Multi-tasking Could be Key for Algae-to-Diesel Ops

John Davis

algaesystemsA company from Nevada thinks it has found a way to make a profit turning algae into renewable diesel: multi-tasking. This article from the New York Times says Algae Systems, which has a pilot plant in Alabama, believes it will be able to turn a profit by doing several other things while turning the algae oil into a usable fuel, namely, making clean water from municipal sewage, using the carbon-heavy residue as fertilizer and generating valuable credits for advanced biofuels.

“We think it is a really elegant solution,” said Matt Atwood, the chief executive. At its heart is a “hydrothermal liquefaction” system that heats the algae and other solids in the sewage to more than 550 degrees Fahrenheit, at 3,000 pounds per square inch, turning out a liquid that resembles crude oil from a well.

The company sent the liquid to Auburn University, where scientists added hydrogen (a common step in oil refining) to produce diesel fuel. An independent laboratory, Intertek, confirmed that the diesel fuel met industry specifications. The thermal processing has caught the attention of independent scientists. The Department of Energy recently awarded a $4 million grant to a partnership led by SRI International for further work on Algae Systems’ hydrothermal processing system.

Engineers hope the system could dispose of a variety of unwanted or hazardous materials. It also destroys pathogens in sewage.

Developers of the high-temperature processing technology say this method is much less energy intensive than more commonly used practices that dried out the algae and broke down the cell walls to separate the oil from the microbes.

algae, Biodiesel

PERC Updates Brand, Logo

Joanna Schroeder

Propane logoThe Propane Education & Research Council (PERC) has updated its brand identity for propane: PROPANE Clean American Energy. In addition, they have revealed a new logo. According to PERC President and CEO Roy Willis, the logo highlights propane as an American-made alternative fuel at a time when U.S. propane production from natural gas liquids is at record levels. He also said the change puts a spotlight on recent investments by the propane industry in new technologies.

“We hope PROPANE Clean American Energy will increase consideration of propane as a clean, affordable, and American-made alternative to conventional fuels among fleets, commercial landscapers, contractors, producers, and homeowners,” said Willis. “Increasing domestic demand for propane in the U.S. will ultimately lead to cleaner air and increased use of our nation’s own energy resources, rather than relying on foreign oil.”

The new logo and tagline will be used in all PERC-produced materials and will be made available free of charge to propane providers and OEM partners. The new logo will also replace the previous mark used by thousands of propane retailers nationwide on signs, delivery vehicles, equipment, websites, and literature. In addition, the new logo will be featured in the organization’s new multimedia safety campaign to encourage agribusiness operators and residential propane heating customers to fill up in advance of the winter season.

Willis added, “America makes more than enough propane to meet U.S. demand. As PERC rolls out this important safety campaign and new branding identity, the propane industry is prepared to meet the needs of a changing energy economy.”

Agribusiness, Alternative energy, Propane

Neste’s Renewable Diesel Keeps Summer Festivals Green

John Davis

Nestefestival1While summer rains this year might be keeping lawns green, a renewable diesel maker in Finland says its fuel is keeping summer festivals ecologically green. This news release from Neste Oil says its NEXBTL renewable diesel helped generate electricity at the Flow Festival in Helsinki and the Neste Oil Rally Helsinki Battle street circuit race.

NEXBTL diesel generated 45% of the electricity used at the Flow Festival and powered the machinery at the festival site. Using the fuel resulted in a 22 ton reduction in emissions, equivalent in emission terms to nearly three round-the-world flights.

“Using Neste Oil’s renewable diesel to generate electricity offered us an excellent way to reduce our carbon footprint,” says Flow’s Production Manager, Emilia Mikkola.

“NEXBTL diesel has proved itself an excellent fuel for generating electricity, as it has in other areas,” according to Kaisa Hietala, Neste Oil’s Executive Vice President, Renewable Products. “When used to power on-site generator sets, the premium quality of the fuel and its purity cut exhaust emissions and eliminate the odor associated with conventional diesel.”

This isn’t the first time Neste’s renewable diesel kept the party going during a summer event. Last year, NEXBTL diesel was used to generate electricity at the Down By The Laituri Festival in Turku and the Tall Ships Races Helsinki event.

Biodiesel, International

Calif. Gets First Anaerobic Digester to Turn Manure into Biogas

John Davis

DVOdigester1California gets its first anaerobic digester that will turn manure from a dairy farm into biogas. Wisconsin-based DVO, Inc. announced it has nearly completed work on the anaerobic digester scheduled to open at Calgren Renewable Fuels on September 30, 2014 in Pixley, Calif.

The DVO anaerobic digester, built by Andgar of Ferndale, Washington, is designed to hold approximately 1,400,000 gallons of manure and organic waste. Each day, the digester will receive 55,000 gallons of solid and liquid waste from Four J Farm Dairy, a nearby dairy farm with approximately 2,000 head of cattle.

Biogas, one of the many valuable byproducts of the anaerobic digestion process, will replace thousands of gallons of natural gas currently being used by the Calgren on-site cogeneration facility to produce 55 million gallons of ethanol each year.

