Thomas Friedman predicted in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, that the answer to our quest for renewable fuels would come from a thousand inventors in a thousand garages. One such inventor has already come up with a very creative solution. Burning salt water…

A friend sent me a video this week of the new French high speed train just put into service. It travels the rails at a breathtaking 357 mph. All it lacked was wings to fly. I rode Spain’s first high speed train back in the 1990s just after the close of Expo 92. It traveled between Madrid and Seville. If my memory serves me, I remember its top speed was in the order or 200 mph. It was smooth, comfortable, and if you were in first class you could have a nice breakfast en route. Why is the rest of the world way ahead of the U.S. in the development of high-speed rail travel?...

a Stirling Engine? I just ran across something that I never considered for generating energy. I had heard of a Stirling Engine but never understood what it was. It is a device that does work. By that I mean it makes a piston move which can do work, like turning a generator to make electricity. It is based on the ability of a gas to expand when heated and shrink when cooled. The gas is captured in an enclosed cylinder and is never consumed. To make it run all one needs to do is apply heat. The sun is the ideal fuel and hydrogen the ideal gas because of its ability to expand and contract rapidly. The engine runs on nothing more than heat from the sun…

Remember the ad on TV for gasoline that urged the viewer to "Put a tiger in your tank?" Well now you really can put a little tiger in your tank. The only problem is getting him to do it, the tiger, I mean. It might take a lot of training...