Bio Products Opportunity

I notice that Mr Panton’s tanks are coming along nicely in his blog about making your own biodiesel.

Original post by Simon Robinson

The UK has enough spare land to grow crops that would enable the country to meet its Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, according to a post over on FWi’s Food for Thought blog.

Charles Abel says

Significantly, the NFU estimates that the UK has sufficient land available to meet the RTFO (Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation) target for 2010. About 5% of UK petrol supply would be provided by the bioethanol equivalent of 3m tonnes of wheat, about the same amount as we export. We also need about 5% of diesel use, which could be met by 2.7m tonnes of oilseed rape, roughly equivalent to reserves of set-aside and fallow land.

It would not be surprising if the same situation is replicated over Europe. Currently farmers are paid to leave land fallow under a process called set aside. Golf courses are one use for the land, industrial crops would be another. Europe’s farmers are pretty keen to be able to get something useful off set aside land, as I wrote about earlier this month.

Original post by Simon Robinson

According to a report in the New Scientist magazine, corn is not the best solution for biofuels and may be damaging the environment in the US and ethanol has been dangerously oversold.

It’s worth checking out the Rush to Ethanol report from Food & Water Watch and Network for New Energy Choices.

Nice to know that have not been barking up the wrong tree about water depletion as the World Resources Insititute says in a report

Original post by Simon Robinson

Mozambique is considering investing in a massive ethanol programme to cut oil imports and supply its growing manufacturing and tourism sectors with low-cost energy according to Science and Technology Minister Venancio Massingue, quoted on African Agriculture.

He said:
“It’s our plan to start massive production and reduce fuel imports, boost agricultural production and tourism.”

Original post by Simon Robinson

A Dodge viper hit 220.7mph on a an Oscoda-Wurtsmith Airport runway, according to the Losco county News Herald. Top ethanol dragsters are pretty fast, and this is faster than the fastest gasoline powered car over a standing mile. but there’s no news about fuel efficiency

Original post by Simon Robinson

There’s more on corn prices, inflation and politicians’ lack of joined up thinking over on Venture Chronicles.

I particularly like this

This is not to suggest that biofuel is not something that deserves this attention, but to subsidize domestic ethanol while imposing a tariff on imported ethanol and ignoring the basic science of corn-based ethanol, which gets pimped and protected because of a powerful lobby and a powerful congressional delegation from corn producing states is self defeating:

I’m going to ask it again, why are farmers more important than drivers in the US?

Original post by Simon Robinson

Raymond J. Learsey, over on the Huffington post is suggesting that the US should adopt fuel rationing as one way of cutting down the amount of gasoline that is consumed by the US.

Well you could try rationing,
but unless there’s some kind of national emergency, where people see a real, obvious danger to themselves and all that they hold dear it is a dead duck of an idea. Sorry to say that. But, instead of rationing what you could do is impose European fuel efficiency standards on the US auto Industry. Increased efficiency is the only way to reduce fuel consumption that might work in a democracy that does not feel threatened. It might even save Detroit as a world car-building centre. Greater fuel efficiency would also make some point to using biofuels. Currently, the technology that produces biofuels is inefficient, using that technology to convert food-stuffs into fuel is only feasible if the fuel produced is used in more efficient engines, otherwise it will be a profligate and highly inflationary waste of natural resources.

Original post by Simon Robinson

Florida has given the green light to a cellulosic biofuels plant, according to ecogeek. Range fuels are the lucky chaps who’ve Well sort of. Its based on old fashioned idea of cutting down trees, chipping them and heating them up to give off gasses that can then be further processed. It is is at least honestly energy intensive. But it has the advantage that you can always plant more trees/coppice more trees. But you have to ensure that the soil the trees grows in does not become depleted over time. As you know I′m quite a fan of trees as a possible source of biofuels, with the usual caveats about sustainability, monocultures and so on…

Original post by Simon Robinson

I’m a sucker for maps and Purdue University has a state by state and county by county map of crops, and yield by US county. They don′t name the farms or the farmers but its pretty close to who’s growing what where. It is a part of a bigger suite of Purdue University crop resources ranging from maps to a crops discussion group.

Original post by Simon Robinson

There’s an interesting article outlining some of the conundrums involved in funding biofuels in a recent copy of the Des Moines Register, where they are wondering if they can see the end of the biofuels money train. That’s going to get them reading in Iowa. . The comments are pretty interesting too.

Original post by Simon Robinson

Mitusi has a new molecular sieve to remove water from ethanol. That’s got to be useful if you′ve got a new ethanol plant on the drawing board.Here’s some details of a Mitusi zeolite molecular sieve Hat tip to Green Car Congress.

Original post by Simon Robinson

Biodiesel Industrial Corporation is building a plant in, Paraguay, to make a million barrels of biodiesel each year from , according to BioDieselSpain.com

Original post by Simon Robinson

Yellow is not green, necessarily. Using yellow corn to make green ethanol for cars is not necessarily the most environmentally sensitive way of making biofuels. Using biofuels in cars with poor fuel economy is close to being a profligate waste of resources, a point that is made over on Green Options in a guest post pointing to a report out on 18th.

Quoting from Green Options

If we examine GM’s ᭉ fleet, a group of cars that can run on a mixture of gasoline and up-to 85% ethanol, we notice some pretty week fuel efficiency standards. City average less than 11 miles per gallon and Highway less than 15. (See the fleet averages here)

I have recently inherited a Vauxhall Astra 1.6l Automatic from my father-in-law (don’t ask, unless you′re related to me its pretty dull) and that does about 30 miles per gallon in town. At 11mpg I’d be expecting a three-pound gun, armour-plate and catapillar tracks.

As they say on Green Options:

So rather than fix the real problem, an inefficient fleet of cars, the auto industry has decided to paint the problem green by hoping Americans will swallow the ethanol pill.

But it is a dangerous pill to swallow.

This is why The Network for New Energy Choices, along with Food &amp Water Watch and Vermont Law School has put together The Rush to Ethanol: Not all Biofuels are Created Equal.

I’ll be looking out for that publication.

Original post by Simon Robinson

The French and Italian wine industries are being paid by the EU to distil wine into ethanol, rather than have the price of wine fall because of overproduction.

It is a mad world my masters. Why can’t they sell the ethanol as ethanol on the global market and do away with the subsidy? Why not grow the Jerusalem artichoke, which is a potential chemicals feedstock? It tastes good in Salads, too. Fundamentally, why keep the price of wine artificially high? If you’ve got any ideas, let me know

Original post by Simon Robinson

The International Herald Tribune has an opinion piece about biofuels today by Eric Holt-Giménez executive director of the Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. It is interesting because while it makes valid points about the proportion of income that the world’s poor pay for food and their inability to absorb high price rises in staples.
It does not discuss the inefficiencies in food distribution that help to keep the price of food in those countries relatively high as a proportion of household income. Nor does it look at the amount of waste that could be used to produce biofuels.
That is not to say that the easy option of using crops that are grown together, are pretty homogeneous and marketed thorugh well established channels will not be more attractive than using the waste from the system.
But if we don′t try to use that waste, which in the UK is about 30% of all the food sold (never mind the food that is harvested and doesn’t make it to the store or goes bad in transit) then we ARE missing a trick and there will be more of the starving poor. Which can’t be right. What do you think the proportion of food grown in the developing world that is harvested but does not make it to the plate. I’d love to know.

Original post by Simon Robinson