A Breakthrough in Biofuel

Currently, using corn or sugar cane is the most cost effective way to make ethanol. But some say using corn to make the biofuel is depleting the world’s food supply and driving up prices. Trees and other non-edible plants, like grass, can also produce ethanol, but it’s more expensive– until now.

“In many ways it is a dream come true,” Lynd said.
Lynd and other researchers at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering have discovered a cheaper way to make ethanol from “woody plants” using a genetically modified bacterium. That means cars could eventually be powered by tall pines and other abundant plants.

“If your raw material was three times as expensive as oil that would be a big problem. But the fact that the raw material is– I got to check because the price of oil is changing– about 20 percent the price of oil, that gives you a lot of room to move in terms of lowering the processing costs,” Lynd explained.

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