1980 PLAN FOR GLOBAL WARMING. Hydrocarbons from plants: Analytical methods and observations

1980. SIGNED--NOBELIST MELVIN CALVIN, DISCOVERER OF THE PHOTOSYNTHETIC PATHWAY, PROPOSES GENERATING ENERGY FROM LIVING PLANTS TO REDUCE GLOBAL WARMING.

21x28 cm "preprint" (a version of a scientific paper that precedes formal peer review). Printed paper wraps, stapled, signed in ink on cover by Melvin Calvin. 31 pp, 13 B&W figures at rear. Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, Chemical Biodynamics Division, Prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-ENG-48. PUBLISHED: Naturwissenschaften 1980, 67:525-33. ABSTRACT: "We have suggested that certain plants rich in hydrocarbon-like materials might be cultivated for renewable photosynthetic products. Two species were selected for experimental plantations: Euphorbia lathyris, an annual from seed and Euphorbia tirucalli, a perennial from cuttings. The yield from each pecies is over 10 barrels of oil/acre/year vdthout genetic or agronomic improvement. In addition to plants, there are trees, such as species of Copaifera in Brazil and other tropical areas, which produce a diesel-like oil upon tapping. Each tree produces approximately 40 liters of hydrocarbon per year, and this material can be used directly by a diesel-powered car. Further efforts to develop plants as alternate energy sources are underway, as well as a continuing search for additional plant species throughout the world which have a similar capability. The work described in this paper was sponsored, in part, by the Office of Energy Technology (Biomass Energy Systems Branch) of the Department of Energy."

MELVIN ELLIS CALVIN (1911 - 1997) was an American chemist most famed for discovering the Calvin cycle along with Andrew Benson and James Bassham, for which he was awarded the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He spent most of his five-decade career at the University of California, Berkeley. Using the carbon-14 isotope as a tracer, Calvin, Benson and Bassham mapped the complete route that carbon travels through a plant during photosynthesis. A logical extension of his early work on the path of carbon during photosynthesis, Calvin's studies on the production of hydrocarbons by plants introduced many in the scientific and agricultural worlds to the potential of renewable fuel and chemical feedstocks. This work was carried out over a twenty year period, from 1968 until 1988, and involved the efforts of numerous students, co-workers and collaborators from around the world. Calvin's initial interest in plants as a source of fuels arose from his interest in the origins of geologic hydrocarbons and from three concerns: 1) the need for renewable hydrocarbon-based fuels that would not alter atmospheric C02 levels; 2) the finite pools of fossil hydrocarbon available; and 3) the need for increased domestic production of fuels and chemical feed stocks. Global warming was an early concern of Calvin. The observed 8% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, 7 cm rise in mean sea level and reported increase in global temperatures over the past 100 years have been associated by many researchers with increased use of fossil hydrocarbon fuels. Fuels generated directly from plants would not have this effect, as any C02 generated in their combustion would have recently been fixed and reduced by the plant's photosynthetic process.