Researchers have discovered that the Agave plant, used in making tequila, may be an excellent source of biofuels, with two agave species producing yields of biofuels that far surpassed the yields from biofuel feedstocks such as corn, wheat, soybean, and sorghum. Reporting in the journal Global Change Biology Bioenergy, scientists said that 14 studies confirmed the high biofuel potential of Agave.

The fuel can be harvested from the remains of the plant after it has been used to make tequila, or can be grown on abandoned Agave plantations in Mexico and Africa. In either case, researchers say that large amounts of Agave biofuel could be grown without the need to produce the crop on lands that could be used to grow food — a major drawback of biofuels such as corn and soybeans.

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The enthusiasm is building — we’re just a few months from the U.S. launch of the first electric vehicles aimed at mainstream consumers. Nissan is touting the success of the registration program for its upcoming Leaf EV, boasting 13,000 orders for its vehicles.

It is hoped across the industry (and in Washington DC) that sales of EVs will revive the American auto industry. While Pike Research believes that sales of EVs will grow relatively quickly, EV sales would likely grow much higher if it weren’t for our relatively cheap gasoline.

China will be the global leader in EV sales, with more than a quarter million of EVs sold in 2015, according to our projections at Pike Research. Sales of EVs in Europe – even with fewer homes with convenient access to home charging – are expected to outpace the American market.

As shown in the table below, the cost of fuel in the U.S. is the lowest in the world thanks to lower taxes. While the average cost of electricity is also among the lowest in the world, the relative cost of fuel to electricity is the lowest in the world.

We calculated the annual savings of driving an EV instead of an equivalent passenger car and found that American drivers would save less than half as much (just over $800) by switching to an EV as drivers in Japan, France, Great Britain and Norway, who can save up to $2,000. This model even allows that in Europe, more fuel-efficient cars would be replaced (30 mpg was assumed for vehicles in the U.S., and 35 mpg diesel vehicles in Europe).

This simplistic model does not include the cost of the vehicle or any consumer tax incentives. Still it underscores how much can be saved by operating the vehicle. Smaller annual savings means a longer time to pay back the premium that EV buyers are likely to pay. While many of the early EV owners will be thinking more about the environment (and showing off to their neighbors) than about their wallets when buying, a shorter payback period would help to convince consumers who are more price-sensitive to purchase an EV.

In Europe, gasoline is more than 2.5 times the price in the U.S. thanks to higher taxes. In the EU, seventeen states also charge CO2-related taxes on passenger cars, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.

Major efforts are underway in the U.S. to install charging equipment in metropolitan areas, and federal (up to $7,500) and state incentives will make EVs more affordable to prospective buyers. But raising the gas tax or adding a carbon tax would likely be the most direct route to increasing EV adoption here.

Article by John Gartner appearing courtesy Matter Network

Photo: saebaryo

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The algae industry converged on San Diego this week for Algae World Summit 2010. There was significant buzz among the conference participants surrounding the use of algae as a biofuel. Massive investment by private investors and the federal government have spurred interest in algae, but many of the speakers reinforced the fact that complex issues surrounding the growth of algae remain.

It was highlighted that for ideal growth of algae, sunlight, water, temperature, and access to CO2 are all taken into account. What may be ideal territory for sunlight may not be the ideal territory for water and vice versa.

An optimal logistical view may be necessary, taking into account areas that are best suited for growth and development of algae and logistics to move the algae to the company’s various terminals, according to Nigel Snelling, business development manager of Marathon Oil.

Aside from location, speakers highlighted a number of challenges before algae can truly be scaled up from the lab for commercial production of biofuel. Some of the technical challenges that were echoed included harvesting, extraction, and biotic invasions.

Simply being able to grow algae is a challenge in and of itself, according to John Benemann, an algae expert and pioneer. In addition to the technical challenges, the financial challenges present a large hurdle as well. These included the short time lines preferred by venture capitalists and the high cost of equipment such as centrifuges.

