Ethanol Surprise

This is a big surprise. What it means is that ethanol jumps as an alternative to diesel for long haul transportation.

This is good news because batteries are not anyone’s first choice for hauling tonnage across country.

This also sounds like superior performance will make the transition highly attractive.

Thus in the last two days, ethanol and bio jet fuel have proven superior operating performance when the opposite had been accepted. We now have a compelling case for speedy transition in both sectors.

Everyone is expecting a long transition between technologies to take place. I am not so conservative. The advent of the EEStor super capacitor or its equivalent at anything approaching a reasonable price point will put a new battery car in everyone’s garage inside of two years as everyone doubles up on vehicles. Fuel based systems will become hanger queens rather quickly and remain as a second choice.

Transitioning the long haul business will be slower as the need is not nearly as compelling. You must still buy fuel so waiting to trade into a new vehicle works just fine.

Ethanol Carbon Footprint With Diesel Efficiency?

Written by Gavin D.J. Harper
Monday, 25 May 2009

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2765/69/

Biofuels may just be a transitional technology - by the time affordable battery electric vehicles and fuel cell cars come out, we may no longer need them. But biofuels are developing, too, and as they improve, they present themselves as a better way to "green the masses".

Ricardo, an international automotive engineering design firm, has designed a technology that allows engines powered by ethanol to approach levels of efficiency hitherto only afforded to diesel engines, wiping the floor with poor gasoline engine efficiency. It's called by it's acronym "EBDI" or ethanol boosted direct injection. The thing about ethanol is that it has subtly different properties to gasoline, which manufacturers have been slow to exploit. For example, it is a higher octane fuel, and has a higher heat of vapourisation.

Rather than taking a "performance hit" of approximately 30% as many so-called "flex fuel" cars do, EBDI capitalises on the differences in the fuel properties. In part the technology works by using higher levels of turbocharging than would be possible in a conventional petrol engine - forcing extra air into the cylinder, creating a denser charge. It also uses the best of current gasoline engine technology - direct injection, variable valve timing and optimised ignition. The prototype engine is a 3.2L V6. Whilst it's only a temporary solution, any technologies that can help us minimise carbon emissions whilst we transition to alow carbon alternatives is a welcome development.

Scott Strobel finds Rainforest Fungus Converting Celluose to Diesel

This piece is amazing and unexpected and certainly worth following up with. Of course it will take decades to really see the light of day in practical applications but we at least know it is possible and other protocols are out there just as promising.

At least it is an interesting bit of unusual science that could well add to our growing biological palette. Enjoy the article.

Rainforest Fungus Makes Diesel Compounds From Cellulose

BOZEMAN, Montana, November 4, 2008 (ENS) - A unique fungus that makes diesel compounds directly from cellulose has been discovered living in trees in the Patagonian rainforest.

"These are the first organisms that have been found that make many of the ingredients of diesel," said Professor Gary Strobel from Montana State University. "This is a major discovery."

The discovery may offer an alternative to fossil fuels, said Strobel, MSU professor of plant sciences and plant pathology, who travels the world looking for exotic plants that may contain beneficial microbes. The find is even bigger, he said, than his 1993 discovery of fungus that contained the anticancer drug taxol.

Strobel's paper, published in the November issue of the journal "Microbiology," is based on his discovery of the unique properties of the Patagonian fungus, called Gliocladium roseum.

"Gliocladium roseum lives inside the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest," Strobel begins, telling the story of how he and his team learned that they had found an entirely new source of fuel.

"We were trying to discover totally novel fungi in this tree by exposing its tissues to the volatile antibiotics of the fungus Muscodor albus," Strobel recounts. "Quite unexpectedly, G. roseum grew in the presence of these gases when almost all other fungi were killed. It was also making volatile antibiotics."

"Then when we examined the gas composition of G. roseum, we were totally surprised to learn that it was making a plethora of hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon derivatives. The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end!"

