In what could be a major breakthrough, Joule Biotechnologies announced that it has directly produced fuel from the plentiful carbon dioxide in the air around us using highly engineered photosynthetic microbes.
Inside specially designed reactors, Joule’s engineered microbes thrive off of sunlight and CO2. In return, depending on the type of organism, they can produce straight ethanol, diesel or a number of other types of hydrocarbons.
Although the process sounds similar to algae-produced biofuels, the Joule process is incredibly (and beneficially) different for several reasons:
- Doesn’t produce biomass
- No agricultural feedstock needed
- Can be conducted on non-arable land
- Doesn’t need fresh water
- Produces fuel directly without the need for extraction or refinement
Apparently Joule has discovered some unique genes inside these microbes that produce the enzymes responsible for directly making the molecules found in diesel. From there, engineering organisms to make other fuels was a simple step. At this point, production of the fuels has only been done in the lab, but Joule has plans to open a pilot plant in early 2011.
Source: Biofuels Digest
Image Credit: Joule Biotechnologies
Brazil’s government has announced plans to increase their soldiers in the Amazon Rainforest from 17,000 to 30,000 over the next 9 years, as well as build new forts and improve others. Why have they chosen to invest $488.6 million in this plan?
The answer is more muddled than I would have guessed. But what can you expect given Brazil’s recent my-way-or-the-highway conservation tactics, their boldness in announcing an unrealistically ambitious anti-deforestation campaign, and a giant oil discovery that further added to the wealth of a country that is now buying more ethanol than gas?
As part of the “Protecting Amazon” project, the military buildup will supposedly aid in the further protection of tribal reservations and the Brazilian border. Brazil shares an extensive border in the rainforest with 8 other countries, and has recently been involved in a dispute with Peru over uprooted Indian tribes. Brazilian authorities and several NGOs devoted to advocacy efforts for tribal peoples claim that deforestation in Peru’s forests is displacing tribal peoples rapidly into Brazil. But this dispute in fact, seems to have little to do with the plan for military buildup.
When I first read about Brazil’s plan, I thought they were pursuing it for conservation reasons, much in the way that Peru’s Environmental Minister has proposed a 3,000 person Environment Police to patrol the Amazon Rainforest and protect its biodiversity. It turns out that its more so about modernizing their military, for what I think are pretty lame reasons.
As mentioned earlier, last year Brazil discovered a huge oil deposit offshore. They promptly scheduled military war games as a show that they were willing to protect the oil. From who I ask? George Bush? In addition to modernizing their ground forces via this new Amazon protection plan, Brazil also wants to build nuclear submarines with the help of France, to help defend their coastline (from who I ask?–once again).
I also am not sure if building 28 new forts will do much good in Brazil’s section of the Amazon Rainforest, but I’m hoping I’m wrong. Perhaps it will help lead to greater protection of the amazing biodiversity and cultures found within the forest’s boundaries.
Photo Credit: openDemocracy on Flickr under a Creative Commons license
The technology to make
biobutanol, a non-food based biofuel, cost-competitive with gasoline isn’t here yet, but companies in the know say that it could be by 2010.
Regardless of how the debate between corn ethanol and second-generation, non-food ethanol (
cellulosic ethanol) pans out, we may be arguing about the wrong thing. “Why’s that?” you might ask. You see, as a source of fuel, ethanol poses several serious problems.
For starters, it corrodes pipes and tubing — meaning that it has to be shipped by truck, and cars have to be specially altered to be able to use it. Secondly, ounce for ounce it has a much lower energy content than gasoline.
In light of these problems with ethanol, the argument maybe shouldn’t be about first generation ethanol versus second generation ethanol, but simply about ethanol versus butanol.
Butanol is much less corrosive than ethanol and has a similar energy content to gasoline. It could be distributed using the same infrastructure used to move gasoline around and drivers would be able to use higher blends of it without altering their cars. Plus, you may not notice a difference in fuel economy when driving a car filled with butanol.
Researchers are pushing to find ways to make butanol cheaper, but right now the technology is still a ways off. Gevo, a small company focused on delivering butanol solutions, currently has a 20,000 gallon per year test butanol facility up and running. It appears that their main focus will be on providing capabilities to other companies to convert their first generation ethanol facilities into butanol facilities.
If butanol could get even a quarter of the political attention that ethanol has, its fortunes would surely change quickly. But, thinking it over, butanol’s relative obscurity as a biofuel may be a blessing in disguise. The massive amount of attention that ethanol has received seems have done more harm than good from both a public opinion and market-bubble-causing perspective.
So, maybe butanol will be the ultimate winner after all.
Source: Biofuels Digest
Image Credit: dodge challenger1’s Flickr photostream under a Creative Commons License.
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