biopact

Brazil: sugarcane bioenergy bypasses hydroelectric power as primary energy source

2008-05-09T17:11:00.006+02:00

According to preliminary data from Brazil’s annual National Energy Balance report produced by EPE (Empresa de Pesquisa Energética), sugarcane ethanol and bagasse used for bioenergy became Brazil’s second largest primary source of energy in 2007, bypassing the contribution of hydroelectric power.

Bioenergy has become Brazil's fastest growing renewable energy source and is already generating more power than all non-oil fossil fuel sources combined. As a whole, the country now generates 46.4% of its energy from renewables. This compares very favorably with the primary energy mix of OECD countries, where renewables account for a mere 5.2%.

Brazil is known for its large hydropower infrastructures, with more than 600 dams built on the country's many rivers. The largest dam, the Itaipu, has an installed capacity of 14GW and provides some 20% of Brazil's electricity needs. However, erratic rainfall patterns over the past few years, combined with the fact that almost all large rivers have been dammed, have limited the prospects for new large hydroelectric power projects.

In contrast, growing demand for efficient and competitive biofuels has resulted in an ambitious vision to focus the future of electricity generation in Brazil more on biomass. Sugarcane ethanol production yields a very large mass of waste, called bagasse, which is used to (co-)generate electricity. An initial step in the EPE's bio-electricity vision was the recent auction of 7.8GW of biopower: more than 118 sugarcane factories capable of generating excess green electricity ready to be fed into the national grid, registered to participate in the auction (previous post).

According to the National Energy Evaluation, the current situation looks as follows (table, click to enlarge): ethanol and pulp accounted for 16% of Brazil’s total energy output in 2007, up from 14.5% the previous year. Hydroelectric power remained essentially stable at 14.7%, down 0.1 percentage points from 2006. Oil and derivatives retained the top spot with 36.7% of output, down from the 2006 level of 37.8%. Bioenergy has thus become Brazil's second largest primary energy source:
energy :: sustainability :: ethanol :: sugarcane :: biomass :: bioenergy :: efficiency :: hydroelectricity :: Brazil ::
Overall, the Brazilian demand for all forms of energy grew 5.9% in 2007, totaling 239.4 million tonnes of oil equivalent (toe). The rate of growth for energy demand was greater than the growth in the Brazilian economy (5.4%).

Brazil's sustainable energy mix might hold the future for many African countries. Not less than 25 countries there have a very large land and agroecological resource base that allows for the production of highly efficient energy crops, like sugarcane or sorghum.

With oil and coal prices at record highs, and other, less-cost effective renewables like wind or solar not being capable of providing reliable baseloads, biomass may become the most important form of primary energy on the African continent.

References:
EPE: Cana-de-açúcar já é a segunda fonte primária de energia no Brasil [*.Pdf] - May 8, 2008

Biopact: Brazil's biomass electricity auction attracts 118 factories with 7.8GW capacity - February 22, 2008

Oil price 'may hit $200' - developing countries face collapse

2008-05-07T15:27:00.007+02:00

Oil prices have risen 25% in the last four months and by an incredible 400% from 2001. Goldman Sachs energy strategist Argun Murti now warns that all parameters point to the occurence of a 'super-spike' past $200 in six months to two years' time. He joins OPEC's very own chief, who recently uttered the same frightening words.

Murti correctly predicted three years ago - when oil was about $55 a barrel - that it would pass $100, which it reached for the first time in January of this year.

Current oil prices - benchmark US light crude passing the $122 mark for the first time on Tuesday - are having destructive effects on all productive economic sectors of the oil importing least developed countries (LDCs). Of the 47 poorest countries in the world, 38 are net importers of oil, and 25 are fully dependent on imports.

Back when oil stood at a 'very low' $60, the United Nations already warned for the 'devastating' effects (previous post):

Recent oil price increases have had devastating effects on many of the world's poor countries, some of which now spend as much as six times as much on fuel as they do on health. Others spend twice the money on fuel as they do on poverty alleviation. And in still others, the foreign exchange drain from higher oil prices is five times the gain from recent debt relief.

Each dollar increase in the price of oil directly affects LDCs' capacity to provide health care, education, and basic public and social services to their people. Agriculture, the mainstay of most of these economies, is badly hit and farmers can be thrown back into subsistence farming and hunger when oil hits a treshold that makes agricultural production and marketing difficult. All other productive sectors of LDC-economies depend on affordable fuels.

The African Development Bank, writing with a 'high' oil price of $70 per barrel in mind, added some other depressing micro- and macro-economic prospects for African economies:

the risk of hyper-inflation, including steep increases in the price of food and basic staples; significant increases in real interest rates; the incapacity to introduce non-inflationary monetary policies
declining domestic and foreign investment
increasing unemployment, with the poor hit first and hardest
decreased capacity to trade, as foreign currency pools dry up
the destruction of the effect of debt relief efforts
the erosion of the state budget, both at the revenue and the expenditure side; revenues decline as the profitability of businesses decreases

Oil at $60-70 per barrel (let alone at today's price of $120) has catastrophic consequences for poor countries. But what would happen with oil at $200? At that level, development as such in LDCs would simply grind to a halt with the formal economy risking outright collapse. Civil strife and state collapse are likely in countries with weak institutions.

So what can poor countries do? Not much, because the problem is that there are no feasible alternatives to liquid fuel products, and that demand for these fuels is price inelastic. Highly developed countries can often consume a bit less or draw on strategic reserves, but the energy intensive countries of the poor South do not have this capacity. They can invest in biofuels - and most of these countries have a very large potential to produce them in a sustainable and highly competitive manner - but projects may take years to come online.

The recent food riots, already the result of record oil prices (and much less the result of biofuels) might just be a prelude to what's to come. Maybe the doom-scenarios sketched so often by 'Peak Oil' analysts will begin to play out after all. And they will hit the poorest countries first.
ethanol :: biodiesel :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: peak oil :: collapse :: Africa ::

Nielsen ranks Biopact in top-3 sustainability blogs

2008-04-06T14:27:00.003+02:00

Nielsen Online, a service of The Nielsen Company, recently released findings from its “Sustainability through the Eyes and Megaphones of the Blogosphere” report, which examined consumer attitudes about personal and corporate responsibility towards the environment. It ranks Biopact as the third most important blog about sustainability, behind Treehugger.com and WorldChanging.com.

According to the report, protecting the environment has become increasingly important to consumers, with online buzz around sustainability growing 50 percent in 2007. While early in the year discussion was dominated by the topic of global warming, bloggers progressively addressed a wider variety of green-related issues, with a particular emphasis on personal action such as recycling, avoiding excess packaging, and carpooling.

Even so, global warming remained the No. 1 topic among sustainability bloggers in 2007, followed by renewable energy/alternative fuels; resource conservation; recycle/reuse; carbon emissions; pollution; organics; toxins; packaging/plastic; and transportation (hybrids, carpooling).

Note: Topics are ranked by number of messages among sustainability bloggers from 1/1/07 to 12/31/07, with the Buzz trend reflecting change from 1/1/07 to 12/31/07.

“As in many sectors, consumers are becoming increasingly vocal online about the issue of sustainability,” said Jessica Hogue, research director, Nielsen Online. “Blogger attention to related issues like pollution, toxins and sustainable agriculture reveal an important intersection between personal health and environmental wellness.”

Top Sustainability Blogs
So if you're a marketer eager to start listening to this conversation online about sustainability, where should you begin? Start with the most popular sustainability blogs online.

