Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

Scientists at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, say they have developed a new vehicle biofuel made from Scotch whisky byproducts. The fuel is derived from pot ale liquid from copper stills and spent grains. "While some energy companies are growing crops specifically to generate biofuel, we are investigating excess materials such as whisky byproducts to develop them," Professor Martin Tangey, director of Napier's Biofuel Research Center, told the Financial Times. Tangey says tapping whisky byproducts "is a more environmentally sustainable option and potentially offers new revenue on the back of one of Scotland's biggest industries." Scotch whisky exports were a record $4.85 billion in 2009, or about one quarter of the UK's food and drink exports.

The BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is attracting new remedial clean-up technologies. They include an oil-separating centrifuge system made by Ocean Therapy Solutions, oil-hungry bacteria grown at Tel Aviv University, and an oil-absorbing robot developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The New York Times Green blog reports. The M.I.T. device is a solar-powered nanofiber conveyor belt said to absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. Using "swarm" robotics, thousands of the devices could form "teams" to attack a spill. M.I.T. plans to enter the invention in an oil clean-up competition from the X-Prize Foundation with a $1 million prize for collecting and recovering spilled oil. 

The San Francisco Bay Area is gearing up to install 5,000 car chargers over five years for an expected surge of electric and plug-in hybrid cars like the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and models from Mitsubishi, Toyota, Tesla and other automakers. The nine-county Bay Area currently has about 120 chargers. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has approved a program for organizations to install chargers in the next five years at homes, apartments, office buildings, parking garages, BART stations and shopping malls. "We're trying to address range anxiety," says Damian Breen, director of grant programs for the air  quality district. "We want people not to be worried their electric vehicle is going to run out of juice."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Apparently sick of cows getting all the good publicity, California’s chickens are now demanding equal time.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Unlike frogs in a pot of boiling water, humankind has no place to jump as the earth warms. We have no choice but to find a way to turn down the greenhouse thermostat until we can phase out fossil fuels in favor of clean, renewable energy sources.

One widely discussed option is to capture the CO2 from utility and industrial flues, pipe it to a remote location, and pump it deep underground for permanent storage. Pilot projects suggest the approach can work, at least in limited scale. But critics complain about the potentially high cost, danger of leakage and the possibility of insufficient underground storage capacity.

But what if CO2 could instead be converted chemically and stored in the form of cement, liquid fuels, or other valuable materials? That could be a win for the environment and a win for the economy—if the energy required for the recycling process doesn’t defeat the purpose.

The U.S. Department of Energy yesterday announced grants to support six promising projects for converting CO2 into marketable chemicals, including substitutes for Portland cement and even methane gas, using a variety of novel catalysts and chemical reactants.

But similar research is already underway in a wide variety of laboratories:

• Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology announced a “breakthrough” method to convert CO2 into methanol—a valuable chemical feedstock and liquid fuel that can power relatively clean vehicles—at room temperature.
• A chemist at Newcastle University announced the discovery of an aluminum-based catalyst that slashes the energy needed to turn CO2 into organic compounds called cyclic carbonates, with many industrial applications, including gasoline additives. These applications could use up to 30 million tons of CO2 annually in the UK market alone, he estimated.
• At the University of Illinois, an engineering project team is developing a novel membrane to separate CO2 from power plant flue gases, then take waste heat from the plant to convert CO2 cost-effectively into methane, methanol or carbon monoxide. “The energy produced from the fuel cell using any one of these three fuels could then be used to supply additional electricity to the power plant, thereby creating a near zero-loss power cycle,” the team notes.
• Many researchers are also exploring the use of bioenegineered algae to absorb carbon dioxide and produce molecules that can in turn be synthesized into biofuels. So far their success has been limited. Another promising biological process, pioneered by a UCLA engineer, is the use of genetically modified bacteria to produce liquid isobutanol fuel from CO2.

Exciting as these announcements appear to be, it’s worth heeding the words of John Sheehan, former head of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (now defunct) algae research program.

“There aren’t any silver bullets,” he said. “The energy problem is the most fundamental, most difficult challenge we have faced for a long time. After 150 years of punching a hole in the ground and getting fuel to come out as a liquid, it is not going to be easy.”

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:

A poem about sewage treatment plants? Sixth grader Jeffrey Weiner was one of the winners in New York City's Water Resources and Poetry Contest, sponsored for 24 years by the city's Department of Environmental Protection. The contest for children in fourth, fifth and sixth grades raises awareness about the importance of the quality of the city's drinking water and its water supply and treatment systems. Here's Jeffrey's poem:

Treatment at wastewater plants must be quite quick,
To remove the pollutants so you don't get sick.
In a mere seven hours, the job is complete,
Compared to weeks in nature to perform the same feat!

