Features Bioenergy Biomass
Fill ‘er up with gumweed?

November 26, 2015 - Three decades ago, a University of Nevada researcher who obtained one of the first U.S. Energy Department grants to study the potential to turn plants into biofuels became convinced that a roadside weed — curly top gumweed — was growing along the road to the future.

Now, scientists who've been cultivating gumweed on the Reno campus think they are on the verge of producing diesel fuel, and perhaps someday jet fuel, from the sticky cousin of the sunflower that grows across much of Nevada's high desert and doesn't compete for acreage with animal feed or food crops used to make ethanol.