Paraphrasing great thinkers such as Aristotle, Einstein, and Newton, Oreck said, “Words don’t just describe what we think. They shape what we think. Language is so important that it exerts a hidden power, like the moon’s effect on the tide.”

Oreck, who currently is leading an effort to improve building efficiency at U.S. embassies in Europe, was not talking about unlocking the secrets of universe. He was sounding the alarm for climate change and how to frame the debate. His weapon of choice: language.

Given the importance of language in influencing public opinion, Oreck argued that we need better ways of communicating the benefits of renewable energy, and that the current terminology leaves a lot to be desired.

“‘Go green’ is a horrible expression!” Oreck said as he projected a picture of a long-haired, skinny couple wearing tie-dyed t-shirts. “‘Green’ evokes an image of Woodstock. People associate ‘green’ with being a hippie.” (Oreck clarified that he did not choose the name for the State Department organization that he leads, the League of Green Embassies.)

Another target for Oreck: the phrase “save energy.” Dictionary definitions of “save” range from “to rescue from sin” and “to spend less,” both of which signify weakness or something “hanging by a thread.” Compare this meaning with “earn”, which means, “to be worthy of”. “This is a power word,” Oreck said. “The English language has 250,000 words. We can choose better.”

The shale gas rush in the United States has generated plenty of press for its potential to boost the country’s energy independence and create opportunity for investors, but according to Oreck, the investment potential in renewable energy goes relatively unpublicized.

“We need to do a better job making this case,” said Oreck. “Why do we describe ourselves as savers?” Our proposition should be, “Would you like to earn money with less risk?”

Playing on the classic definition of insanity, Oreck noted that “we’ve been saying the same thing for decades and expecting different results.”

He called for a revision in strategy: “Language affects what we see, and our words hold us back.”

Language can be an asset. Let’s be more creative with it.

“Water is everything in terms of our city,” Rotterdam Mayor Ahmed Aboutaleb told 500 business executives gathered in his city Wednesday at a business forum focused on the linked stresses that the planet faces over water, food, and energy. “Water is our life. Water is our port. Water poses a danger to the city and we need water for industry.”

So Rotterdam, a city that had to rebuild from rubble after its utter destruction in World War II bombing, is looking again at renewal.  Well aware of its status as the city with the highest per capita carbon emissions in the world (Related: “Pictures–Nine Surprisingly Gassy Cities”), Rotterdam has set a goal of lowering its CO2 emissions 50 percent by 2025.

The question for Rotterdam is how to achieve that goal while maintaining a robust port economy that provides 90,000 jobs and 200,000 more jobs indirectly linked to the commerce on the city’s waters. It is the same question that the world faces in a larger sense: how to maintain growth and spur development while addressing the climate change due to fossil fuel emissions, water shortages, and the need to feed a growing population.

But the rift between the developed and developing nations has stalled progress on an international agreement on how to address climate change. And issues of water and food scarcity stir, if anything, more intense conflict among nations. So the focus at the Powering Progress forum in Rotterdam was on smaller, more localized efforts that point the way to solutions.

“I think this is about a bottom-up approach, because the top-down approach–in climate and other areas—has not always worked across national boundaries,” said Peter Voser, chief executive officer of Shell*, which organized the forum. “Through pilot projects, we can start at local levels to influence the policy makers, the regulators, the [non-governmental organizations], by demonstrating that we can do this.”

