As funding announcements from the U.S. Department of Energy trickle out in support of large-scale renewable energy projects, it is also important to recognize the smaller-scale innovations that signal promising advances in securing an environmentally and economically friendly clean energy future.

For example, last week’s LA Times featured a story about E-Fuel’s MicroFueler, a portable ethanol micro-refinery system.  In a nutshell, the 250-gallon tank allows people to make their own ethanol at home, from waste materials.  The tank is made to hold organic waste (feedstock that would be otherwise land filled), which is then converted into ethanol using a combustion free process.  The ethanol can then be use as a fuel for your car, which means you can fill up your gas tank right at home.  The MicroFueler has yet to garner widespread use, but the company’s site indicates increased product availability coming later this year.  Innovations like the MicroFueler illustrate the importance of investment in ideas that capitalize on turning a liability, like waste, into an sustainable asset.

Similar concepts like farmers using chicken droppings to make power, or turning unused electronics into furniture represent the kind of “out-of-the-box” thinking that offer us all solutions to our energy and climate change challenges that are not only environmentally sounds, but economically viable for widespread adoption.  As more of these unconventional concepts reach the commercialization and early-adoption stage, it’s important we recognize how these smaller innovations can make a signficant postive impact on our energy future.