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Cheech and Chong Filmography
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Theiapolis
Cheech and Chong Resources
Table of Content
Cheech and Chong: Comedy Albums
- 1971 Cheech & Chong
- 1972 Big Bambu
- 1973 Los Cochinos
- 1974 Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album (contains Earache My Eye)
- 1976 Sleeping Beauty
- 1979 Up in Smoke (Soundtrack)
- 1980 Let's Make a New Dope Deal
- 1981 Cheech and Chong's Greatest Hit
- 1985 Get Out of My Room
- 2002 Cheech and Chong Anthology
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Filmography (Cheech and Chong) >>
Table of Content
Latest Film News
Latest news on Cheech and Chong
NewsFlower Power: Run Your Ride on a Wild Weed
An Albany-based company has created a program that encourages upstate New York farmers to grow today's biofuel du jour, a pesky weed known as Thlaspi arvense but more commonly referred to as pennycress or stinkweed. Despite the experiments your college roommate conducted in his '89 Subru Loyale, this is believed to be the first time a car has been powered by a weed. We imagine that a certain laid-back bandanna-wearing musician will be thrilled to offer such a product at his BioWillie stations.
What makes stinkweed different than the plethora of other world-saving, game-changing biofuels that came before it (anyone remember switchgrass?) is farmers can't help but grow it. When executives from Innovation Fuels asked farmer Brian Ziehm about growing an acre of stinkweed on his property, he was dumbfounded. "It was like, 'What the heck?'" Ziehm told the Associated Press, "I've been trying to get rid of these things for 30 years. Now you want me to plant them?'"
Stinkweed can grow almost anywhere, it's as tough as an old Volvo and it has the potential for high per-acre yields. It's that kind of cockroach-like durability that makes stinkweed so attractive to scientists searching for a stable, hardy source of fuel.
The folks at Biodiesel Magazine say stinkweed is an ideal biodiesel feedstock because its seeds yield 36 percent oil when crushed. They should know: After all, they work for Biodiesel Magazine. John Fox, president of Innovation Fuels, says the company is testing the plant and its seeds and so far things look good, even if they smell bad. "We're really pleased with the oil," Fox said, adding that stinkweed oil has excellent cold-flow properties.
It could be an exciting development for biodiesel, which has seen production go through the roof alongside gas prices. Production has climbed from 25 million gallons in 2004 to 500 million gallons last year, according to the National Biodiesel Board.
Aside from the obvious opportunity to make childish jokes about Phish, Rick Ross and Cheech and Chong, what's got us excited about Thlaspi arvense is its use as a biofuel probably won't affect the world's food supply like soybean and corn-based fuels. Plus, it's a winter annual, meaning farmers can grow a "double crop," harvesting pennycress before planting something else. "Our intention is to create a crop that has a niche and does not displace anything else that is already growing," Steve Vaughn, a plant physiologist at the National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Illinois, told the Associated Press. Scientists there started researching stinkweek several years ago.
Still, there's one major hurdle before pennycress supplants (pun intended) other biofuels: Although it grows like a weed, it isn't domesticated enough to be planted as a crop. Main photo by Flicker user museinthecity. Second photo by Flickr user tico bassie.
Published: Thu, 18 Sep 2008 12:19:45 GMT - Source: Blog.Wired.Com - Read the article
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