Ubiquitous and easy to grow, algae has long been a promising biomass-to-fuel candidate in the eyes of researchers. Now algae is a burgeoning sector in biofuels with several high-profile start-ups, including Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics, and the interest of big-time investors like Bill Gates and ExxonMobil. Of course, hurdles still exist to make a competitive fuel. Algal biofuels still cost too much to produce—over $8 a gallon (pdf), according to the DOE. Furthermore, most existing strains do not yield oil in the quantities needed to quickly scale up to commercial production of biofuels. Companies also need to worry about contaminating local ecosystems and the amount of water needed to grow cultures in large batches. Despite these challenges inroads—and actual fuel—are being made in the nascent field. Here are 5 projects leading the pack today.
The desert plants used to distil tequila could cut emissions from transport by providing an important new biofuel crop, according to new research.
“Agave has a huge advantage, as it can grow in marginal or desert land, not on arable land,” and therefore would not displace food crops, said Oliver Inderwildi, at the University of Oxford.
Much of the ethanol used as a substitute for petrol is currently produced from corn, especially in the US, and has been criticised for driving up grain prices to record levels. A recent inquiry found that laws mandating the addition of biofuels to petrol and diesel had backfired badly and were unethical because biofuel production often violated human rights and damaged the environment.
According to some reports, a major amount of greenhouse gases is produced by airplanes. Airports in Michigan are planning to help solve this problem by growing biofuel-producing plants on the airport’s land. These crops will generate biofuel for planes and will also cut their carbon footprint.
The Willow Run and Detroit Metro airports have already adopted the idea of growing crops, both having an area of 1,700 acres. According to Biodiesel Magazine, airport owner Wayne County in collaboration with Michigan State University plan to plant canola and mustard seeds and use them as biofuel sources. The project is expected to run through February 2012 and has been funded with a $476,000 state grant.
Today Finnair is set to break a world record as it launches a cooking oil-powered flight from Amsterdam to Helsinki – the world’s longest biofueled commercial flight to date. Commercial airlines have been jumping on board with biofuels lately – many have been making test flights in hopes of transitioning to alternative fuels in the near future.
Today’s flight is the first in a series of four tests flights that Finnair is conducting to test the efficiency of biofuel. Like other airlines, Finnair will be testing flights with a combination of biofuel and conventional jet fuel, which will be used to power both of the SkyNRG aircraft’s engines. The biofuel portion used for these flights is made from recycled cooking oil from restaurants.
Faced with the twin threat of global warming and climate change, the human race is making major strides in the field of energy technology to secure its future as well as to guarantee its existence in the long run. Almost everyday we get to hear about something new in the field of renewable energy, which goes a step further to reduce carbon footprint on the earth’s atmosphere. As far as renewable energies are concerned, nature has provided man with enough options. Everything now depends on man’s willingness to accept and use those options to his own benefit. Biofuel is one such source.
London, UK — The use of kelp (Laminaria digitata) could provide an important alternative to terrestrial grown biofuels, but the suitability of its chemical composition varies on a seasonal basis. Harvesting the kelp in July when carbohydrate levels are at their highest would ensure optimal sugar release for biofuel production.
“The storage carbohydrate and soluble sugars get converted into ethanol in the fermentation process, so we need as much as possible,” explained Dr. Jessica Adams, a lead researcher at Aberystwyth University. “Metals can inhibit the yeast too so we also want these to be as low as possible.”
An interesting event is going on in the United Arab Emirates. The McDonald stores out there are actually running their trucks using waste vegetable oil produced in their own vats. Neutral Fuels which is Dubai based had made an announcement Sunday that the company has entered a new deal which includes the conversion of vegetable oil which is found in the UAE McDonald’s outlets into 100 percent of biodiesel. This is going to help power the delivery trucks of the fast food chain all over the Gulf country.
Last year the tests for biodiesel had started and at the end of this May, they had started to produce this for the fast food giant. Karl W. Feilder who is the chairman of the Neutral Group had said that this project was exciting for them because this was a really innovative idea, which no one had ever tried out in the UAE. He also said that his excitement was because they were using a fuel which was around 50 per cent more clean that what the usual diesel is. Also it gives a very low carbon footprint since it comes from a “waste vegetable product”.
