🍁 Feds give new meaning to ‘green’ fuel

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Federal Police forensic expert uses seized cannabis for biofuel

Brazil’s Federal Police seized a total of 476.1 tons of cannabis in 2024, according to official data compiled and analyzed by freedom of information advocacy group Fiquem Sabendo. This mass of illegal drugs, weighing around the same as four adult blue whales, is transported, stored, guarded and incinerated, all at the cost of the Brazilian taxpayer.

Faced with this apparent contradiction, Antônio Canelas, forensic expert at the Federal Police in the northern state of Pará and a PhD student in chemical engineering at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), came up with the bright idea of transforming this to-be-destroyed cannabis into biofuel — which could potentially be used in place of fossil gasoline and diesel.

Biofuel is a blanket term applied to all fuels derived from renewable sources such as plants. While stocks of fossil fuels are finite, those made from plants can, theoretically, always be regenerated. 

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