Car batteries are filled with acid and can give off hazardous hydrogen gas if mishandled.

FORBES: What To Do If Your Car Won't Start In Cold Weather

Rising floodwaters bring debris, hazardous waste and gas leaks, and force snakes or other potentially dangerous animals from their habitats and into residential areas.

CNN: Mississippi governor urges caution as river crests

The accident helped prompt a national debate over the adequacy of federal regulations for the nation's sprawling, 2.6-million-mile network of gas and hazardous liquid pipelines.

NPR: APNewsBreak: $1.7M Penalty Proposed In Exxon Spill

While the International Air Transport Administration also considers compressed gas cylinders hazardous in general, the body approves of the avalanche-specific canisters for either checked or carry-on luggage, thereby making the US the only country in the world to prohibit them. (Passengers outside the US are, however, required to inform the airline before their flight that they will be transporting the system).

BBC: The ski gear that could save lives

Their maps detailed road conditions, power outages, underground gas storage, and facilities with hazardous materials.

CNN: 'Geocoding' used to locate Katrina survivors

These creatures, now called anammox bacteria, transform caustic and hazardous ammonium into dinitrogen, the harmless nitrogen gas that makes up 78% of the air we breathe.

FORBES: Magazine Article

While solar is a far less polluting energy source than coal or natural gas, many panel makers are nevertheless grappling with a hazardous waste problem.

NPR: Solar Industry Grapples With Hazardous Wastes

During fracking, large volumes of water, along with sand and hazardous chemicals, are injected into the ground to break rock apart and free the oil and gas.

WSJ: Fracking coalition upsets both greens and drillers

Energy derived from natural gas and coal-fired power plants, for example, creates more than 10 times more hazardous waste than the same energy created by a solar panel, according to Mulvaney.

NPR: Solar Industry Grapples With Hazardous Wastes