Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average. Climate change may be limited to a specific region or may occur across the whole Earth. Climate change is a debated topic that has yet to be proven certainly if humans actually affect climate change.

lastUpdated: Thu, 17 May 2012 06:28:00 CDT

A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or pumping water, the device is called a windmill or wind pump. Developed for over a millennium, today's wind turbines are manufactured in a range of vertical and horizontal axis types. The smallest turbines are used for applications such as battery charging or auxiliary power on sailing boats; while large grid-connected arrays of turbines are becoming an increasingly large source of commercial electric power.

lastUpdated: Thu, 17 May 2012 00:28:50 CDT

The FBI is investigating what happened with Solyndra, a solar panel company that got a $535 million government-backed loan with the help of the Obama White House over the objections of federal budget analysts. Federal investigators want to know what role political fundraising played in the guarantee of the questionable loan. Washington bureaucrats warned the deal was lousy. And White House spokesmen flail desperately.

lastUpdated: Wed, 16 May 2012 14:19:03 CDT

OTEC, or ocean thermal energy conversion, is an energy technology that converts solar radiation to electric power. OTEC systems use the ocean's natural thermal gradient?the fact that the ocean's layers of water have different temperatures?to drive a power-producing cycle. As long as the temperature between the warm surface water and the cold deep water differs by about 20?C (36?F), an OTEC system can produce a significant amount of power. The oceans are thus a vast renewable resource, with the potential to help us produce billions of watts of electric power. This potential is estimated to be about 1013 watts of baseload power generation, according to some experts. The cold, deep seawater used in the OTEC process is also rich in nutrients, and it can be used to culture both marine organisms and plant life near the shore or...

lastUpdated: Wed, 16 May 2012 12:39:09 CDT

With just weeks to go before the Obama administration makes a key determination on the environmental impact of a planned massive oil pipeline linking Canada to Texas, protestors are planning a high-profile "sit-in" in front of the White House to block the project. The Keystone Pipeline System is a pipeline system to transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada to refineries in Illinois and Oklahoma, and further to the U.S. Gulf Coast. It consists of the operational "Keystone Pipeline" and proposed Keystone XL (Keystone Expansion) pipeline. Keystone XL has faced lawsuits from oil refineries, criticism from environmentalists and some members of the United States Congress. The U.S. Department of State in 2010 extended the deadline for federal agencies to decide...

lastUpdated: Fri, 11 May 2012 08:01:40 CDT

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is a New York City-based, non-profit, non-partisan international environmental advocacy group, with offices in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Beijing. Founded in 1970, NRDC today has 1.3 million members and online activists nationwide and a staff of more than 300 scientists, attorneys and other specialists.

lastUpdated: Tue, 24 Apr 2012 06:49:09 CDT

Biodiesel is the name for a variety of ester-based oxygenated fuels made from hemp oil, other vegetable oils or animal fats. The concept of using vegetable oil as an engine fuel dates back to 1895 when Dr. Rudolf Diesel developed the first diesel engine to run on vegetable oil. Diesel demonstrated his engine at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1900 using peanut oil as fuel.

lastUpdated: Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:36:43 CDT