Trees might provide power and carbon fiber for cars in the future
Cars are getting more and more lightweight to use fuel more efficiently. But what will we do in the future when there’s a fuel crisis? Well, apparently with further research, lightweight materials and even fuel can be offered by trees.
When I say this, I don’t mean your car will be running on a wood-fed steam engine. Rather, I mean that because trees are made of cellulose and hemicellulose, which both contain sugars, it can be fermented into ethanol fuel. More so, 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.
At first I thought this was bad new, because now humans will be cutting down even more trees! But apparently it isn’t able to work like that. For it to work, scientists must find a way to genetically modify the species to produce the right amount of lignin. The only bad news is that, according to scientists, this whole process may take up to 50 years or even more.
(Source: Auto Evolution)