Tag Archives: energy
The Latest Clean Energy Cocktail: Bacteria And Fungus
BY JEFF SPROSS ON AUGUST 23, 2013 By throwing together a common fungus and a common bacterium, researchers are producing isobutanol — a biofuel that gallon-for-gallon delivers 82 percent of gasoline’s heat energy. The more common ethanol, by contrast, only gets 67 percent of gasoline’s energy, and does more damage to pipelines and engines. And the University of Michigan research team did it using stalks and leaves from corn plants as the raw material. The fungus in question was Trichoderma reesei , which breaks down the plant materials into sugars. The team used corn plant leftovers in this case, but many other forms of biomass like switchgrass or forestry waste could also serve. The bacterium was Escherichia coli — good old-fashioned E. coli — which then converted those sugars into isobutanol. Another team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently came up with a similar process by studying leaf cutter ants, but their work produced ethanol instead. The University of Michigan team also got the fungi and bacteria to co-exist peacefully in the same culture and bioreactor. That means fewer cost barriers to commercializing the process: “The capital investment will be much lower, and also the operating cost will be much lower,” Xiaoxia “Nina” Lin, the team’s leader, explained. “So hopefully this will make the whole process much more likely to become economically viable.” The big advantage of a cellulosic biofuel like this is twofold. One, because it can be produced from crops that don’t double as a food source, demand for it won’t drive up food prices or contribute to global food insecurity. Traditional corn-based ethanol obviously competes with one of the world’s most basic and widely-used foods, and American and European demand for it has contributed to spiraling food costs and crises in Guatemala and across the developing world. Studies looking into the 2008 food crisis determined that biofuel policies contributed to the problem, compounding the threat of global food insecurity, which in turn helps drive geopolitical upheaval and destabilization. Two, by driving up demand for food crops, traditional biofuels encourage individuals and countries to clear ever more natural land for agriculture. Grasslands and natural forest store more carbon from the atmosphere than cropland. So the growth in biofuel production, means less natural ecology to absorb carbon, leaving more greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. On top of that, agriculture involves its own carbon emissions from driving tractors and such. So put it all together and traditional biofuel production is largely self-defeating in terms of the final amount of carbon dioxide left in the atmosphere. But if a process like this one produces biofuel purely from waste materials — stuff left over from crops we would’ve grown regardless, on land we would’ve cleared regardless — those biofuels will deliver a much bigger net positive when it comes to fighting climate change. “We’re really excited about this technology,” said Jeremy Minty, another member of the team. “The U.S. has the potential to sustainably produce 1 billion tons or more of biomass annually, enough to produce biofuels that could displace 30 percent or more of our current petroleum production.” And it’s not just fossil fuels that could be replaced, either. Petrochemicals are also used in making a host of other products, especially plastics. The research team hopes their work could be adapted to replace the petrochemicals used in those processes as well. HT: CleanTechnica Continue reading
COLUMN-Biomass Burners Beware New EU Oversight: Wynn
By Gerard Wynn Aug 21 (Reuters) – Utilities planning to invest in wood-fired power plants beware: the European Commission’s draft green standards for burning biomass would regulate carbon emissions from burning wood for the first time. At present, EU laws favouring green energy have led countries to pay generous subsidies for burning biomass, but in the future developers would have to meet the new standards to get those incentives. (For draft copy, see Chart 1) Greater scrutiny is appropriate, given the present assumption that burning wood produces no carbon emissions at all, under renewable energy and carbon trading laws. Biomass including wood, energy crops, food crops and waste is the main source for renewable energy in Europe, and accounts for 7 percent of all EU energy consumption. Until now, only biomass used to make liquid biofuels for road transport has been subjected to “sustainability criteria” – a check list to make sure they are environmentally friendly. The Commission will now propose to widen similar, binding criteria to biomass used to generate heat and power, which accounts for more than four times the energy of biofuels. It is only a first step, and will probably take several years to