Decomposing bananas could power Aussie homes

[Khephra]

Australian engineers have created an electricity generator fuelled by decomposing bananas, and hope to build a full size fruit-fired power station.

At present, much of Australia's annual banana crop goes to waste, because the fruit are too bruised or small.

But rather than just letting them rot, the researchers would like to put the rejects to good commercial use.

If all goes according to plan, a banana-fuelled power plant capable of powering 500 homes could be built.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3604666.stm

[OneBlueSky]

1. yeah, well . . . maybe not for long . . .

Defenceless banana 'will be extinct in 10 years'
By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent
The Daily Telegraph
January 16, 2003

http://millennium-debate.org/tel16jan03.htm

Buy your bananas now. Scientists warn today that the world's favourite fruit could be extinct within 10 years because it is unable to fight off a rampaging plague of pests and disease.

Emile Frison, head of a worldwide network of banana researchers, warned that the world's favourite fruit was at crisis point, with yields in decline in much of Africa, Asia and central America.

He and other scientists warned that the regions most dependent on the banana, relying on the fruit for up to half their daily calories, are facing the tropical equivalent of the Irish potato famine.

The doomed banana's Achilles heel is that it is a genetically decrepit sterile mutant. One of the oldest crops, the first edible variety was propagated around 10,000 years ago from a rare mutant of the wild banana, which, with a mass of hard seeds, is virtually inedible.

- more . . .

http://millennium-debate.org/tel16jan03.htm

[pscot]

2. "Fruit fired power station"

The mind boggles. Next thing you know we'll be distilling turkey carcasses.