Under this agreement, the research will be performed in CTBE, by researchers from both sides, who will work together to develop blocks chemicals currently used in different applications and different markets where Rhodia and Solvay are present, to replace energy sources by non-renewable biomass in the production process of these substances.

Open to external users, the CTBE was created to contribute to the continued leadership of Brazil in bioethanol production, seeking answers to problems in science and technology throughout the production cycle.

Sugar cane is considered a source of carbon that can be effectively transformed into fuels and products varied for the food, chemical and pharmaceutical, among others, making bio-refinery cane mills. Approximately 9,000 m2 of constructed area, divided into laboratory and an industrial unit, are used for scientific experiments and the transition to larger scale processes of interest to the energy industry of sugar cane. This infrastructure is in addition to efforts in Brazil to obtain a fuel both a very good performance and taking maximum advantage of the raw material and character of “sustainable development” sector.

Director of Research at CTBE, Maria Teresa Barbosa explained that the work, for the first two years of development of these technologies will be conducted at a laboratory scale, then we will move to a larger scale in the pilot CTBE plant process development. The pioneering project in CTBE in plant chemistry also include simulations in the Virtual sugar cane Bio-refinery (VSB).

The project will be supported by the state development bank of Brazil, the Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento Economico e Social (BNDES), which will provide 7.0 million BRL (EUR 2.8 million) over three years.

Along with the funding, Rhodia will bring its expertise in the chemical field for the development of new routes to highly valued molecules. Thomas Canova, Director of Research and Development at Rhodia for Latin America, stresses that this agreement brings together two partners with a strong ambition in plant chemistry in Brazil, one of the strategic country for sustainable growth. “This initiative is in line with the commitment of Solvay in the development of chemistry based on renewable raw materials and with our focus on creating value,” he said.

Indeed, the residual of the whale meat is classified as the fat of high quality that can not be used in the food chain to humans or animals. Electrawinds has developed a process that converts fat into this type of “green” electricity.

The sperm whale weighs about 25 tons and consists of 50% fat. After treatment at home Rendac Denderleeuw, where the fat is melted, the organic end product will be routed to the central biofuels in Ostend. Arrived, the biomass is purified in the refining division and turned into biofuel, which is then injected into the huge naval engines that produce electricity.

The 12.5 tons of fat of the whale can generate up to 50,000 kWh of green electricity. This corresponds to the annual consumption of 14 households (consuming on average 3,500 kWh per year).

Electrawinds states that innovative techniques in renewable energy used to recover the residual product in a sustainable way while producing “green” electricity.

Biofuel plant in Ostend has been operational since 2005 and mainly transforms CAT 1 fat from processing plants and animal waste from slaughterhouses.

Two main reasons are that the energy sector and research have their eyes on the algae.

On the one hand their high content of carbohydrates in biomass is an interesting and secondly they do not compete with crops for water or land. Unfortunately, the primary constituent algae carbohydrates, known as alginate, is not directly metabolized by bacteria. This barrier has made the biofuel produced from algae too expensive to compete with petroleum fuels.

Using synthetic biology and engineering of enzymes, Adam Wargacki and his colleagues have modified E. coli so that it produces enzymes that digest the carbohydrate polymers of algae. The bacteria thus created also manufactures membrane proteins that can transport sugars degraded form of mono and oligosaccharides and metabolic pathways that ferment sugars into the ethanol.

If this process can be scaled up, the algae could one day help meet the demand for sustainable fuel.

Thus, Eco Biomass use a combination of proprietary technologies and existing acquired to manufacture and sell wood pellets roasted renewable. The initial installation of the company, which should be operational in 2013, will produce wood pellets that will be sold through agreements with major utilities.

The roasting process involves overheating of the biomass fuel to create a uniform, hydrophobic, dense and highly efficient coal-like but with a superior environmental profile. Because of the unique properties of the fuel roasted and its benefits in terms of combustion, this renewable solution “to pay” manufactured by Eco Biomass provides an alternative for utilities looking to reduce their carbon emissions and extend the life their facilities and infrastructure existing coal combustion without having to make capital investments too great.

“While the roast is widely used in many industries, adapting to the renewable energy sector has yet to demonstrate its cost-effectiveness and adaptability. Our partnership with ConocoPhillips is designed to provide the new renewable fuel and sustainable sector of energy production and help our customers in the public services to reduce their environmental impact in a competitive manner, “said John Keppler, President and CEO of Envive. “Our two companies are innovators in the energy sector and this partnership underscores our commitment to developing sustainable solutions in energy.”

Due to the large number of clients in the commercial and public services in the United States, Europe and Asia seeking to upgrade their production facilities to use energy from renewable fuels, Eco Biomass seek to significantly expand its production capacity over the coming years. Envive already operates plants in traditional wood pellets in the United States and Europe accounting for about 750,000 metric tons of annual capacity combined in 2011.

