Converting sugarcane to jet fuel can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from air travel by up to 80 percent and the process could be scaled up to produce commercially viable amounts
of fuel, say researchers from the University of California, Berkeley. The new technique they developed, which is described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, relies on complex chemical reactions involving sugars and waste biomass from sugarcane. That crop, unlike the sugar beet, can be grown on marginal lands so it does not displace food production — a major concern that has tempered enthusiasm for biofuels in general. Jet fuel, which is responsible for roughly 2 percent of all carbon emissions, has been difficult to synthesize from biomass because of its stringent quality requirements. Biofuels were approved for commercial aviation as recently as 2011, and researchers have been seeking a viable production method for nearly a decade.
Sugarcane