Which is the better use for a plot of land: growing crops to feed nations or growing crops to power them with biofuel? The answer to this question is, perhaps not surprisingly, complex and turns on the definition of “surplus” land, or idle, marginal spaces. Now, an interdisciplinary group of researchers from Europe and the US has decided to nail these concepts.

Despite the heated “food versus fuel” debates, researchers noted that there is no common language or guidelines that brings together this emerging field. Moreover, no one seemed to agree on what, exactly, defines surplus land.

Hydraulic fracturing technology, called fracking, has been around since the 1940s but has recently gained attention as the energy industry expanded cleaner natural gas production.

The inaugural Energy Census from business intelligence company Polecat says it is a big topic, with energy writers noting that CO2 emissions from energy have plummeted and coal emissions have gone even farther back in time, to the days of the first Reagan administration. Meanwhile, detractors claim it causes headaches and cancer (cancer has been the go-to disease for everything since Rachel Carson made up a scare about DDT 50 years ago) and even that it could cause the earth to deflate.

Cutting carbon dioxide emissions is not easy; it requires a buy-in from developing nations who have coal and want a better life also, or a greater implementation of natural gas. One alternative idea is to transport materials into the stratosphere to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth and therefore reduce the effects of global climate change.

A new paper says that the basic technology currently exists and could be assembled and implemented in a number of different forms for less than $5 billion a year - a tiny fraction of the amount that cutting emissions costs. Put into context, the cost of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is currently estimated to be between 0.2 and 2.5 per cent of GDP in the year 2030, which is equivalent to $200 billion to $2 trillion.

We’ve long depended on coal-fired and natural gas power plants to convert chemical fuel into electricity. Now, scientists have found a way to convert electricity into a fuel using excess power from renewables like wind and solar.

Scientists from Stanford and Pennsylvania State universities have discovered a process to convert electricity into methane, the main constituent of natural gas, using microbes. The fuel is carbon neutral and can use the excess electricity from renewable sources.

There’s a band of people in the northwest hills of Italy who are fishing for the big one in the sky.

They’re not a religious sect trawling for a deity. They’re part of a Turin-based startup called Kite Gen Research and, as their name implies, they want to generate electricity by flying kites — really big kites, really high.

The basic idea is simple: Unreel a huge piece of fabric into mile high winds that will haul the thing along at expressway speed. Tether the fast spinning string to earthbound alternators and crank out megawatts of power.