The airliner-type B747-400 – passenger transport – has been fueled with biodiesel from specific cooperation between PetroChina and Honeywell UOP.

In recent years, Air China has pledged to provide “green flights” with the key energy savings and emission reductions. Other measures such as the optimization of the fleet, a second control can improve the operation, to save on fuel and reduce exhaust emissions.

Air China set up the test system Energy and Environment (Energy and Environment Review System) in 2009. The company also launched its first ‘green flight’ in 2010, joined the Sustainable Aviation Fuel Users Group (SAFUG) and became the first airline to launch a test flight with biofuel demonstration in China in 2011.

Air China has a fleet of 290 Airbus and Boeing aircraft (including 280 passenger aircraft and 10 freighters), a trainer aircraft and six jets. With its accession to the Star Alliance, Air China offers flights to 1160 destinations in 181 countries since its airport located in central Beijing.

This information is not a joke! Their report stating “the fat alligator destined for biofuel production” was published in the ACS, a journal of reference in industrial research and engineering.

Rakesh Bajpai and his colleagues at the University of Louisiana, and noted that most of the 700 million gallons of biodiesel produced in the United States (2008 data) came from soybean oil.

The search for non-food sources for the production of biodiesel has already identified a number of potential candidates, including used oil from fast food restaurants and wastewater. Scientists have learned that fat alligator could join that list. Each year, the meat industry pours alligator about 6 800 tonnes of fat alligator in landfills.

They demonstrated in the laboratory and the oil extracted from this particular fat can be easily converted into biodiesel. Ultimately, this type of oil is actually more suitable for biodiesel production as the oil of certain other animal fats. The composition of biodiesel from “Gator” is similar to that of soybeans, and achieved almost all the official standards in obtaining high-quality biodiesel.

The European Directive on Renewable Energy plans to incorporate 10% renewable energy – primarily biofuels – transport by 2020.

To ensure that biofuels provide a real benefit to the environment, sustainability criteria have been established: the savings in greenhouse gas emissions must be at least 35% biofuels and these should not get up on land currently in forest or peat bogs. It is on this basis that the European Commission has just approved certification schemes for biofuels “sustainable” .

But according to FNE, these criteria are silent on a major “indirect change in land use ” (ICLU).Indeed, if biofuels are replacing food crops, there is nothing that they move on land currently in forest, leading to deforestation and CO2 emissions. A study by the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), the European biofuels would mobilize the world an area equivalent to twice that of Belgium, at the expense of forests and natural ecosystems, with disastrous consequences for climate change and food security.

The European Commission must decide precisely this July on consideration of the ICLU. “It just changed gear, postponing the decision until September and by another step to encourage biofuels, of which there is no evidence that they are green,” says the association of environmental protection.

“How can certify sustainable biofuels pathways, while the rules are not yet stabilized? Once again, it puts the cart before the horse and it rushes headlong without considering the consequences food, environmental and health impacts of agrofuels, “said Jean-Claude Bévillard, Vice-President of FNE in charge of agricultural issues.

Nadia Skorupa Parachin, a doctoral candidate in microbiology at the University of Lund is on track to make this possible. The secret of his technique comes from enzymes from the garden soil. Currently, xylose, a type of sugar found in nature, is not used although it is the second most common. For ethanol production from xylose works, it is necessary to develop powerful enzymes to obtain the yeast that ferment xylose in turn. Nadia Skorupa Parachin tested these enzymes and the first results show that they bind xylose more effectively than those previously tested.

“In order that the sugars present in the forest, plants and the waste can be used to produce ethanol, yeast absorbs sugar and converts it to ethanol must have enzymes. If you just want to produce glucose The classical baker’s yeast is sufficient. However, if one wishes to convert xylose into ethanol, it is necessary to genetically modify the yeast “says Skorupa Parachin who recently patented its enzymes.

Nadia Skorupa Parachin began by extracting DNA from a soil sample that was then cut into small pieces. She was then able to establish a DNA bank. After that, she has identified the genes most suitable coupling enzyme activity and growth on xylose. Nadia Skorupa Parachin chosen to use the soil as it is an extremely diverse habitat, “a gram of soil contains ten billion bacteria! Can find enzymes and other proteins in virtually unlimited and can be all sorts Property unexplored “she exclaims. She also stresses that any soil can be used.

The reason that no researcher had already identified these new enzymes for xylose is the difficulty of the task. The thesis director Nadia Skorupa Parachin, Professor Marie-Francoise-Gorwa Grauslund, was the first person to realize that genetic engineering could walk in this context. Known as metagenomics, this method was initially used in environmental studies and it took several months to Ms. Skorupa Parachin to develop and adapt the method to this new field.

