NEWS FROM THE FUTURE: Solar without the smoke

Dateline: June 4 2028 

For thousands of years humans have harnessed renewable solar energy trapped in the most accessible fuel of all, by burning wood and waste from dead trees and harvested plants. The practice is as old as fire itself. But it’s not very clean, or efficient. 

Plants use energy from the sun to transform water and nutrients into cellulose, so they can grow. It’s a crystalline structure rich in carbohydrates that is resistant to decomposition, but not to combustion. And when we burn it there’s a lot of waste heat, smoke and carbon dioxide. Not very eco-friendly, but so easy to do. 

What if we could easily convert cellulose into useful biofuels such as ethanol? Now we can. Brazilian scientists developed a natural enzyme cocktail that breaks down cellulose twice as fast as traditional bioreactors, disconnecting it from other plant components such as lignin and converting it to sugar. The perfect feedstock for biofuels. 

This breakthrough has powered the commercial production of second-generation ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel — jet fuel made from plants, rather than oil. The tech has always been there, but the cost was the problem. Now that “waste” biomass can easily be exploited, price parity with fossil-derived fuels is on the horizon. 

The much-maligned combustion engine is set to make a comeback, and car companies that bet their future on alternative fuels rather than electric vehicles are suddenly back in vogue. Their strategy was bold and risky, but it has paid dividends.
As for electric aircraft, well they never really took off. 

For decades, sustainable biofuels were unsustainable. Now they’re unstoppable. They’re solar power in a can, without the smoke. 

First published on Mindbullets June 5 2025.

Diesel drought drives new oil tech 

Dateline: September 20 2028 

In just five years we have gone from an oversupply of fossil fuels to a critical shortage of the one fuel we need for everything — diesel. 

Diesel has been reliably powering trucks, heavy machinery, farming and mining for more than a century. Its high energy density and ease of transport has made it the fuel of choice for everything from shipping to the military to backup power generation. For versatility and bang for the buck (or joule for the dollar) it’s hard to beat diesel. And diesel is one of the primary products from oil refineries so it’s abundant too. 

Until now. With climate activism at its peak and banks too nervous to invest in fossil fuels, new oil projects are just holes in the ground and global refinery capacity has slumped. That’s the biggest problem, because even with a glut of crude only about 20% emerges as diesel after the “crack”, and diesel is the one liquid fuel everybody wants. 

There have been attempts to use green ammonia for farm tractors and hydrogen for semi-trucks, but the vast majority of transportation, agriculture and mine equipment still uses diesel. And the minerals and construction for solar and wind farms, as well as batteries for electric cars, all need diesel. With limited supply prices have surged, making technology solutions commercially viable. 

First off is a resurgence in gas-to-liquid production. Clean diesel can easily be produced from natural gas, and it’s less polluting than diesel from crude. But the plants are enormous to benefit from economies of scale, and can’t be switched on and off to meet demand peaks and troughs. You’re looking at multi-decade investments of multi-billion-dollar amounts; and then gas is still tarred with a “fossil fuel” brush. 

More exciting are the recent breakthroughs producing complex hydrocarbons from genetically engineered organisms — microbes and bacteria. Basically, you feed them effluent and farm waste and the mutant bugs excrete diesel and jet fuel. That cuts down on methane from rotting garbage, so it’s good for the climate too. 

As the world moves to electric cars and solar power we still need fuel for the heavy lifting, and diesel from natural gas and bioreactor plants is so successful it’s being called the “new oil”. 

First published on Mindbullets September 21 2023.

Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, and challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.