This post is an excerpt of an article from Popular Mechanics. You can read the full post on their website. Written by Ben Stewart.

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Wouldn’t it be great if we could kill two birds with one stone? One day, we might be able to, but for now at least one company is working on a way to fix their fuel woes within the confines of their own business.

Waste Management, one of the biggest garbage companies in the country, says it will be able to produce 13,000 gallons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) daily from just one landfill in Northern California.

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As I’ve said before, SEMA is not usually a place you expect to see lots of alternative fuel vehicles. But in recent years there has been a paradigm shift, and increasing floor space has been devoted to debuting technologies and cars that conserve gas, rather than waste it.

Factory Five, out of Wareham Massachusetts, is a well-known maker of kit cars based on classic Shelby designs including the Cobra and Daytona. Amp=D has taken one of their kit cars based on the iconic ‘33 Ford and built a powerful electric drivetrain around this handsome hot rod.

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No major oil outlets have fully embraced biofuels, although British Petroleum has just announced that it may begin commercial production of ethanol starting in 2010.

BP has partnered with Verenium to bring a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility online next year to start bringing alternative fuels to a gas pump near you.

BP has big plans for biofuels and seems to be marching towards an alternative fuel future faster than many of its competitors. Verenium already has a demonstration plant in Louisiana capable of producing over a million gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually, and BP hopes to ramp production up. The Verenium process uses proprietary enzymes to break down grass feedstock and convert it to ethanol more efficiently.

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Spectators at next years Sonoma Showdown at California’s Infineon Raceway will be treated to something they’ve never seen before - the nation’s first ever zero-carbon motorcycle race.

The Sonoma County event, known as the Time Trial eXtreme Grand Prix, will form part of the AMA Motorcycle Sonoma Showdown weekend, May 14-16.

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Are you a petrohead with a conscience? Someone who likes the thought of owning an electric car but put off by the weedy sound of today’s offerings?

Well, for those of you who want to blend eco-cred with the engine roar of a Lamborghini, the wait may be finally over. New technology developed by Lotus and hi-fi whizz Harman Kardon will enable drivers of hybrid and electric cars to select the engine noise of their choice - from a beefy V8 to the swoosh! of the Enterprise at warp speed.

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Yesterday, Chrysler/Fiat’s new CEO Sergio Marchionne presented the 5-year business plan he hopes will save Chrysler, and bring Fiat back to the US market for the first time in nearly 30 years. The company presented its plan during a live, seven-hour-long marathon webcast, which was notable for two things: first, a virtually unprecedented willingness to discuss future product, and, second, the conspicuous absence of New Chrysler’s much-ballyhooed ENVI electric-vehicle division.

What happened to the Dodge EV? Can we expect some innovative green tech from Marchionne’s new Dodge product future? The depressing reality, after the jump.

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There was a time not too long ago that you couldn’t have paid me to buy another new American automobile. Don’t take that statement that wrong way; it wasn’t for lack of trying. I love the lines of the true classics like the ‘57 Chevy or the ‘65 GTO. But somewhere in the last few decades, the American manufacturers seemed to just give up on making a good product—and I went through several modern American pieces of junk before I gave up trying too.

Yet in the last two years there is one major American manufacturer, who, above all others, seems to have come out the other end of a dark tunnel with a clear vision for its future and a line-up of solid, well-designed cars on which to build—Ford.

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In 1877 Russian scientist Dimitri Mendeelev suggested that the large deposits of oil and gas we find under the surface of the Earth could be made without the decay of long-dead organisms in a process called abiotic synthesis of methane.

Since then the theory has been relegated to the back shelf due to a lack of evidence and the prevailing conventional wisdom that all deep oil and gas deposits arise from decaying prehistoric animal and plant material.

While it’s no doubt that the decay of dead animals and plants is one pathway to the creation of Earth’s oil and natural gas deposits (potentially the largest), new research done with high-tech equipment simulating the conditions of deep earth suggests that Mendeelev’s theory is correct.

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Tata Motors, the company whose claim to fame is selling one of the world’s cheapest and most fuel efficient cars, is considering letting other local India-based manufacturers produce and sell their Nano under their brands.

The company began selling the 56 mpg car last July, and, due to high demand, is in the process of building a manufacturing facility that would produce an additional 350,000 units per year. The plant, located in Sanand in Gujarat, should be up and running by March of 2010.

But in the meantime, Tata Motors is considering allowing smaller manufacturers produce, rebrand and sell the car under license from Tata. The maximum amount of production per year in this fashion would be 10,000 cars. Now that’s an interesting way of selling more cars. I would venture to say that I doubt an American car company would take a similar tack since they use the brand to drive sales.

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