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News and Trends
http://biofuelsdigest.com/blog2/2008/07/14/three-jatropha-biodiesl-plants-with-170000-tonnes-in-capacity-greenlighted-in-china/ The Chinese National Government has approved the construction of three state-owned jatropha biodiesel plants, with an annual total capacity of 170,000 tons. The three plants are PetroChina (60,000 ton facility to be built in Sichuan), Sinopec (50,000 ton capacity plant to be built in Guizhou), and CNOOC (60,000 ton plant to be built in Hainan). These will be the first biodiesel plants which will use jatropha as feedstock. Existing biodiesel plants in China are privately owned , and utilize waste cooking oil as feedstock. Some of these plants have shut down due to recent price increases in cooking oil, and the regulated prices of diesel, which have all made production using this feedstock unprofitable. By 2010, China is set to produce 200,00 tons of biodiesel..
http://www.wsutoday.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=12459 Crop residues (such as rice straw and corn stover) are potential feedstocks for cellulose ethanol production. Because of their relative abundance in many parts of the world, many countries are considering the use of crop residues as bioenergy feedstocks. However, studies by Ann Kennedy (a soil scientist from the USDA-Agricultural Research Service and adjunct professor at Washington State University) indicate that the conversion of crop residues into cellulose ethanol “may not be a good idea for farmers growing crops without irrigation” and in areas where annual precipitation is less than 25 inches. For long term health effect of the soil, Professor Kennedy recommends leaving some of the crop residue on the soil surface. In so doing, it will “stay around longer”, and microorganisms will slowly convert it to organic matter. Tillage may cause an overmixing of the residue with soil. This would cause the residue to be consumed too quickly, resulting in its conversion and release into carbon dioxide (instead of conversion to organic matter). If the residue were harvested and utilized for other purposes, “soil fertility would drop and farmers would have to find other ways to increase the amount of organic matter in their soils”.. Energy Crops and Feedstocks for Biofuels Productionhttp://www.anl.gov/Media_Center/News/2008/BIO080718.pdf Scientists from the Argonne National Laboratory of the United States Department of Energy (US-DOE) and University of Chicago are jointly looking into the sustainability of converting perennial forage crops into bioenergy (either direct burning or conversion to cellulosic ethanol). Argonne Laboratory scientists are planting varieties of switchgrass, and other species of native perennial grasses (big bluestem, Indiangrass and Canadian wild rye) at an experimental facility, and will evaluate them in terms of amount of harvestable biomass and carbon balance. Using molecular biology tools, the researchers will also investigate “how differing plant traits and microbial communities interact in the soil environment” and how these interactions can be controlled..
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/nt/content/200801/s2134343.htm Australian biofuel company, PhytoFuel, is considering the use of the Kalpa tree (a tree native to Australia and resembling wisteria) as an alternative biodiesel feedstock. Company CEO, Marshall Mackay, says that the Kalpa tree produces a non-edible nut, with a seed of high oil content (about 30% oil yield). The oil is said to be suitable for making biofuel. The Kalpa tree is also a relatively robust tree, stress tolerant (with respect to high salinity and low water), suitable for warmer climates, and easy to maintain. Field trials for growing the trees are set (in preferably stressed areas in) Katherine and in the Daly river region. According to research, the first harvest of the kalpa tree will be five to six years after planting, and trees are expected to reach maturity by the tenth year. When the trees reach maturity, it is hoped that local producers would be able to harvest the nuts and sustainably process these into biofuels.. http://www.unco.edu/news/spotlights.asp?ID=182 Chhandak Basu, assistant professor from the University of Northern Colorado, United States, has received a research grant to study the feasibility of using a diesel-like fuel (called “oleoresin”) from the “copaiba” or “diesel tree” as automotive fuel without further refining. The grant, amounting to about $100,000 (from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, together with matching university research funds) will be channelled to a two-year collaborative research project headed by Basu. "The agricultural/physiological aspects of oleoresin have been studied extensively, but not the molecular biology part, nor the genes responsible for this type of synthesis", said Basu. One of the targets of the research is to transform Arabidopsis plants and algae with oleoresin genes. Arabidopsis is a non-invasive flowering plant (related to mustard and cabbage) and is a model organism in the study of plant biology. It was chosen for the study, partly because, according to Basu, “it would not negatively affect food supplies or strain the economy”, if successfully modified. In addition, it could also be applied to grasses. Basu is hopeful that the “proof of concept” will bring economic opportunities for the use of the oleoresin as biofuel. Related