Nielsen ranked Discovery Channel's TreeHugger.com No. 1 with 4,612 messages related specifically to sustainability in 2007. Worldchanging and Biopact took the No. 2 and 3 spots, with 738 and 722 sustainability messages, respectively (of course, quantity is no metric for quality, but hey, for once, we don't care!). Note that Biopact is (was) entirely a volunteer effort and does not (did not) receive any financial or other type of support from anyone:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: agriculture :: climate change :: blogosphere :: green journalism ::

Greenwashing: A Failed Corporate Strategy
The report also notes that not only are consumers looking for practical steps they can take to reduce personal environmental impact, they are also holding corporations accountable for action and results. Bloggers are quick to condemn “greenwashing” – when they suspect companies misrepresent their environmental impact with aggressive PR campaigns – as spurious attempts to be “green.” Consumers expect consistency in action and authentic and transparent messaging.

Nielsen Online analysis showed that similar environmental initiatives can provoke different consumer responses depending on a company’s reputation and history. For example, in the retail sector, while Wal-Mart and Target both introduced reusable shopping bags, some consumers voiced skepticism towards Wal-Mart because of its association with environmental, labor, and health care issues. Although in general consumers were supportive of Wal-Mart’s reusable bags, some were still dubious of the retailer’s intent.

“When it comes to the environment, consumers are insisting on both transparency and consistency from the corporations they patronize,” said Hogue. “Consumer support depends on action as well as perceived sincerity and commitment.”

References:
Nielsen Buzzmetrics: Online Consumers Call for Greater Transparency in Strategies for Environmental Sustainability, According to Nielsen Online - March 31, 2008.

AdAge: Do People Care About Your 'Green' Message? Yes - March 31, 2008.

Environmental Leader: Sustainability Buzz Up 50% In 2007 - April 1, 2008.

MarketinVox: Environmental Action, Sustainability Hot Blogosphere Topics - April 2, 2008.

Biopact creates the Biochar Fund

2008-03-10T13:42:00.003+01:00

Ideas and people come and go, debates shift and opportunities change. Over the past years Biopact has been instrumental in getting a simple message across: if biofuels are going to produced, it would be interesting to take the potential of the Global South into account. The message has added a perspective to a debate that has kept growing more complex and controversial. Biofuels for transport offer certain social and environmental advantages when they are produced in a smart way. But their (indirect) effects can just as well become so problematic that they outweigh these benefits.

In order to help small farmers in Africa - which has always been our prime goal - there are perhaps more elegant and straightforward strategies. One of these consists of assisting poor farmers in fragile environments to change a destructive land use technique that keeps them in poverty into one that presents tangible benefits.

Some 300 to 500 million farmers in the tropics rely on shifting cultivation and practise a type of 'slash-and-burn' farming. This land use strategy allows them to grow crops on soils for a few years, after which they have to move on because the nutrient-poor, acidic tropical soils get depleted very rapidly. All the while, they contribute to deforestation, out of necessity.

There is a new land use strategy that could make more sense. It is based on biochar - charcoal obtained from the pyrolysis of biomass - used as a soil amendment. Biochar cures unhealthy soils and makes them fertile. This way, slash-and-burn farmers can halt deforestation, and grow more food and biomass. Biochar also doubles as a carbon sink for which credits are available.

If biochar is used as the central ingredient of a holistic development approach, it offers an opportunity to help end hunger amongst communities at the forest margins, it can help slow deforestation, it may contribute in a significant way to reducing emissions from land use change and it can be coupled to renewable energy production amongst people currently without access to modern energy services.

The Biopact sees an interesting opportunity in the concept. This is why it has created the Biochar Fund, a small social profit organisation aimed at rethinking ways to tackle the interrelated issues of hunger, deforestation, energy poverty and climate change.

By improving access to farm inputs, knowledge and output markets, the Biochar Fund helps the poorest of the poor end hunger temporarily. To consolidate the results, the nutrient-poor, acidic soils are cured with biochar. Farming communities are then connected to carbon markets to be compensated for their carbon storage effort. Healthy and fertile soils make the use of modern inputs worthwile. In a later phase the rural communities are assisted in producing biochar in efficient, micro-scale pyrolysis units that simultaneously generate electricity.

The small fund focuses on rural communities at the forest frontier in the Congo Basin. The unique ecosystems of this vast tropical rainforest stretch accross six of the poorest countries in the world: the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Cameroon.

By the end of this year, the Biochar Fund will begin to conduct trials amongst poor rural communities at two contrasting sites to investigate the feasibility of the concept. If successful, the system will be expanded fairly swiftly. This is possible because it finances itself and is relatively easy to implement by even the poorest farmers.

The potential benefits of our intervention range from the very local - improved food security and access to modern energy services - to the global - reduced deforestation and associated emissions.

With the launch of the Biochar Fund, the small group of dedicated people behind the Biopact has a new mission and lots of work to do. For this reason, this website will no longer be updated. The Biopact team wants to thank everyone who has taken an interest in bioenergy and biofuels, especially in the context of the developing world.

The debate over biofuels must continue and analyses of the longterm impacts must be strengthened and deepened. We urge all the participants in this debate to look at biofuels as an agricultural opportunity that may offer important benefits to poorer countries. But at the same time, we urge caution, because a whole series of preconditions must be met first before this force for good can emerge.

Austria opens first cooperative biomass service station

2008-03-09T15:03:00.006+01:00

The Austrian state of Carinthia, in the south of the country, has opened its first cooperatively managed service station for biomass. 7000 small farmers are members of the energy cooperative, which collects residual wood and turns it into finished products ready for combustion in large biomass power stations and small heating units. Biomass users come to "tank" at the station. The collection point is located in Feistritz/Drau and offers technical assistance as well as machines to the farmers. By cooperating, the farmers achieve scale, a stable supply, and a new market which allows them to increase incomes by an estimated 15 percent.

The idea behind the energy cooperative is simple: hundreds of small farmers team up to supply wood to the station, which turns it into dry wood chips that are bought by several big customers. The initiative emerged out of the idea to make sustainable exploitation of local forest and woodland resources more attractive again.

Many farmers had lost interest for years, because there was no market. The emerging bioenergy sector signaled a change. But individual farmers did not see much opportunity as single suppliers: investing in heavy equipment, drying and storage facilities when you only have a limited raw material resource base does not make sense. Last autumn, an existing farmers' cooperative therefor launched the idea of a collectively supplied "biomass station" that takes away the investment risk by distributing it over many farmers. And it became a success: hundreds now participate as suppliers.

The cooperative had a bit of luck too. A heavy storm caused severe damage to woodlands in the region, which prompted the local authorities to draw on private resources to clean up the wood. The cooperative stepped in, and more farmers joined. Now the Feistritz service point guarantees a secure, year round biomass supply, which is a precondition for any large power generator to use the resource.

The simple farmer cannot compete with his small quantities. But with our organization we offer scale and thus we can help him get access to a much larger market. This guarantees his survival. - Josef Steiner, Maschinenring

Biomass is seen as an attractive energy source, because not only is it renewable, it has become the least costly of all fuels. But biomass is more than wood. Biomass fuels consist of raw wood that has undergone a simple transformation process: it is collected, dried, stored and turned into chips or pellets. It is this seemingly insignificant transformation that makes all the difference to the farmers. It adds value and opens the market. Individual farmers often don't have a large enough wood supply to warrant investment in the machines needed to carry out these processes.

The farmers now have the possibility to create value with the machines offered by the cooperative. They do no merely sell wood, they supply a true fuel for energy, namely wood chips with a high heating value. - Christoph Aste, managing director of the cooperative

The cooperative rents out heavy equipment to farmers who use it to haul fallen trees and branches out of their forests and woodlands. A specialised team of four men comes with the machinery.

