PMs Takaichi and Modi agreed on July 2, 2026 to turn cow dung into vehicle fuel and build a 2.5-million CNG-car market in India, a clean-energy deal that doubles as a hedge against China's grip on electric cars.
Kagawa, Japan's self-styled udon prefecture, throws away thousands of tons of noodles a year. Two teams found wildly different uses for the waste: a small factory that turns it into electricity, and a professor who turns it into surprisingly tough paper grown by microbes, now made at a welfare facility for Marugame's traditional fans.
In 2012, the Sankei Shimbun reported a biofuel revolution centered on Enomoto algae, a hyper-growth Botryococcus bred by Kobe University spin-off G> under Professor Taira Enomoto. Heavy-industry giant IHI joined biotech venture Neo-Morgan Laboratory to commercialize it, with then-CEO Tomohiro Fujita declaring he wanted to cut the price to one-tenth within ten years. Fourteen years later, the joint venture has dissolved, but the algae fueled the world's first flight on SAF meeting ASTM D7566 Annex 7, and a Japanese-led 5-hectare facility in Malaysia is now the largest of its kind on Earth. Did the promise come true, or is the dream over?