Mushrooms aren’t known to inspire the most exciting of dialogues (except perhaps among chefs), but to the numerous fans of solar energy, the growing legion of wave farmers, and the squadrons of Don Qui-eco-xotes tilting about their windmills, the humble fungus just got more fun.

In case you missed Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, here’s a (very) brief and slightly alternative synopsis of author Paul Stamets’ page-turner. They’re yummy, contain enormous nutritional and medicinal value, can act as an anti-pollutant and may well be a rather better form of alternative energy than some of the others being touted around the planet just now.

The technical term for this revolutionary greenie theory is Mycoremediation, that is, using mushrooms and their ilk to degrade or remove toxins from the environment. Stamets’ extensive research has led him to conclude that fungi can be used to neutralise heavy metals and that includes lead and mercury, as well as such bad-boy industrial toxins as chlorine, dioxin, and organophosphates.

As a single example, Mr Stamets – who runs Fungi Perfecti in Washington, US – raised a colony of oyster mushrooms on soil that had been contaminated by diesel oil. Amazingly, they thrived, zapped the toxins, and once they had died, provided a healthy environment for new plant growth. A plot right next door, which was left to fend for itself without benefit of fungi, remained barren and contaminated.

It gets better. Cue an extended round of applause for the brainy folks researching chemical and environmental technology and genetics and microbiology at the universities of Murcia and Rey Juan Carlos in Spain. After an extensive amount of peering into test tubes and such, they recently announced that given the right sort of encouragement the Mucor circinelloides variety of fungus can produce significant amounts of glycerol, one of the basic ingredients of biodiesel. Not only does the process not swallow up hectare upon hectare of otherwise perfectly good arable land, but there’s no need to tinker about with the solar requirements either.

If the preliminary results are to be believed, the fungus is capable of producing and accumulating more than half of its dry mass weight in glycerol, which is a much better result that anything witnessed previously. What’s more, the Senhors and Senhoras Científicos reckon that such fungi can be grown on a massive scale, and so significantly cut the costs of biodiesel production.

If it all works out, then mushrooms could have a significant impact on the planet’s environment, to say nothing of worldwide economics. Picture the scene as traders scrabble over Fungi Futures on global markets, while Mushroom Moguls grandly announce they plan to give away half their well-gotten gains to charity. Whatever happens, the modest mushroom is certainly offering the Earth’s ecology plenty of room for improvement.