The ocean is Earth’s largest carbon sink, absorbing about 25% of the CO₂ released by human activities. However, this uptake contributes to ocean acidification and risks destabilizing marine ecosystems. Utilizing this carbon resource presents a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels to produce important chemicals and materials, such as plastics.

A system to capture carbon dioxide (CO₂) from seawater and convert it into biodegradable plastic precursors has been reported in Nature Catalysis. The findings suggest a potentially sustainable way to produce industrial chemicals.

Chuan Xia and colleagues engineered a two-part system that captures CO₂ from natural seawater with more than 70% efficiency and low energy consumption (around 3 kilowatt-hours per kilogram of CO₂), operating continuously for 536 hours. The carbon capture cost was found to be competitive against current technology, at US$229.9 per ton of CO₂.

First, the CO₂ was converted into pure formic acid using an electrocatalyst. This was then transformed by engineered bacteria, Vibrio natriegens, into succinic acid, which is the starting material needed to prepare poly(butylene succinate), a biodegradable thermoplastic polymer. The researchers achieved production levels of up to 1.37 grams per liter in scaled-up fermenters.

The system could also be used to produce numerous other chemicals from CO₂—for potential use in various products such as fuels, drugs and foods—by further engineering the catalysts used in each part (the electrode and the microorganism), the authors suggest. Although the system shows scalability and stability, further optimization is needed to improve yields and integration for industrial use.

OpenAI didn’t share details around any revenue-share agreements with Canva, Zillow, Spotify, and the other apps it highlighted today.

The new SDK announcement signals a deeper commitment to working with established enterprises and app makers—and an emphasis on keeping users within ChatGPT itself. If the web and mobile eras of the past 30 years were defined by users browsing the web or being locked into a mobile app experience, OpenAI is now combining the two into its own kind of chat-driven operating system.

Nick Turley, OpenAI’s head of product for ChatGPT, said in a briefing after the keynote that the company “never meant to build a chatbot; we meant to build a super assistant, and we got a little sidetracked.” He indicated that OpenAI is most excited about what it has achieved in natural language processing, but that the $500 billion startup will continue to experiment with different user interfaces around that.

“Will people spend all of their time in ChatGPT? I don’t think so,” Turley said. “I can imagine you starting your day with ChatGPT,” then being guided toward other apps and websites.

Beyond reimagining existing apps, OpenAI hopes to put itself at the center of efforts to build agents that use AI to complete tasks on a user’s behalf. The company unveiled several tools for building agents including AgentKit, a drag-and-drop interface for building advanced AI tools.

Capturing developer mind-share is also, of course, about coding tools. At Monday’s event, OpenAI announced that Codex, a model optimized to write code, would come out of research preview and become generally available. The company also announced new Codex tools, including a way to ask questions about code and edit it via Slack messages, an SDK for the Codex model, and new analytics tools to allow companies to monitor their employees’ Codex usage.

Solar energy is now so cost-effective that, in the sunniest countries, it costs as little as £0.02 to produce one unit of power, making it cheaper than electricity generated from coal, gas or wind, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.

In a study accepted for publication in Energy and Environment Materials, researchers from Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI) argue that solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is now the key driver of the world’s transition to clean, renewable power.

Professor Ravi Silva, co-author of the study and Director of the ATI at the University of Surrey, said, “Even here in the U.K., a country that sits 50 degrees north of the equator, solar is the cheapest option for large-scale energy generation.

“Globally, the total amount of solar power installed passed 1.5 terawatts in 2024—twice as much as in 2020 and enough to power hundreds of millions of homes. Simply put, this technology is no longer a moonshot prospect but a foundational part of the resilient, low-carbon energy future that we all want to bring to reality.”

The research team also found that the price of lithium-ion batteries has fallen by 89% since 2010, making solar-plus-storage systems as cost-effective as gas power plants. These hybrid setups, which combine solar panels with batteries, are now standard in many regions and allow solar energy to be stored and released when needed, turning it into a more reliable, dispatchable source of power that helps balance grid demand.

Despite many reasons to be optimistic, the ATI research team points to several challenges—particularly connecting large amounts of solar power to existing electricity networks. In some regions, such as California and China, high solar generation has led to grid congestion and wasted energy when supply exceeds demand.

Dr. Ehsan Rezaee, co-author of the study from the University of Surrey, commented, “Connecting growing levels of solar power to electricity networks is now one of the biggest challenges. Smart grids, artificial intelligence forecasting and stronger links between regions will be vital to keep power systems stable as renewable energy use rises.”

Professor Silva added, “With the integration of energy storage and smart grid technologies, solar is now capable of delivering reliable, affordable and clean power at scale. Innovations in materials such as perovskite solar cells could boost energy output by up to 50% without increasing land use.

“However, progress will depend on consistent, long-term policy support. Initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act in the US, the EU’s REPowerEU plan and India’s Production Linked Incentive scheme show how clear direction can drive investment and innovation. Sustained commitment and international collaboration will be essential if we are to accelerate the world’s transition to a clean and reliable energy system.”