NewNergy

NewNergy discusses the latest inventions, innovations and breakthroughs in the energy & environmental sciences.

Dutch Breakthrough in Bioethanol Production From Agri Waste

With the introduction of a single bacterial gene into yeast, researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands achieved three improvements in bioethanol production from agricultural waste material.

The invention is enthusiastically summarized by the principal researcher Jack Pronk: ‘In the laboratory, this simple genetic modification kills three birds with one stone: no glycerol formation, higher ethanol yields and consumption of toxic acetate’. For the potential billion liter ethanol gain to be realized, follow-up research on the transfer of this concept to industrial yeast strains and real-life process conditions is required. The Delft yeast researchers, who applied for a patent on their invention, hope to intensively collaborate with industrial partners to accelerate its industrial implementation.

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Nanotechnology Could Reduce Costs of Cellulosic Ethanol?

Cellulosic ethanol is an exciting technology which promises to convert the abundant sources of organic waste worldwide (kitchen waste, yard waste, paper industry waste, etc.) into green alternative fuel.

The traditioinal production process of cellulosic ethanol involves breaking down the cellulose into smaller units (hydrolysis reaction) on pretreated lignocellulosic materials followed by fermentation and distillation.The hydrolysis can be achived by using either acids or enzymes to breakdown the pretreated cellulosic biomass.The process of using enzymes for hydrolysis has been more expensive than the other approach, as the enzymes cost a lot of money, and typically a significant portion are lost during the cellulose degradation.

Researchers from the Louisiana Tech University have developed a way of immobilizing the enzymes, greatly reducing enzyme loss and its corresponding costs. Details on the new approach are scant other than that it uses "nanotechnology", but it seems likely that it employs some sort of charged particles to affix the non-catalytic domains of enzymes to reactor walls or a porous network, or else uses extracellular matrix proteins to bind the enzymes.

The university estimates that a commercial plant would save approximately $32M USD (they did not specify if this was a yearly total or perhaps over the plant's lifetime) and that under the federally established goal to reach 16 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol, the net saving could be $7.5B USD, if the goal was reached. LTU also notes that they estimate cellulosic ethanol to reduce carbon emissions by 89 percent over traditional fuels.

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Move Over Ethanol, Here Comes Biobutanol

Gevo, the privately held biofuels start-up said that it had successfully retrofitted a demonstration-scale ethanol plant to make biobutanol.Gevo also said it planned to pound the pavement on Wall Street looking for financing to go out and buy up to five ethanol plants to retrofit.

Biobutanol is an alcohol similar to ethanol. Both can be used as a gasoline additive.But biobutanol has some clear advantages over ethanol.Some of them are:

  • There is no blend wall – ethanol’s 10% limit in gasoline. Biobutanol is approved to get to 16% today – and Gevo, which is backed by investors including Khosla Ventures, Burrill & Co. and Total SA – says that “standard automotive engines can run on biobutanol blended into gasoline at any ratio.”
  • Experts say that biobutanol can be put into pipelines and refineries without problems.Try running ethanol through a pipeline. It worked kind of like Mr. Clean and swept up a lot of unwanted gunk.
  • Ethanol makers are trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of corn prices and gasoline prices. Biobutanol can take multiple feedstocks (corn, stover, sugar cane) and critically can sell its output as either a gasoline additive or as a chemical feedstock to make things like plastic bottles.

No one has built a biobutanol biorefinery at a commercial scale. Yet. The Gevo demonstration-scale plant in Missouri has an annual capacity of about 1 million gallons. So nobody knows if this is economic at scale.

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New Economical Way of Corn-based Ethanol Production

TMO Renewables, based in the south of England, has developed a new fermentation process using certain micro-organisms that enables part of the waste deriving from corn-based ethanol production to be used to make more biofuel. According to the company, 25 ethanol plants in the US are interested in TMO Renewables’ proposal. In a recent case study in Iowa, TMO proved that it could deliver lower energy consumption, lower costs and higher output, thus producing a 70% improvement in margin – and this after the payment of a royalty to TMO.

The TMO process exploits two innate properties of the unique organism. Firstly, by exploiting the high temperature that the organism favours, fermentation can be performed at temperatures in excess of sixty degrees Celsius.Since very little cooling or heating is required, there is a significant saving in energy.

Secondly, the organism has a preference for consuming the longer chain sugars that derive from the breakup of biomass. This brings a very significant benefit in that a very large portion of the work and cost required to break down biomass to simple sugars, such as glucose, is removed.

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Bio-syntrolysis : A High Efficiency Cellulosic Ethanol Technology

Scientists at Idaho National Laboratory have been working for the past year and a half on a process to convert biomass, such straw or crop residue, into liquid fuels at a far higher efficiency than existing cellulosic ethanol technologies.

