What do you get when you mix animal fat, algae, and 10,000 pounds of steel? The least-popular Navy Blackhawk on Capitol Hill.

Yesterday, during its regular “Rim of the Pacific” exercise, the U.S. Navy showed off its “great green fleet,” a number of ships and aircraft running solely on biofuel. As we discussed last week, a lot of Republicans haaaaaaaate the idea: ostensibly because biofuel costs more than oil, but really because anything that could possibly reduce the use of oil is a cardinal sin.

What do you say to that, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus?

As a Navy jet screamed by the Nimitz, Mabus stopped his speech and said, “You just heard biofuel.”

You just heard biofuel, suckers! There’s something tremendously amusing about the combination of Top Gun-style machismo and sensible environmental considerations. Picture a bulky, muscular Rambo-type, holding massive weapons in each hand, snarling into the camera: “Time to take out the compost.”

Presenting: a gallery of innocuous photos from the “great green fleet” exercise with awesome, tough-guy captions.

“You talkin’ to me, Mabus? Oh, you are? Yes, that’s the biofuel processing center.”

“See? What do I see? I see, uh, some particulates? Should those be in there?”

“Give me a second while I transfer this biofuel into a can of whup-ass. Okay. Done.”

“Where is your God now? I should clarify: I call petroleum-based fuels ‘God’ for some reason.”

(Might want to take a second to let your adrenaline levels go back down.)

The Senate is currently debating a measure that would kill the green fleet, preventing the Navy from buying fuels that are more expensive than conventional fuels. One of the leads in the fight is Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), since he literally runs on oil. Senators opposing the measure include Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose corn-producing state is more hospitable to the idea. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants to ban the fuels, arguing that he “just [does] not believe that we need to spend that kind of money on it.” If it’s any consolation, senator, defense firms are totally fine with raising taxes so that we can give them more money.

Meanwhile, on the House side, representatives voted to continuing paying for ads for the armed services during NASCAR. Come on, guys. Don’t you know how much NASCAR spends on gas?

What have you done for your country lately? Sixteen-year-old Azza Abdel Hamid Falad has figured out a way to make Egypt $78 million worth of biofuel each year. The key: an inexpensive catalyst that will turn plastic into fuel.

Green Prophet explains:

The idea of breaking down plastic polymers into fuel feedstocks, the bulk raw material used for producing biofuel , is not a new idea. But Faiad has found a high yield catalyst, aluminosilicate catalyst, that breaks down plastic waste producing gaseous products like methane, propane and ethane, which are then converted into ethanol to use as biofuel.

Egypt uses about a million tons of plastic per year, so there’s plenty of feedstock available for Falad’s scheme. She’s already won an award from the European Union for this work and is now working to patent her idea. We’re rooting hard for this one.

In 2007, Congress finalized a new policy mandating the integration of renewable source fuels into America’s gasoline. In other words, biofuels — gasoline substitutes/additives that could be used by existing vehicles but that were both renewable and resulted in less harmful emissions. Here’s the EPA’s overview of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), as it’s known.

This morning (right now, in fact), the House Subcommittee on Energy and Power is holding a hearing [PDF] that is focused on “the challenges and opportunities facing alternative transportation fuels and vehicles.” A core topic of discussion/argument/fury is whether or not the amount of ethanol that’s allowed in our gasoline should be increased from 10 to 15 percent — a change from an E10 standard to E15. (Last month, the EPA signed off on the use of E15 at American gas stations.)

Let’s take a quick detour to talk about corn-derived ethanol use in gasoline. In summary: It is not ideal. This explainer from Friends of the Earth [PDF] provides a good overview of the arguments against the RFS. Granted, it’s much easier to plant more corn than it is to recreate dinosaurs, kill them, wait a few million years, and then siphon the oil from their transformed carcasses. Much easier. But the use of corn as a biofuel stock has ancillary impacts on food prices that other biofuels — many of which are still in development — might not. (There’s also a huge debate brewing over a mandate that the military use biofuels, but that’s a topic for another day.)

