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News and Trends
The "World Agricultural Outlook 2011" report by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute at Iowa State University (FAPRI-ISU) projects a rise in the contribution of greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. For this year's report, the FAPRI-ISU used "new modeling capabilities that give 15-year projections for world greenhouse gas emissions and fertilizer use" in some countries. A 13.6 per cent increase in global emissions from agricultural production is reported over the projection period. The increase is attributed to "an increase in crop area and the associated emissions from agricultural soil management". An increase in per capita meat demand is also reported to contribute to increased emissions, but these are lower than the contributions from cropland emissions. The model was also able to estimate and index "greenhouse gas emission efficiency (GHGee)" for some countries. The "GHGee" is defined as an aggregate value of agricultural production per ton of GHG emission. Higher GHGee values indicate more efficient GHG emission performance (i.e., a more positive outcome). The European Union and the United States were shown to have high GHGee values at $579 per ton of CO2-equivalent and $571 per ton of CO2-equivalent, respectively. The GHGee values for India and China were estimated at $379 per ton of CO2-equivalent and $324 per ton of CO2 equivalent, respectively. On the biofuels front, "the United States is projected to import sugarcane ethanol to meet its advanced ethanol mandates at a level of 3.4 billion gallons by 2025, keeping the prices of world ethanol and sugar strong at $2.50 per gallon and 23.2¢ per pound, respectively". The full World Agricultural Outlook 2011 report can be accessed at the FAPRI website (URL above).
http://atwonline.com/eco-aviation/article/atag-releases-biofuels-guidebook-0414 The Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) recently released a report titled, "Powering the Future of Flight", with the purpose of (1) illustrating the potential for sustainable aviation biofuels to be produced in countries on a worldwide scale and (2) providing "concrete examples of how some countries and the aviation industry have already made substantial progress". The aviation industry is said to have passed the stage of making test flights on a range of potential jet biofuels from different feedstocks, and the establishment of correct sustainability criteria. It has moved on to a phase of "ramping up" to get enough of low-carbon energy aviation biofuels into the mainstream fuel supply. According to Executive Director Paul Steele (as reported by the Air Transport World website), "The report tracks progress in some key aviation biofuels projects worldwide and provides policymakers with a few examples of how they can help the deployment of biojet fuel". It recommends six steps which governments and policymakers can follow in order to help the aviation and the biofuel sectors embrace sustainable aviation biofuels: (1) foster research into new feedstock sources and refining processes, (2) minimize risk in public and private investments in aviation biofuels, (3) provide incentives for airlines to use biofuels from an early stage, (4) encourage stakeholders to commit to robust international sustainability criteria, (5) understand local green growth opportunities, and (6) establish coalitions encompassing all parts of the supply chain. The full report can be accessed at the Air Transport World website (URL above).
http://www.usbiomassboard.gov/initiative/initiative.html The United States Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Energy (USDOE) recently announced the availability of research grants worth US $30 million over the next three to four years, for the development of advanced biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products. The research grants will support the country's target of reducing its oil imports by about 30% by the year 2025. Funding will be through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI). Under the BRDI program, competitive grants, contracts, and financial assistance are granted "to eligible entities to carry out research, development, and demonstration of biofuels and biobased products, and the methods, practices and technologies for their production". For the fiscal year 2011, applications for research funding will be considered in the following areas: (1) Feedstock Development: improvement in biofuel feedstock properties, supply, harvest and postharvest processing, (2) Biofuels and Biobased Products Development: cost-effective technologies for the utilization of cellulosic biomass for biofuels and biobased co-products (including animal feeds and chemicals) which can help boost economic viability of biofuel production, (3) Biofuels Development Analysis: development of analytical tools for assessing/improving biofuel sustainability, environmental quality, cost effectiveness, security, and rural economic development of renewable biomass technologies. The funds are expected to support five to ten projects over three to four years. Energy Crops and Feedstocks for Biofuels Production(complete access to journal article may require subscription or payment) http://www.springerlink.com/content/c016w18477872760/ An international team of researchers from the University of Sidney (Australia), Nanyang Technological University (Singapore), and Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (India) evaluated rice husk as a potential feedstock for bioethanol. Rice husk is a by-product that is separated from the edible part of the rice grain during the milling process. About half of the rice husk produced from rice mills is usually burned for the generation of steam to drive mechanical milling equipment. However, since it is also reported to have high cellulose and hemi-cellulose contents, rice husk could also be processed for the production of biofuel ethanol. The use of rice hull as a bioethanol feedstock is particularly attractive in rice producing countries, where abundant amounts of rice husk are generated. In their study, the researchers first presented rice production at the global/regional trends, and "showed how much of this has potential in providing raw material feedstock for the bioethanol industry. They presented a methodology for calculating ethanol yields from rice husk and the global ethanol production potential. In addition, they looked at how much of this potential ethanol supply (from rice husk) can satisfy biofuel ethanol demand. Among the results of their study are: (1) the global ethanol production potential from rice husk is estimated to be between 21 Gigaliters and 24 Gigaliters per year, and can potentially satisfy about one-fifth of the global bioethanol demand for an E10 (10% ethanol) blend, (2) among the major rice producing countries, the use of rice husk as a bioethanol feedstock may be advantageous in India and China, where economic growth and demand for energy are rapidly increasing. The full results are published in the journal, Bioenergy Research (URL above). Biofuels Processing
Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) is one of the lignocellulosic grasses, which is considered to be a potential feedstock for the production of "second-generation" biofuel ethanol. In the conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks (such as switchgrass) into bioethanol, the pretreatment step (for the removal of the tight lignin wrapping around the biomass) is often the economic "bottleneck" of the process. Delignification (i.e. lignin removal) is necessary in order to facilitate the processing of the carbohydrate fractions of the biomass into ethanol. Expensive and energy-intensive thermochemical methods (high temperature with strong chemical agents) are often used for delignification. Rather than focusing on effective technical processes for lignin removal, another approach is to look at the feedstock itself and develop "low-lignin" plants through molecular biology techniques. The development of low-lignin switchgrass plants is seen to be an alternative for reducing the cost of bioethanol production from the feedstock. Scientists from the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation and the BioEnergy Science Center (both in the United States) looked into the "downregulation" of an important gene which controls lignin biosynthesis in switchgrass. They focused on the gene which expresses the enzyme, cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase (CAD), which catalyzes the final step of the biochemical pathway which produces the precursors for lignin synthesis. They produced transgenic plants with a "CAD RNAi gene construct under the control of the maize ubiquitin promoter". The transgenic lines were found to have reduced CAD expression levels, reduced enzyme activities, reduced lignin content, and altered lignin composition. The "downregulation" of the CAD gene resulted in improved sugar release, improved digestibility and increased saccharification efficiency, which would be useful for lowering the cost of cellulose ethanol production. The full results of the study is published in the journal, Bioenergy Research (URL above). Related information on cinnamyl alcohol dehydrogenase: http://www.rngr.net/publications/tree-improvement-proceedings/sftic/1989/characterization-and-genetic-control-of-cinnamyl-alcohol-dehydrogenase-in-loblolly-pine/?searchterm=loblolly. Biofuels Policy and Economics(complete access to journal article may require payment or subscription) http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2011.02.055 Researchers from the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences (IECS, Singapore) report the preliminary results on the life cycle energy and life cycle carbon dioxide analysis of a microalge-to-biodiesel process. They conducted energy and mass balances for a microalgae-to-biodiesel production system consisting of four subcomponents: (1) microalgae cultivation using raceway ponds for main cultivation and photobioreactors for algal mass build-up, (2) harvesting by coagulation/flocculation, settling and centrifugation, (3) Extraction of lipids from micoalgal biomass by use of hexane/methanol, and (4) Transesterification of extracted lipids by the addition of methanol to produce the biofuels. The microalgae used was Nannochloropsis sp. in saline medium, with an assumed oil content of 25%. Results showed that 85% of the total energy demand for the process was due to the lipid extraction process, while 13% was attributed to biomass cultivation. Only 2% of the total energy demand was attributed to the biodiesel production component. Sensitivity analysis showed that substantial decreases in life cycle energy can be achieved by lowering the energy requirement for lipid extraction. For a "base case" only a 25% life cycle energy efficiency can be obtained; however, under an "optimistic case" (presumably a case where substantial improvements are made in reducing energy requirement for lipid extraction), the lifecycle energy efficiency increases to 60%. The complete results of the study are published in the journal, Bioresource Technology (URL above). Related information: http://www.springerlink.com/content/r050x87k74p006w2/ Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin (United States) propose an analytical framework and nomenclature system for characterizing renewable diesel production from algae. The proposed analytical framework stems from the observation that many studies evaluating the renewable energy potential from algae do not have all the information for complete assessment. Published results may also be subject to misinterpretation due to differences in nomenclature and differences in interpretation of definitions. There is still some ambiguity on how best to report the results, and there is also a need for standardization, so that researchers can better integrate results from multiple sources. The University of Texas at Austin team formulated the framework based on three modes of algal processing for renewable energy: (1) transesterification of extracted algal lipids (biodiesel), (2) thermochemical conversion of algal biomass (a biobased hydrocarbon-like fuel product), and (3) the conversion of secreted algal oils. An overview of the methodology is described by the authors as follows: "The nomenclature system is initially presented from a top-level perspective that is applicable to all production pathways for renewable diesel from algae. Then, the nomenclature is expanded to characterize the production of renewable diesel (specifically, biodiesel) from extracted algal lipids in detail. The analytical framework uses the presented nomenclature system and includes three main principles: using appropriate reporting metrics, using symbolic notation to represent unknown values, and presenting results that are specific to algal species, growth conditions, and product composition". The full paper is published in the journal, Bioenergy Research (URL above). |
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