Yellow Fuel for Africa

In East Africa, its hard to escape Banannas. At nearly every turn in the road, women and young people will approach your vehicle and offer you some bananas. They are a staple in the diet - from food to beer.

And now, the peel might be used for fuel.

Young scientists at Nottingham University have found a way to turn the peels into 'banana bricks' by mixing them with sawdust and rotting banana leaves. The mixture is then rolled up and dried in the sun - within a few weeks, it's ready for fuel.

What is particularly cool about this spin on 'bio-fuels' is that it uses waste products (not the edible parts of the banana), no fancy technology, and can all be done by hand with local, easily available material. And the researchers have the right ethos: they want to give the ideas away for free.

The challenge will probably be in the uptake - while this 'technology' could save huge amounts of time (and forests) through gathering firewood that remains the chief source of fuel for many people, it requires a substantially different behavioral pattern for the women who will be doing it. Hopefully, the researchers will go back in the field and work with the farmers and others who could use this process to find what will make it most successful.