The Road Crew

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Turning garbage--and cow manure--into clean-burning fuel for buses

When it comes to greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide emissions get all the attention. But methane gas, which is produced by, among other things, rotting garbage in the nation's landfills, is 22 times more potent a contributor to global warming. Most large landfills simply burn their methane--which not only pollutes the air but also wastes a potential source of energy.

At least that's the way Prometheus Energy sees it. The Seattle-based company has developed a process to capture methane gas, purify it, and convert it into liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which can be used to power buses. Prometheus' first commercial project, currently under way at the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Orange County, California, is designed to produce 5,000 gallons of LNG a day and save emissions equivalent to removing 15,895 cars from the road per year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Founded in 2003 by CEO Kirt Montague, a lawyer, and Cary Wasden, a banker, Prometheus is trying to do more than simply create a new source of energy. Prometheus is striving to create a new model of "distributed fuel," in which fuel is produced close to where it's used. Buses in Orange County, for example, already run on liquefied natural gas, so the gas from the landfill could be used to power them, saving more energy and eliminating more pollution. Meanwhile, in addition to the mountains of trash to be tapped, there are plenty of other sources of methane--stranded gas wells, coalbed methane, and even the biogas emitted by cow manure--that Prometheus plans to capture and put to use.

The car company that makes money by keeping cars off the road

Not many automotive companies crow about how many vehicles they've managed to retire. But that's one of the ways Zipcar, the country's largest car-sharing service, measures success. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the car rental service has a fleet of 2,000 vehicles, 10 percent of them hybrids, available to drivers from Toronto to Minneapolis to Boston and Washington, D.C. Some 40 percent of Zipcar's 70,000 members say that by participating they've avoided buying a new vehicle or gotten rid of an old one.

Since it was founded in 1999, the company estimates it has taken 25,000 cars off the road. Members pay a $25 application fee to join and as little as $7.50 an hour, or $51 a day, for a car, picking up the vehicles from parking spaces in their neighborhoods without ever interacting with a clerk. According to company surveys, the average Zipcar member drove 5,295 miles per year before joining the service and now drives just 369 miles annually. "If you bought 500 pounds of candy you would be more likely to eat more of it than if you had to buy one pound, 500 times," says president and CEO Scott Griffith. "The same sort of effect happens with car sharing."

And car sharers are lining up to drive less. For the past two years, membership has grown 100 percent annually, and revenue, $15 million in 2005, is expected to double this year.

Next: The Futurists

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