Chemical engineering

Cooling with CO2

At the G20 summit in St Petersburg 33 nations and the EU confirmed they would join the United States and China in working together under the Montreal Protocol and the UNFCCC to limit the use of Hydroflourocarbons, or HFCs, for cooling. United Technologies has pioneered a way to replace HFCs with C02 directly from the atmosphere.

New report finds people of color disproportionately harmed by coal-fired power

Environment

King County in Washington trying to convert sewage to energy

Environment

Some London Olympic torches turning up for sale on eBay

Arts, Culture & Media

Proposed EPA regulation will make it difficult for new coal power plants to be approved

Environment

Recycling Energy

A enterprising energy company recycles heat from smokestacks to create electricity without burning additional fossil fuels.

The World

Thermal Imaging

Pictures taken with a thermal camera let you see with your own eyes where heat is leaking out of walls and windows. It’s a powerful spur to improve insulation and keep the storm windows closed.

Euro Trash Powers Sweden

Sweden’s successful waste-to-energy program converts household waste into energy for heating and electricity. But they’ve run into an unusual problem: there isn’t enough trash in the country to fuel the incinerators, so they’ve begun importing waste from European neighbors.

The World

2012 London Games: Olympic Torches for Sale

Global Politics

While the Olympic torch continues its tour of Britain, some of the torch-bearers have put their torches up on auction sites such as eBay.

Death of Carbon Capture?

Carbon capture and storage once seemed like a silver bullet to clean up polluting coal power – but it may be prohibitively expensive. American Electric Power just shuttered the first CCS pilot program but Mitsubishi has some even bigger plans in the pipeline.