Replacing Oil

Synthetic biology company has created a informative promotional video highlighting the power of algae and it’s possible impact on the biofuel industry.

We’re big fans of algae based biofuels here and can’t wait to see more from companies like Solazyme and Sapphire Energy.

The rice waste problem in China

China is the worlds largest producer of rice and as a result has about 230 million tonnes of rice waste to dispose of each year. The huge amount of straw burnt each year is actually a significant contributor to China’s pollution problem. Most farmers burn the straw after harvest releasing massive amounts of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the air.

The problem with creating biofuels from rice waste

Rice straw’s complex cellulose structure and lignin components make it difficult for microorganisms to break down into biofuel. Until now, researchers have been soaking the straw in an alkali solution to begin the breaking down process for the fermentation microbes.

Although soaking the straw in recycled chemicals and heating it works, it’s not a practical sollution for any large scale biofuel production. The process is simply too expensive and dirty.

Why burn it if you can make fuel from it?

A rice waste to biofuel solution?

Li Xiujin, environmental engineering professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology and his team of scientists have found a cleaner way of kick starting the degradation process. Instead of soaking the leftover rice straw they’ve treated it with small amounts of an alkaline solution containing sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The treatment has resulted in a 64.5% improvement in methane yield, but no mention yet of ethanol production.

Will rice waste be a real biofuel solution in the near future?

Biofuels like methane could be used in farm equipment used to plant and harvest rice , but not without a cost to individual farmers. Government subsidies to farmers for fitting their farm equipment to use compressed biogas, produced from their own rice waste, would be a huge step in solving both rising fuel/food prices and air pollution. However, building pipelines and pumping stations for delivering biogas to the average consumer just isn’t going to happen.

Ethanol from rice waste presents a much more promising future for China’s, and the worlds, renewable fuel production. The infrastructure is already in place and we’ve already seen how effective it is at lowering existing fossil fuel demand and in turn prices. A practical cellulosic ethanol from rice waste program in China would help alleviate much of the world’s skyrocketing fuel price woes.

There’s been a lot of hubbub lately about algae based biofuels but this has the potential to turn the industry on its head. San Diego start-up Sapphire Energy has unveiled what they are calling the world’s first renewable gasoline. They’re adamant about not being confused with “biofuel” they claim to have created a process starting with algae that results in “green crude” that can later be refined into gasoline. This gasoline is supposedly chemically identical to the gasoline distilled from old fashioned crude oil.

Other biofuels have only been getting a great deal of attention with the rising costs of old fashioned oil. I just checked the commodity futures at bloomberg and that old fashioned oil is currently trading at $127.65 a barrel and expected to go much, much higher. At over $4 a gallon converting your car to a flex fuel vehicle to burn Ethanol 85 (E85) seems like a great idea, but what if you could get %100 renewable biofuel that is essentially gasoline?

The immediately obvious benefit of Sapphire’s unique algea based gasoline is infrastructure costs. Pumping stations, and pipelines need to be refitted for biodiesel and ethanol. If what Sapphire Energy claims is true their algae based gasoline will be a very attractive product indeed.

The CEO of Saphire, Jason Pyle, is being extremely vague about how the technology works and how much it will cost, but he must be letting at least a few people in on the secret. The U.K.’s largest charity the Wellcome Trust has awarded $50 million to the startup and Robert Nelsen of ARCH Venture Partners has written them a blank check.

Unfortunately I can’t find any information about how they could get algae to produce crude oil, and it sounds just a little too good to be true. Rest assured I’ll keep an eye out for more news from Sapphire Energy.

Next time you dip some nice hot greasy fries into some ketchup, think about this: the grease that makes your fries so tasty can be used to make bio-diesel. “Yellow Gold” they call it!

Until recently only small groups of people in the grease refining industry referred to it as yellow gold. Now that the price of oil has skyrocketed, and the demand for biodiesel with it, more and more dumpster divers are seeing a profit in stealing grease. During the past 2 years the price of yellow grease (an actual traded commodity) has nearly tripled. Refineries are falling over themselves buying up tons of the nasty stuff.

Grease Bandits!

Not only has the price increased, but ‘theft’ of grease is rising sharply as well. Grease bandits are popping up all over the south and making it life difficult for companies contracted to remove the awful stuff.
We know that replacing oil is going to have diverse effects on society, but we never imagined this!

Well I don’t know that for sure. If i had to guess though though I would say that a gigantic sinkhole directly under a Texas oil field in my backyard would have me rethinking my stance on ethanol crops.