The city and the business leaders gathered here exchanged ideas on some of the local projects that offer promise for solutions on better stewardship of resources:

• Rotterdam is embarking on a 100 million euro ($127 million) project to capture the excess heat generated by port industries and transfer via a 26-kilometer (16-mile) pipeline for reuse to heat 50,000 households in the city. The new network is expected to reduce 70,000 to 80,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year—the equivalent of the emissions of 7 million to 8 million gallons of gasoline.
• Royal Philips Electronics, the Dutch multinational lighting company, has developed a model for “city farming,” a cultivation concept for growing lettuce using drip irrigation and high-efficiency LED lighting tailored to promote plant growth. “We see the future where you can do urban farming, you can do vertical farming, you can do farming right in the city,” said Frans van Houten, Philips chief executive. “The food is right there, it doesn’t have to be shipped from Australia to the Netherlands, which is very inefficient. Moreover, we don’t waste tons of water. So you can do food produced close to the consumer, with very little energy and waste.”
• Shell has invested $10 million ($9.9 million U.S.) into building  a waste-water treatment facility in a joint venture with the city of Dawson Creek, British Columbia. The plant will reclaim 4,000 cubic meters (1.1 million gallons) of sewage water daily. This treated sewage water will be used instead of fresh water to supply all the water used by Shell in its nearby hydraulic fracturing operations for natural gas, with excess made available for irrigation, agriculture or other uses. Voser said it is a small pilot project, but, “In my opinion, this could be replicated around the world at the end of the day.”

Are there enough of these hopeful efforts, and could they achieve large enough scale, to address the huge stresses the world faces on water, food, and energy in the years ahead?  Jeremy Oppenheim, who leads the sustainability and resource productivity practice for the consulting firm, McKinsey, considered this question as he outlined for the forum what he called the unprecedented “demand shock” the world faces in the coming years with the rise of 3 billion more middle-class consumers.

“We can talk about the problem, and the fear of change,” he said, “but there is an opportunity for innovation, from the light bulb to the way cities and countries run, on a more closed-loop basis… The opportunity that sits in front of us is to reinvent the world economy over the next 20 to 30 years.”

*Shell is sponsor of National Geographic’s Great Energy Challenge initiative. National Geographic retains autonomy over content.

This past April, we set out to do just that, on $20 of electricity via two electric bikes. We took a pause from our usual work (Anna is an environmental scientist in Washington and I am the New York-based co-founder and CEO of Evelo, the company that made our bikes) to depart last month on the Trans-American Electric Bike Tour, stopping at various cities along the way.

Amid rising gas prices and the slow adoption of electric vehicles, an electric bike seems to be the best-kept secret in the U.S. Although 120+ million electric bikes are on the roads in Europe and Asia, they have only begun to rise in popularity here over the past few years.

So, it’s no surprise that the first question we get from many folks we meet on the road is, “What exactly is an electric bicycle?”

An electric bicycle looks, feels, and operates like a regular bike. It’s not a moped or a motorcycle, although there is a motor and a battery integrated into the design.

You ride an electric bicycle the same way you would a traditional one – by pedaling. The difference is the option to activate the electrical system, which adds a boost of power to your own efforts. This boost makes quite a difference – it essentially flattens out hills, makes headwinds disappear, and simply makes cycling easier. It’s almost as if somebody is giving you a gentle push – although it feels a lot more natural than that!

The important difference between electric bikes and scooters and motorcycles is that the electric motor never replaces a person’s own power. Instead, the motor complements it, making it possible for the rider to cycle on their own terms and at their own comfort level.

Electric bikes remove barriers such as hills, fitness level, age, and injuries that prevent people from cycling in the first place. They make biking more accessible to a wider range of people – many of whom find a regular bicycle too difficult or impractical for their lifestyle.

We wanted to go cross-country on our bikes to generate awareness about them, but most people use a bike for recreation, commuting, and just getting around town. Considering that over half of all car trips taken in urban areas are 3 miles or fewer, electric bikes provide a really good alternative to driving a car.

Recharging the battery from a standard 110V outlet takes 4 to 6 hours and costs less than 10 cents’ worth of electricity. Those 10 cents can go a long way, since a single charge can last up to 40 miles in pedal-assist mode. Just imagine being able to ride for 1,000 miles for the cost of one gallon of gas. Or, as in our case, being able to cover the entire country on less than a $20 bill.

