Biofuels // Current

Solazyme Unveils Renewable Biodiesel Derived from Algae via Scalable Process

The algal biodiesel fueling the car is made through Solazyme's proprietary process for manufacturing high-value, functionally-tailored oils from algae. This process, which uses standard industrial fermentation equipment, yields a biofuel that significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions and is biodegradable, nontoxic and safe. Solazyme is currently producing thousands of gallons of algal oil and recently signed a biodiesel feedstock development and testing agreement with Chevron Technology Ventures, a division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc.

"Biodiesel from algae changes the landscape of renewable fuels," said Jonathan Wolfson, chief executive officer of Solazyme. "The concept of algal biofuel has been discussed for decades, and Solazyme's technology finally provides a scalable solution based on proven industrial processes. This fuel is just the first example of how algal oil will help the environment through new products that offer attractive economics and performance, as well as environmental benefits."

Soladiesel exceeds both the requirements of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) biodiesel standard D6751 and EN 14214, the European standard, which ensures that biodiesel can safely run any existing diesel engine. The car demonstrating Solazyme's biofuel at Sundance is running on its original, factory-standard diesel engine with no modifications, and is powered by the highest blend of biodiesel that engine manufacturers currently certify. By operating in the typical sub-freezing temperatures for the area in January, it also illustrates how Soladiesel provides better temperature properties than any traditional biodiesel.

"In demonstrating this new fuel alternative, we're responding to the need for a near-term solution that will also be cost effective and sustainable," added Harrison Dillon, president and chief technology officer of Solazyme. "Our technology combines all the key components: low carbon footprint, environmental sustainability, certified compatibility with existing vehicles and infrastructure, and energy security for our country."The algal biodiesel fueling the car is made through Solazyme's proprietary process for manufacturing high-value,... more

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1 day ago

Solutions to the Fuel Problem

Record high oil prices, global warming, and an insatiable demand for energy: these issues will be the catalyst for heated debates... more

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1 day ago

San Francisco Opens Gate to National Biodiesel Conference & Expo

October 30, 2008

San Francisco Opens Gate to National Biodiesel Conference & Expo
The City by the Bay Will Make Inspirational Host for 2009 Conference

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Spot a city bus, a fire truck, or a double-decker tour bus in San Francisco, and chances are pretty good that it is running on 20 percent biodiesel (B20). The area’s biodiesel enthusiasm even flows beyond the “City by the Bay” into the Bay itself, where the famous Red and White Ferries cruise on B20.

“San Francisco is an inspiration to our industry like none I’ve ever seen,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board. “The enthusiasm for biodiesel is in every corner of the city. The commitment is contagious, and I am eager for our conference attendees to experience it for themselves.”

The San Francisco City Government is the largest known city in the world to use B20 fleet-wide, one of many reasons it is the perfect host for the 2009 National Biodiesel Conference & Expo, Feb. 1 – 4.

The conference educational program will be kicked off by the people who have made the biodiesel program there a success. Mayor Gavin Newsom is anticipated to speak. In 2006, he issued an Executive Directive designed to increase the pace of municipal use of biodiesel. Today, virtually all of the City’s 1,500 diesel vehicles run on B20. The City uses about 5 million gallons of B20 a year.

Other speakers from the City will include Marty Mellera, Chief of Climate Action and Greening – a title as progressive as San Francisco itself. Vandana Bali, Clean Vehicles Manager at the Department of the Environment, Mike Ferry of the San Francisco Fire Department and past recipient of the Eye on Biodiesel Inspiration Award, and Karri Ving, Biofuels Coordinator for the Public Utilities Commission will round out the general session.

The 2009 conference promises to offer its valuable educational and networking opportunities that attendees have come to expect. This year, one new feature is sustainability sessions supplementing existing educational tracks. Meet biodiesel peers at the golf tournament and Super Bowl party. For more information and to register, please visit www.biodieselconference.org. For discounted rates, register by November 14’s early bird deadline.

The NBB is the national trade association of the biodiesel industry and is the coordinating body for biodiesel research and development in the U.S.October 30, 2008 San Francisco Opens Gate to National Biodiesel Conference & Expo The City by the Bay Will Make... more

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6 days ago

Rainforest Diesel

A fungus that lives inside trees in the Patagonian rain forest naturally makes a mix of hydrocarbons that bears a striking... more

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15 days ago

Biocarburanti dalle olive

Dopo aver ottenuto biocarburanti da mais, alghe e persino rifiuti, gli spagnoli puntano ai noccioli delle olive. (...)

