Lite Initiatives

Posts Tagged ‘Biofuels’

As known as Oilgae as well, is being considered to be the third generation biofuel. Its production is low cost and high yield, almost 30 times more energy production per acre as compared to the land required by other conventional feedstock to produce biofuels. At present researches are being conducted by Alga culture (farming Algae) to produce different fuels to harvest for making vegetable oil, biodiesel, bioethanol, biomethanol, biobutanol and other biofuels and it seems if the methodology is sustainable than other available biofuels then using algae to produce bio diesel would be the only viable method to replace the need of gasoline used for automotive today.

Biofuels are considered to be the best way to reduce green house gas emissions and alternate to the pollutant fossil fuels. But recently, according to Nobel Laureate Paul Cortzen findings, some of the most commonly used biofuels Bioethanol from corn and bio diesel from rapeseed releases Nitrous Oxide (N2O) is contributing much more to the global warming than the fossil fuels are contributing right now. Processing of biofuel form algae has been tested that it captures large amounts of CO2 and N2O available in the atmosphere( 40% in a course of full day and 80% in sunny days) and an acre of algae can produce enough oil to make 5,000 gallons of biodiesel in a year.

According to my point of view biodiesel and bio ethanol from rapeseed and corn is not only adding to global warming but economically it cannot be sustainable because its one of the main sources of edible oil. Ethanol demand can threaten the food prices. A recent study conducted by Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University reveled that considering the high-price crude oil scenario, U.S. ethanol production could reach 30 billion gallons by 2016, consuming more than half of U.S. corn, wheat and other coarse grain production and triggering higher meat prices for consumers, reduced production across-the-board for all segments of the meat sector, and even greater reductions in grain and meat exports. Taking in review the sustainability and economic factor biofuel from Alga culture seems to be most promising fuel for future.

Incoming search terms:

• biof download for lenovo laptop (1)
• thrid generation biofuel (1)

The US is the second largest producer of biodiesel in the world, producing 17.7% of the world’s biodiesel in 2009. The biodiesel market in the US is expected to reach 2,822 million liters in 2010 and 3,662 million liters in 2015. The US biodiesel market is driven by the US’ desire to achieve greater energy independence and security. The country depends heavily on imports to fulfill its transportation and industrial fuel requirements. The US is currently importing about 65% of its oil consumption and this figure is expected to increase even further. This dependence on imported oil can be reduced by increasing the production and use of domestically produced biofuels. The biodiesel industry in the US is very young and is gradually picking up speed due to large financial incentives at the federal as well as the state level. The biofuel production in the US was around 37,403 million liters in 2009. Of this, 92.5% was bioethanol and the remaining 7.5% was biodiesel.

The US ethanol industry has also seen an unprecedented expansion due to its favorable market conditions and supportive policy incentives. The federal renewable fuels standard (RFS) has helped the expansion of the US ethanol industry by setting goals for the production of renewable fuels. Seven states (Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Missouri and Washington) have enacted renewable fuel standards that require the use of ethanol-blended fuel. Currently, there are around 200 ethanol plants in the US with a production capacity of more than 48,000 million liters. The country’s bioethanol production increased from 7,080 million liters in 2001 to more than 34,609 million liters by the year 2009, at the CAGR of 20.4% during 2001-2009. Further during 2009-2015, bioethanol production growth in the US is likely to come down to 2% and the production is likely to be around 38,924 million liters by the year 2015.

This analysis was taken from a research paper published by GlobalData, to download the full Research Paper for free, click below:

http://www.researchviews.com/energy/clean-technology/biofuels/Viewpoints.aspx?sector=Biofuels&DocID=10674

Access the latest Biofuels analysis for free at www.researchviews.com

About ResearchViews.com

ResearchViews is your number one portal for industry related news, research, analysis and deals data. ResearchViews offers up to the minute content produced by an expert team of industry analysts.

All content on the site is free to view and allows users to keep up to date with the latest developments in their chosen industry. Free daily and weekly newsletters provide a snapshot of the major issues affecting the industry. The site also features a research store, providing the user with access to premium business intelligence from some of the world’s leading market research publishers

Iraq’s Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has announced approval for an agricultural project that will develop biofuel from rotting dates.