During our tour, we cycle anywhere from 50 to 110 miles per day. Due to the distance, we carry a few spare batteries to extend the range we can easily cover in a day. Unlike drivers of electric cars, we never have to worry about finding charging stations. Since the batteries are detachable and lightweight (under 8 pounds), we can easily park the bike for the night and bring the batteries indoors to plug them into a regular outlet. Of course, even if we use up our battery supply on a given day, we can always rely on pure human power and simply pedal.

We’ve set out on this trip to get more people on bikes and show them the technology that can make it easier. Cycling is a fantastic way to get around in your city – or even within your country – but we need to accept the fact that for many people, a regular bike can be difficult or impractical.

An electric bike removes barriers, thereby encouraging more people to explore a form of alternative transportation that is kinder to our environment. Not to mention that the potential health benefits are enormous. Our hope is that the $20 we spend to power our bikes through 4,000 miles on the tour will help get more people on bike saddles and out of their gas guzzlers.

To learn more about our 4,000-mile cross-country journey, we invite you to join us at www.TransAmericanElectricBikeTour.com. To find out more about the electric bikes we’re using for the tour, please visit www.EVELO.com.

Americans love a good game with lots of momentum and game-changing shifts. Who would have thunk — shale gas extraction is turning out to be one of the most exciting games in town.

The Original Natural Gas Game Changer

Over the last few years, horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing (a k a fracking) has taken the natural gas industry by storm, and been hailed widely as a “game changer” for America’s energy prospects. (See here, here, here and here.)

Why such a game-changer? Because suddenly the tons of natural gas trapped in impervious (a k a tight) shale formations right here under these United States, which until recently were considered economically unrecoverable, were now gettable. Suddenly, estimates of recoverable supplies shot upwards while natural gas prices began a long and steady decline.

Game Change #2: Enter the Environment

For a while fracking appeared to be an environmental boon as well as an energy and economic bonanza. After all, natural gas is the cleanest-burning fossil fuel both in terms of conventional pollutants and carbon dioxide (CO2).

But the bloom quickly faded from that flower. The fracking process generates air pollution, and the leakage of natural gas releases methane (a greenhouse gas many times more effective than CO2) into the atmosphere. Communities have been up in arms about traffic, accidents and trucks linked to fracking ops. (See here and here.)

But by far the greatest criticisms have involved water. Fracking requires the high-pressure injection of huge quantities of water, various (often unknown) chemicals and sand, and then the recovery and disposal of that so-called flowback water along with the briny formation (or produced) water. (More on fracking water.) At any number of points in the process, fracking fluids and/or recovered water can inadvertently — or not inadvertently, if dumped into local rivers or streams — contaminate local groundwater or drinking water.

Potential water contamination has made fracking very controversial. While the industry maintains the process is safe, movies like Gasland paint a very different picture — perhaps accurate, perhaps not. And while scientists study it to get a better answer, community and environmental advocacy groups have roundly condemned the process. Organized efforts have seen some success at halting and even banning (see here and here) the practice, but they have yet to put any real crimp on the drilling fever. (In fact many of the bans are symbolic or under review, such as two municipal bans in New York, whose moratorium on fracking is pending environmental review, and could be removed.)

Another Game Change: Economics

Although the overall number of new natural gas wells drilled annually has dropped off from a peak of more than 30,000 in 2008-2009, some areas (like the Barnett) have yet to peak [pdf].

But if anything has taken the wind out of the fracking industry’s sails it is their own success — with the supply of natural gas outstripping demand, natural gas prices have plummeted, making it difficult for frackers to turn a profit.

As a result, and with oil prices on the rise, some companies are shifting their fracking operations from shale to plays with natural gas liquids and unconventional oil (such as in North Dakota)

And Now Yet Another Game Changer: Hold the Water

Now comes what one energy exec, eCorp’s John Thrash, calls a new “game-changing technology.”