The biomass fuel station is located at the site of a sawmill that was redesigned for its new function. This means the necessary logistical infrastructure is in place. The station now supplies fuel to both large and small customers. It covers the yearly heating needs of 4,000 households as well as the biomass supplies of several large district heating plants:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: wood chips :: supply chain :: district heating :: cooperative :: Austria ::

After observing the operation at the biomass fuel station for three months, the city of Villach was impressed and decided to become the first big customer. Its large thermal plant, operated by the Kärntner Restmüllverwertungs GmbH, uses the biomass energy to feed its long-distance district heating grid, which supplies hot water and heat to households in the city.

In Villach we successfully created a hybrid system that combines biomass, natural gas and waste heat to heat the city. The transition of parts of the city's energy supplies to biomass is a meaningful alternative to its reliance on natural gas. This combination is possible in other cities in Carinthia. - Christoph Aste

The cooperative itself operates several heating systems and now hopes to double its fuel output over the next two years. Farmers who are members and supply raw wood can then expect an estimated 15 percent increase in their incomes.

But to meet this goal, the biomass cooperative must actively create a new regional market for bioenergy. It hopes to do this by convincing municipalities, businesses, and public organisations with large energy needs, such as schools, to heat with wood chips. The robust supply chain, the participation of hundreds of local farmers, and the fuel's competitive edge might make this possible.

Hat tip to Günther!

References:
Kaernten ORF: Erste Biomasse-Tankstelle in Kärnten - February 10, 2008.

Scientists discover genetics of nitrogen fixation in plants - potential implications for future agriculture

2008-03-08T16:39:00.003+01:00

Some plants have the capacity to grow well in nutrient poor soils without additional fertilizers. This is the result of a very efficient symbiosis between either nitrogen fixing bacteria that interact with the plant's roots, or between these roots and mycorrhizal fungi. These symbioses allow plants to strongly improve their uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus and water. Now a team of French and German scientists has discovered [*.pdf French/Spanish] the common genetic mechanism at work that allows the elements of the symbiosis to interact.

Their findings might make it possible to transfer the nitrogen fixing capacity of legumes to a wide range of crops that do not have this ability, including maize and rice. Ultimately, this could lead to a massive reduction of inorganic fertilizer consumption. The discovery is reported in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The team of researchers from the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and the University of Munich have been collaborating for years on the project. They found that one of the genetic elements of nitrogen fixing plants called SymRK (Symbiosis Receptor Kinase), used by leguminous plants (pea, alfalfa...) to join Rhizobia bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi, is also essential for the establishment of the symbiosis between the tropical tree Casuarina - an actinorhizal plant that thrives in poor sandy soils - and nitrogen fixing bacteria belonging to the genus Frankia. This new understanding unlocks the keys to the genetics of the nitrogen fixing capacity of plants, and could make it possible to apply the mechanism to the development of crops that massively cut back on fertilizers.

Inorganic fertilizers are an essential but expensive input for farmers. World wide consumption of nitrogen fertilizers was around 130 million tonnes in 2007. Phosphate demand stood at around 37 million ton. Prices are rising steadily because of high oil and gas prices. Some crops like maize require large applications that have to be repeated each growing seaon. Particular cropping systems - such as growing nitrogen-fixing crops after other crops - can limit the need for fertilizers marginally and temporarily.

But what if crops like maize and rice could be designed in such a way that they do not require any additional inorganic fertilizers? That would revolutionise agriculture on a global scale and would greatly limit the different types of pollution and ecosystem damage caused by artificial fertilizers. The discovery of the genetic basis for the efficient N2-fixing capacity in plants might make the development of such crops possible.

The association between mycorrhizal fungi and plants is estimated to be more than 400 million years old. It helped plants colonize the land. Today, the symbiosis can be found in more than 80% of the all plant species. More recently, approximately 60 million years ago, a new symbiosis developed between soil bacteria known as rhizobia, and leguminous plants, which granted them the unique capacity to nourish themselves by extracting nitrogen from the air to use it as a nutrient.

Rhizobia establish themselves inside the root nodules of legumes, where they transform nitrogen into ammonium that can be directly taken up by the plant. In return, the plant provides to the micro-organisms with nutrients in the form of complex glucides:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: agriculture :: fertilizer :: nitrogen fixation :: mycorrhizae :: soil microbes :: symbiosis :: molecular biology :: genetics ::

Unlocking the mechanism
For several years, scientists have tried to unlock the genetic mechanisms responsible for these mutually beneficial relations between plants and bacteria on the one hand, and bacteria and fungi on the other.

Already in 2000, IRD researchers discovered a genetic signaling mechanism common to the way in which legumes interact with rhizobia and to the way in which mycorrhizae work. The symbioses use a common genetic element baptized SymRK. This gene intervenes in recognizing Nod factors - the signaling molecules that are crucial for the rhizobia to establish themselves in root nodules.

So-called actinorhizal plants have formed a second group of plants that have acquired the capacity to benefit from a symbiosis with another type of nitrogen-fixing bacteria called Frankia. The genetic mechanisms of these plants' relationship with their symbiont has not been studied in-depth so far.

The actinorhizal plants can be found in disturbed environments, such as volcanic soils or mining terrain and in soils starved of nitrogen, such as sandy moraines.

There are approximately 260 species of actinorhizal plants distributed over 24 genera and 8 families of flowering plants. To study the symbiosis, the French and German researchers were particularly interested in the tropical Casuarina tree, better known under the name filao. Casuarinas thrive at tropical beaches, in poor sandy soils.

Using techniques from molecular biology, the scientists looked for the sequence coding the SymRK gene within the Casuarina genome. Once they identified the gene, they wanted to find out whether it is again responsible for the establishment of the symbiosis between filao and the Frankia bacteria.

To find out, they developed transgenic plants in which the expression of the SymRK gene was strongly reduced. They then compared the capacity of these plants to form symbiotic nodules on their roots with that of wild plants. According to these analyses, the plants whose SymRK gene's potency was reduced, produced half the number of root nodules compared with the control plants. The formation of mycorrhizae also strongly decreased compared with the wild Casuarina trees.

These results indicate that the reduction of the expression of the SymRK gene, in filao, causes a major reduction in its capacity to fix atmospheric nitrogen as well as a reduction of its aptitude to form mycorrhizae. More generally, these conclusions highlight the fact that there is a common genetic element at work in nitrogen fixing plants that seems essential for the installation of the three types of symbiotic associations utilizing bacteria (Rhizobium and Frankia) or mycorrhizal fungi.

Implications
A better comprehension of these genetic mechanisms could contribute, in the years to come, to the development of techniques to transfer the genetic material necessary for the nitrogen fixing capacity to crops that are unable to perform this task, such as cereals like maize and rice.

Whereas rice does establish a symbiotic relation with a mycorrhizal fungus, it is indeed inapt to develop nitrogen fixing nodules. However, by modifying its genome in such a way that rice plants too are capable of feeding off the atmospheric nutrient, it would become possible to significantly limit the nitrogen fertilizer needs in rice cultivation. This would have major economic and environmental effects: reduced production costs for farmers world wide and less pollution from nitrogen runoff.

If the N2-fixing capacity is transferred to all the major grain crops currently produced, world agriculture would be transformed forever.

Translated for Biopact by Laurens Rademakers.

Image: Frankia is genus of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in the soil and have a symbiotic relationship with many plants. By focusing on the genome of Frankia, French and German scientists discovered a genetic mechanism responsible for root-fungal and root-bacterial symbioses. Credit: MicrobeWiki.

References:
Hassen Gherbi, Katharina Markmann, Sergio Svistoonoff, Joan Estevan, Daphné Autran, Gabor Giczey, Florence Auguy, Benjamin Péret, Laurent Laplaze, Claudine Franche, Martin Parniske, and Didier Bogusz, "SymRK defines a common genetic basis for plant root endosymbioses with arbuscular mycorrhiza fungi, rhizobia, and Frankia bacteria", Published online on March 3, 2008, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0710618105,

IRD: Un mécanisme génétique universel découvert chez les plantes fixatrices d’azote [*.pdf] - Fiche n°288 - Février 2008

AlphaGalileo: Un mecanismo genético universal descubierto en las plantas fijadoras de nitrógeno - March 7, 2008.

