captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> we have made history tonight! >> at 29, alexandria ocasio- cortez is the youngest woman ever elected to congress. but that's not the only headline she's responsible for. >> hello! >> ocasio-cortez is a democratic socialist. she's been described as both an inspiring and idealistic insurgent, and as a naiïve and ill-informed newcomer. ( cheers and applause ) these are politically dangerous tactics that you're using. you've heard that. >> yeah, yeah. isolute risky. ( ticking ) >> egyptian president abdel fattah el-sisi has imprisoned his opponents by the thousands. el-sisi has strangled freedom of

speech, and his troops have murdered protestors. as you might imagine, president el-sisi does not do a lot of interviews. and he was apparently surprised by our questions, because his government has asked us not to broadcast his interview. mr. president, i've spoken to a number of your countrymen who refuse to call you "mr. president" because they say you're a military dictator. >> ( laughs ) ( ticking ) >> this unlikely inventor calls himself "messianic"-- as in the messiah-- and likes to say, matter-of-factly, that he is "saving the world." and that's what you think? >> yes. >> you think, "i'm saving the world." >> i don't think. i don't think, i know that.>>s o decione day that he was going to stop global warming. >> i thought he was another thomas edison. >> another thomas edison? >> another thomas edison. a genius. a very eccentric genius, but a genius who had come up with this

totally revolutionary idea. ( ticking ) >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm scott pelley. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm bill whitaker. those stories, tonight, on "60 minutes." ( ticking )

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and should not be taken if you have certain abnormal heart rhythms or take other drugs that are known to cause changes in heart rhythm. tell your doctor about any changes in medicines you're taking. the most common side effects are swelling of the arms and legs and confusion. we spoke up and it made all the difference. ask your parkinson's specialist about nuplazid. >> cooper: the 116th congress was sworn into office this past week, even as the government remained in a partial shutdown. a record number of women have been elected to the house of representatives. so far, one newcomer is getting most of the attention, from both

the left and from the right. congresswoman alexandria ocasio- cortez is 29 years old. she'd never run for elective office before, and was working as a waitress and bartender when she launched her campaign. she unseated one of the most powerful democrats in the house in the primary. like senator bernie sanders, ocasio-cortez is a democratic socialist. she believes in universal healthcare, tuition-free public college, and massive government investment to combat climate change. she's been described as both an inspiring and idealistic insurgent, and as a naiïve and ill-informed newcomer. as the future of the democratic party, and as a potential obstacle to its success. few rookie members of congress have put such bold ideas on the national agenda, and stirred up so much controversy, before they were sworn in. there are people that say that you don't understand how the game is played. >> alexandria ocasio-cortez: mh-huh. >> cooper: do you? >> ocasio-cortez: i think it's really great for people to keep

thinking that. >> cooper: you want folks to underestimate you? >> ocasio-cortez: absolutely. that's how i won my primary. >> cooper: winning that primary shocked the democratic establishment, and in november, alexandria ocasio-cortez became the youngest woman ever elected to congress. >> ocasio-cortez: we have made history tonight! >> cooper: just a few days later, as soon as she got to washington... >> protestors: green new deal, green new deal, green new deal! >> cooper: ...she paid a visit to climate change activists who were occupying her party leader nancy pelosi's office. she was the only newly-elected member of congress who decided to drop by during the sit-in, and she called on pelosi to create a select committee on climate change without any members of congress who accept money from the fossil fuel industry. ( cheers and applause ) >> cooper: nancy pelosi is incredibly powerful. >> ocasio-cortez: she absolutely is. and-- >> cooper: and you're occupying her office. >> ocasio-cortez: oh my goodness, i could have thrown up that morning, i was so nervous.

