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Directory:Biofuels

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Directory of resourses related to the process of converting organic-based matter into burnable fuel as a replacement for fossil fuel.

Considering the fuel costs involved in farming, is not the concept of biofuels somewhat contradictory? Yes, the final product may have chemically derived from a plant-based origin, but how much "fossil" fuel is consumed in the process of creating each gallon of biofuel?

For this reason, programs that recycle/convert already existing pre-cursors into fuel seem the most plausible, such as griesel or biomass.

Contents

Fast Facts

Almost all of the arable land on Earth would need to be covered with the fastest-growing known energy crops, such as switchgrass, to produce the amount of energy currently consumed from fossil fuels annually. (U.S. DOE (176-page PDF))

Events

  • Featured: Events > Algae / Biofuels >
    Event:Algae Biofuels World Summit 2009 - San Francisco, California on March 18-20, 2009. The Algae Biofuels World Summit will be a major event where the nascent algae biofuels community will come together to discuss how to build a new international industry. (PESWiki)
  • The 2nd Biofuels International Expo & Conference - May 27-28, 2009 at the Beurs van Berlage, in central Amsterdam, Netherlands. Bringing together medium to large biofuels producers, investors, regulators, project owners and equipment/service providers to discuss how to fight the critics and drive the European market forward.

Wishful Thinking

  • Major Biofuel Projects Around the World - List of some existing or planned biofuel projects around the world, including U.S., Malaysia, Brazil, Austria, Spain, France, U.K., Saudi Arabia. (Reuters; June 8, 2005)
  • Rising Use of Biofuel may drag Crude Prices below US$ 40 per Barrel - Rising supplies of biofuel are shaving demand growth of traditional auto fuels. With the increasing popularity of fuels & additives derived from soybean, corn, oilseed, and sugarcane, money is likely to switch from oil futures on New York Mercantile Exchange to Chicago's grain futures market. (RNCOS; Jan. 8, 2007)
  • Farm-Grown Biofuels Look to Siphon Oil Demand - Homegrown crops offer consuming nations the opportunity to cut hefty oil import bills, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and revitalise agricultural incomes. (Reuters; June 8, 2005)

Open Source

Projects

Types of Biofuel Sources

  • Enkoco Greengold Vegie Fuel - Three decades of research and field innovations supersedes petroleum-based fuels as Garcialen as a gasoline substitute and Medesel as a diesel substitute. Made in the Philippines. (Enkoco; March 4, 2009)
  • Air New Zealand tests biofuel Boeing - Air New Zealand, along with Boeing, Rolls-Royce, and Honeywell, retooled one of the four Rolls-Royce RB211 engines on a Boeing 747-400 to run on an unusually fruity blend of half Jet A1 fuel and half jatropha oil, according to Air New Zealand. Jatropha has been used in making biodiesel for cars and trucks, but this is one of the first known attempts to use it as a biofuel in a commercial-size airplane. (CNet News; Jan. 2, 2009)
  • Biodiesel >
    Flower Power: Run Your Ride on a Wild Weed - What makes stinkweed different than the plethora of other world-saving, game-changing biofuels that came before it, is farmers can't help but grow it. When executives from Innovation Fuels asked farmer Brian Ziehm about growing an acre of stinkweed on his property, he was dumbfounded. "It was like, 'What the heck? I've been trying to get rid of these things for 30 years. Now you want me to plant them?" (Wired; Sept. 16, 2008)
  • Oil Seed Rape Grown For Biofuel Can Help Clean Up Toxic Soils - Using plants to help clean up heavily polluted soils has been successfully tested for many years and shown to be a cheap and environmentally friendly way to clear heavy metals such as arsenic, copper, zinc and chromium from contaminated land. Researchers in Ireland are combining heavy metal tolerant bacteria with plants used to make biofuels such as oil seed rape. (ScienceDaily; Sept. 10, 2008)
  • Camelina sativa - Being grown by Targeted Growth, it is high in Omega-3 fatty acids (45%) and is being used as a "marginal ground" crop being optimized for human and biofuel consumption and categorized as a "functional food".
  • The fuel of the future? Say 'cheese' - Wisconsin entrepreneur Joe Van Groll's company, Grand Meadow Energy LLC, produces both ethanol and bio-diesel from waste from surrounding cheese plants and raw canola oil from a nearby farm. (FDL Reporter; Nov. 4, 2007)
  • China Develops Technology To Generate Power from Grass - One kilogram of English cordgrass, an overgrowing burden since its introduction into China in the 1970s, can produce two cubic meters of flammable gas, which can generate one kilowatt-hour of electricity. All 3.3 million hectares of English cordgrass could produce 75 billion kw-h. (Sci-Tech Today; Dec. 27, 2005)
  • Honduras Taps Biodiesel From Fish Guts - A fish farm in El Borboton, is using fish guts--heads, skins, and internal organs--to produce biodiesel. Instead of dumping what's left after filleting for commercial sale, Saint Peter's cooks the parts down to produce 300,000 gallons of fish oil fuel. (TreeHugger; July 31, 2007)
  • Cannabis Hemp as a Global Warming Solution - Proponents argue that easily grown and robust Cannabis Hemp is one of the best if not the very best plants overall for fuel, building supplies, medicine, fiber, food, paper, and substitute for wood. Some go so far as to argue that it could be the best solution to global warming. (PESWiki; Feb. 28, 2008)
  • Sweet sorghum, clean miracle crop for feed and fuel - The hardy sweet sorghum plant could be the miracle crop that provides cheap animal feed and fuel without straining the world's food supply or harming the environment, said scientists working on a pilot farming project in India. (Physorg; May 13, 2008)
  • Switch Grass - A perennial and has a huge biomass output, the raw plant material used to make biofuel, of 6-10 tons per acre, starting to be produced near Guymon, OK.