Biosolids, another beneficial byproduct of anaerobic digestion, will be sent back to Four J Farm Dairy to be used as a high-quality and low pathogen count cattle bedding. Liquid nutrients from the digestion process will also make its way back to the farm to fertilize growing crops.

DVO officials say the digester will reduce farm waste greenhouse gas emissions by more than 90 percent, while also cutting down on pathogens and odors.

biogas

Researchers Help ID Non-Invasive Species for Biofuel

John Davis

pennycressWith a host of new plants being discovered for their biofuel-producing qualities, everyone wants to make sure what is being grown doesn’t become a destructive invasive plant. To that end, researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a set of regulatory definitions and provisions and a list of 49 low-risk biofuel plants that growers can choose.

Lauren Quinn, an invasive plant ecologist at U of I’s Energy Biosciences Institute, recognized that most of the news about invasive biofuel crops was negative and offered few low-risk alternatives to producers. She and her colleagues set out to create a list of low-risk biofuel crops that can be safely grown for conversion to ethanol but realized in the process that regulations were needed to instill checks and balances in the system.

“There are not a lot of existing regulations that would prevent the planting of potentially invasive species at the state or federal levels. For example, there are currently only four states (Florida, Mississippi, Oregon, and Maryland) that have any laws relating to how bioenergy crops can be grown and that include any language about invasive species—and, for the most part, when those words do appear, they are either not defined or poorly defined,” said Quinn.

In approving new biofuel products, Quinn said that the EPA doesn’t formally consider invasiveness at all – just greenhouse gas emissions related to their production. “Last summer, the EPA approved two known invaders, Arundo donax (giant reed) and Pennisetum purpurem (napier grass), despite public criticism,” added U of I professor of agricultural law A. Bryan Endres, who co-authored the research to define legislative language for potentially invasive bioenergy feedstocks.

One of the issues the researchers tackled first was defining an invasive specie as “a population exhibiting a net negative impact or harm to the target ecosystem.” Once that definition was in place, they were able to put together guidelines that are simple for regulators to understand. Quinn hopes the definitions and suggested regulations could become part of a revised Renewable Fuels Standard administered by EPA.

Some of the feedstocks of concern include pennycress, which has a high risk for invasion, jatropha and some Miscanthus species.

biofuels

Solar Cells You Can See Through

Joanna Schroeder

Did you know that you can have the best of both worlds? Solar energy and a view. A team of researchers as Michigan State University (MSU) have done just this- developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window, creates energy but doesn’t block the view. It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a clear surface.

MSU Solar Concentrator ModuleThe key word here is “transparent” according to Richard Lunt of MSU’s College of Engineering.

While research in this arena is not new, the results were poor as the energy production was low and inefficient and the materials were colored thereby blocking the view below the solar cell. The MSU solar harvesting system uses small organic molecules developed by Lunt and his team to absorb specific nonvisible wavelengths of sunlight better than its predecessors.

“No one wants to sit behind colored glass,” said Lunt, an assistant professor of chemical engineering and materials science. “It makes for a very colorful environment, like working in a disco. We take an approach where we actually make the luminescent active layer itself transparent. We can tune these materials to pick up just the ultraviolet and the near infrared wavelengths that then ‘glow’ at another wavelength in the infrared.”

The “glowing” infrared light is guided to the edge of the plastic where it is converted to electricity by thin strips of photovoltaic solar cells. “Because the materials do not absorb or emit light in the visible spectrum, they look exceptionally transparent to the human eye,” Lunt said.

One of the benefits of this new development is its flexibility. While the technology is at an early stage, it has the potential to be scaled to commercial or industrial applications with an affordable cost. Lunt noted that more work is needed in order to improve its energy-producing efficiency. Currently it is able to produce a solar conversion efficiency close to 1 percent, but noted they aim to reach efficiencies beyond 5 percent when fully optimized. The best colored LSC has an efficiency of around 7 percent.

Clean Energy, Research, Solar

BioEnergy Bytes

Joanna Schroeder

  • BioEnergyBytesDFThis year has seen China make a significant impact on the world’s nuclear power industry, having brought three new reactors online with a total capacity of 3.2 Gigawatts (GW), according to an analyst with research and consulting firm GlobalData. China currently has 20 active nuclear reactors, with a further 28 under construction. Another 10 reactors are expected to begin commercial operation between 2017 and 2025, with a total capacity of 9.56 GW.
  • Wetzel Engineering Inc. (WEI), a specialized systems engineering company serving the international wind energy industry, announced that industry veteran Gary Kanaby has joined the company as director of marketing and sales. Kanaby will be responsible for business capture activities including growing marketshare among wind farm owners and operators.
  • According to a recent report, “Microgrids in Asia Pacific” from Navigant Research, cumulative investment in microgrids across the region will total $30.8 billion from 2014 to 2023. Demand for electricity and generation capacity from renewable energy sources is growing at an unprecedented rate in the Asia Pacific region. As a result, the number of microgrid projects deployed in Asia Pacific, both for electrification purposes and as experimental test beds, is also rising.
  • DTE Energy selected 84 new solar energy projects for inclusion in Phase 2 of DTE’s SolarCurrents customer-owned pilot program. A total of 74 residential projects, representing 616 kilowatts (kW) and ranging in size from 1 to 20 kW, will be offered incentives as part of Phase 2. These projects will be built in 10 counties in Southeastern Michigan. An additional 10 non-residential projects, representing 157 kW, will be built in six counties in Southeastern Michigan. These projects range in size from 5 to 20 kW. All applications for non-residential projects were accepted into the program.
Bioenergy Bytes