but i kept, kind of, just coming back to the idea that what they're fighting for wasn't wrong. and i-- i had also sat down with-- with leader pelosi beforehand, and she told me her story. she came from activism. and i knew that she would absolutely understand how advocacy can change the needle on really important issues. >> cooper: ocasio-cortez and her allies managed to get more than 40 members of congress to support the climate committee. >> nancy pelosi: good morning. >> cooper: house speaker nancy pelosi agreed to create it's not nearly what ocasio-t cortez had in mindit., pelosi granted the committee limited powers, and did not ban members who take money from the fossil fuel industry. >> ocasio-cortez. >> cooper: for ocasio-cortez, it was an early lesson in congressional politics.e he defied pelosi and voted against the speaker's new house rules, but was not joined by many other progressive democrats. ocasio-cortez told us she's determined to keep fighting for what's being called a "green new

deal"-- a highly ambitious, some would say "unrealistic" proposal that would convert the entire u.s. economy to renewable sources of energy in just 12 years, while guaranteeing every american a job at a fair wage. you're talking about zero carbon emissions-- no use of fossil fuels within 12 years. >> ocasio-cortez: that is the goal. it's ambitious, and... >> cooper: how is that possible? are you talking about everybody having to drive an electric car? >> ocasio-cortez: it's going to require a lot of rapid change that we don't even conceive as possible right now. what is the problem with trying to push our technological capacities to the furthest extent possible? >> cooper: this would require, though, raising taxes. >> ocasio-cortez: there's an element where-- yeah. they're-- people are going to have to start paying their fair share in taxes. >> cooper: do you have a specific on the tax rate? >> ocasio-cortez: you know, it-- you look at our tax rates back in the '60s, and when you have a progressive tax rate system,

your tax rate, you know, let's say, from zero to $75,000 may be 10% or 15%, et cetera. but once you get to, like, the tippy-tops-- on your ten-millionth dollar-- sometimes you see tax rates as high as 60% or 70%. that doesn't mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate, but it means that as you climb up this ladder, you should be contributing more. >> cooper: what you are talking about, just big picture, is a radical agenda, compared to the way politics is done right now. >> ocasio-cortez: well, i think that it only has ever been radicals that have changed this country. abraham lincoln made the radical decision to sign the emancipation proclamation. franklin delano roosevelt made the radical decision to embark on establishing programs like social security. >> cooper: do you call yourself a radical? >> ocasio-cortez: yeah. you know, if that's what radical means, call me a radical. hello! hi, all.

>> cooper: she doesn't seem to be viewed as a radical by her constituents in "new york 14," the racially diverse, liberal, and reliably democratic congressional district that includes parts of queens and the bronx. ocasio-cortez was born in the bronx. her parents had met in puerto rico. her father owned a small architectural business. her mother cleaned houses to help make ends meet. by the time she was ready for pre-school, her parents had made a down payment on a small house in the westchester suburbs. it was 30 miles and a world away from her extended family still living in the bronx. what was it that-- that ought your parents here? >> ocasio-cortez: schools. yeah, my mom wanted to make sure that i had a solid chance and a solid education. >> cooper: did you feel like you were living in two different worlds? because you were spending a lot of time in the bronx with your family and also here. >> ocasio-cortez: yeah. yeah. and just growing up that way, and with my cousins, who were all my age too, feeling like we all had kind of different opportunities, depending on where we were physically located.

>> cooper: she did well in school, and with the help of scholarships, loans, and financial aid, attended boston university. but in her sophomore year, her father died of cancer. >> ocasio-cortez: we were really working on the classic american dream. and overnight, it was all taken away. my mom was back to cleaning homes and driving school buses to keep a roof over our heads. >> cooper: she moved back to the bronx after graduating college, and spent the next few years working as a community organizer and advocate for children's literacy. in may of 2017, the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her boyfriend became her makeshift campaign headquarters, as she launched a seemingly improbable run for congress. she was working as a waitress and bartender at the time. like many members of her generation, she says, she had student loans to pay, and no health insurance.

>> ocasio-cortez: i really understood the frustration that working people had across the political spectrum. when anybody is saying, "the economy is going great. we are at record levels." there's a frustration that says, "well, the economy's good for who?" >> cooper: i mean, unemployment is at record lows. >> ocasio-cortez: i don't think that that tells the whole story. when you can't provide for your kids working a full-time job, working two full-time jobs, when you can't have healthcare, that is not-- that is not dignified. >> cooper: a group of bernie sanders supporters, who now call themselves justice democrats, encouraged ocasio-cortez to run for office, and gave her training and support. she built a grass-roots coalition that took on the democratic machine by going door to door... >> ocasio-cortez: hi, sadia. i'm alexandria. >> cooper: ...arguing that she could represent the district better than a ten-term incumbent who spent most of his time in washington. >> ocasio-cortez: have a good day. >> stephen colbert: please welcome alexandria ocasio-

