Tree leaves as energy source

[Rapadura]

This guy believes that the 30 million tons of dried leaves that end up in landfills on the U.S. every year are a great source of energy:

http://www.remarkable.com/leavestoenergy.html

I have only one suggestion to add to his idea: what if we used the dried leaves of fruit trees as an energy source?

Fruit trees produce food (the fruits) and biomass (the dried leaves), and those trees last for years...

[strjac7]

yeah really thats great if you can use this as energy. 30 million tons of dried leaves it means You can produce large amount of energy which will be useful for many of us. I hope your plan gets success. 

[sm0ky2]

Leaf/yard waste collection program

basically, trash trucks driving around picking up bags of leaves, sticks, ect.

it would have to run through a seperator, probably be processed in some sort of manner.
then converted to fuel.

with a 600+ mil$ market value, im sure it would be a profitable venture. at 1.6% of the coal market, its not going to do much.

But, if invested into a bio-decomposition cycle, into methane-products, the bio-fuel market would definately feel the hit.

Acorns are another massive fuel source in this country that is completely wasted.
their oil content per mass is rediculously high
and it can be used straight out of the seed, as biodeisel, or lamp oil.

[rock321]

This is a terrible idea. If you remove the dead leaves from the tree, you leach the soil of it's nutrients and slowly kill off the soil. If the soil is bad what do people do? They add chemical fertilizers that temporarily make it useful, only to hasten the process of deadening in the long run.

Blessings,

Littlechristgod

[fritznien]

leaves are full of dirt and moisture when collected, not a great fuel.
what i do with mine is time the last cut of the lawn to mulch the leaves.
the small bits rot into the soil with no problem.
fritznien