Renergie receives $1.5 million grant for sweet sorghum ethanol production

2008-03-08T14:27:00.008+01:00

Renergie, Inc. is one of the eight recipients, selected from 139 grant applicants, to share $12.5 million from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Renewable Energy Technologies Grants Program (previous post). It received $1,5 million (partial funding) in grant money to design and build Florida’s first sweet sorghum juice mechanical harvesting system and ethanol plant capable of producing fuel-grade ethanol solely from sweet sorghum juice. The fuel is competitively priced at 15 percent less per gallon than regular gasoline, in part because of the crop's high yield. Renergie focuses on a decentralised production approach, firmly rooted in local farming communities.

Renergie was formed in March 2006 by Meaghan M. Donovan for the purpose of raising capital to develop, construct, own and operate ethanol plants in the parishes of the State of Louisiana which were devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Each ethanol plant in Louisiana has a production capacity of 5 million gallons per year of fuel-grade ethanol. Upon completion of the initial network of ten ethanol plants, Renergie will have an annual production capacity of fifty 50 million gallons (189 million liters). Renergie intends to replicate its Louisiana decentralized network of ethanol plants in Florida.

Sweet sorghum advantages
Renergie produces ethanol solely from sweet sorghum juice. This crop has received growing interest from the bioenergy community because it outperforms most alternative, firts generation energy crops. According to Renergie, the main advantages of producing ethanol from sweet soghum juice are:

High Yield – Sweet sorghum yields between 500 to 800 gallons of ethanol per acre (4700 to 7500 liters per hectare);

Water Efficient Crop – Sweet sorghum requires one-half of the water required to grow corn and one third of the water required to grow sugarcane;

Ability to Grow in Marginal Soil – Sweet sorghum can grow in marginal soils, ranging from heavy clay to light sand. Sweet sorghum has been called a “camel among crops,” owing to its wide adaptability, its marked resistance to drought and saline-alkaline soils, and tolerance to high temperature and waterlogging;

Not Harmful to the Environment – Sweet sorghum requires the use of only 40 to 60 pounds of nitrogen per acre whereas corn growers use more than 150 pounds per acre, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Less fertilizer reduces the risk of water contamination. Producing ethanol from sweet sorghum, rather than increasing corn-to-ethanol production, reduces the risk of the continued formation of dead zones in the Gulf of Mexico;

Rapid Growth – Sweet sorghum takes only 4 months to reach maturity, which is short enough to allow harvesting twice a year. Sugarcane requires 14 months to reach maturity; and

Energy Efficient – The energy requirement for converting sweet sorghum juice into ethanol is less than half of that required to convert corn into ethanol. This is due to the fact that the sugars in sweet sorghum juice are fermented directly. There is no need to excessively heat the juice to breakdown starch into sugars as required for corn.

In 2007, China and India produced 1.3 billion gallons of ethanol from sweet sorghum juice. The Renergie project will be the first time that ethanol will be produced solely from sweet sorghum juice in the U.S.

Decentralisation
The company focuses on creating a decentralized network of smaller ethanol plants with a commitment to local rural economic development. The distributed nature of a smaller ethanol production plant network reduces Renergie’s feedstock supply risk, does not burden local water supplies and provides broad-based economic development:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: sweet sorghum :: efficiency :: Florida ::

In Louisiana, Renergie is headquartered in the small city of Kaplan (population of less than 5,000). Renergie has agreed to donate two cents of every gallon of ethanol it sells to the City of Kaplan. Renergie firmly believes that the success of the ethanol industry requires a long-term commitment to rural economic development.

Market focus
The Renergie philosophy is to produce ethanol locally and market ethanol locally. There is not an oversupply of ethanol. The major obstacle to widespread ethanol usage continues to be the lack of fueling infrastructure. Only 1,347, of the nearly 180,000 retail gasoline stations in the United States, offer E85. Moreover, ethanol is slowly moving from being just a blending component in gasoline to a truer fuel alternative in the form of E85. If it were up to the company, the day of building 100 million gallon per year corn-to-ethanol plants in the Midwest corn belt, for the sale of E-10 to consumers on the U.S. East Coast and West Coast, is over.

Renergie is focusing its efforts on growing ethanol demand beyond the 10% blend market. Initially, Renergie will directly market E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline for use in FFVs, to fuel retailers under the brand Renergie E85. Renergie’s unique strategy is to blend fuel-grade ethanol with gasoline at the gas station pump. Currently, ethanol providers blend E10 and E85 at their blending terminal and transport the already blended product to retail gas stations.

Once state approval is received, Renergie’s variable blending pumps will be able to offer the consumer a choice of E10, E20, E30 and E85. Via use of the Blender’s Tax Credit, Renergie will be able to ensure that gas station owners are adequately compensated for each gallon of fuel-grade ethanol that is sold via Renergie’s variable blending pumps at their gas stations.

Cost of Feedstock
Renergie will not fall victim to rising feedstock costs. Farmers in Louisiana and Florida will share in the profits realized from the sale of the ethanol made from their crops. Renergie enters into long-term feedstock supply contracts with area farmers. Currently, the profits from corn-to-ethanol projects go primarily to the wealthiest farmers, major corporations, e.g., Archer Daniels Midland, and out-of-state investors.

Renergie ensures that there is a link between the compensation paid to its feedstock producers and ethanol market conditions. Farmers will receive a lease payment for their acreage and a royalty payment based on a percentage of Renergie’s gross sales of ethanol. The Renergie ethanol project will mark the first time that Louisiana and Florida farmers will share in the profits realized from the sale of value-added products made from their crops.

Research
Sorghums are receiving a great deal of interest from the bioenergy community. Recently, scientists from the U.S. Agricultural Research Service released new low-lignin sorghums that are ideal for biofuel and feed (previous post). Several projects are underway to develop drought-tolerant varieties, high sugar varieties and high biomass varieties (earlier post). Some sorghums promise great opportunities for use in developing countries, where they can be grown with low inputs to yield both fuel, food, fiber and fodder (more here and here).

Late last year, a major breakthrough was achieved when researchers succeeded in engineering a sorghum that can grown in soils plagued by aluminum toxicity. Such acidic soils limit crop production in as much as half the world's arable land (previous post).

Thanks to Renergie's Brian J. Donovan.

References:
Biopact: Florida awards $12.5 million grants for renewable energy: includes sweet sorghum ethanol, biodiesel distribution, multi-feedstock biofuels - March 07, 2008

Biopact: Researchers use IV to monitor flow of sugar in sweet sorghum, analysis aimed at maximizing biofuel potential - September 13, 2007

Scientists discover signaling pathway that determines plant cell wall growth: could lead to 'third generation' biofuel crops

2008-03-07T19:35:00.007+01:00

Plant scientists and cellular biologists from Purdue University have discovered a newly defined biochemical signaling pathway in plants that determines the process of cell wall growth. The discovery may provide the scientific tools to develop dedicated energy crops that yield more biofuels and bioproducts than currently can be produced. Such engineered plants introduce so-called 'third generation' biofuels which are based on growing crops with characteristics that conform to the demands of a particular bioconversion process.

The researchers report their findings in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study also will be published in the journal's March 11 print issue.

Cell growth signals
The biochemical pathway moves materials that determine cell shape and size through a system of signaling proteins, said Dan Szymanski, plant geneticist and cellular biologist at Purdue and lead researcher. By learning more about the growth and development process, it may be possible to engineer plants with improved properties such as cell walls that are more massive or are more easily fermented in the biofuel process.

