Watermelons Tapped For Ethanol
With their sweet, refreshing juices and succulent interior, watermelons are a favorite summertime treat, especially around July 4th. But now this Independence Day favorite could become even more of a patriotic commodity.
Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies in Lane, Okla., have shown that simple sugars in watermelon juice can be made into ethanol. In 2007, growers harvested four billion pounds of watermelon for fresh and cut-fruit markets. Around 800 million pounds—or 20 percent of the total—were left in fields because of external blemishes or deformities.
Now, instead of being plowed under, such melons could get an economic “new lease on life” as ethanol. Normally, this biofuel is produced from cane crops like corn, sorghum or sugarcane as a cleaner-burning alternative to gasoline. The watermelon work reflects a national push by ARS to diversify America’s “portfolio” of biofuel crops that can diminish the reliance on petroleum, especially from foreign suppliers…. (continues @ ScienceDaily)
