by Richard T. Stuebi

Although I pride myself a little bit on some of the titles for my posts (I was a headline writer for my high school newspaper), even I couldn’t make this one up.

Credit must be given where credit is due: earlier this month, Fast Company hosted a research note by Ariel Schwartz about the development of an approach to produce hydrogen from urine that requires much less voltage than is necessary to electrolyze pure water.

Yes, that’s right: hydrogen produced cheaply from urine, one of the most renewable of all resources.

I’ve written previously about piss-poor cars, but someday in the future, we may be talking about piss-powered cars.

Thanks to Kristi Spears Tanner of the Ohio Business Development Coalition for making me aware of this development, via a link on her Facebook page. Always looking for good things to promote from Ohio, Kristi noted that it should be no surprise that this whizzy technical innovation was made by researcher Geraldine Botte at Ohio University.

So, to do your part to move us towards the hydrogen economy, all you may have to do is go down to your local pub and have a few. After all, you don’t ever actually buy beer, you just rent it.

Richard T. Stuebi is the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc. Later in 2009, he will also become Managing Director of Early Stage Partners.