In fact, according to the US Energy Information Administration, global coal consumption was at about eight billion short tons in 2012 (around 7.2 billion tonnes), the most recent year for which the agency provides statistics. So if coal isn't going away any time soon, what is there to do about the fuel source that is often blamed for pollution and global warming due to carbon emissions? Make it more efficient. And that's exactly what a new hybrid energy system out of MIT could do.

According to MIT News, conventional coal-burning power plants only convert 30 percent of the energy contained in coal to electricity. That's a pretty low efficiency rate. A new system that combines two existing technologies — coal gasification and fuel cells — could up that rate to between 55 and 60 percent, in effect halving the amount of carbon dioxide produced for producing the same amount of energy using today's methods.