The data will be used to probe dark matter and dark energy. Under the agreement, 40 NASA scientists will join the project
Chu (pictured) restructured research at the energy agency, garnering political support for the high-risk, high-reward Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy,
as well as for five Energy Innovation Hubs for integrated and applied research. The stimulus funding came under intense criticism from conservatives,
especially the $535 million that went to now-defunct solar-cell manufacturer Solyndra of Fremont, California.
Reicher, an attorney by training, previously headed Google s $1-billion initiative for investing in energy and climate, where he guided investments into solar technologies and electric transport.
He served as the energy agency s assistant secretary for efficiency and renewable energy under former president Bill clinton and was a staff member on then-president Jimmy carter s commission to investigate the 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear accident in Pennsylvania.
Kevin Wolf/APENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCYDEPARTING: Lisa Jackson On entering office in 2009, Jackson (pictured) laid the groundwork for climate regulations by formally declaring carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant.
She has also been floated as a candidate to lead the Department of the interior and the energy department. Perciasepe, currently deputy administrator at the environment agency, developed a watershed-protection programme while previously at the agency under Bill clinton.
The decline is in part a result of the economic slowdown and a shift in electricity production from coal to natural gas,
and the introduction by more than half of the states of significant energy and climate initiatives that could deliver further reductions  perhaps even the 17%cut by 2020 that Obama promised at the United nations climate summit in Copenhagen in 2009.
effectively banning the construction of coal-fired plants that are equipped not to capture and sequester carbon dioxide.
Other rules could target the oil and gas industry by limiting emissions from refineries and drilling sites.
whether the president can build support for a broad programme of energy research and development that could drive down the cost of large-scale, low-carbon energy,
and ultimately make a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade agreement politically palatable. The President s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology has recommended increasing spending on energy research and development from around US$4 billion per year to $16 billion,
and some organizations have advocated even more. Armond Cohen, executive director of the Clean Air Task force in Boston, Massachusetts, argues that Obama could attract conservative support for a strategic research programme focused on large-scale energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage
methods and advanced nuclear reactors. Such a programme might look like the energy department s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy
itself inspired by a similar defence-department programme, says Cohen. Once technologies are developed, government agencies could use their buying power to expand production
and reduce prices.""We don t want to see Obama walk in and just play small ball again, says Cohen."
Energy tax credits The US alternative-energy industry received a bundle of tax incentives in the budget deal that was passed by Congress on 1 january to avert sweeping cuts in government spending.
which one of the company s oil platforms in the Gulf of mexico exploded. The deal follows a $4. 5-billion settlement last year by oil
-and-gas giant BP (see Nature 491,501; 2012). ) It includes $150 Â million each for the National Academy of Sciences and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation,
to support environmental restoration and protection and health research in the region. Source: MUNICH REAROUND 9, 500 people lost their lives last year in natural disasters less than one-tenth of the ten-year average.
California. 15-17 january The nexus between water and energy comes under tighter focus at Abu dhabi s annual World Future Energy Summit,
helps them to use their energy more efficiently. It has long been known that bumblebees build up a positive electrical charge as they rapidly flap their wings;
but they burn a lot of energy while hovering around looking for pollen or nectar. So it would make sense for them to attend to such cues
Woo explains that the survey is modelled on a two-year health investigation that followed a 1987 leak at an oil refinery in Texas,
19 25 april 2013us energy secretary In a vote on 18 april, the US Senate energy committee approved President Barack Obama s choice for energy secretary:
Moniz, who served as an undersecretary for energy under former president Bill clinton, has backed the use of a mixture of conventional and renewable energy sources to meet demand (see Nature 494,409-410;
2013). ) The full Senate is expected to confirm the nomination. Nobel laureate dies Fran §ois Jacob, a Nobel-prizewinning French biologist, died on 19 april aged 92.