cortez! >> cooper: her victory made national news, and she soon had a higher media profile than many veteran lawmakers. some saw in her primary victory a craving for change within the democratic party. house democratic leader nancy pelosi drew a more limited conclusion: >> pelosi: they made a choice in one district, so let's not get yourself carried away. >> cooper: but president trump rarely missed a chance to suggest that all democrats were socialists who'd lead the country to ruin. >> donald trump: venezuela. venezuela. how does that sound? you like venezuela? >> cooper: when people hear the word "socialism," they think soviet union, cuba, venezuela. is that what you have in mind? >> ocasio-cortez: of course not! what we have in mind-- and what of my-- and my policies most closely resemble what we see in the u.k., in norway, in finland, in sweden. >> cooper: how are you going to pay for all of this? >> ocasio-cortez: no one asks how we're going to pay for this space force. no one asked how we paid for a $2 trillion tax cut.

we only ask how we pay for it on issues of housing, healthcare and education. how do we pay for it? with the same exact mechanisms that we pay for military increases for this space force. for all of these ambitious policies. >> cooper: there are democrats, obviously, who are worried about your affect on the party. democratic senator chris coons, said about left-leaning democrats, "if the next two years is just a race to offer increasingly unrealistic proposals, it'll be difficult for us to make a credible case we should be allowed to govern again." >> ocasio-cortez: what makes it unrealistic? >> cooper: how to pay for it. >> ocasio-cortez: we pay more per capita in healthcare and education, for lower outcomes, than many other nations. and so for me, what's unrealistic is-- is what we're living in right now. >> cooper: since the election, some conservative media outlets have focused on ocasio-cortez with an intensity unusual for a rookie member of congress. >> sean hannity: her views, her policy positions, are actually downright scary.

>> cooper: she's been accused of being dishonest about the true cost of her proposals, and the tax burden they would impose on the middle class. she's also been criticized for making factual mistakes. one of the criticisms of you is that your math is fuzzy. the "washington post" recently awarded you four pinocchios-- >> ocasio-cortez: oh my goodness. >> cooper: --for misstating some statistics about pentagon spending? >> ocasio-cortez: if people want to really blow up one figure here or one word there, i would argue that they're missing the forest for the trees. i think that there's a lot of people more concerned about being precisely, factually, and semantically correct, than about being morally right. >> cooper: but being factually correct is important-- >> ocasio-cortez: it's absolutely important. and whenever i make a mistake,s" and then i restate what my point was. but it's-- it's not the same thing as the president lying about immigrants.

it's not the same thing, at all. >> trump: we started the wall anyway, and we're going to get that done. we're going to get that done. ( cheers and applause ) >> cooper: you don't talk about president trump very much. >> ocasio-cortez: no. >> cooper: why? >> ocasio-cortez: no. because i think he's a symptom of a problem. >> cooper: what do you mean? >> ocasio-cortez: the president certainly didn't invent racism. but he's certainly given a voice to it, and expanded it, and created a platform for those things. >> cooper: do you believe president trump is a racist? >> ocasio-cortez: yeah. yeah, no question. >> cooper: how can you say that? >> ocasio-cortez: when you look at the words that he uses, which are historic dog whistles of white supremacy. when you look at how he reacted to the charlottesville incident, where neo-nazis murdered a woman, versus how he manufactures crises like immigrants seeking legal refuge on our borders, it's-- it's night and day. >> cooper: in response, the white house deputy press secretary told us,

"congresswoman ocasio-cortez's sheer ignorance on the matter can't cover the fact that president trump supported and passed historic criminal justice reform," and "has repeatedly condemned racism and bigotry in all forms." one of the few things ocasio- cortez has in common with the president is an active and often combative presence on social media. when a conservative writer tweeted this photo of her, saying "that jacket and coat don't look like a girl who struggles," she called him out for what she said was "misogyny." >> ocasio-cortez: would you be taking a creep shot of steny hoyer's behind and sharing it around? why is there more comfort in doing that to me than there is in doing it to any other member of congress? >> cooper: eliminating the influence of corporate money in politics is another one of ocasio-cortez's signature issues. most of her campaign funds came

from small donations of $200 or less. she did accept some money from labor unions, but she refuses to take any contributions from corporate political action committees. she's angered some of her colleagues in the house by encouraging primary challenges of democrats who accept corporate money or oppose progressive policies. these are politically dangerous tactics that you're using. you've heard that. >> ocasio-cortez: yeah, yeah. >> cooper: do you believe it? >> ocasio-cortez: it's absolutely risky. it requires risk to try something new, but... but also, we-- we know so much of-- of what we've tried in the past hasn't worked, either. ( ticking )

