A growing number of industries turning their eyes to the vast real estate in the U.S.' deep offshore waters — a region that may soon become a busy, crowded place. But balancing commercial and environmental interests in those waters may require regulatory oversight that does not yet exist.

In 1983, the erstwhile surface mine Gateway Hill, part of Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands Deposit, resembled a pockmarked, barren moonscape. Today, after years of reclamation effort, Gateway Hill is thickly forested and filled with wildlife — and as the first oil sands mine site to be certified by the government to be at pre-mine condition, it is a model for new and ongoing reclamation projects.

Inexpensive, abundant and relatively clean: EARTH commenter and Stanford geophysicist Mark Zoback makes the case for natural gas to become a key part of U.S. energy policy.

Buried beneath Alaska’s North Slope are an estimated 17 trillion cubic meters of frozen methane, or natural gas. Getting the gas out of the reservoirs poses technical problems and serious risks — but a new approach that proposes to pump carbon dioxide in to replace the methane could help to solve two looming problems.

Energy, climate change mitigation and healthcare reform grabbed most of the U.S. policy headlines in 2009. But a few other policy gems  — for example, human spaceflight, renewable energy projects on public lands, mining reform and natural hazards — have started coalescing in Congress. EARTH contributor Corina Cerovski-Darriau outlines some of the less high-profile topics we can expect to see debated in 2010.

The biggest change in tomorrow's agriculture will be one of mindset: It must become an industry closely connected to energy, environment, health, global security and economic prosperity, says EARTH regular contributor George A. Seielstad in this comment.

With the future of energy so uncertain, only a fool would boldly make predictions, according to EARTH regular contributor Michael E. Webber. So here, he gives his "fool's take" on the future of energy.

For our end-of-year issue, EARTH asked several of its regular contributors to look into their crystal balls and anticipate what will happen in the future in their various fields. In this comment, Rasoul Sorkhabi gives his take on the energy scenario for 2010, both in the United States and around the world.

The Department of Defense is the world’s largest energy consumer and a leader in energy research and development. If the department can find a low-carbon, domestic source of energy, it will also go a long way toward solving the world’s energy challenges.

Smart grid technology aims to make America's electrical system cleaner, more efficient and more reliable.

Vessels that desalinate and store potable water could become a mobile, environmentally-friendly way to speedily distribute water to regions struck by a natural disaster, infrastructure failure or terrorist attack.

When burned, coal releases more carbon dioxide than any other fossil fuel — but the world's growing demand for electricity means more coal will likely be burned in the near future, not less. Coal-fired power plants that capture their carbon dioxide emissions and permanently store them underground, however, may drastically reduce their impact on the global climate.

How the new administration's policymakers treat energy research and development will be telling: If they’re smart, say commenters Alix Broadfoot and Michael Webber, they’ll avoid earmarks.

Despite all of our efforts to date, no domestic, sustainable, scalable, affordable and environmentally friendly alternative for transportation fuels has emerged. Is it time to give coal-to-liquids a chance?