/PRNewswire/ -- Georgia Power President and CEO Paul Bowers today announced the company will host an innovative research facility to develop and test water conservation technologies at Georgia Power's Plant Bowen, near Cartersville, Ga.
The Water Research Center (WRC) will provide a venue for developing and testing technologies to improve water efficiency by addressing withdrawal, consumption and recycling throughout the power generation process.
Georgia Power is collaborating with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) to add broader industry perspective and guidance to the project. Expected to be fully operational by August 2012, the WRC will include seven separate research focus areas: moisture recovery, cooling tower and advanced cooling systems, zero liquid discharge options, low volume wastewater treatment, solid waste landfill water management, carbon technology water issues, and water modeling, monitoring and best management practices.
"We are pleased to work with EPRI and technology suppliers in this first-of-a-kind project," said Bowers. "Water research and conservation is vital for the continued prosperity of our state, and we will contribute to that effort."
Dr. Michael Howard, president and CEO of EPRI, said: "We are excited about the water treatment and conservation research projects envisioned for the WRC. The center can be the catalyst to advance new technology options that address the industry's current and future water challenges."
The center is an extension of a pilot project that began in May 2010 at Plant Bowen to identify opportunities to address water withdrawal, consumption and recycling. As a result of the pilot project, technology has been implemented to reduce water withdrawals for the plant's scrubber process, an environmental control that reduces sulfur dioxide emissions.
Results from research conducted at the WRC will be shared with Georgia Power and other EPRI members. Appropriate technologies can be implemented by utilities worldwide to address water issues.
The center, which will be operated by the Southern Research Institute, may also serve to educate students and community leaders about the importance of water conservation.
Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity. The company is an investor-owned, tax-paying utility with rates below the national average. Georgia Power serves 2.3 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties.
The Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI) conducts research and development relating to the generation, delivery and use of electricity for the benefit of the public. An independent, nonprofit organization, EPRI brings together its scientists and engineers as well as experts from academia and industry to help address challenges in electricity, including reliability, efficiency, health, safety and the environment. EPRI also provides technology, policy and economic analyses to drive long-range research and development planning, and supports research in emerging technologies. EPRI's members represent more than 90 percent of the electricity generated and delivered in the United States, and international participation extends to 40 countries. EPRI's principal offices and laboratories are located in Palo Alto, Calif.; Charlotte, N.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Lenox, Mass.
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Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label research. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Georgia Power and EPRI to Study Solar PV Installation on Power Lines
/PRNewswire/ -- Georgia Power and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) are conducting an 18-month study to evaluate how solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems may affect the utility's distribution system.
Fifty PV systems are being installed in seven cities around the state. Seven-to-eight small systems will be installed on one distribution line in each city. Sites were identified based on a number of environmental parameters. Selecting cities around the state will allow evaluation of a variety of conditions such as temperature, cloud cover and solar intensity.
EPRI will monitor each module's power output and sunlight input at one- second intervals for the entire 18 months to determine how much electricity they generate and how well they perform under diverse weather conditions. The panels will remain in place at the end of the project and Georgia Power will continue to monitor long-term results. This research will help to:
* Identify the effects, if any, on operation of Georgia Power's distribution system
* Understand the feasibility of widespread solar PV installations on distribution lines
* Determine ranges for overall PV performance in Georgia
* Characterize and compare variable issues such as passing clouds
Each panel is about 3-by-5 feet in size, and able to generate about 200 watts of electricity.
"An installation of this size will not create a noticeable increase in the amount of energy on our distribution system," says Scott Gentry, Georgia Power's distributed generation services project manager and coordinator for this project. "However, the data we collect from each module will provide useful information on PV generation as it relates to the utilities grid."
PV panels have been installed in Rome, Valdosta, Macon, Augusta, Columbus, Savannah and Conley. EPRI will own the panels while Georgia Power does the installation.
Solar power uses PV cells to convert sunlight directly into electricity. When sunlight strikes a PV cell, electrons are dislodged, creating an electrical current.
Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity. The company is an investor-owned, tax-paying utility with rates well below the national average. Georgia Power serves 2.3 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties.
The Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI) conducts research and development relating to the generation, delivery and use of electricity for the benefit of the public. An independent, nonprofit organization, EPRI brings together its scientists and engineers as well as experts from academia and industry to help address challenges in electricity, including reliability, efficiency, health, safety and the environment. EPRI also provides technology, policy and economic analyses to drive long-range research and development planning, and supports research in emerging technologies. EPRI's members represent more than 90 percent of the electricity generated and delivered in the United States, and international participation extends to 40 countries. EPRI's principal offices and laboratories are located in Palo Alto, Calif.; Charlotte, N.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Lenox, Mass.
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Fifty PV systems are being installed in seven cities around the state. Seven-to-eight small systems will be installed on one distribution line in each city. Sites were identified based on a number of environmental parameters. Selecting cities around the state will allow evaluation of a variety of conditions such as temperature, cloud cover and solar intensity.
EPRI will monitor each module's power output and sunlight input at one- second intervals for the entire 18 months to determine how much electricity they generate and how well they perform under diverse weather conditions. The panels will remain in place at the end of the project and Georgia Power will continue to monitor long-term results. This research will help to:
* Identify the effects, if any, on operation of Georgia Power's distribution system
* Understand the feasibility of widespread solar PV installations on distribution lines
* Determine ranges for overall PV performance in Georgia
* Characterize and compare variable issues such as passing clouds
Each panel is about 3-by-5 feet in size, and able to generate about 200 watts of electricity.
