Green Options

The modern U.S. Navy may be about to put a 3,000-year-old weedlike biofuel crop in its tank.  Camelina, the “new darling” of next-generation biofuels, is among a small group of biofuels under consideration for testing  this year by the U.S. Navy.  One of the aircraft to be tested is the F/A-18 Super Hornet strike fighter, the latest incarnation of the battle-proven Hornet.  Sustainable Oils of Montana has just won a contract to provide 40,000 gallons of camelina-based jet fuel to the Navy, so the chances look good for putting the ancient crop to a new use.

The Naval Air Systems Command fuels team will start with a lab analysis of the new fuels, then move on to charting their performance on a bench-mounted Super Hornet F414 engine before moving on to the big one, an in-flight test.  Some time in 2010, the Navy could be flying high on a more sustainable fuel.

The Veggie Van Organization unveiled the first algae fuel powered car this week in San Francisco. It’s actually a plug-in Prius that has been converted with the nickel-metal hydride battery. The green vehicle doesn’t run strictly on algae, but rather a 5% algae/95% gasoline blend. Since this vehicle uses a standard engine without any modifications, it demonstrates the opportunity to use alternative fuel sources like algae in a vehicle, and only 5% algae might be used today, but it gives some hope for the future.

LanzaTech, a small company based in New Zealand, has developed a proprietary microbe that feasts on the carbon monoxide in waste gas from steel mills and converts it to pure ethanol.  Last year the company launched a pilot facility at the New Zealand Steel plant near the city of Auckland, and its microbes have been happily churning out ethanol without the need for expensive pre-conditioning to remove contaminants.

LanzaTech has found that the same low-cost technology can be applied to biomass syngas, but the real excitement is in the success of this first-ever attempt to capture and convert steel mill waste gas into a clean, sustainable fuel.

Emerson Process Management was chosen by Dynamic Fuels to implement automation and process management systems for a new commercial scale biodiesel plant that will convert chicken fat to clean burning, sulfur-free alternative diesel fuel. Despite pessimism from some pundits, Emerson’s vision on the biofuels sector remains optimistic for the long-term.

Is Al Costa pulling our leg? The CEO of Delaware-based Alkol Inc. says he has a system that will convert your car to run on E85 in about an hour.

“Flexing” your vehicle with the Alkol conversion system will allow you to use one of those high-ethanol pumps, which contain a mix of 85 percent ethanol, as opposed to the normal 10 percent mix in conventional gasoline. You won’t need a brand new shiny vehicle with one of those “Flex Fuel” badges either.

How does it work? Does it work? Is it like one of those quick-fix radiator sealer bottles that high school kids used to pour into their old jalopies?

Industry juggernaut Waste Management is convinced there’s a future in sewage-to-biofuel, and to prove it the company has just joined with the largest refiner in the U.S., Valero Energy Corp., to blend wastewater “crude” into gasoline.  The two companies have invested in Terrabon LLC, which was formed in the 1990’s to commercialize three technologies including a biofuel process called MixAlco.  With a half-billion people (and counting) contributing to the feedstock in the U.S. alone, it looks like sewage could be the answer to the search for a truly sustainable biofuel.

The economy is down, but here is another sign that green technology may be the way out of our economic dilemma. US clean energy patents hit a record high last quarter.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of watermelons are tossed every year because they aren’t good enough for market. A new study finds that the juice from these watermelons could easily be used to create the biofuel ethanol and other helpful products.

Midcromidas, Inc. has turned its green eye on wastewater, and it is seeing gold.  The company has developed a strain of microbes that can convert the carbon in wastewater into PHA (polyhydroxylalkanoate), a high performance plastic.  PHA biodegrades quickly in compost piles and landfills, but otherwise it behaves the same or better than conventional petroleum-based plastic.  It resists water and odor permeation, and it holds up under high temperature and exposure to sun.  As a sustainable alternative to petroleum as a plastics feedstock, wastewater could be setting the gold standard.

Tested on the California/Nevada border, the Ecotricity Greenbird broke the land speed record for wind-powered vehicles.  The Greenbird clocked in at a top speed of 126.4 mph and maintained a speed of 126.2 mph for three seconds.  The previous record was 116mph.

The Greenbird is a collaboration between Ecotricity and engineer Richard Jenkins.  Ecotricity is an independent green electricity company based in the UK founded and owned by entrepreneur Dale
Vince.  Jenkins is the founder of the Windjet project and has a wide range of skills in engineering, design, piloting, and construction experience.  Both sides are innovative, experienced, and have a passion for wind energy as a solution for transportation and utilities.

This post was written by Paul O’Callaghan, founding CEO of the Clean Tech consultancy, O2 Environmental Inc. and lecturer on Sustainable Energy at the BC Institute of Technology.
There was much furore recently surrounding the story ‘Joule Biotech comes out of stealth with sun-powered biofuel’.

The premise is that the technology can take solar energy and use it to convert carbon dioxide directly into fuel. A one stop-shop to soak up carbon dioxide and produce a biofuel.

Having dug into it a little, the conclusion I came to is that it’s not as radical as it sounds. It is basically directed photosynthesis: same principle as oil from algae, or biofuels. The overall efficiencies are likely to be 10 times lower than that from solar PV processes, but, in terms of where biofuels are heading, it is on the right track.