The methodology developed, researchers at Lund University will be able to apply to other areas. For example, they can adapt to isolate enzymes enable microorganisms to cope with harsh industrial conditions such as high temperatures or high concentrations of acid. Professor Gorwa-Grauslund recalls that “it is essential to have robust microorganisms if we want organic production economically viable.” It also states that “there are still a number of pieces of the puzzle that must be assembled for ethanol production from xylose is financially viable. The process must be sped up but we hope that in the long term, our method will help produce ethanol with greater efficiency.”

While proper use of organic waste to produce an alternative fertilizer use recently also proposed as a renewable energy source, which additionally would provide several benefits such as promoting lower polluting effect, generate usable products and to promote sustainable development.

According to figures from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (SEMARNAT), Mexico is estimated to produce 94 thousand 800 tons of garbage daily, of which at least 40 percent is concentrated in the states of Mexico, Jalisco, Veracruz and Federal District.

Given this scenario, the teacher-researcher  Arzapalo Nelson Caballero, Autonomous University of Yucatan (abattoir), conducted a study to extract the energy stored in organic waste (citrus, banana and papaya, among others), in addition to those produced poultry industry, with the aim of utilizing alternative power generation for public consumption and reduce pollution brought about by such waste.

To this end, the team of researchers at the abattoir was based on the anaerobic digestion method, which consists of decomposing the biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen to generate biogas, whose main energy component is methane, also containing carbon dioxide and other trace gases.

Biogas can be used as fuel in cars, factories or at home by way of replacement of butane gas. The quality and quantity of the chemical energy depends on several factors, among them the type of waste used, and also of certain control parameters such as temperature and pH.

To make anaerobic digestion, Arzapalo explained that the waste first goes through an acid phase where all the waste caused by large particles are transformed through a process carried out by enzymes and bacteria, a kind of small molecules from which emerge alcohols, and then converted into acetic acid, which is finally converted into methane gas and carbon dioxide.

In this last stage the more we succeed in cutting the second major component is the amount of methane and biogas quality, he said.

The researcher said the abattoir waste, by their nature, have stored energy that directly or indirectly captured through the Sun prior to the case of vegetable waste is more noticeable the process of saving energy through photosynthesis. Meanwhile, animal waste fuel which is largely acquired indirectly through the consumption of plant-type foods.

Arzapalo Caballero stressed that unlike other similar surveys, the abattoir used the solar energy to provide necessary temperature reactors and makes the process self-sustaining.

He noted that with the help of temperature the process is favored, since streamlines the processing of polymers to alcohols and fatty acids, and finally to methane gas. The study included experiments on two different scales, micro and macro-scale digesters used as roads and special reactors respectively.

In the micro-scale experiments were batch (batch) made to know the main characteristics of the biodegradability of waste, while the macro-scale made were of a continuous supply to resemble an application larger scale.

“By increasing the temperature with solar radiation not only speeds up the process, but the intention is to eliminate pathogens that may be organic waste,” he said.

Also, the specialist said that UADY the results were favorable, with only one gram of papaya generates up to 340 milliliters of the gas. Meanwhile, with banana waste 310 ml was reached in the case of the remains of citrus production, the results were outstanding, as it led to 400 milliliters per gram.

According to the head of the research, energy in the form of biogas produced during the investigation was monitored in terms of quantity and quality with the help of special storage bags and laboratory equipment for analysis, respectively.

“The intention is to use energy in their agricultural fields where waste is generated to run irrigation pumps or machines plow, like any type of conventional energy,” explained the researcher from the abattoir.

It is noteworthy that another peculiarity of this research is that after extracting energy from waste, solid waste can be utilized as compost or manure to crops and gardens, while the residual water after a simple treatment process can reused in irrigation.

“In Mexico, we have plenty of raw material that can be used efficiently and make this transformation in a sustainable development, because much of what we throw away and waste it can be used to produce energy and support energy supply in homes and institutions also contribute to reverse pollution cause the waste,” said Arzapalo Caballero.

The project involved the collaboration of researchers from the Center for Scientific Research of Yucatan (CICY), Technical University of Munich and University of Applied Sciences in Stuttgart, both in Germany and with funding from the National Council for Science and Technology.

It will be difficult beyond 2011 are maintained 45 cents per gallon to 54 cents per gallon tariff on ethanol imports, but from associations of producers, Energy Growth, argue that the establishment of other support programs, such as The Fueling Freedom, designed to improve and expand infrastructure and logistics and distribution of ethanol blends in gasoline. On the other hand, are confident that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will soon approve the use of E15 (15% ethanol and 85% gasoline) in cars manufactured before 2006 .

The vote in the Senate to temporarily extend aid to 2011 he won a large majority (81 votes to 19), but some of the most critical voices were heard from the Democratic ranks. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein proposed an amendment that was rejected, in which he raised a reduction of the tax credit to 36 cents. In comments reported by Reuters, Feinstein said that “the incentives to ethanol will cost 7,000 million dollars, while the proposed amendment that would have saved 2,000 million dollars.”

