Oh man, that car is really smoking!
Date: 22-May-01
Country: AUSTRALIA
Australian researchers believe that within a decade, cars could be made of hemp - the cannabis plant - as backyards and dumps overflow with rusty metal hulks and vehicle makers turn to biodegradable materials for car bodies.
Alan Crosky, of the University of New South Wales' Material Science and Engineering School, said yesterday that hemp had turned out to be the most viable material, beating coconuts and banana trees in preliminary studies.
"Disposal of old cars is a growing problem. It is only a matter of time before the expense of disposal becomes the owner's responsibility and the consumer is forced to pay the full life-cycle costs of their car," Crosky said.
"Because this will increase the cost of cars, developing an environmentally friendly material that can be used to make the bodies of cars is now a viable option," he said.
Crosky told Reuters he had begun researching hemp to find ways of making sure it does not become brittle and could protect the passengers of a vehicle during an accident.
He said hemp - made from the cannabis plant but containing only minute amounts of the narcotic tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - was like fibreglass, but a natural product.
"It's renewable, you don't have to put as much energy into making it, and best of all, burning it doesn't get off anymore carbon dioxide than it absorbed during growing, what we call CO2 neutral," Crosky said.
Hemp is widely used in making textiles and rope.
Research was at the preliminary stage but Crosky believed it would not be too long before hemp cars became a reality.
"It might take a decade," he told Reuters.
