Ganja Garbage May Become Jet Fuel

Local Biofuel Company Eyes Legal Pot Waste

by BEN LIVINGSTON

March 13, 2013

By the end of the year, Washington State may have a regulated cannabis industry generating hundreds of thousands of pounds of pot annually. This leads to a natural dilemma: what to do with the even larger amount of garbage—stems, leaves, root balls, etc.—the industry generates?

One local company hopes to turn much of the state's legal pot leftovers into jet fuel. "We think the whole cannabis industrial waste stream is going to be massive," says Jerauld Bessette from Ballard Biofuel, which distributes plant-based lubricants for industrial machines. The company hopes to position itself as the state's ganja garbageman—just like biofuel companies scrap for used vegetable oil, it hopes to convince legal pot growers to turn over their waste biomass to create biosynthetic paraffinic kerosene, or bio-SPK, which can fuel jet engines.

Biofuel is a newcomer to the aviation market, first approved for use in commercial and military jets in 2011 by the American Society for Testing and Materials. Since then, dozens of commercial and demonstration flights have used biofuel mixes. Airlines hope to reduce their carbon emissions by switching to plant-based fuel, which, unlike fossil fuel, sucks up carbon during its growth cycle.

FULL STORY:http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/ganja-garbage-may-become-jet-fue...