Save jobs and provide stability to the market
Both Sen. colleagues as opposed to the extension of aid argue that there is no need for subsidies and that current laws guaranteeing renewable fuels a market share (8.25% in 2010). The producers of biofuels, which also saw as approving the extension of incentives for biodiesel (1 dollar per gallon for small producers) applauded the measures. Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, told Reuters that “the extension of these incentives is key to U.S. ethanol production and help save jobs and provide market stability for the industry to keep growing.”

In addition, Reuters also reflected the uneasiness of the food industry, farmers and environmentalists, who are fighting for an end to ethanol subsidies. Among other reasons, they argue that increases the cost of feeding livestock and intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides damage the soil of agricultural land. About 40% of corn produced in the United States intended to ethanol plants, which now exceed 200.

Almost parallel to the vote in the Senate, a federal appeals court this week rejected a challenge to the oil companies and refineries United States against the retroactivity of the levels of mixtures of ethanol and sales volume of total EPA approved gasoline by 2010. The oil companies argued that federal law requires EPA to set each November 30 the amount of ethanol that must complete the sale of gasoline in the U.S. for the next year, and that calculation was made on 26 March 2010, nearly four months later. In its ruling, the court held that the oil companies and refineries have had ample time to meet the obligations.

The Brazilian study showed that the diesel plant, considered a sustainable fuel and emit fewer pollutants and gases from renewable sources, may cause genetic mutations in some organisms in the event of accidental spills.

The study of the biologist Daniela Morais Leme, a researcher at the Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), identified potential environmental impacts in a fuel developed precisely to reduce the impact of fossil fuels.

According to Morais Leme, despite the known benefits of this green fuel, biodiesel spills in the soil or water can cause mutations in living organisms.

Biodiesel produced from oilseed plants such as soybeans, castor and sunflower, mixed in Brazil to mineral diesel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of this fuel.

Tests conducted by the researcher from Unesp demonstrated that a green diesel spillage can damage the DNA of living organisms.

The study identified different rates of mutation caused by fuel cells in culture of organizations such as onions and salmonella bacteria.

The experiments were conducted with diesel derived from soybean, one of the raw materials used in Brazil to produce fuel for its low cost, high availability and high efficiency.

“This biodiesel was mutagenic in all the tests we did,” said the researcher.

Although Morais Leme acknowledges that the results have yet to be confirmed by further experiments, he notes that the mutations can be caused by some specific compounds in soybeans.

“Soybeans have phytoestrogens that are considered emerging contaminants that may cause mutations and are not eliminated in biodiesel production,” he said.

According to the research, preliminary results indicate that the selection of raw material to manufacture the diesel plant has to take into account not only criteria of availability and performance but also environmental impact. “We must be cautious in dealing with the biodiesel fuel as an environmentally safe,” he said.

Electric vehicle with lithium batteries do not emit CO2 or damage the environment if the electricity comes from renewables such as wind, solar photovoltaic and solar thermal or thermal. Wind turbines can supply electricity to electric vehicles in the future will also serve to store and regulate the electricity intermittent wind energy sector.

In an information supplied from the actual site of the university, says that by using a rapid method called hidropirolisis – hidrodeoxigenación, hydrogen is added to mobile reactor biomass processing.

Once the biomass and hydrogen are within the high pressure reactor, which in seconds can reach temperatures up to 482 º C needed for the processing of biodiesel.

Basically, this is a garbage truck that can do the job, the investigators anticipate that will reduce the transport of liquid fuels from biomass in large quantities. Moreover, “the important thing is that you can process all types of biomass available: wood chips, corn stover, rice husks, wheat straw, etc..” Says chemical engineer Rakesh Agrawal, the research team.

It is also true that these researchers argue that this idea has already been patented, will have to prove their worth in the laboratory before dawn on the market.

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Wayland argues Morales, head of Elqui Global Energy that “an acre of cactus produces 43 200 m3 of biogas or the equivalent in energy terms to 25,000 liters of diesel.” With the same land planted with jatropha, he says, it will produce 3,000 liters of biodiesel.

Another of the peculiarities of the nopal is biogas which is the same molecule of natural gas, but its production does not require machines or devices of high complexity. Also, unlike natural gas, contains primarily methane (75%), carbon dioxide (24%) and other minor gases (1%), “so it has advantages from the technical point of view since it has the same capacity heat but is cleaner, “he says, and as sum datum its calorific value is 7,000 kcal/m3.

As a more positive element, the Chilean engineer mentions that “the process of obtaining methane generated as organic sediment and water products, which are processed for incorporation into the soil by earthworms, which permits the treatment of organic waste.

In turn, the water nitrogen obtained from the reactor also included in nopal plantations as fertilizer back into the modern irrigation system. And all with no less a fact: this type of cactus is well suited not only to unfavorable weather conditions for other crops but also degraded soils, of low quality.