Initially developed by the Calgary-based GasFrac Energy Services as a way to nudge low-pressure wells, this new “game changer” works much like the original one with one important difference: it does not use water. With waterless fracking, a gel of liquefied petroleum gas (a mix of light hydrocarbons, primarily propane) is pumped at high pressure into the ground to fracture the shale and free the natural gas. Once the pressure is released, the LPG reverts to gas and can be vented, flared or captured for sale or reuse. (More details on the process can be found in this Powerpoint [pdf] produced by GasFrac.)

The no-added water aspect has two major environmental advantages:

• Water conservation: A typical frack injects tons of water, an LPG frack none.
• Lower risk of water contamination: Because fracking fluid is not injected into the well, the chances of water contamination are greatly reduced if not totally eliminated.

GasFrac cites a number of other advantages, including:

• no need to use biocides;
• reduced CO2 emissions since there is less need to flare production and clean up the traditional fracturing fluids (however, as noted below, flaring has been used in LPG fracked wells);
• fewer trucks needed to haul and dispose of fluids (because “the volume of propane required for an LPG frac job is about 20 to 25 per cent of the volume of water required for typical hydraulic fracturing” [pdf]); and
• no water to manage or dispose. (Note: GasFrac’s Powerpoint [pdf] implies that there is no need to dispose of produced water as well as introduced water. But since produced water comes from the geological formation itself, I am not so sure this is the case.)

GasFrac also claims that while LPG-fracking is somewhat more expensive than typical fracking, its wells are more productive. Unfortunately, specifics on that front are lacking due to, in the words of the company [pdf], “client confidentiality.”

Beyond literature from GasFrac itself, there’s not a whole lot of information out there about LPG fracking. That shouldn’t be all that surprising; the company is a mere four years old and justifiably wants to protect its proprietary methods and procedures. But that leaves a lot of questions about safety and efficacy unanswered, and if you’re a government official needing to give the go-ahead on LPG fracking, you’d want to have those answers. Case in point: drilling in Tioga County, New York.

GasFracing in the Empire State

GasFrac’s LPG method has been used in about 1,200 fracks on 400 wells, most in Canada but a few in the United States, including Colorado’s Niobrara Formation. (U.S. oil giant Chevron, for whom GasFrac’s chief technology officer worked while he developed the process, has also tested LPG fracking in Colorado’s Piceance Basin.)

The buzz about the process has slowly grown alongside GasFrac’s client base, helping the company grow “586 percent” [pdf] in just three years. But with that success dominated by Canadian plays, GasFrac is looking to expand into the U.S. market, and it has its sights on New York. First came a deal with the Houston-based energy company eCorp. Then came a tentative agreement with landowners in in Tioga County, New York, to develop 135,000 acres of Marcellus shale using LPG. The moves are significant because of New York’s fracking moratorium. The hope on the part of the landowners, GasFrac and eCorp is that using LPG instead of water-based fracking will allay environmental concerns enough to make an end run around the fracking ban possible.

But some environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and Riverkeepers, are not convinced waterless is clean and green. They have cited concerns about the continued reliance on toxic additives and the danger of explosions when using a flammable agent like propane (one case of which caused the company a three-week shutdown in January [pdf]). In a letter [pdf] to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, representatives of 16 environmental and flyfishing groups and a university urged the department to give “consideration to the unique hazards of LPG fracturing” and to conduct a thorough environmental review before permitting the process in the state.

Yogi Berra (and Lenny Kravitz) said “it ain’t over till it’s over,” and I suspect we’ve got quite a few more game changers before this fat lady sings.

The context of this competition is the same as that of Shell* Eco-marathon. The aim is to do a given number of laps, with an average speed of 30km/h (19 mph), and to use a minimum of energy! Our prototype was powered by a battery which allowed the electrical engine to spin the wheel. At the end of the race the jury measures the quantity of energy we used… Thus, with the energy of one liter of oil, we would have covered 10,017 km (6,224 miles)!

In other words, for those who are scientists, our prototype is able to cover 1136km (706 miles) with one kWh. That is 35 percent above the Eco-marathon world record (843kWh/km).