Concord, Mass., has outlawed the sale of bottled water, the first U.S. municipality to adopt the ban. The city says the bottles are not reusable, contribute too much waste and use too much energy to manufacture. The International Bottled Water Association is threatening legal action to reverse the measure. The industry group says that based on figures from the Environmental Protection Agency, plastic water bottles are recycled at a rate of 31 percent, making them the single most recycled product. The Concord ban is to go into effect next January 1.

Hewlett-Packard researchers see opportunities to power data centers with biogas extracted from livestock waste for companies like Google and Microsoft. "Information technology and manure have a symbiotic relationship," says HP scientist Chandrakant Patel, adding data centers in rural areas will give dairy farmers new opportunities, the New York Times reports. HP doesn't have immediate plans for a biogas-powered data center.
 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
 
Transmission companies are eying high-voltage underwater cables to carry more renewable power over long distances without having to erect unsightly towers and carve out wide corridors. Toronto-based Transmission Developers proposes to run a 370-mile cable from north of the Canadian border along the bottom of Lake Champlain and down the Hudson River to supply hydroelectricity to New York City. A 53-mile power cable has been placed under San Francisco Bay and an underwater line linking New Jersey to Long Island now carries 22 percent of Long Island's electricity. There are other plans to deliver wind energy from the Hawaiian islands of Molokai and Lanai to Oahu and from Maine along the Atlantic coast to Boston.

The global renewable energy industry gained ground in 2009 despite the recession and a revenue drop in the solar business, according to an annual report from research firm Clean Edge Inc. The overall industry spent $63.5 billion on wind farms and turbines, a 23.5 percent gain from 2008 helped by government stimulus money. The global biofuel business rose 29 percent to $44.9 billion. Solar power manufacturers fell by 20.3 percent to $30.7 billion due to a drop in the price of solar panels.

Solazyme Inc., a South San Francisco-based renewable oil and bioproducts company and a   leader in algal biotechnology, was selected No. 1 in sustainable biofuels technology at the 2nd Annual Sustainable Biofuels Market conference in Amsterdam. Solazyme is working on improving the efficiency and sustainability of biofuels production. Since the company's start in 2003, Solazyme says it has produced the world's first algae-based renewable diesel, the first 100 percent algae-based jet fuel and road-tested the first algae-derived biodiesel.  
 
Snack food giant Frito-Lay is going green with what it's calling the first compostable chips bag for its SunChips brand. The bags are made from corn and will break down within 14 weeks, the company says. "In a hot, active compost bin it will definitely compost within that time period," said Brad Rogers, Frito-Lay's North American manager of sustainable packaging. However, there's some doubt that many bags will reach a compost bin. "Few Americans compost in their backyards, and curbside pickup is typically limited to Western metropolises like the Bay Area and Seattle," says Green Inc.
 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Livermore, once a sleepy cow town, is today celebrated for the world-class science at its national laboratory, its thriving wine industry and . . . its record-breaking liquefied natural gas plant.

LNG in Livermore?

Yes. You won’t see any drilling rigs out in the pastures, but at Altamont Landfill, whopping amounts of methane gas are belched out by bacteria that break down organic waste. Instead of venting into the atmosphere, however, the gas is now captured by dozens of black suction tubes spread across the facility. 

Last November, Houston-based Waste Management Inc., which runs the 240-acre landfill, and Linde North America, a major engineering company, announced they had started production at the world’s largest facility to convert landfill gas to LNG.

In full production, the plant can produce up to 13,000 gallons of the super-cold methane each day. The liquid fuels 300 clean-air vehicles in Waste Management’s hauling and recyling fleet and will reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 30,000 tons a year.

The use of LNG cuts carbon emissions 85 percent compared to gasoline or diesel fuel, according to Waste Management. The company has nearly 500 vehicles powered by LNG or compressed natural gas in about 20 California communities. 

(PG&E also runs some of its heavy trucks on LNG, which fuel up at the Fremont Service Center.  Of late, however, the utility is focusing on expanding its fleet of electric-powered trucks.)

In January, EPA awarded the Altamont Landfill one of its 2009 Project of Year awards and the facility has been hailed by leaders of the California Energy Commission and other state agencies, several of which contributed financially to the project.

“It’s taking material that would otherwise go into the atmosphere and be a contributor to global warming and turning it into a useful product that is cutting emissions,” said Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board. “This is exactly the kind of win-win situation we are looking for in trying to transform our whole energy economy away from having to extract, process, and import fuels from other parts of the world.”