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2 responses

16 days ago

DON'T CALL IT A DUMP!!!

The biggest working sanitary landfill in the United States, located right outside Los Angeles, is so much more than a garbage... more

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18 days ago

Dodge pickup that runs on wood 1.6 mpp (that's miles per pound)

Wayne Keith is headed to Las Vegas in an old Dodge pickup that runs on, of all things, wood. He gets about 1.6 mpp (that's miles per pound) and reckons he needs about 1,000 pounds to get there. No problem. He's carrying a chainsaw and a list of lumberyards along the way.

Such are the provisions you need for Escape from Berkeley, a madcap alt-fuel race that mashes up Mad Max and Cannonball Run with a touch of the Darpa Challenge and Burning Man. If the rules are simple -- no petroleum allowed, and fuel must be scavenged along the way -- the challenge is anything but.

"The basic premise is build a vehicle out of junk, we'll give you the equivalent of one gallon of gas and you have to drive 600 miles to Las Vegas. Oh, and you can't buy any fuel along the way," says Jim Mason, the artist and inventor behind the race. "That's a pretty heavy stone to carry."

That isn't keeping the 10 teams lining up for this weekend's race from giving it a try in everything from a veggie-oil Lotus 7 to a steam-powered three-wheeler that looks like it rolled right out of the 19th century.

The race has drawn geeks and gearheads, artists and academics and even a rancher from Alabama, none of whom are waiting for General Motors or Toyota to lead us beyond oil. They've cobbled together an impressive fleet of street-legal and roadworthy cars, proving automakers aren't the only ones who can make autos. "I think energy will be our next hacking culture," Mason says. "If there's any goal here, it's to see how we can move energy from a commodity culture to a hacker culture."

Mason started hacking World War II-era Imbert wood gas technology three years ago. He's developed a DIY gasifier kit (he's sold 35 of them, at two grand a pop) and installed it in the 1989 Honda he's making the run to Vegas in. "A gasifier isn't a practical solution for urban transit," he concedes. "But it shows it can be done."

Still, if there's a favorite to take the $5,000 grand price, it's Alabama rancher Keith Wayne. He's making the run in a 1987 Dodge Dakota pickup truck, which is the fourth truck he's converted to run on wood gas. He's already put 30,000 miles on it, so he knows it works. "Gasification is a little tricky to grasp, but once you understand it, it's pretty simple," he says. "It takes a lot of rigging and welding and doing and redoing. But it's a cheap ride, and it's carbon-neutral. The scientists at Auburn (University) tell me it's cleaner than an electric car."

Those scientists oughta know, because one of them -- Dr. David Bransby -- is Keith's teammate. They're making their way across the country in a pair of wood-gas pickups, spreading the gasification gospel before making the run to Vegas. "We've been in touch with Lowe's and Home Depot and other places that will have scrap, and we'll be getting wood from them along the way," Keith says. As for those stretches of road where there's nothing but scrub and brush, well, Keith's got a chain saw and the rules allow him one gallon of gas, so he figures he's got it covered.

"We're looking forward to it," he says. "You get a group of people together, give them rules like this and tell them to drive from Point A to Point B without gas, well, there might be something come out of it you've never seen before."

Wayne Keith is headed to Las Vegas in an old Dodge pickup that runs on, of all things, wood. He gets about 1.6 mpp (that's... more

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19 days ago

Tri-Rail to Run on Bio-diesel | MiamiHerald.com

Tri-Rail will start operating on a much more environmentally friendly blend of bio-diesel, the South Florida Regional... more

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20 days ago

U.S.: Killing the Earth?

By now, both candidates agree that global warming is a reality but they don't necessarily agree on what to do about it. In... more

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22 days ago

first commercial algae plant to genereate power and clean smoke stack

The promise of commercial algae fuel is getting closer to reality with GreenFuel Technologies announcement of a $92 million deal... more

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24 days ago

Bill Clinton: "We Blew It" On Global Food

Today's global food crisis shows "we all blew it, including me when I was president," by treating food crops as commodities instead of as a vital right of the world's poor, Bill Clinton told a U.N. gathering on Thursday.

The former president, addressing a high-level event marking Oct. 16's World Food Day, also saluted U.S. President George W. Bush - "one thing he got right" - for pushing for a change in U.S. food-aid policy. He chided the bipartisan coalition in the U.S. Congress that killed the idea.