What’s most interesting about the debate over the RFS and, specifically, the increase from E10 to E15 is the light it shines on the political process. Midwestern corn-producing states (and their elected officials) are happy about the mandate. Including more ethanol means buying more of the corn from which ethanol is made. Oil producers (and their elected officials) don’t like the increase. More ethanol means less gasoline; less gasoline means less money.

Two of the people slated to testify this morning represent those conflicting viewpoints. Bob Dinneen, the president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, plans to testify [PDF] on behalf of the standard broadly, making the case one might expect: reduced reliance on foreign oil, increased stability, reduced emissions. Arguing against the standard (and, in particular, the E10-to-E15 switch) is Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute. Gerard’s testimony [PDF] is likewise predictable: E15 is untested! Manufacturer warranties might be voided! Never has a dominant industry been so oppressed.

The RFS is, in many ways, a case study in modern American politics. A sensible idea — mandating a switch to increasingly renewable fuel sources — becomes mired in debate and contradictory information about efficacy and functionality. Lobbyists weigh in, muddy the picture. Compromises are made and then later re-debated.

The government scientists tasked with preparing information for our elected officials have our undying sympathy.

Earlier this year, a slightly horrifying factoid made its way around the internet: Penguins poop so much that piles of their poop can be seen from space. But take heart, people who don’t like thinking about mountains of bird guano: It turns out that today’s penguin dung heap could be tomorrow’s source of nutrition for beautiful, fuzzy moss.

A team of Australian researchers were looking into the source of nutrients for these Antarctic plants, the BBC explains, and had narrowed it down to “nitrogen that’s gone through algae, krill and fish.” That food chain leads to seabirds — penguins — but the researchers were puzzled:

Since no penguins live on the elevated lakeside site in East Antarctica, the researchers had to work out where the mysterious seabird poo came from.

They realized that their moss beds were growing on the site of an ancient penguin colony.

“Between 3,000 and 8,000 years ago, on the site where the moss is now growing, there used to be [Adelie] penguins,” said Prof Robinson.

The moss growing on the penguin poop creates a tiny Antarctic jungle of lush green, which creates a habitat for insects and other tiny animals that can deal with cold. There is, however, a lot of this moss, which means that at one point there was a LOT of penguin poop lying around. Like, tons. Try not to think about that; maybe just focus on how nice and green it looks now.

Whatever, Google Glasses; I’m holding out for the Google brain implant. And that just got a little more plausible, thanks to new technology for fuel cells that run off of blood sugar. In theory, if you popped one of these babies in your brain, it could get all its power from your own cerebrospinal fluid (the stuff that cushions your brain inside your skull).

[Researcher Benjamin] Rapoport calculated that in theory, the glucose fuel cell could get all the sugar it needs from the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that bathes the brain and protects it from banging into the skull. There are very few cells in the CSF, so it’s highly unlikely that an implant located there would provoke an immune response. There is also significant glucose in the CSF, which does not generally get used by the body. Since only a small fraction of the available power is utilized by the glucose fuel cell, the impact on the brain’s function would likely be small.

This is not the first glucose-based fuel cell, but it’s the first one that’s a candidate for long-term implantation. That means the only remaining challenge is figuring out how to get Wikipedia directly into my short-term memory (or, even better, how to upload my brain to the internet — hello, singularity!). Once we have the tech, the power source will be taken care of.

Okay, technically this is not intended for making me a trivia whiz/immortal, but for worthwhile pursuits like helping people with spinal-cord injuries. We already know, for instance, that patients with spinal damage can move a robot arm, using a brain-machine interface. This would allow that robot arm to be powered by the brain instead of plugged in. And actually, the research is far from complete — the next step is to make sure it’s safe in animals. But I’m just going to assume it’s now only a matter of time before I can have instant access to search, email, and maps. And also a robot tail.

From The Atlantic Cities: a new rash of grease heists.

The latest report of grease theft comes from Quincy, Massachusetts, just south of Boston. In a down and dirty story, WBZ News Radio reports that two men made a big score off of the stored grease behind Cathay Pacific Restaurant. (Google review: “i thought the food was excellent, and very reasonably priced for the quality and portion sizes…. and no, i didn’t see any ‘hookers or drug dealers’ in the parking lot.”) They loaded up nearly $500 in fetid lipids before pulling out; a baffled detective told the radio station that this was a “new type of crime to us.”

