Green Options » Shell

Furfural May Be the Future of Easy and Cheap Biofuels

Nick Chambers — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:29:31 +0000

Researchers at the University of California, Davis have developed an easy, efficient and inexpensive method for transforming raw plant material directly into a fuel called furfural without any fermentation. Furfural can be substituted for diesel.

The current, most widely adopted process for making second generation cellulosic fuel — “celluline” — involves the use of acids, enzymes and fermenting microbes to get from the harvested plant material to a fuel that is usable in your car’s engine.

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5 Reasons Why We Don’t Need a Windfall Tax on Energy Firms

Mark Seall — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:13:59 +0000

Campaigners are pressing the British government to impose a “windfall tax” on energy companies following record profit announcements in the past week from Shell (£7.9 / $15.5 billion) and British Gas parent firm Centrica (£2.97 / $5.8 billion).

Energy companies have become flush with cash following high margins from record oil prices and a government sponsored carbon permit give-away used to justify a consumer price hike.

>>More on Energy from Red Green and Blue

Despite campaigners and Labour politicians describing recent profits as “grotesque” and “indecent”, and calling for additional taxes on recent gains to subsidize increasing household energy costs, there are several reasons why energy windfall taxes are fundamentally wrong, with the potential to worsen, and not improve the current energy crisis:

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World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Back on Track

Timothy B. Hurst — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:55:35 +0000

The world’s biggest offshore wind farm was revived yesterday when German-based energy group E.ON and the Danish utility Dong Energy agreed to acquire Shell’s 33% stake in the 1,000-megawatt London Array.

The two firms, which each own a one-third stake in the project will now become 50-50 partners by buying out Shell, the former third partner. Shell decided to withdraw from the London Array project back in May after a strategic review indicated that the project would not bring sufficient rates of return on the investment. Industry-wide cost inflation has raised the cost of the project to more than £2.5bn ($5 billion U.S.), well above the original estimates of £1.5bn three years ago.

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2,843 MPG Plastic Bubble Wins Eco-Marathon Race

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:43:36 +0000

The grand-prize winners of the 2008 Shell Eco-Marathon race (pictured above) got an astonishing 2,843 MPG. Then again, is anyone surprised that a plastic canopy hooked to an engine got pretty good gas mileage?

Shell, Virent to Develop Second-Generation BioGasoline

Clayton B. Cornell — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:05:27 +0000

After one year of collaborative research, Shell and Virent Energy Systems announced they will be trying to produce a biogasoline directly from plant sugars—as opposed to producing ethanol—with the intention of offering a fuel that can be used at high ratios in standard gasoline engines.

Instead of processing sugars into ethanol via fermentation, Virent’s trademarked “BioForming” technology uses catalysts to convert the sugars into a biogasoline. Virent claims their fuel has the same hydrocarbon content as gasoline, and has a higher energy content than both ethanol and biobutanol, which gives it a greater fuel efficiency. Virent says they can also use non-food feedstocks, such as corn stover and switchgrass, to produce the fuel.

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