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Try sewage. Dr. Daniel Bond, assistant professor of microbiology and a member of the BioTechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota, is working with his students on an alternative approach to obtaining electricity, using bacteria. Work in Bond's laboratory is studying organisms found in places as common as Minnesota mud, or even sewage, that are able to grow on electrodes and release energy stored in organic compounds. Even though the resulting energy produced in today's research settings is small—what Bond describes as enough to power small calculators or communications equipment— it's the beginning of an exciting new way to use bacteria to transform materials that come from biomass (such as agricultural crops or trees) instead of fossil fuels. Not in your lifetime you say? Well consider this: years ago, only NASA used solar panels. Today, solar panels are everywhere—even as a power source for inexpensive calculators.
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Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Envrionment (IREE)
Learn more about the U's work to develop bio-based and other renewable resources and processes.
