Alasdair Lane

I'm a multi-skilled journalist and writer with extensive print, broadcast, online, and digital experience. I've worked at the sharp end of some of the biggest stories in recent years across multiple platforms. Climate, sustainability, politics, foreign affairs, social issues, business, and technology are my key interest areas — but I'm confident in covering anything that intrigues me.  


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Fortune •

Nuclear fusion has been a pipe dream for decades, but it might actually be on the cusp of commercial viability

In the packed field of prospective net-zero solutions, nuclear fusion stands out in its scope and ambition. By successfully replicating the reaction that powers the sun, humanity could—in the words of Stephen Hawking—unlock an “inexhaustible supply of energy, without pollution or global warming.” Fusion development has progressed at a glacial pace for decades, however, and breakthroughs have been intermittent at best.
Fortune •

U.S. states lead the way in taking Big Oil to court

In courtrooms around the United States, climate lawyers are tightening the screws on Big Oil. From California to Colorado, Hawaii, and Rhode Island, no fewer than 20 states are seeking damages against dozens of the world’s largest fossil fuel firms. The argument? That these corporations’ extractive enterprises are responsible for decades of environmental destruction—and, crucially, that they have misled the American people about the true nature of the damage.
KAICIID •

Serbia’s Pedro Arrupe Integration House — Providing Unaccompanied Refugee Children the Childhood they Deserve

Located midway between the Middle East and Western Europe, Serbia was hit hard by the “refugee crisis” of 2015. Fleeing war and chronic economic insecurity, of refugees arrived in the Balkan country, most destined for the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Among their ranks were thousands of unaccompanied children: alone, vulnerable, and in urgent need of specialist care.
New Scientist •

Peatlands in peril: The race to save the bogs that slow climate change

In the middle of the 20th century, Finland started modernizing. Like most of Europe, the Nordic nation had been left economically bereft by World War II, and needed to ramp up productivity fast. The answer, the Finnish government decided, was forestry, the country’s industrial backbone for generations. Over the next three decades, vast tracts of trees were planted, blanketing the swampy terrain that covers nearly a third of Finland’s surface: peatland.
Medium | UK Research and Innovation •

How Covid-19 is helping us fight climate change

The arrival of COVID-19 was a crisis that few foresaw. Almost overnight, organisations and individuals had to adapt to the realities of life under a global pandemic. Across the UK, people started doing things differently, seeking solutions to the most pressing problems — from business who pivoted to make hand sanitiser and face masks, to scientists who redirected their research to fight the disease.
The New York Times •

How Crypto is Re‑Writing the Rules of Digital Ownership

Shortly after the financial crisis of 2008, a group of tech-minded trailblazers sought a solution to the shortcomings of conventional finance. They envisaged a world underpinned not by centralized power, but by a distributed, democratic system of ownership that was inclusive, transparent and secure. This world, the crypto world, grew steadily in the years that followed. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit. Global lockdowns have hastened the advance of all things digital and, in this uncertain age of
BBC Future •

How might the world meet its clean energy needs

Sixteen miles (26km) off the windswept coast of northern Scotland, the future of renewable energy is taking shape. Rotating rhythmically in the breeze, the five colossal turbines of the Hywind Scotland wind farm look much like any other off-shore wind project, bar one major difference – they're floating. While conventional offshore turbines sit atop metal and concrete towers fixed into the seabed, Hywind's turbines rest on buoyant steel keels that bob with the waves. Carefully balanced, they re
Reasons to be Cheerful •

Our Hydrogen-Powered Future Is Unfolding at the Edge of the World

Perched atop the United Kingdom, ten miles north of mainland Scotland, the Orkney Islands are a wild place. Encircled by roiling waters — the North Sea on one side, the Atlantic Ocean on the other — and battered by winds year round, the weather-lashed archipelago is bracing, beautiful and has in abundance that which others are scrambling to produce: renewable power. Onshore wind turbines pepper the landscape, working in tandem with wave and tidal generators to supply Orkney’s 22,000 inhabitants
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