Corny, But True: Making Fuel at the Grocery Store

Summertime and the living is easy. Picnics, BBQs, cookouts, fresh fruits and vegetables. Summer comes with a lot of edible perks. Corn on the cob--yummy!

My most recent trip to the grocery store showed me another, when I was greeted with this bin, right next to to the table of corn I was grabbing for that night's dinner. Typically we shuck our corn at home, but this had me at "turning corn husks into renewable energy," and left me wanting to learn more.

What I discovered is that I've apparently been living under a rock and this technology has been around for about a decade. While I'm not the primary grocery shopper in my house, I will say I am 100% sure this circular waste collection piece hasn't been in the shopping marker that long. The corn husks and stalks are called "corn stover" and they are one of the many agricultural parts that make up biofuel. Reusing this agricultural waste is one of many ways to get there.

When you think of summer time and picnicking and you think of the vegetable waste alone, what a brilliant idea to have grocery stores starting to insert themselves in the process. 

Reminds me of my composting days (before the neighborhood rodents started using our french drain in the backyard like the sewers of Paris!)

Of course, there are many proponents who urge you not to do this in the store due to moisture loss and other reasons, so you do you. But I love it when circular economy is put to use.

To learn more about corn waste as a biofuel, check out this video or go toWashington State University's May 2025 article "Scientists Discover a New Way to Convert Corn Waste into Low-Cost Sugar for Biofuel."

Video from https://youtu.be/-AbjfwIhrV0?si=0E3TPGFY-VG_hpVZ, Pics from my camera.

Fighting Flygskam

It's no surprise to anyone what an impact air travel has on the collective, planetary carbon footprint. It's come to have a name: flygskam. This Swedish word, which popped up in 2017 but gained popularity  shortly before the pandemic began means "flying shame." It is defined as climate guilt from flying, and is a term that came into being during Greta Thunberg's activism and refusal to fly due to the fact that flights can be extremely hard on our environment and contribute to high rates of greenhouse gasses. Additionally, many Europeans especially can take high speed trains at a much lower impact. Their choices reduced the amount of air travel right before the pandemic, double hitting the aviation industry.

Clearly it's a problem that needs to be solved as our world becomes more global and there is a greater need for people to be in other parts of the world. How can we do it responsibly? It is going to take innovation to help solve the problems of climate change and other environmental issues.

Board Now is just one of the many innovative plans trying to work on this solution. Board Now is a program that has partnered many organizations to build a coalition to reduce emissions through sustainable aviation fuel.  This Fues would be "made from sustainable feedstocks such as waste oils from biological origin, agri resides or non-fossil CO2." By having companies buy into the program, more refineries that produce sustainable aviation fuel can be built, which over time will lower the cost of this type of fuel. When companies affiliate with Board Now, they make a commitment to the planet to reduce overall emissions and their own carbon footprint while also helping to make this a more sustainable alternative overall in the field of aviation. 

To learn more about Board Now, check out their website. Also, be sure to check out some of the members and partners that are affiliated and on board with Board Now.

Flygskam video from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2019-09-26/how-something-called-flygskam-is-hurting-european-airlines-video, Board Now video and logo from https://boardnow.org

Is Algae the Answer to the Petroleum Problem?

After reading my eco-reads of 2018 (Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World by Bill Nye and Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution by Peter Kalmus), thinking about innovative ways to solve our environmental and climate problems has been heavy on my mind.

That's why this video about Dave Hazlebeck, algae, & Global Algae Innovations speaks loudly to me.  Can fuel be made from algae? Could algae-biofuel be a potential future solution to our global and geopolitical problems? Could inspiration be around the corner for creating change? Fingers are crossed. These are the changes our world needs!



Here's an infographic that goes into more details.

Video from https://youtu.be/yCNkmi7VE0I; infographic from https://energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/bioenergizeme-infographic-challenge-algae-cleaner-and-greener-tomorrow; image from http://www.appropedia.org/Algae_fuel