On an afternoon in March in the middle of the world's oldest desert, Johannes Michels looks out at an array of solar panels, the size of 40 football fields, that stretches toward a ridge of jagged peaks between the ochre-colored sand and a cloudless blue sky. Inside a building to Michels's left sits a 12-megawatt...

This is today's edition ofThe Download,our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. Namibia wants to build the world's first hydrogen economy Factories have used fossil fuels to process iron ore for three centuries, and the climate has paid a heavy price: According to the International...