Thus, a set of products is generated from the use of cactus as biomass: biogas, electricity, water, nitrogen, humus, earthworm flour as animal feed and carbon credits by participating in the process the carbon dioxide absorption. .

Anecdotally, it is worth mentioning that the nopal biogas is used for more than 100 years in China and other Asian countries, but not until 1984 that researchers at the University of Chile generated the knowledge so that this plant is capable of producing large amounts of energy growing in marginal conditions.

According to reports from NRC-IMB, a key component that differentiates this project before, even internationally, is that only use local strains of algae. This, they say, will prevent the ecological risks associated with the importation of “alien species”, and will also be easier to grow these organisms, since they are already acclimatized to the environment of North America.

The Department of Energy United States is involved in the project through the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories.

“With water, carbon dioxide and little else, the algae are able to convert sunlight into energy that can be used to produce fuel,” said Stephen O’Leary, a researcher at NRC-IMB is working on the project.

In fact, he says, the energy source for this crop is carbon dioxide. Therefore, it is a technology that produces the environment and also helps to reduce the existing CO2 in the atmosphere.

The Ministry of Development released some of the agreements reached at the European forum which had the goal of establishing “mechanisms and means to facilitate coordination and exchange of information on the development and use of alternative fuels and biofuels for aviation in Europe.” There were representatives of civil aviation of the 27 Member States of the European Union, Directorate of Transport of the European Commission, Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and of industry, airlines and manufacturers.

The most important initiative that came out of the forum was the creation of a network to ensure security of energy supply and the environmental improvement of air operations through “diversification of sources of aviation fuel in the field of biofuels” says the note of Development. Spain, through the Ministry of Public Works and EFSA, will lead the coordination of initiatives at European level of the network, by developing a forum to gather all available information and promotes the exchange and sharing between Member States and relevant players in the sector.

Spain has its “biokerosene”
The conclusions of the forum held Tuesday at the headquarters of the Ministry of Development and under the Spanish presidency of the EU, these agreements “will the first steps to address the need for greater coordination in the field European Community and national initiatives undertaken by States, thereby promoting the development and use of alternative fuels in the airline industry.”

In the presentation section of positions and initiatives of each State, the Agency, on behalf of Spain, announced its proposal to develop a national program that includes the production and consumption of “biokerosene” medium term “from a comprehensive view of the implementation of biofuels in aviation.” In addition, bilateral meetings were held with the Italian authorities in order to reach a collaborative agreement to develop biofuels for the same sector.

The prototype was presented at the fifth annual energy conference at MIT, the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The team worked for nine months in the investigation, which for undergraduate students meant their final-year project.

According to its developers, the self-sustainability is the key to the design of a dual combustion chamber tank. The process involves, first, the waste plastics are converted into gas through pyrolysis. Then the gas flows into a lower reservoir where it is burnt with oxidants to generate heat and steam. The heat keeps the combustion chamber, while steam can be used to generate electricity.

“The prototype can expand and adapt to a large power station, which could be connected to a plastic recycling center for a steady flow of fuel,” said David Laskowski, one of the student participants of the project.

Professor Levendis, which in the past 20 years has conducted research on the combustion of plastics and other waste, currently focuses on the concept of vaporization of solid waste plastic, thereby reducing levels of harmful emissions during the process combustion.

“The inspiration behind my research is the quest to develop clean energy sources, cost-effective compared to declining fossil fuel reserves,” said Levendis. “It will also help get rid of the unsightly, non-biodegradable plastic waste can not be recycled.”

According to Laskowski, calculations show that if all the plastic waste of the country were recycled, new technology has the potential to replace up to 462 million gallons of oil.

“Currently, we are consuming and expensive conventional fuels to produce electricity quality. Fuel created with this system will reduce the cost of electricity for future generations,” said Levendis.

“The OAS is committed to supporting Jamaica in the articulation of a sustainable bioenergy policy,” said Francisco Burgos, specialist agency in Energy and Sustainable Development.

Burgos said the initiative seeks to strengthen the country’s experience in production of biofuels, with special attention to the social, economic and environmental factors that the industry demand.”

The project was officially launched at the Office of the Prime Minister of Jamaica in Kingston, and had the participation of Burgos, the Minister of Mines and Energy of Jamaica, James Robertson and the permanent secretary of the Ministry, Hillary Alexander.

The OAS acts as an entity associated with U.S. and Brazil in the Memorandum of Understanding on Biofuels Cooperation in these countries.

The agency helps to implement joint activities in third countries that are beneficiaries of that agreement, which includes Jamaica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

The OAS also supports other sustainable energy activities in the Caribbean, such as the Sustainable Energy Programme for the Caribbean (CSEP) and the Eastern Caribbean Geothermal Project (Geo-Caraïbes).

“Most of biofuels such as ethanol and butanol, are created by the fermentation of sugars produced by plants through photosynthesis. Our project is to use organisms that capture carbon dioxide and hydrogen to produce biofuels directly,” said Dr. Robert Kelly, professor of molecular engineering at the University of NC.