"An installation of this size will not create a noticeable increase in the amount of energy on our distribution system," says Scott Gentry, Georgia Power's distributed generation services project manager and coordinator for this project. "However, the data we collect from each module will provide useful information on PV generation as it relates to the utilities grid."
PV panels have been installed in Rome, Valdosta, Macon, Augusta, Columbus, Savannah and Conley. EPRI will own the panels while Georgia Power does the installation.
Solar power uses PV cells to convert sunlight directly into electricity. When sunlight strikes a PV cell, electrons are dislodged, creating an electrical current.
Georgia Power is the largest subsidiary of Southern Company, one of the nation's largest generators of electricity. The company is an investor-owned, tax-paying utility with rates well below the national average. Georgia Power serves 2.3 million customers in all but four of Georgia's 159 counties.
The Electric Power Research Institute, Inc. (EPRI) conducts research and development relating to the generation, delivery and use of electricity for the benefit of the public. An independent, nonprofit organization, EPRI brings together its scientists and engineers as well as experts from academia and industry to help address challenges in electricity, including reliability, efficiency, health, safety and the environment. EPRI also provides technology, policy and economic analyses to drive long-range research and development planning, and supports research in emerging technologies. EPRI's members represent more than 90 percent of the electricity generated and delivered in the United States, and international participation extends to 40 countries. EPRI's principal offices and laboratories are located in Palo Alto, Calif.; Charlotte, N.C.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Lenox, Mass.
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Tuesday, September 14, 2010
UGA researchers win $1.34 million USDA-DOE biofuels grant
Researchers at the University of Georgia have won a $1.34 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to attempt to increase the productivity of trees by genetically modifying certain proteins critical to wood formation. The study could have important implications in using trees as biofuel.
The research will be conducted by Scott Harding and Chung-Jui Tsai, who are both faculty members at UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
They became interested in the possibility that manipulating sucrose transporter proteins—which shuttle food from leaves throughout the rest of the tree—during a separate, unrelated project conducted by Raja Payyavula, a graduate student working for the pair. The student’s research led to the discovery of a connection between sucrose transporter genes and certain stimuli.
Sucrose transporter genes have been known about for a long time because they enable leaves to send the sugars they produce during photosynthesis to other parts of the growing plant that do not carry out photosynthesis. This would include grain or tubers in food crops. In a key, and somewhat surprising finding by Harding and Tsai, sucrose transporter genes were found to be very abundant in developing the wood of young trees. They now want to know how a tree will react—positively or negatively—to further modification of those proteins.
They hope that tweaking the proteins will modify the way trees divide their photosynthate (sucrose and other sugars) between wood-forming and other organs like roots and bark. Wood is the raw feedstock for biofuels, and the research is being funded to learn about the potential of this gene for affecting wood growth, and thus tree growth, under a variety of environmental conditions.
“We know there’s a connection,” said Harding. “We just don’t know much about that connection right now.”
The research team already has begun its experiments with the award from the joint Plant Feedstock Genomics 2010 program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and DOE. This program funds projects that accelerate plant breeding and improve biomass feedstocks to lay the groundwork for a new class of biofuels that are low-cost, high-quality and maximize the amount produced per acre.
More information about the Plant Feedstock Genomics for Bioenergy program can be found at http://genomicscience.energy.gov/.
In announcing the award—which is part of the Obama administration’s efforts to diversify the nation’s energy portfolio and accelerate the development of new energy technologies—leaders of the two funding federal agencies commented on their hopes that such research will help reduce the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil.
“Cost-effective, sustainable biofuels are crucial to building a clean energy economy,” said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. “By harnessing the power of science and technology, this joint effort between DOE and USDA will help accelerate research in the critical area of plant feedstocks, spurring the creation of the domestic bio-industry while creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”
“Developing a domestic source of renewable energy will create jobs and wealth in rural America, combat global warming, replace our dependence on foreign oil and build a stronger foundation for the 21st century economy,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “This scientific investment will lay the foundation for a source of fuel made from renewable sources.”
The $1.34 million grant is part of a larger, $9 million grant package awarded to multiple agencies and universities across the U.S.
Harding, senior research scientist, and Tsai, a professor Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar who also has a joint appointment in the department of genetics, joined the Warnell School in 2008. Their work focuses on forest biotechnology with an emphasis on creating high-energy trees for use in biofuel.
Tsai’s interests also include determining how trees defend themselves by using chemical compounds to ward off bugs and grazing animals. Harding also has led a DOE-research project on carbon sequestration, where carbon dioxide emissions from facilities such as power plants are captured by trees rather than released into the atmosphere.
If they are successful in genetically modifying the sucrose transporter genes to create faster-growing trees, it could have tremendous implications for using trees as biofuels.
“We know the sucrose transporter genes are connected to tree growth, and we also know that there are three different such proteins present in the tree stems,” Harding explained. The team plans to manipulate those proteins to learn about their division of labor and to see how the manipulations affect tree growth, especially the competition between leaves, stems and roots for photosynthate. The project will involve an assistant research scientist, a postdoctoral scientist, two graduate students and several undergraduate students.