All right, 67 Euro ($86) for a return trip from Earth to the Moon is a striking figure, but what is the secret of the Polyjoule team? The answer is not found in a technical aspect, but in the human aspect of passion.

Let’s move backward, 30 years ago. Philippe Maindru is a fresh new engineer in mechanical automobiles who always wanted to teach. He finds his place in the technical school La Joliverie, in Saint-Sébastien-sur-Loire, France, and with other new engineers they form an over-motivated pedagogic team. This is at this moment that the elder brother of Polyjoule, Microjoule, was born. We are in 1985 when the first Microjoule thermal engine prototype, named Le P’tit Joule, went to Eco marathon.

The first prototype, Le P'tit Joule

The first result sounds promising: 400 km (249 miles) with one liter of fuel. At this moment it is already a world record… This is the start of a great adventure: every year more and more students and professionals are involved in the project. The work is colossal; sometimes students and professionals are working till midnight, but the technical challenge and the thrill of the competition motivate the team most of all. This energetic excellence is nothing but a work on each detail of the prototype. This requires a complete knowledge of the mechanics and of the physical phenomena (friction, aerodynamics, combustion etc.). Everywhere we were able to save a watt of energy, we saved it!

Thus the race for the economical mobility is on. In 25 years, across the circuits of Castellet, (France), Silverstone (UK), Rockingham (UK), Suzuka (Japan), and Lausitz (Germany), Microjoule won 35 first places and seven world records. Before each competition the topology of the circuit is studied so as to build the race strategy: the fundamental question is “which speed and where?” This way, year after year, Microjoule gets a unique know-how.

Microjoule prototype

In 2003 the Microjoule fever was about to spread to a new school: the engineering school Polytech Nantes. Jean-Charles Boulerie, who was a student in the technical school La Joliverie and was involved in Microjoule, enters in Polytech Nantes. He suggests that we should duplicate prototype Microjoule, and replace the thermal engine with a fuel cell stack. This way we could benefit with the perfect mechanics and use a cleaner propulsion system. The Polyjoule project was born. Now it is three main centers which are working together: the Electronic and Thermal (hydrogen) centre in Polytech Nantes, and the Mechanics centre in La Joliverie. Once again the synergy leads to success: 3 first places at Eco marathon in the hydrogen prototype category since 2005. Our key figure was established in 2011 on the Lausitz circuit with 5136 km (3191 miles) with the equivalent energy of one liter of oil.

Microjoule on the left and Polyjoule on the right

This year the Polyjoule prototype participated for the first time in competition before Eco-marathon so as to prepare the pilot, Marie Maille. That is the reason why we decided to simply power our prototype with a battery instead of our fuel cell stack. This way the system is simpler and we could focus on the strategy and get experience for Eco-marathon.

At the end of this prior competition, our pilot was ready and the mechanics and electric circuitry were tested. This was a really important stage before Eco-marathon, which relocated this year in Rotterdam, Netherlands, with a more complex circuit!

This week we prepared the last technical aspects and focused on the race strategy. The Eco adventure will start on Monday for a competition from May, 17 to 19!

*Shell is sponsor of the Great Energy Challenge initiative. National Geographic retains autonomy over content.

In the First World, massive municipal facilities collect, filter and treat water so that it’s safe to drink. The infrastructure and energy required by these facilities is decades away from being a reality in the developing world. That’s why Pang Teh Say Chun, an industrial designer living in Australia, designed a portable water filtration system that solves both problems at once.

The Skoon is designed to be carried like a backpack, with an ergonomic frame and straps that distribute weight evenly onto ones shoulders and waist. This is much better than the 5-gallon plastic buckets and jugs that many Africans use to carry water on their heads.

The device features a plastic-sand filter, which uses a float sink system to clean the filter medium without accessing it. It also incorporates a light bending panel that’s designed to bend and focus sunlight into the water container for a more efficient solar disinfection process.

