The authors suggest that a rapidly evolving technical to manage hydrates is to heat the pipes that carry the hydrocarbons to the surface, either through electric heaters or by circulating hot water around the outside of the pipe.

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The material also contains negatively charged ions, which can be moved with electric pulses to different parts of the surface.

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That surface wave, in turn, produces another electric signal, which is emitted via the transducer.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

Supercapacitors have a big internal surface-area that allows a large amount of energy to be delivered rapidly and are used in some electric cars to provide a short burst of power for rapid acceleration and in hybrids to recover energy during braking.

ECONOMIST: Carbon-composite batteries