Two Japanese companies have come up with alternative ways to get hydrogen for fuel cells – one from dough and the other from human waste.

Kajima suggests microbes can created hydrogen from human waste. A prototype has alread been created that generated 130W from a cubic meter of waste. Commercially available by about 2020.

Not sure what she is holding there...

Sapporo Breweries, the beer maker, thinks microbes can decompose waste dough at bakery factories and generate hydrogen. hydrogen from excess cookie dough!? The brewery wants to sell its idea to food-processing plants some time next year. After that, to homes that could use their waste could follow. 25K liters of hydrogen from 125kg of waste.

I don’t know about you, but when I make cookies, I like to eat some of the dough. I hope somebody doesn’t get confused when making hydrogen from cookie dough and human waste and put their fingers in the wrong pile.

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China wants its car makers to develop smaller, fuel-efficient models NOT the gas guzzlers that the US Big Three produced despite all the warnings to the contrary.

“We used to believe medium-sized cars would have the biggest market in China, but actually small cars have the greatest potential in terms of energy efficiency and price,” said a senior engineer  of the Society of Automotive Engineers of China.

While Americans kept producing gas hogs, Japan quietly went about its business gaining a stronghold appealing to the fuel-conscious consumer.

Toyota expanded its presence in the US with cheap fuel efficient cars back during the 70s crude oil crisis…and never looked back. Now that prices have dropped back down, chances are America will keep driving their cows around while this time, China ALSO gains a foothold.

Chinese still want midsized sedans. In ‘06-’07 sales for small compact cars dipped while the sedan sales went up 20%.  But, that will change….or will it?

Taotao is just ten months old. He has a sad story. His mama left him when he was a little guy, much like Knut in German, except that Taotao is in China.

Taotao’s keepers smeared polar bear urine and crap all over themselves so that Taotao would be fooled and let them help him. It worked. Taotao eventually sucked the fingers of his keepers, as opposed to other areas. He let them nurse him and he grew.

Taotao eventually grew from just several hundred grams to 35kg. Taotao now has his own private swimming pool and is growing. His favorite books are when keepers read global warming horror stories to him.

Keepers theorize that Taotao’s mother abandoned him because she was too young when he was born.

Taotao survived, however. Little guys who grow against the odds give us hope, no?

Since old mosquitoes spread diseases, Aussie researchers have been pondering what to do. The conclusion…have the buggers die sooner, without killing them or poisoning them, of course. That won’t work as the PETA mosquito bunch will be all over us, um, them.

Scientists have been trying genetically engineer mosquitoes to become resistant to malaria and dengue fever and such as an alternative to mass spraying of insecticide.

Just recently, researchers have discovered a way to breed mosquitoes to carry an insect parasite that will cause them to die sooner. Mosquitoes born with the parasite lived only 21 days instead of the usual 50 days…not long enough to encounter malaria and endure two weeks of incubation before the bug can spread the disease.

The plan is to somehow let the parasite grow more rapidly, attach to mosquitoes that carry diseases and have the mosquitoes die younger before they can infect anyone.

I don’t know about you, but it seems pretty naive to me to think that somebody thinks they can control the rampant setting free of parasites to kill bugs that are intent on causing diseases.

Because of time zones, the New Year’s Eve may have passed or it’s not there yet. We’d like to wish you to have the best year ever, to stay healthy and be better stewards to Mother Earth. Meanwhile, what’s your New Year’s Resolution? Is there any green “inside”?

Happy New Year 2009!

Alex & Bill

Image by M Kuhn