As we reported in Feb. 1977, Nobel Prize winner Melvin Calvin of the U. of California at Berkeley found trees of the genus Euphorbia in the Brazilian jungle which produce a sap rich in hydrocarbons. Since then he has been to the Brazilian jungles again, and as he reported to the American Chemical Society last September, this time he found a tree that produces directly usable diesel fuel. The tree, long known to natives (who use the oil for softening skin) is known to botanists as Cobaifera langsdorfi, and grows to a height of some 90 feet. Calvin speculates that an acre of 100 mature trees would yield about 25 barrels of fuel per year¾which means it would never be a significant source of diesel fuel in the US even if it could be grown outside the tropical climate of southern Florida.
Calvin remains primarily interested in the petroleum tree Euphorbia lathyrus, which he grows on his ranch in northern California, harvesting 10 barrels of petroleum a year. Undeterred by the small yield, he points to the 10-fold increase in the yield of rubber plants achieved by breeding and genetic selection in the 1950's and 60's. A Japanese group growing Euphorbia on Okinawa is already harvesting 15 barrels per acre.
Calvin is also undeterred by the cost--$40 a barrel, or about twice the cost of crude oil. When the type of hydrocarbon produced by the plant is subjected to catalytic cracking, it will produce virtually the same products as those obtained by cracking naphta, a high-quality petroleum fraction now selling for $50 a barrel, so that the Euphorbia oil is already competitive.
Euphorbia needs comparatively little water, which makes it particularly attractive. As for its product, it will evidently be more important as a chemical feedstock than as an energy source. But the same statement will one day be made about ordinary petroleum. It is price controls and environmentalist obstruction that stifle the full development of coal and nuclear energy; and it is price controls and environmentalist obstruction that are thus responsible for large quantities of oil, a precious chemical feedstock, to be brutally burned for its mere calories.
And even coal can be a chemical feedstock for plastics and many other wondrous substances. But what, besides producing energy, can uranium be used for?
|
|
Vol. 7, No. 5
Newsletter: Access to Energy Newsletter Archive Volume: Volume 7 Issue/No.: Vol. 7, No. 5 Date: January 01, 1980 03:04 PM Title: Huxley, not Orwell
Copyright © 2004 - Access to Energy Newsletter Archive
|