms Petroplastics

Aug. 3, 2025 — Plastic pollution is a mounting global issue, but scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have taken a bold step forward by creating a new ...

Decades of Chemistry Rewritten: A Textbook Reaction Just Flipped

July 28, 2025 — Penn State researchers have uncovered a surprising twist in a foundational chemical reaction known as oxidative addition. Typically believed to involve transition metals donating electrons to organic ...

This Triple-Layer Sunlight Catalyst Supercharges Green Hydrogen by 800%

June 23, 2025 — Researchers in Sweden have developed a powerful new material that dramatically boosts the ability to create hydrogen fuel from water using sunlight, making the process eight times more effective than ...

Rice University Breakthrough Keeps CO₂ Electrolyzers Running 50x Longer

June 22, 2025 — A Rice University team discovered that bubbling CO₂ through a mild acid dramatically improves the lifespan and efficiency of electrochemical devices that convert CO₂ into useful fuels. This ...

New Fuel Cell Could Enable Electric Aviation

May 27, 2025 — Engineers developed a fuel cell that offers more than three times as much energy per pound compared to lithium-ion batteries. Powered by a reaction between sodium metal and air, the device could be ...

A New Approach Could Fractionate Crude Oil Using Much Less Energy

May 22, 2025 — Engineers developed a membrane that filters the components of crude oil by their molecular size, an advance that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy needed for crude oil ...

Commercially Available Peroxide Binds Incompatible Polymers for Recycling

May 21, 2025 — Researchers have developed an inexpensive and potentially scalable approach that uses a commercially available peroxide to bind polyethylene and polypropylene together, thereby creating a more ...

Does Renewable Energy Reduce Fossil Fuel Production in the US?

May 20, 2025 — Increasing renewable energy may not reduce the use of fossil fuels in the United States, according to a new study ...

Earlier Headlines

A Novel Hybrid Charge Transfer Crystal With Reversible Color-Changing Property

May 15, 2025 — Charge transfer, or the movement of electrons, can occur either within a molecule or between two molecules. Combining the two types of charge transfer is challenging. Now, scientists have developed a ...

Understanding Carbon Traps

May 14, 2025 — As industries seek innovative solutions for carbon capture, scientists have turned to advanced materials that efficiently trap and store carbon dioxide (CO ) from industrial emissions. A recent study ...

Researchers Develop Living Material from Fungi

May 13, 2025 — Fungi are considered a promising source of biodegradable materials. Researchers have developed a new material based on a fungal mycelium and its own extracellular matrix. This gives the biomaterial ...

Scientists Define the Ingredients for Finding Natural Clean Hydrogen

May 13, 2025 — Researchers have detailed the geological ingredients required to find clean sources of natural hydrogen beneath our feet. The work details the requirements for natural hydrogen, produced by the Earth ...

Green Fabrication of Hybrid Materials as Highly Sensitive X-Ray Detectors

May 9, 2025 — New bismuth-based organic-inorganic hybrid materials show exceptional sensitivity and long-term stability as X-ray detectors, significantly more sensitive than commercial X-ray detectors. In ...

Researchers Develop Practical Solution to Reduce Emissions and Improve Air Quality from Brick Manufacturing in Bangladesh

May 8, 2025 — A new study analyzes the results of a randomized controlled trial (RCT) that showed that brick kiln owners in Bangladesh are willing and able to implement cleaner and more efficient business ...

New Roadmap Advances Catalytic Solutions to Destroy 'Forever Chemicals'

May 7, 2025 — Researchers have outlined a bold new roadmap for harnessing heterogeneous catalysis to destroy per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), the so-called 'forever chemicals' that have ...

Rapid Lithium Extraction Eliminates Use of Acid and High Heat, Scientists Report

Apr. 30, 2025 — Lightweight lithium metal is a heavy-hitting critical mineral, serving as the key ingredient in the rechargeable batteries that power phones, laptops, electric vehicles and more. As ubiquitous as ...

Greasing the Wheels of the Energy Transition to Address Climate Change and Fossil Fuels Phase out

Apr. 29, 2025 — The global energy system may be faced with an inescapable trade-off between urgently addressing climate change versus avoiding an energy shortfall, according to a new energy scenario ...

'Wood You Believe It?' Engineers Fortify Wood With Eco-Friendly Nano-Iron

Apr. 28, 2025 — With more than 181.5 billion tons of wood produced globally each year, a new method could revolutionize how we build sustainably. By infusing red oak with ferrihydrite using a simple, low-cost ...

Breakthrough Extends Fuel Cell Lifespan Beyond 200,000 Hours, Paving the Way for Clean Long-Haul Trucking

Apr. 28, 2025 — Researchers have developed a new catalyst design capable of pushing the projected fuel cell catalyst lifespans to 200,000 hours. The research marks a significant step toward the widespread adoption ...

From Research to Real-World, Startup Tackles Soaring Demand for Lithium and Other Critical Minerals

Apr. 21, 2025 — Based on fundamental research, a new startup is upending decades-old approaches for the way the world extracts lithium and other ...

New Hybrid Materials as Efficient Thermoelectrics

Apr. 17, 2025 — An international team has succeeded in producing new, efficient thermoelectric materials that could compete with state-of-the-art materials, offering greater stability and lower ...

Study Finds Dramatic Boost in Air Quality from Electrifying Railways

Apr. 16, 2025 — Switching from diesel to electric trains dramatically improved the air quality aboard the San Francisco Bay Area's Caltrain commuter rail line, reducing riders' exposure to the carcinogen ...

Maximal Entanglement Sheds New Light on Particle Creation

Apr. 11, 2025 — Physicists have shown that particles produced in collimated sprays called jets retain information about their origins in subatomic particle ...

Researchers Watch a Live Catalytic Event in Real Time

Apr. 11, 2025 — A team of scientists has directly observed catalysis in-action at the atomic level. In mesmerizing new videos, single atoms move and shake during a chemical reaction that removes hydrogen atoms from ...

Scalable Graphene Membranes: A Leap for Carbon Capture

Apr. 11, 2025 — Scientists have developed a scalable method to produce porous graphene membranes that efficiently separate carbon dioxide. The breakthrough could significantly reduce the cost and footprint of carbon ...

Global EV Adoption Fails to Cut CO2

Apr. 10, 2025 — The transition to electric vehicles won't reduce carbon emissions unless countries clean up their electricity ...

Bio-Oils for Greener Industrial Applications

Apr. 9, 2025 — New technology could enable more sustainable and cheaper production of bio-oils to replace petroleum-based products in electronic, construction and automotive applications. The technology, known as ...

Decarbonization Improves Energy Security for Most Countries

Apr. 9, 2025 — Researchers analyzed trade-related risks to energy security across 1,092 scenarios for cutting carbon emissions by 2060. They found that swapping out dependence on imported fossil fuels for increased ...