About seven gallons of oil is required to make each of the roughly one billion tires produced annually, according to the Rubber Manufacturers Association trade group. But the tire industry’s dependence on oil could drop dramatically in the next five years.

A new technology being developed in a research partnership between Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company and California-based biotechnology company Genencor aims to eliminate the oil currently used to make isoprene, a key tire ingredient, by creating a more environmentally friendly alternative using plants like sugar cane, corn, or switchgrass.

“We’re developing a biological system for making isoprene—we call it BioIsoprene — using renewable raw materials, Richard J. LaDuca, Genencor’s Senior Director of Business Development told TechNewsDaily. “The difference here is that we’re using the power of biotechnology to design a cell factory for chemical synthesis [of BioIsoprene].

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