A better way to pinpoint underground oil reserves

(PhysOrg.com) -- Picture this: an accurate map of a large underground oil reservoir that can guide engineers’ efforts to coax the oil from the vast rocky subsurface into wells where it can be pumped out for storage or transport.

Researchers explore a sustainable bio-based chemical economy

With cyanobacteria, carbon dioxide and sunlight, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison engineers aims to create a sustainable alternative source of commodity chemicals currently derived from an ever-decreasing supply ...

Kick-starting Europe's electric vehicle industry

Electric vehicles (e-vehicles, or EVs) are set to play a key role in the future of urban mobility, reducing pollution, decreasing dependence on fossil fuels and saving drivers money. Although e-vehicles make up only a tiny ...

Researchers synthesize renewable oils for use in lubricants

Engine gears, plane thrusters, refrigerator compressors, wind turbines—the list of important industrial machinery, agricultural equipment, transportation vessels, and home applications that depend on lubricants might be ...

Oil spill as container ship hits N. Zealand reef

A large container ship ran aground on a reef off New Zealand's North Island Wednesday, releasing a "light sheen of oil" but not posing a major environmental hazard, the country's maritime authority said.

UMaine researchers discover revolutionary process for biofuel

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have long been interested in waste products as sources of biofuel. In Maine, those waste items could include treetops and limbs deemed by the forest products industry as unusable and often left ...

New approach needed to prevent major 'systemic failures'

A Purdue University researcher is proposing development of a new cross-disciplinary approach for analyzing and preventing systemic failures in complex systems that play a role in calamities ranging from huge power blackouts ...

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