>> pelley: american taxpayers send more foreign aid to egypt than to any other nation except israel. but america's nearly $1.5 billion a year is going to a regime accused of the worst abuses in egypt's modern history. opponents of president abdel fattah el-sisi have been imprisoned by the thousands. el-sisi has strangled freedom of speech, and his troops have murdered protestors. as you might imagine, president el-sisi does not do a lot of interviews, and we were surprised when he sat down with us. el-sisi was apparently surprised by our questions, because his government has asked us not to broadcast his interview. this is an american citizen. in 2015, he was sentenced to life in this egyptian prison. his crime was transmitting false news-- news which offended the man we met recently in new york:

president abdel fattah el-sisi. do you have a good idea of how many political prisoners you're holding? >> abdel fattah el-sisi ( translated ): we don't have political prisoners, nor prisoners of opinion. we are trying to stand against extremists who impose their ideology on the people. now they are subject to a fair trial, and it may take years, but we have to follow the law. >> pelley: mr. president, the organization human rights watch says that there are 60,000 political prisoners that you're holding, today, as we sit here. >> el-sisi ( translated ): i don't know where they got that figure. i said there are no political prisoners in egypt. whenever there is a minority trying to impose their extremist ideology, we have to intervene, regardless of their numbers. >> pelley: the "extremists," as he calls them, made up egypt's largest political party, the muslim brotherhood. the brotherhood is controversial.

its stated goal is peaceful pursuit of islamic government, but over its 90 years, members have committed violence. in 2013, el-sisi outlawed the brothers as terrorists. but, president trump hasn't designated them a terrorist organization. nor did president obama, when andrew miller was egypt director in the national security council. >> andrew miller: while individual muslim brothers clearly have resorted to violence, many have left the party before doing so, precisely because they are discontent with the peaceful, gradualist approach of the senior muslim brotherhood leadership. >> pelley: the brotherhood was one of egypt's largest education, charity and healthcare associations.rsiddlel academics, doctors and lawyers. modern egyptian history is a cycle of tension between generals and the brothers. but this time, critics say, el-sisi has gone too far. >> miller: sisi began by jailing the muslim brotherhood and other

islamists. he extended it to secular opposition groups. and now, he's even going after poets and artists and bloggers, people you wouldn't normally think of as political activists or primary public players. >> pelley: why would he do that? >> miller: because he views any opposition to him as a threat to his standing, and as a threat to his objective. we have to remember, he is a military officer. he spent his entire career in the military before he became president. and the idea that someone wouldn't obey or listen to his orders is anathema to him. >> pelley: el-sisi rose in 2011's arab spring, after egyptians overthrew a dictator and elected the muslim brotherhood's mohammad morsi. morsi made el-sisi minister of defense. but morsi's government was chaotic. he assumed autocratic power. and after a year, there was another uprising. with a good deal of popular support, el-sisi seized control.

>> el-sisi ( translated ): the egyptian people rejected such a strict religious government. it is the right of the egyptian people to choose the form of government they like. >> pelley: they are also the leading political opposition to you. is that why they have been outlawed? >> el-sisi ( translated ): no, no, no. we are only dealing with extreme islamists who are carrying weapons. we would welcome them to live among the people, but we don't want them to carry weapons and destroy the egyptian economy. >> abdelmawgoud dardery: general sisi, unfortunately, kidnapped democracy. he kidnapped our dream of being free. >> pelley: abdelmawgoud dardery was a member of the muslim brotherhood-controlled parliament. t n' any choice. he was leading a popular revolution against the morsi government. that's his argument. >> dardery: that is not his responsibility as an army general. he was the defense minister.

