Biofuels have issues – and like a sulky mate, hit us repeatedly with contradictory demands or unanswerable questions. If we plant fuel crops everywhere, their growth leaches the soil and their use as an oil/fuel substitute deprives the starving billions of food. This intractable reality seems to leave us nowhere to go. Audi, and its partner Joule (in America) are promoting a non-fossil compressed natural gas made by a process that mimics photosynthesis, and that pulls CO2 from the atmosphere as part of its makeup. Audi has a clever plan, as presented at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) 2013 Government/Industry Meeting. In Europe, SolarFuel will provide motive power for the first Audi g-tron compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles. Joule explains its process: “Unlike fuels produced from agricultural or algal biomass, Joule produces fuels directly and continuously from sunlight and waste CO2 – avoiding costly raw materials, pretreatment and downstream processing. The company’s Helioculture™ platform uses photosynthetic microorganisms as living catalysts to produce fuel, not …
World’s First Electric Tilt-Rotor Aircraft
AugustaWestland, after keeping the world’s first electric tilt-rotor aircraft under wraps for nearly two years, is letting the public in on its exciting new design. According to the company, “The tilt rotor technology demonstrator is completely electric powered; designed to hover like a helicopter and convert to a fixed wing aircraft in forward flight thanks to its two integrated rotors which can be tilted through more than 90 degrees. The demonstrator performed its first unmanned tethered flight in June 2011 at AgustaWestland’s Cascina Costa facility in Italy and has since performed untethered hovering flights inside a secured area.” Emulating Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey flight characteristics, Project Zero affirms that AugustaWestland thinks tilt-rotor technology is “the best layout for the future of fast vertical lift aircraft.” VerticalMag.com explains the aerodynamics and controls of the new vehicle: “During cruise, the wings will provide most of the lift, with the blended fuselage and shroud also making a contribution. ‘Project Zero’ has been designed …
Fast Food for an Energy-Hungry Economy
Phil Savage, an Arthur F. Thurnau professor and a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, with Julia Faeth, a doctoral student in Savage’s University of Michigan laboratory, have unveiled a fast-cooking process that converts 65-percent of wet algae feedstock into biocrude in one minute. Considering that nature takes millennia to convert ancient flora and fauna into the raw materials of our energy economy, this decidedly quicker process might capture even the shortest of attention spans. The team investigated the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of wet Nannochloropsis species algae, something like pressure cooking your vegetables, for a mere minute. This was enough to create a form of at least a biofuel precursor. The video exposes Dr. Savage’s skeptical view of electrical aircraft. As the University’s news item explains, “An hydrothermal process is one that involves water at elevated temperatures and pressures; hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is one of a number of methods for converting biomass conversion to biofuels or biofuel …
Carbon Free or Carbon Neutral – Could New Fuels Save Us?
Three companies – Air Fuel Synthesis, Cool Planet Energy Systems, and Joule Unlimited – are generating comment and controversy for their approaches to creating different kinds of biofuels. They all promise extreme reductions in carbon emissions and lower prices at the pump. Their output could use existing infrastructure for delivery, making them all desire able commodities if their promise can be achieved. Cool Planet Cool Planet Energy Systems claims to be, “The only company producing carbon negative fuels using plant photosynthesis to remove CO2 from our atmosphere.” Its now patented approach recycles its solid products back into the soil, and using more of the liquid fuel products cleans the air more quickly, according to the firm’s web site. The company’s process divides its output from plant-based sources into liquid fuel and bio-char, an activated carbon that can be used as a coal substitute or fertilizer and soil conditioner, in which instance it acts as a carbon sequestration material, reducing the …
On Wings of Waste
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is just one of several gyres that swirl in the world’s oceans, holding tiny bits of degraded plastic that threaten fish and sea birds. According to a new and ambitious project’s web site, there is hope for cleaning up the debris and turning it into a highly useful and prized commodity. The @Altitude project’s web site says, “Wings of Waste is the world’s 1st 100% recyclable plastic fuelled flight, piloted by Jeremy Rowsell. The flight route is Sydney to London, Spring/Summer 2012 (ETD October – now changed to early 2013), along the old barnstorming routes of the original United Kingdom/Australian air pioneers: Charles Kingsford-Smith, Amy Johnson and Bert Hinkler. Rowsell will fly a Diesel-powered Cessna 172, according to modified plans for the flight and is also “attempting to break two records: “1. To be the first to fly via plastic waste fuel at 100% treatment; and “2. To break a flight time from Sydney to …
