Bio-ethanol can be used as petrol supplementary and it will increase the octane number of petrol as it is added to the fuel. It will lead to the decrease of greenhouse fuel production.

Bio-ethanol will be manufactured from cellulose material including wood, paper, wheat wastes and sugarcane inside the country.   READ MORE

“We think the model will help policy makers and forest managers make informed decisions to maintain forest productivity while minimizing the environmental impact of managed forest plantations,” says Dr. Shiying Tian, a Postdoctoral Researcher at NC State, and lead author of a paper on the model, just released in the Journal Of Environmental Quality. “It also will help us understand how these forest systems will respond if we see changes in temperature or precipitation related to climate change,” says Dr. Mohamed Youssef, Assistant Professor of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at NC State, and co-author.

…The new model is timely, due to a number of emerging uses for forest land. One example, the national interest in identifying new means of growing biofuels crops, like switchgrass, by planting it in the space between trees in commercial forests. DRAINMOD-FOREST will help determine whether such an “inter-crop” method is viable and sustainable. Would it hinder tree growth? What would the environmental consequences be? “We could also use the model to determine the viability and environmental impact of introducing new commercial tree species,” Tian says.  READ MORE  Abstract

…What is it with Louisiana? It seems like at-scale renewable diesel projects have never found a a better home. There’s the Dynamic Fuels project – 75 million gallons in Geismar; the 137 million gallon Diamond Green Diesel project under construction in Norco, as a JV between Valero and Darling, and now this one, clocking in at 85 million gallons.

If and when all three are completed, that’s 297 million gallons of capacity in the one state.  …All three plants find themselves in the heavy shipping corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.  READ MORE and MORE (Emerald Biofuels) and MORE (Advanced Biofuels USA)

…The biomass components will be separated to produce a number of different products, including lignin. The cellulosic components will also be extracted and converted into ethanol, which can then be used as a biofuel.  READ MORE

It is widely accepted that one of the causes of detrimental climate change is the emission of greenhouse gasses such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane in to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.

Consequently, in recent years, scientific studies into the development of low-carbon technologies to meet our energy needs have become increasingly popular. Chris R. Somerville, F1000 Faculty Member and Philomathia Professor of Alternative Energy at the University of California, Berkeley, and Heather Youngs, a senior analysis fellow in the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley and Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry at Michigan Technological University, describe recent research into ways that the body of plants, rather than the seeds, can be improved for use in making next-generation biofuels, in an article published today in F1000 Biology Reports: Development of feedstocks for cellulosic biofuels.

In their article, Somerville and Youngs argue that advances in the technology used to produce and extract plant biomass to be burned directly or converted to liquid fuels may allow the expansion of productivity to a scale large enough to meet the demand for an estimated 30% of all liquid transportation fuels.

The article also addresses some of the concerns associated with the development of biofuels, in particular, that land used to grow plants for biofuels, means less land for other purposes. However, Somerville and Youngs point out that recent scientific advances raise the possibility that non-edible plants can be engineered or bred to grow on the approximately 600 million hectares of land worldwide on which agricultural production has been abandoned, and used to produce biofuels, without significant effects on food production or the ecosystem.

“Many of the concerns about the use of food crops for biofuels do not apply to the use of the inedible parts of plants that are the focus of our review”, said Chris R. Somerville said. He continued: “New dedicated energy crops are a particularly promising area of research.”

The expansion of biofuel production is a topic with complex economic, ecological, environmental and political concerns. Many advances in our understanding of how to produce biofuels sustainably are arising from interdisciplinary research. Many more will be needed to reach the scale required to reduce the environmental impacts of transportation in an acceptable manner.  READ MORE and MORE (USA Today) Abstract   PDF Report

George Stanko, President of CORE BioFuel, states: “We are very excited about working with Technip to provide the next step in our commercialization process, which is to complete the engineering for our first plant. Technip, as a leader in syngas plant design, is uniquely positioned to support CORE through the critical engineering phase of commercialization. One of the critical factors in our selection of the Technip team is their established working relationship with key component suppliers such as Air Products and Chemicals and Energy Products of Idaho (now Outotec). Both firms have agreements with CORE for development of production equipment.”

Technip is a world leader in project management, engineering and construction for the energy industry. From the deepest Subsea oil and gas developments to the largest and most complex Offshore and Onshore infrastructures, their 30,000 people are constantly offering the best solutions and most innovative technologies to meet the world’s energy challenges. Present in 48 countries, Technip has state-of-the-art industrial assets on all continents and operates a fleet of specialized vessels for pipeline installation and subsea construction. READ MORE

{SHIFT} Turning wood waste into bio-fuel helps industry find a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable energy source to complement traditional fuel

A new public-private partnership is set to drive revenue for the forest products industry in Northern Ontario. Montreal-based pulp and paper company Domtar is partnering with Battelle, an independent research and development specialist in Columbus, Ohio, to test a new technology that rapidly converts wood waste into crude bio-oil and gas.

The newly formed provincial Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy (CRIBE) is playing its part by providing up to $6-million in funding for the project. The chosen test site is Domtar’s mill operations in Dryden, Ontario.

Known as fast pyrolysis, the technology applies heat without the use of oxygen to convert the biomass – in this case rejected wood chips.

…“This has been specifically developed for small scale, distributed implementation. We’re not trying to mirror the petroleum industry here. Rather, we are looking at the economic advantages of collocating smaller systems with nearby biomass sources. Because it is small, it can easily be deployed in combination with other activities, so you don’t have to drag materials great distances for processing.”  READ MORE

…Founded in 2007, Virdia has developed a proprietary CASE process, which converts cellulosic biomass to high-quality fermentable sugars and lignin, and is based on a series of patented and patent-pending technologies. Applications for the sugars range from renewable fuels and fuel intermediates, renewable chemicals and materials, and nutritional additives for the animal feed industry. The high quality lignin in dry or soluble forms has proven to be a valuable feedstock for plant-based plastics and other thermo-chemical transformations. Virdia’s sugars are already being tested for use in several industries—most recently by Virent as a feedstock for high-performance drop-in jet fuels. READ MORE and MORE (DomesticFuel.com)

The biofuel suppliers and nature of the technology each will use was not revealed.

(Lufthansa & algae discussed separately below) It was explained, that both buyer and seller have agreed that price of the fuel will be on a down sliding scale in recognition that costs will drop as fuel production quantities and experience increase.

At the least, this news suggests that biofuels suitable for use in aircraft have proved satisfactory from numerous in-flight tests by many airlines and that fuel production technology has reached the stage of proof that it is on target for commercial production at scale.

…An interesting sidelight to the KiOR operation is a recent statement by its highly successful venture capitalist developer, Vinod Khosla. Mr. Khosla has suggested that many of the nearly 100 paper mills now out of business in the Southern soft wood area could be retro fitted on a cost effective basis for production of bio fuel since wood gathering, intake and initial wood processing capabilities are already in place. Experienced labor from the paper mill days apparently remain available. READ MORE  and MORE