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Future Perspectives for Renewable Energy in India

admin — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 04:54:00 +0000

India is facing an acute energy scarcity which is hampering its industrial growth and economic progress. Setting up of new power plants is inevitably dependent on import of highly volatile fossil fuels. Thus, it is essential to tackle the energy crisis through judicious utilization of abundant the renewable energy resources, such as biomass energy, solar energy, wind energy and geothermal energy. Apart from augmenting the energy supply, renewable resources will help India in mitigating climate change. India is heavily dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs. Most of the power generation is carried out by coal and mineral oil-based power plants which contribute heavily to greenhouse gases emission.

The average per capita consumption of energy in India is around 500 W, which is much lower than that of developed countries like USA, Europe, Australia, Japan etc. However, this figure is expected to rise sharply due to high economic growth and rapid industrialization. The consumption of electricity is growing on the worldwide basis. Energy is a necessity and sustainable renewable energy is a vital link in industrialization and development of India. A transition from conventional energy systems to those based on renewable resources is necessary to meet the ever-increasing demand for energy and to address environmental concerns.

Biofuels Cited as Answer to energy needs in Ireland

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:08:22 +0000

SECOND-generation biofuels based on sugar cane present a sustainable solution to the world’s energy needs, a leading expert claimed last weekend.

Speaking at the Green Power Forum at the Radisson St Helens Hotel in Dublin, Anders Fredriksson of leading Swedish biofuel company Sekab warned delegates that dwindling oil reserves would allow for only one litre of fuel per week per adult by 2050. The forum was hosted by the Irish Motoring Writers’ Association and sponsored by Continental Tyres.

According to Fredriksson, only 200,000 hectares of land would be needed to fuel Sweden’s car population with cellulosic biofuel, when considered in tandem with electric hybrid vehicles. On a world scale, this would translate into 60 million hectares, of which Brazil could supply half without the need to impact on the rainforests. Africa presented a viable source for the remainder, he claimed.

This “holy grail” of biofuels, which involves the use of low- carbon soils, and utilisation of biomass and ethanol-powered harvesting techniques, would be viable within six years, he said.

The challenge in tackling the twin issues of dwindling oil reserves and rising emissions simultaneously — against the backdrop of rising populations — could not be overestimated, he said.

“It’s overwhelming, and requires a paradigm shift. The poorest stand to suffer most in the shake-up,” Fredriksson warned.

Sekab is the largest provider of biofuels in northern Europe and a worldwide technology leader in developing the next generation of cellulose-based ethanol. The company has the world’s first biofuel to be officially verified as sustainable on the basis of CO2 impact and social impact.

Thirty per cent of car sales in Sweden are of FlexiFuel Vehicles (FFV), and they account for the top four selling models on the market. Ninety per cent of FFV drivers fill up primarily with bioethanol.

“If this can happen in Sweden, it can happen anywhere,” he claimed, citing the progress made in Ireland where several thousand FFVs have been sold. He also claimed that the recent rise in diesel sales would peak, as EU directives would work against the fuel.

A panel discussion featured contributions from Colin Roche, policy and advocacy coordinator, Oxfam; Norbert Krüger of Ford of Europe; Noel McMullan from the Maxol Group; and Bernard Rice, biofuels researcher, Teagasc.

Rice maintained current production of biofuels in Ireland was a “no-brainer” as it involved no land-use, and was “good on CO2″, being by-products of other production. He sees biofuels as an important outlet for maintaining cereal production here, and emphasised the need to develop a biomass resource sooner rather than later.

“Biofuel is a topic that engenders emotive and sometimes ill-informed comment,” said Tony Toner, chairman of the Irish Motoring Writers’ Association.

“This is a most pressing issue facing the motoring sector, and no doubt is a topic that will remain high on the agenda for motorists, the motor industry and motoring media for the next decade.”

Paddy Murphy, of sponsors Continental Tyres, commented, “All sectors of the motor industry share the goal of reducing CO2 emissions. In the tyre sector this is translating into low rolling resistance tyres, for example. But it’s the consumerwho can contribute most to this goal, by keeping his or her tyres correctly inflated. As well as extending the life of the tyre, it also ensures they are safe.”

