Samso, the Danish island living off-grid

In the past 10 years, the Danish island of Samso has cut its carbon footprint by a staggering 140%. With a grid of windfarms, solar panels and sheep, it is selling power to the mainland.

Solar, biomass, wind and wood-chip power generators have sprouted up across the island, while traditional fossil-fuel plants have been closed and dismantled.

Ten years ago, islanders drew nearly all their energy from oil and petrol brought in by tankers and from coal-powered electricity transmitted to the island through a mainland cable link. Today that traffic in energy has been reversed. Samsingers now export millions of kilowatt hours of electricity from renewable energy sources to the rest of Denmark.

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Vetroleum

The company Sustainable Power Corp. claims to have created a form of bio-crude oil from agricultural refuse. They use agro-waste from cracked soy beans, rice and cotton seed hulls, grain sorghum, milo, and jatropha and turn it into bio-crude oil. This crude can then be further refined into everything from gasoline to jet fuel and just about every petrochemical in between. The CEO is quoted: 'Our biggest problem is that we are too good to be true. We can literally replace every gallon of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel in the United States using just 12 percent of the waste byproducts in the country.' They also claim that their fuel, Vetroleum, burns with near 100 percent efficiency.

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Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol

From ''The Times'', June 14, 2008:

They start out as industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, but LS9 modifies them by custom-designing their DNA. Because crude oil is only a few molecular stages removed from the fatty acids normally excreted by yeast or E. coli during fermentation, it does not take much fiddling to get the desired result.

Using genetically modified bugs for fermentation is essentially the same as using natural bacteria to produce ethanol, although the energy-intensive final process of distillation is virtually eliminated because the bugs excrete a substance that is almost pump-ready.

"Our plan is to have a demonstration-scale plant operational by 2010 and, in parallel, we'll be working on the design and construction of a commercial-scale facility to open in 2011," says Mr Pal, adding that if LS9 used Brazilian sugar cane as its feedstock, its fuel would probably cost about $50 a barrel.

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Dyson working on "green" cars

The Independent informs us (22 June 2008):

Britain's most famous inventor Sir James Dyson, is working on a project that could lead to the creation of a fast, green car.

Engineers at his research laboratory in Wiltshire are developing a powerful lightweight motor that could enable electric cars to zoom along for hundreds of miles without causing pollution. Solar panels on their roofs or in garages would charge them with renewable energy.

In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, the scientist forecast that electric cars would be "the future" of transport, and predicted they could outnumber petrol vehicles in as little as 10 years' time.

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Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation

The Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation of New Zealand has "set itself the objective to be the first company in the world to economically produce biofuel from wild algae harvested from open-air environments, to market it, and meet the challenge of increasing demand".

They inform us that their two-step process harvests algae directly from the settling ponds of standard Effluent Management Systems and other nutrient-rich water, and that the process can be used in many industries that produce a waste stream, including the transport, dairy, meat and paper industries.

Their FAQ adds that they showed a proof of concept in December 2006 with a normal diesel engine Landrover whose engine ran on a B5 blend (5% biodiesel mixed with petroleum diesel) created using biodiesel derived from algae harvested from effluent management system ponds.

Car owners 'turn to vegetable oil'

BBC Newsbeat, Monday, 16 June 2008:

With fuel prices rising by the day, more and more people are looking for cheaper ways to run their cars and many are choosing to fill up with vegetable oil.

When Chris Bennet runs out of fuel he doesn't stop at a petrol station, he goes to his local fish and chip shop.

"I'm lucky enough to have a friendly chip shop, I go over there and pick up a couple of buckets," he said.

He filters the oil through a sack in his shed then pours it straight into the fuel tank.

The car's been fitted with a conversion kit to allow the engine to run on vegetable oil.

Chris's company Veggie Power makes the kits and recently they've been selling more than ever.

(continues)

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Vapo to manufacture bio diesel raw material from peat

13 Dec 2007:

Vapo, the "State Fuel Centre" co-owned by the Finnish State and the forestry industry group Metsäliitto, will start turning swamp peat and wood into raw material for bio diesel. Vapo presented its diesel plans on Monday, and the final investment decision will be made in a couple of years’ time.

For Vapo the diesel plant is a large investment, as the facility comes with a price tag of around EUR 300 million. Vapo Group’s turnover in 2006 was EUR 600.9 million.

Vapo director Mikko Kara refers to Finland’s self-sufficiency in justifying the peat diesel project. "The securing of supply is an important criterion. For example, in the United States the armed forces' aim is that the entire military machinery run on domestic fuel", Kara says.

...

Vapo has the technical capability to produce crude oil from peat alone, but for environmental reasons this will not be the case. The European Union still considers peat a form of fossil fuel, despite the fact that the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) has placed peat between biomass and fossil fuels in its ratings.

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Airbus, Honeywell team on biofuel for airplanes

Plane maker Airbus and diversified manufacturer Honeywell International Inc. on Thursday said they are developing a biofuel that by 2030 could satisfy nearly a third of the worldwide demand from commercial aircraft, without affecting food supplies.