The bacteria in question have the ability to shunt phase of photosynthesis. However, it would be able to directly produce liquid fuels from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Since she did not need light, this means that a facility that would use bacteria to create biofuels could be located anywhere – even underground.

The extremophiles – primitive organisms – found in fresh or salt water have evolved well before photosynthetic organisms. They are located in hydrothermal environments with temperatures reaching 100 degrees Celsius.

These microbes absorb carbon dioxide from the environment to produce complex molecules, one of them is known as the “acetyl CoA”. The researchers therefore intend to genetically modify the Pyrococcus to include elements of Metallosphaera. The creation of this super-bacteria” would be able to capture carbon dioxide and hydrogen and produce biofuel.”

An alternative to this method has been developed by the Austrian company Solar Fuel Technology (Salzburg), in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy (IWES), Centre Research on solar energy and Hydrogen (ZSW) in Stuttgart and University of Linz: to store excess electricity produced by wind energy or photovoltaic as methane, synthetic neutral for the environment, gasometers and gas lines already exist. A demonstration plant is already operating successfully in Stuttgart. The first plant of 10 MW should be built by 2012.

The process involves converting the excess electricity produced in natural gas. The intermediate energy can be stored in chemical form in the natural gas network. The infrastructure for the reverse transformation of intermediate chemical energy is also operational: to burn natural gas and generating electricity in gas turbines or steam. The technology combines two processing methods of chemical energy into electricity, explains Michael Specht, a researcher at ZSW: the separation of water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity (electrolysis) and transformation CO2 into methane (biogas) (methane is the main component of natural gas). Anaerobic digestion is itself a multi-step chemical process: CO2 is converted to methane (the final product) via the formic acid, formaldehyde and methanol. The main benefit of this technology lies in the possibility to use the existing natural gas network. Moreover, according to Michael Specht, conversion efficiency of electricity with natural gas exceeds 60%.

Local energy suppliers tanks and large centralized reservoirs are sized so they can cover the methane need for several months. The storage capacity of the natural gas network browsing is important and Germany amounted to 200 TWh – the consumption of several months. The grid has only 0.04 Wh. The integration infrastructure is easy, natural gas can be integrated into the supply system, pipelines and tanks, to fuel vehicles or light natural gas heaters.

Petrobras enters the Guaraní capital through its subsidiary Petrobras Fuels in a series of measures meant to obtain a 45.7% equity interest.

In this sense, the president of Petrobras fuel, Miguel Rossetto, explained that “since 2009 there has been a process of negotiation with various groups, but in Guarani we found quality criteria of operational, environmental, social and technological advantage in the production of ethanol. This is an important moment for the consolidation of Petrobras as an energy company. ”

As the statement says, the contribution of the Brazilian state will also have regarding the experience in distribution, manufacturing operations, logistics, marketing of ethanol, research and development.

Meanwhile, the Tereos Group, which owns Açúcar Guarani, contributing to society with their experience in agribusiness, the processing of sugarcane and the marketing of ethanol and sugar. The association meets the objectives of the group members to invest in the growth of their participation in the biofuel sector.

For the president of Petrobras, José Sergio Gabrielli de Azevedo, this movement, “in compliance with the Petrobras Business Plan, is a significant step in the biofuels sector for the consolidation of the company as an energy company, in a sustainable manner to contribute to the achievement of targets for ethanol production from Petrobras Biofuels.”

Petrobras wants to become a major player in the biofuel sector worldwide, with a production target of 3,900 million liters of ethanol by 2013. In December the company already said it planned to buy stakes in two or three ethanol plants in the course of this year 2010. In fact, last year it bought a sugar mill in the state of Minas Gerais with a production of 100 million liters of ethanol annually.

Biodiesel for Portugal and Spain
For its part, the Board of Directors of Petrobras approved the project with the company Galp Energia, which aims to produce 250 thousand tons / year of biodiesel by 2015, with investments estimated at $ 240 million (EUR 183 million). The Iberian peninsula is the main destination for this production

The strategy for the supply of biodiesel unit in Portugal provides for the implementation of an agro-industrial pole in Brazil for the cultivation of African palm (Elaeis guineensis), with an output of approximately 300 thousand tons year of palm oil in the state of Pará and investments estimated at $ 290 million (221 million euros), between 2010 and 2018.

The share of renewable energy has increased notably in the production of heat (13.5%) and electricity (+5.9%). It now reaches 16.1% of electricity consumption. This figure is remarkable because, first, wind and water facilities failed to use its full potential from the weather and weaker than usual winds. On the other hand, the share of fossil energy sources has declined. The amount of electricity produced using renewable energies is now equivalent to over two-thirds of the electricity of the nuclear origin.

