Alternative Fuels Today

Dario Fo and Carlo Rubbia, two Italian Nobel prize winners, recently visited Italy’s Senate to promote alternative energy sources such as biodiesel, a cleaner-burning diesel fuel made from bio-based resources. Fo won the Nobel prize for literature in 1993. During his presentation, he reminded Italian legislators that the government is directly responsible for the majority of pollution in Italian cities. Rubbia, a Nobel laureate for physics and chairman of Italy’s national alternative energy research institute Enea, encouraged senators to support the development of a range of alternative fuels. “New energies will revolutionize our lives in the space of two decades, just as computers have,” said Rubbia. He noted that biodiesel represents “a medium-to-long term” solution for replacing traditional energy sources with environmentally sound alternatives.