Word: fossils
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...alternative to fossil fuel, everyone loves hydrogen fuel cells, which produce clean energy out of hydrogen and oxygen. But hydrogen, while abundant in the air, isn't widely available in refined form. And machines that run on hydrogen are equally scarce. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have been working on the first problem, automakers on the second. The Tokyo group has developed a way to "crack" hydrogen, using a mesh of thin carbon fibers studded with molecules of a nickel compound. The filter breaks down natural gas into carbon and hydrogen that is pure enough...
...their energy needs derived from renewable sources. It's not hard to see why the Saudis - who sit on top of almost two thirds of the planet's known oil reserves - might balk at governments being urged to use tax incentives and subsidies to woo their consumers off of fossil fuels. Elsewhere, however, it was the EU in the environmentalists' doghouse for nixing any discussion of the $300 billion that rich nations pay their own farmers in subsidies, which the poorer countries deem unfair protectionism that prices their exports out of the market and stymies development. And a number...
...initial targets for greenhouse-gas reductions seem modest. The project's website proposes reductions of just 2% below 1999 levels, plus an additional 1% cut with each passing year. In contrast, scientists warn we must cut our fossil-fuel addiction by as much as 70% to confront global warming effectively...
Members of the German parliament don't usually create much of a stir outside Europe. But Hermann Scheer electrified a Washington audience last month with his gale-force enthusiasm. Nuclear fission and fossil-fuel burning amount to "global pyromania," he told a conference of environmental activists. "Renewable energy is the fire extinguisher." By mid-century, he asserted confidently, wind, solar and other renewables can snuff out all conventional energy sources...
Scheer, who has preached his gospel in 100 countries, does not believe the world can afford to wait for the market alone to make wind and solar power competitive with fossil fuels. Renewable energy, he says, "is necessary for the assurance of life on earth. There is no time to waste." --By Margot Roosevelt. With reporting by Ursula Sautter/Bonn and Charles P. Wallace/Berlin