heat
Peak oil might have been on the minds of business leaders who met in a behind-closed-doors summit with Britain’s energy secretary this week, but there’s another critical commodity that the UK should be paying attention to, according to a new paper: heat. Published as England bids farewell to
biofuels
A relatively inexpensive and low-tech reactor could help convert agricultural waste, used cooking oil and other biomass into super-clean fuels in just three steps. Albin Czernichowski, a professor at the University of Orleans in France, took his inspiration for the device from the process that lights up big-screen plasma TVs.
cold fusion
More than 20 years after the term “cold fusion” became a pariah in the science world, researchers are once again speaking about it … not only openly, but enthusiastically. “Years ago, many scientists were afraid to speak about ‘cold fusion’ to a mainstream audience,” researcher Jan Marwan told attendees at a
water
We might not give the water we use each day much thought, but it’s worth reconsidering that blase attitude, considering the multiple threats to the world’s fresh, clean water supplies. What sort of threats? In honour of World Water Day, let’s look at the top five: * Ageing
plastics
While most of the peaks we see looming today — peak oil, peak water, peak rare-earth metals, etc — have dire consequences for life as we know it, Rolf Halden is hoping we can bring on another peak that will spell a better world on the downward slope: peak plastics. Halden, an
Jurdy finds another tough job to fill …
carbon tax
Ensuring sustainable energy and resources in the future is all about how you find the economic models to support these activities. The Tories have done what Labour has failed to do — communicate a plan on how to make cleantech and clean energy an attractive business opportunity for everyone. If the
“I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad, when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like
intermittency
While energy experts elsewhere are looking for answers to one question — How do you keep electricity flowing through a renewable energy grid when the sun doesn’t shine or the wind doesn’t blow? — researchers in California are approaching the challenge from the opposite direction. The question they’re asking:
geoengineering
Imagine you and your office mates are trying to plan a really special party for a longtime co-worker who’s about to retire. The group of you has met after work, oh, say, a half-dozen times, but you still can’t all agree on the best type of shindig. Barbecue
renewables
Who, besides maybe the oil and coal companies and their stockholders, wouldn’t want to move away from fossil fuels and build a future based on clean, renewable energy sources? After all, consider all the potential benefits (as this brilliant cartoon makes clear): less reliance on dangerous or unstable oil-producing
renewable energy
Global spending on renewable energy projects could more than double by 2030, but that alone won’t be enough to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by the amount needed to prevent dangerous climate change, according to a new projection from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. To achieve the level of carbon reductions
