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Adele Peters

Adele Peters

Fast Company

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How much energy does agentic AI actually use? One scientist tracked every prompt he sent

Tech companies say typical AI prompts use little energy. Zeke Hausfather’s experiment suggests AI agents are a different story.

yesterday 8

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Google is helping bring cutting-edge battery tech to an old West Virginia strip mine

The development pairs lithium-ion and zinc batteries in an effort to stretch renewable energy deeper into the night.

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Fast Company

Adele Peters

How the Kansas Department of Labor has implemented AI to make it easier to file for unemployment

Amber Shultz, secretary of Labor, has led technological change at the agency—making it easier for employees to assist more people.

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Fast Company

Adele Peters

MapQuest isn’t renaming Lake Ontario, despite Trump’s executive order. And it’s surging in the App Store

The 30-year-old app is currently the number one navigation app in the Apple App Store.

31.08.2026 2

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Inside Walmart’s push to build its own EV charging network

The retail giant’s charger network is growing faster than everyone but Tesla.

31.08.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

How Waymo got Chinese EVs onto American roads

Waymo’s newest robotaxis are imported from China at a time when other Chinese EVs are shut out of the U.S. market.

28.08.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Rivian’s new R2 lives up to the hype

I knew Rivian’s latest EV would be good. It was even better than I expected.

26.08.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Forget bamboo. This startup wants the next toilet paper to be made from rice straw

A startup called Paddy Paper is trying to solve two environmental challenges at once.

25.08.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Sur La Table is adopting the Patagonia playbook with its new resale site

The American cookware retailer is joining the resale game, so now you can buy that coveted copper pot for much, much less.

25.08.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

A massive clean energy IPO made enhanced geothermal the hot renewable. What has to happen next for it to succeed

Fervo Energy can deliver always-on energy generated from the Earth’s heat. Now its first utility-scale power plant will test what it takes to turn...

25.08.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Tech is helping grocery stores waste less food. That’s a problem for food banks

As supermarkets adopt new tools to predict demand and reduce food waste, food banks say that donations are also shrinking.

21.08.2026 9

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Denim has a water problem. Can this new digital dye solve it?

A startup called Wtrlss designed a better way to make blue jeans.

19.08.2026 9

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Australia just figured out how to offer electricity cheaper. Why can’t the U.S.?

A combination of abundant rooftop solar, subsidized home batteries, and far less red tape is pushing power prices down—and changing when and how...

18.08.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This stunning NASA map tracks our summer of wildfire smoke

Hundreds of fires have burned in Canada and the northwestern U.S. This visualization shows exactly how far the pollution travels.

17.08.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The world’s largest ‘biological datacenter’ could help make animal testing obsolete

Vivodyne’s AI experiments on lab-grown human tissue could soon replace the need to test drugs on mice or dogs—and the approach has the potential...

13.08.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This startup wants to turn your water heater into a smart thermal battery

Reservoir’s ultra-efficient water heater can save you money by running when electricity is cheap—and help the grid make better use of renewable...

12.08.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

AI’s biggest climate problem may not be data centers

AI is boosting fossil fuel production with “enabled emissions” that could be up to 13 times greater than emissions from data centers.

11.08.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This super-white coating was inspired by a beetle’s scales

Made from cellulose, the sustainable material is an alternative to titanium dioxide. Ikea is already experimenting with it.

11.08.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

How humanitarian organizations are using AI to reach people faster

For aid organizations with strained budgets, AI is making it possible to help more people—but it has to be used carefully.

07.08.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This fusion startup just raised another $1 billion for its first commercial power plant

Commonwealth Fusion Systems is still building its first demonstration project, but it’s simultaneously moving forward with a plans for a fusion...

03.08.2026 9

Fast Company

Adele Peters

How AI can help make busy shipping routes safer for whales

In the San Francisco Bay, it’s increasingly common for whales to be hit and killed by ships. A pilot is testing technology that could help.

30.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This stunning map shows the world’s electric grid in detail

The grid can seem abstract. This map lets you see it all in one place.

28.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

How China is powering new data centers with clean energy

Unlike the U.S., China is making clean energy a core part of its AI infrastructure buildout.

24.07.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Forever chemicals are hidden in farm soil. Scientists found a new way to remove them

Existing methods of PFAS cleanup are expensive. A new approach is an order of magnitude cheaper—and could also help fight climate change.

22.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

How to convince your boss to let you take a sabbatical

Taking one doesn’t just benefit you—it can benefit the company, too.