MSU Researchers Receive Grant to Study Algae as a Source of Biofuel

admin — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:01:58 +0000

BOZEMAN — Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Montana State University and Utah State University a three-year, $900,000 grant to study the oil produced by algae, which could be a renewable source of biodiesel.

The two universities will split the money more or less down the middle, said Brent Peyton, a professor of chemical and biological engineering at MSU and the principal investigator of the grant.

“It’s been known for 20 years that algae could produce lipids, but it really took the most recent spike in fuel prices to make getting fuel from algae an option,” Peyton said.

Almost all algae contain some oil, but the algae that Peyton and his fellow researchers are interested in are 30 to 50 percent oil by weight. This oil can be harvested and converted into biofuels in much the same way oil is harvested from crops like camelina and canola.

The MSU and Utah State project will screen different kinds of algae to learn which species produce the most oil and which can produce those oils most efficiently. The test algae will come from existing stocks at labs across the country and from field sampling, Peyton said.

Once the researchers find a candidate species, they will grow large numbers of the algae in a “raceway” bioreactor at Utah State. This 10,000-gallon, climate-controlled water tank has machinery that keeps the algae gently moving so that they can grow more efficiently.

One of Peyton’s collaborators, retired MSU microbiologist Keith Cooksey, was a pioneer in algal oil biofuel research in the early 1980s. However, funding for the research dried up by the end of the decade, halting algal biofuel work until the recent spike in oil prices caused interest to pick up again last year.

“Although biofuel research with algae hasn’t moved much in the last 20 years, molecular work with algae has made some significant advances,” Cooksey said, nothing that those advances will help today’s researchers move ahead more quickly than scientists did in the 1980s. For example, MSU microbiologist and project collaborator Matthew Fields will use modern molecular biology and genomics to learn how to make algae produce more oil.

Researching algae is a bit of a departure for Peyton, whose background is in using microorganisms to clean up environmental contamination. But he said it would be a constructive departure.

“I wanted to use natural organisms not just to break something down but to produce something,” said Peyton, who earned his doctorate at MSU in 1992. “This work is an opportunity to use my bioprocessing skills to produce something of value to society.”

Ideally, algae harvesting is a self-sustaining process, Peyton said, since the tiny organisms spend most of their time just soaking up sunlight and reproducing.

Algae can produce more usable oil per acre than crops like canola or soybeans, Peyton said. Soybeans produce about 50 gallons of oil per acre per year; an acre of canola produces about 130 gallons per year. Algae, however, could produce at least 4,000 gallons of oil per acre in the same time.

“Algae should produce about 200 times more biodiesel per acre than other biofuel crops,” Peyton said. “And 200 may be a low number.”

Algae also have benefits that make farming them easier on growers, Peyton said. Algae farms can be located on non-prime agricultural land and can use water not suitable for food crops.

“Algae, unlike some other biofuel crops, don’t double as food, which means that harvesting them for biofuel production won’t affect food prices like it would if we diverted part of the corn crop to biofuel,” Peyton said.

One issue holding algal biofuel farming back so far has been scale, Peyton said. It’s one thing to grow algae in a four-gallon or even a 10,000-gallon tank; it’s another thing to expand that operation up to the industrial scale and turn it into a business.

Algae are living things, not just raw material, Peyton said, so finding the best species of algae to use and the best practices by which to make them produce oil for biodiesel will be an important part of the research.

Pulling together biomass science like this, which could one day result in a new farming and fuel industry, is not the kind of work that can be done by just microbiologists or just engineers, Peyton said. It requires working across departmental borders.

“MSU is unique for its strong collaborations between environmental microbiologists and chemical and biological engineers,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of universities in the country that pull all of that together as well as MSU does.”

By Michael Becker, MSU News Service

Contact:

Brent Peyton
406-994-7419
bpeyton@coe.montana.edu

Michael Becker
406-994-5140
becker@montana.edu

Click here for full story

Mars Phoenix Lander Finishes Amazing Tasks on Red Planet

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:57:58 +0000

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot’s arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander’s instruments.

Mission engineers last received a signal from the lander on Nov. 2. Phoenix, in addition to shorter daylight, has encountered a dustier sky, more clouds and colder temperatures as the northern Mars summer approaches autumn. The mission exceeded its planned operational life of three months to conduct and return science data.

