Okay, so we thought the chocolate-powered hydrogen fuel cell was sweet, so what should we think of a truck trundling through the Sahara desert fuelled by biodiesel made from chocolate waste?
The BioTruck team set off from London last week to drive their salvaged 1989 Ford Iveco Cargo truck, with two 4WD Landcruisers aboard, the 6,000 km (3,700 miles) to Timbuktu in African Mali. (well, almost, the truck itself will stop 200km short). The plan is to promote the use of recycled wastes as biodiesel, instead of diverting food crop directly to fuel.
The company, EcoTec, providing the 1,500 litres of choccy-enhanced biodiesel, are also donating one of their small scale biodiesel production units to the Mali Folkecenter, whose mission is to promote sustainable management of natural resources for local economic growth. It is intended that local women will be able to "re-cycle their used cooking oil into eco-friendly fuel and supplement their income at the same time."