A broader Overview of Biofuels
Are biofuels truly “green?” Gizmag this morning has an entry on Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, which has just released a report showing that biofuels may not always be as green as we would like to think. Further, they note that gasoline, including that coming from shale oil sands (as in Keystone XL pipeline oil) may be cleaner than certain crop-derived combustibles. The headlines may stoke controversy, so it’s worthwhile to examine the short-form charts and press release, and compare the impressions gained from a quick glance with those from reading the 113-page study itself. Empa’s press release headline and lead give the impression that things are grim in the green world. The headline “Most biofuels are not ‘green’” is followed by “First tops, then flops. That is one way of summing up the history of biofuels so far. A new study led by Empa gives an up-to-date picture of the ecobalance of various biofuels …
Three-Liter Airlines – Throwing Aviation for a Lupo
How do airliners stack up against cars for fuel economy? A German air carrier is trying to achieve efficiencies that will make their airplanes at least as economical per passenger mile as the best economy cars. Europeans have been pursuing an elusive goal for the last 15 years, the 3-liter car. That’s not 3 liters of engine displacement, but the use of only three liters of fuel for every 100 kilometers (62 miles) traveled – about 78 miles per U. S. gallon or 99 miles per imperial gallon. Several cars have done that and better, but sometimes at the cost of driver comfort. The Volkswagen Lupo turbo-diesel (1.2 liters displacement, 61 horsepower), for instance, came out in 1999, and was praised for its fuel economy, but not for its ride or cramped passenger compartment. As small as a Geo Metro, with aluminum hood and doors to save weight, the car did manage some record-breaking runs, including a three-car, around the …
Jonathan Trent and the Omega Project
Jonathan Trent, a NASA researcher, presented his OMEGA Project at the CAFE Foundation’s 2010 Electric Aircraft Symposium. It promised a simple and practical way to grow oil-rich algae using effluent from city waste, and processing it with sunlight and wave motion in a continuous process. Such a system would clean wastewater, reduce CO2, and provide non-food-stock-based biofuels for transportation. OMEGA, “Offshore Membrane Enclosure for Growing Algae”, is now a more complex system as Dr. Trent and at least three research teams develop the technology in the San Francisco Bay Area and at Santa Cruz on the nearby California coast. In this TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) lecture from 2011 Dr. Trent gives an update on the process and how it can be integrated with other energy technologies and even seafood cultivation enterprises to bring power and prosperity to our coastal regions. It is an engaging and thought-provoking 17 minutes, and addresses the issue of food vs. biofuels in a strong, but …
Commercially Viable (and Nearly Buyable) Australian Algae-Based Biofuel
Both Aviation Week and Flight Global reported on Algaetec’s announcement at the ILA (Berlin Air Show) that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Lufthansa to provide algae-based jet fuel to the German carrier. Algae.Tec is an Australian maker of clear algae oil that pulls CO2 from industrial processes, combines it with sunlight, and produces large batches of odorless oil. The product achieves the “holy grail” of sustainability, according to Executive Chairman Roger Stroud, because it is made from non-food sources, unlike corn- or agave-based ethanol, for instance. It also uses CO2 that would otherwise be subject to expensive sequestration processes. The technology is proprietary and barely hinted at in the company’s videos, but is housed in 40-foot long shipping containers connected to solar arrays. CO2 and sunlight combine to produce a fuel stream in a compact production space. Aviation Week reports that, “The company’s process grows algae in a controlled environment in 40-ft shipping containers, feeding the algae …
Green Speed Cup – Year Two, Day Two
The Green Speed Cup is a closed circuit race similar to the Green Flight Challenge, but with a more free-style approach to how each team flies the course. As reported yesterday, the first day’s competition was won by Markus Scherdel, test pilot for Solar Impulse. The second day’s competition was a complete turnaround of day one’s results, with Wolfgang Uhlig taking the crown and Markus sliding to fourth place. Most interesting, the Diamond DA40 TDI, a four-seat Diesel-powered aircraft flown by Daniel Hirth, took second place. A longer event than day one, the task required pilots to fly from Strausberg down the longest leg of a scalene triangle to Klix, a village in Saxony. From there, they turned northwest to Finsterw Heinri and then sped north back to Strausberg to complete the 326.4 kilometer (202.4 mile) course. Uhlig’s winning S10VT toured the triangle at 163.4 kilometers per hour (101.3 mph) while consuming a total of 202.8 kilowatt-hours of energy, achieving …