Users will fill the flexible water collecting bag from their usual water source. Once full, the bag is connected to the filtration device via a hose. Pressure is applied by pressing, sitting, or kneeling on the bag (sounds like the part kids will want to help with!) and the water is forced up through the hose and into the sand filter.

– Beth Buczynski

This post originally appeared at EarthTechling and was republished with permission.

If approved, construction on the pipeline could happen in early 2013, with oil flowing as soon as 2014, according to The Canadian Press.

That same day, the Obama administration issued a proposed rule requiring companies drilling for natural gas on federal and tribal lands to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. While the rules also set standards for proper construction of wells and wastewater disposal, disclosure of the chemicals used in the “fracking” process would not have to be reported until after work is complete. The regulations, which could go into effect by the end of the year, spurred debate among environmentalists, industry and lawmakers—with some saying the rules didn’t go far enough. Others highlighted the “toughest” provisions, which require tests of wells’ physical integrity and expand the scope of water protected from drilling—but pointed out the rules “only apply to a sliver of the nation’s natural gas supply.”

Gas prices have continued a steady decline the last five weeks, causing the Energy Information Administration (EIA) to revise forecasts for the summer—predicting motorists will spend $10.7 billion less than previously estimated.

Heartland Institute Pulls Controversial Billboards

The Heartland Institute made headlines again recently for suggesting—in billboard ads—that only terrorists believe in manmade global warming. The failed campaign attacking the existence of climate change prompted a firestorm of criticism and recalled another kerfuffle involving the Institute earlier this year. Reactions to the campaign caused the Institute to announce removal of the billboards after being up just 24 hours. Even after they were removed, some donors pulled funding for the Heartland Institute, but others weren’t so quick to cut their ties with the organization.

A new study focuses blame for warming on another species entirely. It links methane emissions from dinosaurs, the sauropod specifically, to climate change and a warmer Mesozoic era. Like the dinosaurs before them, modern-day methane emitters such as cows and sheep are being studied to determine how the methane they emit could be contributing to warming. Regardless, according to the study, emissions from dinosaurs were far larger than those of our modern-day plant-eating animals, and in fact may have equaled all modern methane emissions—both natural and manmade.

New data sheds li­ght on the speed of melting glaciers, and how their changes affect sea levels. Greenland’s ocean-bound glaciers accelerated by an average of 30 percent from 2000 to 2011—not quite as quickly had been estimated in previous worst-case scenarios, but still a cause for concern.

The Rise and Fall of Renewables

While a solar-powered boat was circumnavigating the world, on land the U.S. activated the first solar power project on federal land near Las Vegas. Meanwhile, residential solar leasing is taking off, Motley Fool reported. And in the next five years, the world’s solar power generating capacity is predicted to grow more than 200 percent, although public support for green energy initiatives has dropped recently.

Japan may be taking steps toward renewable energy after taking its last nuclear reactor off line last week. The move left the country without nuclear power for the first time since 1970. But MSNBC insisted renewables wouldn’t bring immediate relief, as only 10 percent of Japan’s power generation currently comes from renewables. Saudi Arabia is exploring whether it can generate a third of its electricity by way of solar power.

In the U.S., the renewable winner may not be necessarily who you think, according to the Washington Post. The EIA now has a map showing a large uptick in renewables between 2001 and 2011. This surge in renewables can largely be attributed to state renewable portfolio standards requiring utilities to obtain a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, federal production tax credits and stimulus grants. The stimulus grants have expired; the tax credit for wind will expire at the end of 2012. The Guardian reports there is an effort underway by conservative think tanks in the U.S. to eliminate all government programs aimed at promoting the use of renewables.

The Climate Post offers a rundown of the week in climate and energy news. It is produced for National Geographic’s News Watch each Thursday by Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions.

(Related Story: One Year After Fukushima, Japan Faces Shortages of Energy, Trust)

The Saitama house is a test platform for the Honda Smart Home System (HSHS), which the company  says is designed to allow users to secure their own supply of energy for living and mobility during an emergency.

