Biofuel – Page 3 – Biofuels Facts

What is Cellulosic Biofuel?

The Facts alternative energy, Biofuel, Biofuels, Cellulosic, Jatropha plant 0 Comment

Lately researchers are looking for every possible alternative energy source, this due largely to the world’s energy crisis and the condition of the environment. The top of the list is replacing traditional fossil fuels with alternative and renewable energy.

The main contenders for fuel substitutes are biomass fuels. Biomass fuels are derived from organic plant matter. Ethanol-based bio fuels are extracted from corn. Biodiesel is made up primarily of used vegetable oil and grease. Jatropha oil, which comes from seeds from the Jatropha plant, is also being used to make biofuels. Now added to the list is cellulosic biofuel.

Cellulosic biofuel is very revolutionary in biofuels; this is because it is not plant specific as with Jatropha and and can be generated from both living and dead organic plant matter rather than requiring crops to be grown specifically for the purpose of cellulosic biofuel production, such as ethanol needs corn.

The carbon content in cellulose is what makes it such a good candidate in the quest for biofuel. Cellulose is the most abundant carbon form present in biomass and accounts for around 50% of its weight. Cellulose can be found in most plant matter without the need for land space or water for irrigation giving cellulose biofuel its appeal.

Cellulose is a polysaccharide comprised of a six sugar carbon polymer. Because of its composition and its abundance, cellulosic biofuel is an attractive possibility for mass biofuel production.

The researchers at NASA are further exploring cellulosic biofuel as a viable fuel source. They are researching more efficient processes to convert cellulose to sugar. Once cellulose is converted to its sugar-based form it can be used for other purposes such as chemical agents, food and cellulosic biofuel.

However, the conversion to sugar is requires around 50 hours for the process to take place. You take labor costs and the energy to covert it, and you can see how costly it can become. With time also comes higher production costs. If it would be pssible to cut this process down to 5 hours it would see cellulosic biofuel become cost effective enough to be competitive in a global market.

What scientists hope to accomplish is to refine the process for easier extraction of the complex sugars from cellulose. Because the plant cell walls were designed in nature to be robust and to stand up to the elements, it makes it difficult to break down and extract. Researchers hope to make extraction easier by engineering plant cell walls.

Another hurdle in the production of cellulosic biofuel involves the improvement in enzyme efficiency. They plan to mimic enzyme behavior from animals that are the most efficient at breaking down cell walls such as herbivores like cows and sheep which they believe is the key to cost effective cellulosic biofuel production.

Some of the things we can do to help protect ourselves from increasing oil prices is to conserve what we have now, to use less, and to alter our energy consuming patterns. We need to look into alternative energy sources when they become available to us. If we do these things, cellulosic biofuel could be on the market in as little as 5 years.

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Paul Hundrieser
http://www.paulhundrieser.com

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Algae Biofuel – A Promising Biofuel For The Future

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Algae biofuel is currently emerging as one of the potentially promising biofuels in recent stages of development.

Petroleum is believed to have developed from kerogen, which is simply converted to an oily substance under the influences of temperature and pressure. Kerogen is formed from biodegradable compounds, bacteria, plankton, and plant material through chemical and biochemical reactions: algae. Because of this, it is widely believed that algae can be converted to a petroleum-like substance. This would be a developed algae biofuel.

The advantages of an algae biofuel should be evident to almost everyone. Biofuels that can replace fossil fuels could end our dependency on the depletion of our planet’s natural resources and significantly reduce our carbon footprint on the planet. With the development of alternatives like algae biofuel, air pollution resultant from burning fossil fuels and energy crises resultant from the exhaustion of natural resources would no longer present such an imminent theat to our people and the world we live in.

Harvesting algae to manufacture algae biofuel can be fairly intricate. Gathering algae involves the process of separating it from its growing medium. The algae must then be dried and processed into the desired product. Since there are different kinds of algae, strains particular to developing algae biofuel must be designated and developed for harvesting. The drying of algae is centrally important to the harvesting process, as it retains high water content. Some processes currently under use for harvesting algae are centrifugation, flocculation, froth floatation, and micro screening.

Oil extraction from algae is a debated concept because it is currently quite costly. While in theory it is all quite simple – harvest the algae and remove the oil from it – the reality is that the processes are expensive. The two basic methods of extracting oil for algae biofuel are the mechanical method and the chemical method.

The environmental effects of extracting oil from algae are, themselves, a topic of hot debate since many see them as not being eco-friendly. The concerns with mechanical extraction are that the drying process is extremely energy intensive and supercritical extraction depends on high-pressure mechanics that are also energy intensive. The chemical process involves solvents that present health and environmental risk factors. Other methods are being developed to reduce the environmental concerns, but so far they are so costly as to make mass production almost impractical.

So, while algae biofuel is one of the most potentially promising of the biofuel alternatives currently being researched, it is far from reaching a stage where its process and progress is anywhere near on the horizon. At this point in time there are many issues to be straightened out, from environmental effects to cost challenges.

However, far from leaving us disappointed, this situation only underscores the vital need to devote our resources and expertise to the challenges of developing biofuels and other alternatives to our current fossil fuel dependency. While the advance in creating biofuels may now be riddled with challenge, we must turn our attention and resources to overcoming these challenges and creating biofuel alternatives for future generations. Setbacks only mean that we must work that much harder in order to make green energy sources like algae biofuel a reality in our lifetime.

Martin Aranovitch is an online publisher with a strong interest in green living. To learn more about ways to go green, save money and help the planet, go here: Green Living Tips.

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Biofuels Score Big But Can They Cut Oil Imports?

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Biofuels have stormed forward with a series of advances that could give the sometimes maligned alternative energy sector a major boost.

On the federal side, President Obama has allocated $ 510 million to produce the fuel for military jets and ships and commercial vehicles. And the Army has established the Energy Initiatives Office Task Force, which is charged with figuring out how to meet a 25 percent renewable energy goal by 2025.

A national security issue

Much of the task force’s efforts could be directed to biofuels. Oil dependence has long been considered a national security issue. A 2006 report by the Council on Foreign Relations said the United States must manage the consequences of unavoidable dependence on foreign oil. “The longer the delay, the greater will be the subsequent trauma,” the report said.

In mid August 2011, Obama emphasized the importance of biofuels to energy security, and Navy Secretary Ray Mabus said, “America’s long-term national security depends upon a commercially viable domestic biofuels market.”

But it won’t be easy. Obama’s plan is to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, with 20 billion gallons coming from advanced biofuels, 15 billion gallons from corn ethanol and one billion gallons from biodiesel.

Biofuel targets by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 2012 are about 9 percent greater than the previous year and show a modest but increasing role for non-corn biofuels. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requires that a percentage of fuel sold in the country contain a minimum volume of renewable fuel.

What exactly is biofuel?

Biofuel is a pretty broad category that includes ethanol, biodiesel, cellulosic ethanol, gas-tank-ready isobutanol and, depending on how it’s classified, algae fuel. But biofuel manufacture requires energy and, like petroleum products and coal, burning it creates greenhouse gases. Similar to natural gas, those emissions aren’t as bad, but the distinction marks its green credentials with an asterisk.

Ethanol, which remains a widely used gasoline additive, may have lost some of the momentum it had five years ago, especially that derived from corn. However, research and development appear undeterred.

At the U.S. Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a team of researchers at believe they have “pinpointed the exact, single gene that controls ethanol production capacity in a microorganism.” The discovery, officials say, could prove the missing link in developing biomass crops that produce higher concentrations of ethanol at lower costs.

“This discovery is an important step in developing biomass crops that could increase yield of ethanol, lower production costs and help reduce our reliance on imported oil,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu in a statement.

New biofuel discoveries

Further underlining my premise for acceleration in biofuel development is yet another announcement from the DOE, this time about two promising biofuel production methods. Both are referred to as “drop-in” biofuels technologies because they can directly replace or be used in lieu of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel without alteration to engines.

The National Advanced Biofuels Consortium, which received $ 35 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate biofuel development, selected the “technology pathways” for extra attention.

The consortium plans to develop the technologies to a “pilot-ready” stage over the next two years. One of the two methods focuses on converting biomass into sugars that can be biologically and chemically converted into a renewable diesel and is dubbed FLS, for fermentation of lignocellulosic sugars. The second, catalysis of lignocellulosic sugars, or CLS, focuses on converting biomass into sugars that can be chemically and catalytically converted into gasoline and diesel fuel.

Speed is important, partners needed

“Biofuels are an important part of reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil and creating jobs here at home,” Obama said, adding that the job requires partnering with the private sector to speed development.

Officials said that to accelerate the production of bio-based jet and diesel fuel for military purposes, Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu and Secretary of the Navy Mabus have developed a plan to jointly construct or retrofit several drop-in biofuel plants and refineries.

Oil remains the dominant player

The United States relies on imported oil for 49 percent of its fuel supply, but about half of that comes from the Western Hemisphere with Canada at the top with 25 percent, followed by Venezuela’s 10 percent and Mexico’s 9 percent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Some 12 percent of the nation’s imports come from Saudi Arabia.

And while U.S. dependence on imported oil has declined since peaking in 2005, the cause can be traced to the recession, improvements in efficiency and various changes in consumer behavior, the EIA says. “At the same time, increased use of domestic biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel), and strong gains in domestic production of crude oil and natural gas plant liquids expanded domestic supplies and reduced the need for imports,” officials say.

Undoubtedly that biofuel percentage will rise. The next decade will be the test.

Mike Nemeth, project manager of the San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization, spent 24 years working as a newspaperman editing and reporting from Alaska to California. The SJVCEO is a nonprofit dedicated to improving quality of life through increased use of clean and alternative energy. The SJVCEO is based in Fresno, Calif. and works with cities and counties and public and private organizations to demonstrate the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the eight-county region of the San Joaquin Valley. For more information, go to http://www.sjvcleanenergy.org.

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Biofuels – Will Biofuels Reduce Our Dependency on Oil?

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Biofuels are the combustible fuels produced from animal and plant materials. The simplest form of biofuel is wood which humans have been using for millions of years to provide heat and light, thus creating energy. Most commonly today, biofuels would be in the form of alcohols, esters, and ether. The two most frequently used biofuels are biodiesel and bioethanol.

Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil and grapeseed oil, or it can be converted from used cooking oil and animal fats. If these are not converted to biodiesel, they would simply be seen as waste and end up being incinerated, put into landfills or exported. Biodiesel has both advantages and disadvantages.

Although made from renewable sources and performing as well as normal diesel, it attracts more water therefore hampering performance in colder weather and can only be used by diesel powered engines. Biodiesel produces up to 78% less carbon dioxide (CO2) than normal diesel, but produces more nitrogen oxide emissions. Biodiesel is biodegradable so has less negative effects on the environment but costs more than normal diesel. Biodiesel might compare well to normal diesel where performance is questioned, but reduces fuel economy and very few gas stations actually sell biodiesel.

One can get around this fact though as biodiesel can be combined with normal diesel when one is willing to overlook the fact that biodiesel can be detrimental to the inner fuel tubes of older vehicles. Biodiesel gives off no acid rain-causing sulpher and although it cannot be transported in pipelines, the refineries are more eco-friendly than the petrochemical plants used to produce normal diesel.

Bioethanol can be produced from sugar, starch and carbohydrate crops such as corn and also common vegetation such as grass. In hindsight, it is a pity that Henry Ford’s idea of having his Model T run on ethanol did not take off. Who knows what impact that could have had on our current energy concerns.

Bioethanol and ethanol mixtures reduce greenhouse gasses although fuels containing more than 10% ethanol may corrode non-compatible fuel systems. Bioethanol burns very cleanly, producing more heat and therefore more energy, but the production of the raw materials requires massive expanses of land.

Advocates of biofuel are very quick to point out that with the increased demand for oil and escalated oil prices, biofuel will eventually be a much less expensive option than gasoline and other fossil fuel. However, they fail to mention that to produce high quality and refined biofuel which will be able to compete with the efficiency of the already established fossil fuels will remain tremendously expensive until the technology becomes more readily and freely available.

Biofeul can be produced from a variety of animal and plant matter, including crop waste and manure, which is seen by many as a shining example of recycling and reusing. Others however, point out that the situation might arise where there is literally a war between food and fuel. The argument is that if there is an increased demand for biofuels, it might pay farmers world wide to produce crops exclusively for biofuel production in which case food prices would rise and even more regions will be prone to food shortages and starvation. We have already seen a certain amount of this in the United States where many farmers are realizing that they can get paid more for corn crops for biofuel production than they can raising food corn.

Proponents point out that the increased demand for biofuel will result in increased stimulation within the agricultural sectors and therefore will be injecting more income into the already battling industry. Opponents retort with a valid argument that this will deplete other resources such as water and fertile soil, which will result in even more environmental problems and depletion of biodiversities.

In defense of biofuels, they take far less time to generate than fossil fuels which take thousands of years to form. Biofuels are also biodegradable and far less hazardous to use and transport. On the flipside of this coin, the production of biofuels are quite a smelly business due to the nature if the materials and processes. This pungent smell is highly undesirable to communities, which means that to overcome this hurdle, biofuel plants will need to be far removed from populated areas. In turn, this would mean increased carbon emissions produced by the transportation of the biofuel from remote areas into cities and towns.

The production of biofuels can be protected and harnessed internally within countries and regions with the reduced dependency on foreign energy sources. However, the ownership of land has not stopped certain nations from virtually overrunning underdeveloped and vulnerable countries in the search for fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas. What is to say that the issue of ownership of fertile, biofuel producing land will not stir up the same agendas plaguing the energy industry today?

Biofuels, when burned, produce noticeably less toxic emissions and carbon output. This will probably be the strongest argument in favor of biofuel as society has begun to awaken to the realization that Earth’s capability to recover from continued abuse is limited by our ever increasing greed for more energy. However, there is strong evidence that while cleaner to burn, the actual amount of toxins and carbon emissions released during the production processes of biofuel leaves quite a heavy carbon footprint. If this scenario is paired with the fact that biofuel has to be consumed in greater quantities due to the lower energy levels it is able to produce, then consumers might need to consider which would be the lesser of two evils.

The biofuel industry is still in its early years. Only with continued investment, development and commitment will the advantages of biofuel truly outweigh the disadvantages. With the speed of new technological advances these days, perhaps a truly sustainable, eco-friendly biofuel solution is only a matter of time.

There are many ways to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and other fossil fuels. Discover some of those ways and many other tips for living a green lifestyle. Visit http://gettinggreenerdaily.com to discover new tips, tactics and strategies for reducing your carbon footprint and lessening your impact on the environment.

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