May
17
First Shot Fired In the Algae War
May 17, 2012 | 1 Comment
Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law a pair of bills recognizing so-called “algaculture” following passage in the Arizona state legislature that will see the Grand Canyon State encourage and support the algae industry. Arizona is the second American state, after Ohio, to classify the algae industry as agriculture. It’s a shot best heard by state [...]
May
7
Sweet Sorghum Made Into Bio Diesel
May 7, 2012 | 2 Comments
Energy crop company Ceres, Inc. has had its sweet sorghum hybrids successfully processed into Amyris ‘Biofene’, a renewable hydrocarbon commonly known as farnesene. Farnesene is a 15-carbon isoprenoid hydrocarbon molecule that works as the basis for a wide range of products as varied from specialty chemical applications to transportation fuels such as diesel. When used [...]
Apr
5
A Major Algae Genome Sequence Complete
April 5, 2012 | 1 Comment
A Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) team has assembled the draft genome of Nannochloropis gaditana, a marine algae that may be capable of producing the lipid yields necessary for a viable fuel source. The overriding goal is to discover the best algae species for biodiesel production. Researchers understand they must come up with a way to [...]
Mar
30
UCLA Researchers Use Electricity and CO2 to Make Butanol
March 30, 2012 | 4 Comments
A research team at UCLA’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has for the first time demonstrated a method for converting carbon dioxide into the liquid fuel isobutanol using electricity. The study paper is published today, March 30 2012, in the journal Science. The study explains how James Liao, UCLA’s Ralph M. Parsons [...]
Mar
23
Biofuel Is Big Business and Going to Get Bigger
March 23, 2012 | 1 Comment
2011 saw 30 billion gallons of biofuel produced worldwide – or 136.4 billion liters or 4 billion cubic feet. It’s a huge tank if it all was stored on one enormous site. Pike Research has looked into the commercial efforts of 10 independent “Big Oil” firms to see what’s going on. As you can imagine [...]
Mar
16
The Base For Perfume Makes a Great Base for Fuel
March 16, 2012 | 1 Comment
Research presses on for better plant oils to make fuels. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) has engineered E.Coli bacteria to produce significantly more of the compound methyl ketone from glucose. Methyl ketones are a class of chemical compounds we’re most familiar with in fragrance and flavoring products and might provide the [...]
Mar
9
Starting Seaweed Cultivation Research
March 9, 2012 | 1 Comment
The numbers for productivity of seaweed are stunning compared to everything other than algae on land. The problem is the cultivation, growing the preferred species, harvesting it and getting it to shore for processing. Prof. Avigdor Abelson of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Zoology and the new Renewable Energy Center, with his colleagues Dr. Alvaro [...]
Mar
5
Oil In a Fight With Itself
March 5, 2012 | 3 Comments
The renewable fuel producers are about to up the pressure on the world oil industry, and for consumers it’s not a moment too soon. First off, South Dakota’s government has approved a subsidy of 20 cents per gallon for ethanol plants to transition over to butanol. The cap for the subsidy is $4 million per [...]
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