The CEO of one of the world’s biggest petroleum companies says his company will soon produce more natural gas than oil and is investing more than ever in biofuels.

And this article from the Wall Street Journal says that Peter Voser of Royal Dutch Shell says he expects in the next 40 years, 40 percent of the world’s cars will be electric:

Mr. Voser sat down with The Wall Street Journal’s Alan Murray and Kimberley Strassel to talk about the future of climate-change legislation, the company’s push beyond oil, the prospects for electric vehicles and more…

MR. MURRAY: What percentage of your capital spending goes to renewable energy sources, roughly?

MR. VOSER: It is not the capital intensity that drives renewable energies and alternative energies. It’s what you spend in technologies and in innovation. Roughly 25% of our budget at this stage goes into what we call alternative energies from an R&D point of view.

MR. MURRAY: And of the 25% of your R&D budget that you spend on renewables, what in that portfolio do you personally think is the most promising?

MR. VOSER: We are focusing a lot on biofuels at this stage. We just announced a few weeks ago a big joint venture in Brazil where we are bringing our first- and second-generation biofuels technologies together with Cosan, a sugar ethanol producer there, in order to speed up the second-generation capabilities because we need to speed up that process. So biofuels is one.

We are in wind. We have gone out of solar. We tried both silicon and thin-film solar, but we can’t see that as being something that we can scale up globally and get the economies of scale. So we leave that. It’s a technology that will be developed, no doubt, but we leave that to a smaller, medium-sized players.

Voser goes on to tell the WSJ that by 2012, Shell will have more natural gas production than oil.

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There are a variety of grounds to justify using Biodiesel over diesel fuel and other forms of fuel when you are weary of over priced fuel prices.

Here are five logical facts that will make you want to use Biodiesel in your vehicle at once.

Reason One – there is less water in Biodiesel when compared to diesel fuel.

At some point in its processing water will be mixed with the fuel. However, the actual amount of water that ends up in the fuel you put in your car can vary.

If you happen to get too much water this can be harmful to your car, if you happen to get making it run differently and sometimes causing it to not run at all. As a rule there is less water mixed with Biodiesel, so you do not end up with this water problem when you use it.

Reason Two – Biodiesel is cost effective.

You can actually make your own Biodiesel making it very low cost even when you buy from the pump it will prove cheaper than regular diesel. Biodiesel will help your vehicle and allows you to spend less in service and maintenance.

Reason Three – Biodiesel is better for your vehicle. Biodiesel burns cleaner and has better lubricating properties than regular diesel. Over time you will see you are saving money due to needing less repairs and service.

Reason Four – Biodiesel sources will not run out

An inexhaustible fuel supply is important.Having a renewable fuel source is something that is very important The vast majority of people are ignorant of the fact that our fuel sources are decreasing. Many people simply do not and over time will have disappeared. When they are gone there is no way that they can be replenished

Biodiesel is an energy source that will never be exhausted. Biodiesel is made from natural ingredients that can be regenerated.

Reason Five -Biodiesel does not create as many environmental problems.

Vehicle exhaust is the single worst offender for contributing to high pollution levels. This is not surprising considering the number of vehicles on the road. A lot of pollution is produced by regular fuel.

Biodiesel burns clean and gives off few pollutants. You will have less pollution when you use Biodiesel or a blend of Biodiesel. This is good for the environment and all the living things that are breathing in the contaminated air. Even a small amount is good to reduce.

Today, many people are trying out Homemade Biodiesel. I recommend that you try it out.
TK0501

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Energy Tags: hybrid cars, wind power

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Nanoscience is quite fascinated with the process of photosynthesis. They want to duplicate this process exhibited by green plants and utilize the solar power for energy use. Till now power generating solar panels are not in a position to replace the fossil fuels. They produce little amount of energy and quite expensive also. Generation [...]
Posted in: Biofuels, Inventions, Solar Power

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Nanoscience is quite fascinated with the process of photosynthesis. They want to duplicate this process exhibited by green plants and utilize the solar power for energy use. Till now power generating solar panels are not in a position to replace the fossil fuels. They produce little amount of energy and quite expensive also. Generation [...]
Posted in: Biofuels, Inventions, Solar Power

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Nanoscience is quite fascinated with the process of photosynthesis. They want to duplicate this process exhibited by green plants and utilize the solar power for energy use. Till now power generating solar panels are not in a position to replace the fossil fuels. They produce little amount of energy and quite expensive also. Generation [...]
Posted in: Biofuels, Inventions, Solar Power

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It may be a little late in the day for this reminder but you can still go online to register for a spot in the upcoming Process Optimization Seminar being hosted by Phibro Ethanol Performance Group, along with Fremont, Fermentis and Novozymes.