Rather than one single development, the technology--named bio-syntrolysis--ties together multiple processes, but it has electrolysis, or splitting water to make hydrogen, at is starting point. When combined with a carbon-free electricity source, the approach could deliver a carbon-neutral biofuel, according to models done at INL which has done research for decades in nuclear energy.

Bio-syntrolysis is one of a dizzying number of technologies being developed with the hopes of replacing gasoline, although none have successfully been done at scale. The key advantage is that bio-syntrolysis would extract far more energy from available biomass than existing methods, said research engineer Grant Hawkes. Using traditional ethanol-making techniques, about 35 percent of the carbon from wood chips or agricultural residue ends up in the liquid fuel. By contrast, the bio-syntrolysis method would convert more than 90 percent of that carbon into a fuel.

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New Method to Produce More Efficient Fuel from Waste

Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new effective and environmentally friendly method, which uses electrolyzed water instead of harsh chemicals in the pretreatment of ethanol waste products to produce an acetone-butanol-ethanol fuel mix.

When ethanol is produced, distiller's dried grain with solubles (DDGS) is a waste product.The glucose in DDGS is stuck together, forming cellulosic corn fiber, but the structure is very tough. It forms a kind of crystalline structure which is very difficult to break.In order to get the glucose out, normally people use a strong acid such as sulfuric acid, or a strong lime base, to loosen it, making holes in it. Once the structure is destroyed, we use enzymes to cut the chain of glucose to get glucose that can be used for fermentation.

The strong sulfuric acid method produces some toxic compounds, which can kill the microbes that produce acetone-butanol-ethanol mix completely.Using alkaline sodium hydroxide as a base, after 60 hours, the acetone-butanol-ethanol production was also relatively low. But using acidic electrolyzed water, at about 20 hours the fermentation process began producing the acetone-butanol-ethanol mix. This new technique also eliminates the detoxification of the traditional acid method.The other advantage of this method is that the traditional method produces a large quantity of solid waste that needs to be handled, and some sugars get consumed in the process as well. We want to maximize the sugar yield so we can maximize the ethanol yield.

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Biomimicry for Converting Co2 to Energy

Cambridge-based Joule Biotechnologies has designed a radical technology to mimic photosynthesis using bio-engineered micro-organisms to make ethanol fuel from carbon dioxide and sunlight. Because of the abundance of these raw materials, Joule Biotechnologies should be able to make ethanol economically, sustainably and at stable prices.

Their device, called SolarConverter doesn’t require fresh water and agricultural land like traditional biofuel production . The converter contains a mixture of brackish water, nutrients, and genetically engineered organisms. Carbon dioxide gas is fed into the mixture, and the device is designed to expose the organisms in the mixture to the sun. The organisms are photosynthetic, meaning that they absorb light energy and carbon dioxide to form compounds. Joule has engineered its organisms to secrete ethanol and hydrocarbons and chemicals.

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Engineered Microorganisms for Cost-Effective Cellulosic Biofuel Production

Mascoma Corporation today announced that the company has made major research advances in consolidated bioprocessing, or CBP, a low-cost processing strategy for production of biofuels from cellulosic biomass. CBP avoids the need for the costly production of cellulase enzymes by using engineered microorganisms that produce cellulases and ethanol at high yield in a single step.CBP is widely considered to be the ultimate low-cost configuration for cellulose hydrolysis and fermentation.The advances of the research includes both bacteria that grow at high temperatures, called thermophiles, and recombinant cellulolytic yeasts.

The first report of targeted metabolic engineering of a cellulose-fermenting thermophile, Clostridium thermocellum, leading to a reduced production of unwanted organic acid byproducts and makes possible production of nearly 6% wt/vol ethanol by an increase of 60% over what was reported just a year ago. Selected strains of C. thermocellum that can rapidly consume cellulose with high conversion and no added cellulase, and grow on cellulose in the presence of commercial levels of ethanol.

Recombinant, Cellulolytic Yeast facilitates 3,000-fold increase in cellulase expression and a significant 2.5-fold reduction in the added cellulase required for conversion of pretreated hardwood to ethanol.These advances enable the reduction in operating and capital costs required for cost-effective commercial production of ethanol, bringing Mascoma substantially closer to commercialization.

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Zero Liquid Discharge : Ethanol Plant Finds New Way To Save Water

POET Biorefining in Bingham Lake, Minnesota, has developed a way to be more efficient in the ways they produce ethanol. After two years of research, they started working on a process that we're now calling zero liquid discharge. And they've implemented this new process in January of this year. Bingham Lake is the first plant in the POET system to start up the patent pending "zero liquid discharge" system. The goal is to reduce water usage from 3.2 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol, to 2.6 gallons of water, a 23 percent decrease.

