Joule Solar Fuel

While producing biofuels from feedstock has drawn heavy criticism, much money and research is being put into next generation biofuels. The world’s largest oil company, Exxon Mobil, that has shunned other forms of renewable energy, has poured billions into next generation biofuel R&D.

One of the most exciting innovations in this field is Joule, a Massachusetts based company.

Joule produces biofuels by mimicking photosynthesis. Their SolarConverter, that facilitates the production process, contains a mixture of brackish water, nutrients, and genetically engineered organisms. Carbon dioxide gas is fed into the mixture, and the device is designed to expose the organisms in the mixture to the sun. The organisms are photosynthetic, meaning that they absorb light energy and carbon dioxide to form compounds. Joule has engineered its organisms to secrete ethanol and hydrocarbons and chemicals.

The organisms mimic photosynthesis and uses sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce liquid fuels and chemicals. According to the company they can produce up to 20 000 gallons (75 700 litre) per acre per year. They are also price competitive with oil at around US $50 per barrel.

Cellulosic biofuels made from wood or grass and algae-based methods reduce water and land needs, but they are currently more expensive than fossil fuels or have yet to become commercially viable.

Another company doing similar work to Joule is Amyris. Amyris uses synthetic biology to create microbes that metabolize sugar and churn out long hydrocarbon chains that are better known as diesel fuel.

Original article: Kevin Bullis. Technology Review. 27 July 2009. Read more…

Comprehensive water management

Water and the lack thereof have been cited by water experts to be at least as big a problem as climate change in the twenty first century. About 2 billion people around the world either lack access to sufficient quantities of water or are supplied with water unfit for drinking and this shortage is going to worsen in the near future due to the rise of the world’s population and to the redistribution of water recourses due to global warming.

According to UBS underinvestment in water infrastructure has resulted in great inefficiencies and cities like London and Shanghai are wasting more than 60% of their water supply due to something as simple to fix as leaky pipes.

Globally, UN reports put the loss of drinking water before it reaches the consumer at 33%. The total cost of ‘non revenue water’ is conservatively estimated at $14,6bn per year. One of the first companies geared to comprehensively address this is Israeli company Miya.

Miya is the first global player to offer a comprehensive water efficiency solution and a one stop shop for water loss projects. Their mission is to help the cities of the world benefit from the huge opportunity presented by water loss reduction and effective management of urban water. Their products and services include pressure management, leak detection, filters, pumps and measurement tools.

The benefits of their solutions for Water Loss Management are:
• Produce /purchase less water
• Energy savings due to improved efficiency of the system
• Reducing the amount of chemicals used to treat the water
• Saving or postponing investments in increasing water capacity or developing alternative water sources
• Extending the lifespan of existing infrastructures
• Reducing maintenance cost
• Increase revenues by reducing commercial losses caused by lack of metering and/or poor metering and billing policies.
• Lower contamination risks to the water supply from bursts and antiquated pipes

For more information, read here…

GreatPoint Energy Hydromethanation

Burning natural gas made from coal in a modern power plant generates about 60 percent less in greenhouse-¬gas emissions than burning coal directly and eliminates almost all other pollutants. Converting coal into natural gas has long been too expensive to implement on a large scale. But, GreatPoint Energy has developed a process called catalytic hydromethanation, which can economically convert coal (or petroleum coke or biomass) into pure natural gas while removing and capturing most of the carbon.

The Company’s cost of production is expected to be significantly lower than current prices of new drilled natural gas and imported liquefied natural gas (LNG), and the natural gas it produces, called bluegas™, meets all high-grade natural gas quality specifications. It can be transported through the thousands of miles of pipelines already in place around the world and can be used interchangeably with drilled natural gas for all applications, including power generation, residential and commercial heating, and the production of chemicals. SynGas produced by Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) cannot be distributed in this way.

Currently natural gas provides about 24% of the world’s energy needs.

Original article: Andrew Perlman. Technology Review. September 2009. Read article here…

Direct Carbon Fuel Cells

The Direct Carbon Fuel Cell (DCFC) converts fuel to electricity directly rather than burning it to boil water to make steam to turn a turbine, to turn a generator, to produce electricity. The DCFC can convert solid fuels to electricity at 70% efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions by 50% without sequestration.

A Fuel Cell is an electrochemical device that efficiently converts a fuel’s chemical energy directly to electrical energy without burning the fuel. However, instead of using gaseous fuels, as is typically done, DCFCs use aggregates of extremely fine (10- to 1,000-nanometer-diameter) carbon particles distributed in a mixture of molten lithium, sodium, Yttrium-stabilized zirconium or potassium carbonate at a temperature of 600 to 850°C. The overall cell reaction is carbon and oxygen forming carbon dioxide and electricity.

The reaction yields 80 percent of the carbon–oxygen combustion energy as electricity, yet no burning of the carbon takes place. DCFCs provide up to 1 kilowatt of power per square meter of cell surface area — a rate sufficiently high for practical applications.

The overall process of producing electricity in a DCFC from biomass gains efficiency by its simplicity. It involves only two steps: (1) drying (and/or pyrolysis, or hydrothermal carbonization) to obtain char, and (2) feeding the resulting fuel directly to the DCFC.

If the carbon feedstock for the fuel cell were to be derived from biomass, and the CO2 captured and sequestered, super-efficient carbon-negative electricity would be generated. That is: electricity the use of which results in the active removal of CO2 from the atmosphere

DirectCarbon, a company spun out of Stanford University in 2006, are currently trying to commercialise this technology. Great progress has also been made at the Max Planck Institute in Germany and the University of Queensland in Australia.

For more information read here orhere.

World’s largest solar project planned in Sahara

If just 0.3% of the Saharan Desert was used for a concentrating solar plant, it would produce enough power to provide all of Europe with clean renewable energy. That is why 20 blue chip German companies are gathering in July 2009 to discuss plans and investments to create such a massive project. Both the meeting and project are being promoted by the Desertec Foundation, which is proposing to erect 100 GW of concentrating solar power plants throughout Northern Africa.

The red squares in the map to the right represent the land area necessary to meet the energy demand of the world, the EU and MENA in 2005. The last square represents the land necessary for the proposed project to generate 100 GW of concentrating solar power. The project being proposed by Desertec would not all be situated in one location, but scattered throughout politically stable countries. Taken as a whole, the project qualifies as the world’s largest solar installation - 80 times larger than the PG&E and BrightSource project planned for the Mojave Desert. The power generated would be transported over high-voltage DC lines across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, where it would supply 15% of the energy demand. The project is still 10-15 years from going online, but that’s why major players are getting started now.

Companies like Siemens, Deutsche Bank, energy companies RWE and E.on, as well as the German insurer Munich Re are all interested in getting involved despite the financial crisis. All of the companies claim that this is how they are fighting back against climate change and that in order to avoid an energy crisis in 2050 they have to start building now. To build the 100 GWs worth of solar power a total of €400bn investment is needed.

Even more frightening than the energy crisis is the water scarcity that is set to occur even sooner. Taking this into account, the project hopes to combine desalination plants and agriculture along with the solar plants to provide fresh drinking water and grow crops in arid desert region. Concentrated solar power will provide energy and waste heat to create freshwater from seawater. Some of that water would then be used to irrigate nearby crops, while the rest would supply fresh drinking water to local populations

Original article: Bridgette Meinhold. 22 june 2009. Inhabitat. Read more…

Next Page »