Tag Archives: laboratory
Energy Consumption In The U.S. By Source & Sector
By Kolby Hoagland | August 09, 2013 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently released an energy consumption chart categorized by source and sector. Copied below, the chart details the quantities of energy of the various primary fuels and the derived usable energy delivered to the residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation sectors. The chart also specifies the amount of energy that the generation of electricity consumed and where the electricity was ultimately used. In total, the U.S. consumed 95.1 Quads of energy (1 Quad = 1,000,000,000 MMBtu) in 2012, down 2.2 Quads from 2011. Biomass made up 5% of the primary fuels consumed, while fossil fuel made up 82%. The use of renewables in the U.S.’s energy portfolio has grown in recent years, increasing from 7.3% of the total primary fuels in 2008 to 9.3% in 2012. Surprisingly though, the energy infrastructure in the U.S. became considerable more inefficient in the amount of useful energy that was derived from the primary fuels. From 2008 to 2011 , between 42.3% and 42.9% of the bound energy in the primary fuels was converted into usable energy services. The rest of the bound energy that was not used in an ‘energy service’ was lost to heat (out of a tail pipe or smokestack, for example) or via other routes of loss. In 2012, however, the efficiency of the energy infrastructure converted 38.9% of the energy in the fuel to useful energy, representing a decrease of roughly 3.5%. I ntrinsic losses during the production of usable energy are unavoidable, particularly with combustion. There are, however, various technological advancements that allow a variety of proven strategies to improve the overall efficiency that usable energy is produced, for example: CHP plants, hybrid auto-mobiles, super-critical boiler, etc.. The decrease seen in 2012 is hopefully an anomaly, and increases in the overall efficiency will be observed as older, inefficient power plants, automobiles, space heating systems are retired. Biomass and other renewables have a large part play in a more sustainable energy infrastructure. Yet, beyond renewables, gains in the efficiency of how energy is currently produced need to be exhaustively pursued if climate mitigation goals have any chance of being reached. Continue reading
Enzyme Research Could Lead to Less Expensive Biofuels
New research from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has discovered two approaches in which enzymes could break down cell walls more quickly and lead to less expensive biofuels for the transportation industry. Apr 30, 2013 Five NREL scientists and one scientist from the Weizmann Institute of Israel conducted research that could lead to enzymes helping create less expensive biofuel . Their paper, “Fungal Cellulases and Complexed Cellulosomal Enzymes Exhibit Synergistic Mechanisms in Cellulose Deconstruction”, has been published in Energy and Environmental Science. In order to reach the goal of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which involves the U.S. producing 36 billion gallons of biofuel each year by 2022, the high cost of enzyme treatment needs to be properly addressed. Enzyme treatment is a critical step in transforming biomass, such as trees and switchgrass, into liquid fuel. Microorganisms secrete the enzymes that naturally degrade plant cell walls and harvesting their sugars. NREL scientists discovered that two enzyme paradigms, free and complex enzymes, can be used together to degrade biomass at the nanometer scale and enhances catalytic performance. By combining the two enzyme systems, the breakdown of cell walls becomes a faster and more efficient process, which could then make biofuel production a less expensive and time-consuming process, as well. http://eponline.com/ Continue reading
