Seaweed biofuel

Energy experts believe that seaweed holds enormous potential as a biofuel alternative to coal and oil, and US-based scientists say they have unlocked the secret of turning its sugar into energy.

A newly engineered microbe can do the work by metabolizing all of the major sugars in brown seaweed, potentially making it a cost-competitive alternative to petroleum fuel, said the report in the US journal Science.

The team at the Berkeley, California-based Bio Architecture Labengineered a form of E. coli bacteria that can digest the seaweed’s sugars into ethanol, it said.

Unlike other microbes before, researchers found it can attack the primary sugar constituent in seaweed, known as alginate.

Read the rest at Raw Story
Scientists claim major breakthrough in seaweed biofuel

by Agence France-Presse

US Navy tests GMO algae-based biofuel

The US Navy and the shipping company Maersk have successfully tested a form of algae-based biofuel, it has been announced.

Read it ar RTCC

US Navy tests genetically modified algal fuel

By RTCC Staff

This is a big deal. The US Navy and large shipping companies use a huge amount of NSFO (Naval Standard/Special Fuel Oil) aka No. 5 fuel. It is a heavy bunker fuel that is significant pollutant.

Shipping fuel is frequently very low grade. In 2009 it was alleged that the world’s 15 largest ships emitted as much pollution in a year as all of the world’s 760 million cars.

Ugo Bardi: Why biofuels are not a good idea

Biofuels are a complex matter and Giampietro and Mayumi use almost 300 pages to eviscerate it in all its aspects. The main point of their analysis is based on fundamental physics: the efficiency of photosynthesis is low and the result is that the areas needed for cultivation are large. If we are thinking of amounts of biofuels comparable to the present needs for transportation, the task is simply unthinkable: there would be no space left for food production. As the authors flatly state at page 128 of the book, “Full substitution of fossil energy with agro-biofuels is impossible.”

The large area needed is only one of the problems with biofuels. More in general, agriculture is a good technology for producing food, but it is terribly expensive in terms of the resources it requires. It needs land, water, fertilizers, pesticides, mechanical work; all supplies that normally come from fossil fuels. Taking all that into account, the EROEI (energy return for energy invested) of biofuels is generally low; unless the invested energy is supplied by low cost human labor, as it is the case for Brazilian sugar cane. Apart from Brazil, the need of an energy subsidy in the form of fossil fuels makes biofuels unable to deliver their promise of being a “sustainable” technology. They can’t help us in reducing our dependency on fossil fuels nor in reducing the emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Of course, the biofuel story is more complex than that and Giampietro and Mayumi examine the whole spectrum of possibilities in their book. Are there better biofuels? Or, perhaps, ways of using the present form of biofuels in a more effective way? Yes, of course; there is the promise of “second generation” fuels (cellulosic ethanol) and the possibility of cultivating marginal areas, unsuitable for food production. But the physical factors of the problem don’t change much and, right now, biofuels and conventional agriculture are already competing for land and resources. One of consequences may be the increase increase in food prices that we have been seen during the past few years.In the end, what do we want to do, exactly, with biofuels? Do we really think that the way to solve our energy problems is to use an inefficient technology to support an already inefficient transportation system? The only explanation I can think of for so much emphasis on biofuels is that, once a bad idea is implemented, it starts to gain momentum and then it becomes nearly impossible to stop.

Read the whole post at Peak Oil: Exploring Hydrocarbon Depletion

Ugo Bardi: Why biofuels are not a good idea

Biofuels, Speculators Driving Food Prices

A new report on global hunger pinpoints factors at the heart of spikes in food prices it says are exacerbating the unfolding food crisis in the Horn of Africa.

Released ahead of World Food Day on Oct. 16, the report calls for action to control price volatility in the global food market and protect the world's poorest from the scourge of famine....

The Global Hunger Index (GHI), released Tuesday by The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Welthungerhilfe, and Concern Worldwide, points to climate change, growing demand for biofuels, and increasing commodities futures trading in global food markets as the causes of price increases in food, which it says were also at the root of the food crisis of 2007-2008....

Increasing food commodities futures trading, when investors bet on future prices for food commodities, in maize, soybeans, and wheat, have increased prices for those foods, according to the GHI. The report points out that money invested in food commodities futures trading went from 13 billion to 260 billion dollars between 2003 and 2008.

Read the whole post at IPS, Biofuels, Speculators Driving Food Price Surges by Amanda Wilson

(emphasis added)