Staff Reports, Central Valley Business Times

Scientists at the University of Central Florida in Orlando may have just made the “breakthrough of a lifetime,” in the university’s words, turning discarded fruit peels and other throwaways into cheap, clean fuel to power the world’s vehicles.

Researcher Henry Daniell has developed a “groundbreaking way” to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers, the university says Thursday.

Staff Reports, Central Valley Business Times

 The mass production of biofuels could be a major step toward eliminating dependence on fossil fuels, but a number of factors have stood in the way, including the argument against using productive agricultural land for fuel instead of food and the cutting of natural forests for the purpose of growing crops to turn into fuel.

 Matthew L. Wald, New York Times

ELECTRIC cars are coming in big numbers for the first time. Again.

The prediction has been here before, almost every time governments have worried about oil supplies and air pollution. Manufacturers dabbled with electrics after the oil shock of 1979-80. In the 1990s, California said it would require their sale to address its almost intractable air pollution problem. But the technology was not ready, and the state gave up.

Los Angeles Times

Toyota Motor Corp. has joined the growing ranks of automakers planning to bring advanced battery-powered vehicles to showrooms in the near future.

The Japanese automaker said it planned to have a plug-in version of its popular Prius hybrid for sale in the U.S. within three years.

"The target is 2012 to be coming to market with them," Irving Miller, a group vice president for Toyota's U.S. sales unit, said at a Los Angeles conference on climate change, Bloomberg News reported.