They've gathered all of the different locations throughout the plant that previously discharge water to the treatment system. They've recollected and filtered several streams. So now they are internally using all their effluent.Even though operating costs will increase,the water bills have already started to drop in Bingham Lake.

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Biomass Breakthrough : Ethanol from Plants Using Microbe

Baystater’s are celebrating a biomass breakthrough in Springfield that could help soften their dependence on foreign oil. Their discovery creates ethanol from plants using a microbe found in the soil at the Quabbin Reservoir.Development has been in the works for three years under the leadership of Dr. Susan Leschine a professor of microbiology.Pilot plans call for Solutia to begin production later this year, creating the potential for hundreds of jobs.

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Duckweed Turns Pig Poop into Fuel

Move over, corn: there’s a new biofuel in town. A tiny flowering plant called duckweed, often seen in shallow ponds, produces significantly more starch per acre than corn according to researchers North Carolina State University. The plant thrives on animal waste, quickly transforming it into a leafy starch that can be turned into ethanol.Small scale tests have proven that the same technology used to convert corn into ethanol can also turn duckweed starch to ethanol. Next up: testing on a large scale and doing an economic analysis of the process. Ultimately, the economics will decide if duckweed can compete with other sources of ethanol.

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New Eco-Friendly Alternative To Charcoal

Thousands of grilling enthusiasts now have more free time following the invention of the FlameDisk, a revolutionary alternative to charcoal. This convenient grilling option, which employs solid ethanol as its fuel source, lights instantaneously with the touch of a match and is ready to cook on in less than one minute, eliminating the time needed to arrange and light coals. From ignition to cooking, the FlameDisk saves roughly a half hour of wait time while giving eco-conscious cooks a green grilling alternative.

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Genomatica Makes Methyl Ethyl Ketone from Microbes Ingesting Sugar

California licensor of technology thinks solvent MEK could get to market in 2010, reviving now-closed ethanol plants and serving global markets.

San Diego-based Genomatica said today it has developed a second chemical using a microbes instead of petroleum.

CEO Christopher Gann told the Cleantech Group that the company engineered a way to produce methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) from microbes ingesting sugar. The MEK can be made in the same fermentation facilities as ethanol plants, providing a use for shuttered or underused plants and removing the capital cost to build dedicated facilities

MEK is an industrial solvent used in paints, coatings or varnishes, especially for the furniture-making industry, that is typically made with petroleum. About half the market goes to about a dozen large buyers and is distributed by railcar, while the rest is typically produced in plants and put into drums.

The worldwide market for MEK is 3 billion dry pounds, or about $2 billion. In the U.S., the market is just 400 million pounds—making the global markets a focus for Genomatica.

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Shredding Stover Helps Make Ethanol Production More Efficient

Researcher Dennis Buckmaster of Purdue University has hit on a more efficient ethanol production with cellulosic processing. By shredding corn stover instead of the currently-used chopping method, less energy is required because the pieces are smaller, allowing easier and more productive cellulose derivative. Size doesn’t seem to make a difference in cellulose leachate yield, with large shreds comparable to smaller ones.

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Xylose To Biofuel With Commercial Yeasts

Eckhard Boles, co-founder of the Swiss biofuel company Butalco GmbH and a professor at Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, has discovered a new enzyme which teaches yeast cells to ferment xylose into ethanol. Xylose is an unused waste sugar in the cellulosic ethanol production process. The researchers have recently filed a patent application for their process.

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Brewery Waste into Ethanol Fuel

E-Fuel, a maker of home ethanol systems, and Sierra Nevada, a microbrewery in northern California, have teamed enabling the beer maker to produce its own ethanol from waste products in its brewing process. It will use E-Fuel's Efuel 100 MicroFueler to take 1.6 million gallons of unusable "bottom of the barrel" beer yeast waste, containing 5% to 8% alcohol content, so it can raise the alcohol level to 15 percent. This increased ethanol yield, minus water removed in the process, will become the fuel.

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Semiconducting Carbon Nanotubes Using Alcohol

A Duke University-led team of chemists has modified a method for growing exceptionally long, straight, numerous and well-aligned carbon cylinders only a few atoms thick that paves the way for manufacturing reliable electronic nanocircuits.

The team had already described a method last April for growing the crystals, but the modification is targeted at making a process specifically for producing semiconducting versions of the single-walled carbon nanotubes, sometimes called buckytubes because their ends, when closed, take the form of soccer ball-shaped carbon-60 molecules known as buckminsterfullerines, or "buckyballs".

