Who Needs Oil? Cars to Take Coffee on the Road

Do you smell a cup of good coffee in the air? You might as well smell a belch of good coffee husk smoke from your car engine!

Coffee husks could become a cheap and environmentally friendly source of biodiesel and fuel pellets, now researchers say.

Scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno, in the US have discovered a cheap extraction process to separate oil from coffee husks and successfully converted it into biodiesel, which could be used to fuel cars and trucks.

Previously discarded after making coffee preparations namely espressos, cappuccinos and others, it is projected that 340 million gallons of biodiesel can be produced from the waste coffee grounds or husks around the world.

The coffee grounds after oil extraction are ideal materials for garden fertilizer, feedstock for ethanol, and as fuel pellets, a study by the University of Nevada researchers, Narasimharao Kondamudi, Susanta K. Mohapatra and Mano Misra, revealed.

Will this have any significance to Africa?

In Africa, coffee production is expected to increase by 1.5 percent annually from the base period to 2010, mostly reflecting increases in yields rather than an expansion in area, representing an increase of 1.1 million tonnes or 19 million bags, according to Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Against these production figures, world consumption of coffee is projected to increase by 0.4 percent annually from 6.7 million tonnes (111 million bags) in 1998 – 2000 to 6.9 million tonnes (117 million bags) in 2010, a significant percentage of these in Africa.

Yet still, Africa is trying to reclaim lost ground in the coffee sector by attempting to restore coffee production to pre-1975 levels when Africa was a major player in the international coffee market by 2015, the date set by the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction.

Scientists say it is easy and economical to extract oil from used coffee grounds compared to traditional feedstocks. Coffee oil is believed to have some antioxidants which are required for biofuel stability, making the whole concept economically ideal for coffee producing countries.

The researchers  estimate that of the 16 billion pounds of coffee bean grown annually–which when spent ends in the trash or on compost heaps–up to 340 million gallons of biodiesel could be made.

But coffee husks can make electricity too. Dutch energy company, Essent, is the first company in the world to introduce the use of coffee husks as biofuel. The source will be Brazil, and the husks will be used to produce electricity in some of Essent’s power stations in the Netherlands.

According to Essent, the use of coffee husks as biofuel could result in a CO2 reduction of at least 90 per cent.

Biodiesel is a growing market. Estimates suggest that annual global production of biodiesel will hit the 3 billion gallon mark by 2010. The fuel can be made from soybean oil, palm oil, peanut oil, and other vegetable oils; animal fat; and even recycled cooking oil.

Now with Africa set to become a major jatropha — another biofuel stock — producer, and with this coffee husk biofuel business, who needs oil? As we fuel our bodies in the morning with a cup of hot, steaming coffee, so will the cars that will take us to work to get Africa out of poverty. It’s not a far-feched possibility anymore. It’s greener.

Image credit: Roland/ Flickr