22 April 2008

$1 Gasoline

Check it out--products usually derived from petroleum may eventually be affordably created from raw plant materials!

Researchers at UMass Amherst recently published a new method of refining hydrocarbons from cellulose, paving the way to turn wood scraps into gasoline, diesel fuel, Tupperware—anything, essentially, that’s normally refined from petroleum. [read article]

I have been a subscriber to the flex-fuel / ethanol idea myself, however in light of its perceived negative impact on the economy hybrids may be the eventual reality for personal and business automobiles. Even so, as John Regalbuto points out in the article, "we’re still going to need diesel and jet fuel—you can’t run trains or fly planes with ethanol or hydrogen" and "if you want a sustainable liquid transportation fuel, biomass is the only way to go."

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