garys123
09-01-09, 03:59 PM
Found this on yahoo. Wonder if it will ever go mainstream.
Many people find that coffee is a good source of fuel in the morning, but now that could literally become the case - as bio-diesel sourced from coffee beans could soon run our cars. And, some will be most pleased to note, the fuel maintains that pleasant coffee aroma.
Researchers at the University of Nevada have found that ground coffee is 10-15 percent oil, which is easily extractable and turned into bio-diesel. What's more, it could be offered for as little as 60p per US gallon - that's around 16p per litre!
Coffee is in abundant enough supply to provide hundreds of millions of gallons of fuel every year, and the oil can be extracted from leftover grounds - so we shouldn't find ourselves missing out on our morning coffee for the sake of fuel.
And the find was stumbled across by accident, according to chief researcher Mano Misra, who said: "I had left my coffee out one night, and the next morning, I noticed that there was a kind of oil around the edge of the cup." Misra then collected used ground coffee from Starbucks and found extracting the oil was easy.
There are over 7.2 million tonnes of coffee produced worldwide each year from which to extract fuel and it's also more stable than traditional bio-fuel because of coffee's high antioxidant content. A larger scale pilot scheme is now underway to see how viable coffee could be as a genuine fuel source.
Many people find that coffee is a good source of fuel in the morning, but now that could literally become the case - as bio-diesel sourced from coffee beans could soon run our cars. And, some will be most pleased to note, the fuel maintains that pleasant coffee aroma.
Researchers at the University of Nevada have found that ground coffee is 10-15 percent oil, which is easily extractable and turned into bio-diesel. What's more, it could be offered for as little as 60p per US gallon - that's around 16p per litre!
Coffee is in abundant enough supply to provide hundreds of millions of gallons of fuel every year, and the oil can be extracted from leftover grounds - so we shouldn't find ourselves missing out on our morning coffee for the sake of fuel.
And the find was stumbled across by accident, according to chief researcher Mano Misra, who said: "I had left my coffee out one night, and the next morning, I noticed that there was a kind of oil around the edge of the cup." Misra then collected used ground coffee from Starbucks and found extracting the oil was easy.
There are over 7.2 million tonnes of coffee produced worldwide each year from which to extract fuel and it's also more stable than traditional bio-fuel because of coffee's high antioxidant content. A larger scale pilot scheme is now underway to see how viable coffee could be as a genuine fuel source.