Photo: Energy Digital
Our cars need to be even more lightweight in the future to use fuel more efficiently, be it electricity or biofuel. Luckily, with further research, lightweight materials and even fuel can be offered by trees.
We’re not talking about wood chassis and a wood-fed steam engine here, but carbon fiber and ethanol, which can be obtained from genetically modified trees like the poplar.
Speaking with io9, Oak Ridge National Laboratory doctor Gerald Tuskan said that trees can have other uses than making paper, furniture and feeding fires. They are made of cellulose and hemicellulose, both containing sugars that can be fermented into ethanol fuel.
More than that, about a third of a tree’s mass is lignin, a fibrous polymer that strengthens the plant’s cell walls, which can have multiple uses.
"We can melt it and spin it into carbon fibers," Tuskan says. “Or we could use it to make plastic. For a car, the tree could be deconstructed then reconstructed into the body, frame, interior, and things like that."
However, don’t just imagine lumberjacks cutting down every poplar in sight. For this thing to work, scientists must find a way to genetically modify the species to produce the right amount of lignin.
Then, big poplar farms need to be grown, out of which no one will cut more than 20 percent at a time. And these farms also come with some advantages for the farmers. First thing is that the poplar grows year-round, with the winter being the best time to harvest, leaving the fallen leaves nourish the ground.
Another advantage is the economical one - when the market is down, farmers don’t have to cut the trees down at the end of the growing season. As a bonus, the trees will continue to make oxygen and provide a home for an ecosystem.
The problem is that the poplar tree’s genome has 42 thousand genes, out of which only a handful will be needed to be played with in order to make the tree suitable for the job. Which will last a bit, after which more time will be needed for the industry to expand, so about 50 years is what Tuskan envisions will take until we’ll make cars and fuel them using trees.
Speaking with io9, Oak Ridge National Laboratory doctor Gerald Tuskan said that trees can have other uses than making paper, furniture and feeding fires. They are made of cellulose and hemicellulose, both containing sugars that can be fermented into ethanol fuel.
More than that, about a third of a tree’s mass is lignin, a fibrous polymer that strengthens the plant’s cell walls, which can have multiple uses.
"We can melt it and spin it into carbon fibers," Tuskan says. “Or we could use it to make plastic. For a car, the tree could be deconstructed then reconstructed into the body, frame, interior, and things like that."
However, don’t just imagine lumberjacks cutting down every poplar in sight. For this thing to work, scientists must find a way to genetically modify the species to produce the right amount of lignin.
Then, big poplar farms need to be grown, out of which no one will cut more than 20 percent at a time. And these farms also come with some advantages for the farmers. First thing is that the poplar grows year-round, with the winter being the best time to harvest, leaving the fallen leaves nourish the ground.
Another advantage is the economical one - when the market is down, farmers don’t have to cut the trees down at the end of the growing season. As a bonus, the trees will continue to make oxygen and provide a home for an ecosystem.
The problem is that the poplar tree’s genome has 42 thousand genes, out of which only a handful will be needed to be played with in order to make the tree suitable for the job. Which will last a bit, after which more time will be needed for the industry to expand, so about 50 years is what Tuskan envisions will take until we’ll make cars and fuel them using trees.
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