Boeing begins program to produce aviation biofuel from hybrid tobacco plants

Boeing is teaming with some South African companies to turn a type of tobacco plant with almost no nicotine into aviation fuel. It’s an interesting idea: unlike ethanol from corn, here if a farmer converts over to raising a fuel crop he’s not wiping out a food crop, but rather something of a “pest” crop. There are a whole lot of tobacco farmers around the world who might be just as willing to raise this type of tobacco as any other; the end result would theoretically include:

1) Less reliance upon fossil fuels (and the support-for-scumbags that goes with it)

2) A bit more of a “carbon neutral” fuel

3) The price of tobacco for smoking purposes might well begin to climb due to natural market forces

The advantage of #3 is that it would have the same effect on pricing smokers out of the habit as government taxes have, but without the societal burden of actually paying money into a government bureaucracy.