Tim Halbur

Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, will be the President-Elect's pick for Secretary of Energy, and Carol Browner (formerly head of the EPA) will take on the newly created role of Energy Czar.

In Abu Dhabi, medians and 'leftover spaces' are attracting unanticipated users playing soccer, exercising or just hanging out. Planners are grappling with why people use these spaces and the public parks they've designed are less successful.

The plan: 200 luxury homes on Molokai's waterfront, in exchange for jobs and preserving thousands of acres of land. Locals fought the compromise, and the economic shift brought an abrupt halt to the project- dragging other businesses down with it.

Methane gas hydrates are flammable ice crystals packed with hydrocarbons. Until recently, it was too expensive to recover the fuel trapped in the ice, but new technology and demand are opening up possibilities.

For decades, development in Maine sprawled away from cities and across the landscape. The flailing economy may be the only thing that can change the pattern.