Centered around a Smart e Mix Manager — an all-inclusive energy management system which optimizes all the home’s power sources — the HSHS cuts residential carbon dioxide emissions during normal operations. It also provides a fallback position when the grid goes down. Eventually, Honda hopes to use the information from this demo to work with customers to create a total home energy management system.

(Related Photos: A New Hub for Solar Tech Blooms in Japan)

The HSHS also capitalizes on an emerging market of electric vehicles (EVs), tying Honda‘s Japan-only Internavi navigation system with the home’s Smart e Mix Manager to determine the best times to charge EVs to prevent additional CO2 emissions from being generated and also allow you to control home appliances and such.

(Related Photos: The Nuclear Cleanup Struggle at Fukushima)

The Smart e Mix Manager simultaneously analyzes and controls home energy use to deliver low-CO2 energy by calibrating the cost, in real time, of the various power sources feeding into the home. Of course, homeowners can also control energy use by accessing the Manager’s display of usage monitors for each energy device and adjusting the various inputs either directly or remotely via wireless LAN, the Internavi system, or a smart phone. Down the road a few generations, we might even expect to see a plug-in that reminds homeowners when to take out the trash, take their medicine, or even check their Facebook page for updates. Uber cool!

– Jeanne Roberts

This post originally appeared at EarthTechling and has been republished with permission.

Republican lawmakers tried to expedite the TransCanada pipeline extension’s approval this week, attempting to link the project to transportation legislation.

“This is a jobs and infrastructure bill,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, reported Bloomberg. “Keystone is the ultimate jobs and infrastructure project.”

While the company and its supporters argue that the route in its new application to the State Department is environmentally friendly and would create thousands of jobs, critics still don’t like it, saying it still threatens the same areas.

TransCanada’s previous application for Keystone XL, which would carry oil from western Canada to Nebraska and on to the Gulf Coast, was rejected by President Barack Obama in January. The decision has to go through the State Department because the pipeline crosses an international border.

(Related Photos: Animals That Blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline’s Path)

Although much of the 1,661-mile Keystone pipeline has been approved, the portion that crossed the Sandhills of Nebraska was not approved because of concerns over the risk to the environmentally sensitive grasslands. Also at issue is the underlying Ogallala aquifer, one of the largest in North America, which provides drinking water to about 2 million people in Nebraska and seven other states. This week, TransCanada resubmitted its application with a proposed alternative route that veers to the east of the Sandhills. The pipeline would still cross the aquifer.

“Our application for a Presidential Permit builds on more than three years of environmental review already conducted for Keystone XL,” said Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and CEO, in a news release. “It was the most comprehensive process ever for a cross-border pipeline and that work should allow our cross border permit to be processed expeditiously and a decision made once a new route in Nebraska is determined.”

But that has not been enough for the groups who oppose Keystone XL.

“The company’s ‘new’ application is nothing but a rehash, riddled with the same environmental risks that raise the same unanswered questions while providing no new rationale for why it should be built,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council in a statement.

The Nebraska group Stop Dirty Tar Sands agreed.

“Despite promises to the contrary, the proposed pipeline route still goes through the sensitive Sandhills region, threatens the Ogallala aquifer, undermines American energy security, and does nothing to ensure that the dangerous impact of tar sands will be limited or their impact on climate mitigated,” it said, according to Environment News Service.

But at least one high profile Nebraskan said he supports the pipeline extension. When asked about it this week, Warren Buffett said, “I’m not an expert, but it generally sounds like it makes sense.”

The controversial project must also go through a state review in Nebraska, which is expected to take six to nine months.

(Related: Is Canadian Oil Bound for China Via Pipeline to Texas?)

