So you want to go biodiesel, eh? Maybe you noticed that oil popped over $74 a barrel this afternoon - not quite the $95 peak of 1979, but getting there. Maybe you read the energy doomsday scenarios former CIA director (and hemp fan) James Woolsey has been pushing in the media lately. Or maybe you just want the subversive thrill of using McDonald's waste to power your personal green revolution.

OK, chemistry nerds, this one's for you. Some bright bulbs over at Rutgers University and UNC Chapel Hill have discovered a way to make liquid fuel - diesel, in fact - out of solid lumps of good old-fashioned coal. What's that? You say it's been done before? Well, sure. Germany powered much of its World War II machinery with coal turned to diesel by a handy bit of chemical voodoo known as Fischer-Tropsch synthesis, in which sources like biomass, natural gas, or coal are heated to release carbon monoxide and hydrogen molecules, which are then reformed into, among other things, liquid diesel. (Pay attention; there will be a quiz.)

You probably never thought you'd hear “McDonald's” and “energy independence” in the same sentence, but here is a tale that defies the odds: Mississippi resident Robert Tomey, who owns four Mickey-D's in the southeast, is running his VW Beetle on the copious gallons of grease that are left over in his french-fry friers, according to a recent Associated Press article. To advertise his concept, he has come up with the perfect neologism, emblazoned on his license plate: FRYBRID.