80 million watermelons are left to rot each year. Now there's a way to turn them into ethanol.

Now there is a use for all those rotting watermelons.

Science Daily reports that a 20 pound watermelon can yield a 1.5 pounds of sugar, enough to produce 7/10 of a pound of ethanol. And chemist Wayne Fish has also shown that ethanol can be extracted from the waste stream of watermelons used for nutraceuticals (like lycopene a powerful anti-oxident). 

This is good news for the watermelon industry. Farmers gain an extra cash crop and the nutraceutical industry which extracts watermelon compounds, will have reduced waste water treatment expenses.

Agricultural Research Services (ARS) is perfecting a method for extracting watermelon ethanol and developing an intercropping method, whereby other ethanol crops like sweet sorghum could be rotated with the watermelon crop, providing a year-round source of ethanol.