information on copaiba and “diesel trees” Biofuels ProcessingWhen ligno-cellulosic plant biomass (for example, wood) is used for ethanol production, only the cellulose component is usually utilized. The lignin component is often left as residue and unutilized. Lignin molecules are generally composed of small hydrocarbon chains linked by carbon-oxygen-carbon bonds. The small hydrocarbon chains are potential raw materials for biofuel production, if these can be broken off from the carbon-oxygen-carbon bonds. Breaking down the C-O-C bonds between chains, while leaving those within chains intact, is said to be a “difficult balancing act”. Getting the right conditions for reliably breaking off the carbon-oxygen-carbon links is said to be the key. Recently, Professor Yuan Kou and his colleagues from Peking University (Beijing, China) used “near-critical water” as the reaction solvent to achieve this breakthrough. A reaction mixture consisting of lignin, “near-critical” water (water at a temperature of about 250 oC to 300 oC/ pressure at about 7,000 kilopascals), a suitable catalyst (platinum-carbon) and an organic additive (dioxane), was found to yield hydrocarbon products which can be easily separated and processed into biofuels. Separation of the product from the reaction mixture can be easily achieved by just cooling the water and then drawing off the oily layer. The processing of the hydrocarbon product after processing yielded three components: (1) C8 to C9 alkanes (suitable for gasoline), (2) C12 to C18 alkanes (suitable for diesel) and (3) methanol. Related information on lignin and its properties:
http://www.biofuels-news.com/news/dow_nrel_convert.html Biomass is usually converted to ethanol using the biochemical or thermochemical route. Cellulose from biomass is broken down into simple sugars and then fermented by microorganisms into ethanol in the biochemical route. The thermochemical route, on the other hand, usually involves the (1) thermal gasification of the biomass into “synthesis gas” (a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen), followed by (2) a catalytic conversion of the synthesis gas (often by a process known as “Fischer Tropsch Process”), into a hydrocarbon mixture which can be used as synthetic biofuel. The American chemical company, DOW, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the United States Department of Energy (US-DOE) have agreed to jointly develop a technology for converting biomass to ethanol via a thermochemical route. According to the NREL press release, “a mixed alcohol catalyst from Dow is seen as the key to unlocking the potential for this promising renewable energy resource”, and “Dow’s technology helps convert the synthesis gas into a mixture of alcohols including ethanol that can be used as transportation fuels or chemical building blocks”. Related information on Biomass to Liquids Technology Biofuels Policy and Economics
http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id=3&storyid=11751 Taiwan Energy Bureau Chief , Yeh Huey-ching, announced the enactment of a “B1” mandate (a law requiring a 1% biodiesel blend on all diesel sold in the country), to be implemented in July 2008. The new law is expected to save Taiwan about 38.5 million liters of imported diesel and reduce its carbon emissions by 126,000 tons. Part of the biodiesel feedstock will come from waste cooking oil, which will be collected from households and restaurants in the country. The Chinese Petroleum Corporation (a state-run company) and Formosa Petroleum Corporation is reported to absorb the higher cost of biodiesel..
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/1748-9326/3/3/034001/erl8_3_034001.pdf?request-id=17d0e239-1d94-4081-a17b-e28b72e5e3eb http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/709/1 A recent study by scientists from the University of Wisconsin, University of Arizona, and McGill University, re-examined the proposed “carbon debt models” for biofuel development, and highlighted the short-term risks in the expansion of tropical biofuels, by growing them in cleared carbon-absorbing forests. An earlier article by Joseph Fargione and colleagues (which appeared in the journal, Science, http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152747) suggested that cultivating land for producing biofuels can result in a “carbon debt”, which must be repaid (“carbon payback period”). For example, the clearing of carbon-absorbing tropical forests to give way for soybean (biodiesel feedstock) production would decrease CO2-absorbing-capacity, resulting in a so-called carbon debt of 319 years “which must be repaid”. The paper re-examined the carbon debt model of Fargione and colleagues, taking into account some factors which were not considered in the original model. The study largely confirms the original findings that “biofuel expansion into natural tropical ecosystems will lead to net carbon emissions for decades to centuries in most cases”. However, the study also found that certain biofuel expansion pathways can also result in net carbon savings within a decade. Some of these pathways include: (1) expansion of high-yielding crops (sugarcane and oil palm) into largely degraded lands, (2) replacing other crops with agrofuels in croplands that displace tropical ecosystems. The complete results of the study, is published in the journal, Environmental Research Letters (URL above).. |
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