Biomass

Cellulosic ethanol is the next step in making a definitive replacement for foreign oil. The reality is becoming ever closer, now in large part due to Range Fuels. The State of Georgia has just awarded them a permit to build the first plant to employ their patented technology to produce 100 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year.

Finding a way to reduce the cost of effectively and cheaply producing fuels from biomass waste is what some consider something of a "holy grail" when it comes to biofuels. If there was a fuel that was cheaper than petroleum-based fuel that people could put in their tanks which would not have any negative effects on their vehicle, people would buy it, regardless of whether they care about the environment. Researchers at the University of Georgia are Jeremy Korzeniewski

Bioenergy Australia, a government-industry forum to foster and facilitate the development of biomass for energy, liquid fuels, and other value-added bio-based products recently put on The Bioenergy Australia 2006 – A Growth Opportunity for Energy and the Environment Conference. Presentations at the conference were given on bioenergy projects and project development case studies, and covered bioelectr

2006 was a year that saw "amazing strides" in the biomass industry, says Jetta Wong, agriculture and energy policy analyst with the EESI's Agriculture and Renewable Energy program (why, with a name like that, could she not have been an auto industry analyst?). New laws to promote biofuels, more biofuel production capacity and an ever-growing appetite for biofuels in America were the highlights for 2006, and there's probably more ahead in 2007. That is, unless "big oil" can continue to put the sc

Xethanol Corporation and Renewable Spirits, LLC have teamed up to build a citrus peel based pilot ethanol production facility in Florida. The pilot plant should be able to produce up to 50,000 gallons / 190,000 litres of ethanol in the upcoming citrus harvesting season alone, later expanding to over 500,000 gallons / 1,900,000 litres per year.

Picture this: we're no longer beholden to energy resources from unstable regions and we're no longer burning petroleum-based fuels in our cars. Despite the radical change in fuels, engines are largely the same, as is the fuelling infrastructure. While it sounds like a nice dream, Volkswagen has been hard at work making it reality. They've combined aspects of diesel and gasoline engines into their Combined Combustion System, realizing efficiency gains and emissions reductions.

About 100 million acres of cropland would have to be dedicated to biomass sources such as switchgrass to produce 25 percent of the country's energy in 2025. That comes from a University of Tennessee study that also said such a move would generate $700 billion in new economic activity. The study says the biomass farming would not interfere with the country's demand for food or feed. The report suggests using 105 million acres of the nation's 800 million acres of agriculture land. Much of the need

Team at Leeds University is perfecting a method to extract hydrogen from cooking oil and other possible sources, such as scrap tires and waste oil.

The cardoon is a thistle related to the artichoke and thus is known as the 'artichoke thistle'. It is found in such countries as Argentina, Australia, and United States and is considered a weed. In 2005, Europe launched the BIOCARD research project to look into using cardoon as a biofuel source. BIOCARD's objectives are to determine how much cardoon has to be grown to be viable, the cost to process its seeds into fuel, and if the resulting fuel is indeed cost effective. GAIKER-IK4, a participati

Virent Energy Systems, a University of Wisconsin-Madison spin-off, just secured an additional $7.5 million in venture funding. The company is developing what they call aqueous phase reforming, which allows sugars from biomass to be reformed into usable fuels and materials. The process can produce both gas and liquid fuels from a variety of biomass derived products in a single step reactor process. The reactor could be the basis for an on-board reforming system to produce hydrogen on demand, whic

The Center for American Progress, which bills itself as a nonpartisan organization (we'll let our readers form their own opinion), has kicked off a campaign to Kick the Oil Habit. Academy Award winner Robert Redford was given a spot on CNN.com's front page to speak his mind about the project, which is certainly an unusual opportunity.

Take a quick look around the light-truck market, and it's clear that diesels are the hottest thing on dealer lots right now - but oddly enough, it's not currently possible to get an oil-burner in a full-size SUV. Jeep has apparently identified this massive hole in the market and will announce later today that a diesel Grand Cherokee will be availabl

A small-town paper near where I grew up in Michigan recently published a long and detailed explanation on biomass energy. I poked around online a bit and found out it was taken from the Union of Concerned Scientists and, since the entire thing is available online, I thought I'd pass it along to AutoblogGreen readers interested in some of the details of how ethanol and biodiesel fit into

The likelihood of accidentally using E85 in a vehicle designed only to run on straight gasoline is pretty damn small, considering the difficulty of even intentionally encountering an E85 pump. Regardless, a group of automakers and petroleum industry officials are reminding consumers that fuels containing blends of ethanol over 10% (E10) are only for "flex-fuel" vehicles. Additionally, consumers are being warned that modifying standard vehicles to use highe

Think Florida and you think orange juice, right? Well, in the processing of orange juice there is a lot of leftover peel and pulp. These materials are just one of the many sources of biomass for alternative fuels like ethanol available to Florida, according to this article in the Lakeland-area Ledger. Other possible sources include sugar cane, animal manure and yard wastes, which Florida has a lot of since it ranks in the top ten states in agriculture production. The oil rigs off the coast don&r

If you’re new to the whole biofuel world, there may be a lot of terminology that you’re reading but not understanding. To that end, here’s a glossary of words we’ll be using regularly on AutoblogGreen, and what we mean when we use them. Stick around, and you’ll know your B20 from your FFV in no time.