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New prediction models can allow utilities to rely more heavily on wind and save millions.

The utility with the most wind power capacity in the United States, Xcel Energy, is relying more on this power source and saving millions of dollars thanks to new forecasting models similar to those used to predict climate change.

China is an environmental mess. Smog in Beijing is so bad it's literally broken the air-quality index. In Shanghai, it's at times turned the city into a scene from "Blade Runner." (It almost matches the infamous Cleveland smog of the 1970s.) Meanwhile, thousands of dead pigs -- cause of death not yet known -- have been floating down a river that cuts through Shanghai and provides part of the region's drinking water. More than half of China's water is so polluted, in fact, that even treatment plants can't make it safe to drink. And China is now responsible for almost half the world's coal consumption. That coal burning not only contributes to climate change -- it's also saddled China with severe cases of acid rain, something the United States dealt with a generation ago.

Advances like GE’s new hybrid wind turbines could make renewable energy more practical.

GE recently sold the first of a new line of “hybrid” wind turbines that comes with a battery attached. The turbine’s battery can store the equivalent of less than one minute of the turbine operating at full power. But, by pairing the battery with advanced wind-forecasting algorithms, wind farm operators could guarantee a certain amount of power output for up to an hour.