Waste Management is aggressively mining its landfills for more green energy. The company runs 115 gas-to-energy facilities at its landfills and 16 solid waste-to-energy combustion generators. In all, they produce enough power for 700,000 homes.

The company’s newest investment horizon is waste-to-biofuels production, including investments in Enerkem to make ethanol and a partnership with Terrabon and Valero Energy to make “green gasoline.”

EPA recently reported that 519 landfill gas-to-energy projects were operating across the country last year, up more than 25 percent since 2005. NEXT100 profiled one such project in Half Moon Bay in December.

Converting waste methane gas to biofuel isn’t just good business. It’s especially good for the environment since methane that escapes into the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If Congress ever gets around to putting a price on carbon emissions, we’ll surely see many more companies drilling for landfill gas.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The Department of Energy today announced grants of up to $78 million to support advanced research and development of biofuels and fueling infrastructure to replace petroleum products. "By harnessing the power of science and technology, we can bring new biofuels to the market and develop a cleaner and more sustainable transportation sector," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.

But only a few days ago, researchers at Rice University blasted U.S. biofuels policy, noting that despite generous subsidies--amounting to $4 billion in 2008--biofuels have replaced a mere two percent of gasoline production. The cost to consumers for biofuel was almost $2 a gallon on top of the retail price for gasoline.

Further, the report claimed, "it is uncertain whether existing biofuels production provides any beneficial improvement over traditional gasoline" in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. And the biofuels create potential hazards to human health by impeding the natural breakdown of other toxic chemicals, such as benzene, in the groundwater.

So is U.S. biofuels policy nothing more than a biofolly? Yes and no if you believe the Rice University report (which was funded by Chevron, but is consistent with many other studies). The problem isn't with biofuels in principle, but with corn-based ethanol, which accounts for nearly all current U.S. biofuel production. Growing corn to make ethanol is of debateable value because it requires extensive energy and produces greenhouse gases from soil clearing and tillage.

But if we can transition to a next generation of biofuels, based on hardy weeds, crop residues, waste wood products (such as beetle-killed trees) or even algae, the environmental benefits begin to look far brighter. Unfortunately, the economics so far look a lot dimmer--which is where the DOE's research grants may come to the rescue.

Intriguingly, one Bay Area company--Cobalt Biofuels--yesterday announced with great fanfare the launch of a facility in Mountain View to begin producing biobutenol, a versatile fuel that can be blended with gasoline or diesel and converted into jet fuel or even plastics. The company claims cost breakthroughs that will allow it to produce the fuel for only $1.40 a gallon by 2012. Biobutenol delivers more energy than ethanol and is less polluting. And, most important from an environmental standpoint, Cobalt's feedstock isn't food crops but forest waste and mill residues.

Cobalt's claims, like so many before from the biofuels industry, may prove more than a tad optimistic. But DOE and Cobalt are on the right track by moving beyond traditional corn-based ethanol to greener biofuels.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Here's another reason to hope that electric-powered vehicles make a big splash next year: advanced biofuels that could replace gasoline or diesel won't be ready for prime time until 2020, according to the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.

Although Shell is a big investor in alternative fuel technologies--hedging its bet for the day when oil starts running out or new laws restrict carbon pollution--its chief executive, Peter Voser, now predicts that it will take "quite a number of years" before the next generation of biofuels starts significant commercial production.

Ethanol made from corn is widely used today as an additive to gasoline, but many critics claim it raises the price of food without helping the environment, taking into account the energy and water required to grow the crops and the carbon released by tilling the soil.

That's why everyone is eagerly awaiting (or investing in) the next generation of biofuels. These include "cellulosic ethanol" produced from hardy plants such as switchgrass, which require little tending, and fuels produced by ponds of genetically engineered algae. Dozens of companies have issued breathless press releases, but none is yet producing commercial quantities of fuel from such technologies.

Shell's warning about the slow progress of second-generation biofuels was foreshadowed by a report from the International Energy Agency, which concluded that "given the complexity of the technical and economic challenges involved, in reality, the first commercial plants are unlikely to be widely deployed before 2020." 

The IEA guessed that with another decade or more of technology development and commercialization, ethanol could become competitive with gasoline if oil climbs above $70 a barrel. The report emphasized that significant government support would be needed in the interim.

The farm lobby and the clean tech lobby together are likely to ensure that such support is forthcoming. The House of Representatives is scheduled this week to vote on a one-year extension of production tax credits ($1 per gallon) for biodiesel.

