In America, the government banned incandescent light bulbs, convinced that if they banned them, the free market would replace it with something affordable, effective and efficient. In reality, since…

In 2005, a decade and a half of environmental lobbying convinced President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress that corn ethanol was a promising fossil fuel substitute which would reduce both…

While corn ethanol was always a bad idea, biofuels themselves have a potential. Perennial biofuel crops miscanthus, switchgrass, and mixed prairie species have shown high yields in producing ethanol…

These days Sweden is better known for its design exports than its blonde bombshells. IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, has developed a brand using a business philosophy that incorporates…

Galactan is a polymer of galactose, a six-carbon sugar that can be readily fermented by yeast into ethanol and is a target of interest for those researching advanced biofuels produced from cellulosic…

In Europe, Spain and Germany, whose populations bought into the 'subsidize legacy technology now and it will be cheaper later' myth, there is a backlash against solar power. Politicians are seeing…

A future without fossil fuels is ideal but impractical in the short term.  However, for people not afraid of science, a PNAS paper showing that synthetic biology can be used to manipulate…

Current global conditions provide numerous challenges for future generations. The United States has a mind-boggling federal deficit. Developing countries have rapid population growth that will lead…

 A nanostructured 'sandwich' of metal and plastic may be a way to nearly triple the efficiency of organic solar cells, those cheap and flexible plastic energy devices that could be the future of…

A combination of coal, natural gas and non-food crops used to make synthetic fuel could reduce America's need for crude oil. It's been tried various times, even before World War II, with no success,…