Aug
19
Cracking Vegetable Oil Into Gasoline
August 19, 2010 | 5 Comments
TU Delft in the Netherlands and Universidad Rey Juan Carlos of Spain researchers have a concept developed for the efficient catalytic cracking of unsaturated vegetable oil to greatly increase the production of gasoline and light olefins such as propane and butane. The scientists’ paper on their work was published in the journal ChemSusChem on Aug [...]
Aug
18
The Oil Spill Disaster That Isn’t
August 18, 2010 | 15 Comments
The BP well blowout, fire, explosion and platform collapse, and the ensuing crude oil leak are without doubt the result of human failings. Underestimating the quality of the reservoir is one reason, perhaps some engineering choices and safety oversights, inadequate equipment, testing that didn’t work out in the real world and all the rest only [...]
Aug
17
What Plants for Cellulosic Biofuel Production?
August 17, 2010 | 16 Comments
In an article titled “Feedstocks for Lignocellulosic Biofuels” published in Science, Chris Somerville of the University of California, Berkeley, and Deputy Director Steve Long of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with bioenergy analysts Caroline Taylor, Heather Youngs and Sarah Davis at the Energy Biosciences Institute suggest that a diversity of plant species, adaptable to [...]
Aug
16
A New Peak Demand Electricity Generation System
August 16, 2010 | 7 Comments
An impressive idea is out in the International Journal of Energy Research from the University of Leeds and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The research group has invented a new way to answer quick peak electricity demands. Peak demand and particularly quick and short-lived peaks are when demand for electricity soars, causing a problem for [...]
Aug
13
A New Kind of Patent
August 13, 2010 | 1 Comment
This writer was asked in an email a couple days ago about what the non-committed, seemingly idealism free, and generally pro commerce view is here about incentives for energy and fuel production. It is an arena fraught with special interests of every stripe including the environment itself to the consumers ranging from wealthy to dirt [...]
Aug
12
The Electric Vehicle Age Begins in Earnest
August 12, 2010 | 10 Comments
This year will see the GM Volt and Nissan Leaf go on sale and likely deliver to buyers following the Tesla Roadster success with electric motors connected to the driving wheels. The two are of three very different designs representing the three main manufactured groups of choices we’ll see. Then there are the Do It [...]
Aug
11
Farming Natural Gas
August 11, 2010 | 7 Comments
Luca Technologies harnesses natural processes to sustainably produce natural gas. The Golden, Colo. based company has developed a process to generate and then extract more natural gas from depleted coalbed methane wells by injecting water, microbes, and nutrients into the coal seams. The company is now pursuing permitting in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin to expand [...]
Aug
10
A Sugar to Fuel Genetic Code is Found
August 10, 2010 | 10 Comments
Researchers at LS9 have discovered an alkane biosynthesis pathway, a metabolic pathway that produces alkanes in cyanobacteria for a direct, simple conversion from plant sugar to hydrocarbon fuels. Alkanes are the major hydrocarbon constituents of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Using the bacteria E. coli, with the newly identified alkane operon genetics expressed, the bacteria [...]
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