Archive for category Biodiesel

Iron-Eating Bacteria Could Turn Electricity Into Clean Biofuel

Posted by Mila Luleva in Biodiesel on January 29, 2013

Iron-oxidizing bacteria can now grow without iron- they can use electricity instead. This is the conclusion reached by a team of scientists at the the BioTechnology Institute at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities, led by Daniel Bond. The method, which they developed, is called electrochemical cultivation. Bacteria are supplied with electrons that are [...]

Marginal Lands Deemed Perfect for Sustainable Bioenergy Production

Posted by Leigh Kim in Biodiesel, Ethanol on January 24, 2013

Last week, University of Maryland faculty members and a Ph.D. student from U of M’s Department of Geographical Sciences published research detailing the possibility of using marginal lands for biodiversity research and alternative fuel production. The study, titled “Sustainable bioenergy production from marginal lands in the US Midwest”in the January issue of Nature, describes how [...]

Chicken Waste Biofuel to Power Future Mazda Diesel Engines

Posted by Mila Luleva in Biodiesel on January 22, 2013

The new Mazda 6 “clean diesel” sedan will be displayed at the “Daytona International Speedway’s Rolex 24 endurance race”, which will take place next week. The makers have prepared to show three high-performance racing versions of the car, which run on specially made by the company ‘Dynamic Fuels’ renewable, synthetic diesel. The secret of Dynamic [...]

Algae Producing Fuel Through Photosynthesis With the Help of Engineering

Posted by Mila Luleva in Biodiesel on January 8, 2013

New species of blue-green algae was engineered by chemists at University of California, Davis. The aim of the team, led by assistant professor Shota Atsumi, was to find a replacement of petroleum and natural gas to produce chemical feedstock. The findings were published in the latest Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences. The unique study looked [...]

Biofuels Increase Air Pollution and Reduce Crop Yield, New Study Says

Posted by Mila Luleva in Biodiesel on January 7, 2013

According to a recent study, biofuels might increase air pollution and reduce crop yields. This is the conclusion that a team from Lancaster University, England, reported in the journal Nature Climate Change. The researchers looked into the impact of producing more biofuels as part of the scheme adopted by EU to tackle climate change. The [...]

Was it Fraud? How Biofuels Company “Earned” Millions from EPA Loophole

Posted by Benji Jerew in Biodiesel, Biogas, Green Policy on January 2, 2013

In June 2010, a CN Rail cargo train crossed the US / Canada border 24 times, earning some $2.6 million in transportation revenue. This statement, in itself, is probably not newsworthy, as cargo trains transport some 1.8 trillion tons of freight each year throughout North America. However, when you consider the cargo, which included tankers [...]

Gut of Western Australia Termites May Be Key in Biofuel Development

Posted by Leigh Kim in Biodiesel on December 28, 2012

Research completed by University of Western Australia honors student, Ghislaine Small, of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Planet Energy Biology has identified the gut of a Western Australia termite might be used in the development of biofuels. Small scoured Shenton Park and Perth Hills and analyzed the bacteria she found in their digestive systems. [...]

Global Alternative Energy Sector in a Depression Due to Natural Gas

Posted by Leigh Kim in Biodiesel, Energy news on December 20, 2012

The global alternative energy sector is in a depression. Alternative energy investments aren’t looking so good, and the private and public sectors around the world have lost billions of dollars. According to experts, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as it is called, is responsible for collapsing green energy initiatives globally because it has greatly reduced the price of [...]

Wood-to-Bio-oils Process Studied on Supercomputer

Posted by Benji Jerew in Biodiesel on December 17, 2012

Fossil fuels, including petroleum, coal, natural gas, and others, are essentially organic materials that have decomposed. Under pressure, heat, and time, and in an anaerobic, oxygen-free, environment, both animal and plant materials eventually are converted into high-carbon compounds that, for human beings anyway, make great hydrocarbon [HC] fuels. Carbon dioxide [CO2] was sequestered from the [...]

Photosynthetic Cyanobacteria Produces Sugar for Biofuel

Posted by Mila Luleva in Biodiesel on December 17, 2012

Sugar is one of the key elements involved in the production of ethanol and determining the cost of biofuels. A new initiative called Proterro, intends to produce ultra-cheap sugar by using photosynthetic microorganisms. Proterro raised $3.5 million in a financing round in addition to the previous $5 million. The photosynthetic cyanobacteria has been engineered to [...]

Princeton University Study Claims Synfuels Could Eliminate US Petroleum Needs

Posted by Benji Jerew in Biodiesel, Biogas, Green News on December 6, 2012

One of the goals of some synfuel programs is, not only to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions, but to reduce our dependency on foreign petroleum imports. This is also the main reason that vehicles are becoming more fuel efficient than ever, especially since the 1970s OPEC Oil Embargo, when US consumers and the government realized how vulnerable [...]

Garbage Bacteria May Cut Biofuel Production Costs

Posted by Janina Lazo in Biodiesel on December 1, 2012

A new species of bacterium, which was later named Caldanaerobius polysaccharolyticus, has been discovered in a garbage dump in Illinois that increases biofuel yield from plants by breaking down the hemicellulose, a major component of a plant’s cell wall that are not broken down by bacterial species currently used in biomass fermentation. One major challenge [...]

US Department of Energy Plans for the Future with Biofuel Projects

Posted by Leigh Kim in Biodiesel, Energy news on December 1, 2012

The Department of Energy has awarded $6.1 million to four biofuel-related energy technology projects, not least of which include engineered bioenergy crops and a molecular sieve for biofuel production. The DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) awarded funding to 66 different projects, all involving biofuel-related energy. The projects focus on a host of varied technologies, [...]

New Biomass Conversion Technique Achieved with Electricity

Posted by Leigh Kim in Biodiesel on December 1, 2012

In an effort to replace fossil fuels, a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Gwangiu Institute of Science and Technology has discovered a way to reverse the process of splitting fuel compounds to release electrons and protons which then generate electricity. Using an entirely different technique, the team obtained [...]

Study of Algae Critical for Researchers to Understand Photosynthesis

Posted by Leigh Kim in Biodiesel on November 30, 2012

73 researchers from 27 institutions, including the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), collaborated to sequence and analyze the genomes and transcriptomes (the expressed genes) of two minute algae. The ultimate goal was to understand secondary endosymbiosis, from which chloroplasts originally evolved, and why certain organisms contain nucleomorphs. The findings were published [...]