Onions make you cry, add flavor to food and win popularity for their medicinal benefits. Now the vegetable has another use—_____ green energy.

Anew system debuts（首次亮相）on Friday that _____ onion juice into electricity at Gills Onions, the largest fresh onion processor in the United States.

The Oxnard, California-based company _____ its new onion-fueled power to reduce its electric bill by $700,000 a year and _____ its annual greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30,000 tons.

The _____ ending to this green energy tale, however, started with another question: how to _____ onion waste.

“_____ we peel an onion, 35 to 40 percent of the onion comes off before we have a(n)_____ onion. That's the top, tail and skin around the onion, and _____ we can get to the meat,” said Steven Gill, co-owner of the 25-year-old company.

They used to pull the waste to the fields for compost（混合肥料）, but that turned out to be a tough ______. Ten years ago, Gill started looking at technology for a(n) _____, including microturbines（微型燃气轮机）.

“We ______ cutting the skins into pieces and extracting all the ______, which is very high in sugars, and bacteria love that stuff,” Gill said.

In the new system, bacteria ______ methane（甲烷）gas from the juice. The gas then goes to two 300 kilowatt fuel cells, creating ______ power for 460 homes. If everything goes smoothly, ______ are that the company will get 35 to 40 percent of its electricity from the on-site generator.

The company ______ $ 9. 5 million in the project and will receive $2. 7 million from Southern California Gas Co. _____ cutting its electric bill, the company will save $400,000 in costs and expects paybacks in the new future.

The onion grower now has a new ______: to be a zero-waste facility in the coming decade.

“We want to ______ it all the way through and make the full circle,” Gill said.

   Self-driving cars are so popular that the University of Michigan has even established a town called Mcity to allow car manufacturers to safely test their autonomous cars.

While Mcity can be used to simulate（模拟）many real-life road conditions，it can't help test gestures drivers use to communicate their intention（意图）to other drivers，pedestrians or cyclists. To find a solution，US car manufacturer Ford，with researchers from Virginia Tech，at the beginning considered using text as a way to communicate the car's intention，but decided it would probably not work universally. The option of using symbols was also rejected，because research shows that a majority of people do not have a good understanding of what they mean.

Finally, the researchers settled on light signals. A white light warned that there were no humans in the car. A slow blinking one indicated that the car was coming to a stop, while a rapidly flashing light cautioned passersby that the car was about to speed up.

Then came the big challenge—testing the signals on real roads. "We needed to try out this new lighting to communicate the intention of the vehicle, but if you've got a driver behind the seat, you still have natural communication between humans," said Andy Shaudt, who led the research team. "So we needed to make it look like a driverless car."

The team designed a car seat costume（戏装）that the driver would wear to cover his or her face and upper body. Of course，the drivers could see very clearly. The researchers then equipped the car with cameras to capture human reactions to a light bar，which flashed one of the three signals when appropriate. Six drivers，all keeping their hands low on the wheel so as not to be noticed，took turns to test driving the car through the busy streets.

The overall reaction to the flashing lights was very encouraging. Who knew costumes could be useful for more than Halloween？

   Trying to fight against the nation's food waste problem，Denmark opened the world's first supermarket that sells expired（到期的）or damaged products.

Ever since it was opened in Copenhagen，people have been standing in line outside WeFood for a chance to buy discounted items that would otherwise have ended up being rubbish because of damaged packing or very short use-by dates. Food，cosmetics，and other household items at WeFood are priced at least 30% to 50% lower than those at regular stores.

It's foolish to throw away or let food go to waste," said Hansen, former Minister for Food and Environment." It's bad for the environment and obviously it is money spent on nothing. A supermarket like WeFood makes so much sense and is an important step in the battle to fight against food waste."

While Denmark alone is said to waste about 700,000 tons of food this year, the United Nations has stated that globally, food waste adds up to 1.3 billion tons. It is really shocking, considering that about795million people in the world are still short of food. Denmark, however, has taken measures. As a result, it wastes 25% less food than it did five years ago.

The We Food project is cooperation between the Food Bank and Dan Church Aid. Together they have collected over s 150，000 over the past years. They faced many problems while convincing the government to permit the sale of expired or damaged products. They were finally allowed to carry out the project，and the store is now specially run by volunteers. The money it earns is used to provide funds（基金）for Dan Church Aid's other projects in developing nations.

If We Food can successfully maintain its goods deliveries and remain popular in the long term，Dan Church Aid plans to open many other branches across Denmark.

   From Japan to Detroit, automobile manufacturers have been busy creating the green car, a vehicle that, in all its forms, promises to be one of the cleanest technologies on earth. To create the green car of the future, say designers, they will replace dangerous substances with safe ones, recycle car parts from antifreeze to old tires and develop alternative fuels.

To meet high environmental standards, automakers began renovating（翻新）their practices at the heart of the matter: the manufacturing process.

At General Motors（GM）a two-seat electric car named the Impact can travel 110 to 160 kilometers on a single charge, depending on driving habits and conditions. GM will begin the consumer test to the Impact in 12 U. S. cities this year. About a thousand people have been selected to drive the vehicle for two-and four-week periods.

Meanwhile, another alternative to standard gasoline-powered cars is Volkswagen’s Golf Ecomatic, recently introduced in Europe and powered by a diesel（柴油）engine that shuts down automatically whenever the car doesn’t require the force of push — while drivers are waiting at traffic lights, slowing to a standstill in heavy traffic or driving downhill. In city traffic alone, Volkswagen engineers expect 60 percent of the trip is spent either moving without its engine turned on or waiting, and overall the carbon dioxide emissions（排放物）produced by the Golf Ecomatic are 22 percent less than those of a standard diesel-powered automobile.

In the end, the green car will be good not only for the environment but also for business. In the long run environmental success is essential to business success, and many companies have recognized this reality, as a growing number of people want to purchase products from environmentally responsible firms.