Word: fuel
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...then heats it at a high temperature - around 1,830 degrees Fahrenheit - in an air-tight chamber. The resulting syngas - a cocktail of light gases, including methane and natural gas - is burned, boiling water into steam to run a turbine. Gasification is an established technique, already used with fossil fuels, particularly coal. Applying it to rubbish opens a new and abundant fuel source. "As a waste-disposal method, it seems to make a lot of sense," says Jonathan R. Gibbins, an energy expert at London's Imperial College...
...least. There's no question that a nuclear plant, once it's up and running, produces comparatively little carbon dioxide - a British government report last year found that a nuclear plant emits just 2% to 6% of the CO2 per kilowatt-hour as natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel - but nuclear energy still seems like the power of yesterday. After a burst of construction between the 1950s and late 1970s, a new nuclear power plant hasn't come on line in the U.S. since 1996, and some nations like Germany are looking to phase out existing atomic plants. That reverse...
...substance in whiskey barrels after striking their first gushers. Before U.S. drilling began in 1859, "rock oil" (to differentiate it from vegetable oil or animal fat) was sopped up with rags, wrung out and peddled as a cure for everything from headaches to deafness. Spurred by demand for lamp fuel as whale blubber grew scarce, derricks popped up all over Pennsylvania's oil region in the 1860s--although subsequent overproduction drove prices so far down that at one point, a wooden barrel was worth twice as much as the oil it contained, according to Daniel Yergin's definitive tome...
...Washington Straphanger Nation Stratospheric gas prices are driving commuters out of their cars and onto buses and trains, as the number of Americans using mass transportation reached record levels in the first quarter of this year, up 3% to 2.6 billion trips. If fuel costs remain high, transport officials see 2008 ridership exceeding last year's total of 10.3 billion, the highest mark in 50 years...
...weeks ago a group of Harvard students from all corners of the globe, and with expertise ranging from economics to engineering, won the World Bank’s Lighting Africa 2008 competition. Their invention of a microbial fuel cell-based lighting system literally creates energy from dirt. The device is intended to provide a reliable and safe means of illumination in a country where roughly only 1/4 of the population has access to electricity...