Run Your Car on Trees

Could a diesel-producing tree be the key to fuel independence?

By Matt Ransford Posted 04.04.2008 at 10:37 am 3 Comments

Diesel swinginstan

Money doesn’t grow on trees, so it should stand to reason that diesel fuel wouldn’t grow on trees either. And yet the Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii tree has been quietly producing a natural diesel variant in the tropical rainforest, something we’ve known about since the seventeenth century. It’s only now that farmers in Australia have decided to farm the tree on a large scale in the hopes of having 20,000 living, above-ground fuel wells.

The tree produces terpene hydrocarbons, which are the family of molecules that give us turpentine from pine resin. The particular hydrocarbons the Copaifera tree produces are so well suited to powering diesel engines that they can almost be put directly in the tank from the tree. It’s harvested in much the same way as a maple tree is tapped for producing syrup.

There is question as to whether or not the tree is financially viable as a fuel source; it is estimated that 100 trees could produce 25 barrels annually, which is an awfully low figure for the investment necessary in the land and upkeep of the trees. Additionally, the fuel does not keep for very long and loses its potency after a few months.

So while the natural diesel seems not to be an option for export, it could prove well suited to sustaining the fuel needs of individual farms. That’s the experiment the North Queensland farmers are undertaking in hopes of achieving fuel independence when the trees mature.

Previous Article: Algae's Fuel Potential

Next Article: Seattle Bag Fee

Want to learn more about the environment, solar energy, sustainability, and more? Subscribe to Popular Science and enter to win $5,000!

3 Comments

link to this comment

johnny aubs

04/04/08 at 12:05 pm

i think they meant grow because grown doesn't work gramatically.

link to this comment

Gary Perkin

06/24/08 at 10:19 am

Hi,

I really can't believe people are taking this seriously! How many trees do you think it will take to produce commercially viable amounts of fuel? It's no more than a gimmick. Why is growing and choppng down trees better for the environment than sucking oil out of the ground???

What's the point of replacing a fuel which is sitting under the ground with one that requires millions of acres of land to be either destroyed, or taken from the world's arable land bank?

We need to be using LESS FUEL, not just getting it from different sources.

For an alternative solution, look at these articles:

How Does a Water Powered Car Work?

Run Your Car On Water

Gary.

link to this comment

quiz18

07/30/09 at 11:26 am

Run cars on water are you nuts?

Life exists on just 0.003% of the total world water supply. Although 3% of the Earth's water exists in reservoirs outside of the ocean - in ice, the atmosphere, groundwater, lakes, rivers, and living things - very little of this water is pristine and drinkable. The remainder is too poor in quality or it's inaccessible, like water locked in polar ice or atmospheric vapor. Water is increasingly unusable because it is polluted. And now you want to take clean water and run millions of cars on it?! Not to mention it would have to be distilled water, so your wasting even more energy to get it, as tap water won't work in the cars your talking about. Yea cars that run on water that makes a lot of sense.