The Register reports on a new process to extract hydrogen from sunflower oil. It's potentially a breakthrough technology, because one of the drawbacks of hydrogen-powered cars is the difficulty of storing hydrogen. Using sunflower oil, scientists envision extracting hydrogen in real time from the oil while you drive your car.
The process is still expensive, but now that scientists understand the potential, it's likely that they will find ways to drop the price. It's just one more piece of the hydrogen economy, falling into place. Good news for northern Iowa, among other places (they grow sunflowers there). So rural Iowa may become an important part of the emerging Energy Economy. Who would have predicted that?