Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel; Anheuser-Busch Taps Landfill Gas for Houston Brewery; LED clock munches bugs and converts carcasses into energy; Storing Hydrogen Using Chicken Feathers; Toyota Prius vs. VW Clean Diesel

Turning Carbon Dioxide Into Fuel. Scientists have been trying for years to find a non-food source for ethanol. A company in Bonita Springs, Florida, Algenol Biofuels, thinks it has found one, with the added benefit of getting twice as much work out of each molecule of carbon dioxide added to the atmosphere.

Anheuser-Busch Taps Landfill Gas for Houston Brewery. Their brewery in Houston is going to use landfill gases to help generate steam energy, which they hope will supply more than 55% of their power needs. Another reason to have a Bud!

LED clock munches bugs and converts carcasses into energy. Part flycatcher, part timepiece, the gizmo harvests insects on a sticky roller covered in flypaper, before dropping the corpses into a microbial fuel cell. The dead bug is then digested by the bacteria within, and the chemical changes are used by the cell to power the clock.

Storing Hydrogen Using Chicken Feathers. Since automobile manufacturers are having trouble coming up with better ways to store hydrogen for use as fuel, you knew they were going to try anything they could think of…and they did indeed here using chicken feathers! The secret of chicken feathers as a hydrogen storage material is in the microscopic level–keratin, which makes up the feathers, is a naturally-occurring protein that forms strong and hollow tubes.

Vroom per Gallon: Toyota Prius vs. VW Clean Diesel. Finally, a diesel in the US like the ones they have had in Europe for many years! But is it better than the Toyota Prius? Click through to see what the author thinks…