But researchers think its origins lie further down the food chain - in plants, small mammals or insects.
But regulators still tend to imagine that power will flow in one direction only: from big plants to small consumers.
Plants are small, reflecting the scattered pattern of farms, and their condition is deteriorating, because the state cannot muster the necessary investment.
With the abolition of many controls, old uneconomic plants, especially small units, are being replaced by ones that are more competitive.
I'm not alone, judging from the swarms of poker-faced gardeners I've spotted at some nurseries loading up their cars with almost laughably small plants, especially the alpines that flourish in hypertufa.
There is enough empirical research documenting the safety of nuclear power plants to fill several small libraries.
Solution: small power plants built quickly and rented out to federal power authorities.
So ChemStation set up several small reconstitution plants, says George Homan, its president.
American Electric Power, for instance, focuses more on coal, while Exelon plans on closing two of its small coal plants, Rowe notes.
But biomass plants tend to be small, less than 100 megawatts each.
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To ease the bottlenecks, they should follow the recent move by New York state to facilitate access to the grid for small micropower plants.
These are just the kind of plants used by the small-and medium-sized businesses that have been the engine of much of China's recent growth.
If that's the case it could save the dozens of small coal plants that now look sure to close as clean air rules tighten over the next several years.
The California Shark Protection Act would force retail shops, restaurants and small processing plants to deplete their entire stock of shark fins by the end of 2012, according to McClatchy.
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Hirs et al conclude utilities are most likely to scrap small coal plants representing about 60GW and another 72GW of plants that are more than 40 years old and thus fully depreciated.
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You wouldn't immediately think of the ear's cochlea as an energy source, but MIT knows that every mammal effectively has a pair of very small power plants because of the ionized environment.
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Energy resources that can be harvested in space for the benefit of Earth include helium-3 that occurs in abundance on both the Moon and asteroids and is ideal for new small fusion plants, as well as solar energy that can be collected and transmitted in concentrated form to Earth.
Maine sends much of its lobster to Canada for processing each year, mainly due to its small number of plants.
As a general rule of thumb, small pictures, plants and colorful desk accessories (see these from Target) are a tasteful way of representing yourself in the workplace.
To get around the problem, a small number of plants have evolved a way to enrich the carbon-dioxide concentration around the rubisco enzyme, and to suppress the oxygen concentration.
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Micropower technologies, ranging from fuel cells to microturbines to small natural-gas plants, are taking off.
The panelists expect new nuclear plants to take the form of small modular reactors and, eventually, fast breeder reactors.
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It also recommends individuals who grow a small number of cannabis plants should be treated leniently, to undermine organised crime networks that produce stronger types of cannabis.
If you fall in love with some water-sucking plants, limit them to a small area where they will have the biggest impact or you can enjoy them most.
This will help small businesses upgrade their plants and equipment, and will encourage large corporations to get off the sidelines and start putting their profits to work in our economy.
Under Babar's tutelage the Punjab government is installing several small hydro and solar power plants.
In some places, current technology for small, compact wastewater treatment plants has improved, offering advantages over larger, centralized systems.
The local business operates from about 133 service centres in 31 countries and rents out products ranging from small generators to large cooling plants.
Robots are getting better at co-operating with each other: in some car plants a big robot now lifts a small one inside the vehicle to assemble components.
Their goal is to create small-scale and modular GTL systems both on- and offshore to take advantage of a wide range of gas resources that are by themselves too small for larger multibillion GTL plants.
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