This investigation is just beginning, Tsai said, and findings during the course of this three-year project will add immensely to the understanding of how tree biomass is produced.
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The research will be conducted by Scott Harding and Chung-Jui Tsai, who are both faculty members at UGA’s Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
They became interested in the possibility that manipulating sucrose transporter proteins—which shuttle food from leaves throughout the rest of the tree—during a separate, unrelated project conducted by Raja Payyavula, a graduate student working for the pair. The student’s research led to the discovery of a connection between sucrose transporter genes and certain stimuli.
Sucrose transporter genes have been known about for a long time because they enable leaves to send the sugars they produce during photosynthesis to other parts of the growing plant that do not carry out photosynthesis. This would include grain or tubers in food crops. In a key, and somewhat surprising finding by Harding and Tsai, sucrose transporter genes were found to be very abundant in developing the wood of young trees. They now want to know how a tree will react—positively or negatively—to further modification of those proteins.
They hope that tweaking the proteins will modify the way trees divide their photosynthate (sucrose and other sugars) between wood-forming and other organs like roots and bark. Wood is the raw feedstock for biofuels, and the research is being funded to learn about the potential of this gene for affecting wood growth, and thus tree growth, under a variety of environmental conditions.
“We know there’s a connection,” said Harding. “We just don’t know much about that connection right now.”
The research team already has begun its experiments with the award from the joint Plant Feedstock Genomics 2010 program from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and DOE. This program funds projects that accelerate plant breeding and improve biomass feedstocks to lay the groundwork for a new class of biofuels that are low-cost, high-quality and maximize the amount produced per acre.
More information about the Plant Feedstock Genomics for Bioenergy program can be found at http://genomicscience.energy.gov/.
In announcing the award—which is part of the Obama administration’s efforts to diversify the nation’s energy portfolio and accelerate the development of new energy technologies—leaders of the two funding federal agencies commented on their hopes that such research will help reduce the U.S.’s dependence on foreign oil.
“Cost-effective, sustainable biofuels are crucial to building a clean energy economy,” said Secretary of Energy Steven Chu. “By harnessing the power of science and technology, this joint effort between DOE and USDA will help accelerate research in the critical area of plant feedstocks, spurring the creation of the domestic bio-industry while creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”
“Developing a domestic source of renewable energy will create jobs and wealth in rural America, combat global warming, replace our dependence on foreign oil and build a stronger foundation for the 21st century economy,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “This scientific investment will lay the foundation for a source of fuel made from renewable sources.”
The $1.34 million grant is part of a larger, $9 million grant package awarded to multiple agencies and universities across the U.S.
Harding, senior research scientist, and Tsai, a professor Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar who also has a joint appointment in the department of genetics, joined the Warnell School in 2008. Their work focuses on forest biotechnology with an emphasis on creating high-energy trees for use in biofuel.
Tsai’s interests also include determining how trees defend themselves by using chemical compounds to ward off bugs and grazing animals. Harding also has led a DOE-research project on carbon sequestration, where carbon dioxide emissions from facilities such as power plants are captured by trees rather than released into the atmosphere.
If they are successful in genetically modifying the sucrose transporter genes to create faster-growing trees, it could have tremendous implications for using trees as biofuels.
“We know the sucrose transporter genes are connected to tree growth, and we also know that there are three different such proteins present in the tree stems,” Harding explained. The team plans to manipulate those proteins to learn about their division of labor and to see how the manipulations affect tree growth, especially the competition between leaves, stems and roots for photosynthate. The project will involve an assistant research scientist, a postdoctoral scientist, two graduate students and several undergraduate students.
This investigation is just beginning, Tsai said, and findings during the course of this three-year project will add immensely to the understanding of how tree biomass is produced.
-----
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Thursday, October 8, 2009
Shining Light on Green Energy
The physical chemistry lab of Tim Lian specializes in ultra-fast spectroscopy, electron transfer processes and quantum dots - nano-particles that hold promise for everything from electronics to medicine and renewable energy.
In collaboration with scientists at Emory and elsewhere, Lian's team is studying ways to convert the sun's energy into cheap and clean solutions to the global energy crisis. "Solar energy conversion is very complex," he says. "Spectroscopy allows us to break it down into small, fundamental steps that you can study carefully."
Quantum dots are good at absorbing light and could provide energy to drive reactions needed for solar energy conversion processes.
"These are all very challenging scientific problems," Lian says, adding that it will take many people, working across disciplines, to make solar energy go mainstream. "We have to solve these problems, because using fossil fuels is not sustainable."
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In collaboration with scientists at Emory and elsewhere, Lian's team is studying ways to convert the sun's energy into cheap and clean solutions to the global energy crisis. "Solar energy conversion is very complex," he says. "Spectroscopy allows us to break it down into small, fundamental steps that you can study carefully."
Quantum dots are good at absorbing light and could provide energy to drive reactions needed for solar energy conversion processes.
"These are all very challenging scientific problems," Lian says, adding that it will take many people, working across disciplines, to make solar energy go mainstream. "We have to solve these problems, because using fossil fuels is not sustainable."