The project team will be listening carefully during the next few weeks to hear if Phoenix revives and phones home. However, engineers now believe that is unlikely because of the worsening weather conditions on Mars. While the spacecraft’s work has ended, the analysis of data from the instruments is in its earliest stages.

“Phoenix has given us some surprises, and I’m confident we will be pulling more gems from this trove of data for years to come,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Launched Aug. 4, 2007, Phoenix landed May 25, 2008, farther north than any previous spacecraft to land on the Martian surface. The lander dug, scooped, baked, sniffed and tasted the Red Planet’s soil. Among early results, it verified the presence of water-ice in the Martian subsurface, which NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter first detected remotely in 2002. Phoenix’s cameras also returned more than 25,000 pictures from sweeping vistas to near the atomic level using the first atomic force microscope ever used outside Earth.

“Phoenix not only met the tremendous challenge of landing safely, it accomplished scientific investigations on 149 of its 152 Martian days as a result of dedicated work by a talented team,” said Phoenix Project Manager Barry Goldstein at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Phoenix’s preliminary science accomplishments advance the goal of studying whether the Martian arctic environment has ever been favorable for microbes. Additional findings include documenting a mildly alkaline soil environment unlike any found by earlier Mars missions; finding small concentrations of salts that could be nutrients for life; discovering perchlorate salt, which has implications for ice and soil properties; and finding calcium carbonate, a marker of effects of liquid water.

Phoenix findings also support the goal of learning the history of water on Mars. These findings include excavating soil above the ice table, revealing at least two distinct types of ice deposits; observing snow descending from clouds; providing a mission-long weather record, with data on temperature, pressure, humidity and wind; observations of haze, clouds, frost and whirlwinds; and coordinating with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to perform simultaneous ground and orbital observations of Martian weather.

“Phoenix provided an important step to spur the hope that we can show Mars was once habitable and possibly supported life,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Phoenix was supported by orbiting NASA spacecraft providing communications relay while producing their own fascinating science. With the upcoming launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, the Mars Program never sleeps.”

The University of Arizona leads the Phoenix mission with project management at JPL and development partnership at Lockheed Martin Corporation in Denver. International contributions came from the Canadian Space Agency; the University of Neuchatel, Switzerland; the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark; the Max Planck Institute in Germany; the Finnish Meteorological Institute; and Imperial College of London.

For additional information about Phoenix mission findings, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/phoenix

Media contacts: Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Guy Webster/Rhea Borja
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6278/0850
guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov, rhea.r.borja@jpl.nasa.gov

Lori Stiles
University of Arizona, Tucson
520-626-4402
lstiles@email.arizona.edu

Barack Obama Renewable Energy

admin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:52:33 +0000

Barack Obama has been elected as the 44th President of the USA and with his election, Solar Integrated Technologies rose by 30% yesterday after increases of 22% by Renewable Energy Corporation and 16% by the wind turbine maker Vestas. Barack Obama promised to spend $150 billion over the next 10 years developing alternative energy. Promises like these leave a legacy for future generations to imitate. Clean technology and green energy stocks have registered a new high as City analysts anticipate a major boost from the incoming president. The US election result has provided a much-needed encouragement at a critical time and that too for an industry which is still in its nascent phase. And this sector is threatened by the banking crisis and emerging economic recession. Some companies had seen their share prices halve in the turmoil that began in September. Reduction of carbon level, a cushion against fluctuating oil prices and creation of more jobs in economic slowdown would be the natural offshoots of this policy.

How the green energy analysts view Obama’s election to the highest office? Their mood is quite upbeat and they predict a major shift in the renewable energy policy of the USA. Earlier they were of the view that the Bush administration is not doing enough for the alternative energy. Kate Hampton, head of policy at Climate Change Capital, a UK-based investment manager, was delighted with the poll outcome and views it as a massive step forward for renewables. She opines, “We cannot overstate how divisive the Bush administration was, how far behind the US now is in the transition to the low-carbon economy and how high expectations are now that Obama is the president-elect.” Dean Cooper, alternative energy analyst with Ambrian Partners in London, is also expecting widespread change in the US widespread change in the US, considering that production tax credits for wind power generation companies and industries has been increased from one year to seven years, and more push towards a greener economy.

