Energy & Fuel

A new technology called LED lighting promises more savings in greenhouse emissions and longer appliance life than compact fluorescent bulbs -- at a price.

Energy Secretary Chu and CA Gov. Schwarzenegger today will dedicate the National Ignition Facility, a mammoth laser device designed to explore fusion energy.

"The most likely place for oil in the Arctic is off northern Alaska in the Chukchi Sea, the researchers report. But conservationists warn of drilling in the fragile environment."

"Global energy demand is expected to soar 44 percent over the next two decades with most of the demand coming from developing countries such as China and Russia, the U.S. government's top energy forecasting agency said on Wednesday."

"The thick, milky white liquid looks like Elmer's glue, though it's greasy to the touch. It has a sweet, alcohol smell. It's not your father's heating oil, to be sure. But it will do the same job, says Cary J. Claiborne, and a lot more cleanly.

Claiborne is president and chief executive officer of New Generation Biofuels, a Florida-based startup that's producing fuel from vegetable and soybean oil at a small production plant it set up this year in southern Baltimore.

From a design award-winner to a model that uses the updraft on a roof,
small residential wind turbines are getting smarter and sexier.

"Rows of tall turbines have already remade the landscape on wheat farms and ridgelines on private land around the region. But so far there have been no wind farms built on public land in the Northwest. That's about to change."

"The Michigan Legislature may soon create a fund to loan schools money to build windmills, solar panels or other sources of alternative energy."

"Nearly 200 million acres of public lands, mostly in the West, could become prime generators of emissions-free electricity by extracting steam heat from the earth's core to drive electric turbines."

"The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Thursday approved a funding plan for a major transmission project expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and deliver about 1,200 megawatts of Quebec power to New England."