Solar without the smoke

For thousands of years, humans have harnessed renewable solar energy trapped in the most accessible fuel of all, by burning wood and waste from dead trees and harvested plants. The practice is as old as fire itself. But it’s not very clean, or efficient.

Plants use energy from the sun to transform water and nutrients into cellulose, so they can grow. It’s a crystalline structure rich in carbohydrates, resistant to decomposition, but not to combustion. And when we burn it, there’s a lot of waste heat, smoke, and carbon dioxide. Not very eco-friendly, but oh so easy to do.

What if we could easily convert cellulose into useful biofuels like ethanol? Now we can. Brazilian scientists developed a natural enzyme cocktail that breaks down cellulose twice as fast as traditional bioreactors, disconnecting it from other plant components like lignin, and converting it to sugar. The perfect feedstock for biofuels.

This breakthrough has powered the commercial production of second-generation ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel – jet fuel made from plants, rather than oil. The tech has always been there, but the cost was the problem. Now that ‘waste’ biomass can easily be exploited, price parity with fossil derived fuels is on the horizon.

The much-maligned combustion engine is set to make a comeback, and car companies that bet their future on alternative fuels rather than electric vehicles are suddenly back in vogue. Their strategy was bold and risky, but it has paid dividends. As for electric aircraft, well, they never really took off.

For decades, sustainable biofuels were unsustainable. Now they’re unstoppable. They’re solar power in a can, without the smoke.