Cars built from seaweed?

March 20, 2009

I’m reluctantly going to postpone my much-awaited blog  on Japanese fembot models to deal with an equally fascinating technology from the land of the rising sun: Cars made from seaweed. Or rather, from a biopolymer, a new  type of plastic fabricated not from petroleum, but from vegetable material. In this case, the latter would be harvested from the oceans.

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Making car bodies and other parts from seaweed-based bioplastic would have some nifty advantages. Unlike, say, oil, there’s a plentiful and renewable supply of seaweed, a term that’s actually a catchall for about 9,000 different species of marine algae. (For more specifics, check out Michael Guiry’s Seaweed Site, probably the best source of information about seaweed on the web.) Thus, making plastic from seaweed is likely to be a lot cheaper. It’s also likely to be a lot friendlier to the environment, since the production of vegetable-based plastics reportedly spews out a lot less carbon dioxide and uses significantly less energy than making the stuff from oil. And scientists have found ways to make incredibly strong plastics, such as this nano-engineered composite that emulates the molecular structure of seashells, so there’s potential for seaweed-based plastic car bodies that would not only be as strong as steel, but much lighter. Ergo, cars made from such material might be incredibly energy efficient.  And when their useful life is over, seaweed bioplastic cars might be easy to dispose of, since their aging hulks could be eaten by microorganisms in the soil.

This idea doesn’t have as many downsides as my usual subjects, but there have to be a few. We’d have to be careful that the harvesting of seaweed for plastics wouldn’t cut too far into the global supply, since the Japanese and other nations also rely upon seaweed as an important food source.   And seaweed plastic is, well, still plastic, which U.S. car shoppers tend to think of as flimsy rather than high-tech. (If you were one of the unfortunates who tried to trade in a plastic-panel Pontiac Fiero back in the Eighties, you know what I’m talking about.) So market acceptance might be iffy.

And if the seaweed car bodies are biodegradable, how durable will they be when exposed to the elements?

Cars built from seaweed bioplastic is a variation on an idea that’s been around for a while. Toyota started putting bioplastics made from crops such as sugar cane and corn into its concept cars back in 2001. They’ve also investigated using sweet potatoes as a raw material (here’s a Treehugger.com article with more on that. Toyota is in the process of scaling up bioplastics production, and by 2020, the company aims to produce 20 million tons of the stuff. 

When Toyota exhibited its 1/X plug-in hybrid concept car at this year’s Melbourne Motor Show,  a Toyota official floated the idea of someday replacing the carbon-fiber reinforced plastic in the1/X’s body and frame with seaweed bioplastic.  

"We used light-weight carbon-fibre reinforced plastic throughout the body frame for its superior collision safety, but that material is made from oil," project manager Tetsuya Kaida explained. “In the future, I'm sure we will have access to new and better materials, such as those made from plants, something natural, maybe something like paper. In fact, I want to create such a vehicle from seaweed because Japan is surrounded by the sea."

Btw, here’s a video of the 1/X, if you can stand the excruciatingly cheery music accompanying it.

So what do you think? Should we have seaweed cars, or should we stick to using it for sushi wrap? Express your opinion below.

Comments

[Caffeine Driven Stress Magnet]

Jeez, just write about the fembots already!

[Natural Man]

second the motion!

[Tina Mason]

At last, a hybrid car that I could afford.

[Ron Carmichael]

can they only use seaweed, or could they use land crops to make bioplastic as well?

[Mike James]

How sturdy is bioplastic? Can it withstand a crash?

[Astroboy]

So when are you going to write about the fembot models?

[ChrisPy]

I definitely think we should at least try it. Any and every option that is available should be explored when it comes to our environment.

[Astroboy]

Fembot models!!!!!! The public demands it!

[Gino Briscone]

One key question is whether it takes less energy or more energy to produce bioplastic. If it is more energy efficient to produce it, and it has the same strength and durability as steel, it obviously makes more sense to use bioplastic. I like the idea of using seaweed as a raw material, because otherwise we would have to use land to grow the raw material. By using seaweed, we free up the land for another use, such as growing crops or simply being natural habitat.

[Atv prices]

Thanks lot because this really so great information. This was really so wonderful idea. This really amazing thing.

[Web Designer Sydney]

lol would like to see if this idea can be possible. This really amazing thing.