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There was a story here on HN just yesterday about Edison's experiments with goldenrods to create rubber. His variant of goldenrods were about 12% latex after s
by ethanwillis 7y ago
There was a story here on HN just yesterday about Edison's experiments with goldenrods to create rubber.
His variant of goldenrods were about 12% latex after some selective breeding.
I'd be curious what kind of plants we could engineer today to make rubber with. There's tons of stuff out there and yes we don't necessarily need oil or other resources if push comes to shove.
- eru 7y agoYes. Though do keep in mind that having cheap oil is infinitely more convenient than the substitutes we are talking about. The world won't end if we ran out of (cheap) oil in the next few years. But productivity would take a bit of a hit for at least a while.