Clinton took aim at decades of international policy making by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and others, encouraged by the U.S., that pressured Africans in particular into dropping government subsidies for fertilizer, improved seed and other farm inputs, in economic "structural adjustments" required to win northern aid. Africa's food self-sufficiency subsequently declined and food imports rose.

Now skyrocketing prices in the international grain trade - on average more than doubling between 2006 and early 2008 - have pushed many in poor countries deeper into poverty.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the U.N. gathering that prices on some food items are "500 percent higher than normal" in Haiti and Ethiopia, for example. The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the number of undernourished people worldwide rose to 923 million last year.

"Food is not a commodity like others," Clinton said. "We should go back to a policy of maximum food self-sufficiency. It is crazy for us to think we can develop countries around the world without increasing their ability to feed themselves."

He noted that northern food aid could itself be a tool for boosting African agriculture.

Canada, for example, requires that 50 percent of its aid go as cash - not as Canadian grain - to buy crops locally in Africa or other recipient countries. But U.S. law requires that almost all U.S. aid be American-grown food commodities, benefiting U.S. farmers. Bush proposed earlier this year that 25 percent of future aid be cash.

"A bipartisan coalition (in Congress) defeated him," the Democratic ex-president said of his Republican successor. "He was right, and both parties that defeated him were wrong."

Clinton also criticized the heavy U.S. reliance on a food crop, corn, to produce ethanol for fuel, which helped drive up grain prices worldwide.

"If we're going to do biofuels, we ought to look at the more efficient kind," he said, referring, for example, to the jatropha shrub, a nonfood source that grows on land not suitable for grain.

The U.N. General Assembly president, Nicaragua's Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, agreed, speaking of the "madness of converting crops into fuel."

D'Escoto expressed disappointment that of $22 billion pledged by richer nations to help poorer nations' agriculture in this year of food crisis, only $2.2 billion has been made available. Today's global food crisis shows "we all blew it, including me when I was president," by treating food crops as... more

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26 days ago

Biofuels forcing farmers off land

The drive to expand biofuels production is creating new pressures on land and food rights all over the world. This process is most advanced in Latin America, where national and international companies are increasing the production of sugarcane, palm oil, jatropha and other crops to take advantage of high prices and high expectations for markets in the United States and Europe. In many cases, smallholder farmers are being driven off their lands and fragile ecosystems are threatened.

In Guatemala, the area under cultivation for sugarcane increased more than 155 percent over the last five years. Land used for African palm for biodiesel production tripled in the same period. Guatemala, a small country with high rates of poverty, is becoming one of the world’s leading producers of ethanol for export.

Unfortunately, this shift to fuel crops makes life even harder for many local farmers. ActionAid Guatemala has documented how the push for biofuels has increased land concentration (when small-scale farmers are pressured to sell their lands, often because they don’t get the credit or other resources they need to grow crops), and re-concentration, (when plantation owners sell their lands and displace the farm workers who live there). These practices threaten rural livelihoods, food security and local environments.

Similar processes are unfolding in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and many other countries across the Americas. The expansion of biofuel production is driven by efforts to find alternative fuel sources at a time of rising oil prices. US and European renewable fuels standards mandate dramatic increases in the use of ethanol and biodiesel over the next few years. The expectation that the US and EU will increase biofuel imports to meet those targets is driving prices and investment up throughout South America.

ActionAid met with representatives of family-farm, environmental, development and policy organizations in Guatemala to share experiences and find ways to work together to confront these problems. The groups agree that small-scale production of biofuels crops for local use might have a place in a sustainable mix of crops for food and energy sovereignty. But the current push for large-scale production to meet export demand must be reined in because fuel production is displacing food.

ActionAid believes that the US and EU should reconsider their biofuels targets that are pushing food prices up and farmers off their lands. We will be working with our partners in the Americas, and in similar initiatives in other regions, to call on our governments to reconsider the rush to fuel crops.

Write to your Member of Congress to insist that they reconsider the impact of biofuels targets and subsidies on food security and rural livelihoods. The drive to expand biofuels production is creating new pressures on land and food rights all over the world. This process is most... more

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26 days ago

Gas from Tobacco

Instead of using Food products and Trees lets use someting smarter for making fuel. Hey the big tobacco might just find a way... more

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29 days ago

Scientists Turn Wood into Fuel

Discovery-News.com: Discovery's Tracy Staedter and Matt Danzico visit University of Massachusetts Amherst to learn how... more

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1 month ago

TOBACCO -- source for Ethanol Feedstock

Sounds like a better way than using corn!!!
only with all the bans on smoking it will probably go the way of Canabis and be removed from cultavation before it can be appreciated for its other uses.