Along with JetBlue Airways Corp. and International Aero Engines, they plan to produce fuel from vegetation and algae-based oils that do not compete with existing food production or land and water resources.

International Aero Engines is a multinational consortium whose shareholders include United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney and Rolls-Royce.

Airbus spokesman Clay McConnell said in the "technical partnership," each company will invest time and intellectual property into developing and testing a biofuel that can later be sold to refiners or others interested in producing it.

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Cameron Diaz To Take BMW’s Hydrogen 7 To Oscars

Ecorazzi, Feb. 24, 2008:

As expected, some celebrities are opting to avoid Chevy’s fleet of fuel-friendly SUVs in favor of their own green transportation alternatives. One such gal is actress Cameron Diaz, who has decided to hitch a ride to the red carpet in BMW’s Hydrogen 7 sedan. This is the same car that’s currently being tested by the likes of Jay Leno, Will Ferrell, Jeremy Piven, and Edward Norton for everyday use. We also spied Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie arriving to the premiere of Ocean’s 13 last year in the H7. Here’s what ABG has to say about this liquid-hydrogen powered vehicle:

“The H7 is a equipped with a dual fuel system that allows the V-12 engine to run on either gasoline or liquified hydrogen. Like other hydrogen-fueled internal combustion vehicles the H7 emits pretty much only water (and some trace amounts of NOx) when it’s running on hydrogen. BMW’s decision to follow the internal combustion path allows them to utilize their engine expertise, but the result is far less efficient than a fuel cell. Using liquid hydrogen also allows them to carry more hydrogen on board, but the insulated storage tank is much larger and heavier and the hydrogen boils off and must be vented to atmosphere.”

As with any vehicle taking advantage of hydrogen as a fuel source, there are still many problems yet to solve — the least of which is how to create hydrogen in a clean, energy-efficient manner. For more on the H7, check out BMW’s official site.

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Solar cell directly splits water for hydrogen

Physorg.com reports:

Penn State researchers have a proof-of-concept device that can split water and produce recoverable hydrogen.

"This is a proof-of-concept system that is very inefficient. But ultimately, catalytic systems with 10 to 15 percent solar conversion efficiency might be achievable," says Thomas E. Mallouk, the DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics. "If this could be realized, water photolysis would provide a clean source of hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight."

Mallouk and W. Justin Youngblood, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry, together with collaborators at Arizona State University, developed a catalyst system that, combined with a dye, can mimic the electron transfer and water oxidation processes that occur in plants during photosynthesis. They reported the results of their experiments at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science today in Boston.

The water splitting requires 1.23 volts, and the current experimental configuration cannot quite achieve that level so the researchers add about 0.3 volts from an outside source. Their current system achieves an efficiency of about 0.3 percent.

"Nature is only 1 to 3 percent efficient with photosynthesis," says Mallouk. "Which is why you can not expect the clippings from your lawn to power your house and your car. We would like not to have to use all the land area that is used for agriculture to get the energy we need from solar cells."

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Google Talks - Dr. Robert Bussard on IEC fusion

The late Dr. Robert Bussard (died October 2007), former Assistant Director of the AEC and founder of Energy Matter Conversion Corporation (EMC2), spent 17 years perfecting inertial electrostatic confinement, a fusion process that converts hydrogen and boron directly into electricity producing helium as the only waste product. Most of this work was funded by the Department of Defense, the details of which have been under seal... until now.

Dr. Bussard discusses his recent results and details of this potentially world-altering technology, whose conception dates back as far as 1924, and even includes a reactor design by Philo T. Farnsworth.

Can a 100 MW fusion reactor be built for less than Google's annual electricity bill? Come see what's possible when you think outside the thermonuclear box and ignore the herd.

His presentation is on Google Talks here.

Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline

New York Times February 19, 2008

Scientists F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr. of Los Alamos National Laboratory are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline.

The idea is simple. Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel.

Although they have not yet built a synthetic fuel factory, or even a small prototype, the scientists say it is all based on existing technology.

“Everything in the concept has been built, is operating or has a close cousin that is operating,” Dr. Martin said.

There is, however, a major caveat that explains why no one has built a carbon-dioxide-to-gasoline factory: it requires a great deal of energy. To produce gasoline on a commercial scale — say, 750,000 gallons a day — would require a dedicated power plant, preferably a nuclear one, the scientists say.

According to their analysis, their concept, which would cost about $5 billion to build, could produce gasoline at an operating cost of $1.40 a gallon and would turn economically viable when the price at the pump hits $4.60 a gallon, taking into account construction costs and other expenses in getting the gas to the consumer. With some additional technological advances, the break-even price would drop to $3.40 a gallon, they said.

The same chemical processes could also be powered by solar panels, for instance, but the economics would become far less favorable.

Dr. Martin and Dr. Kubic will present their Green Freedom concept on Wednesday at the Alternative Energy Now conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. They plan a simple demonstration within a year and a larger prototype within a couple of years after that.

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