Some days, do you feel as though the only way you can possibly launch yourself out of the house in time is by cruising on a coffee high? You’re certainly not alone. Of all the indulgences that human beings afford themselves, roasted java beans generally find their place at the very top of the "must have" shopping list. Even during recessionary times, people will cut out their weekly jaunts to the movie theater and try their hand at going semi-veggie before they’ll begin to contemplate sacrificing their coffee fix, but that might change once roasted bean prices go well beyond the roof and through the upper stratosphere. The International Coffee Organization head, Nestor Osorio, cites global warming as the main reason why coffee producing countries have constantly had to adapt to changing conditions, often with rather unfortunate results. Consumers should probably brace themselves because these losses are definitely going to be reflected in the sticker price.
Considered one of the most lucrative commodities in the world, coffee shrubs and trees thrive in tropical and sub-tropical regions such as Columbia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Brazil, El Salvador and Costa Rica but poor weather and steadily increasing temperatures have prompted farmers to accommodate accordingly by cultivating their crops at higher altitudes. These plants traditionally require lots of water to trigger the flowering process, but climate changes (including long periods of drought) have instead stunted the development of coffee berries, resulting in notable losses. Within the past 25 years, Osoria says that temperatures “have risen half a degree in coffee producing countries, five times more than in the 25 years before” and though it may seem like a subtle change, it has notably affected the success of crops in regions like Columbia where they’ve lost between 30-35% of their beans and El Salvador, where five successive years of poor harvests continue to bog them down.
With all of this back story, one has to wonder what the inventors of the Car-puccino – a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco powered entirely via roasted coffee granules – were thinking. Built for the British science show Bang Goes The Theory (on BBC1) and soon to be on display in Manchester at the UK Young Scientists’ and Engineers’ Fair, it’s certainly a nifty bit of engineering that reminds us how various carbon based substances – such as walnut shells, landfill waste, construction debris and woodchips – can be transformed into viable fuel alternatives. While the java mobile wisely makes use of a relic that might have otherwise been earmarked for scrap metal, its inner workings are what are particularly newsworthy. Specifically, 70 kilos of recycled coffee grounds were converted into dry pellets which are then fed into the vehicle inside a gas cylinder with a very hot charcoal fire. The pelletized coffee facilitates air circulation during the ignition process, yielding hydrogen and carbon monoxide, both of which are cooled down before being burned. All told, the team calculated that the Car-puccino gets 56 espressos per mile at roughly 25 to 50 times the cost of what a tank of fossil-fuel would cost. Cool idea, but I think I’ll stick with my brew in a tall cup for now!
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