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Crops give more kilometres per hectare if used to power electric vehicles.Electric cars powered by biomass could be greener than cars that run on biofuel.Punchstock / Cultura Vehicles propelled by biomass-fired electricity would travel farther on a given crop and produce fewer greenhouse-gas emissions than vehicles powered by ethanol, researchers report today.Burning biomass to produce electricity is generally more efficient than converting it into ethanol. And electric vehicles — although often more expensive to make and maintain than many vehicles with internal combustion engines — are also more efficient at converting that energy into motion.In the current study, the researchers,...

Researchers say the electricity generated by mud-dwelling bacteria from a lump of sugar could power a mobile phone for four days. According to a report in October's Nature Biotechnology Magazine, searchers at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst have persuaded mud-dwelling bacteria to generate electricity from sugar. Fuelled by this unfashionable high-carb diet, the recently identified bacterium, Rhodoferax ferrireducens, releases the energy in sugar molecules by removing electrons. In their natural habitat of Vancouver bay sediment, the bacteria pass on the electrons to iron compounds, but in the lab the bacteria have been persuaded to donate them to an electrode as...