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Researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno, have discovered that coffee can be turned into an alternative fuel other than caffeine: biodiesel. And you can have your coffee and drink it too. No need to use the fresh stuff, old grounds are more than up to the task, according to material scientist Mano Misra and his colleagues.

Even after being subjected to the rigors of brewing, roughly 15 percent of the weight of dried coffee grounds is oil, which, much like palm and soybean oil, can be converted into biodiesel. The coffee has the added benefit of not being a food source, like palm oil and soybeans.

Nevertheless, more than 16 billion pounds of coffee are produced globally every year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Misra estimates that the grounds from that haul could be used to make as much as 340 million gallons of biodiesel. For their part, the researchers turned grounds donated by Starbucks into biodiesel that had the added advantage of smelling like a fresh cup o' Joe.

The researchers note that coffee's high proportion of antioxidants, such as chlorogenic acid, acts as a natural preservative for the resulting biodiesel, preventing it from going bad like other forms of biofuel and even petroleum diesel can. The researchers hope to set up a pilot plant to convert grounds into biodiesel next year and estimate that, for its part, Starbucks in the U.S. alone could turn a profit of $8 million a year from the process, assuming that both the biodiesel and leftovers of the process can be sold.

To chill this simmering cup a bit: the U.S. Department of Energy says that the U.S alone burns 40 billion gallons of diesel a year, meaning that converting all the grounds in the world wouldn't even contribute 1 percent of U.S. diesel consumption. Still, it's an idea that could perk you up.

Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/James McQuillan

13 Comments

1. 1. hotblack 05:59 PM 12/10/08

   No, you still have to grow and harvest it, and that takes time and money and real-estate.
   
   Algea can be made to pretty much grow and "harvest" itself in massive near-yield quantities in a relatively tiny amount of space. Much more cost-efficient production-wise.

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2. 2. hightimes 06:16 PM 12/10/08

   You could also pump carbon emissions from coal burning power plants into algae tanks and they would help cleanse that air and the heat and co2 would benefit it's growth...

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3. 3. scientific earthling in reply to hotblack 07:37 PM 12/10/08

   You are growing and harvesting it anyway. We have to learn to reuse everything, I mean everything. Thrift across the board may extend the life of our species. The dinosaurs made 180 million years, we cant make 1.
   
   Further coal is carbon sequestrated by natural processes, burning it and trying to sequester the resulting dioxide is a fools paradise.

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4. 4. hotblack in reply to scientific earthling 08:50 PM 12/10/08

   Regarding coal, I agree 100%. petroleum in general is cheating anyway. Millions and millions of years of solar energy into plants, ate by animals, and for both to pile up, decompose & even more time under massive pressure to make crude or coal... and when you think of all the energy wasted on every level of that process, that's a lot of energy going in to that system that we fail to take into account when comparing alternate energy sources. Not to mention residual costs of environmental cleanup, and health costs that result, driving the price per unit of petrol products well beyond their market price. The idea of dredging up that much toxic muck from underground, and burning it to send as toxic ash and soot up into our breathable air is beyond idiotic. If we had to pick a fuel supply to start completely over with tomorrow, anyone choosing that would be considered an idiot or a maniac.
   
   My point re coffee, was limited to growing coffee specifically for fuel purposes, which admittedly, no one was pitching anyway, so...
   
   Algae is definitely one to watch though. Could very well turn out to be nothing, or nothing short of revolutionary.

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5. 5. JamesDavis 07:55 AM 12/11/08

   Why are we allowing chiefs dictate our energy policies. Do they not know that there are starving people all over the world and they want to put our food in gas tanks. Wake up people and get a brain and put the fossil fuels where they belong...in our history. We use electricity for everything except getting our butts from one location to another. Shouldn't we have electricians finding a way to move us to and from different locations. Don't you think that an electrician could come up with a better form of energy than a chief?

