Grass Power  

No - I'm not talking about a Cheech and Chong movie - though the idea is a bit surreal. A power station fueld by elephant grass is being built in the UK. While there are some plants here being built to burn waste sugar cane (after the sugar is extracted), I'm not so sure of the wisdom of growing grass to burn it...

Britain's first major electricity plant to be fuelled by grass will begin construction later this year. The £6.5m power station in Staffordshire will be burn locally cultivated elephant grass and will be able to supply 2,000 homes with electricity.

Amanda Gray, director of Eccleshall Biomass, the company behind the power station, said the project was of major importance to rural industry in Staffordshire and offered another way to meet the UK's obligation to reduce carbon emissions, because burning the elephant grass will only release the carbon dioxide that the plants soaked up anyway while they were growing.