Seaweed, not corn, for fuel

Will we finally start getting fuel from non-food?

By Caroline Cummins

December 8, 2008

A few years ago, biofuels were all the rage: You could run your car on fuel from plants, not petroleum! But then, as a recent Associated Press article pointed out, came the “Great Mexican Tortilla Crisis of 2006,” when corn, the staple plant of Mexico, became too pricey for food. Then came food riots worldwide, and suddenly biofuels made from corn, canola, and other foodstuffs seemed, well, indulgent.

But it didn’t have to happen that way, because it was always possible to make biofuels from waste products and non-foods such as switchgrass and algae. As the AP article pointed out:

Moving away from food crops, the biofuel of the future may come from the tall grass growing wild by the roadside, from grain stalks left behind by the harvest, and from garbage dumps and dinner table scraps.

Next up: drinking water from recycled urine?