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Posted By Maurice Picow On December 6, 2009 In Cleantech, Science & Technology |
A Seambiotic algae farm grows biofuel
Seambiotic’s been teaming up with NASA [1] to to create a biofuel suitable for sending astronauts into space (?), and now this company is once again making news in a new venture with the China Goudian utility company [2] to grow micro algae for use as a biodiesel fuel to power electrical power stations all over China.
Founded in 2003, Seambiotic [3] develops and produces marine microalgae for the nutraceuticals [4] and biofuel industries by using flue gas from electric power plants.
Seambiotic’s success in utilizing an organic substance that is found in abundance in the world’s oceans and in fresh water sources as well, may one day solve much of the world’s energy needs as well as provide food products for the earth’s continuing increasing population. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Middle East, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on December 5, 2009 - י"ח כסלו תש"ע at 7:11 pm
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Andrew Donoghue, BusinessGreen 11 Sep 2009
A Ford car plant which was recently shut down as part of cost savings by the car maker is being converted into a facility for renewable energy companies.
The facility in Wixom, Michigan, which at the height of production had about 5,000 workers, closed in 2007 with the loss of 1,000 jobs. The site will now be converted into a business park for a series of renewable energy companies, which the backers claim could generate about 4,000 jobs.
Ford said it has been working with energy storage system provider Xtreme Power and solar panel maker Clairvoyant Energy, who will be the first companies to take up residency in the 320-acre site and its 4.7 million square feet of plant space. The two renewable energy providers have invested about $725m (£635m) to redevelop the site, with work expected to begin early next year and clean tech manufacturing expected to get underway in 2011. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Air & Water, Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on September 12, 2009 - כ"ג אלול תשס"ט at 11:19 am
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BY TINA LAM
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER, May 31, 2009
In downtown L’Anse in the Upper Peninsula, a dormant 50-year-old coal plant smokestack is operating again. Instead of coal, the L’Anse Warden Electric Co. plant creates electricity and steam by burning biomass, such as old railroad ties, recycled tires and sawmill waste.
The biomass plant is the first such plant to open in Michigan since the state passed a requirement for renewable energy last fall.
Next month, its owners will start paying farmers to plant hybrid trees that eventually will become fuel.
The Warden plant, which opened in November but will become fully operational this week, produces enough energy to power 20,000 homes and provides steam to a nearby factory that makes ceiling tiles.
Its owners hope to convert three more coal plants in the region to biomass — in White Pine, Marquette and Escanaba.
It’s part of a move by small companies and utilities to burn wood instead of coal, and it’s becoming a booming business in northern Michigan.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Recent Posts, Science on June 1, 2009 - ט' סיון תשס"ט at 6:33 am
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— By Daniel Gorelick, Science Planet, 22 April 2009
Guest Blogger
Chaitan Khosla and Harmit Vora
Stanford University
Fossil fuels account for 95 percent of world energy usage. Consumption of coal, petroleum, and natural gas has increased significantly over the last several decades, as have carbon dioxide emissions, the primary reason for global climate change.
The implications of climate change have stimulated significant efforts to discover and commercialize renewable sources of energy that have zero or reduced net carbon dioxide emissions. Finding replacements for gasoline has received significant attention in the United States, where the transportation sector consumes the most energy. Biofuels, liquid fuels derived from renewable plants, have been viewed as prime candidates to replace gasoline.
Commercialized Biofuels
The two predominant biofuels on the U.S market today are corn ethanol and soybean biodiesel. Corn ethanol has drawbacks that might hurt its long-term chances in the biofuels market. It is not as energy-rich as gasoline – a gallon of ethanol contains less energy than a gallon of gasoline. Ethanol can’t be distributed using existing infrastructure because it has different chemical properties than gasoline. Unless significant modifications are made to current automobiles, ethanol can only be used in low percentage blends with gasoline.
The other major biofuel, biodiesel, is derived from lipids (fat) in plant seeds. Biodiesel’s biggest barrier to widespread use is the availability of raw material. A recent study showed that if all the plant (and even animal lipids) in the United States were dedicated to produce biofuels, the amount of biofuel produced would be less than five percent of the total volume of liquid fuels consumed each year.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Recent Posts on April 24, 2009 - ל' ניסן תשס"ט at 9:36 am
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Long-promised cellulosic ethanol is in modest production, but hurdles remain.
Scotland, S.D.
With one foot planted in a pile of corn cobs, Mark Stowers explains how agricultural waste, transformed into ethanol, will turbocharge the US economy, boost its energy security, and help save the planet, too.
This holy grail of biofuels, called cellulosic ethanol, has been “five years from commercialization” for so long that even Dr. Stowers admits it’s become a joke.
But now the research director for POET, the nation’s largest ethanolmaker, based in Sioux Falls, S.D., says that despite bad economic news and major obstacles, cellulosic’s time is near. Other scientists agree.
Corn-based ethanol, which many critics argue does not do enough to slow climate change, is nearing US production limits. In Washington, cellulosic ethanol is gaining political traction. And cellulosic technology seems ready for prime time – at last.
‘Cellulosic ethanol is real’
The proof, Stowers says, lies inside a nearby windowless, high-roofed single-story metal building. Filled with a maze of pipes and vats, this $8 million test facility is a miniature cellulosic ethanol plant that pumps out 20,000 gallons a year of nearly clear alcohol extracted from cobs like the ones beneath his feet.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Recent Posts, Science on February 14, 2009 - כ' שבט תשס"ט at 9:01 pm
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Search for substitute to petroleum-based products led to innovation
By Bryn Nelson, Columnist MSNBC, Dec. 22, 2008
Just in time for Christmas, German researchers are ramping up a manufacturing technique for making intricate Nativity figurines, toys, and even hi-fi speaker boxes from a renewable and surprisingly versatile source: liquid wood.