he betrayed his president. he took an oath in front of the president to protect the constitution. the constitution does not give him any right to represent the people. he never did, he never will, represent the people of egypt. >> pelley: mr. president, i've spoken to a number of your countrymen who refuse to call you "mr. president" because they say you're a military dictator. >> el-sisi ( translated ): ( laughs ) i don't know who you talked to, but 30 million egyptians took to the streets to reject the ruling regime at the time. it was a must to respond to their will. secondly, the maintenance of peace after this period required some measures to restore security. >> pelley: what el-sisi calls "measures to restore security" include the massacre of at least 800 muslim brotherhood supporters in cairo's rabaa square. in august 2013, after weeks of protests, egyptian forces moved

in. among the survivors was mohamed soltan, the egyptian-american imprisoned for reporting false news. soltan was released 21 months after the obama administration intervened. >> mohamed soltan: i was targeted. i was targeted because i had a camera. i had a phone and i was tweeting. >> pelley: where were you shot? >> soltan: i was shot in my left arm. i was rushed to the makeshift hospital, where there was blood and bodies, injured bodies, everywhere. piled upon each other. >> pelley: the rabaa square protest camp was assaulted while el-sisi was in charge of security. did you give that order? >> el-sisi ( translated ): allow me to ask you a question. are you closely following the situation in egypt? from where do you get your information? there were thousands of armed people in the sitin for more than 40 days. we tried every peaceful means to disperse them.

>> pelley: human rights watch issued a report, which you may have seen, describing rabaa. and it says, and i quote, "using armored personnel carriers, bulldozers, ground forces and snipers, police and army personnel attacked the protest encampment, with hundreds killed by bullets to their heads, necks and chests." was that necessary to the peace and stability of egypt? >> el-sisi ( translated ): you are calling the human rights watch report a sound statement, which is not true. there were police personnel, and they were trying to open peaceful corridors for the people to go safely to their homes. >> pelley: though el-sisi told us thousands of protestors were armed, at the time, his government said just over a dozen weapons were found. you're a military man. you were educated by the u.s. military. does that sound like proportional force to you?

>> el-sisi ( translated ): i don't know how come they had 15 or 16 firearms. i would like to tell the american people the situation on the ground could have destroyed the egyptian state and caused massive instability, more than could be conceived. whenever there is an armed confrontation with a big number of people, it's difficult to control the situation and to decide who killed whom. >> pelley: the situation in his prisons is within el-sisi's control, and there, according to the u.s. state department, the killing and torture continue. >> soltan: in the last six months of my imprisonment, i was in utter isolation. i was systematically, psychologically tortured. >> pelley: what do you mean? >> soltan: light control, spotlight... >> pelley: to keep you from sleeping? >> soltan: ...on me. yes, to keep me from sleeping. 36 hours. strobe light, until i got, i went into a seizure.

guards that were assigned to me right outside my cell would pass razors under the door step and the officer doctors would tell me, "hey, mohamed, cut vertically, not horizontally, so you can end it faster." >> pelley: prison is a tool of politics in egypt. when el-sisi ran for re-election last year, he jailed one of his leading opponents, and won, his government says, 97% of the vote. el-sisi sees himself as a guardian against the chaos that destroyed syria, libya and yemen. but critics, including obama national security official andrew miller, argue that repression stands to make egypt more explosive, not less. >> miller: this is the most repressive government in modern egyptian history. you have death sentences galore, and mass trials. it's extremely concerning. >> pelley: but sisi would tell you that he's the reason that egypt is stable.

>> miller: it's a curious way to describe egypt, to call it stable. since sisi took office, living standards have declined. the country is crumbling. the insurgency problem in the sinai has only gotten worse. it's backed by the islamic state, entering its sixth year. and you've seen the mass incarceration of peaceful activists alongside hardened jihadists, which threatens to turn more egyptians to terrorism. that seems to be a recipe for the very instability that sisi claims he's preventing. >> pelley: president el-sisi is fighting terrorism. last month, a tourist bus was bombed near the great pyramids. the next day, egyptian forces killed 40 suspects. in 2017, isis affiliates murdered coptic christians at church and 311 muslims in a mosque. in our interview, el-sisi revealed officially for the first time that his military is cooperating with israel in the sinai. would you say that this is the

deepest and closest cooperation that you've ever had with israel? >> el-sisi ( translated ): that is correct. the air force sometimes needs to cross to the israeli side, and that's why we have a wide range of coordination with the israelis. >> pelley: it's been estimated there are about 1,000 terrorists in sinai. with more than $1 billion in u.s. military aid every year, why haven't you wiped them out? >> el-sisi ( translated ): and why hasn't the u.s. eliminated the terrorists in afghanistan, after 17 years and spending a trillion dollars? >> pelley: president trump met el-sisi and king salman of saudi arabia in 2017 to open a saudi center against extremism. ironic, after saudi officers murdered "washington post" columnist jamal khashoggi, and the u.s. state department said el-sisi is guilty of disappearances and torture. why should the american people

