As we wait for renewable remedies, clever use of IT can substantially cut emissions

The renewable energy industry is built on dreams. One of the fondest of these dreams is to produce a renewable hydrocarbon fuel, so that we can continue driving our cars without feeling any guilt. It is a dream that fuels several hundred companies globally, a large number of them in the US.

People in India may not know much about baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1960) in the US, but this generation has provided the majority of the country's leaders in politics, science, business and the arts. They have been credited with building several institutions, and in some ways, with building contemporary America itself. One of their less well-known achievements was to start the physical fitness revolution. Now they are on the verge of starting a similar revolution: one of mental fitness.

Size of carbon footprint depends on where you live

For residents of the san francisco bay area in California, their home is in one of the most agreeable parts of the world. The Bay Area has good weather, beautiful landscape, great job opportunities, and some of the most competitive and resourceful minds in the world to interact with. However, at the back of their minds is a phenomenon that can destroy the tranquility in Silicon Valley: earthquakes.

Cold and isolated, iceland may be the last place that comes to your mind when you think of data centres.

FEW businessmen would spend a lot of time talking about a harmless virus. But this virus, called a phage, kills bacteria that are dangerous to human beings. You could use it as a drug, if we knew how to tame it and get it to the right place. Some institutions and a few companies have tried to do it for decades, but with limited success.

Among all the possible fuels that can produce a zero-emission car, petrol must rank right at the bottom, if at all. But for mechanical engineer Andrei Fedorov, petrol is the right fuel, or at least good enough, to run a zero-emission car.