Coffee is Moving More Than Just People in the Mornings; Now Considered Alternative Fuel

Liam Millroy, Staff Writer

Most people think of coffee as a way to wake themselves up in the morning, a way to get their day started.  It is essentially to thousands of American’s routines and without it they wouldn’t be able to function.  It has been discovered that coffee can be used for much more than just keeping a person up.  It also has the ability to act in place of gasoline in a car; yes, a coffee-powered car.

Martin Bacon, 42, converted a Ford pickup truck into Coffee Car Mark 2 — the world’s fastest coffee-powered vehicle. Bacon installed a charcoal stove on the car, which breaks down coffee-bean chaff (a by-product of the roasting process) into carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gas is cooled and filtered, and the hydrogen is used to power a modified gasoline engine. The coffee car hit a top speed of 65 mph in the presence of a Guinness adjudicator at Woodford Airfield in Manchester, England, on Feb. 19.

This is truly an impressive feat and is a continuation of a trend of people trying to come up with alternative ways to power vehicles, not only because gas prices are so high but also because it is also beneficial to the environment. With the current green movement across the world, it is something people are consciously thinking about.

One day the world won’t have gasoline for everybody to use in their cars, so it is great that so many alternate ways to power cars are being developed.