The panels all highlighted the cooperation between various Federal agencies, including National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, academic institutions and private industry. While there was skepticism as to the time frame for wide spread commercialization, the speakers generally agreed that biofuel derived from algae will be an integral part of meeting the 2022 target of 36 billion gallons of biofuel under the federally mandated renewable fuel standard.

While soybeans may produce 50 gallons per acre per year, algae could potentially yield somewhere between 4,000 and 6,000 gallons per acre per year. This amount is also significantly more than corn based ethanol. Many agreed, however, that the regulatory framework for dealing with algae has not caught up.

Despite the multitude of complex technical and financial issues, a tangible example of what may be in store for the future was present: an algae powered plug-in Toyota Prius. This example, belonging to Josh Tickell and Rebecca Harrell Tickell, the director and producer of the film “Fuel” and the forthcoming movie “Sex & Algae.”

In a brief test drive, the car drove like any normal Prius with one major difference: it was powered by algae (supplied by Sapphire Energy). The car is a great example of the promise of algae that attendees and speakers at the conference firmly believe.

photo: Arthur Chapman

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Growing algae for biofuels is an energy-intensive process that can generate more greenhouse gases than the process sequesters, according to a new study.

Examining the life cycle of algal biofuels, researchers from the University of Virginia found that the process emits high levels of greenhouse gases because algal production requires using large amounts of fertilizer.

Those fertilizers often come from petroleum-based sources, and fertilizers also emit nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, according to the study. The study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, said that while biofuel production from crops such as corn, canola, and switchgrass can result in a net carbon dioxide uptake, that is not yet the case with algal biofuels.

The paper said that one promising way to overcome the environmental impact of using fertilizers to grow algal biofuels is to produce them with effluent from sewage treatment plants. Proponents of algal biofuels also said it is too early to make firm conclusions about the environmental impact of the technology because it is still in its infancy.

Article appearing courtesy Yale Environment 360.

photo: Proyecto Agua

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Between 1950 and 2008 more cars were added to our roads virtually every year as the total fleet expanded steadily from 49 million to 250 million vehicles. In 2009, however, 14 million cars were scrapped while only 10 million cars were sold, shrinking the fleet by 4 million vehicles, or nearly 2 percent. With record numbers of cars set to reach retirement age between now and 2020, the fleet could shrink by some 10 percent, dropping from the all-time high of 250 million in 2008 to 225 million in 2020.

The United States, with 246 million motor vehicles and 209 million licensed drivers, is facing market saturation. With 5 vehicles for every 4 drivers, the 4-million-vehicle contraction in the U.S. fleet in 2009 does not come as a great surprise. In a largely rural society, more cars provided mobility, but in a society that is now over 80 percent urban, more cars provide immobility.

A combination of driver frustration and the soaring congestion costs associated with wasted time and fuel are leading to a cultural shift that is reducing the role of the automobile as people turn to alternatives. Almost every major U.S. city is either building new light rail or express bus systems, or expanding and upgrading existing ones to reduce dependence on cars. The peak fleet may now be behind us.

The number of U.S. teenage drivers has declined from a peak of 12 million in 1978 to 10 million today, dropping the share of driving-age teenagers with licenses from 69 percent to 56 percent. An increasing number of Americans are growing up in urban environments in families without a car. This trend, combined with a shift in socialization habits among young people away from cars to the Internet and smart phones, means that the car no longer holds the allure of years past.

For background data and further discussion of these trends, see the January 2010 Plan B Update by Lester R. Brown, “U.S. Car Fleet Shrank by Four Million in 2009 .” Additional information is in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (W.W. Norton, 2009), on-line for free downloading at www.earthpolicy.org .

Article by Lester Brown, appearing courtesy of Celsias; via Earth Policy

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The headline on Tuesday’s editorial in Investor’s Business Daily – “Get the Frackin’ Gas” – is both clever and on the mark. The publication gets into trouble, however, when the body of its editorial veers into mischaracterizing ProPublica’s reporting on the environmental risks that need to be dealt with to produce the huge amounts of natural gas available underground in the United States.

