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A few years ago I was taking a tour of a dome shaped house, and the architect explained to me that domes are an optical illusion. Whenever someone enters a room, their eyes inadvertently glance up at the corners of the room to give them the contextual dimensions of the space they're in.

Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, and Google's top rated Futurist Speaker. Unlike most speakers, Thomas works closely with his Board of Visionaries to develop original research studies. This enables him to speak on unusual topics and translate trends into unique business opportunities.

What does the future hold for the world's largest renewable energy source, hydropower? Hydropower is an incredibly old source of energy, tracing its usage back to the watermills that have been a staple of civilisations since ancient times. Today, it is the largest source of renewable energy in the world, with an installed capacity of over 1126GW in 2018. Hydropower is particularly prominent in China, where the world's largest power station Three Gorges power plant in Hubei province produces 22.5GW. Other massive projects also dot the country, including the Xilodu (12.3GW) and Longtan (6.3GW) dams.

While the use of solar cells is become increasingly widespread, the silicon technology used in many types is becoming obsolete. JP Casey looks at concentrated solar power, micro-trackers and perovskite compounds as innovations that could potentially improve solar efficiency.

Against a background of escalating tension between the US and Russia over events in Ukraine, oil companies from each country have been working to overcome the numerous challenges of extracting oil from the Arctic Ocean. Having completed one of the largest Arctic expeditions in history to understand the challenges, the partnership has now started to drill.

For a few years a team of academics in the US has been on a quest to revolutionise the way buildings are cooled. Now, ongoing research by one of them could be about to deliver one of the biggest gamechangers to building management, as Andrew Tunnicliffe finds out.

It will be decades before the UK Government builds a long-term storage for the country's radioactive nuclear waste; but where is this waste produced, contained, transported and stored in the interim, and just how much of it is there? Via an interactive map, Future Power Technology, provides the answers to these questions.

Plans in Cumbria to build Europe's largest power plant have been cemented after Toshiba and GDF Suez signed a deal to develop the site. But big questions remain over the design of the plant and the future of the nuclear power industry in the UK.

Groundbreaking research showing the potential of microbes to treat radioactive waste has shed light on how toxic materials could be disposed of in the future.