NewNergy

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

Labels: efficiency, engines, ethanol

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

Labels: 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

Labels: biofuels, ethanol, hydrogen

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

Labels: ethanol

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.

More from here

Labels: ethanol

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

Labels: biofuels, ethanol

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

Labels: ethanol

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

Labels: cellulose, ethanol

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.

Labels: cellulose, ethanol, research

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

Labels: biofuels, ethanol

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

Labels: environment, ethanol, research, transportation

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

Labels: ethanol

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

Labels: biodiesel, ethanol

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

Labels: economics, ethanol

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

Labels: environment, ethanol

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

Labels: economics, ethanol

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

Labels: autos, biofuels, ethanol

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

Labels: environment, ethanol

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

Labels: ethanol

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

Labels: biofuels, biotechnology, ethanol, events

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

Labels: economics, environment, ethanol

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

Labels: biofuels, ethanol, inventions

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

Labels: biofuels, biotechnology, ethanol, events, research

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

Labels: ethanol