In our last blog we described how used plastic bottles get recycled as building material in new housing projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and South America. Using products we normally would throw away is one way of dealing with waste and garbage, one of our biggest challenges

Humanity has relied on biofuels since first mastering fire. Until the Industrial Revolution peat, wood, charcoal, whale oil, and plant oils represented the biofuels of choice. Fossil fuels began with coal. Fossil fuel crude oil and oil byproducts were a 19th century technical achievem

Renewable energy sources represent our best 21st century bet in replacing fossil fuels for generating electricity. Water, wind, waves and tides, solar and geothermal technologies have been in use in different forms for several centuries. Deriving new efficiencies through invention sho

Humanity has mastered fire and shaped it to become the means of our present civilization. But the burning of carbon-based fuels has enormous implications for the planet as our population grows, and as energy demands climb. We are in the throes of a paradigm shift around energy, how we