According to Reuters, “Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves but its crumbling farm sector, which has suffered from decades of sanctions, isolation and war, is the country’s leading employer.”

The dates-to-biofuel program, being developed by an unnamed company based in the United Arab Emirates, is seen as a way to encourage growth in the farming sector which Iraqi officials hope will ultimately lead to greater agricultural productivity.

Iraqi officials also hope it will reinvigorate their once vibrant date export industry. The country, which produced 900,000 tons of dates prior to the U.S. invasion, now produces only 350,000 tons. By giving farmers a way to profit from dates that are starting to rot, they help to minimize the risk.

And the oil rich country plans to use the biofuel domestically at first, with the possibility of future export.

In another oil exporting country, Oman, Oman Green Energy Company (OGEC), has been testing the development of biofuel from the date palm for some years. In the case of OGEC, they claim to use cellulosic biomass extracted from around the date palms and in a way that doesn’t interfere with the date crop.

In a 2008 study, desert dates were also found to be an excellent source of biofuel stock, especially for arid regions. The study focused particularly on the Arava desert in Israel and its potential to develop cost-effective biodiesel production.

While biodiesel production in oil poor Israel makes sense, biofuels might be seen as a gamble in a country like Oman which exports 700,000 barrels of oil a day, and derives 90% of its export revenue from oil.  Likewise a biofuel program in Iraq, where the country’s financial stability has been put in the hands of its oil industry, may seem out of place. And yet, biofuels are seen as delivering additional value. In Iraq, they may be the key to bringing back a devastated agricultural sector.

In recent years there has been a lot of interest in renewable and alternative energy sources. This has seemingly become an even bigger issue in the wake of the Japanese nuclear crisis, where the nuclear plant at Fukushima was damaged by the earthquake and resultant tsunami on March 11th. There is now a real danger that harmful radiation could escape from the site. People have always been uncertain of the safety of utilising nuclear power and such a scare only serves to heighten their concerns. That is why increasingly people are looking for alternatives. One such alternative is the use of biofuels.

What are Biofuels?

The term ‘biofuel’ refers to a broad range of fuels that are created from ‘biomass’ (see below). Biofuels are often used as an additive rather than as a ‘pure’ fuel. Bioethanol is an example of this. It is an alcohol created by fermenting the sugar components of plant materials and whilst ethanol can be used as a fuel for cars in its purest form, it is normally added to petrol to improve the emissions from the vehicle and increase octane.

Ok, so what is Biomass?

Biomass is a renewable energy source. It refers specifically to biomaterials from living organisms and recently living organisms – examples of which are wood, waste and alcohol fuels. There are actually several different sources of biomass energy, so in addition to the three just mentioned, there are: garbage and landfill gases. There are a few different mechanisms by which biomass can be converted to energy:

Thermal Conversion

This involves the use of heat in order to convert biomass into an alternative chemical form. There are different forms of thermal conversion – two examples of which are torrefaction and pyrolysis.

Chemical Conversion

This is quite simply where a range of chemical processes are used in order to convert biomass to alternative forms.

Biochemical Conversion

This involves harnessing the power of naturally occurring biochemical conversion processes. Microorganisms are used to break down biomass – Anaerobic Digestion is an example of this.

Biogas

Biogas is a type of biofuel that is produced by anaerobic digestion or fermentation of biodegradable materials, including biomass. Biodegradable waste can, for example, be converted to methane – which is a renewable energy source.

So are Biofuels the answer?

It remains to be seen whether or not biofuels are a long term solution to the problems surrounding the energy industry. There are certainly discussions to be had about the impact that the production of biofuels has on carbon emissions and biodiversity, but these are certainly not the only issues.

6 reasons to use biofuels.

Biofuels is a nickname to renewable fuels from biological source, that can replace fuels that come from fossil fuels like gasoline and diesel. It is now possible to purchase or make yourself biodiesel for diesel engines or ethanol for gasoline engines. The prices are becoming closer to those of fossil fuels and there are many benefit to it. Here I’ll count 7 benefits of biofuels:

1. Availability – It is renewable. Unlike fossil fuels, biofuels can be easily produced from raw agricultural materials. These facts ensure that the reservoir of fuel will never end, and that we can keep producing it, like we produce our food.

