New ReviewClean energy visionary Lei Zhang loves the Gobi Desert — the most Mars-like place on Earth. Why? Because of the promise it holds to provide the free, abundant solar and wind energy to fuel humanity’s next leap forward. Sharing the story...

New ReviewYour smartphone, computer and electric car all depend on one thing — critical minerals buried deep underground. But there’s a catch: the mining industry has gotten dramatically worse at discovering new deposits just when we need them...

New ReviewImpact investor and Acumen CEO Jacqueline Novogratz unveils a bold vision to bring off-grid solar electricity to 700 million people still living in darkness, transforming lives while slashing emissions. She asks a thought-provoking...

Correction: This is Watt's law, not Ohm's law! Our math was right but our name was wrong. We need green energy yesterday. And it so happens that nature regularly sends huge bolts of electricity at us out of the sky. So what are the...

Why are we using tech from 100 years ago to deliver the world's electricity? Materials scientist Jason Huang shows how we could massively upgrade the global power grid by replacing the wires in existing transmission lines with new,...

Industrial manufacturers spend a huge amount of energy generating heat to make everyday materials and objects, like cement, steel, and paper. And since most companies use fossil fuels to reach these high temperatures, industrial heat...

Globally, we produce more than a trillion computer chips every year. Which means about 20 trillion transistors are built every second— and this process is done in fewer than 500 fabrication plants. How do we build so many tiny,...

Electric eels can emit some of the largest shocks in the animal kingdom - but why don't they shock themselves?

TED Fellow and renewable energy expert Norah Magero envisions an Africa that pioneers its own technological future, shifting the narrative from dependence and consumption to self-reliance and innovation. She shares how she developed...

Real World Telekinesis (feat. Neil Turok)

How do magnets work? Why do they attract and repel at long distances? Is it magic? No... it's quantum mechanics, and a bit more, as we explain in this, the longest MinutePhysics video ever.

The clean energy transition has a major blind spot, says energy equity expert Sheila Ngozi Oparaocha: it ignores millions of people without access to energy. Highlighting grassroots women's organizations leading the charge towards...

Typically, with any piece of technology, you pump one unit of energy in and you get about one out. That’s just the first law of thermodynamics: energy has to be conserved. But there’s a piece of technology called a heat pump, where for...

Whether or not you believe the world is doomed might depend on where you get your news, says journalist Angus Hervey. He delivers stories of progress that mainstream media organizations missed last year — from advances in clean energy to...

When it comes to climate, what are we doing right and where should we focus our efforts next? Systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram and strategist Anjali Grover talk with TED science curator David Biello about the latest on the world's...

When you think of newer ways to make electricity, solar cells and wind turbines may come to mind. But scientists can make the stuff from just about anything. And they're working on some truly bizarre ways to generate power.

Hundreds of millions of people lack access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa, relying on highly polluting diesel and firewood for power and light. Working to brighten the future in her home country of Malawi and beyond, energy access...

The world relies on manufacturing, and manufacturing relies on heat — a massive contributor to global carbon emissions, responsible for a quarter of the world's fossil fuel use. Energy entrepreneur John O'Donnell has figured out a...

Climate innovation leader Rich Powell dives into the bureaucracy, bottlenecks and not-in-my-backyard attitude preventing the US from achieving its green energy goals, warning that we need about 10,000 new clean energy projects to be...

Electric vehicles need to be more than just eco-friendly — they have to be more chic, convenient and affordable than their gas-powered alternatives, says sustainability leader Cynthia Williams. She explores what it'll take for an...

Thomas Edison often gets credit for the invention of the light bulb, but a good argument can be made that they were around centuries earlier in the form of barometric light.

To reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, some researchers are taking carbon capture technology to the source(s) — for example, slurping up CO2 before it ever leaves the power plant that made it. But that's not all! Some...

We all want green energy to stop climate change, and one option is hydrogen. But achieving green hydrogen is tough, so some want to consider so-called blue hydrogen instead. Support for this video provided by Gates Ventures.

The world of energy is a confusing place. What's better, nuclear or solar? What's the difference between fluorescent bulbs and LEDs? What's the difference between energy and power? And what the heck is a kilowatt-hour?!