And more dramatically, the Department of Energy on Friday announced $564 million in grants for 19 biomass projects aimed largely at achieving the government's goal to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022.

Bay Area grant winners included Solazyme of South San Francisco, a leader in algae-based technology, and Amyris Biotechnologies in Emeryville, which hopes to convert sorghum into renewable fuels and chemical products.

But in light of the cautionary comments from Shell and the IEA, this comment from Katie Fehrenbacher of Earth2Tech seems apt: "A big question to consider is how far this funding can take some of these firms -- given that commercialized advanced biofuel plants can cost hundreds of millions to a billion dollars to build, a $25 million grant for a pilot project will only help move that plant partway to the next stage."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

On Tuesday, NEXT100 reported that algae is hot--a prime target of venture funding for the next generation of biofuels.

Now it's getting even hotter.

South San Francisco-based Solazyme, Inc.--a microalgae biotechnology company named by BusinessWeek as one of "25 companies to watch in Energy Tech"--reports that it has been selected by the Pentagon to "research, develop, and demonstrate commercial scale production of algae-derived advanced biofuel that meets the United States Navy's rigorous specifications for military tactical platforms."

If successful, the transition to high-performance biofuels would reduce dependence on foreign oil, a national security issue, and reduce the U.S. military's enormous carbon footprint. (It burns more than 10 million gallons of fuel a day, according to Forbes.)

Just as the Department of Defense played a major role in promoting the early Internet, so it is pumping up advanced green tech. Last December, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded $35 million in contracts to General Atomics and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), both based in San Diego, to investigate biofuel alternatives to military jet fuel.

Given that the military fuel market alone is worth $12 billion a year, investors are taking notice.

Said Paul Bollinger, a vice president of SAIC, "The military has the potential of serving as a market initiator and the airlines as a market maker."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Today, a modified Prius sets out from San Francisco on a 10-day, cross-country tour to promote green vehicles. What makes this car special isn't its plug-in hybrid technology, which gives it a claimed 150 miles per gallon, but that fact that its internal combustion engine runs on gasoline made from algae. Thus its name: Algaeus.

Eons before human beings began tinkering with renewable energy, algae was one of earth's first and most productive solar cells--based on carbon, not silicon. It captures solar energy to convert carbon dioxide--a greenhouse gas--into various organic materials. With the right genetic tinkering, it can produce biofuels and other substitutes for petroleum.

Startups developing algae-based fuels are one of the hottest sectors of venture capital these days. At least 57 firms are competing in this niche space for a market that could someday be worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

San Diego-based Sapphire Energy, which is supplying the fuel for the Algaeus, has raised more than $100 million from various venture investors, including Bill Gates' Cascade Investments.

The Department of Energy is also supporting algae, with promises to devote up to $85 million in stimulus funds to algae-based and other advanced biofuels. And the California Energy Commission has awarded six-figure grants to NASA Ames Research Center and South San Francisco-based Solazyme Inc. to develop algae technology.

More impressively, Big Oil is starting to place some bets on algae. Exxon recently signed an R&D deal worth more than $300 million with Synthetic Genomics; BP has partnered with Marktek; and Chevron has a development deal with Solazyme, one of the algae industry's leaders.

But not even Big Oil can make a success of algae unless these startups master their biggest challenges: scaling up production and lowering costs. So far "no one is close to competing with petroleum," Jeff Matais, a senior executive at A2BE Carbon Capture, LLC, told NEXT100.

Few algae companies have even demonstrated significant production, much less competitive costs. California-based Aurora Biofuels says it has developed a strain of algae that is twice as productive as other species. The company also projects that it can produce fuel for about $1.75 per gallon, but so far, according to the New York Times, "the new algae strains have been producing a gallon of biodiesel a day in an Olympic pool-sized pond."

Sapphire says that by 2011 it will be producing 1 million gallons of diesel and jet fuel per year. But Tim Zenk, its vice president for corporate relations, conceded to NEXT100, "that's really just an R&D level. The real thing to focus on is 2018 and beyond when we get to commercial quantities."

At levels of 100 million gallons annually and up, he says, the company's product should compete with oil at $60 to $80 per barrel. "It's all about scalability. What drew us to algae is we believe it can be turned into an industrial crop through biology, then grown at a world scale. That's what we are building and perfecting."

At last year's Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle, the prince of venture capital, Vinod Khosla, said he had not invested in any algae companies yet because none had demonstrated an ability to achieve reasonable production costs.

But he added, "I believe algae can be a solution. I'm convinced someone here (at the Summit) will break the code." Maybe that breakthrough will be heralded by a cross-country drive starting in San Francisco.