Energy spending Investment in renewable energy technologies still falls short of the level needed to clean up the global energy system
says a report from the International Energy Agency in Paris. In 2012, global markets in solar photovoltaic technology and wind energy grew by 42%and 19%,respectively,
says the 17 april report. But the continued growth in energy produced by coal-fired power stations is offsetting progress,
it says. Venture declines US venture-capital investments shrank 12%to US$5. 9 billion in the first quarter of 2013, with the life sciences and clean technology particularly affected, according to a report by accountancy firm Pricewaterhousecoopers
This means that the market is unlikely to spur investment in low-carbon energy, one of the scheme s key goals when it was launched in 2005.
and developing new fossil-fuel reserves, according to Carbon Tracker, even though burning them would cause a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. 24-25 april On World Malaria Day (25 april),
Some originate from the burning of fuel or the processing of electronic waste, and others are used widely as pesticides or herbicides or in the manufacture of solvents, plastics and pharmaceuticals.
but on average it soaks up one-quarter of the annual CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
and swapping coal for natural-gas in power generation. Climate change More than 80%of Americans believe that the planet is warming
Weigel s team also found nothing in the nuclear genomes of the famine strains to explain their ferocity.
evolutionary geneticists at the University of Copenhagen, looked more closely at such genes after sequencing the nuclear genomes of five herbarium strains of P. infestans.
Shale-gas exit Two energy firms Talisman Energy, headquartered in Calgary, Canada, and Marathon Oil, based in Houston, Texas decided last week to cease shale-gas exploration activities in Poland.
The pull out raises further questions about Poland s shale-gas production, which is yet to begin.
In a 2011 review, the US Energy Information Administration estimated that Poland had 5. 3 Â trillion cubic metres of shale gas,
Pear-shaped nucleus boosts search for new physicsa lopsided atomic nucleus may help to refine nuclear theory.
Nuclei are held together by the strong nuclear force, which acts against the electrostatic repulsion that pushes protons apart.
and his colleagues fired a high-energy proton beam at a piece of uranium carbide in the ISOLDE isotope mass separator facility at CERN, Europe's particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland."
and start spinning with extra energy that it then lost as a à Â-ray.
Such nuclear models can't be tested definitively yet but Butler and his team hope to do that
when a higher energy and intensity facility called HIE-ISOLDE opens at CERN in 2015.
which describes the strong and weak nuclear forces and the electromagnetic force, leaves several basic questions unanswered.
says nuclear physicist Gavin Smith of the University of Manchester, UK, who is not a member of Butler's team
Amazon plant discovery could yield green cash cropin a farmer s garden deep in the Peruvian Amazon in August 2012, Rainer Bussmann and Carlos Vega struck oil.
which produce oil rich in omega-3 fatty acids. But the pods of the new plant, later dubbed Plukenetia carolis-vegae,
Bussmann hopes that the healthy reputation of sacha inchi oil will provide the impetus for large-scale cultivation of both species
But even if sacha inchi oil does not turn out to be something that can be sold as a dietary supplement,
it could be marketed as a niche food oil. Bussmann, who happens to have a bottle of P. huayllabambana oil in his office,
says it is excellent in salads: the taste is nutty and green, evoking the flavours of peanut and cucumber.
claims that his expertise was sought for nuclear applications. See go. nature. com/4mught for more.
But the 2010 emission total is slightly higher than that recorded for 2009 an increase that Brazil s government attributes mostly to rising emissions from the energy sector."
The fastest emissions growth last year occurred in Brazil s energy sector, although it is still eco-friendly compared with the energy sectors of most other major economies.
Brazil boasts the world s most advanced bioethanol industry, and produced roughly 85%of its electricity from hydropower in 2010.
But Brazil has turned increasingly to fossil fuels to drive an ever larger share of its economic growth in recent years.
Emissions from the energy sector increased 21.4%between 2005 and 2010, translating to an increase of 399 million tonnes of CO2.
San diego, who specializes in energy policy. Victor says that Brazil could capitalize on its success by making its targets more realistic,
Dietler concedes that some amphorae could have held olive oil or fish paste, but says that jars found at Lattera had typically been coated with pitch to help seal the ceramic.
because the pitch would have dissolved in oil and tainted its flavour. Oil amphorae generally had a very different shape
he adds.""By and large, archaeologists make a lot of assumptions about what was transported, says says Brendan Foley, a maritime archaeologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts,
Politicians moved to limit food-based fuels to 5. 5%of transport fuel by 2020,
after scientists warned that production of some biofuels drives land clearance that can lead to greater greenhouse-gas emissions than from fossil fuel (see Nature 499,13-14;
) Fuel suppliers would also have to report emissions due to changes in land use. The European parliament votes on the issue in September.
despite public opposition following the Fukushima nuclear accident (see Nature http://doi. org/ckcr86; 2011).
