Nearby, the Battersea power station stood empty for 30 years.

WSJ: London's Riverside Housing Boom

The airspace was empty and trains left idle in station sidings.

FORBES: Europe's Strikers Make G-20 Protesters Look Like Sissies

Such materials could be used to make hydrogen cartridges that would slot into fuel-cell cars, making refuelling as simple as pulling into a filling station and swapping an empty cartridge for a full one.

ECONOMIST: Space-age soot

The long corridor, with the nurses' station between the wards, was empty at dawn, too early for the smell of breakfast, for the morning nursing staff to click up and down the corridors with trays of thermometers and medicines, even for the bedpans, which were my responsibility.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Warm Springs'

"I walked right in, there were even empty polling booths, " the voter said of his church polling station.

CNN: Movie star among voters running into problems

Aside from the sheer inconvenience of having to call for assistance or hike to the nearest gas station (and hope they have a fuel container available), suddenly hitting empty can put a driver and passengers in peril.

FORBES: Gas Prices Too High? Don't Put Off a Fill-Up!

When completely empty it takes a maximum of eight hours to fully charge the battery at a household socket or charging station on the electricity systems of most countries i.e. overnight.

ENGADGET: Third generation Smart Fortwo ditches Tesla powertrain, gains two wheeled cousin