Over the past 10 years there has been increasing evidence that particles generated by the combustion of fossil fuels adversely affect health. To what extent should paediatricians be concerned about particle pollution? This review assesses what we know, and what we still need to know about the health effects of fossil fuel particles.

Population growth, increasing energy demand and the depletion of fossil fuel reserves necessitate a search for sustainable alternatives for electricity generation. Hydropower could replace a large part of the contribution of gas and oil to the present energy mix. However, previous high-resolution estimates of hydropower potential have been local, and have yet to be applied on a global scale. Th...

Introduction The Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Information Administration estimates atmospheric greenhouse gas releases may exceed 8 billion metric tons by the year 2010 heightening its international environmental concern. Carbon dioxide will dominate the greenhouse gases (Kane and Klein, 1997) and the majority of these results from the use of fossil fuels. With viable replacement of fossil...

Most of the technical development of the 19th and 20th centuries relied on thermal engines to generate mechanical or electrical work from the combustion of fossil fuels [1]. This strategy of energy production is not renewable, in that finite resources are consumed and greenhouse gases are emitted, and it is also fundamentally inefficient as defined by Carnot. In a more modern strategy which cir...

Oil and natural gas together with coal, the main fossil fuels, not only remain our major energy sources but they are also the feedstocks for a great variety of manmade materials and products that range from gasoline and diesel oil to varied petrochemical and chemical products, including synthetic materials, plastics, and pharmaceuticals. What nature gave us as a gift, formed over the course of ...

Although technological progress can alter the relative costs of different energy sources, fossil fuels inevitably will be displaced as depletion raises their costs and makes them uncompetitive. They may be displaced sooner if they are taxed to internalize negative externalities. Currently, wind generation or nuclear power, supplemented by bulk electricity storage, are the most feasible alternat...

CO(2) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are conventionally attributed to the country where the emissions are produced (i.e., where the fuels are burned). However, these production-based accounts represent a single point in the value chain of fossil fuels, which may have been extracted elsewhere and may be used to provide goods or services to consumers elsewhere. We present a consistent...

background: the combustion of sulfur-rich fossil fuels leads to release of sulfur oxide pollution in the environment. in biodesulfurization process, an organism is able to remove sulfur from fossil fuels without decreasing the caloric value of those substrates. the main aim of this research was to design a recombinant microorganism to remove the highest amount of sulfur compounds in fossil fuel...