World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2013nuclear power plants generated 2, 346 terrawatt hours of electricity in 2012, a decline of nearly 7%from 2011 and nearly 12%from the all-time peak in 2006,
Much of the decline was due to power plant closures in Japan following the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011,
EU debates U-turn on biofuels policythe European union (EU) has spent the past 10 years nurturing a  15-billion (US$20-billion) industry that makes transport fuel from food crops such as soya beans
Yet for more than half a decade, scientists have warned that many food-based fuels might actually be boosting emissions relative to fossil fuels.
but pressure from industry, farming and energy lobbies threatens to limit the reversal. Tensions are rising over how much of the emerging science on biofuel emissions will be included in EU policy ahead of a vote on 10 Â July by the key European parliament committee dealing with the legislation.
require a 6%drop in the carbon footprint of transport fuel by 2020, by which time renewable energy must fuel 10%of the transport sector.
Biofuel counts towards that requirement if it produces a 35%emissions saving over fossil fuels, or 50%from 2017 onwards;
so far, most of that fuel has come from food crops, helping to generate a thriving bio  fuels industry based mainly on biodiesel.
Europe is even importing rapeseed and vegetable oil to meet demand. But the original accounting for biofuel emissions was all wrong,
as Tim Searchinger, who studies environmental economics at Princeton university in New jersey, noted in an influential 2008 article (T.  Searchinger et  al.
most varieties of biodiesel turn out to produce more emissions than bioethanol and often more than fossil fuels.
The effect wipes out more than two-thirds of the carbon emissions that Europe s renewable-energy policy was supposed to save by 2020,
when it set standards for which fuels count as renewable. Luckily for US farmers ethanol from maize (corn) the main biofuel for US vehicles was given the green light under the agency s rules.
But the European commission has ducked the issue in the face of strong resistance from the biofuels industry and Europe s energy and agricultural sectors.
In October 2012, the commission finally proposed that food-crop fuel quotas be capped at only 5%of transport fuel by 2020 half of the 10%renewables target effectively allowing existing facilities to continue recouping investment,
But fuel suppliers would have to start including land-use figures produced by the IFPRI when they report the total emissions of their fuels,
a hint that the official carbon footprint of Europe s transport fuel might eventually incorporate that science.
On 20 Â June, its energy committee voted to push the cap on food-crop fuels up slightly,
to 6. 5%.It also removed the stipulation that fuel suppliers report emissions using land-use change figures.
argues Clare Wenner, head of renewable transport policy at the UK Renewable Energy Association in London.
and energy committees recommend. Then Europe s energy ministers will have to reach a compromise on the legislation.
Some countries such as the United kingdom, The netherlands and Denmark want land-use factors to be included, whereas others, including central and eastern European countries with strong biofuel lobbies,
which components of the multibillion-euro ITER thermonuclear reactor will travel for assembly in St-paul-l  s-Durance.
and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, a green bank that was due to invest Aus$10 Â billion (US$9. 4 Â billion) over the next five years in renewable-energy projects.
US power plants Regulations proposed on 20 Â September by the US Environmental protection agency would limit carbon dioxide emissions for future fossil-fuel power plants in the United states. To meet the emissions limits,
new coal-fired plants would need to install equipment to capture and sequester a portion of their carbon dioxide emissions a requirement that utility companies argue would effectively halt future coal-plant development.
Kokabee has said that he was pressured to cooperate in an Iranian military nuclear programme. This is the first time that the human-rights prize has been awarded to a person in prison.
Garth Lenz/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013in'Oil spoils'by Garth Lenz, an aerial view shows the devastation caused by tar-sands mining in Alberta, Canada.
Garth Lenz speaks passionately about the negative impact that extraction of oil from tar sands has had on the landscapes of his native Canada;
this photograph is part of his True Cost of Oil project. To try to capture the scale of tar-sands operations in Alberta,
which conservationists say is a highly polluting way of extracting fossil fuels must end if the Canadian government is to face up to the massive problems the planet faces due to climate change.
"We have to carry our fuel with us, says Saatchi.""And we have limited only areas where it s safe to land.
and designing the kind of low-energy network that would be needed where there is limited availability of power,
On 18 Â November, the Tokyo Power and Electric Corporation began the delicate task of removing fuel rods from a damaged reactor building.
falling debris from the accident had made it difficult to transfer spent fuel kept in the building to permanent storage.