In their earlier work they had used the alcohol ethanol in the feeder gas to provide carbon atoms as building blocks for the growing nanotubes. In the new work, they describe how they tried various ratios of two alcohols -- ethanol and methanol -- combined with two other gases they also used previously -- argon and hydrogen.

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Nanotech catalysts For Alcohol- Powered Green Cars

Scientists at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new nanotechnology catalyst that could make alcohol-powered fuel cells possible for the first time.Like batteries that never die, fuel cells convert hydrogen and oxygen into water while producing electricity. However, hydrogen is difficult to produce and explosively dangerous to store and transport.

As an alternative, hydrogen-rich compounds like ethanol - basically, pure alcohol - can be oxidised into the hydrogen ions and electrons that are needed to generate electricity. Up until now, though, scientists have been unable to find a catalyst capable of breaking the bonds between ethanol's carbon atoms.

The DOE's breakthrough is to develop an electrocatalyst, made from platinum and rhodium atoms on carbon-supported tin dioxide nanoparticles, that can break carbon bonds at room temperature, with just carbon dioxide as a by-product.

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Third Generation Biofuels: Corn with Embedded Cellulase Enzymes

A new variety of corn developed and patented by Michigan State University scientists could turn corn leaves and stalks into biofuels far more efficiently than existing techniques for cellulosic biofuels.

The variety of corn has cellulase enzymes embedded in its leaves. This makes it a crop typical of so-called 'third-generation' bioproducts - green fuels and products are made from energy and biomass crops that have been designed in such a way that their very structure or properties conform to the requirements of a particular bioconversion process. The MSU scientists have tricked corn in such a way that it already contains the needed enzymes itself, in its leaves.

An example of such third-generation biofuels are those based on tree crops whose lignin-content has been artificially weakened and reduced, and disintegrates easy under dedicated processing techniques. Low-lignin hybrid trees (poplars) are being developed by several research organisations, amongst them the laboratory of the father of plant genetic engineering, Marc van Montagu of the University of Ghent, Belgium.

Content credit: Mongabay

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Third Generation Biofuels via Direct Cellulose Fermentation

Here's an interesting research paper on a new process called Consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) in which cellulase production, substrate hydrolysis, and fermentation are accomplished in a single process step by cellulolytic microorganisms.

According to the paper, CBP offers the potential for lower biofuel production costs
due to simpler feedstock processing, lower energy inputs, and higher conversion
efficiencies than separate hydrolysis and fermentation processes, and is an economically attractive near-term goal for “third generation” biofuel production.

In this review article, production of third generation biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks will be addressed in respect to the metabolism of cellulolytic bacteria and the development of strategies to increase biofuel yields through metabolic engineering.

Read the full research paper from here (PDF) - note: this document opens as a new document on your machine, not in your browser

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AFEX - A Cost effective Pretreatment For Cellulosic Ethanol

A new process invented by Michigan State University helps to increase the yields of cellulosic ethanol at a reasonable premium. Michigan State University comes in with a new patented process. Bruce Dale, University Distinguished Professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the university, has invented a cheap pretreatment process using ammonia, called AFEX (ammonia fiber expansion).

Its 75 percent more efficient than with traditional enzyme treatments says Professor Dale, and is easier and more affordable than acid pretreatments. The process frees up a lot of sugar to be used in the fermentation to produce more ethanol.It's possible to use AFEX to pretreat corn stover (cobs, stalks and leaves) and then hydrolyze and ferment it to commercially relevant levels of ethanol without adding nutrients to the stover. It's always been assumed that agricultural residues such as corn stover didn't have enough nutrients to support fermentation. We have shown this isn't so.

Washing, detoxifying and adding nutrients back into the pretreated cellulose are three separate steps. Each step is expensive and adds to the cost of the biofuel. Breaking down cellulose into fermentable sugars cost effectively has been a major issue slowing cellulosic ethanol production. Using AFEX as the pretreatment process can dramatically reduce the cost of making biofuels from cellulose.

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Ethanol from yeast fermentation:A Breakthrough for hydrogen power

A team of scientists, led by a professor from the University of Aberdeen, have achieved a leap forward in the process of using hydrogen to provide clean electricity.Using a catalyst, they have converted ethanol fermented from biofuels into hydrogen.

The process developed by scientists in Aberdeen to produce hydrogen for fuel cells from biofuels starts with fermentation.Crops are fermented using yeast, producing ethanol and water.Then a catalyst made using the metals rhodium and palladium is added to the ethanol and water, at temperatures of about 500C.This converts the ethanol and water into hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

Although this has been done before, it had never been effective as it had never been achieved without producing waste products, such as carbon monoxide, which is poisonous. It took the team of scientists from across the world, led by Prof Idriss, more than ten years to hone the technique.The hydrogen could be used to power fuel cells, which can provide clean electricity for vehicles, homes and even large buildings.

