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Will algae ever power our cars?

Posted by henryfool on Monday, 15 October 2012 in Biofuels

Scores of companies across the world are racing to unlock algae's energy potential and create a 'green crude oil' Tiny Columbus, New Mexico (population, 1,678) is hot, flat and uncrowded — an ideal place to launch a new green revolution in agriculture. That, in essence, is what a well-funded startu...

Navy Using Jet Fuel From Sea Water

Posted by Angel on Tuesday, 02 October 2012 in Biofuels

From using vegetable oil and animal fats to trees and grasses as new sources of energy, biofuels are continuing to gain attention due to current oil prices and concern for energy security. As energy is produced from carbon fixation in these biofuels, scientists are experimenting with other types of ...

New ‘Frankenstein’ Grass Could Be Huge For Biofuel Industry

Posted by MStayman on Friday, 14 September 2012 in Biofuels

Now here is a GMO I can get behind: starchier grass.A research partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of California, Berkeley has yielded a variety of switchgrass 250 times starchier than other varieties. More starch means more sugars to ferment into ethanol, makin...

Airlines grapple with food vs. biofuel debate

Posted by henryfool on Friday, 14 September 2012 in Biofuels

Airlines battling to cut costs and pollution may not find a quick fix in biofuels, as concerns grow that using feedstocks to create an alternative to kerosene will push food prices higher. The European Union plans to impose a limit on the use of crop-based biofuels, in a major shift in the region's...

Researchers to Make Diesel with More Renewable Biofuels

Posted by henryfool on Friday, 31 August 2012 in Biofuels

Researchers at the Univ. of California, Riverside’s College of Engineering – Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) are working with the state of California to develop diesel formulations with higher levels of renewable biofuels. This research supports several California legisla...

Could algae be the next biofuel?

Posted by lillianbarbeito on Monday, 27 August 2012 in Biofuels

by Boua Xiong Algae has been studied and experimented with for decades. Now St. Cloud State University is helping take it to the next level. In 2010 students at St. Cloud partnered with Algaedyne, a Minnesota start-up company, to try and find the most efficient way to convert the small organisms i...

Growing Algae from Wastewater Runoff in the Ocean

Posted by GreenDog on Sunday, 26 August 2012 in Biofuels

Algae Magazine Interview: NASA’s Dr. Jonathan Trent By David Schwartz NASA scientist, Jonathan Trent, Ph.D., the inventor, heart, and soul of the OMEGA system (Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae) has been developing an idea for a way to grow algae using wastewater, but not on lan...

Hawaiian Electric, Army move forward with biofuels plant

Posted by lillianbarbeito on Saturday, 04 August 2012 in Biofuels

by Duane Shimogawa Hawaiian Electric Co. and the Army are moving ahead with the development of a 50-megawatt biofuels power plant at Schofield Barracks. The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday approved HECO’s request for a waiver from the competitive bidding process for the purpose of ...

Biofuels production poses risk to global food security, says FAO

Posted by Wolf on Saturday, 04 August 2012 in Biofuels

By Donnabelle L. Gatdula Increasing production of bioethanol and biodiesel would have a great impact on global food security, according to a United Nation official. In a speech during the 3rd DuPont ASEAN Media Forum, Hiroyuki Konuma, assistant director for the Food & Agriculture Organization ...

New biofuel process creates 20 times more energy than existing methods

Posted by EarthDude on Monday, 16 July 2012 in Biofuels

by Anne Seccombe A new biofuel production process created by Michigan State University researchers produces 20 times more energy than existing methods. The results, published in the current issue of Environmental Science and Technology, showcase a novel way to use microbes to produce biofu...

US armed forces test biofuel

Posted by joeycello on Sunday, 15 July 2012 in Biofuels

The U.S. Navy angered Republicans by spending $26 a gallon for biofuels for this week's Great Green Fleet demonstration, but the Air Force received little attention when it paid twice as much per gallon to test synthetic jet fuel last month. The Air Force bought 11,000 gallons of alcohol-to...

Designing microbes that make energy-dense biofuels without sugar

Posted by Aaron on Saturday, 30 June 2012 in Biofuels

With metabolically engineered microorganisms hungry for levulinic acid rather than sugar, a University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) chemical and biological engineer aims to create more sustainable, cost-effective processes for converting biomass into high-energy-density hydrocarbon fuels. Curr...

Pond scum gets top billing as future fuel source

Posted by plantitfilm on Thursday, 28 June 2012 in Biofuels

Algae, known to most of us as pond scum, is the most promising sustainable source of energy to meet the growing demand for juice to power everything from cars to factories, according to a major technical organization. “There is not an infinite amount of oil in the Earth and we are using it qu...

Green future for algae bio-fuel

Posted by plantitfilm on Thursday, 28 June 2012 in Biofuels

The clear sunny days and ready access to water offered by Karratha in Western Australia make it an ideal place to grow algae, it's such a good spot that Aurora Algae has just tripled the amount of money it wants to spend on a commercial algae bio-diesel plant in the town. The company announced a $1...

Global Algae Biodiesel World 2012

Posted by Wolf on Sunday, 10 June 2012 in Biofuels

Introducing the real world of Algae and its scientific commercialization for Development of Sustainable Non-Food Algae Oil Crop Projects, Programmers and Priorities to Feed Biodiesel Industry Worldwide This is a programmed where you shall study & learn the ALGAE System in totality fro...

Big Oil's Big in Biofuels

Posted by bchristo on Friday, 25 May 2012 in Biofuels

BP (BP) has invested $7 billion in alternative energy since 2005. ExxonMobil (XOM) is spending $600 million on a 10-year effort to turn algae into oil. And Royal Dutch Shell (RDS/A) has invested billions of dollars in a Brazilian biofuels venture, buyin...

Will Algae Biofuels Hit the Highway?

Posted by Angel on Wednesday, 23 May 2012 in Biofuels

An Arizona-based algae technology company says it’s on to something big: harnessing the growth of algae at a commercial scale so that it can ultimately be used as a transportation fuel. “Heliae” broke ground Friday on its new plant. Now, all it needs is an abundance of sunshine, water and carbon dio...

The $6 Gasoline That Almost Was

Posted by Angel on Thursday, 17 May 2012 in Biofuels

A landmark 2009 study, conducted by researchers at Iowa State's Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, and updated this week for impacts through 2011, found that US ethanol production reduced wholesale gasoline prices by an average of $1.09 per gallon, in 2011. ...

Algae fuel potential greater than thought

Posted by bchristo on Wednesday, 09 May 2012 in Biofuels

For algae to power our cars and planes, production needs to be low carbon and cost effective, which means working with natural processes, not against them, say scientists. Algae could become an important source of sustainable biofuel, as production doesn't compete with food crops for land. ...

Is Exxon Mobil About To Waste $600 Million On Algae Research?

Posted by EarthDude on Thursday, 19 April 2012 in Biofuels

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