Ok, for some reason this struck me as a bit…. odd. Diesel from dead cats? I just had to share it with you, since we’re Heaving Dead Cats around here on a regular basis. Now we can save money, heave dead cats and make fuel! Woot!

Dr Christian Koch, 55, from Kleinhartmannsdorf, has a special method for turning household garbage into biodiesel. This leads me to believe you can make biodiesel out of just about anything.

So, his method involves heating stuff like old tires, paper, motor oil, plastic, dead cats, just about anything, to 300 degrees Celsius. Then the hydrocarbons go through a catalytic converter.

Now I’ll know what to do with all those dead cats in my freezer! (JUST KIDDING)

Found Here and Here.

In a giant leap for clean energy, MIT professor Daniel Nocera and his team, have developed a simple method to split water molecules and produce oxygen gas. This paves the way for large scale use of solar power.

Getting energy from the sun isn’t the hard part, it seems. It’s storing that energy that has been a problem.

These guys at MIT were inspired by how plants perform photosynthesis. Their revolutionary method uses abundant, non-toxic natural materials.

I won’t get into all the details, but I just wanted to share it with you because it seems pretty important and wonderful.

Here’s a link to MIT where they have a video of Daniel Nocera describing the new process and a lot more details.

This is just the beginning though. It’s still not really cost effective, but other scientists will be able to run with it and we’ll see where it all leads us in the near future.

Nocera hopes that within 10 years, we’ll be able to power our homes in daylight through photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen to power our own household fuel cell.

Of course, the power companies will not like this. But hopefully it will all happen anyway.

How about a self contained living river ecosystem in your living room? I love the idea of combining art into something practical, useful and also great for the environment, so this really fits the bill. Read more…