As it stands right now, there are comparatively few places to purchase alternative fuels. As of 2005, there were approximately 168,987 gas stations in the United States; of those, just 2,200 sell E85 ethanol fuel.
No major oil outlets have fully embraced biofuels, although British Petroleum has just announced that it may begin commercial production of ethanol starting in 2010.
BP has partnered with Verenium to bring a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility online next year to start bringing alternative fuels to a gas pump near you.
BP has big plans for biofuels and seems to be marching towards an alternative fuel future faster than many of its competitors. Verenium already has a demonstration plant in Louisiana capable of producing over a million gallons of cellulosic ethanol annually, and BP hopes to ramp production up. The Verenium process uses proprietary enzymes to break down grass feedstock and convert it to ethanol more efficiently.
By Steve Savage •
November 5, 2009
My previous post retraced the precipitous decline in the reputation of biofuels that occurred between 2006 and today. In this post I’m going to talk about just a few of the activities going on for “second generation” biofuels (beyond corn, soy and palm oil, wheat…). One of the key features of these initiatives is that they reduce the competition with food crops - something which will only become a more significant issue in the future. I’ll be talking about several Universities and companies who have hung in there through the ups and downs of oil prices and the “trendiness” and “rejection” of biofuels. I think that these folks are going to make significant long-term contributions. If you have been soured in the past on the biofuel concept, please consider these alternatives.
Algae
There was a recent Wall Street Journal article about “5 Technologies that could change everything.” One they included was biofuels from Algae. People have been working on this for a long time including a very long government effort. The great thing about algae is that you can grow it in places and with water sources that are completely unsuitable for farming. Algae can be extremely productive. The problem is that the low capital investment systems are less productive and the highly productive, “bio-reactor” approach has a huge capital cost. The good news is that there are enough companies working away on this that sooner or later there might be a break-through. I won’t pretend to be an expert on how this is going, but I have a hunch it will eventually become significant.
By Steve Savage •
November 4, 2009
In 2006 I attended a BIO meeting in Toronto focused on the new bio-based economy. Oil had just risen to $70/barrel and it was a time when environmental NGOs, biotech companies and even oil companies seemed to be on the “same page” in terms of their enthusiasm for moving to plant-based feedstocks as the perfect alternative to oil dependency. With the very obvious international security costs of the oil economy, and what were then thought to be unimaginable energy costs, it was a remarkable sort of celebration event for all the alternative energy and materials folks who has suffered under the decades of cheap oil. As much as I was happy to see such “multi-stakeholder” agreement, I was sad because anyone with an agricultural perspective could see a train-wreck coming.
People were making presentations about cool second generation innovations like “Cellulosic” ethanol from sources like switchgrass or Miscanthus and also about ethanol alternatives like butanol. People were talking about bio-materials for even things like the auto industry. However; the side conversations were about the huge boom underway in the corn ethanol industry. Orders for stainless steel tanks were back-logged two years. What had started as a local, farmer-cooperative funded industry had become a venture capital frenzy. I could see that long before the promise of “second generation” biofuels could be realized, corn ethanol would get to be big enough that it would end up fracturing the amazing consensus about the bio-economy that was functioning at that conference.
By Zachary Shahan •
October 28, 2009
There has been a lot of discussion over the last few years about biofuels and whether or not they are actually green, especially when produced on a large, global level.
A new study led by Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) senior scientist Jerry Melillo says no, they aren’t green (when it comes to climate change). However, there are still many important factors to keep in mind before claiming this is the end of a long and complicated discussion.
By Susan Kraemer •
October 16, 2009
After the new Executive Order last week requiring every Federal Agency to accurately account for their greenhouse gas emissions—and then sharply reduce them 30% by 2020 [previous story]—the Navy has doubled down in their response.
Already the Navy uses 17% renewable energy (about like Iowa and even better than California), but they plan on achieving a faster reduction and a much tougher goal that that decreed by the president: fifty percent—some of which will be achieved by 2015. Or as US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus put it: “Our Navy and Marine Corps has never backed away from a challenge.” [ed. note: THAT makes me so damn patriotic I have no words. Anybody who says greenies aren't patriotic can go suck it.]
By Nick Chambers •
October 13, 2009
Attendees at a recent alternative fuels gathering in Washington are reporting that US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu remarked, “If it were up to me, I would put every cent into electric cars,” when referring to the way stimulus dollars should be distributed. With a focus on alternative and renewable fuels, the group was obviously shocked at the concept.
If this statement is being represented accurately, it would not only put Chu directly at odds with Obama administration policy, it would mean that he doesn’t really believe in how his department is distributing their $36.7 billion dollar slice of stimulus funds. The statement would also contradict Chu’s previous stances on biofuels development. Comment from DOE was not immediately available, but I’ve got a request in to confirm or deny the statement as accurate. I’ll update as soon as I hear word.
Update 8:00 PM Pacific Time 10/13/2009: DOE’s Director of Public Affairs, Dan Leistikow, responded to my request from earlier today in an email, saying “I can’t verify the quote the blogger is using from an undisclosed source at an undisclosed meeting, which is at best wildly out of context.” He also added, “Anyone who has spent five minutes listening to Secretary Chu also knows he is one of the country’s staunchest advocates for pursuing a broad portfolio of clean energy research, and has warned against investing all our resources in a single technology to the exclusion of all others.”
By Nick Chambers •
September 30, 2009
Just about this time last year I reported on the very promising and innovative Mcgyan® biodiesel process. It was one of the most popular stories gas 2.0 ran that year, and rightly so: the breakthrough seemed to deliver the possibility of making biodiesel in mere seconds from start to finish, reducing costs by half the price of other biodiesel, producing no waste, using no chemical reactants, and using any animal fat or vegetable oil as a feedstock.
At the time the company in charge of the project, Ever Cat fuels, had only succeeded at making a small-scale pilot operation of 50,000 gallons per year. But, as of 2 days ago, the process has been completely commercialized.
By Dave Harcourt •
September 25, 2009
Another renewable energy business that could get South Africa moving towards its goals is taking shape in Richards Bay in KwaZulu Natal.
The History
After South Africa speedily set up a renewable energy strategy the focus moved to ethanol and biodiesel with the involvement of large companies including SASOL.
First to falter was ethanol, where Ethanol Africa had actually started site works for its plant in Bothaville, when government got cold feet about using maize, the staple food of the poor of South Africa, to power cars.
Later the world food crisis lead to the Food for Fuel debate and an effective halt to the promotion of biofuels from agricultural production. There were also other smaller and less legitimate operations such as a franchise scheme based on low cost imported palm oil and even algal processing that turned out to have been “demonstrated” using scum from the farm dam!
By Nick Chambers •
September 15, 2009
You might wonder why Iraq, one of the most oil-rich countries in the world, would want to invest in building up its biofuels sector. At first blush it seems like a stretch of resources for a country trying to recover after years of war.
However, In Iraq the agricultural sector has long been the dominant source of jobs. In fact, much of modern agriculture was developed in the Iraqi area over 7,000 years ago. With the recent devastation caused by the instability of war coupled with an extended drought, those jobs have disappeared. So, although Iraq does have the third largest oil reserves in the world, its agricultural sector is in many ways more important to its economic recovery.
By Tina Casey •
September 13, 2009
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.