McDonalds Producing biofuel
McDonalds says that this is a small step in huge plans that it has set for the future. They are also a part of the largest environmentalist group in the Emirates i.e. Emirates Environment Group. Rafic Fakih, the partner as well as managing director of McDonalds UAE said that in the UAE McDonald’s had managed to demonstrate a passionate as well long term commitment in order to invest in the environmental initiatives as well. In the Neutral facility in Dubai, around 1 million liters of biodiesel can be produced and if there is an increase in the number of shifts then double of that amount can be produced.
But this isn’t the first time that McDonald’s is running its cars on vegetable oil. The same has been done for their outlets in England and recently in Austria. But then in the Middle East it is the very first time that any company is taking on a venture like this. This is because the Middle East is a country where people don’t really use a lot of alternative fuels because of the existing low price of fuels. The vehicles of this fast food chain are also powered using pure biodiesel.
According to Feilder the main reason for this is because they want to prove to people that to run a car completely on biodiesel, exactly no modifications are required. They also want to show how brilliant that technology is and pure McDonald’s oil is that bio diesel can be produced at the same price as you would pay for oil.
A biofuel is tricky to define because the usual fossil fuel we use, is in a way biofuel too. But we can safely say that most of the biofuels don’t add up their quota of carbon dioxide to the environment. The biofuels are therefore considered to be “CO2 neutral.” Researchers from the Biotechnology Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University have developed a new method to increase the quantity of oil in tobacco leaves. So that oil in tobacco leaves can be utilized as biofuels in future. Their paper was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal which is an online journal.
Vyacheslav Andrianov is a Ph.D. and assistant professor of Cancer Biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. According to him tobacco can produce biofuel more efficiently than other agricultural crops. But there is a hitch. When we try to extract oil, most of it is available in tobacco seeds. Statistics say that tobacco seeds are composed of about 40 percent oil per dry weight. Another snag is tobacco plants don’t produce seeds in copious amounts. It is about 600 kg of seeds per acre. Dr. Andrianov and his colleagues aim to find ways so that the tobacco leaves produce more oil.
A usual tobacco plant leave has 1.7 percent to 4 percent of oil per dry weight. The researchers modified two genes of the plant. They are the diacyglycerol acytransferase (DGAT) gene or the LEAFY COTYLEDON 2 (LEC2) gene. The plants were engineered to over express one of the two genes. The alteration of DGAT gene resulted in about 5.8 percent of oil per dry weight in the leaves. It is around twice the amount of oil produced by and large. When the researcher went for the LEC2 gene modification it yielded around 6.8 percent of oil per dry weight.
According to Dr. Andrianov, “Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production. We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves.”
Dr. Andrianov opines, “Based on these data, tobacco represents an attractive and promising ‘energy plant’ platform, and could also serve as a model for the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production.”
New Hampshire, U.S.A. — Second generation aviation biofuels are getting ready for takeoff.When Boeing’s 747-8 freighter landed in Paris for an international air show in mid-June, it did so in style. The flight marked the first transatlantic voyage for a commercial jetliner using aviation biofuel — in this case a 15 percent blend from the camelina plant.
It wasn’t the only plane using less than traditional fuel to make a grand entrance at the show. The Honeywell-operated Gulfstream G450 became the first aircraft to fly from North America to Europe with a 50/50 blend of Honeywell Green Jet Fuel and petroleum-based jet fuel. It was also the first business jet to be powered by a biofuel.
While the high-profile landings will surely pique the interest of those new to the emerging possibilities of biofuels, the real ascent is expected to come later this year when the global standards body publishes its jet fuel specification, which could allow up to a 50 percent blend of biofuels.
After ASTM International releases its specifications, production is expected to ramp up significantly, and perhaps immediately. Boeing spokesman Terrance Scott said Monday that many airlines in the industry are working to set up agreements in preparation for the new standards.
While costs for the aviation biofuels remain higher than traditional kerosene fuel, industry experts expect prices to come down considerably with the shift from test batches to high-volume production.