continue to invest in your government? >> el-sisi ( translated ): they're investing in security and stability in the region. the united states is in charge of security worldwide. >> pelley: mr. president, your critics-- critics in the united states congress, critics within the united nations-- say that you are holding tens of thousands of political prisoners. that hundreds of people-- unarmed people-- have been killed in the streets of cairo. they claim that you have blood on your hands. how do you explain all of this? >> el-sisi ( translated ): we are dealing with fundamentalists and extremists which caused damage and killed people over these last years. i can't ask egyptians to forget their rights, or the police and civilians who died. >> pelley: for now, the white house calculates that fighting terrorism is more urgent than

the threat that el-sisi's repression will ignite another revolt. egypt's parliament is debating whether to suspend term limits, to allow el-sisi to continue building an egypt unlike any the modern world has known. ( ticking ) >> egyptian government officials asked this "60 minutes" team not to air the interview you just watched. the back story at www.60minutesovertime.com. sponsored by pfizer. smoking with chantix. ray and i t smoking. it dictates your day. i didn't like something having control over me. i wanted to stop. the thing is i didn't know how. chantix, along with support, helps you quit smoking. chantix reduced my urge to smoke to the point that i could quit. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking,

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a breakthrough can come from the least expected- perhaps, like an 81-year-old eccentric from massachusetts, who toiled in isolation with no financial support for more than a decade. his focus? a challenge that has stumped scientists for many years. how to transform inedible plant life into environmentally- friendly transportation fuels in a clean and cost-effective way. this unlikely inventor calls himself "messianic"-- as in the messiah-- and likes to say, matter-of-factly, that he is "saving the world." and that's what you think? >> marshall medoff: yes. >> stahl: you think, "i'm saving the world." >> medoff: i don't think. i don't think-- i know that. >> stahl: who says things like that? mahall medoff does he's a man on a mission, who decided one day that he was going to stop global warming. >> medoff: when i realized what was going on here, i said, this is an emergency.

we've got to find new resources. we've got to find new ways of saving the universe, in terms of global warming and so forth and so on. >> stahl: what was your science education? >> medoff: zero. >> stahl: so, no degree in chemistry? >> medoff: oh, of course not. i didn't have any degree in chemistry. >> stahl: what's your i.q.? >> medoff: i have no idea about i.q.s. ( laughs ) >> stahl: medoff has been called a genius. 25 years ago, he became obsessed with the environment, and decided to abandon his business career and become an amateur scientist. but while engineers, geologists and ecologists with ph.ds went to labs at m.i.t. and stanford, medoff went to one of the country's most legendary settings for reflection. >> medoff: i used to run out to walden, which wasn't that far away. >> stahl: you mean walden pond? thoreau? >> medoff: yeah, yeah. >> stahl: okay. >> medoff: what i thought was, the reason people were failing is, they were trying to overcome nature instead of working with it.

>> stahl: he knew that there's a lot of energy in plant life. it's in the form of sugar molecules that, once accessed, can be converted into transportation fuel. the key word is "access." this sugar is nearly impossible to extract cheaply and cleanly, since it is locked tightly inside the plant's cellulose, the main part of a plant's cellular walls. what's so tantalizing is that sugar-rich cellulose is the most abundant biological material on earth. >> medoff: cellulose is everywhere. i mean, there's just so much cellulose in the world, and nobody had managed to use any of it. couldn't get at it. >> stahl: so that was your target. >> medoff: that was my target. so, once i decided to do that, i said, "wow, if i can break through this, we can increase the resources of the world maybe by a third, or more, who knows?" >> stahl: to figure out how to break through cellulose to get at the sugars, marshall medoff did something that most of us

wouldn't dream of. he buried himself away in seclusion for more than 15 years in a garage at a storage facility in the middle of nowhere. >> medoff: i didn't have a phone there. nobody could disturb me. and i'd have a pile of papers that i had collected, and i started reading them. >> stahl: the idea that you could solve this big problem-- >> medoff: i know, yeah. >> stahl: --with no science background. >> medoff: yeah. i was-- apparently, i must have had a very good mother who-- who, breastfed me an extra few months or something, because i had a lot of security about the fact that i'd get it done. and i never had any doubts. >> stahl: what about your private life? >> medoff: no, i-- i had to give that up. >> stahl: you gave up your medofh, of course. because i didn't see anybody from nine in the morning till nine at night, or later. >> stahl: alone in the garage, medoff started churning out ideas and patenting them- so many, he needed help. >> craig masterman: boxes piled to the ceiling.