2. Price – since the reservoir is virtually unlimited, we can assure that as time goes by, the oil prices will increase duo to the increase in demand/production ratio, while the biofuels prices will decrease duo to the progress in agriculture science and techniques. In a few years from now, it is almost certain that biofuels prices will be much lower than fossil fuels, so the sooner you start using it, the better.

3. Independence –Biofuelsare easy to produce, and propose a new prospect to fuel consumers – unlike today’s when huge company controls the fuel industry and supply, making the small consumer a slave to their will, biofuels will allow individuals and small manufacturer to get into this business and increase the competition. This is good both to the manufacturers and to the clients.

4. Healthier – biodiesel and ethanol are much safer than biofuels – they are much better to the environment, and have a great implication regarding global warming and air quality. If you care about the air that you and your children are breathing, you must take it under consideration.

5. Better to the engine. Biofuels are not only healthier to the environment, but also much better to the engines. Much research done by the automobile industry shows that biodiesel and ethanol increase the efficiency of the engine and it life span.

6. Have good political implications. At present, oil producing countries enclose a huge power in their hands, allowing them to take advantage of their power to harm other countries, and jeopardise world peace. Crossing to a different fuel source will dramatically reduce the pressure of oil deficiency, allowing many suppressed countries to flourish.

I hope that these reasons will capture your attention, to do something in that direction, making the world a better place to everyone.

Incoming search terms:

• 6 reasons why we use biofuels (1)

Biofuels from Engineered Tobacco Plants?

A biofuel is tricky to define because the usual fossil fuel we use, is in a way biofuel too. But we can safely say that most of the biofuels don’t add up their quota of carbon dioxide to the environment. The biofuels are therefore considered to be “CO2 neutral.” Researchers from the Biotechnology lenovo thinkpad x61 battery Foundation Laboratories at Thomas Jefferson University have developed a new method to increase the quantity of oil in tobacco leaves. So that oil in tobacco leaves can be utilized as biofuels in future. Their paper was published in Plant Biotechnology Journal which is an online journal.

Vyacheslav Andrianov is a Ph.D. and assistant professor of Cancer Biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. According to him tobacco can produce biofuel more efficiently than other agricultural crops. But there is a hitch. When we try to extract oil lenovo ideapad y430 battery, most of it is available in tobacco seeds. Statistics say that tobacco seeds are composed of about 40 percent oil per dry weight. Another snag is tobacco plants don’t produce seeds in copious amounts. It is about 600 kg of seeds per acre. Dr. Andrianov and his colleagues aim to find ways so that the tobacco leaves produce more oil.

A usual tobacco plant leave has 1.7 percent to 4 percent of oil per dry weight. The researchers modified two genes of the plant. They are the diacyglycerol acytransferase (DGAT) gene or the LEAFY COTYLEDON 2 (LEC2) gene. The plants were engineered to over express one of the two genes. The alteration of DGAT gene resulted in about 5.8 percent of oil per dry weight in the leaves. It is around twice the amount of oil produced by and large. When the researcher went for the LEC2 gene modification it yielded around 6.8 percent of oil per dry weight.

According to Dr. Andrianov, “Tobacco is very attractive as a biofuel because the idea is to use plants that aren’t used in food production. We have found ways to genetically engineer the plants so that their leaves express more oil. In some instances, the modified plants produced 20-fold more oil in the leaves.”

Dr. Andrianov opines, “Based on these data, tobacco represents an attractive and promising ‘energy plant’ platform, and could also serve as a model for toshiba satellite a215 battery the utilization of other high-biomass plants for biofuel production.”

As the global economy spirals into economic depression and fuel prices fluctuate wildly, many average Americans are starting to take notice of a need for change.  The current administration was elected on a campaign of change, and we are hopeful that a greener, more sustainable source of fuel and power is truly an objective.  The U.S. dependency on foreign oil is a source of many violent conflicts, and the pollution emitted by our heavy use of fossil fuels is contributing largely to global warming as well as environmental pollution that is impacting the health of our families.  The capability to wean ourselves off of fossil fuels exists, as biofuels are a green and sustainable alternative, but their use has never been implemented on a large scale in the United States.  Perhaps the new administration can recognize that this is about more than saving money or creating new jobs, and is the only way to create a sustainable future.

