biofuel

Human sewage--the next source of electricity?

SAN FRANCISCO--Synthetic Genomics is certainly teaching microbes some interesting tricks.

The company, which specializes in genetically manipulating microorganisms and creating new organisms to accomplish industrial tasks, has devised a fuel cell that can generate water or electricity from the stuff that goes down your drain, said founder J. Craig Venter at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

"We have biological fuel cells driven by bacteria that take human wastewater and make drinking water or electricity out of it," he said. "We've been designing a number of organisms to try to replace traditional processes." … Read more

Volkswagen and Daimler plunk money into biofuels

German auto giants Volkswagen and Daimler have taken minority shares in renewable-energy specialist Choren Industries, which has developed a process for turning leftover agricultural products and other biomass into liquid fuel.

Choren is currently building a beta plant in Freiberg, Germany, that will produce about 15,000 metric tons of fuel a year. That's enough to provide fuel for 15,000 drivers for an entire year. It then hopes to follow up with a production plant that can crank out 200,000 metric tons of fuel. Ten to fifteen of these plants, Choren estimates, could cut up to 3 … Read more

Nissan bets on electric cars, not biofuels

CHIBA, Japan--Nissan is going to come out with more hybrid cars and completely electric vehicles in a few years.

But it's less excited about ethanol and biodiesel.

Technically speaking, designing an ethanol or biodiesel car is fairly straightforward, said Minoru Shinohara, senior vice president and general manager of the Technology Development Division at Nissan, during a meeting at the Ceatec show here this week.

The problem is the cost of the fuel. Both biodiesel and ethanol cost more than regular gas, when changes in mileage and other factors are calculated.

"The most important thing is availability of fuel,&… Read more

Plants-to-hydrocarbons company Virent Energy lands funding

Virent Energy Systems on Thursday said it has secured $21 million in financing to develop processes for converting biomass to gasoline and other liquid fuels.

The second-round investment was led by Stark Investments and Venture Investors with Series A investor Cargill Ventures also participating.

The company, which was spun off from the University of Wisconsin, has developed a proprietary catalyst that can convert the sugar in biomass to hydrocarbons.

Its fuel technology was originally developed for hydrogen, which the company continues to invest in. But this round of funding was driven primarily by interest in extending its existing process to … Read more

Financiers question corn's day in sun for ethanol

NEW YORK--To hear money people talk about it, the numbers for investing in corn-based ethanol aren't looking as good as they did only a year ago.

Biofuels have been the top recipient of investment in a multi-year clean tech, or green tech, expansion.

But some indicators show that projects around corn-based ethanol may run into speed bumps, even though the long-term prospects for biofuels are positive, according to speakers at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum here on Wednesday.

For one thing, the price of corn is on the rise, as farmers look to capitalize on government incentives that favor … Read more

Sandia labs eyes carbon dioxide as fuel

MENLO PARK, Calif.--Carbon dioxide: It's the cause of global warming, and it could also become the cure.

Sandia National Laboratories is tinkering with ways to convert CO2 into liquid fuels or precursors to useful fuels, said Ron Stoltz, government relations manager for the lab, speaking here at a showcase for the 2007 California Clean Tech Open on Monday. At the event, organizations like Sandia, Lawrence Berkeley Lab and UC Davis showed off a few ideas percolating in their labs for alternative energy.

The idea is to heat carbon dioxide to about 1200 degrees Celsius with excess energy from … Read more

Future cars as 'two-ton Cuisinarts'?

CORONADO, Calif.--The car of the future will apparently have more in common with a kitchen appliance than a lawn mower.

"The future is going to be an automobile that looks like a two-ton Cuisinart," said Josh Wolfe, managing partner of Lux Capital, at the Future in Review conference Wednesday. Wolfe was part of a panel discussion entitled "The Future of Energy on the Nanoscale," in which panelists focused mostly on battery technologies and how those will evolve for cars and other devices.

The night before, researcher J. Craig Venter suggested that fuels derived from algae … Read more

Golden State green-tech contest warms up

The California Clean Tech Open kicked off its second competition with a sunny outlook at San Francisco's City Hall Tuesday night. In October the contest will award six fledgling green businesses with start-up starter kits worth $100,000 in cash, office space and professional services. Prize sponsors include AMD, Google, Lexus and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Last year 156 seedling companies entered the open, which is backed by nonprofit Acterra; twice as many contenders are anticipated for 2007. A new green building award joins five other categories: energy efficiency; renewables; smart power; transportation; and air, water and waste. Entries … Read more

The math on turning algae into fuel

Half Moon Bay, Calif--A number of companies have sketched out plans to convert algae into a feedstock for transportation fuel, but GreenFuel Technologies is farther along in bringing the concept to market than most.

And the Cambridge, Mass.-based company trotted out numbers at the Think Tomorrow Today conference sponsored by ThinkEquity Partners here (say that three times fast) to illuminate why the idea is getting so much attention.

First off, algae grows rapidly and grows constantly, which means that algae ponds can produce more oil per hectare in a year than traditional plant crops, said GreenFuel CFO Guillermo Espiga. … Read more