In Virginia, a new study from the University of Virginia casts doubt over the environmental credentials of algae as feedstock for biofuel. Though less transportation energy is used when algae is a feedstock versus when switchgrass or other farmed biomass is a feedstock, algae requires much more energy and water for processing than other biomass. […]
In South Dakota, the North Central Regional Sun Grant Center is recommending four projects to the DOE to approve funding. The projects will involve using perennial grasses and woody perennials for the production of biofuel. One project in particular will examine the use of winter rye, which would be planted after the corn harvest and […]
US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa P. Jackson will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with the mayor of Philadelphia and representatives from US industry, government, academia and non-governmental organizations including, CH2MHILL, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft Corporation, Alcoa, the Rockefeller Foundation, Harvard University, C40 Cities and others to establish the United States-Brazil Joint Initiative on Urban […]
In Washington, the USDA released the latest World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimates Report. The report outlined signnificant drops in projected corn production, owning to heat and rain conditions in the Corn Belt. “U.S. feed grain supplies for 2011/12 are projected lower this month,” the report comments, “with sharp drops in forecast corn and sorghum […]
In Germany, researchers at the Ruhr-Universität and a group from the Tokyo Institute of Technology have found a genetic switch in cyanobacteria, which when removed allows use of excess energy for biotechnological purposes, such as hydrogen production. Professor Roegner of Ruhr-Universität estimated, “This should make it possible to use at least 50% of the energy […]
In Texas, researchers from Rice University have developed a genetically modified e.coli bacteria that can produce butanol, from glucose and mineral salts, about 10 times faster than any previously reported organism. “Rather than going with the process nature uses to build fatty acids, we reversed the process that it uses to break them apart,” said […]
In Spain, the European-funded project Equimotor Plus has developed a new engine designed to run specifically on biofuels that skirts around the issues of corrosion when excess water gets into current fuel tanks. The project, led by Tekniker-IK4 with researchers from Spain, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany and the United Kingdom. The motor isn’t actually […]
In Maryland, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have found that bacteria can dramatically degrade pipelines when they feed on ethanol and produce acid. Acid boosted fatigue crack growth rates by at least 25 times the levels occuring in air alone. The results are meant to help pipeline engineers determine which materials […]
In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy announced the next step of its comprehensive website reform, making Energy.gov a cutting-edge, interactive information platform and saving taxpayers more than $10 million annually. Through a complete overhaul of its front-end and back-end design, Energy.gov modernizes how consumers and businesses access the information and resources they need to […]
In New York, researchers at New York University, the University of Virginia, Harvard, UCSD and other institutions have completed the first genome-scale reconstruction of a microalgal metabolic network. Their paper was published this week in Molecular Systems Biology. Integrating biological and optical data, and the model alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, the researchers reconstructed a genome-scale metabolic […]
