With fuel prices sky-high, the need for fuels from non-petroleum sources has taken on a new urgency. And researchers at Worchester Polytechnic Institute say they might have just the alternative source we need for low-carbon and low-cost fuel: bamboo.
Bamboo could power trains, planes, and automobiles for as little as $2.75 per gasoline-gallon equivalent at mature commercial scale, the researchers calculate. The fuel would emit greenhouse gas emissions 26 times lower than conventional diesel fuel. What’s more, bamboo promises to be a more sustainable biofuel feedstock than conventional ones like corn and sugarcane.
Bamboo is a grass, and one of the fastest-growing plants on Earth. Some species growing several dozen inches in a day. Because of this fast growth rate, the US could make as much fuel from bamboo as it makes ethanol from corn while using about 13% as much land. The WPI researchers published their results in the journal Sustainable Energy & Fuels.
“I think this research is especially timely and important because fuel prices are high and the transportation sector produces more greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. than any other,” said chemical engineering professor Michael Timko in a press release. “Bamboo would use different land than we are using for food production, so there is no food versus fuel trade-off. Farmers win, consumers win.”
Timko and colleagues evaluated bamboo for biofuel production using a process called hydrothermal liquefaction. In the process, wet biomass or organic wastes are subjected to high heat and pressure. Polymer chains in the mass breaks down to form a biocrude oil. The oil can then be converted to other liquid fuel products.
The researchers heated wet bamboo pulp to 300°C for 10 minutes. The process converted about 36% of its mass into biocrude.
Unlike corn or sugarcane, which are the main plants used to make biofuels today, bamboo wouldn’t compete with agricultural land and doesn’t need much water or energy to grow. And compared with other perennial grasses that are also being considered for biofuel, it has very low ash content—less than 1% by weight—so the fuel-making process generates minimal waste.
”Bamboo may eventually offer industry a way to generate low-carbon liquid fuels at scale,” Timko said.
Source: Timothy M. Woodard et al. Bamboo as a cost-effective feedstock for production of low carbon transportation fuels. Sustainable Energy & Fuels, 2026.
Image: Based on photo by Ranurte/UnSplash. ©Anthropocene Magazine