Biofuels, especially second-generation methods that don’t cut into the food supply, are increasingly seen by the aviation industry as a way to offset the volatility of traditional fuel prices. The exploration in the industry has also been in response to increasing emission regulations and the potential for an aviation biofuel credit market in the European Union.
“As an industry, we have to find a way to eliminate the volatility,” said Scott. “We won’t predict when peak oil is going to happen, or whether it has already happened. But you need to get going on this.”
For it’s June 20 flight, Boeing does not need to make any changes to the airplane, its engines or operating procedures to accommodate the biofuel use. According to Honeywell, which manufactured the biofuel, no changes to airline fleets need to be made even with a 50 percent blend.
Biofuel industry
Aviation biofuels have been used in recent years in demonstration flights, both commercially and in partnership with the U.S. military.
Honeywell UOP has emerged as a leader in the production and manufacturing of aviation biofuels. Its bio jet fuel was developed under a grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, now the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency-Energy. The process converts feedstocks like camelina — algae is among other options — into jet fuel. The company says the fuel has shown to have higher energy density in flight, which will allow aircraft to fly farther on less fuel, and that it can offer a 65 to 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to petroleum-based fuels.
The biofuel for both flights was sourced from camelina grown in Montana and processed by Honeywell UOP. Plant-based biofuels like camelina provide a net reduction in carbon, meaning the CO2 it absorbs during growth is greater than what it emits when burned.
The plant was identified for its potential in aviation biofuel by Boeing and others in the Pacific Northwest as part of the Sustainable Aviation Fuels Northwest project (www.safnw.com).
In an effort to create a regional supply chain, Boeing said it is guiding assessments in Australia/New Zealand, Mexico, the United Arab Emirates and China to identify potential fuel sources that don’t compete with food or fresh water resources or contribute to deforestation.
Paris Landings
Boeing’s 747-8 took off from Washington and landed at Le Bourget Airport at about 5 p.m. local time on June 20.
The airplane was on display at the Paris Air Show June 21 and 22. It left the air show on June 22 and fly to Cargolux headquarters at Luxembourg for a two-day visit.
Honeywell’s Gulfstream departed Morristown, N.J., at 9 p.m. on June 17 and arrived in Paris about seven hours after takeoff. The jet closely followed the route taken by Charles Lindbergh’s famous first flight across the Atlantic.
There is plenty of garbage on this planet; in fact there is so much garbage that many developed countries are trying to dump their garbage on the lands of lesser developed countries, at a fee of course. But does dumping garbage on other places solve the problem? On the contrary it spreads pollutions and diseases. In fact it is more dangerous to dump garbage in the less developed countries (because there are neither technologies available to process it nor enough awareness). Even creating landfills wastes precious resources.
Rather than having to dump, what if garbage can be used to generate power?
Global Change Biology has published new research that claims replacing gasoline with biofuel from processed garbage could cut global carbon emissions by 80%. A dream come true, isn’t it?
Great strides are being made in the field of creating biofuels but a galling problem is that the biofuel production causes food shortage. Additionally, farmers are adopting controversial techniques and methods to increase their production and rather than helping the climate, it is harming it.
But garbage is abundantly available, fortunately or unfortunately. Second-generation biofuels like cellulosic ethanol obtained from processed urban waste may the sort of solution that kills two birds with one stone (just an expression, throwing stones at birds and killing them is bad): take care of the garbage and produce fuel.
According to the study author Associate Professor Hugh Tan of the National University of Singapore, “Our results suggest that fuel from processed waste biomass, such as paper and cardboard, is a promising clean energy solution.”
He further says, “If developed fully this biofuel could simultaneously meet part of the world’s energy needs, while also combating carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency.”
Data from the United Nation’s Human Development Index and the Earth Trends database was used to arrive at an estimate of how much waste is produced in 173 countries and how much fuel the same countries annually require.
The research team has calculated that 82.93 billion liters of cellulosic ethanol can be produced by the available landfill waste in the world and the resulting biofuel can reduce global carbon emissions in the range of 29.2% to 86.1% for every unit of energy produced.
“If this technology continues to improve and mature these numbers are certain to increase,” concluded co-author Dr. Lian Pin Koh from ETH Zürich. “This could make cellulosic ethanol an important component of our renewable energy future.”
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