Strobel calls the fuel produced by the fungus "myco-diesel," from the Greek-derived root word for the study of fungi - mycology.

"This is the only organism that has ever been shown to produce such an important combination of fuel substances," said Strobel. "The fungus can even make these diesel compounds from cellulose, which would make it a better source of biofuel than anything we use at the moment."

Intense research into ways of making ethanol fuel directly from cellulose now is taking place in public, private and university labs, and several companies are producing demonstration scale cellulosic ethanol from wood waste, from municipal solid waste and from agricultural residue.

Nearly 430 million tons of plant waste are produced from U.S. farmland alone every year, material that scientists are learning to convert to biofuel.

In current biofuel production, this waste is treated with enzymes called cellulases that turn the cellulose into sugar. Microbes then ferment the sugar into ethanol that can be used as a fuel.

"We were very excited to discover that G. roseum can digest cellulose," Strobel said. "Although the fungus makes less myco-diesel when it feeds on cellulose compared to sugars, new developments in fermentation technology and genetic manipulation could help improve the yield."

"When crops are used to make biofuel they have to be processed before they can be turned into useful compounds by microbes," said Strobel. "G. roseum can make myco-diesel directly from cellulose, the main compound found in plants and paper."

In the rainforest, G. roseum produces lots of long chain hydrocarbons and other biological molecules. When the researchers grew it in the lab, it produced fuel that is even more similar to the diesel we put in our cars.

The majority of hydrocarbons found naturally occur in crude oil, where decomposed organic matter provides carbon and hydrogen. When bonded, these elements can form seemingly limitless chains of molecules.

Professor Strobel, who travels the world looking for exotic plants that may contain beneficial microbes, says his discovery brings into question our knowledge of the way fossil fuels are made.

The accepted theory is that crude oil, which is used to make diesel, is formed from the remains of dead plants and animals that have been exposed to heat and pressure for millions of years.

Strobel speculates, "If fungi like this are producing myco-diesel all over the rainforest, they may have contributed to the formation of fossil fuels."

Strobel is the lead author of the paper published in "Microbiology." His MSU co-authors are Berk Knighton and Tom Livinghouse in the Department of Chemistry/Biochemistry, and Katreena Kluck and Yuhao Ren in the Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology.

Other co-authors are Meghan Griffin and Daniel Spakowicz from Yale University and Joe Sears from the Center for Lab Services in Pasco, Washington.

Researchers in government agencies and private industry have already shown interest in the fungi. A team to conduct further research has been established between MSU's College of Engineering and researchers at Yale University.

One member of the team is Strobel's son, Scott, who is chairman of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. The MSU-Yale team will investigate a variety of questions, including the genetic makeup of Gliocladium roseum.

Scott Strobel said his team is already screening the fungus' genome. Besides determining the complete genetic makeup of the fungus, they will run a series of genetic and biochemical tests to identify the genes responsible for its diesel-making properties.

"The broader question is, what is responsible for the production of these compounds," Scott Strobel said. "If you can identify that, you can hopefully scale it up so you end up with better efficiency of production."

Scientists in a variety of disciplines may be able to combine their talents to optimize production and find a way to turn what is essentially a vapor into a burnable, liquid fuel.

Solazyme brews Jet Fuel

This item can be described as more good news coming out of the ongoing efforts to harness algae. We are seeing second, third and forth generational ideas paying of quickly.

Replacing jet fuel with an equivalent biological was unhoped for because I have made the natural assumption that like oil, a substantial processing phase would need to be engineered once a biological oil source was built out. Instead we have clearly got another brew master’s operation that can use plant material as feed stock without a lot of fuss.

I hope this means that it can be built out in farm sized units to avoid excessive haulage costs. Just as obviously, if they can produce jet fuel or even an unrefined precursor at this scale, it should also be possible to produce from the same system a gasoline and diesel equivalent.