Franklin Orrus energy nominees Chemical engineer Franklin Orr (pictured) has been tapped by US President Barack Obama to serve as the undersecretary for science at the Department of energy.
Orr, a researcher at Stanford university in California, would replace Steven Koonin as chief scientific adviser to US energy secretary Ernest Moniz,
We ve mobilized the genes from algae that make some of these oils and put them into oilseed crops.
we ve been able to make oils that are as good as in some cases even better than fish oils.
The agency issued a preliminary determination that trans-fats in the form of partially hydrogenated oils should no longer be recognized"generally as safe,
PLC/BPENERGY nomination US President Barack Obama has nominated physicist Ellen Williams (pictured) to head the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy
a branch of the Department of energy that funds high-risk, high-payoff research. Currently on leave from the University of Maryland in College Park, Williams has been chief scientist for oil-and-gas giant BP since 2010.
From 1996 to 2009, she directed the University of Maryland Materials Research Science and Engineering Center.
nuclear physicists told Nature. Separately, a forensic analysis of exhumed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, released on 8 Â November,
the International Energy Agency holds its biennial meeting to set new strategic priorities. go. nature. com/qrjmcg
Estrada's study links that to the 1987 Montreal Protocol that banned the release of CFCS once used widely in refrigerants, solvents and propellants to stop ozone depletion,
and can help scientists to understand human impact on energy consumption and resource strength. Calorie for calorie
24-30 january 2014eu climate package The European commission unveiled a package of climate and energy proposals on 22 Â January, with targets for 2030.
depriving grizzlies of energy-rich pine nuts. Moreover, say conservationists, invasive fish have crowded out native cutthroat trout in Yellowstone Lake at the heart of the park,
dried grasses and other indigestible plant matter could greatly improve the efficiency of converting waste biomass to fuel.
Ethanol and other biofuels, including certain petrol and diesel substitutes, can be produced from simple sugars, usually by fermentation.
Producers of cellulosic ethanol currently spend 15-20%of their fuel costs on acids and enzymes to loosen
has worked with the liquid for years as a potential fuel in its own right, and a University of Wisconsin spin-off firm, Glucan Biorenewables, is already using GVL to make furans, a different kind of biofuel.
Claire Curry, a bioenergy analyst at the information firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance, expects that some 50 million to 60 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol could be produced commercially worldwide this year up from just a few
adds Thomas Foust, director of the National Bioenergy Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
and energy eating a less nutritious food that s available now, or to ignore it because a better alternative might become available in a moment?
but the rule would effectively require new coal-fired plants to capture and sequester about 40%of their emissions a feat that many industry officials have criticized as technologically infeasible.
See page 269 for more. go. nature. com/ivxmmo22 January The European union is set to unveil a package of long-term climate and energy goals and proposals
Casadevall, A. & Handelsman, Â J. mbio http://dx. doi. org/10.1128/mbio. 00846-13 (2014). 10-15 january Understanding how cells nuclear receptors
Hot topics include the roles of nuclear receptors in wound healing and cancer progression. go. nature. com/rs9oyb15-17 january The 8th Human Amyloid Imaging meeting in Miami,
For example, one can imagine the global interest there would have been had regular space video footage of the Fukushima nuclear disaster been available
Pollution curbs On 23 Â February, Colorado lawmakers adopted the first regulations in the United states for reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector.
Georgia Power/PRNEWSFOTOREACTOR construction gets funding boost The US Department of energy has approved US$6. 5 Â billion in loan guarantees to build two nuclear reactors at the $14-billion Vogtle Electric
The reactors are the first new nuclear facilities to be constructed in the United states in nearly 30 years.
Competition from natural gas and renewable energy as well as safety concerns have prompted several US nuclear plants to shut in the past year.
Nuclear leak The US Department of energy confirmed on 20 Â February that radiation has escaped from a facility storing nuclear waste.
Energy-department officials say radiation levels have dropped now and they expect plant staff to be able to re-enter the WIPP within two weeks.
energy or clean technologies all fell in 2013, with biotechnology rising slightly (see chart). 4 march US President Barack Obama unveils his proposed 2015 budget.
The International atomic energy agency, based in Vienna, raised the possibility of controlled discharges of pretreated water in its road map towards decommissioning the plant,
Power out The US Energy Information Administration predicted on 14 Â February that the energy generated by coal-fired power plants in the United states will shrink by 20%(the equivalent of 60 gigawatts by 2020.