The bio-plastic dubbed Arboform, derived from wood pulp-based lignin, can be mixed with hemp, flax or wood fibers and other additives such as wax to create a strong, nontoxic alternative to petroleum-based plastics, according to its manufacturers.
Crude oil is the basis of the chemical for plastics, said Norbert Eisenreich, a senior researcher and deputy of the directors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology in Pfinztal, Germany. As the price of crude oil increases, he said, so does the price of plastics — and the interest in finding replacements.
The growing list of health concerns linked to plastic ingredients, such as heavy metals and softeners known as phthalates, also has increased the impetus to find a good substitute for manufacturing toys and other products.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Climate Change, Recent Posts, Science and Technology on December 22, 2008 - כ"ה כסלו תשס"ט at 10:50 am
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ScienceDaily (Aug. 14, 2008) — Say the word “biofuels” and most people think of grain ethanol and biodiesel. But there’s another, older technology called gasification that’s getting a new look from researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University.
By combining gasification with high-tech nanoscale porous catalysts, they hope to create ethanol from a wide range of biomass, including distiller’s grain left over from ethanol production, corn stover from the field, grass, wood pulp, animal waste, and garbage.
Gasification is a process that turns carbon-based feedstocks under high temperature and pressure in an oxygen-controlled atmosphere into synthesis gas, or syngas. Syngas is made up primarily of carbon monoxide and hydrogen (more than 85 percent by volume) and smaller quantities of carbon dioxide and methane.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Recent Posts, Science on August 15, 2008 - י"ד אב תשס"ח at 8:32 am
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ScienceDaily (July 11, 2008) — Microorganisms once reigned supreme on the Earth, thriving by filling every nook and cranny of the environment billions of years before humans first arrived on the scene. Now, this ability of microorganisms to grow from an almost infinite variety of food sources may play a significant role in bailing out society from its current energy crisis, according to the Biodesign Institute’s Bruce Rittmann, Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown, and Rolf Halden.
In a new issue on “microbial ecology and sustainable energy” in the journal Nature Reviews Microbiology, the Biodesign researchers outline paths where bacteria are the best hope in producing renewable energy in large quantities without damaging the environment or competing with our food supply.
Two distinct, but complementary approaches will be needed. The first is to use microbes to convert biomass to useful energy. Different microorganisms can grow without oxygen to take this abundant organic matter and convert it to useful forms of energy such as methane, hydrogen, or even electricity. The second uses bacteria or algae that can capture sunlight to produce new biomass that can be turned into liquid fuels, like biodiesel, or converted by other microorganisms to useful energy. Both approaches currently are intensive areas of biofuel research at the Biodesign Institute, which has a joint project with petroleum giant BP to harvest photosynthetic bacteria to produce renewable liquid fuels, such as biodiesel.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Recent Posts, Science on July 12, 2008 - ט' תמוז תשס"ח at 11:30 pm
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John McCain, June 23, 2008
Fresno State University
Fresno, California
Thank you all very much. I appreciate the kind introduction from Jim Woolsey, and the warm welcome to Fresno State. I’m here to listen about energy issues as well as to talk. So let me just offer a few ideas before we begin our discussion.
All across this state and nation, people are hurting because the price of gasoline is higher than it should be, and more than many folks can afford. Because of far-off events in the world oil market, a barrel of oil has more than doubled in a year. And the bad effects of that are spreading across our economy. The cost of business is rising, the cost of food and other essentials is rising, the whole cost of living is rising. What isn’t rising is the value of your paychecks and the rate of America’s economic growth. Back in the 1970’s, they used to call this “stagflation.” And it feels the same today, because the unwise policies of our government have left America’s energy future in the control of others.
America imports about one third of its oil from Canada and Mexico and no one need worry about a reliance on friendly, stable neighbors, and partners in NAFTA. The Middle East and Venezuela are a different story. We import roughly a quarter of our oil from them, and they have a disproportionate impact on world prices. When we buy foreign oil from these and other sources, there are many consequences — all of them far-reaching and none of them good. Worst of all, by relying on foreign oil, we enrich bad actors in the world, some of whom finance terrorists.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Recent Posts on June 24, 2008 - כ"א סיון תשס"ח at 11:01 pm
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By Ofri Ilani, Haaretz Correspondent, May 20, 2008
Photosynthesis is nearly the sole source of energy for the creatures inhabiting our planet, include the two-legged variety. For billions of years, since the appearance of the first vegetable cell, plants and bacteria have converted sunlight into energy-rich compounds. That is how all petroleum and coal reserves were created. Unfortunately, about 200 years of post-Industrial Revolution activity has wiped out most of these, and today’s vegetation cannot take up the slack.
Photovoltaic cells made of silicon can convert solar energy to electricity, but due to their extremely high price, it costs four times more to generate power this way than with coal or petroleum. Now, researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) claim to have created a prototype of a photovoltaic cell by genetically engineering proteins that produce energy using photosynthesis. If successful, this would enable energy production on a commercial scale through the construction of “artificial leaves.” The cells would even appear green, because of the wavelength of the light that they collect.
Posted by CNP Webmaster as Alternative Energy, Biomass fuels, Middle East Report, Recent Posts, Science and Technology, Solar Energy on May 20, 2008 - ט"ו אייר תשס"ח at 10:10 pm
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