Cannabis of course is known as marijuana and pot. It is associated with drug users and stoners. But if we can put away that stigma, we find that cannabis has four times the cellulose value as corn, making it a potentially good plant for ethanol production.
Now then, personally I do not do drugs or smoke pot so this article is without consideration of the stoners in the world or their potential support of this plant for ethanol. If cannabis grows so well all over the world it does make sense to look into its use for the making of ethanol.
If cannabis can be made into Ethanol then we need to modify it to make it work better and use those genetic differences which allow for low water in production to insure that we do not get price spikes in times of drought in the ethanol we use for fuel. Additionally if the plant can be used to “get high” then we need to modify it so that will not occur or that the leaching into the soil or waterways does not contain high levels of THC as it would be problematic.
If we further modify this cannabis weed then we need to make it with terminating seeds until we know what we have done, other wise it will become a “super weed” and take over natural cannabis and other close genetic species of weeds. In an online think tank recently a gentleman mentioned that;
“Ethanol/bio diesel is going to be the fuel source of the future for the rotary, eccentric crank, 4 and 2 cycle engines that run our cars boats trains and generator sets etc. I understand it burns far cleaner than the crude oil based hydrocarbon heavy fuels we use at present, and will minimize the pollution.”
So, it seems that we have another potential plant for cellulose ethanol production and this is a good thing, as the more options available the better for our goals in growing a percentage of our own fuel. So consider this in 2006.
