11 How can hemp be used as a fuel?
Description
This article is from the Hemp / Cannabis / Marijuana FAQ, by Brian S. Julin verdant@twain.ucs.umass.edu with numerous contributions by others.
11 How can hemp be used as a fuel?
The pulp (hurd) of the hemp plant can be burned as is or
processed into charcoal, methanol, methane, or gasoline.
The process for doing this is called destructive
distillation, or `pyrolysis.' Fuels made out of plants like
this are called `biomass' fuels. This charcoal may be
burned in today's coal-powered electric generators.
Methanol makes a good automobile fuel, in fact it is used in
professional automobile races. It may someday replace
gasoline.
Hemp may also be used to produce ethanol (grain alcohol.)
The United States government has developed a way to make
this automobile fuel additive from cellulosic biomass. Hemp
is an excellent source of high quality cellulosic biomass.
One other way to use hemp as fuel is to use the oil from the
hemp seed -- some diesel engines can run on pure pressed
hemp seed oil. However, the oil is more useful for other
purposes, even if we could produce and press enough hemp
seed to power many millions of cars.
``Farming For Fuel]'' by Folke Dovring pub data pending.
``Pretreatment Research Overview'' by K. Grohmann, R. Torget, M.
Himmel in ``The DOE SERI Ethanol From Biomass Program'' pub. The
United States Department of Energy.
``Overview: The DOE SERI Ethanol From Biomass Program '' by C. E.
Wyman pub. The United States Department of Energy.
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