21.07.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The Strait of Hormuz crisis is exposing a hidden food risk. New fertilizer tech could help

For more than a century, conventional fertilizer has relied on natural gas—and fragile supply chains. Startups are beginning to change that.

19.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Smoke from fires in Canada is traveling thousands of miles. Here’s how to protect yourself

Even if you can’t smell it, long-distance wildfire smoke is dangerous.

17.07.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Forget AI training data. This startup learned from slime mold

Mireta’s software taps into slime mold’s natural ability for urban planning.

17.07.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The data center backlash is spreading across the country

New York enacted the first statewide moratorium on large new data centers, joining a growing patchwork of local bans, zoning restrictions, and...

15.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This Houston geothermal startup is betting it can beat fossil fuels on cost

Quaise Energy is building the world’s first ‘superhot’ geothermal power plant.

14.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Can this startup cool NYC’s sweltering subway stations?

Air conditioning New York’s subway system would require major renovations. A new pilot will test whether simple-to-install radiant cooling can make...

13.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The economic cost of Trump’s clean energy rollbacks has been enormous—and it’s still growing

More than 200 major clean energy projects have been canceled or downsized since he took office, costing nearly half a million jobs and $55 billion in...

09.07.2026 10

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Inside Mill’s AI-powered plan to help restaurants stop wasting food

The home composting startup has a new commercial trash bin that analyzes food scraps as they’re thrown inside.

09.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This startup is turning roofs of New York rent-stabilized buildings into an enormous, distributed power plant

Fieldston Power helps apartment buildings install solar panels that they otherwise couldn’t afford—and helps lower electric bills for New Yorkers.

08.07.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This startup spent 2 years redesigning the toothpaste tube into a toothpaste pump

Suri made its name by building a better-designed, more sustainable electric toothbrush. Now it wants to do the same for refillable toothpaste.

07.07.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

An ex-Apple designer wants to reinvent the neighborhood vehicle

A cute new electric buggy from a startup called Amble was designed for resorts—but also low-speed use on city streets.

25.06.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Inside Slate’s radical design process to build a $24,950 EV truck you won’t be embarrassed to drive

Call it the perfect car for the affordability era. To build it, the Bezos-backed startup led by veterans of Amazon, Chrysler, and Tesla had to rethink...

24.06.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

EVs can power the grid. Why aren’t more of them doing it?

Bidirectional charging can send power to the grid when it’s under stress, and earn money for EV owners. But rolling it out is a challenge.

22.06.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

These new satellites are designed to spot wildfires before they spread

With a $26 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund, FireSat is launching three satellites specifically made to track fires. By 2030, the network will...

17.06.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

I tried out a robot lawn mower. It didn’t go as planned

Electric “automowers” save energy and keep your lawn healthier. They also can be very hard to set up.

15.06.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This new factory just commercialized jet fuel made from CO2

The startup Twelve has launched production of its CO2-based jet fuel and started delivering it to airlines.

10.06.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The startup that tried to fix food waste—and got hit by a disinformation campaign

Apeel was quickly growing until a wave of social media attacks spread by wellness influencers. Here’s how it survived.

09.06.2026 40

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The backlash against AI, in 4 charts

Americans are quickly turning against artificial intelligence.

09.06.2026 40

Fast Company

Adele Peters

There’s a looming copper shortage. This South Carolina startup wants to mine it from waste instead of ore

A startup called Red Metals is trying to make better use of the copper discarded in old products.

04.06.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

Brightline proved America wants trains. Can it survive?

The popular passenger rail company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

03.06.2026 50

Fast Company

Adele Peters

This 3D model captures a rare tropical glacier before it’s gone

In centimeter-level detail, a new 3D visualization shows a glacier that’s quickly disappearing in Indonesia.

31.05.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

In this Manhattan lab, AI designs materials from scratch

Radical AI’s ‘self-driving’ lab designs and tests new alloys, speeding up a material R&D process that often takes human scientists 20 years or more.

28.05.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters

AI just changed everything about how we forecast the weather

Nvidia, Google, and a growing list of startups are using AI to make weather reports more accurate—and show the world how powerful the technology is.

28.05.2026 40

Fast Company

Adele Peters

The Texas startup that’s bringing back the Wooly Mammoth has a new project: growing chickens in artificial eggs

Colossal’s first-of-a-kind 3D-printed eggs function like the real thing.

19.05.2026 30

Fast Company

Adele Peters

In this new Toronto neighborhood, ‘sponge streets’ double as parks and flood prevention

These green corridors ditch parking and instead capture stormwater, reduce heat, and put people first.

18.05.2026 20

Fast Company

Adele Peters