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Wood into Sugar: A New Source for Biofuels.

Max Planck Institute for Coal Research in Germany have made a breakthrough by converting wood into sugar molecules, which can then be used to produce ethanol, a biofuel. The new method comes as researchers in Germany are stepping up their efforts to find innovative ways of tapping bioenergy sources to address growing concerns about the merits of using food crops or agricultural land for biofuels because of their impact on food prices and the environment.
Additional research areas include looking for breakthroughs in technology to turn wood into gas or other forms of energy, to use biomass for cooling, and to use old wood to prepare pellets.

For the method of conversion and more

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More Power from Motors by Injecting Ethanol, Methanol or E85

One of the most promising new ideas in energy efficiency comes from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The proposition: get more power and efficiency out of turbocharged motors by injecting ethanol, methanol or E85 (85 percent methanol, 15 percent gasoline) into the engine at times of higher demands for power.

The MIT crowd claims this technology can boost gas mileage by as much as 30 percent, and that it allows a high-compression engine and high-boost turbocharger to operate on regular gasoline. Daniel Cohn, senior research scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, and other MIT professors, have formed a company, Ethanol Boosting Systems, and are testing their concept with Ford Motor.

On another front, Daimler and General Motors are experimenting with motors that run on gasoline but combine features of traditional gasoline engines (fuel ignited by a spark) and diesel technology (fuel ignited by compression of fuel and air).

More from here -Automakers explore gas-saving technology

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Now You Can Brew Your Own Fuel



Image credit: IHT

What if you could make fuel for your car in your backyard, and that too for less than what you pay at the pump? Would you take it? Of course you would, or at least most likely would.

Floyd Butterfield could become a legend for people who want to make their own ethanol. With his with the Silicon Valley entrepreneur Thomas Quinn, he has started E-Fuel, which soon will announce its home ethanol system, the E-Fuel 100 MicroFueler. The system will be about as large as a washer-dryer, and sell for $9,995 and ship before year-end. The net cost to consumers could drop by half after government incentives.

Ethanol has been on the alt energy radar long enough now, and has had its share of bouquets and brickbats - more of the latter in the recent past. But the entire blame is not on the product itself, most times it has been owing to the shortsightedness of the politicians who hyped feedstock such as corn without much thought about the ripple effects on other parts of the economy. That is, ethanol itself is not a bad idea - ask Brazil - and it could well be one of the key components of our energy puzzle for quite some time to come.

The MicroFueler from E-Fuel will use sugar as its main fuel source. Depending on the cost of sugar, plus water and electricity, the company says it could cost as little as a dollar a gallon to make ethanol. If you were to left-over alcohol from bars and restaurants to turn them into ethanol, the only cost is for the electricity used in processing. The company's dream is to have millions of people pumping their own fuel out of their homes.

Sounds just too tempting, doesn't it.

Is the MicroFueler going to cause an upheaval? Will this be a game changer in the alternative energy industry? Will the MicroFueler become to the energy industry what the PCs became to the computing industry? Is it even remotely possible that a shift from refinery-based fuel production to home-based production will mirror the shift from mainframe-based computing to personal computing?

One would desperately hope that such parallels exist, but in reality it is a long shot. Here are some of the reasons why:

1. Ethanol has long had home brewers, but there are plenty of reasons to question whether personal fueling systems will become the fuel industry's version of the personal computer. Brewing ethanol in the backyard isn't as easy as one might think. Distillation, refining and quality control are tedious processes and home-brew ethanol might not ever achieve the kind of quality that ethanol from large refineries can.

2. Sugar-based ethanol doesn't look much cheaper than gas, as things stand today. This could be the real problem. Ethanol has become the favorite whipping boy of the industry precisely because of the effects its production had on the prices of corn etc. Will sugar as a feedstock make the situation any better? Until the world finds a feedstock that is sustainable from the environmental and food-chain perspectives, it will be difficult for ethanol to become a favorite of every home that owns a car.

3. While there was a clear need for people to own computing resources for personalized work, it is not clear that people have a need to own their fuel resources. Well, fuel is fuel, whether you get it from your home or from the pump station; given this, many might rather prefer to take it from a wholesale supplier than take the trouble of brewing it themselves, unless the cost difference is REALLY significant. (What could happen however is that a number of small-scale producers might crop up, so rather than home-based refineries, what we could see are micro-refineries. There is a much more specific economic need for such micro-refineries, especially among the farming community worldwide).

Butterfield and Quinn are trying their best to address the above problems, and have some ideas and innovations up their sleeves that could take care of some of these issues.

