Move over oil, new pretreatment could cut biofuel costs by 30 percent or more
Alternative fuels have a few large problems making them horrible options over oil (which is already a horrible choice). However, researchers may have finally eliminated one of those problems, cost. The team has invented a novel pretreatment technology that could cut the cost of biofuels production by about 30 percent or more by dramatically reducing the amount of enzymes needed to breakdown the raw materials that form biofuels.
A Big Break for Bio-Gasoline
While the world waits for a better battery (and a energy grid system that doesn’t require constant power making), scientists are hard at work trying to teach old fuels a new trick. Thankfully an international team of bioengineers has boosted the ability of bacteria to produce isopentenol, a compound with desirable gasoline properties. The finding, if it is not obvious, is a significant step toward developing a bacterial strain that can yield industrial quantities of renewable bio-gasoline.
Will genetically engineer bacteria for Biofuel
This is pretty much how biofuel technology is being funded right now…
Utter the word biofuel in the wrong circles and someone is likely to be stabbed. Let’s just say that the topic can be polarizing, but for good reason. Biofuel offers a [potentially] carbon neutral and sustainable way to wean ourselves off our oil addiction. At the same time, the hurdles in the cost of production coupled with the technological problems have all but stalled the biofuel fantasy [can you see why someone may get stabbed yet?].
Well there is good news, while we are waiting for our solar roadways and other [much better] alternatives to just a carbon neutral solution, we can at the very least, move away from oil. This all thanks to a new breakthrough that will allow a carbon neutral biofuel to be produced cheaply.
Cheaper, Cleaner Biofuel: A Temporary Fix to a Big Problem
Algae, the other, other biofuel
Biofuels seem to be all the rage these days, not a bad thing since that whole global warming thing [that people are scared to admit is real] is going on. It is then, very unfortunate that every biofuel or even “green alternative” has an achilles heel the size of Texas keeping it from becoming our fossil fuel replacement.
[Useless Loony Fact: I shudder every time I have to use the word “Green” referring to anything other than the color. Oh and Jesus roundhouse kicks a panda in the face, so save the pandas and stop using the word green for anything but the color]
Biofuels better for Nature? Maybe not!
Food or Fuel? The great debate, but ethanol from corn is not the savior it was thought to be.
Depending where you are in the world you might notice signs touting the 5% ethanol in the gasoline you are buying. The idea is that biofuels [currently primarily made from corn] are better for the environment. As it turns out that might not be the case.
A new study in the journal Nature Climate Change suggests that one particular source of biofuel, corn residue [the stuff left over from corn production], should not and cannot be used to meet the new US federal mandate to ramp up ethanol production and [ideally] lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Lunatic Laboratories 