We expect that cell wall material will to be a major source of biomass from plants designated for biofuel production. We need to learn more about how plant cells control the quality and amount of cell wall material. - Dan Szymanski

The research team investigated plant growth and cell wall development from several scientific approaches in determining the cascade of events that leads to changes in the cell wall. They discovered that a protein called "SPIKE1" directs the protein signaling pathway.

Plant cells grow by expansion, which is cell wall synthesis coupled with an increase in cell size. The key questions scientists need to answer in trying to create plants more valuable for biofuel production center on understanding how plants integrate metabolism, cell growth and biomass production.

To answer those questions and be able to engineer plants for improved growth of biomass for alternative fuels, Szymanski and other scientists investigated complex molecular functions:

Our research is focused on understanding signaling mechanisms. How does a cell interpret multiple types of information and then translate that information to a signal that says, 'Grow here, or modify or reinforce the cell wall here.' Or how does a cell know to make new cytoskeleton filaments at a certain time and place to define regions of growth that determine the cell's shape and size? - Dan Szymanski

Uncovering the mechanism
Actin filaments comprise the cytoskeleton, which is the roadway for delivery and recycling of materials that drive plant growth and determine the cell shape and size. Actin is an abundant protein in organisms that have multiple cells with nuclei:

SPIKE1 is a master regulator of many growth control pathways, including the protein signaling pathway that produces the cytoskeleton. The researchers were able to demonstrate that one of SPIKE1's functions is to control production of actin filament, which defines localized cell regions for delivery and recycling of growth materials.

Wall construction in plants, just as in a road project, is a coordinated effort. The supply and demand of the materials needed for growth must be coordinated. The question is, how do cells regulate this? - Dan Szymanski

The signaling pathway, headed by SPIKE1, is responsible for organizing activities during construction - delivering materials and recycling materials that are used during growth, he said. After SPIKE1 initiates communication among proteins along the pathway, actin filaments are produced and changes in cell shape and size occur:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy crops :: cell wall :: cell biology :: bioconversion ::

Cells also must coordinate with the activities of surrounding cells that have different shapes and functions.

Cell expansion occurs in a crowded, but accommodating environment. As neighboring cells expand, this growth intrudes upon a neighbor. SPIKE1 generates signals so that cells can coordinate with neighboring cells' activities to promote organized cell expansion and proper cell-to-cell adhesion. - Dan Szymanski

Szymanski and his colleagues used an altered version of the mustard family laboratory plant Arabidopsis to study SPIKE1's function and find the proteins that it activates and to which it binds.

They found that when they created mutant plants by switching off the SPIKE1 gene so that the function is lost, one result was improper growth that manifested as holes in the leaf epidermis.

By studying the results of turning off various other protein complexes in the pathway, Szymanski's team was able to follow the sequence of events that occur during signaling.

They also found that plants in which the function of one of the pathway's signaling proteins was altered resulted in mutants that all looked alike. This suggested that the three major protein complexes the scientists investigated all function in a common pathway.

The Purdue research team confirmed this by making double mutants - plants in which two of the proteins had been switched off. One of the pathway's protein complexes, called "WAVE," functions the same way in both humans and Arabidopsis, and the SPIKE1 signaling pathway is likely to function in other plants including rice and corn.

However, in other organisms with SPIKE1-like genes, switching off the gene kills the organism. This lethality has made it difficult for scientists to understand the function of SPIKE1 and comparable genes in other organisms, including humans. Since Arabidopsis survives when SPIKE1 is disrupted, the Purdue team was able to determine the signaling pathway.

Potential implications
The scientists hypothesize that SPIKE1 may both generate and organize protein complex signaling. They also need to discover what activates SPIKE1. When the researchers understand enough about the processes involved in plant cell growth and development, then they may be able to design plants that are bigger with more cell wall that can be processed into biofuel.

Learning more about SPIKE1 likely will help us gain a better understanding of the mechanics and regulation involved with the pathways that control cell architecture and development in plants, and also may be relevant to animal and human growth and development. - Dan Szymanski

The other researchers involved with this study were graduate student Dipanwita Basu, postdoctoral students Jie Le and Taya Zakharova, and research technician Eileen Mallery. All are in the Purdue Department of Agronomy. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Purdue Agricultural Research Program.

Image: A Purdue research team is studying plant growth and cell wall development. By investigating plant cells at the molecular level, they may be able to design plants that are better sources of alternative transportation fuels. In these three slides, green outlines the outer epidermal cells. The red is from chloroplasts from the underlying cell layer. The final slide shows cells of a mutant plant in which a gene called SPIKE1 has been turned off. These mutant cells form abnormally and the cell walls won't properly adhere to each, resulting in holes in the epidermis that you can see through. Credit: Dan Szymanski, Purdue University.

References:
Dipanwita Basu, Jie Le, Taya Zakharova, Eileen L. Mallery, and Daniel B. Szymanski, "A SPIKE1 Signaling Complex Controls Actin-Dependent Cell Morphogenesis through the Heteromeric WAVE and ARP2/3 Complexes", published online on February 29, 2008,
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0710294105

Purdue University: Newly defined signaling pathway could mean better biofuel sources - March 6, 2008.

China and Australia sign 'clean coal' agreement - steps to carbon-negative bioenergy

2008-03-07T16:09:00.003+01:00

In what they see as an important step towards a 'cleaner' coal future, Australia and China signed a formal international agreement for joint research into carbon capture from coal plants. The agreement, between CSIRO and China’s Thermal Power Research Institute (TPRI), will see TPRI install, commission and operate a post-combustion capture pilot plant at the Huaneng Beijing Co-Generation Power Plant as part of CSIRO’s research program. The agreement formalises an earlier partnership (previous post).

Biopact tracks carbon capture developments, because the technology can be applied to biomass power plants to yield "negative emissions" energy, that is, bioenergy which actively removes CO2 from the atmosphere. The logic is: if the coal industry, especially in China, is putting money into developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies anyways, then we would rather see those being applied to renewable biomass from the start as this results in the most radical tool to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Post-combustion capture (PCC) is a process that uses amines to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from power station flue gases and is a technology that can potentially reduce carbon dioxide emissions from existing and future coal-fired power stations by more than 85 per cent. If coupled to biomass power plants, energy with negative emissions as large as -1000 tons CO2/GWh can be achieved (that is: for each GWh of electricity generating it takes a large amount of CO2 from the past out of the atmosphere).

Benefits of PCC include:

PCC can be retrofitted to existing plants and is a very prospective means of substantially reducing their greenhouse gas intensity
PCC can be integrated into new plants to achieve a range of greenhouse gas intensity reductions down to near zero emissions
in contrast to competing technologies, PCC has high operational flexibility (partial retrofit, zero to full capture operation) and can match market conditions for both existing and new power stations- for instance, during periods of high power prices, PCC can be turned off and maximum power delivered to the market
PCC offers a lower technology risk compared to competing technologies - this is further enhanced by the ability for staged implementation, which is not possible with competing technologies
renewable technologies can be integrated in the PCC process - in particular, PCC allows low-cost solar thermal collectors to provide the necessary heat to separate CO2 from sorbents, effectively reducing the loss of electrical output due to capture
PCC can be applied to capture CO2 from natural gas fired power stations and other large stationary sources of CO2, including biomass power plants, smelters, cement kilns and steelworks.