There are many consumers who want to reduce their carbon footprint, are willing to invest and make compromises in order to achieve this. Given this consumer enthusiasm and the increased worldwide momentum of alternative energy research efforts, Butterfield and Quinn might well be on to something, in spite of the hurdles.

And who knows, if they get a bit lucky (make that a lot lucky), Quinn and Butterfield might indeed become the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates of the energy industry.

Source: International Herald Tribune

Via: Green Auto Update

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Videos of Algae to Oil, Biodiesel, Hydrogen & Ethanol

A collection of videos and video links regarding the turning of algae into oil, hydrogen, ethanol and other useful fuels

From this peswiki page here

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Cyanobacteria Produces Cellulose, Sugars For Ethanol

A newly created microbe produces cellulose that can be turned into ethanol and other biofuels, report scientists from The University of Texas at Austin who say the microbe could provide a significant portion of the nation's transportation fuel if production can be scaled up.

Along with cellulose, the cyanobacteria developed by Professor R. Malcolm Brown Jr. and Dr. David Nobles Jr. secrete glucose and sucrose. These simple sugars are the major sources used to produce ethanol.

Brown and Nobles say their cyanobacteria can be grown in production facilities on non-agricultural lands using salty water unsuitable for human consumption or crops.

Other key findings include:

* The new cyanobacteria use sunlight as an energy source to produce and excrete sugars and cellulose

* Glucose, cellulose and sucrose can be continually harvested without harming or destroying the cyanobacteria (harvesting cellulose and sugars from true algae or crops, like corn and sugarcane, requires killing the organisms and using enzymes and mechanical methods to extract the sugars)

* Cyanobacteria that can fix atmospheric nitrogen can be grown without petroleum-based fertilizer input

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Joe Van Groll Uses Whey to Make Ethanol @ Less than $1 per Gallon

People who visit Joe Van Groll’s ethanol plant in Stratford, Wis., typically look around and say, “This is it? You don’t have much here.” To which he replies, “Exactly, that’s why I can [make ethanol] so cheap.” Van Groll has experimented with a whey-to-ethanol process part time for more than a decade and full time for the past four years. He believes he can produce ethanol for less than $1 per gallon. The feedstock he uses is whey permeate, the waste product of cheese manufacturing. Although it may sound more complicated than producing ethanol from corn, Van Groll’s philosophy is to avoid waste and keep things simple. The energy integration he is targeting, however, is anything but simple. Besides turning the whey permeate into ethanol, he separates and dries the yeast coproduct for feed; utilizes the waste heat from fermentation and distillation for biodiesel production; and is now demonstrating that the waste heat, water and carbon dioxide can be used to raise oil-bearing algae for biodiesel. He can also incorporate an anaerobic digester that turns wastes into methane to power the process.

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Former Miller Brewing Site Converting to Ethanol Plant

Former Miller Brewing Site Converting to Ethanol Plant

May 8, 2007

Pall-times.com reports that a former Miller Brewing Company site is being converted into a 114MMgy ethanol facility in New York. Northeast Biofuels plans to use local corn for 25% of their needs. The new plant should indirectly produce about 1,500 jobs.

Via this post @ Biodiesel Investing

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Brazil, Ethanol & the New Great Game

Brazil, Ethanol & the New Great Game

April 13, 2007

With Chinese, Japanese, Indian, American, and European delegations crisscrossing Brazil to size up the country’s potential as a supplier of strategic materials, specifically ethanol, it is hard not to draw an analogy with the fight for hegemony that took place in Asia between Tsarist Russia and the British Empire, in the nineteenth & early twentieth centuries, says this interesting piece.

Over the last month, France’s Louis Dreyfus bought all the sugar and ethanol refineries belonging to the Tavares de Melo Group, becoming the second-largest producer of ethanol in Brazil....

So what's in store for Brazil and its ethanol? Read this post @ Etha Blog for more inputs

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Renewed Push for Ethanol, Without Corn

Renewed Push for Ethanol, Without Corn

Cellulosic ethanol is supposed to be the saviour for those who feel that feedstock such as corn are hopeless in the long run. But no company has yet been able to produce ethanol from cellulose in mass quantities that are priced competitively with corn-based ethanol, says this article.

According to a professional who was a senior member of the US Govt's energy efficiency & renewable energy program in the 90s, “Producing cellulosic ethanol is clearly more difficult than we thought in the 1990s.”

So why has no one figured out a way to make ethanol from materials like the sugar cane wastes? In fact, engineers at several companies have done that — but only at the lab level, continues this report.