Renewable Energy Continues to Gain

Joanna Schroeder

Renewable energy continues to gain as for the month of July all new U.S. electrical generating capacity put into service was from renewable sources according to the latest “Energy Infrastructure Update“. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Project’s report fond that there was 379 MW of wind installed, 21 MW of solar and 5 MW of hydropower.

Office of Energy Projects July 2014 Energy Infrastructure UpdateFor the first seven months of 2014, renewable energy has accounted for more than half (53.8%) of the 4,758 MW of new U.S. electrical capacity that has come on line with solar (25.8%) and wind (25.1%) each accounting for more than a quarter of the total. In addition, biomass provided 1.8 percent, geothermal 0.7 percent, and hydropower 0.4 percent. As for the balance, natural gas accounted for 45.9 percent while a small fraction (0.3 percent) came from oil and “other” combined. There has been no new electrical generating capacity from either coal or nuclear thus far in 2014.

Renewable energy sources now account for 16.3 percent of total installed operating generating capacity in the U.S.:

  • Water – 8.57%
  • Wind – 5.26%
  • Biomass – 1.37%
  • Solar – 0.75%
  • Geothermal steam – 0.33%

“This is not the first time in recent years that all new electrical generating capacity for a given month has come from renewable energy sources,” noted Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. “And it is likely to become an ever more frequent occurrence in the months and years ahead.”

biomass, Geothermal, Hydro, Renewable Energy, Solar, Wind

Preaching Conservation with Biodiesel and Ice Cream

John Davis

icecreamexp1Three recent college grads have been spending their summer winding across the country handing out free ice cream from a truck running on biodiesel. Caleb Kruse, Cameron Kruse and Jordan Fatke have been trekking through what will be 33 states by the end of the Ice Cream Expedition, an effort funded by National Geographic, designed to show conservation from a child’s point of view and share free scoops of Magnolia Tropical Ice Cream as a conversation starter.

They will also encourage children to sign a pledge to explore and protect a place that is meaningful to them, such as a local pond or a backyard garden. Magnolia will be donating all of the ice cream for the trip, and the available tropical flavors will be avocado, mango, guava and a mix of purple yam and coconut…

“I’ve always wanted to drive across the country, and a friend once jokingly suggested I do it in an ice cream truck, and the idea took hold,” said Caleb. “The ice cream truck holds a unique position in a community and can be used as a platform to start talking to people, especially kids — and that’s who we’re trying to inspire.”

“National Geographic Kids is proud to be supporting these Young Explorers in their expedition across the United States,” said Rachel Buchholz, editor and vice president of National Geographic Kids and a committee member of the Young Explorers Grants program. “Through their work, they’re inspiring kids to explore their world as well as protect it. And who doesn’t love free ice cream!”

Along with the love of ice cream, maybe these guys will foster a little love for one of our favorite fuels, biodiesel.

By the way, they’ll be at the Atlanta Botanical Garden today, handing out free ice cream and talking conservation from 11 a.m. – Noon.

Biodiesel

Leaf-Cutter Ants Could Hold Key for Biomass

John Davis

leaf-cutter ant1A fungus from leaf-cutter ant gardens could be key in how biomass gets broken down into bioenergy sources. This article from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory says researchers working with colleagues at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center are using metabolomic and metaproteomic techniques to examine the dynamics of nutrient turnover in the gardens of leaf-cutter ants to discover how sugars, key in biofuels production, can be released.

The team found that numerous free amino acids and sugars are depleted throughout the process of biomass degradation, indicating that easily accessible nutrients from plant material are readily consumed by microbes in these ecosystems. Accumulation of cellobiose and lignin derivatives near the end of the degradation process supports the research team’s previous characterization of lignocellulases produced by the fungal cultivar of the ants.

Their results also suggest that derivatives of urea may be an important source of nitrogen in fungus gardens, especially during nitrogen-limiting conditions. No protein-free arginine (“free” arginine) was detected in the team’s metabolomic experiments, despite evidence that the host ants cannot produce this amino acid, which is a key nutrient for the ants. This suggests that biosynthesis of this metabolite may be tightly regulated in fungus gardens. These results provide new insights into microbial community-level processes that underlie this important ant-fungus symbiosis.

The article goes on to point out that the study yields important information on how metabolomics can help us understand how microbes can break down plant material to release the raw materials needed to make biofuels.

biomass