We used to call our morning cup of coffee ‘black fuel’. Today, a report on SciDev.net about a paper in J Agr Food Chem (link via DOI), tells us we were almost right. Spent coffee contains 10-20% oil, which can be extracted to produce biodiesel.
Recycling ground coffee to mitigate climate change (or rather, to obey our thirst for liquid fuels) is one of those ideas that makes me scratch my head for some time. Recycling one aluminum beverage can conserves enough energy to run a computer for an hour (see ECC initiative) but in many places, including our own university, soda cans are simply discarded, ending up in garbage incinerators and landfills. If we can’t see the value of the obvious waste, I wonder who will organize a ground coffee recycling program.
Sugar-free coffee biodiesel, earlier today
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