Foster’s is teaming up with scientists at the University of Queensland to convert beer wastewater into energy. They will be building a “fuel cell” powered by bacteria. The bacteria will consume the beer wastewater, which is ripe with all sorts of good stuff: sugar, starch, and alcohol.
The cell will convert the chemical energy into electrical energy. Don’t get too excited, they are talking about a cell that can generate 2 kW of power, enough to only power one home.
Why don’t they take it one step farther? Might as …

As reported in the New York Times, a New Zealand company, Lanza Tech, has developed a fermentation process to convert CO to EtOH via bacteria. The intriguing piece? CO is a large waste product from steel manufacturers and other industries. Per ton of steel, a half ton of CO is generated. There is a potential for 50 billion gallons of ethanol production using this methodology. Emphasis on potential.
The funding for Lanza Tech is coming from Vinod Kholsa, co-found of Sun Microsystems. A conversation with Mr. Kholsa can be read here. …

Ethanol is touted as the short term fuel of the future…the clean burning biofuel. A new study calls into question the potential benefits of switching to ethanol, specifically E85 gasoline (85% EtOH, 15% gasoline).
Mark Jacobson, an environmental engineering professor at Stanford, published a study in the journal Environmental Science and Technology detailing possible health effects including cancer by 2020.
Note: The study was based on corn based ethanol usage for its determination of total carbon output.
The carcinogens of biggest concern from gasoline are benzene and butadiene. With E85, these are …