MetaFilter posts tagged with biofuel

They shoot bunnies, don't they?

filthy light thief — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:26:18 -0800

There is contention in Sweden over the use of rabbit cadavers as bioenergy to provide heat in Värmland. The rabbits are invasive species, initially pets that were released into the parks in the city of Stockholm. Lacking any natural predators, the rabbits thrive on vegetation, eating their way through the city's central parks. The culling last year set a local record with nearly 6,000 rabbits removed from Stockholm's parks, mostly from Kungsholmen. Some concerned citizens have formed a group, Vilda kaniners värn (Society for the Protection of Wild Rabbits, Google translation). They speak out against the culling and provide alternatives to killing the rabbits, citing methods used in Helsinki (including plant protection) as more humane alternatives. (Biofuel details and more after the break.) Helsinki has had invasive rabbits since 1995, where the first appeared in Arabianranta and Kyläsaari, according to a 2005 article. The rabbits largely die out over winter, only to flourish in the spring. In 2005, they weren't reported as a nuisance, but the population increased in 2006 and 2007, to the point of costing hundreds of thousands of euros for the replacement of thousands of individual plants suffering from damage caused by rabbits, even eating holes in Olympic Stadium football nets. In 2008, the tactic was to catch rabbits in nets and humanely put down after being anaesthetised using carbon dioxide, and they were then given to researchers for further studies. The stable rise of the rabbit population introduced predators into Helsinki, such as lynxes and foxes, though there is not enough suitable habitat for these larger predators to keep the rabbits in check. Last winter, 500 rabbits were culled by the city's rabbit control program, and more recently captured rabbits have become food for large birds, big cats, wolverines, and bears at the Helsinki Zoo. (Helsinki's rabbits are the source of many more stories at Helsingin Sanomat.) As noted in the BBC article on the topic, Kovex (Google translation), a subsidiary of Danish group Daka Biodiesel, has worked on making animal waste into biofuels through the Biomal program, which followed from the mass disposals BSE-related animal waste.

A sea of green

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:33:49 -0800

"Algae is the ultimate biological system using sunlight to capture and convert carbon dioxide into fuel... I came up with a notion to trick algae into pumping more [fuel] out." Craig Venter's Synthetic Genomics partners with ExxonMobil in a $600M project to harvest biofuels from genetically engineered algae. "We have modest goals of replacing the whole petrochemical industry." [previously] "Over the next 20 years, synthetic genomics is going to become the standard for making anything. The chemical industry will depend on it. Hopefully, a large part of the energy industry will depend on it. We really need to find an alternative to taking carbon out of the ground, burning it, and putting it into the atmosphere. That is the single biggest contribution I could make."

Fly the biofuel skies…

Artw — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:21:53 -0800

Today Boeing completed the first test flight of a commercial jet-liner using a mix of conventional jet-fuel and a fuel created from algae and the african weed jatropha. Boeing hopes that biofueled flights will be common in just three years.

Untapped natural resource

johannahdeschanel — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:53:14 -0800

Blubber Biofuel

Eat it

Kirth Gerson — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:48:38 -0800

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

President Bush has linked higher food prices to higher demand from India and China, but the leaked World Bank study disputes that: "Rapid income growth in developing countries has not led to large increases in global grain consumption and was not a major factor responsible for the large price increases." Even successive droughts in Australia, calculates the report, have had a marginal impact. Instead, it argues that the EU and US drive for biofuels has had by far the biggest impact on food supply and prices.

Biocrude

caddis — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:04:40 -0800

Pond scum saves the planet? In the beginning, there were algae, but there was no oil. Then, from algae came oil. Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting. In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae. ^ Power your ride with pond scum. In some iterations you don't even need light. (we have talked about this before and the fact that CO2 powers the algae production is not insignificant) More details here.

A Hungry Man is an Angry Man

adamvasco — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 09:19:56 -0800

Land turned to biofuels in the US alone in the last two years would have fed nearly 250 million people with average grain needs. Prices of all staple food has risen 80% in three years. 33 countries face unrest because of these price rises. Subsidiziation of Biofuel is driving the poor to starvation. In Bangladesh Biofuel production hits food security. Half of Pakistan population at the risk of food insecurity, warns WFP. Cost of food increases hunger in Nepal. wiki

Biofuels worsen global warming

salvia — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:50:30 -0800

Biofuels worsen global warming, according to two studies published in Science last week. Current US biofuel policies would double carbon emissions over the gasoline alternative. More details: ScienceExpress fulltext pdf of study #1, powerpoint summary of study #1, abstract of study #2, summary of both, policy recommendations pdf (via: 1, 2). Here's some context I needed to understand the US study: annually, the US produces ~5 billion gallons of ethanol and uses ~140 billion gallons of gasoline = 145 billion gallons total (sour ces). US law now calls for 36 billion gallons of biofuel production by 2022. The projections are based on increasing biofuel production to 31 billion gallons by 2015 (or the equivalent of the entire US grain crop from 2004).

Feed The Beast Starve the People

adamvasco — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:34:06 -0800

The looming food crisis is already upon us. The Institute for Food and Development - Food First - whose Policy is to eliminate the injustices that cause hunger is joined by Green Horizon talking about a global food crisis emerging. By promoting biodiesel as a substitute, we have missed the fact that it is worse than the fossil-fuel burning it replaces. As a result the line between the food economy and energy economy has become blurred. In the United States and Canada, governments are manipulating the market in the biofuels industry.

A Welsh Black Box to make biofuel whilst capturing car fumes

ItsaMario — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 03:29:08 -0800

A Welsh Black Box to make biofuel whilst capturing car fumes

Note to self: Invest in Algae

tehloki — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 00:25:57 -0800

Petroleum from Pond Scum: Dr. Isaac Berzin, founder of GreenFuel Technologies, is working on a prototype that uses algae to convert power plant emissions into biofuels. Good news: It would only take a bioreactor twice the size of new Jersey to supply the entire US with its petroleum needs.

Big-oil's competition?

Nquire — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:52:27 -0800

Newsfilter: Spanish firm claims it can make oil from plankton. A Spanish company (Bio Fuel Systems) claimed on Thursday to have developed a method of breeding plankton and turning the marine plants into oil, providing a potentially inexhaustible source of clean fuel.

Air Soy

mcgraw — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 06:34:37 -0800

New biofuel would combine jet fuel and soya oil to slash consumption of fossil fuel, and help slow the rise in greenhouse gas levels...

niceness — Thu, 10 Oct 2002 07:58:41 -0800

"I've halved my motoring costs since I started running my diesel Subaru on cooking oil. The car runs just as well and even smells a lot better than diesel."

The police 'Frying Squad' are on the case and "home in on any car smelling like a mobile fish and chip shop". Other than the dreadful puns, are there other reasons why we shouldn't all run our cars on Mazola?

chaz — Tue, 30 May 2000 14:05:34 -0800

Looking for a real renewable energy source? Feces powered cars: the future of transport?