Power companies have begun already shutting down many smaller, inefficient facilities: 85 plants with a combined capacity of 10.2 Â gigawatts were retired in 2012.
19 february NASA announces findings from its high-energy X-ray mission, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (Nustar.
and its owners expect it to join a fermented-fuel revolution. But unlike most ethanol factories, in which yeast feeds on sugars in foodstuffs such as maize (corn) kernels,
which will be blended with petrol and end up in vehicle fuel tanks. The plant, which is owned by multi  national company Abengoa of Seville,
Spain, is one of three US facilities that should start commercial production of cellulosic ethanol in the next few months (the others are both in Iowa,
reduce US reliance on imported oil and boost rural economies. Yet just as the fuel is on the cusp of making it big,
market forces and government policies could choke its progress.""This is going to be a very critical year,
says Zia Haq, a chemical engineer and senior analyst at the US Department of energy, which has helped to fund the plants.
and companies towards an alternative approach that converts cellulose into hydrocarbon fuels using chemical rather than biological processes.
and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), created by law in 2005 and extended in 2007.
the standard mandates annual increases in the volumes of various renewable fuels included in the country s fuel supply.
It offers only modest savings in greenhouse-gas emissions compared to petrol (see Nature 499,13-14;
Ethanol made from corn stover produces at least 60%less greenhouse-gas emissions than petrol, and making it does not require any extra farmland.
comprising 10%of US transportation fuel enough to completely satisfy demand for the E10 petrol blend that most vehicles now burn (see Hitting the wall).
demand for petrol has fallen actually, and there is growing interest in alternatives such as battery-powered cars.
Corn ethanol is now slightly cheaper than petrol, but cellulosic ethanol is more expensive than both.
Yet its delayed arrival has prompted the EPA to reduce the amount of cellulosic ethanol that refiners are required to blend into their petrol.
Groups working on renewable fuel, who say that producers will easily make more than 64 million litres once they get going,
All US vehicles produced in the past decade can run on a 15%ethanol-petrol blend but consumers and distributors are unconvinced mostly,
perhaps spooked by car-industry studies claiming that the fuel damages engines. Another way over the wall might be exports to the European union,
or six years ago to close to $2 today, says Thomas Foust, director of the National Bioenergy Center, part of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
These thermochemical methods can produce either a crude bio-oil or a stream of carbon monoxide and hydrogen known as syngas.
both can be turned into hydrocarbons such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. Crucially, these drop in fuels,
named because they can replace normal fuels with no adjustments to engines, have no blend wall to vault.
Thermochemical routes can also use lower-quality feedstocks, tearing through anything from wood chips to municipal solid waste.
the system could be switched to making hydrocarbon fuels or higher-value chemical products. Enerkem plans to build similar plants in Mississippi and Quebec next year,
Last year, an energy-department project to supply the US NAVY with advanced biofuels provided funding for four facilities that will all use thermochemical methods to make drop in fuels.
and oil and gas exploration, but says the development poses little risk to US national security.
The technique could prevent children from inheriting diseases that affect mitochondria, the cell s energy producers, by transplanting nuclear genetic material to a donor cell with healthy mitochondria.
Radiation leak The US Department of energy reported on 26 february that 13 employees had tested positive for low-level radiation exposure following a leak at its Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New mexico.
Energy department officials said the health and environmental impacts of the leak seem to be minor,
See page 15 for more on US nuclear waste storage. Iowa Department of Cultural Affairsborlaug bronze A bronze statue of Norman Borlaug (pictured),
Even its body shape has adjusted to use less energy. Conclusion: The pandas are further unable to adapt to any changes
They even avoid steep hills just to save a bit of energy. However if they were to move off of their poor diet they could get more energy
and move around more. This would let them find better sources of food and adapt to more changes in their local environment.
and more known for covering space robots green energy and futuristic gadgets you might mistake for props in a science fiction movie.
#Green Energy Scheme To Burn Beetle-Infested Trees For Electricityaldo Leopold described the burning of wood as re-releasing the sunshine the tree depended upon to grow.
Plants pack in plenty of energy about half as much as coal. People don t often think of burning trees to make electricity
The Eagle Valley Clean Energy plant will burn 250 tons of wood daily for the next 50 years Greenwire reports creating electricity for the residents of the small town of Gypsum.
Biomass power plants do use a renewable fuel but nevertheless contribute to global warming because they put greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
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