In the era of globalization, even European markets can’t remain immune to the fluctuations faced in the US market. “Since the onset of the most recent phase of the credit crisis, the European wind sector has been battered with an unweighted average decline of 45% compared to a decline of 23% for both the S&P 500 and FTSE Eurofirst 300 over the same period,” said Michael McNamara, analyst at Jefferies & Co, in a research note published at the height of the sell-off. “Much of this has been linked to fears that wind power developers would see themselves cut off from access to financing due to a toxic combination of a potential global closure of the project finance market and a drying up of demand for tax equity investment in the US.”

It’s highly unlikely that Barack Obama will abandon his commitment to create a new energy economy although the times are tough and public financing is not thriving. Obama’s energy and environmental fact sheets are chalked out well with details. In October, in an interview with Time magazine he confirmed that energy would be his number one priority if he gets elected to the highest office.

Obama and the Democrats intend to tackle the excessive carbon emission problem legislatively by floating “cap and trade” system. This legislation intends to impose a cost on harming the planet, boosting the alternatives and feeding public coffers. The president-elect also has a good investment plan to finance some of his investment program via a windfall profits levy. And he also wants to make crude obsolete in future. For instance, he proposes showering buyers of plug-in electric and other “advanced” vehicles with a $7,000 tax credit, as well as getting serious about producing ethanol from plant waste.

Sustainable Oils has added a veteran Montana agriculture professional to its team

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:11:33 +0000

BOZEMAN, Mont., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ — Sustainable Oils has added a veteran Montana agriculture professional to its team focused on building camelina production and marketing opportunities for farmers. Mike Waring joined the company on October 1 as territory sales manager focused on Montana and North Dakota. Waring will be responsible for contracting camelina production acres and providing technical and agronomic assistance to growers.

Sustainable Oils, a joint venture between Targeted Growth and Green Earth Fuels, was launched in late 2007 and is focused on the research, development and commercialization of camelina for biodiesel production. Camelina, a relative of canola, requires less water and other inputs than many crops and can be harvested with traditional equipment. When managed properly, camelina protects the soil profile for food crop rotations. Therefore, camelina is complementary with traditional food crops and creates a food plus fuels scenario.

“We are excited about the addition of Mike Waring to our team. He brings more than 25 years of experience in Montana agriculture and will be a tremendous resource in building profitable opportunities for growers,” said Scott Johnson, general manager, Sustainable Oils.

Waring has spent 26 years in Montana agriculture, most recently as a sales representative with Nichino America where he was responsible for launching a new territory in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota. He spent 20 years as a sales representative with Bayer CropScience and its predecessor companies with responsibility for leading sales, marketing and technical services in Montana. He also served as an agronomist and fertilizer plant manager at agricultural retail businesses in Fort Benton and Big Sandy, Montana.

“I’ve been involved with Montana agriculture my entire career, and I’m looking forward to helping develop a sustainable production base and market for camelina here,” said Waring. “It is exciting to see the potential this new crop holds for farmers as well as for reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.”

Waring is a graduate of Montana State University, and recently completed a three-year term on the Montana State College of Agriculture Development Board. He has been an active member of Montana agricultural organizations, serving on the board of directors of the Montana Agricultural Business Association and the Montana Grain Growers Association.

About Sustainable Oils

Sustainable Oils, Inc. is a producer and marketer of renewable, environmentally clean, and high-value camelina-based biodiesel. A joint venture between Targeted Growth, Inc., a renewable energy bioscience company, and Green Earth Fuels, a vertically integrated biodiesel energy company, Sustainable Oils is focused on the continued research and development of dedicated energy crops such as camelina. Sustainable Oils solidly supports both agricultural and green energy initiatives with camelina, which is efficiently and economically grown even on marginal lands, harvested with traditional equipment, and requires minimal water.

About Targeted Growth

Targeted Growth uses agricultural bioscience to enable the long term success of renewable fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol. This includes technology that improves the traits of crops themselves (yield increases, drought resistance, fertilizer requirements, etc.) and the ultimate performance of those crops once converted into biofuels (efficiency of refining, fuel performance characteristics). In addition, the company also develops, grows and markets biofuel specific crops (such as camelina) that are optimized and continually improved for use specifically as a feedstock for biofuels. The company has strategic partnerships with leading researchers and agribusinesses around the world. Targeted Growth is based in Seattle, Washington, with labs in Seattle, Saskatchewan, Ottawa and New Brunswick. More information is available at www.targetedgrowth.com.