Usually a pioneer in new technologies, the United States is far behind when it comes to the use of biofuels.  Much of Europe uses these biofuels, with many countries generating at least a quarter of their heat from this source.  Sweden heats over thirty five percent of homes, businesses, and other buildings using biofuels and operates boilers that work at an astounding ninety percent efficiency.  When considering the large strides taken by so many other nations, it is hard to comprehend why we have not taken similar measures.

Political motive aside, however, it is rapidly becoming common knowledge that we must wean ourselves from fossil fuels and biofuel is by far the most commonly accepted alternative.  Safe, clean, and sustainable, biofuel can be used in existing systems with only minor alterations, making it a cheaper and more fluid transition for the millions of Americans who would need to upgrade automobiles and heating systems.  The question is not whether we need to wean ourselves from this dependence, but rather how to go about making the change.

Many public transportation systems and college transport vehicles have already made the change to biofuel.  While this is only a small step, it shows the public that biofuel is reliable and effective without causing need for fossil fuels.  The consumer market, however, seems to be easier to convince than many in the energy production industry.  Many facilities seem to ignore the concept altogether, even as emissions standards change in an attempt to create new methods of energy production.  Tax incentives for consumers offer great encouragement in a struggling economy, but the idea is only sustainable if there is a constant and easily accessible source of biofuel in every area of the nation, presenting problems for early adopters of the new technology.

The attempted weaning of the United States from fossil fuels to biofuels will need to undergo a shift in its targets to be largely successful.  While attempts to start with consumers and end users have been moderately successful, it is industrialists, businesses, and energy producers that must be encouraged to begin implementing the fuel en masse, creating a viable market and the consensus among consumers that the fuel will be available universally.  When this is achieved, the consumer market will be much more receptive to a cheaper and cleaner source of fuel.

Incoming search terms:

• 2011 off of fossil fuels (1)
• how to wean ourselves off fossil fuel (1)
• other way to wean fossile fuels (1)

<!– @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } A:link { so-language: zxx } –>

Homes and businesses are not the only establishments upon which to apply the technologies of alternative energy. The environment can also benefit through the use of renewable energy in vehicles, most often in the form of biofuels. Australia has studied the advantages of biofuels and the impact the industry has on the country.

Currently, there is a general consensus amongst the public that there is a deficient supply of vehicles compatible with E10 fuel. E10 refers to blends of fuels containing 90% unleaded petrol and 10% ethanol. According to Heather Brodie, CEO of the Biofuels Association of Australia, the misconception by many citizens in Australia that too few cars exist which are compatible with E10 is that they are unaware that the most of the vehicles manufactured in Australia are compatible with E10 fuel and the majority of imported vehicles are as well.

It is possible that the public is unaware of this due to Australia’s somewhat slow start in embracing other forms of renewable energy. Biofuels have been used for a number of years in places such as the US, Europe, and Asia, so the technology is proven. Australia has been on board with biofuels for awhile now, but the citizens still remember the times when it was not readily available and the compatible vehicles were in the developmental stages. Ms. Brodie compares the reluctance to accept biofuels as a viable energy source to a time when unleaded petroleum fuels were shunned in favor of super blends. She claims that it is just a matter of getting used to a new method of powering our vehicles.

Australia currently maintains three commercial ethanol plants. All of them are located on the east coast of the country. Although biofuel technology has been utilized for decades, there are still growing pains as far as public perception and expansion of use; therefore, E10 is most readily available near its points of production. In order to encourage biofuel production to spread to other areas of Australia, Federal Government exempts domestically produced ethanol from excise tax until July of 2011. Additionally, Premiers in New South Wales and Queensland have debated the requirement that all petrol fuel be blended with ethanol in these states.

As with any renewable energy source, there will be skepticism toward biofuel because it is a relatively new technology. People tend to fear change, but biofuels are a change for the better, in Australia and the rest of the world.

Incoming search terms:

• Hybrid Cars Au (1)