gas

Remember that bra we wrote about last year that lifted more than just our spirits when it won the 2009 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize?

Well, creator Dr. Elena Bodnar--whose inspiration comes in part from having witnessed as a young physician the devastating effects of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986--is introducing the now commercially available Emergency Bra at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Mass., on September 28. She hopes we can all "get a feel of [sic] the product," as she has grown fond of saying.

The bra is, of course, meant to be … Read more

Rather than drill more holes to get natural gas, Luca Technologies wants "grow" more gas in existing wells.

The Golden, Colo.-based company has developed a process to generate and then extract more natural gas from depleted coalbed methane wells by injecting water, microbes, and nutrients into the coal seams.

The company is now pursuing permitting in Wyoming's Powder River Basin to expand pilot testing of its technology, said CEO Robert Pfeiffer. He anticipates that Luca will get permits for larger-scale pilot projects of "restoring" existing wells in the next four to six months, he … Read more

A Chinese government fund has told a U.N. panel it supports project developers that earn carbon offsets under a lucrative Kyoto Protocol program, and rejects the idea that they are overcompensated.

Chinese project developers rejected key grounds for a review of Kyoto's clean development mechanism (CDM), and the China CDM Fund supported them, confidential papers showed a week before a U.N. panel decides whether to launch a formal review of the program.

The projects are the most lucrative under the CDM, which allows rich countries to buy offsets from carbon-cutting projects in the developing world as a … Read more

About half of the electricity in the U.S. is made by burning coal, but a limit on carbon emissions from utilities would lead to a shift toward nuclear, natural gas, and renewable energy, according to a report.

Research and consulting company ICF International released one of its periodic Energy Outlook reports last week, projecting a change in the fuel used for generating electricity in the U.S. if Congress passes an energy and climate bill.

After months of political wrangling, Senate Democrats in recent weeks have decided to pursue a scaled-down energy and climate bill that would put a … Read more

Canada will phase out older coal-fired power plants to cut the country's greenhouse gas emissions, Environment Minister Jim Prentice said on Wednesday, as it moves to make natural-gas-fired plants the new clean-power standard.

The new standards, expected to be firmed up by early 2011, will force electricity producers to phase out older, high-emitting coal-fired plants and require newer facilities to match the lower greenhouse-gas emissions of more efficient natural-gas fired plants.

Canada has 51 coal-fired units producing 19 percent of the country's electricity and 13 percent of its greenhouse gas emissions. However, 33 of those plants will reach … Read more

Moments before heading out for dinner this past Saturday night, I learned I was living in what you could call a dry town. Along with 2 million other people in the Boston area, water service to my town was disrupted because of a "catastrophic" break in the distribution system.

Early Saturday morning, a collar attached to a giant water pipe in Weston, Mass., broke off, which cut off the source of clean water to 30 cities and towns. Two days into the crisis, people in the area are now being supplied by a backup reservoir system that requires … Read more

Ford Motor announced Wednesday at the 2010 SAE World Congress that it's incorporating cooled EGR (exhaust gas recirculation) into its EcoBoost repertoire of gas engines.

EcoBoost versions of Ford power trains incorporate the direct injection and turbocharging technology previously restricted to diesel engines to offer more power to gas engines while still maintaining the same level of efficiency. The EcoBoost version of the 2010 Ford Flex SEL, for example, offers a V6 engine that can make 355 horsepower and 350 pound-feet of torque, but get the same mileage as the base model V6 engine that makes 262 horsepower and … Read more

I had a few ideas about how to end this week's look at the Toyota Prius. I could have continued presenting videos on the many neat features that Toyota is pioneering with the Prius. Usually on Fridays, I like to bring something a little more entertaining to the table, so I decided against that approach and came up with a video that I didn't know existed.

Most media reports praise the Prius and tend to proclaim Toyota's hybrid car flag-bearer as the most eco-friendly and economical car that money can buy. But Jeremy Clarkson, star of the … Read more

With Toyota's name all over TV and the news within the last couple of months, I figured it timely to show that not all things associated with Toyota are bad. In the specific case of the Toyota Prius, the Japanese manufacturer has honed and crafted a trendsetting, forward-thinking hybrid car that's gone from novelty to an almost universally accepted automobile. In yesterday's video we got a good sampling of the modern Prius' many notable features, but we didn't get a look at everything. And that's why I've got another clip on this very cool … Read more