Power Plant Converts Fruit and Veggie Waste Into Natural Gas For Cars 118
Zothecula writes "Some readers might remember the Mr. Fusion unit in Back to the Future that Doc Brown fills with household garbage, including a banana peel and some beer, to power the iconic time-traveling DeLorean. While we're still some way from such direct means of running our cars on table scraps, researchers at Fraunhofer have developed a pilot plant that ferments the waste from wholesale fruit and veg markets, cafeterias and canteens to make methane, which can be used to power vehicles."
Land fill methane (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Expand it to cover more fuel sources. (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't know how common it is, but a lot of the produce that isn't sold in my local market is donated to local animal shelters. And yes, many consumers prefer the artificially colored/waxed/preserved stuff that is so much prettier than the rest, but I can't believe there's anything like 40% "waste".
Re:Good idea, expand it to cover more fule sources (Score:4, Interesting)
Does it rot in the field, providing fertilizer for the next generation of crops and thus reducing the overall costs due to the fact so much artificial fertilizer doesn't need to be used? It isn't waste if it is actually being used for something.
Yes. The stalks, top leafs, roots, unripe or spoiled produce becomes food for the next crop, usually some other crop in a rotation. There's a lot of science behind this, too, as some crops enrich the soil, f'risnstance with Nitrogen, for the next crop which is more dependent upon it (usually something leafy) as an example.