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6. 6. scientific earthling in reply to JamesDavis 08:59 PM 12/11/08

   James, the chiefs only think they dictate policy, like the late Mrs. Bhutto said: What she asked to be done and what was done was never the same.
   No, the article does not suggest growing coffee to convert it to fuel. Recycling everything is the name of the game. This includes used coffee grinds after brewing. You are asking too much of people when you ask them to think, most just don't. A frugal lifestyle is required from every one of earth’s 6+ billion human inhabitants. We also need to sensibly reduce our numbers. Life will not be worth living if we don’t.
   Transportation requirements will reduce as workplaces migrate often to the home. Tourism is destined to die, as places worldwide look more and more the same. Big business killed off competition in the transport industry, but became a victim of its own greed. When communism dies in the 90s, I said capitalism was next. A middle path is always the best way; nothing is totally bad or totally good.
   

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7. 7. lsamint in reply to hotblack 03:05 PM 12/14/08

   not only does algae take up little space for production, but the fossil fuels involved in it becoming a useful fuel is much more limited. since the algae would be grown in greenhouses of glass we could simply use solar power to grow it. but the real issue here is asking americans to stop their over consumption. when was it determined that we needed such large fuel hungry vehicles. or how about how much we use fossil fuels for transporting all that food around, processing it, storing it etc. grow a garden, buy local, think!!! plus it may not be so wise to let starbucks be on this band wagon, as it is they aren't exactly first in line when it comes to purchasing and selling fair trade organic and shade grown coffee. lets set limits and take responsiblity for our actions instead of asking our government to make those decisions for us.

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8. 8. Georgeptucker in reply to scientific earthling 11:28 PM 12/14/08

   " A frugal lifestyle is required from every one of earths 6+ billion human inhabitants."
   
   Actually, 5 of those 6 billion already live a frugal, even destitute, lifestyle. It's the one billion better-off people (mainly in the West) who have to DRASTICALLY dial back on their wasteful lifestyles. Meanwhile the billions who are destitute can only look forward to greater destitution.

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9. 9. TonyDee 10:40 PM 12/15/08

   The sunbelt states provide the solar energy to create solar ovens and other means of heating a product to make the conversion from organic products to usable fuels.. The Sonoran/Southwest Desert,s( parts of Texas,
   New Mexico, Arizona and southern California) offer the abundance of solar heat for this purpose. Desert plants could be a cultivated source of convertable energy, there for the taking... Millions of acres there for the use.. I would wager the Feds would provide funding for such a venture.. I am willing to give it a try if anyone else is interested you can contact me by answering this blog... Tony

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10. 10. eco-steve 01:25 PM 12/17/08

    TonyDee : Solar generation in hot deserts could be yet another viable technique to get sustainable electricity. But we would still need carbon sequestration technology to remove 'fossil'-origin CO2 from the air. This is where Pyroliyic retorts will need to be installed all around the world. For fuller information, see : www.eprida.com

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11. 11. DavCou49 in reply to JamesDavis 03:53 PM 1/29/09

    Where does electricity come from? It doesn't come out of thin air. It primarily comes from burning fossil fuels, e.g. coal. Think again!!
    
    How do we produce the energy to make silicon solar cells? Hey you got it, we burn fossil fuels! Until we make enough solar cells to replace fossil fuels energy input, we don't get ahead of the game. How many solar cells does it require to provide the energy to keep us supplied with the solar cells we need to meet our other needs and replace them as they fail/wear out etc?
    
    We don't get a free ride. Environmental solutions are not easy. It's not because we're lazy, self interested, making too much money from it etc. that we haven't implemented solutions. It's because we don't have the technology or the knowledge to do it yet. Gotta keep working towards it though.

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12. 12. Brad Herbig 01:52 PM 3/28/09

    There is no one solution to the energy crisis, but by combining as many renewable and recyclable resources, such as recycling coffee grounds, all the little bits of energy add up. I agree that algae is a good source to use for biodiesel, but it isn't necessary to just focus on this one source. The more we diversify our energy, the better off we will be.

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13. 13. Bernard Fenley 10:54 PM 9/18/11

    Dung and methane has been long recognized as <a href="http://greenmyfleet.com/">alternative fuels</a>. As we all know methane is the main component of natural gas. I don't think coffee could be. But insofar as the environment is concern, It would be a win-win situation notwithstanding the yet to be proven quantity of supplies of coffee to provide for such productions.

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