Tobacco targeted as biofuel

Scientists are increasingly viewing tobacco as a viable biofuels source due to its ability to generate large amounts of oil and sugar.

This is according to Vyacheslav Andrianov, a researcher at the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, who told the Associated Press that the substance is an attractive "energy plant".

The news provider noted that experts judge it as a valuable commodity because using it will not affect major food sources - while some biofuels need corn, soybeans or other crops as a base.

Mr Andrianov recently co-authored a study on genetically-modified tobacco, in which lab workers had engineered a plant able to produce 20 times more oil.

He said: "I got a lot of response from farmers that would like to grow tobacco in fields that are not being used right now."

University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell recently discovered a method of producing ethanol from orange peel and newspapers, making it a potential source of biofuel.