With the support of the German legislation on renewable energies (EEG), the industry is investing heavily. In 2009 the construction of wind turbines (952 new facilities on 21,164 total) accelerated, including the first offshore wind farm in Germany, the test fleet Alpha Ventus commissioned twelve wind turbines in the North Sea, which can provide electricity to 50,000 households. Investments have also doubled in the field of biomass. The biogas, in particular, located on the second-largest source of renewable power, behind the wind. It provides 5.2% of electricity consumption. As for solar photovoltaic energy it continued to rise rapidly and has provided for the first time in 2009 more than 1% of electricity consumed.

The investments pay off, both way for the environment and the economy. The use of renewable energy is actively involved in reducing the German greenhouse gas emissions: it saved the rejection in 2009 of 109 million tonnes of CO2. Germany intends to reduce its emissions by 40% by 2020 compared to 1990.

From the economic perspective, the renewable energy sector generates jobs and profits. It generated a turnover of 33.4 billion euros in 2009, up almost 9% compared to 2008. Above all, it continues to hire massively. The industry employed 300,500 renewable energy in 2009 against 278,000 people in 2008. It created 140000 jobs in five years. More than a third of its employees working in the field of biomass (36%), one in three in the wind (29%) and just over one in four in solar energy (27%). Geothermal and hydropower respectively employ some 3% of the sector.

On April 6, the Department of the Navy has partnered with the Department of Agriculture to study the feasibility of producing enough biofuel to power much of the U.S. fleet of ships and the bodies of Marines.

Quite a market for farmers, especially sugarcane. In 2020, half of the two fleets will consume fuel from plants. Meanwhile, the Navy will develop electric motors for its buildings. A few weeks ago, it has commissioned the USS Makin Island, an assault ship powered by gas turbines and electric motors. The competitor hybrid French Mistral is already much more sober than its sister ships.

The sailors effort will not only end on boats. Since 2015, half of the 50,000 land vehicles of the Navy will be electric, flex-fuel or hybrid. For the army of Uncle Sam, the era of the post-oil era has already begun.

With a total production of 190 MW, the power plant will operate by burning wood and agricultural residues, reducing 1.2 million tons of CO2 emission a year. Located in Polaniec, in southeast Poland, the plant will replace a 1,800 MW coal and biomass central owned by GDF Suez, and is to be up and running late in December 2012.

This plant will contribute to the commitment by Poland to produce over 15% of its electricity from renewables by 2020. Poland has large resources of biomass such as wood and agricultural residues, which can be used for electricity production, thereby helping to reduce CO2 emissions.

The design and construction of the circulating fluidized bed boiler, the first of its kind in the world able to burn only biomass, will be performed by Foster Wheeler, a world leader in this technology.

“The construction of this plant in Poland, and the development of the new wind farms emphasize GDF Suez engagement in Sustainable Development and the Polish market,” said Dirk Beeuwsaert, Executive Vice-President of GDF SUEZ, in charge of the Energy Europe and International business.

Though both produce essentially the same end fuel, the differences between biomass and oil-seed based aviation fuels are stark.

The idea of producing synthetic aviation fuel is hardly a new concept. Germany pioneered the production of “Fischer-Tropsch” (FT) synthetic fuels during WWII. Currently, South African airline Sasol produces approximately 150,000bbl per day at its coal-to-liquid facilities. (South Africa used FT during the era of apartheid as well.)

A number of companies are currently exploring the utilization of the Fischer-Tropsch process to transform biomass into aviation fuel.

Call this the synthetic biofuel camp.

FT is a four-step process that first involves gasifying biomass feedstock and reacting it with steam at moderate pressure and elevated temperatures in the absence of combustion. The resulting synthesis gas (“syn gas”) often contains impurities like sulfur and large amounts of C02, which requires that it be scrubbed. The third step involves passing the syn gas over a catalyst (usually iron or cobalt-based) to form a variety of hydrocarbons. Depending on the gasification process, one can alter the reaction conditions (pressure, temperature, time, or catalyst) and it will result in changes to the molecular structure of the hydrocarbons. Using well-established refining methods, the hydrocarbon is upgraded to the subsequent liquid fuel.

In recent months, companies like Choren, Rentech, and Solena Group have announced commercial projects that could result in hundreds of millions of gallons of production capacity coming online by 2014.

Synthetic aviation fuels created via a process known as biomass-to-liquids (BTL) have a number of benefits beyond the obvious one — namely, that they are not petroleum-based. FT fuels have lower carbon and particulate matter emissions, thermal stability, and can be derived from any type of biomass, as well as from coal and natural gas.

The drawbacks of BTL aviation fuels are economic. On an installed cap-ex basis, we estimate that a new plant costs around $1.27/gal. Additionally, from an op-ex perspective, biomass feedstocks such as woody biomass, agricultural and waste residues, etc. are expected to cost somewhere between $55-$70 per bone-dry ton compared to $30/ton for coal. While FT processes are theoretically feedstock agnostic and feedstock costs could get below the aforementioned $55-70/ton range if municipal solid waste streams are included, in the absence of a carbon tax, coal-to-liquids (CTL) processes are currently more economical.