“Fetid lipids”! The crime isn’t new; The New York Times first reported a grease theft in 1860. Though, admittedly, that wasn’t from a fast food restaurant. (It was probably a Starbucks.)

Why steal grease? To sell to biofuel processors. (Hopefully, anyway; not sure I’d want to know another reason for it.) There’s something encouraging about that, in a way: The market is strong enough to support a black market.

Anyway, this story needs more Simpsons.

Gundersen Lutheran Hospital, in La Crosse, Wis., aims to be energy independent by 2014. Hospitals use a ton of energy, so that’s a tough goal to meet. But Gundersen is getting there by piggybacking on Wisconsin’s best-known industries: beer and cheese.

Beer and cheese, while delicious, both slough off a lot of gas while they’re being made. (Not to mention after they’re consumed.) The hospital system has been sourcing biogas from a local brewery and from a dairy farm that makes mascarpone and fresh mozzarella cheese. And recently the system started getting gas from a La Crosse landfill, as well.

Hospital CEO Jeff Thompson, who pioneered the shift to biogas, isn’t some weird pickler guy, though. Energy independence makes sense for the environment, but it also makes financial sense for the hospital, which is saving gobs of money. Hospitals spend about 15 percent of their profits on energy, and Gundersen (which, according to Fast Company, is the most energy-efficient hospital in the country) is now meeting at least 30 percent of its power needs with other people’s waste gas.

But while this is all good news for the hospital, it’s even better news for Wisconsin residents. Suddenly, overindulging in beer and cheese isn’t just a fun state pastime: It’s your civic duty for promoting environmentalism and health care.

One man’s trash is another man’s airplane fuel.

Adventure-seeker Andy Pag aims to obtain funding and become the first person to fly a trash-fueled plane from one end of the U.K. to the other. His aircraft, a microlight plane, will be powered by gasoline made from un-recyclable plastics like bags and packaging.

The fuel is made by a British company using Fischer–Tropsch synthesis–a process of making synthetic fuel that dates back to before WWII. Pag says the fuel is worth highlighting because it produces limited CO2, and reduces the volume of plastics that otherwise would go to landfills.

Pag isn’t just in it for sheer glory, either. He plans to stop every couple of hours, show off his sweet ride, and educate people about the need to cut back on fossil fuels.

Flying a microlight plane — plastic-based fuel or not — is certainly risky, but this isn’t Pag’s first foray into green travel. He’s previously traveled the world on donated vegetable oil, driven across the Sahara in a truck powered by chocolate, and organized a motor rally where vehicles run on restaurants’ waste oil. Now if Pag could just tackle a vehicle that runs on trash AND time travels, he would really give Doc Brown some competition.

Forget offshore oil drilling. NASA’s working on a project that would generate clean, renewable offshore energy, by growing algae in floating plastic bags.

These floating algae farms would take in wastewater from treatment plants. For algae, wastewater is like the nectar of the gods: The ammonia and phosphates act as a fertilizer. So the algae would float happily contained in the baggies, getting fat with lipid oil, and cleaning up the wastewater in the process. Eventually, the algae farmers would harvest the oil, recycle the plastic and start all over again.

There are a few benefits to this fuel system. It takes less land then algae farms, it recycles wastewater, and it avoids the energy-intensive cooling and the problems with evaporation that open algae ponds have to deal with. And if these offshore energy sources spilled, the algae shouldn’t cause too much harm. The plastic bags might be expensive to replace, but the algae would die quickly in the saltwater.

But the system does require a lot of plastic — about two square miles to create 2.4 million gallons of algae oil per year. According to Technology Review, the NASA researchers who came up with the idea aren’t totally sure what they’d do with all that algae-covered plastic after they were done using. Imagine miles and miles of mildewy shower curtains and you get some idea of the issue.

Still, there’s nothing new about having too many plastic bags and no perfect way to dispose of them. But right now they mainly hang around in trees bothering Liz Lemon, when they could be generating renewable fuel.