Fastest-growing plant on Earth could fuel planes and trucks, cut emission 26x vs diesel

Bamboo, the fastest-growing plant on Earth, could be turned into liquid transportation fuel at a price competitive with petroleum and with far lower greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new study led by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

The team, including Michael Timko, head of WPI’s Department of Chemical Engineering, and Timothy Woodard, who earned a doctorate in 2026, found that bamboo could serve as a promising raw material for fuels for vehicles, planes and trains. The study appeared in Sustainable Energy & Fuels and combined laboratory experiments on bamboo-to-biocrude conversion with economic and life-cycle assessment modeling.

Hydrothermal liquefaction does the work

Two factors drive the results: the conversion technology and the choice of feedstock. The process relies on hydrothermal liquefaction, or HTL, which uses heat and pressure to turn biomass into biocrude. The researchers found that converting bamboo this way is more efficient than using other feedstocks. Bamboo itself also captures and stores large amounts of carbon, both above ground and below it in its rhizomes, which strengthens its emissions profile.

Price and emissions

Economic modeling indicates bamboo-based fuel could sell for as little as $2.75 per gasoline-gallon equivalent under mature, commercial-scale conditions, including the cost of building and operating the plant. The life-cycle assessment put the fuel’s greenhouse gas intensity at 3.5 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule of energy, about 26 times lower than conventional petroleum diesel.

Those figures come from laboratory work and modeling rather than a commercial plant, and the price assumes mature, large-scale production.

Less land than corn ethanol

The team estimated that converting bamboo through HTL could match U.S. corn-ethanol production while using roughly 13% as much cultivated land. Unlike the annual crops behind many biofuels, bamboo is a perennial grass that yields large amounts of biomass with relatively low agricultural inputs, even in poor soil. Compared with other perennial grasses, it has very low ash content, under 1% by dry weight, so the conversion process produces negligible waste.

No food-versus-fuel trade-off

Timko said bamboo would use different land than food crops. “Our study suggests bamboo has a role to play in the future of fuel,” he said. Freeing up some of the land now used for corn ethanol, which is often blended into gasoline, could allow more food production and ease environmental burdens, he said. “Farmers win, consumers win.”

The researchers add that bamboo can be grown on former industrial land or heavily farmed properties where other crops struggle.

Hard-to-electrify sectors

With more research and development, Timko said, bamboo could give industry a way to make low-carbon liquid fuels at scale, an option for sectors that are hard to electrify, such as heavy-duty transport and aviation. He called the work timely because fuel prices are high and transportation produces more U.S. greenhouse gas emissions than any other sector.

Timko and Woodard co-authored the study with Charles Cai of Aalto University in Finland and James Walters, CEO of Avos BioEnergy.

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/bamboo-biofuel-wpi-study-cost-emissions-hydrothermal-liquefaction