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Southern Company, University of Alabama at Birmingham to Partner on Greenhouse Gas Reduction Project
/PRNewswire/ -- Southern Company said yesterday it will help train students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in carbon sequestration engineering under a project that adds to efforts advancing the commercialization of technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power production.
The research project, selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will help develop an educated work force to support commercial utility-scale geologic sequestration activities in the future, said Richard Esposito, Southern Company principal geologist.
The project includes the involvement of undergraduate engineering honors students in independent research on geologic sequestration focused on the sealing capacity of cap rocks serving as barriers to carbon dioxide migration in geologic formations; development of an advanced undergraduate/graduate level course on coal combustion and gasification, climate change, and carbon sequestration; support of six graduate students conducting research on the development of protocols for assessment of seal layer integrity; and analysis of cap rock samples from geologic formations under consideration for sequestration of CO2.
"Understanding the integrity of cap rocks is one of the key elements to safe and permanent sequestration," Esposito said.
The project is one of 43 that DOE is funding to offer training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students that will provide the human capital and skills required for implementing and deploying carbon capture and storage technologies.
"This is an excellent opportunity to meet an important need as we seek to commercially deploy carbon capture and sequestration technology - a work force that is educated and skilled in how the technology works," said Chris Hobson, Southern Company chief environmental officer. "We are pleased to have this opportunity to partner with UAB to increase our knowledge of geologic sequestration."
The project will provide the UAB investigators and their students with rock samples for study in the laboratory, geologic data with which to construct mathematical models and simulations, direct contact with Southern Company geologists and engineers engaged in carbon capture and storage research and development, and opportunities to visit field sites where large-scale tests of carbon sequestration are underway, said Peter Walsh, UAB research professor of mechanical engineering.
"Southern Company's involvement and support are key components of the training for our students to work in carbon capture and storage," Walsh said. "We are delighted to partner with Southern Company on a project that enables us to contribute to a solution of one of the most interesting, important and complex issues of our time."
Southern Company is committed to leadership in researching, developing and deploying advanced technologies, including carbon capture and sequestration, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among the company's key projects:
- DOE recently selected Southern Company to operate and manage the new National Carbon Capture Center, which will develop and test advanced technologies to capture carbon dioxide from coal-based power plants.
- Southern Company is partnering with DOE, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the Electric Power Research Institute and others to build a demonstration facility to capture carbon dioxide emissions from an existing unit of subsidiary Alabama Power's Plant Barry near Mobile, Ala. CO2 from the plant will be transported for permanent underground storage in a demonstration of start-to-finish carbon capture and sequestration.
- Southern Company subsidiary Mississippi Power's Plant Daniel is host site for a sequestration demonstration in which 3,000 metric tons of CO2 have been injected into a deep underground geologic formation.
- Mississippi Power has proposed to build a 582-megawatt coal gasification plant using advanced Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG(TM)) technology developed by Southern Company, KBR Inc. and others that also will include 65 percent carbon capture and re-use.
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The research project, selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, will help develop an educated work force to support commercial utility-scale geologic sequestration activities in the future, said Richard Esposito, Southern Company principal geologist.
The project includes the involvement of undergraduate engineering honors students in independent research on geologic sequestration focused on the sealing capacity of cap rocks serving as barriers to carbon dioxide migration in geologic formations; development of an advanced undergraduate/graduate level course on coal combustion and gasification, climate change, and carbon sequestration; support of six graduate students conducting research on the development of protocols for assessment of seal layer integrity; and analysis of cap rock samples from geologic formations under consideration for sequestration of CO2.
"Understanding the integrity of cap rocks is one of the key elements to safe and permanent sequestration," Esposito said.
The project is one of 43 that DOE is funding to offer training opportunities for graduate and undergraduate students that will provide the human capital and skills required for implementing and deploying carbon capture and storage technologies.
"This is an excellent opportunity to meet an important need as we seek to commercially deploy carbon capture and sequestration technology - a work force that is educated and skilled in how the technology works," said Chris Hobson, Southern Company chief environmental officer. "We are pleased to have this opportunity to partner with UAB to increase our knowledge of geologic sequestration."
The project will provide the UAB investigators and their students with rock samples for study in the laboratory, geologic data with which to construct mathematical models and simulations, direct contact with Southern Company geologists and engineers engaged in carbon capture and storage research and development, and opportunities to visit field sites where large-scale tests of carbon sequestration are underway, said Peter Walsh, UAB research professor of mechanical engineering.
"Southern Company's involvement and support are key components of the training for our students to work in carbon capture and storage," Walsh said. "We are delighted to partner with Southern Company on a project that enables us to contribute to a solution of one of the most interesting, important and complex issues of our time."
Southern Company is committed to leadership in researching, developing and deploying advanced technologies, including carbon capture and sequestration, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Among the company's key projects:
- DOE recently selected Southern Company to operate and manage the new National Carbon Capture Center, which will develop and test advanced technologies to capture carbon dioxide from coal-based power plants.
- Southern Company is partnering with DOE, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the Electric Power Research Institute and others to build a demonstration facility to capture carbon dioxide emissions from an existing unit of subsidiary Alabama Power's Plant Barry near Mobile, Ala. CO2 from the plant will be transported for permanent underground storage in a demonstration of start-to-finish carbon capture and sequestration.
