MOFB’s “Cut to the Chase”: Fill her up with caffeine and nicotine

Imagine driving to the gas station and instead of deciding on stopping at Conoco, Exxon or Phillips 66, you find yourself choosing between Starbucks, Folgers, Maxwell House or Dunn Brothers.

Then instead of choosing unleaded, super or premium, you must select from decaf, espresso or French roast. You will no longer pump fuel – instead you would choose to either percolate, press or drip it into your tank measured in cups instead of gallons.

When you drive away after filling your tank, your car will trail the distinct aroma of coffee instead of exhaust fumes. What’s brewing you ask? Researchers at the University of Missouri’s Agriculture Systems Management Biofuels Lab succeeded in converting coffee grounds into biodiesel fuel.

Before you get your hopes up, this is no more an immediate solution to the oil crisis than instant is to fresh brewed coffee. Coffee grounds contain only 13% oil, while soybeans, the current biodiesel blend, contain up to 22% oil. The idea is not to replace soybeans or animal fats to produce biodiesel, but to supplement them – all of them together cannot meet the demand for diesel fuel.

Coffee bean growers, however, produce 16 billion pounds of coffee annually. Starbucks alone accounts for 210 million pounds of coffee grounds annually. Currently, coffee beans are discarded. Instead of sending them down the disposal, we could drink our morning coffee and then use the grounds to drive to work. Well, you know.

Now, imagine driving to the gas station and instead of deciding on stopping at Shell or Mobil, you find yourself choosing between R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris. That’s right – scientists are considering genetically modifying the tobacco plant to use in producing biofuel.

Tobacco is capable of generating a large amount of oil and sugar more efficiently than other crops, and researchers at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia discovered a way to genetically engineer tobacco so the leaves will produce 20 times more oil than a normal tobacco plant.

This discovery can be beneficial to our fuel supply, as well as for American farmers who could profit from producing tobacco for home-grown fuel. Now that’s smokin’ – without smoking.

(Denny Banister, of Jefferson City, is the assistant director of public affairs for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.)