Recently in the Biofuels Category
Mar 11 2010
LNG in
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
(PG&E also runs some of its heavy trucks on LNG, which fuel up at the
“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.
Jan 13 2010
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.
Dec 07 2009
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."
Sep 10 2009
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."
Sep 08 2009
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.
Sep 04 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Palo Alto's city-owned electric utility is planning for an influx of electric cars now that Tesla Motors plans a new powertrain plant in the Stanford Research Park. Ten thousand electric cars charging battery packs during the day wouldn't strain Palo Alto's power grid as a whole but some local distribution transformers could run into problems, according to a preliminary report from the city's utility.
Legendary Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has raised $1 billion for investments in renewable energy and clean technologies, the largest amount raised by a venture capital firm since 2007. It is also the first time that Khosla has raised money from other investors. Investors include the California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers), the biggest U.S. public pension fund. Investments will include green technologies such as solar power, biofuels and batteries.
The U.S. Energy Department is providing $11 million this year and next for advanced research in water power technologies at national laboratories in Colorado, New Mexico, Washington, Illinois and Tennessee. The funding is to evaluate buoys, turbines and other devices to produce electricity from the energy of ocean waves, tides and rivers, says Greenwire. The money will also support research to improve dams and other hydropower facilities.
Aug 28 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
The Bag Wars continue, this time in San Jose, California's third largest city. In November, the City Council will consider a ban on plastic shopping bags at large grocery stores and big-box retailers. Paper bags with at least 50 percent recycled materials would be okay but bags would cost perhaps 10 to 25 cents each. Last week, voters in Seattle rejected a bag fee. San Francisco outlawed plastic bags in 2007, spurring a boom in sturdy cloth shopping bags.
Help Wanted! The next big corporate-level position may be Chief Green Officer and look to the Information Technology ranks for candidates, says the GreenBiz blog. Greening a business requires managing and monitoring a lot of data on energy use, carbon footprints and such and IT is best suited for the tasks. Cisco and other companies are producing hardware and software for greening companies and it's IT who will buy, maintain and use the equipment and software. IT folks eyeing a CGO post will need to focus on the business first and technology second.
Fill your gas tank with watermelon juice? A study to be published in the online journal Biotechnology for Biofuels says watermelons could be used to produce the biofuel ethanol. Twenty percent of the annual watermelon crop is ploughed under because of imperfections. A watermelon investigation indicates that "watermelon juice as a source of readily fermentable sugars represents a heretofore untapped feedstock for ethanol biofuel production," according to the study.
Aug 27 2009
Just how far are you prepared to go to fight global warming? Would you cover your home with algae?
That, essentially, is the intriguing proposal advanced this week by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a 160-year-old professional organization, based in London, devoted to sustainable energy and cleaner and safer transportation.
In a major new report, Geo-Engineering - Giving us time to act?, the organization argues that in addition to the usual climate-change proposals, governments need to consider geoengineering schemes to cool the planet before we experience "dramatic changes to our climate . . . which could jeopardise modern civilisation."
Unlike some science-fiction-sounding proposals, like firing millions of solar reflectors into orbit, the group's three favorites include making building roofs more reflective (a favorite of Energy Secretary Steven Chu), building millions of "artificial trees" to chemically absorb CO2 out of the atmosphere (an idea championed by Columbia University physicist Klaus Lackner), and--most intriguingly--"algae-coated buildings."
This latter approach may seem a tad unappealing, but hear them out.
The idea is to install sealed containers of algae--photobioreactors--on the side of new or existing buildings. As the algae grows inside, it absorbs CO2 from the surrounding air, reducing greenhouse gases.
The carbon in the algae can then be "sequestered," or stored, by turning it into biofuel or into biochar, a soil additive used by farmers since prehistoric times, as discussed previously in NEXT100.
The algae-filled panels could use waste water or salt water, avoiding the need to tap scarce fresh water supplies. And by insulating buildings, they would reduce energy usage by occupants.
The institute concedes that the proposal is "very much at a conceptual stage," its technical feasibility remains unknown, and the cost of photobioreactors is at present "too expensive to be commercially viable." (And here's a question they don't answer: why would you install an algae photoreactor, with a photosynthetic efficiency of less than 5 percent, instead of photovoltaic building materials with twice that efficiency? ) But the group insists that many of the underlying processes are proven and the idea "is worthy of further research."
Any volunteers?
Aug 07 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:
A NASCAR track in Pennsylvania - Pocono Raceway - is joining the ranks of sports venues by adding solar panels to generate three megawatts of electricity for the track. The power plant reportedly would be the world's largest for a sports facility. Renewable energy and other green features are becoming standard in new stadium construction in the U.S. and other countries.
Here in San Francisco, PG&E helped the baseball Giants install one of the first solar panel systems at a sporting site. Wind power could be next, with London erecting a wind turbine to help power the summer Olympic Games in 2012.
Old factory towns and industries are getting a new lease on business through clean energy. Pulp mills in Maine and Wisconsin are retooling to make biobutanol and biodiesel from wood waste, and a steel company in San Angelo, Texas, has taken a joint venture stake in a wind tower plant. Pueblo, Colo., an old steel town, is developing a wind turbine factory. Stirling Energy Systems plans to use automotive suppliers to make components for its solar electric machines called SunCatchers, the New York Times reports.
South Korea's LG Chem Ltd. plans to build a battery cell manufacturing plant in Michigan to support 250,000 electric vehicles, helped by $151 million in "green" economy grants from the Obama administration. Most battery manufacturing for advanced vehicles is based in Asia. LG Chem's Compact Power subsidiary is supplying lithium-ion battery cells from South Korea for GM's plug-in Chevy Volt. The company also has a battery contract for GM's planned plug-in Buick SUV. The Michigan plant is to open in 2012.
Jul 23 2009
We all know the saying, "light as a feather." So you can be sure that the two-to-four (depending on who's counting) billion pounds of feathers produced each year by the U.S. poultry industry would make a pretty big pile.
Fortunately, no one has to cram them all into a giant landfill. High in protein and nitrogen, they are ground up along with chicken innards and blood for use in animal feed and fertilizer. They are also used as raw material to make thin sheets of plastic for wrapping candy and sodas.
Now a team of scientists at University of Nevada-Reno has discovered a way to extract fat from chicken feather meal using boiling water, and then convert it into renewable biodiesel fuel. All those mountains of feathers and bloody innards are enough to create 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the United States alone. And after extracting the fat, the remaining feather meal produces better feed and fertilizer.
The same crew of clever scientists published a study last December showing that the world's 16 billion pounds of waste coffee grounds, which contain as much as 20 percent fat by weight, could potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply. Best of all, the fuel would carry the aroma of coffee.
I can just imagine going to the filling station a few years from now and enjoying a freshly made latte out of the same machine that's pumping "Java Jolt" biodiesel into my car. Now that's what I call sustainable.