- Southern Company subsidiary Mississippi Power's Plant Daniel is host site for a sequestration demonstration in which 3,000 metric tons of CO2 have been injected into a deep underground geologic formation.
- Mississippi Power has proposed to build a 582-megawatt coal gasification plant using advanced Transport Integrated Gasification (TRIG(TM)) technology developed by Southern Company, KBR Inc. and others that also will include 65 percent carbon capture and re-use.
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Friday, October 2, 2009
New Material Could Expand Applications for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells
A new ceramic material described in this week’s issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells—devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels without the need to separate hydrogen.
Though the long-term durability of the new mixed ion conductor material must still be proven, its development could address two of the most vexing problems facing the solid oxide fuel cells: tolerance of sulfur in fuels and resistance to carbon build-up known as coking. The new material could also allow solid oxide fuel cells—which convert fuel to electricity more efficiently than other fuel cells—to operate at lower temperatures, potentially reducing material and fabrication costs.
“The development of this material suggests that we could have a much less expensive solid oxide fuel cell, and that it could be more compact, which would increase the range of potential applications,” said Meilin Liu, a Regent’s professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “This new material would potentially allow the fuel cells to run with dirty hydrocarbon fuels without the need to clean them and supply water.”
The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Science Catalysis Science Program.
Like all fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) use an electrochemical process to produce electricity by oxidizing a fuel. As the name implies, SOFCs use a ceramic electrolyte, a material known as yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ).
The fuel cell’s anode uses a composite consisting of YSZ and the metal nickel. This anode provides excellent catalytic activity for fuel oxidation, good conductivity for collecting current generated, and compatibility with the cell’s electrolyte—which is also YSZ.
But the material has three significant drawbacks: even small amounts of sulfur in fuel “poison” the anode to dramatically reduce efficiency, the use of hydrocarbon fuels creates carbon build-up which clogs the anode—and because YSZ has limited conductivity at low temperatures—SOFCs must operate at high temperatures.
As a result, fuels used in SOFCs, such as natural gas or propane, must be purified to remove sulfur, which increases their cost. Water in the form of steam must also be supplied to a reformer that converts hydrocarbons to hydrogen and carbon monoxide before being fed to the fuel cells, adding complexity to the overall system and reducing energy efficiency. And the high-temperature operation means the cells must be fabricated from costly exotic materials, which keeps SOFCs too expensive for many applications.
The new material developed at Georgia Tech addresses all three of those anode issues. Referred to as BZCYYb as shorthand for its complex composition, the material tolerates hydrogen sulfide in concentrations as high as 50 parts-per-million, does not accumulate carbon—and can operate efficiently at temperatures as low as 500 degrees Celsius.
The BZCYYb (Barium-Zirconium-Cerium-Yttrium-Ytterbium Oxide) material could be used in a variety of ways: as a coating on the traditional Ni-YSZ anode, as a replacement for the YSZ in the anode and as a replacement for the entire YSZ electrolyte system. Liu believes the first two options are more viable.
So far, the new material has provided steady performance for up to 1,000 hours of operation in a small laboratory-scale SOFC. To be commercially viable, however, the material will have to be proven in operation for up to five years—the expected lifespan of a commercial SOFC.
“We don’t see any problems ahead for fabrication or other issues that might prevent scale-up,” said Liu. “The material is produced using standard solid-state reactions and is straightforward.”
The researchers don’t yet understand how their new material resists deactivation by sulfur and carbon, but theorize that it may provide enhanced catalytic activity for oxidizing sulfur and both cracking and reforming hydrocarbons.
In addition to its tolerance of sulfur and resistance to coking, the BZCYYb material’s conductivity at lower temperature could also provide a significant advantage for SOFCs.
“If we could reduce operating temperatures to 500 or 600 degrees Celsius, that would allow us to use less expensive metals as interconnects,” Liu noted. “Getting the temperature down to 300 to 400 degrees could allow use of much less expensive materials in the packaging, which would dramatically reduce the cost of these systems.”
Beyond its use in fuel cells, the material developed by Liu and his team—which also included Lei Yang, Shizhong Wang, Kevin Blinn, Mingfei Liu, Ze Liu and Zhe Cheng—could also be used for fuel reforming to feed other types of fuel cells.
Though the technology for solid oxide fuel cells is currently less mature than that for other types of fuel cells, Liu believes SOFCs will ultimately win out because they don’t require precious metals such as platinum and their efficiency can be higher—as much as 80 percent with co-generation use of waste heat.
“Solid oxide fuel cells offer high energy efficiency, the potential for direct utilization of all types of fuels including renewable biofuels, and the possibility of lower costs since they do not use any precious metals,” said Liu. “We are working to reduce the cost of solid oxide fuel cells to make them viable in many new applications, and this new material brings us much closer to doing that.”
This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Science Catalysis Science Program under grant DE-FG02-06ER15837. The comments and conclusions in this document are those of the researchers and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Though the long-term durability of the new mixed ion conductor material must still be proven, its development could address two of the most vexing problems facing the solid oxide fuel cells: tolerance of sulfur in fuels and resistance to carbon build-up known as coking. The new material could also allow solid oxide fuel cells—which convert fuel to electricity more efficiently than other fuel cells—to operate at lower temperatures, potentially reducing material and fabrication costs.