The Sino-Australian pilot plant is designed to capture 3,000 tonnes per annum of CO2 from the power station and begins the process of adapting this technology to evaluate its effectiveness in Chinese conditions. CSIRO’s involvement in this PCC project has been made possible through funding from the Australian Government. The Australian Government is supporting this work through a $A12 (€7.2/US$11.1) million grant, $A4 (€2.4/US$3.7) million of which supports this work in China:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: carbon capture and storage :: post-combustion capture :: bio-energy with carbon storage :: carbon-negative :: negative emissions :: bio-energy with carbon storage :: climate change :: Australia :: China ::

Director of CSIRO’s 'Energy Transformed National Research Flagship', Dr John Wright, said low emission energy generation was a key research area for the Flagship and he welcomes the support of the Australian Government.

This project is part of a major research program to identify ways to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. Climate change is a critical issue for Australia and internationally, and we’re delighted to be working with TPRI to help find solutions to this global challenge. - Dr Wright

The project will focus on assessing the performance of an amine-based PCC pilot plant under Chinese conditions. It will allow PCC technology to be progressed in the Chinese energy sector which will have a much greater impact than operating in Australia alone.

The Chinese partners are aiming for the Beijing pilot plant to be up and running before August this year.

The installation of the PCC pilot plant in Beijing is a CSIRO Energy Transformed Flagship research project and forms part of the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate initiative (APP). The APP program for PCC also includes a pilot plant installation at Delta Electricity’s Munmorah power station on the NSW Central Coast, with an additional Australian site currently under negotiation.

The Energy Transformed National Research Flagship is also undertaking PCC research outside the scope of the APP program with a $A5.6 million project in the Latrobe Valley, which focuses on brown coal.

References:
CSIRO: Clean coal agreement with China - March 6, 2008.

CSIRO: Post combustion capture (PCC) - Fact Sheet.

Biopact: Australia and China partner to develop carbon capture and storage technologies - September 07, 2007

Florida awards $12.5 million grants for renewable energy: includes sweet sorghum ethanol, biodiesel distribution, multi-feedstock biofuels

2008-03-07T15:49:00.004+01:00

The state of Florida recently announced the recipients of new renewable energy technologies grants. Part of the Department of Environmental Protection's Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program, $12.5 million in funding was awarded to eight organizations to stimulate capital investment in the state and promote and enhance the statewide utilization of renewable energy technologies, including ethanol and biodiesel, bioenergy, solar and wind. Earlier, the state announced $25 million in grants as part of the "Farm to Fuel" initiative, which aims to have biomass meet 25 percent of all of Florida's energy needs by 2025 (more here).

The DEP received 139 grant proposals for the new funding round seeking more than $200 million and providing almost $700 million in cost share for renewable energy projects. The proposals, which include technologies ranging from biomass, to solar and hydrogen, were evaluated by the state based on a number of different criteria: cost share percentage; economic development; technical feasibility; innovative technology; production potential; energy efficiency; fostering awareness; project management; duration and timeline; located served; public integration; and incorporation of multiple technologies.

The Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program recipients for 2007/2008 are:

Central Florida Regional Transit Authority (LYNX), “Go Renewable Energy Efficient Next-Generation Biodiesel Fleets” ($2,500,000) – Located in Central Florida, this partnership will implement a large-scale alternative fuel research and demonstration project that provides biodiesel blending at a central fueling location. By 2010, Orange County, LYNX and Orlando Utilities Commission will have transitioned their entire diesel fleet to biodiesel blended fuel.
Vecenergy, “Production of Biodiesel Using Multiple Feedstocks” ($2,500,000) – Located in Manatee County, the project includes construction and operation of a biodiesel facility capable of producing 37.5 million gallons of biodiesel per year.
Florida Power and Light, “St. Lucie Wind” ($2,500,000) – This project will construct the first wind energy facility in Florida. As proposed, nine wind turbine generation units would be placed in St. Lucie County and are expected to have the potential capacity of 20 megawatts of electrical power.
Florida Solar Energy Research and Education Foundation, “Building Florida’s Solar Infrastructure” ($1,688,216) – This statewide project will accelerate the use of solar energy in Florida by reducing market barriers by collaborating with industry experts as well as developing marketing materials and an outreach campaign.
Renergie, Inc., “Development of Florida’s Ethanol Industry Using Sweet Sorghum” ($1,500,483) – This project, concentrated in the Florida Panhandle, will design and build Florida’s first sweet sorghum mechanical harvesting system. In addition, the company will develop and construct a sweet sorghum-to- ethanol facility capable of producing five million gallons of ethanol annually.
Exceed Corporation, “Dollars & Sense: Renewable Energy for Florida Builders & Developers” ($990,000) – This project, located in Pinellas County, will develop a profitable model for replication that will provide solutions to up-front cost barriers for renewable energy investments for Florida developers.
Orange County Government, “Photovoltaic Demonstration and Research Facility and Climate Change Education Center” ($697,433) – This project enables the completion of a demonstration, research and education program through the installation of the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) system in the South, a one megawatt solar PV system located at the Orange County Convention Center.
Progress Energy Florida, “Small-Scale Wind Power in Florida” ($123,868) - This project will evaluate inland opportunities for wind energy generation in Florida by using five wind turbines at five different locations across the state, providing more than 15,000 kilowatt hours of wind generation annually.

In 2007, the Florida Legislature appropriated $12.5 million for the Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program, providing funding for projects that generate or utilize renewable energy resources, including hydrogen, biomass and solar energy. Since the creation of the Florida Energy Act in 2006, a total of $27.5 million has been appropriated for the Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program:
energy :: sustainability :: renewables :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: ethanol :: biodiesel :: sweet sorghum :: Florida ::

We believe that awards such as these are critical in triggering the development of a renewable energy industry in Florida. With the backing of and an investment from the state, we’re hopeful that these projects will yield positive results and serve as a catalyst for major commercial investment in this industry. - Charles H. Bronson, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture

In addition to the Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program, the Florida Legislature created the “Farm to Fuel” Grants Program to provide matching grants for projects that promote the production and distribution of renewable energy from Florida-grown crops, agricultural wastes and residues, and other biomass. As part of the program and with DEP’s input, twelve grants totaling $25 million were awarded last month to stimulate investment in projects that will enhance the value of agriculture products and expand agribusiness in the State.

Last summer, Governor Charlie Crist signed a set of executive orders to reduce Florida’s greenhouse gases emissions, increase energy efficiency, and remove market barriers for renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind energy. In the months since the executive orders were signed, Florida has stepped onto the world stage as a major marketplace for advanced energy technologies. Just last month, the Governor announced a $200 million energy and economic development budget recommendation that builds on the policy framework of the Governor’s executive orders, focusing on increasing energy efficiency, stimulating development of renewable sources of energy, and using markets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

References:
Florida Department of Environmental Protection: State Awards Grants for Renewable Energy Technologies - February 26, 2008.

Florida's Renewable Energy Technologies Grant Program.

Florida’s climate change initiatives.

Biopact: Florida awards $25 million to biofuel and bioenergy projects in "Farm to Fuel" initiative: 25% of all energy from biomass by 2025 - January 23, 2008

CU-Boulder awarded project: solar chemical processing of biomass into biohydrogen

2008-03-07T14:22:00.012+01:00

Earlier this week, the US Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture announced an investment into 21 bioenergy research projects (previous post). US$ 1 million went to an interesting project that aims to convert biomass and biogas into a decarbonised biofuel - namely biohydrogen - via solar-thermal gasification. Two types of renewable energy are thus coupled to each other and generate a potentially powerful synergy. If successful, the solar chemical processing technology means hydrogen production from biomass further improves its greenhouse gas balance, because it would entirely exclude fossil fuels as a primary energy source for the gasification process.

There are two main pathways to make hydrogen: (1) gasifying carbonaceous fuels, including biomass, into a syngas that can be further reformed into hydrogen; (2) the electrolysis of water using electricity from any primary energy source, including renewables. According to a very recent study outlining the EU's hydrogen future, of all the possible pathways, biohydrogen based on the gasification of biomass is both the least carbon-intensive, the most economic of the renewable pathways, as well as holding the largest potential in the EU (previous post). Likewise, for use in cars, biohydrogen is the cleanest and most efficient pathway on a well-to-wheel basis (previous post; graph, click to enlarge).

