Students at a small high school in Alaska are giving new meaning to the "new energy" mantra coined by onetime Gov. Sarah Palin. But instead of looking to extract oil and gas reserves, as pitched by Palin, scientists in the Last Frontier are pioneering advances in an alternate method of gas collection -- the creation and harvest of methane -- and Cordova teenagers are leading the way.

Cows burp it, their dung piles emit it and melting permafrost in Alaska and elsewhere is releasing once-trapped reserves of methane gas that are now escaping as land shifts and melts. Methane, a greenhouse gas that traps heat at rates much higher than carbon dioxide, is the byproduct of bacteria that create the gas as they dine on dying plants and other waste.

In findings released last year, University of Alaska scientist Dr. Katey Walter-Anthony discovered that the methane bubbling out of Alaska's flaming arctic lakes is created by a cold-loving bacteria hard at work. Urban planner T.H. Culhane, who builds waste-eating contraptions called biodigesters to improve the lives of people living in urban slums and rural villages across the globe, thought Walter-Anthony's discovery could help his mission by improving the efficiency of the small-scale biodigesters he teachers others to make using commonly available supplies. Their partnership, facilitated by National Geographic's Emerging Explorers program, has resulted in an experiment, now in its second year, at Cordova High School, looking at whether Alaska's cold-loving bacteria, called psychrophiles, can expand the temperature range at which traditional biodigesters -- typically used in more temperate regions of the earth -- operate.

Culhane believes the technology will work in rural Alaska. With plenty of fish waste, wood, food scraps and other organic materials available, the raw materials are in place. All that's needed is the motivation.

"The dream of doing this in an Alaska community is if the money is there we can do it. The bacteria will do the job. It's really about plumbing and insulation," he said. "We are trying to build an artificial cow. A cow made out of plastic that you can set inside your house and which doesn't smell and that eats all of your waste and produces your energy and fertilizer."

The science class of a lifetime

When Cordova High School's chemistry and science club students were first offered a shot at participating in Culhane and Walter-Anthony's research, teacher Adam Low said they were seriously charged up. "It wasn't just ‘yeah,' but "Hell yeah, let's do this!" he said.

The work would be tedious and at times unglamorous. Not only would they need to build six digesters, they would need to feed and partially drain them daily and record and analyze the data. Grinding up mass quantities of leftover school lunches to make meals for bacteria isn't exactly a teenager's dream job. Low was thrilled that his students were willing to take it on: "The payoff is that you really could change the world. You get to do a real science project without a known outcome and work with experts."

Under Culhane and UAF researcher Laurel McFadden's guidance, the students assembled and began monitoring the digesters during the 2009-2010 school year. Lake mud from Fairbanks and manure were used as starter, and soon the students were testing their own homegrown brew of microbes combined with water and ground-up food. They filled large plastic cubes with Alaska's lake bacteria, warm-weather bacteria (found in animal guts and feces) and blends of both and tested the methane-making potential of each cocktail at different temperatures.