Anything into Oil:
This is one of those things that's just too good to be true but nevertheless is. Researchers at Changing World Technologies in Philadelphia have refined a process known as thermal depolymerization, which can convert virtually any waste product into "high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals". We could, in theory, produce 4 billion barrels of oil just from our annual (US) agricultural waste production at $8 to $12 a barrel, which would be sufficient to completely end US dependence on foreign oil, while at the same time completely solving our waste problems. The process has no toxic or unusable byproducts at all. Furthermore, since none of the oil and gas generated from this process are taken from belowground carbon deposits (coal and crude oil), the net amount of carbon in the atmosphere would not be increased, and therefore use of the resulting products would not contribute to global warming. (So why has the federal government only contributed $12 million for R&D?)
My favorite line from the article:
Quantum Computers:
How they are supposed to work is a bit beyond me, since it is based on quantum physics. But they are coming, and from what I understand, once they're perfected, we can throw Moore's Law right out the window (defenestration). They'll make today's supercomputers look like the abacus. From what little I understand, a functioning quantum computer can not only solve problems that today's machines couldn't even begin to tackle, but they form the solutions to those problems instantly (literally no passage of time). Once a problem is inputed, the quantum state of the processor is unable to exist in our universe in a state other than the one which represents a solution. In other words, its processing speed is infinite. And there is some notion about it existing simultaneously in every other state possible in a multitude of alternate realities. I should stop at this point, since I fear I am beginning to blather incoherently about something of which I have no real understanding. All I really know is that these machines will change the world in ways we can't even begin to imagine.
If you have a larger brain than I and would like to tackle understanding how quantum computers work, check out these links. I've listed them in order of increasing complexity: