Biofuels

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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Introduction to Biofuels (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Series)

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Bio Fuels Facts

What role will biofuels play in the scientific portfolio that might bring energy independence and security, revitalize rural infrastructures, and wean us off of our addiction to oil? The shifting energy landscape of the 21st century, with its increased demand for renewable energy technology, poses a worrying challenge. Discussing the multidisciplinary study of bioenergy and its potential for replacing fossil fuels in the coming decades, Introduction to Biofuels provides a roadmap for understanding the broad sweep of technological, sociological, and energy policy issues that intermingle and intertwine.

Copiously illustrated and with numerous examples, this book explores key technologies, including biotechnology, bioprocessing, and genetic reprogramming of microorganisms. The author examines the future of biofuels from a broader perspective, addressing the economic, social, and environmental issues crucial for studying the sustainable development of bioenergy. Each chapter begins with questions and provides the answers later in the chapter as key informational points. Embedded Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) sections provide detailed derivations and equations for a subset of topics that can be found easily as buzzwords in popular media and on web sites. Together, the STEM topics form a thread of essential technologies and a guide to how researchers have established quantitative parameters that are crucial to the ever-growing biofuels database.

With so much information scattered throughout the literature, it is often difficult to make sense of what is real and what is an optimistic selling of ideas with no scientific credibility. This book does an excellent job of filtering through volumes of data, providing a historical perspective on which to anchor the information, and outlining the strengths and constraints of the different biofuels.

List Price: $ 125.95

Price: [wpramaprice asin=”1439812071″]

Biofuels – Saving the World Or a Waste of Money?

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There is a steady buzz about biofuels, and there are some strong opinions about this timely topic. At one extreme are people who believe that biofuels will save the world from a dependence on evil petroleum and stave off global warming. On the other side are those who say that biofuels are uneconomic and just the latest government-subsidized boondoggle. What is the real story? No short article can cover the topic comprehensively, but this short primer will sort out a few facts so that you can decide for yourself.

Typically, the term biofuels means transportation fuels, replacing or at least reducing the requirement for gasoline derived from petroleum. This is worth remembering because biologically generated ethanol, vegetable oils, and animal fats have been used for centuries for cooking and lighting (think of alcohol burners, old-fashioned street lamps, candles). But today, almost no one is thinking about using biofuels for anything other than powering internal combustion engines (The idea is not a novel as it sounds; Henry Ford originally designed the Ford Model T to run on ethanol, not gasoline).

Currently there are two biofuels available in large enough quantities to have an impact: bio-ethanol and biodiesel. Bio-ethanol is essentially the same substance humans have been producing for 6000 years in beverages by fermenting sugars present in almost any starchy vegetable or sugary fruit. The main difference is the refining needed following distillation to produce ethanol to the substantial exclusion of water. Only then can it burn efficiently in a truck or automobile.

Biodiesel is completely different, chemically. It is produced by reacting plant or animal fats with methanol to produce long-chain fatty acid methyl esters, which can be blended in substantial amounts with traditional petroleum-derived diesel and used as a transportation fuel. Biodiesel is, in point of fact, a good fuel, and it is cleaner-burning than traditional diesel. On some farms all the tractors and farm equipment are run on 100% biodiesel.

Both bio-ethanol and biodiesel are considered first generation biofuels: producible now using existing technology. Second generation biofuels are the next wave, comprising compounds that are more fuel-like such as butanol or hydrocarbons. There is a second generation biodiesel as well, using oils produced by algae in place of plant oils derived from soybean, canola or corn.

The real plum will be when biofuels-ethanol first, but eventually second generation biofuels such as butanol or hydrocarbons-can be produced from waste cellulosic materials such as corn stover (the stalk left after corn is harvested), bagasse (the sugar cane stalk left after sugar has been pressed out), corn cobs, wood chips, straw, and the like. These sources are waste products, already produced anyway, so no crowding out of agricultural food products will occur. I don’t care whether this is called third generation or not. What is important is that using waste agricultural materials instead of food materials will essentially eliminate the upward pressure that current biofuels production has exerted on food prices.

What is indisputable is that every gallon of biofuels generated replaces roughly a gallon of fuel that would otherwise come from petroleum (the equation is not exact due to the varying energy value of different biofuels). This both reduces our dependence on foreign oil and extends our domestic oil supply. Economics are another matter. Biofuels cannot compete with petroleum at today’s (February 2009 when this was written) oil prices of less than $ 40 per barrel. But biofuels do help set a cap on the price oil. What that price level is remains a subject for debate and varies from one biofuel to another. Delving into the details of the cost of biofuels is a topic we will address another time. It is important, however, to acknowledge that the capping effect on fuel prices exists as long as biofuels are maintained as a viable alternative.

Regarding greenhouse gas emissions there is also a range of opinion. In general, however, most observers agree that corn-based biofuels provide a relatively small benefit in this regard, if any. Biofuels derived from existing sources of cellulosic waste would provide a larger reduction, simply due to the fact that no additional energy to harvest the raw material is required. How important it is to achieve this reduction in greenhouse gases is also debatable and outside the scope of this article.

One take-away conclusion about biofuels is the following: corn-based biofuels, whether first or second generation, should only be considered as a stop-gap measure, to be used until the cellulose-based technology has been sufficiently developed. If, within 2-5 years, the displacement of corn by cellulose-based technology has taken place in the USA, upward pressure on food prices due to biofuel production will have abated, and an alternative to petroleum will exist that both reduces our dependence on foreign oil and helps to put a cap the market price of oil.

David Rozzell maintains a web site and blog dedicated to the latest developments and news in biofuels, biocatalysis, and indsutrial applications of biotechnology at http://www.bio-catalyst.com

Contact him at david@rozzell.com.

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Biofuels That Provide Optional Sources of Power

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Biofuels tend to be generated by transforming natural and organic substance into energy resources with regard to providing power for our modern society. Many of these biofuels may be a replacement power source for the classic fuels which we at the present time rely on. The biofuels group does include under its aegis alcohol and types of crops which include sugar cane, along with vegetable and cereal oils. Nevertheless, not every alcohol products will be intended to be utilized as a form of fuel. The International Energy Agency (IEA) informs us that ethanol may make up around ten percent of the earth’s available petrol by 2025, climbing towards thirty percent by 2050. Currently, the proportion figure is two percent.

Nevertheless, we’ve got a considerable ways to go to perfect and make economic and functional these biofuels which we are exploring. A report by Oregon State University attests this. We’ve yet to produce biofuels which are as energy-efficient as fuel produced from petroleum. Energy efficiency is a measurement of the quantity of practical energy for our desired uses comes from a specified quantity of input energy. (Absolutely nothing that the human race has actually employed has produced greater energy from end result than coming from just what the required input was. Exactly what has been essential is the transformation; the resultant energy is exactly what is required for our requirements, whilst the input energy is simply the effort it requires to generate the end-product.) The OSU study found cereal-derived alcohol to generally be no more than 20% energy-efficient (fuel produced from petroleum is actually 75% energy-efficient). Biodiesel gasoline or diesel was initially recorded around 69% energy-efficient. However, the research managed to find one particular positive: cellulose-derived alcohol was recorded at 85% energy-efficient, and that is considerably greater than that of the extremely efficient nuclear energy.

Lately, oil futures have been declining on the New York Stock Market, as experts from a number of different nations are forecasting a rise in biofuel supply which may counterbalance the importance of oil and gas, decreasing crude oil values on the world-wide market to $ 40 per barrel. The Chicago Stock Market features a grain futures market that is beginning to provide alternative investment activity from the oil futures in New York, since traders are certainly anticipating greater profitability to start originating from biofuels. Certainly, it’s forecasted by a cohort of analysts that biofuels will be providing seven percent for the whole entire planet’s transportation energy sources by the year 2030. One particular energy markets analyst states, increase in interest in diesel and gasoline might well decrease significantly, in the event the government subsidizes organizations distributing biofuels as well as additional pushes in promoting the utilization of eco-friendly fuel.

There are lots of nations around the world that are certainly active in the continuing development of biofuels. There’s Brazil, which is our planet’s largest manufacturer of ethanols produced from all kinds of sugar. It creates around three and a half billion gallons of ethanol each year. The U. S., whilst being the planet’s biggest gas-guzzler, is by now the second biggest manufacturer of biofuels after Brazil.

The E.U.’s biodiesel processing capabilities is now well over four million (metric) tonnes. 80 percent of the E.U.’s biodiesel fuels are was based on rapeseed oil; soybean oil and a small amount of palm oil constitute the remaining 20 percent.

Ben is a life-long researcher and educationalist whose passion is finding accessible means of alternative energy. He loves nothing more than to pass on his findings in an easy to read format via his blog at http://www.solarenergysavingsfacts.com.

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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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