Tobacco Turns Green Leaf as Possible Biofuel, Home Insulation
January 5th, 2010
Pender County, NC custom home builder Mark Johnson Custom Homes would like to share an article by USAToday’s Green House journalist Wendy Koch that was published today. Koch reported that researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia are tweaking tobacco plant genes to increase their oil production and hopefully use them as biofuel. Below is an excerpt and to read the complete article, click here!
“’Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production, said study co-author Vyacheslav Andrianov, assistant professor of cancer biology at Jefferson Medical College. He added:
‘We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves…
Based on these data, tobacco represents an attractive and promising ‘energy plant’ platform, and could also serve as a model for the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production.’
The preliminary research has been published online in Plant Biotechnology Journal.
Tobacco, in the form of cigarette butts, is also being studied as a way to better insulate homes.
The London Evening Standard recently reported that the London borough of Harrow is studying innovative technology to recycle the butts into rolls of home insulation. Currently, the butts, about 4,000 of which are dropped in the town center every day, end up in landfills.”
