You have “geo,” meaning earth, and “thermal” meaning heat. Together, you have “geothermal,” another word for super hot earth. Where and how does earth get so darn hot?

Energy has evolved from wood, to whale oil, to coal, to petroleum and to nuclear, and now the global economy desperately needs to move towards the vast promise of continuous renewable energy.  There are many who believe that wind and solar, in particular, are the next step in the evolution of energy.

A new report from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) in Berkeley projects that development of cost-competitive algae biofuel production will require much more long-term research, development and demonstration. In the meantime, several non-fuel applications of algae could serve to advance the nascent industry.

Plant and forestry waste and dedicated energy crops could sustainably replace nearly a third of gasoline use by the year 2030, according to an in-depth study by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corporation called “The 90 Billion Gallon Study.”

Researchers assessed the feasibility, implications, limitations, and enablers of annually producing 90 billion gallons of ethanol sufficient to replace more than 60 billion of the estimated 180 billion gallons of gasoline expected to be used annually by 2030. Ninety billion gallons a year exceeds the U.S. Department of Energy’s goal for ethanol production established in 2006.

Many financial experts are concerned that the current US financial market meltdown and the staggering infusion of 700 billion dollars to save it will only result in restoring the status quo.

Some are also concerned that the normal use of fossil fuel consumption will continue at the expense of plans to convert power production towards techniques that could reduce carbon emissions.

A controversial project to turn coal into liquid fuels in southwest Ohio has been abandoned by way of a negotiated settlement, amid legal challenges by environmental groups over pollution permits and questions about the ability of owner Baard Energy to secure financing.

As the first coal-to-liquid refinery to be awarded pollution permits in the U.S., the settlement may have dealt a blow to the broader industry, underscoring problems with the expensive and polluting process that once thought to provide a viable alternative to petroleum-based liquid fuels.

There is so much talk about energy these days, but do you know what that means?

Scientists define energy as the ability to do work. What that means is that humans have found ways to change one form of energy to another to work for us. For example, we change wood into heat when we burn it.

Wood, a biomass, was the first source of energy. Can’t you just picture the cave dwellers around their fires, cooking their food and keeping warm? We still do that when we go camping.

Did you know that poop can make power? It’s true. Gas rising from the poop of 500 cows can create enough electricity to power 100 homes. That’s some powerful poop!

Poop is a form of “biomass” which is the name for all living, or recently living materials coming from plants and animals that are a source of energy. The most common form of biomass energy on Earth is burning wood. We burn wood in fireplaces to keep us warm, or in woodstoves to cook our food.  Besides wood and poop, biomass fuels can come from stalks of wheat, corn or sugar cane. It can also come from rice hulls, cooking oil, and other forms of garbage and food waste.

Despite the challenges of harnessing renewable energy sources and the challenges of delivering renewable power to power supply grids worldwide, wind and solar are pushed as the solutions for weaning the global economy off of fossil fuels.

Yet, though renewables get all the good press, they have been unable to make the leap to mainstream energy production for myriad reasons.

Energy has evolved from wood, to whale oil, to coal, to petroleum and to nuclear, and now the global economy desperately needs to move towards the vast promise of continuous renewable energy. There are many who believe that wind and solar, in particular, are the next step in the evolution of energy.

The strength of the economic recovery holds the key to how energy markets will evolve over the next few years. With the inevitable expiration of workable fossil fuel supplies and the escalating costs of providing energy from them, renewable energy is the only logical and economical solution.

It seems logical that coal would be used as the predominant non-renewable fuel of the future until other non-petroleum-based substitutes are fully developed. Coal burns cleaner, despite the false image that associates coal with the dingy, smog-choked air of the old coal-burning cities and towns, particularly during the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, according to The World Coal Institute (WCI), “technologies have been developed to improve the environmental performance of coal-use techniques” and that the efficient burning of coal-based fuels results in the release of fewer pollutants into the atmosphere. All fossil fuels produce greenhouse gases; but, greenhouse gases from coal contribute to less than 20% of any enhanced greenhouse effect.