About Green Earth Fuels

Green Earth Fuels is a global, vertically integrated biodiesel energy company providing the requisite product quality, scalability, and streamlined logistics to reliably supply leading energy companies with renewable, environmentally clean and high-value biodiesel fuel and byproducts. Led by a team of energy industry veterans with decades of experience in global energy development and energy portfolio management, Green Earth Fuels is based in Houston, Texas, and is majority owned by Riverstone Holdings, LLC, The Carlyle Group, and Goldman Sachs. More information is available at www.greenearthfuelsllc.com.

SOURCE Sustainable Oils

Race for algae biodiesel grows, money and research increase

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:47:19 +0000

SEATTLE (AP) — Could the next green fuel be pea-green pond scum? Supporters think algae could someday be turned into cheap fuel for automobiles and airplanes, and are betting heavily with infusions of venture capital money and intensive research.

About $180 million in venture capital money has been raised for algae research, with more than half coming in the third quarter of this year, according to Cleantech, an industry research group.

Some academic institutes have set up dedicated algae research centers, and a handful of start-ups are planning to test algae on larger demonstration projects in coming months.

“I’m convinced algae will work, but it’ll take a different, out-of-the-box approach,” said Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla, delivering the keynote address at the Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle last month.

The potential for algae to compete with fossil fuels is there, but it will take scientific breakthroughs to bring down costs and solve climate change, said Khosla, co-founder of Sun Microsystems whose Khosla Ventures has invested in renewable energy though not algae.

That hasn’t tempered interest in the field.

The federal government is starting to throw money into it. The Department of Energy has invested $2.3 million in algae-to-fuel grants so far this year. It invested $2.2 million in algae research in 2006 and 2007, though it wasn’t specific to fuel production.

And the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the research arm of the Defense Department, is launching a new program to study algal feedstock material, said Jan Walker, an agency spokesman.

About two dozen startups and researchers are developing ways to maximize growth and reduce costs — including growing it in the dark, increasing the amount of sunlight that reaches the organisms and experimenting with oil-rich strains.

Algae offer the promise of a non-food feedstock with extremely high yields per acre. But how to grow it cheaply on a large scale is one of the biggest challenges facing the industry.

“We can grow algae. It’s been demonstrated,” said Al Darzins, a manager at the National Bioenergy Center at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colo.

But it costs anywhere from $10 to $100 a gallon now, and “obviously that’s not cost-effective,” he said.

The Colorado lab led a $25 million study of algae from 1978 to 1996, before money dried up and government research shifted to ethanol. The lab is now working with Chevron Corp. on a five-year project to research transportation fuels from algae.

But “people are starting to make the move from small little ponds to thinking about acres,” Darzins said. “It’s starting to scale up.”

Sapphire Energy in San Diego is planning to build a demonstration station in Las Cruces, N.M. The startup has raised more than $100 million from investors, including Bill Gates’s Cascade Investments LLC firm and ARCH Venture Partners.

Solazyme, in South San Francisco, said it produced thousands of gallons of fuel from algae that was tested to meet strict ASTM international standards for jet fuel.

“We are far beyond proof of concept,” said Harrison Dillon, co-founder of Solazyme, which grows algae in the dark by feeding it biomass such as woodchips. “The test at hand is to bring the manufacturing cost down.”

Dillon said the company is about 24 to 36 months away from hitting its target manufacturing cost of $2 to $3 a gallon, or $40 to $80 a barrel.

In Virginia, Old Dominion University has teamed up with a contractor to grow algae in a one-acre farm.

And GreenFuel Technologies in Cambridge, Mass., announced plans last month to build greenhouses in Spain to produce 25,000 tons of algae biomass a year with partner Aurantia SA.

In the Seattle area, startup Bionavitas is testing a process to bring light deeper below the surface, solving the problem of algae shading out growth below the initial top layer.

“If this can be done, the payoff will be large,” said Bionavitas’s chief executive officer Michael Weaver.

