In a move sure to gain the appreciation of at least some hunger activists, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard and Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced that The European Commission will be limiting crop-based biofuels to just 5 percent of transport fuel until at least the year 2020. Activists have been railing against the use of crops and other food sources for fuel as millions go hungry around the world.

“Finally the European commissioners have come to their senses,” said Clare Coffey, policy adviser at ActionAid. “They are firmly acknowledging that using precious food and agricultural land to fuel our cars is bad for people and bad for the environment. In a world where a billion go to bed hungry every night, that is immoral.”

While the limits will be put in place for crop-based fuels once passed by EU governments and lawmakers, development of other biofuels will move forward towards a goal of having at least 10 percent of the fuel mix be from renewable sources by 2020. According to a statement by Oettinger at a recent meeting of EU energy ministers, the difficulty in that will be finding sources that are as cheap to produce as crop-based ones currently used.

The United Nation’s food agency recently called for the U.S. to change its policies on crop-based biofuels because of the danger of a worldwide food crisis, but it seems the European Union is the only one taking that advice to heart. “We cannot continue to burn food in our petrol tanks while poor families go hungry,” said Natalia Alonso from Oxfam. Truer words aren’t spoken too often and we definitely need to speed up the development and production of non-food-based biofuel sources.

[via The Guardian]

Image Credit: Frapestaartje/Flickr

The post European Union Set To Limit Crop-Based Biofuels appeared first on REVMODO.

Joule Unlimited, which believes that its technology could eventually produce up to 100X more ethanol and biodiesel – using only non-food sources – than today’s alternative-fuel manufacturers are capable of, announced the commissioning of its first SunSprings demonstration plant on four acres of desert in southeastern New Mexico. It has already been testing its Liquid Fuel from the Sun system in a lab in Texas for two years, and this demo plant will be a jumping off point for the future development of scalable fuel production sites across the globe.

The technology utilizes a combination of genetically-engineered photosynthetic microorganisms, controlled sunlight, non-potable water, and waste CO2 to produce the fuel. According to Joule, these microorganisms act as living catalysts which continuously and directly secrete ethanol. This is unlike typical algae-based systems which first produce biomass that requires harvesting before the sugars can be converted into fuel.

“A short four years after we began lab operations, we are pleased to reach this important milestone in the company’s development,” said Noubar Afeyan, Founder and Chairman of Joule. “Based on several breakthrough innovations, Joule has produced a platform to sustainably produce liquid fuels at costs competitive with all existing alternatives. Now we are eager to show the promise of commercial production.”

The company believes it will eventually be able to produce 15,000 gallons of diesel and 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre annually at a cost of around 1.28 per gallon, and it is aiming for at least 10,000 gallons per acre at the new demonstration facility. Once the new plant is online, commericial production and introduction of Joule Sunflow-E into the ethanol market will begin.

Is the future of fuel to be found in genetically-engineered microorganisms fed only sunlight and water? While it sounds like only a dream, Joule is out to prove that their technology will be providing a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly fuel in the coming years.

[via Technology Review]

Image Credit: VinothChandar/Flickr

The post Joule To Begin Real World Testing Of ‘Liquid Fuel from the Sun’ appeared first on REVMODO.

For the last few years, Professor Richard Parnas has been converting the school’s used cooking oils into biodiesel to be used by on-campus buses. But because of the rising price and lack of supply of yellow greases, Parnas and his company RPM Sustainable Technologies is now researching ways to turn brown grease – the thick, gunky stuff that collects at the bottom of traps in fryers and waste treatment facilities – into biodiesel, a monumental task given the makeup of the grease.

“Brown grease is the next frontier in the race to the bottom,” he said. “Brown grease is just like it sounds, a fairly disgusting thing.”

Parnas and company are setting up a prototype system to split the collected brown grease into oils and biosolids, converting the oils into biodiesel fuel and the solids into synthetic natural gas to produce methanol. The company is seeking public and private funds for further development, and local waste treatment centers have expressed interest in the system.

Right now, brown waste grease is sent off to incinerators to be disposed of, as no one has ever had a use for it. Where Professor Parnas lives, for example, almost 900,000 gallons of a brown grease & water mix are burned each year. RPM’s system aims to convert the 95,000 gallons of solid grease in that mixture into 45,000 gallons of biodiesel. If successful, brown grease biodiesel could be the next gold rush in biofuels.

[via Hartford Courant]

Image Credit: Sustainable sanitation/Flickr

The post UConn Research Converting Brown Grease To Biodiesel appeared first on REVMODO.

Liquid wastewater is discharged on a constant basis by cities and towns the world over, coming from any residential, commercial, and industrial sources utilizing fresh water. Depending on its use further upstream, the water can be made up of a wide assortment of contaminants such as feces, cooking oils, chemicals, or highway rain runoff. In most places, wastewater is treated at an expensive water treatment plant before being released into the wild, reducing or eliminating many of its pollutants. Assistant professor Belinda Sturm at the University of Kansas saw a use for the oft-nutrient rich wastewater and she has been growing algae in it to manufacture biodiesel fuel with.

Sturm is utilizing the post-treatment nitrogen and phosphorus-filled wastewater coming from the city of Lawrence to grow the algae, which she then mixes into a slurry and processes to capture the oily lipids used in biodiesel. In addition to making the oils needed for the fuel, the process helps to further reduce wastewater contaminants prior to it being discharged into the river. In talking to the DodgeGlobe, KU engineering professor Dennis Lane stated that this approach could help communities comply with federal environmental regulations for dealing with wastewater.

Due to her research, Sturm recently won the Excellence in Environmental Engineering Award from the Academy of Environmental Engineers for her work. If every community was able to reuse wastewater to make biodiesel from, we could not only produce a lot of fuel but also reduce the use of freshwater to do so. Let’s hope her research pays off and we can start building algae plants right alongside our wastewater treatment facilities.

[via DodgeGlobe]

Image Credit: mmmavocado/Flickr

The post Using Wastewater To Grow Algae For Manufacturing Biodiesel appeared first on REVMODO.