Read the full report from here @ Petroleum World, 28 Apr 2007

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New Enzyme Discovery Could Make Ethanol Cheaper

New Enzyme Discovery Could Make Ethanol Cheaper

A new plant enzyme has been discovered by Cornell University researchers, which could make the production of cellulosic ethanol less expensive.

A critical step in producing cellulosic ethanol involves breaking down a plant's cell wall material and fermenting the sugars that are released. This enzyme, according to scientists, could potentially allow plant materials to be broken down more efficiently.

The new class of plant enzymes has a structure similar to the microbial enzymes called "cellulases" which are used to digest the cellulose in grasses and similar plants.

While the scientists found the new enzyme in a tomato plant, they are confident that such proteins are present in other plant species that could be used for biofuel production.

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Ethanol: Behind the Buzz

Ethanol: Behind the Buzz

By Keith Lieberthal - TheStreet.com, 19 Apr 2007

From the White House to Wall Street, ethanol has moved to the heart of national debate about energy...Its champions promise that it will win energy independence for the U.S.; aid its farmers; weaken hostile oil-subsidized regimes in Tehran, Caracas and Moscow; and better the environment. But the skeptics see little more than a massive agricultural subsidy dressed in patriotic and green rhetoric.

What's the real story? Read from this detailed report from The Street

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Ethanol vehicles pose a significant risk to human health

Ethanol vehicles pose a significant risk to human health

Medical Research News, 20-Apr-2007

Ethanol is widely touted as an eco-friendly, clean-burning fuel. But if every vehicle in the United States ran on fuel made primarily from ethanol instead of pure gasoline, the number of respiratory-related deaths and hospitalizations would likely increase, according to a new study by Stanford University atmospheric scientist Mark Z. Jacobson. His findings are published in the April 18 online edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T).

Read the full article from here @ Medical Research News

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Latin America Divided Over Ethanol

Latin America Divided Over Ethanol

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez calls the boom in ethanol the equivalent of starving the poor "to feed automobiles." It's not just Mr. Chávez who is questioning whether the benefits outweigh the unintended consequences. Now poultry industry executives, who have seen the price of feedstock go up; Mexican consumers, facing a 60 percent jump in the cost of tortillas; and even environmentalists, who look at the amount of fertilizer that will be needed to grow extra crops, are wondering aloud about the effects of ethanol...

Read the full article from here @ CBS News, 20 Apr 2007 post

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Fueling the Debate: Ethanol vs. Biodiesel

Fueling the Debate: Ethanol vs. Biodiesel

By Jack Uldrich, April 20, 2007, Motley Fool

This past week offered a perfect synopsis of the continuing debate over whether ethanol or biodiesel is the preferred biofuel of the future. Determining which fuel is better, though, is about as helpful as determining whether running or swimming is the healthier exercise option -- since both, of course, are beneficial. So how do they differ, and what really are the benefits of each?

This article from Motley Fool discusses the topic

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Corn can't solve our problem

Corn can't solve our problem

March 27, 2007, By David Tilman & Jason Hill - Check Biotech

The world has come full circle. A century ago our first transportation biofuels -- the hay and oats fed to our horses -- were replaced by gasoline. Today, ethanol from corn and biodiesel from soybeans have begun edging out gasoline and diesel.

This has been hailed as an overwhelmingly positive development that will help us reduce the threat of climate change and ease our dependence on foreign oil...But lost in the euphoria, however, is the fact that three of our most fundamental needs -- food, energy, and a livable and sustainable environment -- are now in direct conflict. Moreover, a recent analyses of the full costs and benefits of various biofuels, performed at the University of Minnesota, present a markedly different and more nuanced picture than has been heard on the campaign trail, says this analysis article at Check Biotech

Read the full article from here @ Check Biotech

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Burdening Brazil With Ethanol, Biofuels

Burdening Brazil With Biofuels

Lúcia Ortiz and David Waskow, March 19, 2007

The prospects of a massive boom in ethanol production to meet demand in the United States is not entirely pleasant. If the U.S. moves to meet a substantial proportion of its fuel needs from biofuels the pressure to import ethanol and other biofuels will mount rapidly, reaching quantities far beyond what Brazil currently produces. Providing biofuels to meet just 10 percent of current U.S. gasoline consumption would require multiplying Brazil’s already sizeable ethanol production many times over. Expanding Brazil’s biofuel industry on such a large scale will create serious environmental and social problems, says this interesting news article.

Read the full article from here @ Tom Paine

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Biofuels increasing food prices globally

Biofuels increasing food prices globally

Lester Brown, 21 March 2007, Cherry Creek News

The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide.

Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, soybean futures have risen by half. A Bloomberg analysis notes that the soaring use of corn as the feedstock for fuel ethanol “is creating unintended consequences throughout the global food chain.”