>> stahl: boxes? and? >> masterman: i was shocked. >> stahl: ( laughs ) at the way this place looked? >> masterman: right. >> stahl: craig masterman was marshall medoff's first hire, ten years ago. he's an m.i.t. graduate in chemistry. >> masterman: he hired me to build a lab. >> stahl: so he hired you to help improve what he was thinking in his head? >> masterman: that's correct. but i implement things. he thinks a lot, i implement a lot of things. and you'll run it at 25 mili ampa beam power. >> stahl: what masterman helped implement was medoff's novel idea of using these large blue machines, called electron accelerators, to break apart nature's chokehold on the valuable sugars inside plant life, or biomass. machines like these are typically used to strengthen materials such as wiring and cable. medoff's invention was to use the accelerator the opposite way: to break biomass apart.

maybe you can tell us how the electron accelerator works? >> masterman: it's pretty simple. it's basically accelerated electricity. and so, what happens is, is that they get accelerated-- >> stahl: downward. >> masterman: downward, where the biomass is, and they ram into the biomass and rip it apart. >> stahl: it doesn't sound that extraordinary when you hear it, except, no one else had thought about it. >> masterman: i think, i think fantastic stuff is simple in hindsight. >> stahl: and none of the big scientists who were working round the clock to figure out how to get the sugars out-- >> masterman: no, they were all messing with things like sulfuric acid and steam explosion and crazy stuff like that, which is very expensive. all that stuff is expensive. electron beams are inexpensive. >> stahl: his inventive use of the accelerators caught the attention of investors, who saw a potential gold mine in the technology. they gave medoff's company, xyleco, hundreds of millions of dollars, allowing him to scale

up and build this factory in moses lake, washington, so he could turn his invention into reality. it's scheduled to be fully operational this spring. here, agricultural residue, like these corn cobs, is trucked in from nearby farms, ground up, blasted by the electron accelerator, and then combined with a proprietary enzyme mix. this process-- medoff's remarkable invention-- releases plant sugars that he's now using to make products he claims will solve some of the world's most intractable problems, affecting not just the environment, but also our health. one of the plant sugars is called xylose, and medoff says it could reduce obesity and diabetes, since it is consumable, and low in calories. >> masterman: xylose is called wood sugar, and it has an unusual property, that your oral bacteria cannot use it.

so it won't decay your teeth. >> stahl: sugar that doesn't decay your teeth? >> masterman: yes. >> stahl: hallelujah! ( laughs ) you know? >> medoff: it's healthier sugar. it doesn't do the same things to you. >> stahl: so, you could drink all the coke. you don't have to drink diet coke anymore. >> medoff: no. >> stahl: and it would taste the same? >> medoff: yeah. of course it tastes the same. it tastes-- tastes like real sugar. >> stahl: so i tried it myself. "trust, but verify." if i did that, i wouldn't die. >> angeles dios: no, you wouldn't die. it's just sweet. i mean, it's just... >> stahl: oh, very sweet! very sweet. >> medoff: it's getting a little crowded in here, craig. >> stahl: with the investor funds, medoff o 5 milltestinfacility in wakefield, massachusetts-- a far cry from the garage. and he hired more than 70 scientists and engineers, who have come up with a sugar-based product aimed at another impervious problem- some call it a plague- the accumulation of plastic debris. you have said that plastic

should be outlawed. >> medoff: yes, the plastics that are being used should be, because all they're doing is accumulating. and there's an enormous amount of ocean that's being despoiled. >> stahl: but if you take a plastic bag, or a plastic bottle of diet pepsi or whatever, and throw it away, it could be there for 500 years. >> medoff: more. >> stahl: most plastics are made from petroleum. medoff makes plastic from plants. it seemed to us that his product was hard to distinguish from regular plastic, except in one key way. chemical engineer david jablonski says that xyleco's bio-plastic invention can be programmed to disintegrate over specific time spans, ranging from years to as quickly as 11 weeks. >> david jablonski: you can just take this, and you can find that this is very degraded. >> stahl: oh, it's falling apart!

