For indispensable reporting on the coronavirus crisis, the election, and more, subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.





On the Discovery Channel’s MythBusters, Jamie Hyneman slays urban legends with the greatest of ease. Since he’s also a weird-energy enthusiast (he once powered a small rocket with a salami), we asked him to help us separate the big ideas from the duds on the energy frontier. ENERGY SOURCE: Cow manure

HOW IT WORKS: In an anaerobic digester, bacteria break down manure and produce methane, which is trapped and used to generate electricity.

PLAUSIBLE: It’s already being used in California. “ nasa actually investigated this, because if you’re going to Mars and you’ve got people on board, you’ve got poo,” says Hyneman.

ENERGY SOURCE: Human motion

HOW IT WORKS: Create a “crowd farm” like the Sustainable Dance Club in Rotterdam.

BUSTED: JH: “Go for the babies. Just put them on a little treadmill and let ’em rip.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Magnetic motors

HOW IT WORKS: Evangelical entrepreneur Dennis Lee claims his 500%-efficient motors will bring free energy and “an abundance of wealth for worldwide end-times evangelism.”

BUSTED: There’s no sign the technology actually works, but Lee has gotten rich selling dealerships to true believers. JH: “I’ve gotten so that I can smell these things a mile away.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Unicellular green algae

HOW IT WORKS: Deprived of sulfur and oxygen, they produce high yields of hydrogen.

PLAUSIBLE: JH: “Algae are such basic, simple organisms. If you optimize them, they are going to produce massive quantities of whatever you have tailored them to.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Raindrops

HOW IT WORKS: The Atomic Energy Commission uses special plastic to convert raindrops’ falling motion into electricity.

BUSTED: JH: “A when-pigs-fly kind of scenario. It’s millions of times more efficient to collect hydroelectric power through a dam than raindrop by raindrop.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Old tires

HOW IT WORKS: Microwave enthusiast Frank Pringle found that nuking tires in a vacuum creates diesel fuel, combustible gas, carbon black, and high-strength steel.

BUSTED: JH: Tires do contain hydrocarbons, but “it requires a relatively huge amount of energy to do that conversion. I’m a little suspicious of using microwaves.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Empty space

HOW IT WORKS: Thomas Bearden says he can use vacuum energy to power a generator.

BUSTED: JH: “The universe is filled with energy, but pulling energy out of a vacuum or something—there’s no substance there as far as I’m aware.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Grape juice

HOW IT WORKS: NanoLogix uses bacteria to convert Welch’s sugar runoff into hydrogen.

PLAUSIBLE: JH: As with algae, “with microbes there is no bottleneck to slow you down.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Dirty diapers

HOW IT WORKS: A British company turns poop and plastic from diapers into gas and oil.

BUSTED: JH: “Are you really going to be able to isolate diapers in such huge volumes that you’re running your entire country off of gasoline powered by diapers? No.”

ENERGY SOURCE: Greenhouse gases

HOW IT WORKS: Los Alamos scientists propose exposing air to potassium carbonate, which absorbs carbon dioxide that is then converted into methanol, gasoline, or jet fuel.

PLAUSIBLE: JH: “How do you come up with the energy to do this conversion? If you can get it from something like sunlight, then there is your free lunch.”