Energy

Turning native ecosystems into “farms” for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate, according to a new study by the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy. The carbon lost by converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands outweighs the carbon savings from biofuels. Such conversions for corn or sugarcane (ethanol), or palms or soybeans (biodiesel) release 17 to 420 times more carbon than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, the researchers said. The carbon, which is stored in the original…

Hybrid electric vehicles, using both conventional gasoline and stored electricity, are at best a stop-gap and, at worst, slow development of more sustainable fuel-cell powered electric vehicles, say researchers in France. Jean-Jacques Chanaron Research Director within the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Chief Scientific Advisor at the Grenoble School of Management and Julius Teske at Grenoble, question strongly whether the current acceptance of hybrid vehicle technology particularly in the USA is in any way environmentally sustainable. The researchers have analyzed…

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Arizona State University have sequenced the genome of a rare bacterium that harvests light energy by making an even rarer form of chlorophyll, chlorophyll d. Chlorophyll d absorbs “red edge,” near infrared, long wave length light, invisible to the naked eye. In so doing, the cyanobacterium Acaryochloris marina, competes with virtually no other plant or bacterium in the world for sunlight. As a result, its genome is massive for a cyanobacterium, comprising 8.3 million base pairs, and sophisticated. The genome is among the very largest of…

In a project funded by Technology Foundation STW, Haimin Tao examined the conditions a good regulation system for energy transfer must meet. As the sources and storage elements vary considerably in terms of aspects such as voltage level, the conventional conversion technique needed to be improved. The search for improvements focused on soft switching, reduction of current amplitudes and a greater efficiency. To safeguard the quality of the power flows, the researcher sought the appropriate regulators and storage systems so that the energy generated by external sources could be (temporarily)…

In a major advance in alternative fuel technology, researchers report development of a sponge-like material with the highest methane storage capacity ever measured. It can hold almost one-third more methane than the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) target level for methane-powered cars, they report in a new study. It is scheduled for the Jan. 23 issue of ACS’ Journal of the American Chemical Society, a weekly publication. Hong-Cai Zhou and colleagues note that lack of an effective, economical and safe on-board storage system for methane gas has been one of the major hurdles preventing…

The odometer of a low emission hybrid electric test vehicle today reached 100,000 miles as the car circled a track in the UK using the power of an advanced CSIRO battery system. The UltraBattery combines a supercapacitor and a lead acid battery in a single unit, creating a hybrid car battery that lasts longer, costs less and is more powerful than current technologies used in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). “The UltraBattery is a leap forward for low emission transport and uptake of HEVs,” said David Lamb, who leads low emissions transport research with the Energy Transformed National…

Natural gas distributed throughout the Marcellus black shale in northern Appalachia could conservatively boost proven U.S. reserves by trillions of cubic feet if gas production companies employ horizontal drilling techniques, according to a Penn State and State University of New York, Fredonia, team. "The value of this science could increment the net worth of U.S. energy resources by a trillion dollars, plus or minus billions," says Terry Engelder, professor of geosciences, at Penn State. The Marcellus shale runs from the southern tier of New York, through the western portion of Pennsylvania…

LOS ANGELES, January 17 /PRNewswire/ -- BioGold Fuels Corporation, in a joint venture with Bioteknia, has entered into a letter of intent to build a waste to fuel production facility in the Dominican Republic. Bioteknia will provide the contracts for the land to build the plant, the supply of waste for processing and the purchase of the resulting fuel and energy. Bioteknia will also secure the necessary governmental permits to build and operate the plant. BioGold will provide the technology and know how to build and operate the plants, as well as the funding necessary for construction. "…

It's possible to generate energy by growing plant material and burning it. If managed well, most of the carbon released by burning the material will be captured by the growing plants, and so have a low impact on overall levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. A better solution is using the growing plants to help solve other environmental problems. One set of systems currently running in Sweden grows willow trees and irrigates them with sewage effluent. This helps purify the sewage outflow at the same time as providing fuel. Other systems plant willow buffers between arable land and water ways…

By the time Congress mandated ethanol subsidies and usage in 2005, it was difficult to find anyone in the environmental community who thought it was a good idea - even Al Gore, who championed it for almost two decades, is against it now. Worse, while in vogue it overshadowed something that was both more cost- and energy-effective; algae. Microbiologists have always known that algae contains oil that can be turned into diesel fuel - and in better quantities than other alternatives. Soybeans produce about 50 gallons of oil per acre per year, and canola produces about 130. Algae, however, can…