Food prices are also rising in China, India, and the United States, countries that contain 40 percent of the world’s people. While relatively little corn is eaten directly in these countries, vast quantities are consumed indirectly in meat, milk, and eggs in China and the US.

Read the full report from here @ Cherry Creek News

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U.S. Auto Chiefs Ask Bush for Incentives on Biofuels

U.S. Auto Chiefs Ask Bush for Incentives on Biofuels

By Gopal Ratnam, Bloomberg

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. automakers' chief executive officers urged President George W. Bush to back incentives to bring ethanol and biodiesel to more pumps as the companies boost output of so-called flex-fuel vehicles.

Half the vehicles made by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler by 2012 could be able to run on biodiesel or E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, the CEOs said in a statement.

Read the full news report from here @ Bloomberg

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Ethanol agreement could have unintended consequences

Ethanol agreement could have unintended consequences

By Lillian Rose

Recently in the Brazilian city of Sao Paolo, a new partnership was agreed upon by President George W. Bush of the United States and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. The partnership has special focus on cooperations in biofuels.

But like most trade agreements, there are certain dangers ahead. This alliance will have an environmental as well as a social impact. A Brazilian engineer, Expedito Parente, was quoted as saying in a Brazilian newspaper, “We have 80 million hectares in the Amazon that are going to be converted into the Saudi Arabia of biodiesel.”

Read the full news & analysis report from here @ The News & Tribune

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Businesses scramble to squeeze ethanol from Florida citrus waste

Businesses scramble to squeeze ethanol from Florida citrus waste

March 15, 2007

KANSAS CITY - Companies wanting to produce ethanol from citrus waste in Florida are scrambling to obtain patents and secure sites for pilot projects, evidence that the national craze for the fuel is branching out from the more traditional grain-based feedstock.

The material used in the process is what is left after processors have squeezed the juice from the orange, which equals nearly one-half of the fruit's original mass.

Read the full news article from Check Biotech

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BIO World Congress: Biofuels poised for exceptional growth

BIO World Congress: Biofuels poised for exceptional growth

March 26, 2007

ORLANDO, FL - The biofuels industry stands poised for exceptional growth and ethanol is the most promising over the long term, keynote speakers said at BIO’s World Congress in Orlando yesterday.

Thousands of biotech industry executives, scientists, and economic development specialists gathered at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Resort for the event which started Wednesday and runs through Saturday. The congress is focused on industrial biotechnology and bioprocessing.

Read the full report here @ Check Biotech

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Ethanol, energy and profits

Ethanol, energy and profits

March 24, 2007, Author: David Kennell

Brazil leads the world with “hundreds of miles” of sugarcane plantations, much of it derived by decimation of vast areas of the large Amazon rainforest basin, critical for life on the planet. Eight of 10 new Brazilian cars are fueled by ethanol. Brazilian media billed Bush’s meeting with President Lula da Silva as a bid to create a new “OPEC of ethanol.”

However, analysts point to a major problem for the Brazil-U.S. relationship: a 54 cent U.S. tariff per gallon on Brazilian ethanol. Since corn is the major U.S. plant source for ethanol, the tariff is to protect the U.S. agrichemical industry (free trade indeed).

Read more on this interesting viewpoint from this report @ People's Weekly World

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Could crops support biofuel need? Breakthroughs needed?

Could crops support biofuel need? Breakthroughs needed?

March 26, 2007, By Jerry W. Jackson, Check Biotech

Scientists and researchers are grappling for more breakthroughs before ethanol, biodiesel and other fuels of the future are produced in large enough quantities at prices low enough to revolutionize the country's energy independence.

But a concerted effort could enable farms and forests to eventually generate more than 100 billion gallons of biofuel a year, enough to replace the amount of gasoline the United States imports annually, was the opinion from the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council (USA). Read more from this news report @ Check Biotech

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Biofuels launch 'third wave' to help meet increasing energy demand

Biofuels launch 'third wave' to help meet increasing energy demand

March 22, 2007

By Paul Elias Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO —

Thousands of corporate executives and scientists gather this weekend in Orlando, Fla.,for an industry trade show specifically aimed at touting biotechnology's so-called third wave, industrial applications. The word on everyone's lips: ethanol. After decades of unfulfilled promise and billions in government corn subsidies, energy companies may finally be able to produce ethanol easily and inexpensively thanks to breakthroughs in biotechnology, says this article.

Read the full news report from here @ Times Argus

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Bush, Lula Sign Biofuels Agreement between USA & Brazil

March 9, 2007 - Brazil and the United States signed a strategic agreement in the promotion of production of ethanol fuel. Brazil is one of the largest producers of ethanol for fuel purposes.

George Bush is currently on a tour of the Latin American countries

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