legislate. But the direction is important: the Commission’s track record is to toughen environmental regulation over time, and the case of biofuels is illustrative. As a directive, the proposals need backing from the European Parliament and member states, where the haggling will start. Academic literature suggests that there is room for argument that many existing sources of biomass would fail to meet the new criteria, with implications for biomass demand, project returns and rival low-carbon electricity technologies. *************************************** Chart 1: link.reuters.com/jep52v Chart 2: (page 238) link.reuters.com/nep52v Chart 3: (page 6) link.reuters.com/pep52v *************************************** DRIVE EU countries face a collective target to get a fifth of all energy, including power, heat and transport, from renewable sources by 2020. Member states have published details of how they will meet their 2020 goals, which the European Environment Agency (EEA) aggregated into EU-wide data. Burning biomass to produce heat and electricity would together account for 44 percent of all EU renewable energy consumption in 2020, according to the EEA report, “Renewable Energy Projections as Published in the National Renewable Energy Action Plans of the European Member States”. (Chart 2) That is far ahead of higher profile sources, such as wind power (18 percent of all renewable energy in 2020); biofuels (13 percent); and solar power (4 percent). The new regulations will therefore no doubt be bedded in softly, initially, not to upset the bloc’s entire green energy strategy. Britain, for example, has been especially active lately in supporting biomass power – faced with concern about a blackout risk due to coal plant closures. It has recently granted planning approval for 6,940 megawatts of dedicated biomass power plants, refusing just 209 MW, with a further 456 MW in the application pipeline, planning data show. Electric utilities involved in various stages of planning approval include E.ON, GDF Suez, RWE , Scottish Power. EU DRAFT The EU’s 2009 renewable energy law required the Commission to investigate possible oversight of biomass, beyond biofuels. The Commission said in 2010 that it did not then see the need for binding rules, making recommendations instead. The Commission has now had a change of heart, arguing that it is better to have a single set of binding obligations for all biomass across all 28 member states, to avoid confusion. The new rules for biomass heat and power broadly follow the existing guidelines for biofuels. They would require a minimum greenhouse gas saving of 60 percent compared with fossil fuels (including the carbon emissions from burning the fuel to generate electricity or heat); particular emissions values for biomass feedstocks and processes; and protection of forests with high conservation value. It may safeguard existing investments by applying the new criteria only to new installations, but the draft does not spell that out. DEBATE The new proposals do not list greenhouse gas savings for various types of biomass compared with fossil fuels – perhaps because that will be the most contested item. But in its note three years ago, the Commission cited its own in-house research (the Joint Research Centre) calculating savings for 20 different sources of biomass for heat and power. Regarding electricity generation from biomass, the research showed that 11 sources would fail the proposed 60 percent threshold; for heat generation, five would fail. (Chart 3) The JRC numbers show two critical factors determining greenhouse gas savings: first, the fuel used for processing the biomass, whether natural gas or less carbon-emitting wood and other forest residues. And second, the source of the biomass, whether from the EU or from tropical sources, where the latter may be primary rather than managed forest, and with higher transport emissions. No doubt, environmental and industry lobbies will haggle over the numbers. More important is the direction. The European Commission has in the past shown a bias towards making environmental legislation tougher, once it is introduced. The biofuel rules are illustrative. The EU approved biofuel consumption targets and sustainability criteria in the 2009 renewable energy law. Next month, the European parliament will vote on halving the previously agreed target for food-based biofuels, shifting support towards fuels with much lower emissions. “The Commission is of the view that in the period after 2020 biofuels which do not lead to substantial greenhouse gas savings and are produced from crops used for food and feed should not be subsidised,” the Commission says, in a policy shift on biofuels which the biomass industry should now be wary of. (Reporting by Gerard Wynn; Editing by Jeff Coelho) Continue reading
UK Sets Sustainability Standards For Solid Biomass, Biogas
Taylor Scott International Continue reading