so in 11 weeks, it's already on its way to disintegrating? >> jablonski: that is correct. >> stahl: perhaps medoff's most consequential discovery is how to extract the plant sugars and convert them into to environmentally-friendly bio-fuels: ethanol, gasoline and jet fuel. and i'm told that you call this thing a still. >> medoff: it is a still. >> stahl: it is a still? >> medoff: it's actually making alcohol right now. alcohol that you can drink, or you can put in your car, or you can do both. here we are, on the road again. >> stahl: so marshall, i am driving a huge truck, on biomass fuel. it doesn't feel any different than normal gas to me. >> medoff: no. it wouldn't, no. >> stahl: medoff's ethanol is much better than regular corn ethanol in terms of greenhouse gas emissions- 77% better, according to a study that was independently reviewed.

>> medoff: yeah, it's a very einsteinian solution. you know, i-- >> stahl: einsteinian, really? like einstein? >> medoff: yeah, yeah. >> robert armstrong: i was first a little bit skeptical. it seemed almost too good to be true. >> stahl: and you had never heard of him, i'm sure of that. >> armstrong: i had not heard of him. >> stahl: robert armstrong, the former head of m.i.t.'s chemical engineering department, joined xyleco's board of directors after medoff told him about the electron beam accelerator, his inventive way of breaking down biomass. >> armstrong: the electron beam is truly a game changer. >> stahl: i was told that it's the holy grail, getting access to the sugars. >> armstrong: people at m.i.t. are working on it, people in the national labs, but nobody's gotten it done yet. >> stahl: has xyleco done it? >> armstrong: xyleco has done it. >> medoff: yeah, he knew i did it, yeah. of course, m.i.t. couldn't get it done. >> stahl: he's right about that. he outsmarted m.i.t., and now

he's lured some pretty powerful men to his board of directors, including former shell oil executive sir john jennings, and three former cabinet secretaries: steve chu of the department of energy, george shultz, former secretary of state, and former defense secretary, william perry. >> william perry: well, i thought he was another thomas edison. >> stahl: another thomas edison? >> perry: another thomas edison. a genius. a very eccentric genius, but a genius who had come up with this totally revolutionary idea. >> dr. steven chu: he definitely is a character. i come from a world of characters, in my scientific world. >> stahl: but he's not a scientist. >> chu: but he has all the attributes to many successful scientists. you have to believe in yourself. you have to say, "this is going to work." >> stahl: is there enough biomass to supply enough of this ethanol and gasoline in the world? >> chu: it can make a significant dent. >> stahl: a possible 30% dent in

the petroleum market, according to a report by the department of energy. but the question is, can marshall medoff scale up his operation enough to compete with the oil industry? >> perry: what is in doubt in my mind is how long it's going to take, breaking into these huge industrial markets, established markets, with established companies. that's going to be a big undertaking. >> john jennings: it won't turn off oil and gas overnight, obviously. it won't turn off coal. it won't turn off nuclear. it won't turn off all the other sources of energy. but it will find its place. and i think it will find it relatively quickly, because of all the boxes that it ticks. >> stahl: one of those boxes is easily dropped into the pumps at existing gas stations. >> medoff: you wouldn't have to change anything. >> stahl: i can just put it right in my car-- >> medoff: just like we did with the truck.soo righ to the pump and get it the same

way? >> medoff: exactly. >> stahl: transportation fuels that are clean-green. plastic that disintegrates. sugar that doesn't rot your teeth. it's hard to believe. but it all flowed from the mind of the most unlikely of amateur scientists, who was inspired not by any academic laboratory, but by his owns musings at walden pond. >> welcome to cbs sports hq presented by from guessive insurance. i'med adam zuker with a will bet a.f.c. playoff picture. a successful wild card weekend for the road teams. indianapolis beat houston yesterday. earlier on cbs, the l.a. chargers held on the defeat baltimore. the division matchups are set. los angeles faces new england at 1:00 eastern on sunday here on cbs. and saturday indianapolis takes on kansas city. and saturday indianapolis takes on kansas city. for 24/7news and highlight,e.

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>> whitaker: i'm bill whitaker. we'll be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes."

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