Sure, I’m paying about half a penny more for an ear of corn than I would be if US farmers weren’t earning more to grow biofuel crops, but I’d be eating my corn at the bottom of a great big sinkhole if we keep drilling for oil in Texas.

Of course I’m exaggerating. Sinkholes have a lot more to do with the types of rock under your feet than whether or not you’re sucking all the oil or water out from under them. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be (at least partially) human induced. Lots of new sinkholes, like this one in Texas, can be correlated to land use practices like water and oil pumping.

If i lived in the pan handle I’d be stepping very lightly these days!

There’s a great deal of commotion about the role biofuels may or may not have in current food price increases. I suppose it’s easy for goofballs like Rush Limbaugh to point their finger at the biofuel industry and scream that the land should be used to grow food not fuel. It’s not hard to understand how so many Americans are so easily fooled into believing that such nonsense. The argument against growing corn and/or wheat for biofuels has some merits but the facts don’t back it up.

Regardless, we would like to remind the everyone that edible crops aren’t the only way to make biofuels, take for example switchgrass and landfill gas. Both of these solutions to the food vs. fuel problem create less greenhouse gasses than oil and neither intrudes on land for farming edible crops.

Still not convinced that biofuels can be produced without encroaching on farmable land? Check this out:

Dirty swimming pool or the future of biofuels?

Companies like PetroAlgae and GreenFuel are racing to perfect their algae-based biodiesel programs. GreenFuel in particular has a brilliant plan to relieve power companies of their CO2 emissions and use it to feed their algae farms. If you haven’t noticed we love it when biofuel companies find ways of turning other peoples garbage into fuel.

How well does algae-based biodiesel work?

Good enough to impress the military! At the 2008 DESC Worldwide Energy Conference algae-based biodiesel demonstrated it’s superior cold weather properties. Not only can you grow this stuff on a dirty pond, but we can ship it to Sweeden!

Now this is what I call completing the recycling cycle! Waste Management and Linde North America are about to create the world’s largest facility for converting stinky landfill gas into (reletively) clean burning fuel. To complete the cycle, the liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be used to fuel garbage collection trucks!

Waste Management trucks to run on liquified natural gas (LNG) derived from landfill gas

According to the Waste Management the project should reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 30,000 tons per year. When solid waste decomposes in a landfill the gas emitted (LFG) is roughly half carbon dioxide CO2 and half methane CH4. Everybody is familiar with carbon dioxide’s role in the greenhouse effect, but what many don’t realize is that methane is 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the Earth’s atmosphere.

As the largest operator of landfills, Waste Management is in a very enviable position. Landfills are not just stinking eyesores, they’re a source of natural gas. Who would of thought that all that garbage you toss out would someday be used to fuel the garbage trucks that haul it away?

Bob Gallant, president and CEO of Greenfield Ethanol insists that his industry is not only here to stay, but a very reasonable choice. Rising food prices continue to put pressure on production of grain based biofuel despite the argument that it’s slowing the skyrocketing cost of gasoline in Canada.

Eat it, drink it, or burn it?

According to the head of Canada’s largest biofuel producer, ethanol is “the only real defense that Western society has against the high cost of oil, which is not going down anytime soon.” Just Friday, crude oil has rose by $3 a barrel to $116, largely in response to Turkish bombing in northern Iraq. Even if the current spike in oil prices relaxes to 90-100 a barrel, ethanol is still an economical alternative. But “only real defense” is a bit strong.

MPs are currently debating legislation that would require all refiners to use at least %5 ethanol in their gasoline. The efforts will somewhat alleviate the impact of surging oil prices on Canada commuters. Critics though are attacking the plan though, claiming that ethanol production is contributing to rapidly escalating food prices around the world. The International Development Minister actually had to dodge questions relating rising food prices to ethanol production.

Lowering the supply of grain will raise it’s price, but it’s worth much more as fuel. At least that’s the argument for using top grade grain. What sensationalists groping in the dark for a culprit in the rising food price are slow to point out is this: You don’t need high (food for people grade) quality grain to produce ethanol. Also, demand for corn based ethanol is taking a backseat to cellulosic ethanol production.

Perfectly good ethanol can be produced from crap that no humans would find remotely edible. Switchgrass for example is drought resistant and grows in lousy conditions. Oklahoma has just secured 1,000 acres of land for switchgrass production, which has an even higher energy output than corn and grows where corn won’t!