Our reporters, led by Abrahm Lustgarten, have researched and written more than 50 stories on the subject over the past 18 months and are as expert on the topic as anyone in America.

Here is what is beyond dispute: The gas is highly desirable as a fuel, because it burns relatively cleanly and produces less greenhouse gas per unit of energy than oil or coal. There is lots of it obtainable within the U.S. using an enhanced version of an old drilling technology, called hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” – much more than was widely supposed just a few years ago. That means using natural gas to power cars and electrical generation doesn’t require sending huge sums abroad, weakening the dollar and strengthening countries that aren’t particularly friendly to ours – Russia, Iran and Venezuela among them.

Here is a fact that some in the gas industry want to deny: There are significant risks to the water supply from producing these huge quantities of gas, but they are easily manageable with appropriate regulatory supervision. Unfortunately, the IBD editorial buys into the head-in-the-sand denial.

The editorial quotes a senator from the Oklahoma oil patch as saying there has never been a documented impact on water supplies from fracking. As former President Bill Clinton would understand, that depends on how you define “documented” and “fracking.” If you use any sort of sensible definitions, there have been well over 1,000 incidents in which spillage or leakage of fluids used in fracking have damaged water supplies.

An unmitigated canard quoted in the editorial – one that has a goofy way of creeping into discourse from a variety of people who dislike something we have written – is that George Soros, the global billionaire, is behind our coverage. Soros has never given us a penny, and even if he had, none of our funders know in advance what we are going to write about, nor do they have any role in deciding what stories we do or don’t do.

What our reporting over the last year and a half has demonstrated is simple: A provision in the huge 2005 energy legislation (crafted as a result of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s task force on the subject) exempted fracking from regulation by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act, and left environmental supervision to the states. This gives the drilling industry huge freedom to play one state off against another in the race to get billions of dollars in revenue and thousands of jobs.

The growing numbers of proponents of eliminating that exemption argue that such action would provide a common regulatory framework and assure drilling could go forward in relative safety. The industry has responded with a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to block that move, on the grounds that effective regulation would add to its costs.

ProPublica will continue to cover the issue aggressively, and factually.

Article by Paul Steiger, appearing courtesy of ProPublica

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Climate change not only presents difficult challenges for the energy industry, but also raises serious concerns about food security as loss of topsoil and desertification reduce arable land around the world.  Within this climate, genetically-modified crops (GMOs) will play a crucial role in supporting increased development and population growth.

GMOs are organisms, such as plants and animals, whose genetic characteristics are being modified artificially in order to give them a new property.  Last month, Monsanto, the world’s leading seed producer, announced that it expects African countries to increase plantings of GMOs in order to boost food security and economic development in the face of climate change.  Africa is the only continent where per-capita food output is falling, which also raises concerns about introducing fuel-dedicated crops.  GMOs could increase yields for both food and fuel, but international and regional rules governing GMOs represent a significant barrier to increased international trade.

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is one of the first international agreements to regulate the transboundary transfer of GMOs.  The Cartagena Protocol relies primarily on the precautionary principle, which reflects the recognition that scientific certainty often comes too late to design effective legal and policy responses for preventing many potential environmental threats.  Questions about the downstream health risks associated with genetically-modified food have invoked this principle and led to a zero-tolerance policy in the EU.

The EU continues to regulate GMOs despite a 2006 ruling by the WTO, which held that the EU ban violates international free trade.  The EU’s stance has limited trade between the US, Canada, and Argentina, which together grow 80 percent of the biotech crops sold commercially (EU’s ban contributed to Mansanto’s decision to remove their seed cereal business in Europe).

Given biomass crops’ heavy dependence on fossil fuel and water inputs, genetic modification will play an important role in shoring up the biomass industry’s future competitiveness.  However, with the US and EU still sharply divided on the issue, the biomass industry must dissociate from the GMO/food nexus debate and reassure the public that genetically-modified biomass fuel crops will not endanger public health.  At the same time, the industry would benefit from increased penetration of GMOs used for food, which would increase the agricultural yield of existing arable lands making way for more dedicated energy crops.

