What if you could feed your discarded junk into one end of a machine and get oil and natural gas out of the other? This would solve two problems at once. One inventor claims he has created a machine that will do that very thing.

In Popular Science, Rena Marie Pacella quotes inventor Frank Pringle as saying, “I’ve been told the oil companies might try to assassinate me.”

It turns out that the machine only works with objects that contain hydrocarbons, but since plastics fit this definition?and they are not biodegradable?this will solve a major worldwide trash problem, as well as producing cheap automobile fuel. However, the fuel produced this way will still emit greenhouse gases, so we still have a third problem to solve.
read more

One day you may be driving a non-polluting SUV that runs onnatural gas. There are more 110,000 of them on Americanroads already, although most are taxis or delivery vans.

Compressed natural gas (CNG) cars have a maximum range of200 miles between refueling stops. In order to fill up,drivers have to locate one of the 1,600 public or privatenatural gas stations in the U.S., which are primarily alongthe coasts or in environmentally sensitive areas like SaltLake City or Denver. The limited number of natural gasstations has slowed consumer acceptance of CNG vehicles.Therese Langer, of the American Council for anEnergy-Efficient Economy, says, “It’s a huge obstacle.”
read more