The recently awarded project at the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder), which partners with a consortium of other renewable technology researchers (from Europe) now goes a step further and hints at an even cleaner pathway. The goal is to develop rapid solar-thermal chemical reactor systems for the conversion of biomass material like grass, sorghum, corn stalks and leaves, wood waste and algae. The feedstock is heated to more than 2,000 degrees F for just fractions of a second. This will produce an intermediate syngas - a mixture of carbon oxides and hydrogen - that can be easily converted into biohydrogen or liquid fuels.

The three-year award was made to a team led by Professor Alan Weimer of CU-Boulder's chemical and biological engineering department. The team has been studying the use of concentrated sunlight for several other conversion processes, amongst them the decarbonisation of (bio)methane.

Since the process is driven by sunlight and converts biomass to fuels, the end result is a process that is 'carbon negative'. This provides an opportunity to substantially reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere without impacting the food supply. - Professor Weimer

Professor Weimer is executive director of the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels, or C2B2, a joint center of CU-Boulder, Colorado State University, the Colorado School of Mines, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and industry. Headquartered at CU-Boulder, C2B2 - which has a goal to increase the production and use of energy from renewable resources - was founded in March 2007 by the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, a consortium involving all four institutions (previous post).

CU-Boulder will subcontract out to NREL in Golden to provide a high-flux solar furnace (pictured) for the research and to CSU to study switchgrass growth and supply quantities of the tall prairie grass to CU-Boulder for conversion. The CSU collaboration will be led by CSU horticulture Professor Yaling Qian, while the NREL collaboration will be led by Carl Bingham at NREL's High Flux Solar Furnace.

Weimer said he envisions a totally renewable technology, in which a significant fraction of the nation's fuel supply is provided using solar-thermal processing in marginal lands where the farming of crops can provide the needed biomass:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: biogas :: biohydrogen :: gasification :: solar chemical processing ::

The CU-Boulder grant was part of the USDA/DOE award package to spend up to $18.4 million to fund 21 biomass research and development demonstration projects over three years for a total of $18.4 million. The projects are aimed at addressing barriers to making the production of biomass more efficient and cost-effective, according to the USDA and DOE.

The University of Colorado at Boulder has been working in the area of solar-thermal chemical processing for more than 10 years and is the largest academic research team in this area in the world. This award recognizes the university's expertise in the field and provides Professor Weimer and his team with an opportunity to move this process closer to commercial reality. - G.P. Bud Peterson, CU-Boulder Chancellor

David Hiller, executive director of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory, said Weimer's research on the solar conversion of biomass, the multi-institutional involvement on the project team and the public and private support for the effort are a "perfect reflection of the Collaboratory model."

The Collaboratory brings together some of the world's best researchers to work on promising renewable energy technologies, with guidance and financial support from private industry and public agencies. Professor Weimer, C2B2 and this new project demonstrate the Collaboratory's incredible research power and growing reputation. - David Hiller

Other team members on the winning CU-Boulder proposal include Xcel Energy, Abengoa Solar and Abengoa BioEnergy, which have facilities in the United States and Europe, Arizona Public Service Co., Copernican Energy of Boulder and the Swiss Federal Research Institute.

Copernican Energy is a technology leader in solar-thermal chemical reactor engineering, Xcel Energy will supply utility engineering support for the solar-thermal process technology and Arizona Public Service will supply algae to CU-Boulder for conversion, Weimer said.

Abengoa is the largest green energy company in the world and built the world's first commercial "central receiver" solar-thermal facility that produces electricity for Seville, Spain. The Spain facility is equipped with mirrors on the ground that reflect sunlight to a receiver on an adjacent tower, allowing the achievement of higher temperatures.

The Swiss Federal Research Institute has been partnering with CU in the solar-thermal research area for almost 10 years and provides solar research facilities and expertise in the area of solar radiation modeling and heat transfer.

References:
University of Colorado at Boulder: CU-Boulder Awarded $1 Million From USDA, DOE For Solar-Thermal Biomass-To-Gas Conversion Project - March 5, 2008.

Research page of Professor Alan W. Weimer, C2B2 Executive Director.

NREL: High-Flux Solar Furnace.

Biopact: USDA and DOE to invest up to $18.4 million for 21 biomass RD&D projects: heat, power, biofuels and bioproducts - March 04, 2008

Biopact: EU HyWays report concludes biomass least costly and preferred renewable for hydrogen production; hydrogen can replace 40% oil by 2050 - February 26, 2008

Biopact: Hydrogen out, compressed biogas in - October 01, 2006

Biopact: Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels announces $500,000 in seed grants for research - October 30, 2007

Researchers: corporate Voluntary Environmental Programs don't perform well

2008-03-06T22:20:00.007+01:00

There's a race on to find the best methods and models for countries, citizens and companies to protect the environment. Regional, national or international agreements (such as the Kyoto Protocol) that impose binding rules and targets contrast with 'voluntary' schemes, which are often found in the United States. Market based approaches contrast with tax-based techniques; voluntarism contrasts with interventions by the state; bottom-up approaches differ from top-down strategies. The question as to which way of organising the efforts is most efficient, is crucial. But there are no easy answers.

New research from George Mason University however shows there clearly is a problem with so-called Voluntary Environmental Programs (VEPs) in the U.S. The researchers surprisingly found that companies which participate in such schemes perform worse in their attempts to help the environment than those that do not take on these programs at all. Findings are presented in Policy Studies Journal.

The Environmental Protection Agency — the largest sponsor of environmental programs — contributed $69 million, or 1.6 percent of their budget, to funding VEPs last year. Yet according to research by Nicole Darnall, assistant professor of environmental science and policy at Mason, and doctoral student Stephen Sides, these programs do not appear to boost environmental performance. In the study of more than 30,000 firms, companies that did not participate in VEPs performed 7.7 percent better than participants.

The way these programs are monitored also appears to affect performance. Companies that are self-monitored—as opposed certified by an external third party—appear to do even worse in their overall environmental goals. Nonparticipating companies outperformed companies participating in self-monitored VEPs by 24 percent.

Design deficiencies, specifically the absence of third-party oversight of performance monitoring, invite 'free ridership' on the part of some participants. Companies are taking part in these programs and receive credit for doing so, but some aren’t really adhering to the goals. - Nicole Darnall

The disappointing performance results also appear to relate to weak VEP goals. Darnall says that while other companies may be meeting program requirements, nonparticipating companies may have stronger goals. Specific and challenging goals result in a higher performance:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: environmental protection :: corporate environmental responsibility :: climate change :: voluntarism :: United States ::

Darnall and Sides aggregated results found from nine previous studies from 1999-2007. They defined environmental performance as an objective quantitative change in pollution or conditions contributing to the same such as degree of recycling, pollution prevention and time out of compliance.

More than 200 VEPs exist in the United States at the regional and national levels, and even more operate within states and localities. VEPs include programs such as the 33/50 Program, which asked companies to reduce certain emissions, discharges and waste streams by 33 percent in 1992 and 50 percent in 1995; the Climate Challenge Program, sponsored by the Department of Energy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; the ISO 14001, an externally regulated program; Responsible Care, adopted by the American Chemistry Council; and the Sustainable Slopes Program for ski areas.

It is important to ask, 'What is the role of these programs?' If VEPs are designed for the single purpose of encouraging participants to improve the environment to a greater degree than companies that don’t participate, then they are failing. - Nicole Darnall

However, the researchers points out that VEPs could have other roles. VEPs can explore innovative environmental policy ideas. Such ideas can be tested and evaluated before they are implemented across the regulated community.