This sounds a lot easier than the many other protocols that we have discussed so far. Pyrolysis was always a nonstarter for the liquid fuel cycle and so was playing with natural algae. Ethanol was possible if algae or cattails produced the feedstock. The idea that we can side step all these issues and natural complexities and brew up jet fuel from plant waste is almost too good to be true. It is certainly a good objective to achieve and let us hope that this company is not been premature.

The company has focused its research on marine algae and has announced and tested biodiesel produced through their work. My sense is that they are pushing the research envelop to perfect the necessary production protocols. Actual commercialization should be the next step.

It would be a remarkable development if it becomes possible to shift transportation fuel production completely into agriculture at the same time consuming agricultural waste.

The use of agricultural waste as a feed stock for producing biochar is important for manufacturing high quality soils, but is not necessary once such soils are produced. Conversion to fuel nicely consumes this surplus.


Microbes Grow Jet Fuel in the Dark
September 10, 2008

The South San Francisco company Solarzyme announced this week that it has produced the world's first microbial-derived jet fuel to pass the eleven most challenging specifications needed to meet the Aviation Turbine Fuel standards.

Solarzyme's algal-derived aviation fuel was analyzed by the Southwest Research Institute, one of the nations leading fuel analytical laboratories. The tested areas included the key measurements for density, thermal oxidative stability, flashpoint, freezing point, distillation and viscosity, the biggest hurdles needed to develop a commercial and military jet fuel.

Given Solarzyme's excellent cold-temperature performance and the clean characteristics of the oil, former military fuels specialists note that new algae-based fuels could help the DOD comply with recently enacted mandates to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and utilize environmentally friendly fuels.

In the U.S. alone, 1.6 billion gallons of jet fuel are used every month resulting in significant greenhouse gas emissions. The need for environmentally friendly and sustainable alternatives is growing rapidly. The EU is requiring that every nation landing there must adhere to their emission standards by 2012.

But it's not merely foreign legislative pressure that's driving change. As peak oil nears, jet fuel already accounts for 36 percent of airline industry costs -- up from 13 percent just six years ago -- and could account for 40 percent of industry costs next year.

While algae-based fuel is currently almost as expensive as oil to produce, it has a significantly different estimated cost going forward, since it is made up of cells that double exponentially over time (2,4,8,16,32, 64...). Oil supplies will be increasingly scarce and expensive to extract over that time period.

Solarzyme is currently producing thousands of gallons of oil a month at scale and is the only advanced biofuels company that has produced fuels that have passed specification testing and are compatible with the existing transportation fuel infrastructure. Solarzyme uses directed evolution to engineer an organism to perform a desired function, the same technique farmers have employed since the dawn of civilization to breed new strains of higher production grain and so on, but this is done at the gene sequence level.

Solarzyme's process needs no sunlight, unlike other algae farming startups such as the New Zealand startup that will be flying a Boeing test to San Francisco this month. This lack of a need for sunlight makes for an efficient and fast process, and the feedstock is very sustainable: agricultural waste, cellulosic material such as switchgrass and industrial byproducts. Algae doesn't require vast amounts of land. You can even grow algae on the roof of a sewage plant.

Unlike the materials utilized in any other mass production process that we enterprising humans have ever used to make things with, by its very nature, algae just keeps on growing.

LNG Engines

I clipped this material from a financial newsletter. The company that he is touting is surely Westport Innovations Inc. The bottom line is that these folks are able to modify an engine design now in service into a LNG fueled system. Reading the material quickly shows both the compelling benefits of the system and the fact that the promoters have been able to cause specifications only they can meet to be written into law in California.

The conversion will therefore be very swift. We will be saying goodbye to the diesel engine in transportation over the next decade, just as we once saw off the old gasoline one cylinder engine known as the one banger. I saw the last of those on a riverboat in Borneo that was straight out of the African Queen. On that occasion, we three white guys, six foot tall of course, were walking clichés. I fondly recalled been cast as Teddy Kennedy, while my associates were cast as Douglas MacArthur and Spiro Agnew. It was rather funny to witness first hand the power of television.

