Study Reveals the Potentially Large Influences of Fungi, One of the Most Biologically Diverse Classes of Organisms, On Our Energy Supplies
A new study which includes the first large-scale comparison of fungi that cause rot decay suggests that the evolution of a type of fungi known as white rot may have brought an end to a 60-million-year-long period of coal deposition known as the Carboniferous period. Coal deposits that accumulated during the Carboniferous, which ended about 300 million years ago, have historically fueled about 50 percent of U.S. electric power generation.
The report, Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resources: Assessing Biofuels, presented by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on 16 October 2009 is based on a detailed review of published research up to mid-2009 as well as the input of independent experts world-wide.
Researchers have made a breakthrough in the development of "green gasoline," a liquid identical to standard gasoline yet created from sustainable biomass sources like switchgrass and poplar trees.
The world’s car makers are racing each other to produce powerful new models that run on ethanol-based fuels for the booming Swedish market.