The Seminar is targeted to plant managers, operations managers, technical managers, lab managers and general managers. This interactive seminar is focused on helping ethanol plants increase their efficiency and profitability through learning about new technologies available for the fermentation process. This two half-day seminar is being held in Indianapolis, Indiana on March 30-31 and the early registration deadline is March 10 (uh, that’s today!).

Click here to get registered.

Domestic Fuel is happy to be the media partner for this event.

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A group of engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been able to turn biomass into the chemical equivalent of jet fuel, and they’ve been able to do it using a process that actually takes advantage of biomass sugars’ bad habit of degrading.

This press release from the school says a simple process developed by James Dumesic, Steenbock Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at UW-Madison, postdoctoral researchers Jesse Bond and David Martin Alonso, and graduate students Dong Wang and Ryan West preserves about 95 percent of the energy from the original biomass, requires little hydrogen input, and captures carbon dioxide under high pressure for future use:

Much of the Dumesic group’s previous research of using cellulosic biomass for biofuels has focused on processes that convert abundant plant-based sugars into transportation fuels. However, in previously studied conversion methods, sugar molecules frequently degrade to form levulinic acid and formic acid — two products the previous methods couldn’t readily transform into high-energy liquid fuels.

The team’s new method exploits sugar’s tendency to degrade. “Instead of trying to fight the degradation, we started with levulinic acid and formic acid and tried to see what we could do using that as a platform,” says Dumesic.

In the presence of metal catalysts, the two acids react to form gamma-valerolactone, or GVL, which now is manufactured in small quantities as an herbal food and perfume additive. Using laboratory-scale equipment and stable, inexpensive catalysts, Dumesic’s group converts aqueous solutions of GVL into jet fuel. “It really is very simple,” says Bond, of the two-step catalytic process. “We can pull off these two catalytic stages, as well as the requisite separation steps, in series, with basic equipment. With very minimal processing, we can produce a pure stream of jet-fuel-range alkenes and a fairly pure stream of carbon dioxide.”

The researchers say the fuel produced is high-energy density, making it better suited for the aviation industry than more conventional ethanol. Now, the team is working on making the process cost-effective.

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Getting energy from the land and practicing good conservation are not mutually exclusive. A federal ag deartment researcher says we can have both through using biomass.

USDA researcher Doug Karlen, who works at the Agricultural Research Service’s National Soil Tilth Lab in Ames, Iowa, told attendees of the recent USDA Outlook Forum that conservation and energy from biomass can be compatible if three things are considered.

“If we utilize multiple feedstock options, multiple conversion platforms and recognize that’s there’s no single solution.”

Karlen also told the group that you have to consider how land conditions vary. In addition, biomass cannot always be seen as just a waste waiting to be made useful. He points out that the trade-off for using biomass from fields for bioenergy is that there is no residue left over to renew the soil with nutrients, as well as losing the habitat for wildlife those crop leftovers provided. Karlen says that’s why it is so important to have a diversity of biomass products within a certain area.

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New research out of the University of York in Britain is unraveling some mysteries of the common wood-eating gribble that could provide the key to cheaply turning abundant wood and straw fiber into biofuel.

(more…)

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Image via Eurekalert, Credit: Courtesy of Jeremy Agresti, Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Just a bit smaller than an iPod Nano, a new pocket-sized laboratory could revolutionize the way biofuels are discovered. The device – a “microfluidic sorting device” – can sort enzymes and compounds about 1,000 times faster than the larger equipment in use today, and thus can sniff out potential for new microbe-based biofuels much faster, cheaper and more energy efficiently, than ever before. … Read the full story on TreeHugger

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