I chopped extraneous parts of the article out, but it is from Energy and Capital if you wish to read the whole article or even subscribe.

This likely heralds a rethinking of the LNG industry. A lot will need to be imported and it may become desirous to devote effort to sustaining its supply by not wasting it, when alternate systems are available.

The truth is that natural gas is our most efficient and cleanest single fuel. It has spoiled us and no one wants to go back to whatever we used before. When it becomes part of the transportation industry, we will be spoiled some more. It is so good that we need to husband our resource jealousy so that it may be available for centuries.

Dear reader,

Jeff Siegel and I recently traveled 2,564 miles to investigate an opportunity that Jeff calls "Clean-Air Cash-Outs."

"Clean-Air Cash-Outs" are moneymaking opportunities that arise when state governments pass laws forcing energy companies to implement clean air technologies like wind or solar. When a law is about to be passed or is recently enacted, Jeff heads to that state, and talks to business leaders and private investors to find out who stands to make a lot of money.

In our most recent visit, Jeff discovered that the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles are implementing a $1.6 billion "Clean-Air Cash Out." One small company - whose stock trades for less than $3 and is backed by a billionaire — stands to make a fortune for early investors.

It's all part of a little-known but lucrative trend I'm calling "California's Clean-Air Cash-Outs."

In short, "Clean-Air Cash-Outs" become available to you as America's largest industries are forced to install certain technologies to meet our growing clean-air laws.

But unlike adopting any "green" technology, giant corporations are using Clean-Air Cash-Outs to save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in operating costs.

• Wal-Mart, for example, is looking into the latest Cash-Out because they could save over $236 million every year!

• The ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles already committed to this latest Cash-Out and will soon be saving more than $335 million a year.

It's this rare win-win situation that has companies flocking to the Cash-Outs. And it's rapidly making a small group of Americans filthy rich.

And it's easy to see why...

Best part is...because of how these Cash-Outs are designed, you don't need a lot of money to start with. You don't even need to live in or near the state of California either. All you need to know is how to get started.

And as you'll see, they're hardly few and far between. In fact...

California's Clean-Air Cash-Outs Are Paying Investors All of the Time...All Across the Country

Imagine for a moment that, while scores of corporations and energy companies are searching to meet these restrictions and improve their image, you are one of the few investors in the nation who know exactly where they're starting to turn.

You could collect an absolute killing in market gains!

That's because shares of these Cash-Outs are so small, just one major corportaion or energy company placing an order could launch their price 20%, 30%...even 300% in a very short time as orders for their specific technology are fulfilled.

And since we uncovered the hidden pattern of California's Clean-Air Cash-Outs, that's exactly what we've been showing investors like you to make. For example...

This past December, we uncovered a tiny outfit that's perfecting electricity generated through ocean waves. Just days after their prototype went in the water, shareholders collected a Cash-Out of 126%.

It was generated from a law that requires the two largest shipping ports in the United States, the Port of Long Beach (POLB) and the Port of Los Angeles (POLA), to drastically reduce pollution.

Within the next three years, these two ports must:

• Achieve a 47% decrease in diesel particulate matter (PM) emissions from port-related activity (shipping AND trucking).
• Cut smog-forming nitrogen oxide (NOx) by 45%.
• Achieve a 52% reduction of sulfur oxides (Sox).

These cuts seem outrageous for even an Amish village. Yet somehow, this drastic reduction is required to take place at the fifth-busiest seaport in the entire world!

This is an area where more than 16,800 Class-8 tractor trailers are the only machines strong enough to transport the heavy containers to their destination. And they transport a lot of them.

In fact, when combined, these two ports move over $260 billion worth of traded goods a year - with an expected $1.3 trillion worth by 2025.

That's a 400% increase in business in the near-future...and this approved new law expects to cut emissions at today's level by almost 50%!