This post originally appeared in Biomass Intel

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U.S. researchers have demonstrated a technology that uses the sun’s heat to convert carbon dioxide and water into the building blocks of traditional fuels, a reverse combustion process that may emerge as a practical alternative to sequestration of CO2 emissions from power plants.

The prototype “Sunshine to Petrol” system, developed by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, uses concentrated solar energy to trigger a thermo-chemical reaction in an iron-rich composite located inside a two-sided cylindrical chamber.

The iron oxide is designed to lose an oxygen molecule when exposed to 1,500 degree C heat, and then retrieve an oxygen molecule when it is cooled down, essentially converting an incoming supply of CO2 into an outgoing stream of carbon monoxide.

Additionally, when researchers pump water into the chamber rather than CO2, the machine produces hydrogen. Combining those retrieved gases — hydrogen and carbon monoxide — they are able to create syngas, which can be used as a fuel.

While researchers say the technology likely will not be ready for market for 15 to 20 years, it could one day become a practical way to recycle CO2.

“It’s a productive utilization of CO2 that you might capture from a coal plant, a brewery, and similar concentrated sources,” said James Miller, a Sandia chemical engineer.

Article appearing courtesy of Yale Environment 360

[photo credit: Sandia National Labs]

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Biofuels offer a unique opportunity for the developing world. Almost 80 percent of the remaining land that has cultivation potential resides in South America and Africa, according to research supported by the United Nations.

However, without a standard method for determining the impact of biofuels on the environment, international bodies like the U.N. will tread carefully when discussing the role of bioenergy in mitigating the effects of climate change, despite the potential economic benefits for the developing world.

The future of bioenergy from algae and bioengineered feedstocks is an exciting and promising opportunity for life science to take a larger role in sustaining our energy needs.

In the meantime, much of the focus remains on first and second generation biofuels made from corn, sugarcane and cellulosic feedstocks. These are a controversial renewable energy source due to the various estimates regarding the impacts of indirect land-use change on the environment.

In 2008, Searchinger et al. caused a stir in the debate over corn ethanol by publishing a study that indicated the feedstock doubled CO₂ emissions over a 30-year period when compared to fossil fuels.

In the same issue of the journal Science, Fargione et al. defined the carbon debt for a number of feedstocks, where carbon debt is the amount of time the feedstock takes to produce less CO₂ than the fossil fuels they are replacing. In the study, corn ethanol had a carbon debt of a staggering 93 years. Combined, these stories pushed the issue of indirect land-use change to the forefront of the debate on biofuels and climate change.

Earlier this year, Liska & Perin debunked the Searchinger study by highlighting the sensitivity of its conclusions along with omitted benefits including emission reductions due to estimated livestock reduction, which would offset half of the additional emissions from corn ethanol.

In August of this year, Sandia Laboratories released a paper showing that the United States could produce 90 billion gallons of ethanol per year by 2030, or 50 percent more than the current target. Corn ethanol was not the bulk of the supply but did account for more than 15 percent of the total.

Meanwhile, contributors to the Gigaton Throwdown (an initiative to scale up clean energy) chose not to consider corn ethanol as a biofuel feedstock precisely because of the indirect land-use change controversy.

As some reputable researchers want to include corn ethanol in the biofuel mix, others are avoiding the topic until a body defines clear standards related to indirect land-use change. Last week, the Council on Sustainable Biomass Production (CSBP) released a draft standard for bioenergy, which includes indirect land-use change.

Until an agreed upon standard for indirect land-use change exists, such as the one proposed by the CSBP, the effects of biofuels on climate change will remain controversial. Proponents of first generation biofuels will continue to understate the indirect land-use change problem by highlighting the economic benefit to developing nations, the exclusive use of land that is non-forest and marginal, and the potential increase in energy security by diversifying transportation fuel away from oil.

[chart credit: Nick Nigro]

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