Energy & Nature

Energy & the Wild

Where engineering meets nature, the clever, low-tech fixes that let clean power and wildlife share the same ground.

A wide river running free through a green forested canyon at sunrise where a dam once stood

Energy & Nature

Engineers pulled four dams off the Klamath River in the largest dam removal in US history, and within ten days salmon were swimming into habitat that had been blocked to them for over a century

By Maria Heloisa Barbosa Borges · June 24, 2026

Aerial view of a vast vegetated wildlife crossing planted to look like a hill spanning ten lanes of the 101 Freeway near Los Angeles

Energy & Nature

Los Angeles is finishing the world's largest wildlife crossing, a 114 million dollar bridge disguised as a hillside over 10 lanes of freeway, built so the mountain lions the road trapped and inbred can finally cross

By Bruno Teles · June 24, 2026

A coastal wind turbine with one blade painted black

Energy & Nature

Painting just one of a wind turbine's three blades black cut bird collision deaths by an average of 71.9 percent in a field experiment at a Norwegian wind farm

By Bruno Teles · June 23, 2026

Solar panels mounted over a wide irrigation canal in California

Energy & Nature

California just switched on the first US solar panels built over irrigation canals, and covering all 4,000 miles could save 63 billion gallons of water a year

By Bruno Teles · June 23, 2026

A chain of stone oyster-reef breakwaters off a residential coast

Energy & Nature

New York just finished a 111 million dollar living seawall off Staten Island, a 2,400 foot chain of eight stone reefs built to grow oysters and break storm waves

By Maria Heloisa Barbosa Borges · June 23, 2026