At first, it didn't make any sense... Especially when you consider that almost all of the vehicles in and working for the ports run on filthy diesel engines.

In fact, these goals were so extreme that without a detailed course of action already mapped out, it wouldn't last a second on the voting floor.

Of course, when this opportunity first crossed our table a year ago in Baltimore, we knew, with cuts this bold, ethanol and bio-diesel wouldn't come close. These guys had to have something revolutionary up their sleeve for these new requirements to have passed.

We also knew that whatever they found, considering the enormous size of the project, was guaranteed to create what could be the largest Clean-Air Cash-Out yet...

And with even more goods expected to travel through the ports over the coming years, the situation seemed helpless.

That is until this latest Clean-Air Cash-Out stepped forward with a revolutionary invention.

They knew the situation. And unlike other companies working with alternatives to oil, this company attacked the issue from the source - the engine.

After years of research, testing and trial and error, they designed what could be the most advanced, efficient engine on the planet - powered by Liquid Natural Gas (LNG).

It's so revolutionary that it was recently awarded with the 2007 Industry Innovation Award for alternative fuel trucks!

While their engine and fuel source is no "renewable" energy, the much cheaper fuel and cleaner emissions proved to be the best stop-gap available that could handle the heavy workload, wear and mileage required by the ports and the drivers.

Plus, there's already several LNG fueling stations in the area... over 40 strategically in place throughout the state... with many more planned!

Even better is that this engine could be swapped with existing diesel truck engines, already in service.

The company's demonstration of their new engine worked perfectly.

But as promising as they were, this company's engine was designed to replace current diesel engines. And that meant that they would also have to win the hearts of more than 16,800 truck drivers and union officials before any mass order would ever take place.

This Revolutionary Engine Could Save Truck Drivers and Companies Over $353.8 Million Per Year!

It could have been a deal-breaker.

Even though this engine's emission scores exceeded the strict requirements, the toughest critics and true gate-keepers to letting this law successfully pass are the truck drivers and unions.

If they were ignored in the process and forced to retro-fit their current trucks or order all new ones without their blessing, all goods would cease moving. The streets in the port areas would be filled with picket signs.

Fortunately for the government and the tiny company that created this engine (and our latest Clean-Air Cash-Out), the proposal faced little resistance...especially once they realized how much money the companies would save.

You see, as I write this, diesel fuel in the port areas of California is already $3.49 a gallon and steadily on the rise.

With the skyrocketing costs of fuel set to go even higher in the near future, the truckers were already desperately looking for ways to save on their costs.

For them, even a drop of $0.05 a gallon would save each truck, traveling 80,000 miles per year, over $4,000.

But this engine proved even better. Once retro-fitted to a current semi, the new engine could save over $21,000 a year in fuel costs!

And with more than 16,800 of them servicing the port area, companies and drivers (depending on how the fuel arrangement is met) are looking at a total savings of more than $353.8 million per year!

With that kind of money staying in their pockets and government funding in place for switching over, this plan passed with flying colors. That's why...

A $1.6 Billion Truck Superfund was Awarded to Retro-fit All Port Trucks Made After 2007 with this New Engine and Purchase Brand New Ones for Earlier Models

The news was announced on January 24th of this year.

I'll admit that while I fully expected a multitude of funding for these vehicles, I had no idea that there would be a superfund to pay for an entire fleet!

$1.6 billion - even at a cost of $144k per new truck - almost covers the entire cost for re-outfitting the ports' 16,800 trucks.

Luckily, their design is the only one good enough to win the superfund's approval.

Algae Oil Industry will end Foreign Oil

The one reason that I was so happy to see the recent production protocol for algae and its apparent utility is two fold. Firstly, this is the first clear attempt to creates a system not unlike what is prevalent in greenhouses today. It does not look like a chemist's wet dream. It looks like something that can be produced very cost effectively and that can stand up to some operator abuse even. This is mandatory for any planned industrial farm protocol.