(Related Photos: Amazing Transportation Inventions)

On Monday, the state agency revealed a red license plate marked with an infinity symbol for Google’s self-driving Prius and announced plans to formally present the license on May 23. This futuristic, modified hybrid uses GPS, artificial intelligence, cameras, and sensors to navigate the Las Vegas Strip, desert highways, and other public roadways without help from human occupants.

Like a learner’s permit for teenage drivers, however, the license has limits. Two licensed drivers are required to be in the vehicle at all times, including one behind the wheel. Other requirements for the license include proof of at least 10,000 miles traveled in autonomous mode, and the purchase of a $100,000 surety bond (or a cash deposit), which is good for up to five test vehicles.

Google has been testing its driverless cars for years in both California and Nevada, logging more than 250,000 miles with a fleet of about 10 cars. And while Google was the first to apply for the Nevada license, it is not the only company developing auto-pilot technology. According to the Nevada DMV, unnamed automakers have “indicated their desire to test and develop autonomous technology in Nevada in the future.”

General Motors, for example, is testing a system called Super Cruise, which uses radar, ultrasonic sensors, GPS map data, and cameras to detect curves in the road and automate steering, braking, lane-centering, and other functions.

And German automotive supplier Continental Automotive Group announced in March that it had completed a two-week endurance test in Nevada covering more than 6,000 miles of “highly automated driving on public roads.” In the tests, a modified VW Passat relied on a system programmed to switch off and revert to driver control if road markings could not be detected or if bends in the road were deemed too tight. If a driver failed to react, the system would slow the car to a stop.

Google itself does not plan to enter the business of building cars. As the company’s Anthony Levandowski told reporters at the recent SAE World Congress last month in Detroit, “All options are open,” from giving the technology away to working with automotive suppliers or car makers. “We’re trying to figure out which paths make the most sense.”

This type of transportation innovation lies at the intersection of two industries with dramatically different development cycles. In the auto industry, a typical car takes years to go from concept to commercial production. In software, engineers are often urged to launch early (in a matter of weeks or months) and iterate often.

(Related: Smarter Trucking Saves Fuel Over the Long Haul)

Driverless cars also exist in something of a legal gray area. Historically, states have been responsible for regulating their drivers, while vehicle design issues have been regulated at the federal level, said Bryant Walker Smith, a resident fellow at the Center for Automotive Research and the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University. “When you have a vehicle design that mimics a driver, it’s not clear who should be taking the lead,” he said in a telephone interview.

Caution and forward thinking are warranted as we shift from what Smith described as “a world where drivers make decisions and are generally held liable for those decisions, to a world where those decisions are being made by cars.” Americans drove nearly 3 trillion miles in 2011. At that scale, Smith said, “If there’s something that can happen, it will. If there’s some bizarre, completely unexpected situation, it will happen.”

Nevada is already looking ahead to a time when manufacturers will make self-driving cars available to the public, noting in its announcement this week that those future cars will receive green plates marked with infinity symbols. “We’re probably not at the point yet where someone could build a car in their garage that could drive itself,” said Smith, “but we could be in the future.”

At this point, the cost of components alone—in the range of $100,000 to $200,000—creates a barrier to such tinkering. And that doesn’t even account for the resources required to create detailed maps of the routes a self-driving car would follow, and write the complex code that allows a car to recognize pedestrians and traffic signals, Smith said.

“For the last 40 years or so, people have said autonomous vehicles were 20 years away,” said Smith. “Now people are saying that they’re 10 years away.” A decade from now, will these futuristic vehicles still be 10 years away? Smith said he has reason to be optimistic. After all, commercially available vehicles already automate certain functions, such as lane departure and object detection; and new trucking technology can monitor and automate certain driving functions for maximum fuel efficiency.

Yet elements of automation here and there are a far cry from a fully driverless car that does not require human supervision. For Smith, when the day comes that an automaker puts “an ad on TV that shows the would-be driver of the vehicle asleep or on her iPad, when they’re willing to make the statement publicly that the driver does not need to pay attention—I think that would be a truly watershed moment.”

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