What do the US Navy, Mazda and Alamo & National Rental Car all have in common? They use animal fat (like beef tallow, chicken guts and pork lard) as fuel. These fats that would normally end up in the garbage are used to make an ultra-clean synthetic diesel. Mazda is going to give this fuel a trial on January 26th during the 2013 Rolex 24 endurance race at Daytona where they will have three Mazda6 race cars using it (chicken coupes?).

Other interesting alternative fuel sources in the works but still on the experimental side include:

1. Chemical engineers at UC Berkeley are using a sugar fermentation process that was used in World War I to make explosives to create a new, cleaner fuel.

2. Coskata is using garbage to make ethanol which would make Marty McFly proud.

3. A small British company called Air Fuel Synthesis is actually making fuel out of thin air. It uses air and electricity and it’s already gotten to the point where they’ve test driven a Lotus with their “carbon neutral” gasoline.

4. The US Air Force has been using a 50-50 blend of jet fuel and biodiesel derived from camelina plants (weeds) in their F-16s. They say there is no difference in performance and are looking into using this fuel for everything by 2016.

Let’s not forget Steven Hyde of “That 70s Show” who was convinced someone somewhere had invented a car that ran on water. Wait, was that just a drug induced haze or……?