Green Options

11 billion pounds of chicken feather meal are accumulated annually by the poultry industry in the U.S., and if a process developed by scientists in Nevada moves forward, those chicken parts could be used to produce 153 million gallons of biodiesel a year, and 593 million gallons worldwide.

Scientists have discovered a remarkable, unexpected and cheap way to store hydrogen fuel– using carbonized chicken feather fibers.

The problem of storing hydrogen as fuel has traditionally been a perplexing and expensive dilemma. For instance, a car with a 20-gallon hydrogen storage tank made from carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides– two of the best ideas so far– would add $5.5 million or $30k respectively to the price of that vehicle.

A storage tank made from carbonized chicken feathers, however, would only mark up the cost a measly $200. The green bio-material would also help solve the problem of how to dispose of the 2.7 billion kilograms of chicken feathers generated each year by commercial poultry operations.

Long before the Puritans decided to cop a squat on Native American land and then had the first “Thanksgiving” meal featuring turkey meat, someone managed to discover that the turkey was a good bird to eat. Somehow, despite all logic, some hungry human looked at this rather odd-looking (okay, ugly) bird and thought, “Boy, that sure looks tasty!” Or maybe that lucky hunter was just so desperate that anything would suffice for food.

Whatever the case, turkeys found themselves on the menu. And then after 1621, turkeys became the feature of Thanksgiving–comprising the main course and finding their way into just about everything else, from stuffing to leftovers for the rest of the week.

While gourmands may give praise to the first turkey eater, turkeys themselves have very little to look forward to on Thanksgiving–the Black Thursday for these birds. Even if their intelligence level is as low as it has long been held to be, even amongst (the stupidest) animals, turkeys are yet another victim of the meat industry. Unlike other commodified creatures, though, turkeys practically have their own holiday…with celebration centered on eating them!

Thanksgiving is particularly black for more reasons than the simple acts of killing and eating living beings (however ugly and dumb). Like most other commercial meat industries, the turkey industry is riddled with cruel practices, from raising to transporting to “preparing” the birds that end up on human tables.