“The development of this material suggests that we could have a much less expensive solid oxide fuel cell, and that it could be more compact, which would increase the range of potential applications,” said Meilin Liu, a Regent’s professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “This new material would potentially allow the fuel cells to run with dirty hydrocarbon fuels without the need to clean them and supply water.”
The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Science Catalysis Science Program.
Like all fuel cells, solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) use an electrochemical process to produce electricity by oxidizing a fuel. As the name implies, SOFCs use a ceramic electrolyte, a material known as yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ).
The fuel cell’s anode uses a composite consisting of YSZ and the metal nickel. This anode provides excellent catalytic activity for fuel oxidation, good conductivity for collecting current generated, and compatibility with the cell’s electrolyte—which is also YSZ.
But the material has three significant drawbacks: even small amounts of sulfur in fuel “poison” the anode to dramatically reduce efficiency, the use of hydrocarbon fuels creates carbon build-up which clogs the anode—and because YSZ has limited conductivity at low temperatures—SOFCs must operate at high temperatures.
As a result, fuels used in SOFCs, such as natural gas or propane, must be purified to remove sulfur, which increases their cost. Water in the form of steam must also be supplied to a reformer that converts hydrocarbons to hydrogen and carbon monoxide before being fed to the fuel cells, adding complexity to the overall system and reducing energy efficiency. And the high-temperature operation means the cells must be fabricated from costly exotic materials, which keeps SOFCs too expensive for many applications.
The new material developed at Georgia Tech addresses all three of those anode issues. Referred to as BZCYYb as shorthand for its complex composition, the material tolerates hydrogen sulfide in concentrations as high as 50 parts-per-million, does not accumulate carbon—and can operate efficiently at temperatures as low as 500 degrees Celsius.
The BZCYYb (Barium-Zirconium-Cerium-Yttrium-Ytterbium Oxide) material could be used in a variety of ways: as a coating on the traditional Ni-YSZ anode, as a replacement for the YSZ in the anode and as a replacement for the entire YSZ electrolyte system. Liu believes the first two options are more viable.
So far, the new material has provided steady performance for up to 1,000 hours of operation in a small laboratory-scale SOFC. To be commercially viable, however, the material will have to be proven in operation for up to five years—the expected lifespan of a commercial SOFC.
“We don’t see any problems ahead for fabrication or other issues that might prevent scale-up,” said Liu. “The material is produced using standard solid-state reactions and is straightforward.”
The researchers don’t yet understand how their new material resists deactivation by sulfur and carbon, but theorize that it may provide enhanced catalytic activity for oxidizing sulfur and both cracking and reforming hydrocarbons.
In addition to its tolerance of sulfur and resistance to coking, the BZCYYb material’s conductivity at lower temperature could also provide a significant advantage for SOFCs.
“If we could reduce operating temperatures to 500 or 600 degrees Celsius, that would allow us to use less expensive metals as interconnects,” Liu noted. “Getting the temperature down to 300 to 400 degrees could allow use of much less expensive materials in the packaging, which would dramatically reduce the cost of these systems.”
Beyond its use in fuel cells, the material developed by Liu and his team—which also included Lei Yang, Shizhong Wang, Kevin Blinn, Mingfei Liu, Ze Liu and Zhe Cheng—could also be used for fuel reforming to feed other types of fuel cells.
Though the technology for solid oxide fuel cells is currently less mature than that for other types of fuel cells, Liu believes SOFCs will ultimately win out because they don’t require precious metals such as platinum and their efficiency can be higher—as much as 80 percent with co-generation use of waste heat.
“Solid oxide fuel cells offer high energy efficiency, the potential for direct utilization of all types of fuels including renewable biofuels, and the possibility of lower costs since they do not use any precious metals,” said Liu. “We are working to reduce the cost of solid oxide fuel cells to make them viable in many new applications, and this new material brings us much closer to doing that.”
This research was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Science Catalysis Science Program under grant DE-FG02-06ER15837. The comments and conclusions in this document are those of the researchers and do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
GSU scientists investigate a type of soil’s ability to absorb byproduct of nuclear reactions
Georgia State University researchers, in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Georgia Tech Research Institute, are investigating whether a type of soil might absorb a radioactive isotope, perhaps leading to better ways of remediating a byproduct of nuclear reactions.
W. Crawford Elliott, chair of the Department of Geosciences, is the lead investigator on a project to evaluate the absorption of cesium-137 by a soil commonly found in the Piedmont regions of the South at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, near Augusta, Ga. The research has been funded with a $149,477 grant from the Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research.
Cesium-137 is a byproduct nuclear fission with uranium-235. The fission releases energy that can be used in nuclear reactors to produce power.
The Savannah River Site, located in Aiken and Barnwell counties in South Carolina was the home of production for elements of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, but much of the work performed there now involves mitigation of the legacies of nuclear reactions.
Cesium-137, which has a half-life of about 30 years, emits both beta particles and gamma radiation. It has been found in the environment as a result of nuclear waste and accidental releases.
One hypothesis is that a common soil mineral in Piedmont regions, called hydroxy interstratified vermiculite, might absorb the cesium, and researchers will first test the soil using natural, non-radioactive cesium-133.
“We think that there’s a special place in the hydroxy interstratified vermiculite lattice that favors the uptake of cesium, and if that's the case, we’re first going to study these soils to see how much natural cesium is being taken up,” Elliott said.