Tobacco also has uses as a natural insect repelent/cide

While almost every plant on earth has been investigated as an alternative energy resource, for some odd reason tobacco has been entirely overlooked. I call this odd because the high sugar & starch composition of tobacco is well-known, as is the very low lignin encasement of its cellulosic materials. With this data alone it should be clear to science, agriculture, and industry worldwide that the tobacco plant has a nearly ideal composition for direct digestion to ethanol, and is also an ideal candidate for biomethanation or gasification. Tobacco-based ethanol can be produced for far less cost per gallon, with far more economically valuable sidestreams, than corn-based ethanol ( see below for full details). Further, it is known that tobacco is a heavily coppicing plant, enabling it to produce very high biomass tonnage, and it is also known that tobacco thrives on poor soils in a wide range of environments.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of tobacco-based biomass fuel is that not only would tobacco fuel not take away from food crop production, as corn-based ethanol does, it would actually add immense tonnage of food-grade protein that can be extracted from the sludge remaining after ethanol is produced. Fraction-1 protein is an odorless, tasteless crystalline substance that can be extracted from tobacco, and it is a complete protein - as efficient a source of human food value as beef. It would be totally 'paid for' by the ethanol produced from the tobacco biomass, and so it would be, in effect, free food. It can be added to flour of all kinds and used to produce baked goods like bread and tortillas, adding enough high quality at no cost to these basic foods to practically eliminate protein deficiencies in even the poorest countries.

addtional information on the same site

In summary, Tobacco biomass can be produced at well over a hundred tons per acre, using either hand labor or simple machinery, on land that is unsuitable for food crops, and that biomass material can not only provide low cost bioenergy, extracted as biogas or ethanol or both, but also after that energy has been produced, pure unadulterated food grade protein, along with medical grade protein and other economically valuable byproducts, can be extracted from the fermentation tank or digester sludge. Then that sludge, which is very high in available nitrogen, and other nutrients and trace elements, can be returned to the soil.
http://home.ktc.com/bdrake/tbe3.html

A second article http://www.newsline.umd.edu/business/specialreports/tobacco/tobaccob030201.htmSounds like a better way than using corn!!! only with all the bans on smoking it will probably go the way of Canabis and be... more

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1 month ago

US Expected To Become Booming Biodiesel's Largest Market by 2012

A report by SRI Consulting, a business research service for the global chemical industry, states that the "biodiesel industry... more

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1 month ago

40 Cent Per Gallon Biodiesel Already Available

Biofuels can be produced for $20 a barrel or less using current proven technologies. Why aren't we doing it? Ask the RepubliCrats.

The Vertegro system consists of a series of closely spaced vertical bio-reactors constructed of thin film membranes allowing high levels of light penetration. This new bio-reactors are tailored to grow a species of algae that yields a large volume of high grade vegetable oil, which is very suitable for blending with diesel to create a bio-diesel fuel.

The membrane is configured for an optimum flow for the growth of algae. This dynamic system produces much higher algae growth rates than conventional static systems. It uses certain algae that consume up to 90% of their weight with C02 using sunlight as the energy source to drive photosynthesis. Approximately 50% of the dry weight of the algae is an oil suitable for bio-fuel blending with diesel and for other uses. When fully operational, the system yields a constant supply of algae which is harvested, dried and processed to remove the oil, leaving a residue of some 50% by weight, which can also be sold for a variety of commercial products. The system will be a continuous closed loop, which allows for a greater retention of water in the system, and eliminates cross contamination by other algae species.

Data received from Valcent's continuously operating test bed facility demonstrates that yields up to 4,000 barrels oil per acre, per year, at an estimated cost of $20 per barrel are achievable on a commercial scale. As a comparison, typically corn will yield up to one-half a barrel of oil per acre per year at considerably higher cost; palm oil, with highest yield of conventional sources, delivers approximately fifteen barrels of oil per acre per year. After a demonstration pilot plant is in operation, several production units that may total 1,000 acres may be built which would have the potential of producing approximately 4,000,000 barrels of oil per year, with significant carbon dioxide green credits and other commercial products. At that rate of production, Vertigro will sequester approximately 2,700,000 tons C02 per year which will be sold as a green credit within the emerging green credit system within the USA and within the Kyoto Protocols.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxNeBQCRv1c&feature=relatedBiofuels can be produced for $20 a barrel or less using current proven technologies. Why aren't we doing it? Ask the... more