Remember how, in Back to the Future, Doc dug through the garbage to run his time-traveling car? Pretty smart idea, to use a fairly reliable fuel source that was going to waste anyway (pun intended.) Now, imagine the same idea—only cleaner, more efficient, and without the smell of week-old bananas.

Cyclone Power Technologies of Pompano Beach, Florida, has unveiled their working prototype biomass power generator, which produces power from burning dry plant matter (think wood pellets, grass clippings, corn stalks, and wood chips.) The generator system works fairly simply. Burning dry plant matter in the biomass combustion chamber produces heat. This heat runs an attached external heat engine, producing mechanical energy.  An alternator then converts this mechanical energy into as much as 10kW of usable electricity.

This engine could power homes, farms, or other small buildings that have plenty of “vegetative waste and byproducts” lying around—as in the grass clippings from mowing the lawn or fall leaves. The only catch appears to be the availability of dry plant matter—this technology probably won’t spread in urban or highly developed areas, where yards are small or non-existent. Those areas, like Manhattan, will just have to wait for the engine that runs on chewed gum, cigarette butts, and discarded Starbucks cups.

Watch how the engine works here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLst-kslKio&feature=player_embedded#t=195.