Companies

3.16 Minutes Vertical Algae biofuel Growing
Valcent's own video of Vertigro. (You Tube Feb. 1, 2008)

  • BioHeat - Blend of heating oil and biodiesel.
  • Green World Biofuels - Exists to assist farmers, cooperatives, schools, small businesses and individuals to establish small scale local production of biodiesel based on locally available resources.The Ester Machine is a complete biodiesel production system that enables the operator to turn used fryer or virgin vegetable oils into high quality finished fuel.
  • Vaperma - With its innovative Siftek™ membrane technology in hand, Vaperma looks to revolutionize the biofuels industry by creating a unique membrane for the purification (dewatering) of syngas - a 99%-pure ethanol product with energy saving up to 40%. It has teamed with Greenfield Ethanol in Canada to prove it and Dedini in Brazil (ethanol equipment provider) to promote it. (submitted by Vaperma; March 4, 2008)
  • GreenShift's CO2 Bioreactor - Patented process uses algae to consume greenhouse gas emissions from fossil-fueled power plants, giving off pure oxygen and water vapor. Light from concentrated solar panels is conducted into the algae chambers via fiber optics. Once the algae grows to maturity, it is harvested for conversion into ethanol and biodiesel fuels. (PESWiki; Feb. 28, 2008)
  • 200 Tons/Day BioOil Plant Engineering Completed - DynaMotive and Tecna's joint modular plant will generate energy from abundant organic resources traditionally discarded by the agricultural and forest industries. To be deployed in Canada and internationally. (PESN; June 10, 2005)
  • Running on vegetable oil? - It’s a simple recipe: Mix 10 gallons of vegetable oil with 10 gallons of diesel fuel... Might not work in all diesels. (News Advance; June 24)
  • 2005 Tour de Sol skirts 100 mpg - Over 60 hybrid, electric and biofuel vehicles from throughout the U.S. and Canada demonstrated that we have the technology today to power our transportation system with zero-oil consumption and zero climate-change emissions. (PESN; May 22, 2005)
  • Powering society with biofuels - U. of Minnesota professor pushing for a National Center for Biofuels Research, to become a national center for biocatalysis — turning renewable resources such as farm and forest products into biofuels. (Minnesota Daily; March 9)
  • From Grease to Fuel - A $500,000 project to rebuild the Iowa Energy Center's 7-year-old biodiesel pilot plant is nearly complete. The Iowa State University-based energy center will help the biodiesel industry learn to use animal fats to produce biodiesel. (NewsWise; July 7, 2005)
  • Wal-Mart Deploys Solar, Wind, Sustainable Design - New store outside of Dallas, Texas could revolutionize how leading world retailer builds and powers their stores. Experimental design combines a host of renewable energy technologies including numerous solar PV arrays, two, small wind turbines, a bio-fuel boiler to recycle and burn recovered oil from store operations and a nearly endless list of energy-saving and sustainable design principles. (Renewable Energy Access; July 22, 2005)

Government and Politics

  • For UN, Brazil's Biofuel Model is a Win, Win, Win Strategy - "Agroenergy and biofuels represent a shift in paradigms, a coming together of different people, setting new guidelines for sustainable development and peace promotion," said Roberto Rodrigues, president of the Superior Agribusiness Council at the Federation of Industries of the State of São Paulo (Fiesp) and former Brazilian minister of Agriculture, while attending the "International Conference on Biofuels" Nov. 19-21, 2008. Video (Brazzil Magazine; Nov. 20, 2008)


  • Biofuel industry lashes out at "misleading" OPEC claims - An open letter to Opec president Chakib Khelil signed by biofuel trade bodies from Europe, the US, Canada and Brazil argues that his recent claim that "the intrusion of bioethanol in the market" is responsible for 40 per cent of the rise in world oil prices is both "self-serving and misleading". (BusinessGreen; July 17, 2008)

Research & Development

See Research and Development

Cautions

See Cautions

Humor

  • Human-Powered >
    NatGeo Bus Powered by Passengers - The bussing authority in Atlanta in conjunction with NatGeo, a global biofuel research group, has been experimenting with a new approach to powering their bus fleet with the passengers that board the bus. Passengers enter through the jaws and exit through the tail pipe. (Free Energy News; April 1, 2009)
Coop de Ville?

Close to Home; July 25, 2005
With permission from John McPherson


  • Biofuel On-the-Go - Indian taxi driver grows his own biofuel on the fly. Clippings-catcher on lawn mower in the trunk is directed to an on-board biodiesel maker. Between passengers, driver cuts enough genetically-modified super-fast-growing grass to fuel the next stint. (HempNext; April 1, 2008)

In the News

  • Going green: Entire Swedish city switches to biofuels to become environmentally friendly - Kalmar Sweden and its surrounding 12-town region, with a quarter-million people, has traded in most of its oil, gas and electric furnaces for community "district heat," produced at plants that burn sawdust and wood waste left by timber companies. Hydropower, nuclear power and windmills now provide more than 90 percent of the region's electricity. (Chicago Tribune; March 9, 2009)
  • Biofuel Market Set To Grow 1,000% - “Agro-fuel" has suddenly become competitive with oil, catapulting it from a backyard business into a global economic phenomenon. Bio-fuels are capturing about $23 billion of the $1.3 trillion spent each year to power vehicles. That’s just two percent of the market, with an astounding 98 percent upside. (EarthToys; October issue, 2008)

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