Gas 2.0

Editor’s Note: I’m in Houston, TX, this week, celebrating the International Year of the Planet by posting on topics covered at the first ever joint meeting between the American societies of Soil Science, Geology, Crop Science and Agronomy. With a significant focus on biofuels, this conference should be rife with interesting materials.

In a wide-ranging session on Tuesday dealing with global biofuel, food security and poverty issues, there was plenty for the presenters to disagree about — but the one thing they could all concur on was that the biofuel genie is out of the bottle and he’s here to stay.

Several times during the session the presenters highlighted the fact that biofuels have finally brought an inherent value to agriculture that was previously missing. This, more than anything else, is why biofuels are not going to go away. Up to now, the lack of agricultural value has caused a deep deficiency in the level of funding and investment that governments worldwide have provided for their agricultural security and infrastructure.

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A report from the Office of Biobased Technology from the University of Michigan says that the United States lacks the standards to ensure that producing biofuels from cellulose won’t cause environmental harm.

As governments the world over move to make biofuel mandates, concessions and tax breaks for corn farmers and biofuel industry leaders, a group of scientists is calling for sustainable practices in an industry that that is being driven as an alternative to fossil fuel independence.

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Jatropha is a nondescript and rather ugly desert shrub, but its appearance belies a huge potential as a major source of oil for biodiesel production on land that doesn’t compete with food crops — and the whole world is taking notice.

Jatropha has the potential to produce 4 times the amount of biodiesel as soybeans and 1.5 times the amount of even a dedicated oil crop such as canola. This alone has been enough to make people sit up and take notice, but jatropha’s true beauty lies in the fact that it can be grown on literal wasteland — land that has been left for dead with little rainfall, poor soils, and a harsh climate.

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A biodiesel factory in Bosnia?  It seems like just yesterday, but it was in 1995. That was the year I crossed the Sava River from Croatia, into Bosnia, and entered a country that would change my life forever.

Three different armies had killed hundreds of thousands of people, (including an ethnic cleansing campaign waged by Slobadan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic) casting the country into the dark after the power went out.  This was a world where people had to run down “Sniper Alley” to get fresh drinking water in Sarajevo, and rural farmers resorted to eating the bark off  trees.

A Nuclear reactor, near where I patrolled in my Hummer, sat silent and cold as enterprising people cut down dead power-lines to sell the copper in them. Families held off the cold winter by huddling around burning furniture and tires.

It’s now 13 years later and Bosnia is rebounding, and one of the signs of its new prosperity its new biodiesel factory, about to open near Banja Luka.
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After its successful launch of the first commercial scale algae biodiesel plant in the U.S., PetroSun is setting its sights on a new partnership to develop an algae biofuel facility in China.

Shanghai Jun Ya Yan Technology Development Company has developed an agreement with PetroSun whereby it will provide $40 million (US) for the construction of an algae farm facility inside China and split profits with PetroSun 50/50 in exchange for PetroSun’s propriety technology and expertise.

Along with planned ethanol and biodiesel output, the press release states that the facility will be producing “other commercial products” from the algae. I’m guessing that means livestock feed supplements made from what’s left of algae carcasses after they’ve been squeezed for oil and turned into ethanol — but maybe they have another surprise up their sleeves?

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The United States is headed towards being the single largest biodiesel consumer in the world, accounting for about 19% of the market by 2012.

The production and consumption of biodiesel, having grown on average by more than 50% per year for the last five years, also saw triple-digit growth rates in 2006.

Germany currently holds top honors for biodiesel consumption, using 30% of the worlds market, but with the growing need for alternative fuels, and other countries coming on line, this is diminishing.

One thing needs to be kept in mind though, production costs of biodiesel are currently higher than those of conventional diesel, meaning that biodiesel is not currently competitive without political support and tax exemptions. As a consequence, the biodiesel industry is largely driven by government legislation and regulation.

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By cutting fees for the legal transportation of kitchen grease used to make biodiesel for personal use from $400 to $75 per truck, California hopes that would-be backyard biodiesel grease thieves will pony up and go legit.

Prices for regular diesel have been historically high nationwide, and all over the U.S. people are turning to backyard biodiesel as a way to make cheap fuel — a fairly straightforward process that can be accomplished for less than $1/gal.

One of the most copious sources of inedible oil to make biodiesel is the nasty, used fryer grease leftover from commercial kitchens — and what cheaper way to obtain it than stealing?

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Two British landfills could soon use their trash’s syrupy excretions to irrigate and fertilize on-site biomass crops.

A developer, Waste Recycling Group, hopes to construct two 18-foot-deep lagoons near landfills to produce fertilizer from the leachate that oozes from the trash piles. The substance will be pumped from the dump into the lagoons where bacteria will eat away at the contaminants. The developer then hopes to use the fertilizer to grow willow coppices at the landfill for use as biofuel.

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A coal fired power-plant in Oregon has started a pilot project to curb pollution by using algae to harvest greenhouse gases and make fuel and other useful products.

The power plant in Boardman, Oregon, is the state’s only coal-fired facility — and also the the state’s largest single emitter of carbon dioxide. To deal with this problem, Portland General Electric and Columbia Energy Partners have started a pilot project to turn the otherwise nasty emissions into biodiesel, ethanol, and even livestock feed.

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As the global market for biofuels heats up, much of the demand for biodiesel is being satisfied by clearing virgin rainforests to create oil palm plantations. But, as it turns out, these plantations are an awful substitute for rainforests.

A group of British, German and Danish researchers has found that the biodiversity of oil palm plantations is far lower than that of tropical rainforests and that no amount of plantation management changes could ever possibly make them come close to replicating rainforest diversity.

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