Tire makers race to turn dandelions into rubber

reuters.com

38 points·ximeng··9 comments

The article is claiming $3,000 per hectare per year under ideal conditions, perhaps closer to 1/3rd that on a real farm.

But compare that to average revenue per hectare of closer to $300 / ha / year. [1]

So when the farmers say, just tell me when I can start growing it, they aren't kidding. Very interesting research.

[1] - http://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/141565/142402-0

More details on research page:

http://www.igb.fraunhofer.de/en/competences/molecular-biotec...

Presumably, this is the quoted 60-year old but not cost effective process: http://www.google.com/patents/US2393035

This was the part that surprised me the most:

"Passenger car tires need to have 10-40 percent natural rubber content to allow them to stay flexible at low temperatures and to keep tiny cracks from growing. Truck and aircraft tires need an even higher percentage."

I had always assumed that modern tires were completely synthetic. Very interesting.

Japanese's tires in early 2000 were mostly made of orange peel oil.

wasn't a commercial success.

today one brand still has one line that supposedly sell in the usa but i can't find it anywhere.

Yokohama? http://www.yokohamatire.com/news/detail/1992

yes. that's the one advertised but impossible to buy in the usa. i recall only place i found it at the time had a 4x price hike over the advertised market price.

Eerily similar to this Pushing Daisies episode: http://pushing-daisies.wikia.com/wiki/Dandy_Lion_SX

I read once that Thomas Jefferson investigated raising milkweed, which also contains a lot of latex. He wanted to disrupt the rubber tree industry.

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