Just as we reach the breaking point for bad news about climate change, along comes something that kindles our hope for humankind: this sharp hack transforming trite automobile advertising, and by extension the message that we can buy our way out of this crisis, into a foul-mouthed polar bear's flight from the great Arctic thaw, ranting all the way at the humans who have destroyed his home. Be sure to watch and read to the very end.
Japanese officials report they've produced natural gas from underwater methane hydrate, a frozen mix of water and methane known as "burning ice." Previous experiments have successfully extracted gas from on-shore deposits, but this is the first time we've been able to do it with deep sea reserves.
Most communities in the US treat their wastewater just enough to legally dump it, but not reuse it. Pasteurisation Technology Group has developed an inexpensive treatment system that yields water clean enough to be returned to aquifers. Instead of using chlorine, the system pasteurises wastewater by heating it to 80ºC. The warmth comes from the waste heat of a nearby electricity generator running on either natural gas or biogas produced by an associated sewage digester. A PTG water plant opening next year in California expects to make a $160,000 annual profit by selling its extra biogas-generated electricity. Even if the turbine is fuelled with natural gas, the pasteurisation is energy-efficient enough to be about half the cost of chlorine treatment.