Which brings us to the second thermo-chemical technology under consideration to produce aviation biofuels: hydroprocessing.

This process uses animal fats, waste grease, or plant oils as feedstocks and involves using a combination of pressure, heat, and catalysts to upgrade the oil into jet fuel. In geek terminology, the oil is first deoxygeneated and then isoparaffinic hydrocarbons are created via hydroisomerization. Hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and water are the main byproducts of hydroprocessing. Given that the resulting fuels are paraffinic, they are almost identical to FT jet fuel.

In the race to commercialization of aviation biofuel, hydroprocessing has a number of advantages over FT. First, anyone who has been following this space in the last two years already knows that every major airline that has tested biofuels has used jet fuel derived from hydroprocessing. For example, when Virgin Atlantic became the first commercial airline to oversee a flight partly powered by biofuels, it used a 25% blend of biofuels in one of its engines that included hydroprocessed coconut oil and babassu oil. In the last year, KLM, Air New Zealand, Qatar Airways, Continental Airlines, and Japan Airlines have also completed flights using biofuels like jatropha, algae, and camelina.

In 2014, 100 million gallons of camelina-based jet fuel is expected to be delivered to 15 airlines by Sustainable Oils and Alt-Air. The prospects for camelina and aviation biofuels in general are explained in great detail in a new report from Biomass Advisors.

There are a number of commercial hydroprocesing plants being built, most notably by Neste Oil and ConocoPhilips. By 2015, we anticipate production capacity via hydroprocessing could reach 900MGY.

While FT synthetic fuels generally come with higher cap-ex costs due to the gasification and clean-up equipment as compared to hydroprocessing equipment that leverages the pre-existing assets of a petroleum refiner, hydroprocessing is not feedstock agnostic. Given the fact that oil-based feedstocks currently make U.S. biodiesel uneconomical without subsidies, there are questions as to how much alternative oilseeds — such as jatropha, algae, and camelina — will cost at commercial scale.

For example, Neste Oil is building a facility that will have production capacity of 58.2 million gallons per year at an upfront capital cost of $135M. The plant will have a feedstock input rate of 555 tons of vegetable oil per day, which is the equivalent of 0.00347 tons per gallon. If the current spot price for soybean oil is $0.39/lb ($780 per ton), we find that the per-gallon cost of soybean feedstocks is $2.71/gal. While I realize that aviation fuel will not be created from soybean oil, this example is illustrative of how oilseed feedstock costs can add up to make hydroprocessing uneconomical compared to petroleum jet fuel.

Given the strategic importance for the military to obtain copious amounts of domestically sourced energy and the blank check the Department of Defense receives, it is clear that aviation biofuels are coming — whether from FT or hydroprocessing

Chicken feather meal is processed at high temperatures with steam. This feather meal is used as animal feed and also as fertilizer. Chicken feather meal has high percentage of protein and nitrogen. The researchers have paid attention to the 12% fat content of the chicken feather meal. They have arrived at the conclusion that feather meal has potential as an alternative, non-food feedstock for the production of biofuel. They have extracted fat from chicken feather meal using boiling water and processing it into biodiesel. Another advantage of extracting fat from feather meal is it provides both a higher-grade animal feed and a better nitrogen source for fertilizer applications.

Stats tell us that if we take into account the amount of feather meal generated by the poultry industry each year, researchers could produce 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the U.S. and 593 million gallons worldwide.

Prof. Misra is the director of the University of Nevada, Reno’s Renewable Energy Centre. He has published 183 technical papers in the areas of materials, nanotechnology and environmental and mineral process engineering until now. He also has 10 patents published and another 12 are pending. He has secured over $25 million dollars in grant funding.

Other research is going on regarding chicken feather meal. It contains stronger and more absorbent keratin fiber than wood. Professor Richard P. Wool of the chemical engineering department of the University of Delaware, is trying to carbonized chicken feathers. This type of chicken feather bears a resemblance to highly versatile (and tiny) carbon nanotubes. This chicken feather can be utilized to store hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles. If we visualize carefully we can see that very tiny natural sponges of chicken feathers have a big weight advantage over metal hydride storage.

Wool’s graduate student Erman Senöz in the project explained that they applied the pyrolysis process. During this process a very high heat without combustion in the absence of oxygen is applied. This yields fibers “that are micro-porous, very thin and hollow inside like carbon nanotubes. They start forming at 350 degrees Centigrade, and above 500 C they collapse. We’re trying to find the perfect temperature.”

Another advantage of this process is there won’t be lack of chicken-feed, because the fiber is taken from the central quill part. It leaves the fluffy feathers available to force-feed livestock. Feather fiber is quite cheap, and the “gas tank” equivalent would cost around $200.