Tag: biofuels
-
ARPA-E to Fund $130 Million for New Energy R&D
The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) announced the availability of funding of five new research areas in its fourth round of grants for new energy technologies. The projects to be funded will involve rare earth alternatives, biofuels, thermal storage, grid controls, and solar power electronics. ARPA-E is modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency…
-
Lab: Algae Can Produce Fuel Equivalent to 17 Pct of Imports
A study by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington estimates that growing algae for biofuel could realistically replace 17 percent of the nation’s imported oil for transportation. The research team from the lab, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, and other colleagues published its findings in the journal Water Resources Research…
-
Univ. Bioenergy Lab to Develop Low Carbon Technologies
Aston University in Birmingham, U.K. plans to build new £16.5 million ($26.7 million) engineering laboratories to develop and demonstrate renewable low carbon technologies including a biomass fueled power plant. The facility (artist’s drawing pictured right) is scheduled to open on the Aston campus in October 2012. The labs include photo-bioreactors harnessing algae, and a 0.4MW…
-
E. Coli Engineered to Produce High-Volume Biofuel
Researchers at University of California in Los Angeles have engineered the bacteria E. coli to produce butanol, a type of alcohol that can substitute directly for gasoline in today’s car motors, and in greater quantities than before. The team published its findings earlier this month in the online edition of the journal Applied and Environmental…
-
Monsanto, Biofuels Company to Research Algae Agriculture
Agricultural chemicals maker Monsanto Company in St. Louis, Missouri and Sapphire Energy Inc. in San Diego, California signed a multi-year agreement to use Sapphire’s algae-based research platform for the discovery of genes applicable to agriculture. Sapphire Energy’s current work involves synthetic biology to produce replacement fuels for gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from algae. Under…
-
Process Turns Algae into Renewable Fuel, Cleans Wastewater
Chemical engineers at University of Arkansas in Fayetteville have developed a method for converting common algae into butanol, a renewable fuel that can be used in today’s internal-combustible engines. The technology has the added benefit helping to clean and oxygenate U.S. waterways by removing excess nitrogen and phosphorous from fertilizer in agricultural runoff. The team…
-
Universities, Brewery Partner on Biofuels from Brewery Waste
Researchers from Anheuser-Busch Inbev Inc. in St. Louis, Missouri and three universities have discovered stable microbe communities in brewery sludge with the potential to produce the basic building blocks of fuels. Their findings appear in the 22 February online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team from Cornell University, University…
-
Michigan Start Up Company Licenses Biodiesel Technology
NextCAT Inc. in Detroit, Michigan says it has licensed biofuel catalyst technology developed at the National Biofuels Energy Lab at Wayne State University, also in Detroit. The company says the technology can help restart the biodiesel industry that has been mostly idle in the United States since 2008, when rising feedstock prices made the production…
-
Transgenic Switchgrass Improves Biofuel Yield
Plant engineering by The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation in Ardmore, Oklahoma and fermentation research by Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have led to new lines of native perennial prairie grass that can make the production of cellulosic ethanol more economical. The researchers published their findings this week in in the Proceedings of the National…
-
Long-Term Impacts of Biofuels on Land Analyzed
A team of university, government, and national laboratory researchers ran simulations to gauge the impact of biofuel feedstocks on agricultural land. The findings are published in the January/February 2011 issue of Agronomy Journal (free full-text access for 30 days following publication). The study, funded by the USDA’s Agriculture Research Service, simulated experiments lasting from 79…