images-5Biofuel researchers have figured out how to make fuel from switchgrass, algae, corn, soy, canola oil, plants and paper.
All of those biofuels are tough to scale to meet the demands of filling up millions of gas tanks on a daily basis.
But now the innovative researchers at the University of Texas at Austin’s Cockrell School of Engineering have developed a new type of biofuel or renewable energy source.
It’s fuel from genetically engineered yeast cells and ordinary table sugar. The combination creates oil and fats, “known as lipids, that can be used in place of petroleum-derived products,” according to a news release.
“You can take the lipids formed and theoretically use it to power a car,” UT Assistant Professor Hal Alper said in a news release. He and his team of students have dubbed the concoction “a renewable version of sweet crude.” They published their research on Jan. 20 in Nature Communications.
Alper believes their invention could scale to meet the marketplace’s growing demand for alternative fuels.