PetroAlgae, based in Melbourne, Fla., plans to complete a 20-acre demonstration farm early next year, said Fred Tennant, the company’s executive vice president of business development.

The company was acquired in August by PetroTech Holdings Corp., a joint venture of a group of investors managed by New York based Valens Capital Management.

“The cost has to be low, the product has to be valuable,” Tennant said. “Nobody needs another feedstock that is not economically sustainable.”

On the Net:

Algae Biomass Organization: http://www.algalbiomass.org/
National Renewable Energy Laboratory: http://www.nrel.gov/

Alabama cities using biofuels

admin — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 18:43:52 +0000

ATHENS, Ala. (WAAY) - Alternative fuels are about energy independence, burning cleaner fuels and more ecofriendly energy sources. But none of these can be achieved without those willing to use them.

Ethanol and biodiesel are two alternative fuels that are proven to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, are biodegradable, and are safer to breathe. But who is using them?

Congress has already mandated that by 2025, 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels should be produced. Brazil is already achieving this and is considered an energy independent country. Thirty years ago, it started producing ethanol from sugar cane. Now 90, percent of the cars in Brazil run on flex fuel.

Diesel trucks that switch to biodiesel will no longer see that black fume smoke, and any diesel engine can run on biodiesel without making any modifications. But only flex fuel cars can use ethanol or E-85.

There are E-10 stickers at many gas stations now. That fuel is okay for use in any car, but flex fuel cars can run either E-85 or regular gasoline.

There are over 110- thousand flex fuel vehicles in Alabama, but there are only a handful of stations in Alabama where these cars can fill up. The city of Hoover decided not to wait on the government to support alternative fuels or a local gas station to install an ethanol biodiesel pump. They did it themselves.

“We went out on a limb and we did it and now we’ve proved it’s a viable, the biodiesel is a viable problem,” said one Hoover leader. “The ethanol is a viable fuel. We’ve got millions of miles to track it by so we’re now becoming the point of reference for everyone.”

Four years ago, the city of Hoover started collecting used cooking oil from restaurants and residents. The city of Florence just started the same thing this year. Hoover built its own biodiesel processor and invested in all flex fuel vehicles.

“We can store up to 500 gallons of cooking oil at a time,” the Hoover representative said. “It’s cooking oil that you were cooking with one day, and then two days later using it for fuel in cars. Every gallon that we reprocess of cooking oil is a gallon that we don’t have to buy from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia or some other country that doesn’t like us.”

Hoover also installed Alabama’s first E-85,and biodiesel pumps behind their shop. Eighty-five percent of their 400-car fleet run off E-85 or their own homemade biodiesel.

“We’re only using 15 percent foreign oil at this time and it’s out goal to use zero percent foreign oil,” the Hoover representative said.

Several gas station owners are now installing E-85 and biodiesel pumps like Hoover’s.
Birmingham gas station owner Rick Patel decided to invest in a pump eight months ago. Ethanol is around 40 cents cheaper than regular gasoline.

“People, first of all, when they see the cheap price of the regular gas, they want to know, ‘Can I put this in my car?’”

Now more are following Patel’s lead. This month, the first Biofuels corridor opened in the United States on Interstate 65 from Mobile, Ala. to Gary, Ind. There will be an alternative fuel pump available without getting below a quarter of a tank. One of those pumps will be in Athens on Highway 72.

The Alabama Clean Fuels Coalition says this corridor is just the beginning. More research is being done, more production facilities are being built, and more gas stations will make the switch… the choice to support it belongs in consumers hands.

“I think just the regular oil is going to be a thing of the past in the very near future,” said one ethanol proponent. “If they exercise the choice to use the E85, they are keeping dollars that stay in our economy instead of going overseas to the Middle East.”

There are car converter kits that motorists can use to make their cars run on ethanol. But none of those kits are EPA approved right now.

There is, however, a Hartselle man who can convert any year make or model car to run on hydrogen. That story is available here.

If you still have questions feel free to write to us at newsroom@waaytv.com.

Reporter: Laura Beth Ezzell
Web Editor: Dana Franks

Northington Energy’s Tennessee Plant has Successful Test Completed

admin — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:22:21 +0000

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – October 27, 2008 – Northington Energy LLC, one of the nation’s leaders in promoting renewable fuels, announced today the successful completion of the first phase in production testing at its new facility in Wartburg, Tenn.

