EarthScape

Philadelphia officials asked a state regulator on Thursday to ban the natural-gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing until its environmental effects, especially on drinking water, are studied. The City Council urged the Delaware River Basin Commission to deny a drilling permit to Stone Energy Corp, a Louisiana-based oil and gas company, or to any…

A new species of dinosaur, a relative of the famous Velociraptor, has been discovered in Inner Mongolia by two PhD students. The exceptionally well preserved dinosaur, named Linheraptor exquisitus, is the first near complete skeleton of its kind to be found in the Gobi desert since 1972, and will help scientists work out the appearance…

The Earth is truly a blue planet; 70% of its surface is covered with water. Unfortunately 97.5% of that is salt water, unusable for humans. Fresh water accounts for the other 2.5%, however, about two thirds of that is locked up in glaciers and in the icy poles. That leaves humans (and every other living…

The story of how a group of dissatisfied residents pulled together, got funding, and created a blooming community garden where the work, and the rewards, are shared Not far from the 2012 Olympic Village in Stratford, another local regeneration project, albeit on a much smaller scale, has energised a small residential street.

Yesterday we posted on the just-released Clean Edge trends report for 2010 that outlines some of the prominent trends in clean tech and renewable energy. One emerging trend mentioned in the report is the commoditization of carbon, where captured emissions are bought and sold as feedstock for other industrial processes.

Corporations and industries can expect greater scrutiny of their carbon footprints under changes U.S. EPA proposed to its mandatory greenhouse gas registry yesterday. Beginning this year, companies must detail emissions from about 10,000 facilities representing some 85 percent of the nation’s total carbon output, according to the greenhouse gas reporting regulation EPA completed in September.…

The U.S. Energy Department’s push to scrap a long-planned national nuclear waste dump in Nevada has run into stiff opposition as lawmakers on Wednesday questioned the Obama administration’s decision. A bipartisan group of lawmakers unveiled a resolution of disapproval in the House of Representatives on Tuesday aimed at making the department stop efforts to shelve…

Alpha Centauri is the closet star to our solar system and is 4.3 light years away. If it disappeared it would take 4.3 years for us humans to notice the difference, Looking up into the sky is looking at a what happened long, long ago. Theoretically one can look all the way back to the…

Increasing access to energy is critical to ensuring socioeconomic development in the world’s poorest countries. An estimated 1.5 billion people in developing countries have no access to electricity, with more than 80 per cent of these living in sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia.

SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2010 — As you stroll down restaurant row and catch the wonderful aroma of food — steaks, burgers, and grilled veggies — keep this in mind: You may be in an air pollution zone. Scientists in Minnesota are reporting that commercial cooking is a surprisingly large source of a range of…