The second reason is a little more subtle. Isolation is achieved and appears to something that can be fully maintained or at least quickly restored. That isolation opens the door to the rest of modern agricultural technique. We can safely breed tame species of algae that allow us to maximize favorable characteristics. This is very important.

Right now, using essentially wild algae, we are producing a believable 33,000 gallons of oil per acre from 276 tons of dry bio mass. The remaining fifty percent fraction that is not oil is not yet addressed as to usage. History has shown us that we will be able to hugely increase that production rate through the selection process. If we can do 33000 gallons now, then 100,000 gallons should be within reach. What is just as important, we can select for a usable profile for the remaining by product.

A high nutrient, high protein feed supplement for the cattle industry would be almost too good to be true. If it is possible, then we can end the use of animal protein for the livestock industry and avoid ever having a repeat of the mad cow disease.

The by product of algae production should be very usable. Recovering nutrients will be rather more difficult once we have mastered the production side.

We then must address the problem of cost. This protocol has a good analogy in the greenhouse industry with the added benefit of likely requiring a very low labor component. Certainly the capital outlay will be roughly similar.

And since everything can be automated, large facilities can be operated with a handful of employees not unlike most huge industrial chemical processes.

We know that normal farmland in a season can produce one ton or so of product and perhaps as much as ten tons of biomass per acre. A green house can do several times better than that by shrinking and duplicating the season.

Algae already can produce 276 tons of dry bio mass per acre per year. If the life cycle can be sped up only then the production of 1000 tons per acre does not seem out of reach. Right now the product is without tangible value and that has to be developed. Here even the niches can help out by underwriting the technology.

These potential yields are extremely compelling and merely need to be monetized. Of course it is too early to make a lot of sense on that as yet, but the volume is now sufficient to secure our transportation fuel future.

Even if the oil industry can crank up enough new oil production to tide us over, the need to transition to a fossil fuel free economy is very real and this solution can be put in place to make the developed world and India and China completely independent of any fuel source not under their control.

We really can tell the Middle East that we do not want their oil any more. And if that means paying $3.00 a gallon for bio diesel while a barrel of Middle Eastern oil fetches $8.00 a barrel, then so be it.

We will underwrite a huge global industry that will employ millions and help feed billions.

Confronting Oil Production Decline.

Those who have been following this blog know that the removal of oil from the transportation equation is not the end of life as we knew it. In fact, the advent of algae derived oil and even ethanol will easily meet all our needs without significantly interfering with crop production.

Although the technology is in its infancy, it also promises very fast implementation. As I mentioned earlier, the idea of a field of large vinyl tubes holding the working fluid is something every farmer can relate to. And 10,000 liters of oil per acre is an awful lot of bio diesel fuel.

We can even imagine a few farms near every major city providing the local fuel needs. That is pretty efficient.

However, while we fiddle, the crude oil industry is steadily converging on the tipping point. And I want to describe what this means. We have had $60.00 oil for four years and every producer went full out to take advantage of this great price. This did not bring an oversupply that knocked the price down. It did in the early eighties.

In fact, supplies are now tightening. We can also easily see that new supply, particularly from the tar sands, face huge lead times. More importantly, this oil is replacing visible declines elsewhere. It is conceivable that North America may achieve oil security for a generation by use of the tar sands. This will not happen elsewhere. Brazil is looking like a genius now because they planned for this.

The problem that no one wants to address is that by squeezing production to maintain current levels, we set the stage for a precipitous decline. Try to imagine the production of Saudi Arabia disappearing over the next three years. It will hurt like hell, even if we have the solution.

My fear right now is that it will be far faster than we can imagine. All other declines were.

Any new production if found will suddenly become too valuable for a country to release it into the global market. Every country will start rationing.

As I posted earlier, we are going to suffer with a $200 to $400 fill up until we can bring bio diesel online.