The eight-acre, 7,500-square-foot biodiesel plant is designed to convert soybean and algae oil into biodiesel, a biodegradable and nontoxic fuel additive that has fewer emissions than regular diesel fuel.

“We couldn’t have asked for a better result after the initial testing of our equipment,” said Lisa C. Horn, Northington’s director of new business development. “The fuel tests we produced were quite successful and we look forward to bringing the entire facility online as soon as possible.”

Northington Energy has struggled to open the facility since announcing the acquisition of the property in December 2006. Continued land development issues have proven problematic and have subsequently made the development of the site nearly impossible to achieve cost effectively.

“We were guaranteed for more than a year that the FEMA flood plain issues associated with the development site were being resolved by Morgan County and the Morgan County Economic Development Board,” said Horn. “We only learned recently they had not even been addressed. While we’re very disappointed in these continued delays, we feel that once everything is on track, full production at the Wartburg plant will begin. It has been Northington’s intention for nearly two years to open the facility and begin hiring within the local community.”

The decision to conduct the initial testing was made to better enable Northington Energy to position itself to rapidly open the facility once the land development issues have been resolved.

The Wartburg plant, located in the environmentally friendly Flat Fork Business Park, is expected to produce more than three million gallons of biodiesel annually and create up to 20 new technical jobs. It will also give local farmers another avenue to market their soybean crops.

Demand for biodiesel continues to accelerate. Federal mandates to increase the amount of biodiesel consumed in the U.S. from a minimum of 500 million gallons next year to 1 billion gallons a year by 2012 has spawned increased activity. In 2007, consumption of biodiesel was already up to 500 million gallons, more than double the amount in 2006.

“The future for alternative fuels is very bright, and biodiesel will be a major player,” said Horn. “Our Wartburg plant will be a state-of-the-art facility in the production of renewable fuels, along with making a positive impact on the local community.”

About Northington Energy LLC

The Wyoming-based energy company is committed to advancing renewable fuels while providing employment and low-cost energy to the communities it serves. For additional information about Northington Energy and its Tennessee biofuels plant, visit www.northingtonenergy.com

Contact Information:

Northington Energy LLC
info@northingtonenergy.com

Hydrogen filling station? Market answers

admin — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 18:18:19 +0000

When we keep talking about alternative fuels hydrogen often gets the center stage. It may well be the future fuel for vehicles. But it often faces the chicken or egg dilemma. Suppose you have hydrogen driven vehicle but where are you suppose to pull up and refuel your vehicle? Will hydrogen gasoline stations be enough in number and strategically located to inspire confidence among the consumers to buy such vehicles?

A potential consumer will be quite hesitant if certain marketing obstacles won’t be taken care of. Those hurdles will restrict the growth of hydrogen driven transportation system and its widespread acceptance will be difficult.

According to an article by James Winebrake and Patrick Meyer in Technovation: The International Journal of Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Technology Management, developing hydrogen-fuel infrastructure will not be a cakewalk. To make it affordable, efficient and acceptable to common consumer, there are a number of barriers to overcome. However, we have to believe that a 100-year dominance of petroleum as a transportation fuel is coming to an end. It might be due to escalating prices, shortage, and a need to cut down environmentally degrading emissions.

But the widespread acceptance of hydrogen fuel has to pass the test of the “chicken and egg” phenomenon. The manufacturers won’t be able to convince the consumers if refueling and service infrastructure is not well developed. And why would anyone be interested in developing the infrastructure if enough number of vehicles are not plying on the road?

In the study, the authors formed a computer-based model, called H2VISION. Here they simulated the dynamic relationships between vehicle purchases and refueling infrastructure. On studies based on this computer model, they pointed out, how the cycle of vehicle purchases and infrastructure development operates. They also make recommendations to policymakers who plan to give incentives to hydrogen transportation. Some of their recommendations are:

Initial investment in hydrogen refueling stations should support station “clusters” within urban regions so consumers can easily refuel vehicles with little additional convenience cost compared to gasoline.
Government policies should include both vehicle markets and refueling infrastructure. This will help in market penetration at the least cost.
Home refueling of hydrogen vehicles should be given due importance. It will create an atmosphere of trust among end users and encourage market development.