The next step is to take cesium-137 and pour it through the soil to see what kind of exchange happens.
“We have a good hypothesis that these soils sequester natural cesium on their own, as much and maybe more so than other micas or other kinds of minerals,” Elliott said.
The work might lead scientists to a better understanding of how to mitigate the radioactive element.
“The project would certainly give us some of the best knowledge about the role of soils in the process and how they could naturally attenuate the cesium," he said.
A side project will investigate a byproduct of kaolin processing — a clear, shiny mica that is sorted out from kaolin and sold to paint companies and others. The mica might be able to absorb and mitigate cesium-137.
“You might be able to make into a permeable barrier, or even make it into a material similar to what’s used at a grocery store to clean up a spill,” Elliott said.
Elliott is working on the project with Seth Rose and Eirik Krogstad, associate professors of geosciences at Georgia State; Marion Wampler, adjunct associate professor in geosciences; Bernd Kahn and Robert Rosson of the Georgia Tech Research Institute; and Daniel Kaplan of the U.S. Department of Energy.
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W. Crawford Elliott, chair of the Department of Geosciences, is the lead investigator on a project to evaluate the absorption of cesium-137 by a soil commonly found in the Piedmont regions of the South at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, near Augusta, Ga. The research has been funded with a $149,477 grant from the Department of Energy Office of Biological and Environmental Research.
Cesium-137 is a byproduct nuclear fission with uranium-235. The fission releases energy that can be used in nuclear reactors to produce power.
The Savannah River Site, located in Aiken and Barnwell counties in South Carolina was the home of production for elements of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, but much of the work performed there now involves mitigation of the legacies of nuclear reactions.
Cesium-137, which has a half-life of about 30 years, emits both beta particles and gamma radiation. It has been found in the environment as a result of nuclear waste and accidental releases.
One hypothesis is that a common soil mineral in Piedmont regions, called hydroxy interstratified vermiculite, might absorb the cesium, and researchers will first test the soil using natural, non-radioactive cesium-133.
“We think that there’s a special place in the hydroxy interstratified vermiculite lattice that favors the uptake of cesium, and if that's the case, we’re first going to study these soils to see how much natural cesium is being taken up,” Elliott said.
The next step is to take cesium-137 and pour it through the soil to see what kind of exchange happens.
“We have a good hypothesis that these soils sequester natural cesium on their own, as much and maybe more so than other micas or other kinds of minerals,” Elliott said.
The work might lead scientists to a better understanding of how to mitigate the radioactive element.
“The project would certainly give us some of the best knowledge about the role of soils in the process and how they could naturally attenuate the cesium," he said.
A side project will investigate a byproduct of kaolin processing — a clear, shiny mica that is sorted out from kaolin and sold to paint companies and others. The mica might be able to absorb and mitigate cesium-137.
“You might be able to make into a permeable barrier, or even make it into a material similar to what’s used at a grocery store to clean up a spill,” Elliott said.
Elliott is working on the project with Seth Rose and Eirik Krogstad, associate professors of geosciences at Georgia State; Marion Wampler, adjunct associate professor in geosciences; Bernd Kahn and Robert Rosson of the Georgia Tech Research Institute; and Daniel Kaplan of the U.S. Department of Energy.
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Monday, July 20, 2009
U.S. energy legislation forward thinking, limiting
The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 charges the U.S. to add 36 billion gallons of biofuels to the country’s transportation fuel mix by 2022. Continued investment in research, development and deployment are required to achieve this goal.
Recent scientific studies warn that increasing land use for producing biomass for biofuels would increase greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions compared to gasoline. Some may disagree with these studies. However, they do show the weakness in expanding a crop-based fuel system without planning for sustainability.
If we continue to try to produce more biomass from the current spectrum of crop choices, GHG emission restrictions could put small biofuel producers and family farms at a disadvantage. Reduced emissions require crops that are easier to grow; require less money to plant, harvest and water; and are easier to process.
Needed production improvements
Corn ethanol production in the U.S. consumes a quarter of the country’s corn crop. Increasing ethanol production to the targeted 15 billion gallons a year by 2022 will double the corn required. That increase will impact land and water needs and create environmental concerns.
We need to improve the productivity of corn and other biofuels crops and incorporate improvements into the production process.
Producing lignocellulosic ethanol or other advanced biofuels, or green diesel, is a challenge. Technology development in this field has advanced, but most U.S. facilities are still in the early-demonstration phase.
Using existing forestry and agriculture residues for biofuels would have minimal environmental impact while creating opportunity for small businesses and farms.
Forestry and agriculture generate significant biomass. According to the Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, forestlands can produce 368 million dry tons of biomass annually. Current legislative definitions make renewable forest biomass off-limits to biofuels companies. Definitions must be changed, while maintaining the resources' sustainability.
Data from the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources suggests collecting residues and producing chips for biofuel production costs $11 to $12 per ton delivered to mills.
Food v. fuel
It’s crucial that we have a diverse source of biomass that doesn’t compete with food supplies. Diversity allows different geographical regions to focus on crops best suited to local conditions. Current federal funding often favors specific feedstocks, hampering development and transfer technology for novel crops.
