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Across the U.S., researchers, startup companies and investors are exploring the potential of creating large amounts of green, renewable fuel from the humblest of sources: algae.
If you think the energy/food potential for hemp is underutilized, wait’ll you get a gander at algae. This little microorganism really packs a punch.
According to The Book of General Ignorance: Everything You Think You Know is Wrong (2006, Harmony Books) (I highly recommend it, by the way — it’s packed with fascinating information and weird insights), algae breathes out more oxygen than all the world’s land-based plants and trees combined. Certain types of algae also deliver a whopping amount of protein and nutrients per farmed acre (20 times more than soy beans, in the case of spirulina).
By Carol Gulyas •
April 28, 2008
After a cold winter and rising fuel prices, Vermont and other Northeastern states are warming to the idea of using local biomass to heat their homes. According to Renewable Energy World, pellet stoves, which burn pellets made from wood shavings and sawdust and whose emissions are nearly zero, are becoming more attractive heating options. One of the most efficient use of the stoves is as a heating supplement.
“In New Hampshire, New England Wood Pellet has been
[...]
By Max Lindberg •
April 21, 2008
Alan Doering of AURI says agricultural residues and co-products aren’t waste, they’re potential new revenue streams to power the future.
AURI, or Agricultural Utilization Research Institute of Waseca, Minnesota, is a nonprofit organization that develops new uses for agricultural products and ag-processing co-products.
Alan Doering, an Associate Scientist with AURI, filled me in on steps being taken to utilize every bit of what used to be considered products of the waste stream.
Turkey droppings are fueling a power plant [...]
Researchers at Michigan State are trying to get corn-stover to digest itself after harvest. Doing so would mitigate the costly pretreatment steps needed for the production of cellulosic ethanol from the non-edible parts of the corn plant.
MSU’s scientists are adding genetic material to the corn’s genome, genes that would normally be responsible for the digestive enzymes produced by fungi and the microbes in cow rumens. The newly transgenic plants store these enzymes in vacuoles in the leaves and stalk in a way that doesn’t affect the plant while it’s alive.
By Carol Gulyas •
March 9, 2008
On Friday I spoke with CEO Glenn Farris about his company, Biomass Gas & Electric.
CleanTechnica: What does your company do?
GF: We use biomass (primarily woody biomass), but also forest residues, agricultural waste, and woody crops, to produce renewable energy in an environmentally beneficial gasification process that doesn’t involve combustion, and so is carbon neutral. BG&E currently has three contracts (Georgia Power Company, The City of Tallahassee and Progress Energy of Florida) to provide biomass-generated electricity, pipeline gas, and hydrogen. We have many, many other projects in development both in the U.S. and abroad. In states that have a Renewable Portfolio Standard, we provide tradeable renewable energy certificates. In other states, we sell renewable energy credits to large companies like IBM and Alcoa, who want to reduce their carbon footprint. We believe the future of the company is in the production of methane.
Helsinki-based Wärtsilä has just inked an agreement with the brewing group Scottish and Newcastle to install biomass-fueled, combined heat and power plants at two of the company’s U.K. breweries. According to Wärtsilä, the plants will be the first in the world to generate energy and heat from spent grain, a byproduct of brewing.
By Timothy B. Hurst •
February 8, 2008
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This is the second of a three-part story about the pine beetle epidemic in Colorado and what is being done to prevent catastrophic wildfire while taking advantage of a clean energy opportunity.
Any solution is proving to be politically sticky. Part one can be found by following this link to sustainablog.]
Residents of Colorado are witnessing a rapid destabilization of the forest around them, and they can do very little to stop it. The spread of the mountain pine beetle epidemic is now considered of ‘catastrophic’ proportion. Most foresters agree that the beetle will essentially run its course by eliminating its favorite food - the lodgepole pine. The most one can hope for is to mitigate fire risk by pursuing aggressive thinning programs. However, thinning forests does not come cheap: it is labor intensive, resource intensive, geo-politically awkward, and the end product is not held in very high regard by the market. But the economic viability of large-scale thinning projects is changing, and it is doing so almost as quickly as the trees themselves are changing from green to red.
This week, several stories hit the newswire that, taken collectively, hint at the growing conditions for a perfect storm for cellulosic ethanol. The ‘virgin’ biofuel industry got a kick in the seat yesterday when a study published in Science confirmed many environmentalists belief that ethanol from corn and switchgrass could actually worsen
The end of 2007 brought with it news of cleantech developments for 2008 and beyond. Here are a few that I found most interesting. Do any sound promising to you?
Fuel Cubes
A Minnesota company called Renewafuel has developed a biomass briquette that is similar in size and moisture content to coal, produces a consistent and comparable amount of heat, emits far less sulfur dioxide and particular matter and generates nearly twice as much energy as other biomass. While the company touts the “fuel cubes” becoming to coal what ethanol has been to gasoline, others are more cautiously optimistic.
Matt Norton of the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy pointed out that the efficiency and sustainability of the cubes depend on the biomass materials used to make them. If Renewafuel relies too much on wood for production, that hurts the company’s claims of the fuel’s carbon neutrality because the carbon stored for decades in the trees would be released, rather than using something like grasses that have a shorter CO2 cycle:
My fear is that wood is there and it’s ready, and it’s what they’re going to turn to. And if they start consuming wood, then the claims they make with regard to carbon neutrality are not borne out. If they start consuming prairie grasses, hats off to them. This could be something we would support in a big way.
Currently, the cubes are made from a mix of plant materials that include wood and grasses. What’s more, Renewafuel says that cubes can be blended with or substituted for coal in existing burners with little or no modifications.
By Brad Jester •
September 25, 2007
Lolland-Falster, Denmark
Until recently, I might have searched California’s sustainable communities to find the greenest living place on the planet. To my surprise, on a recent visit to
Lolland-Falster (LF), two Danish islands with about 120,000 residents
combined, I was introduced to a place that takes sustainability to the next level and provides a glimpse into the future.