References:
Darnall, Nicole and Sides, Stephen, "Assessing the Performance of Voluntary Environmental Programs: Does Certification Matter?" Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2008.

Jorge E. Rivera, Peter deLeon (2008). "Voluntary Environmental Programs: Are Carrots without Sticks Enough?", Policy Studies Journal, 36 (1) , 61–63, doi:10.1111/j.1541-0072.2007.00253.x

"We will never again kneel down for food aid" - Malawi's Mutharika

2008-03-06T19:26:00.004+01:00

One of the world's poorest countries has vowed never again to kneel down for food aid, which it considers to be perverse because it ruins markets for local farmers. Malawi, where more than 80 percent of all people makes a living from agriculture, showed the world African countries can turn themselves from food aid dependent begging bowls, to regional food exporters instead, with a simple set of policies.

By ignoring international experts, Malawi decided to support its own local farmers instead of importing food from Europe and America, and instead of being dependent on the World Food Program's handouts. It did so by improving access to fertilizers to its own large rural population. With great success. In one season's time, Malawi turned from a begging bowl into a major net food exporter, sending hundreds of thousands of tonnes to its food insecure neighbors Zimbabwe and Zambia. It repeated the leap forward last year (previous post).

Critics may call Malawi's super harvests a matter of luck. But guess what? This year too, it again expects a third bumper maize harvest. Three times in a row - that isn't luck, that is policy.

Acting on the good news, Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika, who is credited with the smart policy and who is also Minister of Agriculture, vowed he would never again "kneel down" for food aid.

I will not, as your president, ever again kneel down in front of the donor communities to ask for maize. Please don't allow me to do that.

We can ask for other assistance, but maize, for goodness sake, we can grow all the maize we want.

It's amazing the vast valleys which we can reclaim and grow all the food we want. Why do we suffer? We have valleys everywhere. Why do we Malawians have to suffer and ask for food somewhere else? - Bingu wa Mutharika

Because of the smart, simple fertiliser program, Malawi met its food needs in 2006 for the first time in seven years with a harvest of 2.2 million tons. About 45 percent of Malawians live below the poverty line and on less than a dollar a day. The vast majority of the poor are farmers.

The Malawian example offers hope for Africa and can be replicated across the continent, but many barriers remain: the food aid industry (which is a form of subsidy to producers in Europe and the US), trade barriers, high oil prices, subsidies in the EU and the US, corrupt officials and local elites who prefer to ignore their own rural populations and deal with wealthy Euro-American food producers instead... all these destructive forces must be tackled. Then Africa is ready to make its Green Revolution. Then, at last, it can begin to produce the vast amounts of food and biofuels analysts know can be produced there.

The intention to "never again kneel down" in front of the food aid industry, is a good start [entry ends here].
biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: energy :: sustainability :: agriculture :: food :: food aid :: hunger :: Green Revolution :: Africa ::

Towards carbon-negative bioenergy: scientists develop low-cost material for capturing carbon dioxide from smokestacks

2008-03-06T18:00:00.005+01:00

Scientists and engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) are reporting development of a new, low-cost material for capturing carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of electric power plants and other industrial sources before the notorious greenhouse gas enters the atmosphere.

If these carbon capture technologies are coupled to biomass power plants, they can yield "negative emissions" energy - by far the most radically green type of energy. So-called carbon-negative bioenergy, based on capturing and storing biogenic CO2, actively removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Other energy technologies like solar or wind power remain 'carbon neutral' at best, slightly carbon positive in practise: during their lifecycle, they add small amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, but they can never remove the greenhouse gas from it.

The difference between 'bio-energy with carbon storage' (BECS) and other renewable energy technologies is radical: solar PV adds around +100 tonnes of CO2eq per GWh of electricity generated; wind adds +30 tonnes; hydropower adds between +10 and +20 tonnes. Carbon-negative bioenergy however can remove up to 1000 tonnes (that is -1000 tonnes/GWh, hence "negative emissions").

Driving an electric car the batteries of which were charged by this carbon-negative electricity would imply that you would be fighting climate change. In fact, the more you were to drive it, the more you were to prevent global warming. According to scientists fromt the Abrupt Climate Change Strategy group, such BECS systems can cool the planet and bring back atmospheric CO2 levels to pre-industrial levels by mid-century, if applied on a global scale - either in power plants coupled to carbon capture and storage that burn biomass instead of fossil fuels, or in bio-hydrogen production facilities.

One of the major bottlenecks towards the development of carbon-negative bioenergy is the creation of low-cost, efficient carbon capture technologies. In their new study, Christopher W. Jones and colleagues point out that existing carbon capture technology is unsuitable for wide use. Absorbent liquids, for instance, are energy intensive and expensive. Current solid adsorbents show promise, but many suffer from low absorption capacities and lack stability after extended use. Stronger, longer-lasting materials are needed, scientists say.

But the scientists now describe the development of a promising new solid adsorbent, coined a hyperbranched aminosilica (HAS), that avoids most of these problems:
energy :: sustainability :: biomass :: bioenergy :: biofuels :: biohydrogen :: decarbonisation :: carbon capture :: bio-energy with carbon storage :: climate change ::

The HAS was synthesized by a one-step reaction, spontaneous aziridine ring-opening polymerization off of surface silanols, to form a 32 wt % organic/inorganic hybrid material. The adsorption measurements were performed in a fixed-bed flow reactor using humidified CO2.

When compared to traditional solid adsorbents under simulated emissions from industrial smokestacks, the new material captured up to seven times more carbon dioxide than conventional solid materials, including some of the best carbon dioxide adsorbents currently available, the researchers say. The material also shows greater stability under different temperature extremes, allowing it to be recycled numerous times.

References:
Jason C. Hicks, Jeffrey H. Drese, Daniel J. Fauth, McMahan L. Gray, Genggeng Qi, and Christopher W. Jones, "Designing Adsorbents for CO2 Capture from Flue Gas-Hyperbranched Aminosilicas Capable of Capturing CO2 Reversibly", J. Am. Chem. Soc., 130 (10), 2902 -2903, 2008. 10.1021/ja077795v S0002-7863(07)07795-5

More on carbon-negative bioenergy:
H. Audus and P. Freund, "Climate Change Mitigation by Biomass Gasificiation Combined with CO2 Capture and Storage", IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme.

James S. Rhodesa and David W. Keithb, "Engineering economic analysis of biomass IGCC with carbon capture and storage", Biomass and Bioenergy, Volume 29, Issue 6, December 2005, Pages 440-450.

Noim Uddin and Leonardo Barreto, "Biomass-fired cogeneration systems with CO2 capture and storage", Renewable Energy, Volume 32, Issue 6, May 2007, Pages 1006-1019, doi:10.1016/j.renene.2006.04.009

Christian Azar, Kristian Lindgren, Eric Larson and Kenneth Möllersten, "Carbon Capture and Storage From Fossil Fuels and Biomass – Costs and Potential Role in Stabilizing the Atmosphere", Climatic Change, Volume 74, Numbers 1-3 / January, 2006, DOI 10.1007/s10584-005-3484-7

Peter Read and Jonathan Lermit, "Bio-Energy with Carbon Storage (BECS): a Sequential Decision Approach to the threat of Abrupt Climate Change", Energy, Volume 30, Issue 14, November 2005, Pages 2654-2671.

Stefan Grönkvist, Kenneth Möllersten, Kim Pingoud, "Equal Opportunity for Biomass in Greenhouse Gas Accounting of CO2 Capture and Storage: A Step Towards More Cost-Effective Climate Change Mitigation Regimes", Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Volume 11, Numbers 5-6 / September, 2006, DOI 10.1007/s11027-006-9034-9