The Diesel Tree

Certainly when it comes to biofriendly fuel, this would be one of the greenest.  This TreeHugger article talks about the Brazilian Copaifera langsdorfii, the botanical name for the diesel tree.

The diesel tree, which can grow around 30 meters tall, produces and stores a natural diesel in its unusual capillary structure.  The diesel can be extracted by tapping into the tree, in a way similar to the extraction of natural latex from the rubber tree. 

The diesel tree can continue to produce the natural diesel for around seventy years and apparently does not require a complicated refining process – it can be filtered and put straight into a diesel vehicle.  The drawback is that it needs to be used within 3 months after extraction – that, and it’s a tropical rainforest tree.  So if you drive a diesel, live in a tropical rainforest, know how to tap the natural fuel from the tree and have a good filter – then you’re set.  Add some Green Plus to the tank and you have yourself one hellova biofriendly vehicle!

According to the article, one hectare of diesel trees will yield about 12,000 litres of natural diesel per year.  I don’t know how far the diesel tree will go in greening up mother earth, but it sounds wonderfully biofriendly.  Now, if only we could find that tree our parents said didn’t exist – the tree that money grows on!