Many novel crops are being explored. For example, a recent UGA study looked at using a multi-benefit winter cover crop, oil seed radish, for its biofuels potential. UGA scientists led a global team in sequencing the sorghum genome and are now working toward understanding how we can use the information to produce biofuels at lower costs in poor soils.
Targets eliminate possibilities
Targeted GHG reductions can unintentionally eliminate some promising technologies that are lagging behind because of late starts, such as algae-based biofuels.
Anaerobic digestion, a well-developed technology, is not considered because the energy output (methane gas) isn’t a liquid transportation fuel at room temperature. A similar process called landfill bioreactor produces methane biogas which can be converted to compressed natural gas. Its GHG emissions are 17 percent less than its fossil-based equivalent.
Anaerobic digestion can create jobs and produce net income to farms and small biofuels producers. UGA researchers are developing a system that combines anaerobic digestion with algae production.
Current regulatory policies don’t readily support developing such integrated solutions in early development. More pilot-scale testing could help move them to the marketplace faster. Federal agencies seem focused on large-scale demonstrations before pilot-scale research is completed.
Welcomed policy change
Carbon sequestration is a welcomed change in national policy. Current regulatory emphasis favors carbon capture and storage through geological storage of compressed CO2. Although potentially a reliable technique, this approach favors larger-scale sequestration.
One example of a smaller-scale method is using biochar, a byproduct of pyrolysis, a high-temperature breakdown of cellulosic materials that produces a liquid hydrocarbon, which could be converted to green diesel or other liquid fuels.
Biochar has high carbon content and stays in the soil for decades, increasing agricultural productivity and sequestering carbon for a long time. However, the regulatory framework doesn’t favor developing this technology.
There is great promise for biofuels to augment our energy supply. New ideas, technologies and discoveries are emerging from universities and research centers daily. Development and use of these discoveries could be faster if regulatory framework would support deeper exploration into novel crops that don’t pit fuel against food.
Encourage innovation
We need policies to encourage processes and technologies that create jobs and income for farms and small businesses. We need support that allows us to investigate diverse feedstocks and low-cost, efficient production methods that protect and enhance the environment.
If we are to reach 36 billion gallons of biofuels in our transportation fuel mix by 2022 while reducing GHG emissions, all avenues of exploration must be open and barriers to development removed.
By K.C. Das
University of Georgia
K.C. Das is director of the Biorefining and Carbon Cycling Program with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Faculty of Engineering. This editorial was presented as testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business’ subcommittee on regulations and healthcare.
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Recent scientific studies warn that increasing land use for producing biomass for biofuels would increase greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions compared to gasoline. Some may disagree with these studies. However, they do show the weakness in expanding a crop-based fuel system without planning for sustainability.
If we continue to try to produce more biomass from the current spectrum of crop choices, GHG emission restrictions could put small biofuel producers and family farms at a disadvantage. Reduced emissions require crops that are easier to grow; require less money to plant, harvest and water; and are easier to process.
Needed production improvements
Corn ethanol production in the U.S. consumes a quarter of the country’s corn crop. Increasing ethanol production to the targeted 15 billion gallons a year by 2022 will double the corn required. That increase will impact land and water needs and create environmental concerns.
We need to improve the productivity of corn and other biofuels crops and incorporate improvements into the production process.
Producing lignocellulosic ethanol or other advanced biofuels, or green diesel, is a challenge. Technology development in this field has advanced, but most U.S. facilities are still in the early-demonstration phase.
Using existing forestry and agriculture residues for biofuels would have minimal environmental impact while creating opportunity for small businesses and farms.
Forestry and agriculture generate significant biomass. According to the Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, forestlands can produce 368 million dry tons of biomass annually. Current legislative definitions make renewable forest biomass off-limits to biofuels companies. Definitions must be changed, while maintaining the resources' sustainability.
Data from the UGA Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources suggests collecting residues and producing chips for biofuel production costs $11 to $12 per ton delivered to mills.
Food v. fuel
It’s crucial that we have a diverse source of biomass that doesn’t compete with food supplies. Diversity allows different geographical regions to focus on crops best suited to local conditions. Current federal funding often favors specific feedstocks, hampering development and transfer technology for novel crops.
Many novel crops are being explored. For example, a recent UGA study looked at using a multi-benefit winter cover crop, oil seed radish, for its biofuels potential. UGA scientists led a global team in sequencing the sorghum genome and are now working toward understanding how we can use the information to produce biofuels at lower costs in poor soils.
Targets eliminate possibilities
Targeted GHG reductions can unintentionally eliminate some promising technologies that are lagging behind because of late starts, such as algae-based biofuels.
Anaerobic digestion, a well-developed technology, is not considered because the energy output (methane gas) isn’t a liquid transportation fuel at room temperature. A similar process called landfill bioreactor produces methane biogas which can be converted to compressed natural gas. Its GHG emissions are 17 percent less than its fossil-based equivalent.
Anaerobic digestion can create jobs and produce net income to farms and small biofuels producers. UGA researchers are developing a system that combines anaerobic digestion with algae production.
Current regulatory policies don’t readily support developing such integrated solutions in early development. More pilot-scale testing could help move them to the marketplace faster. Federal agencies seem focused on large-scale demonstrations before pilot-scale research is completed.
Welcomed policy change
Carbon sequestration is a welcomed change in national policy. Current regulatory emphasis favors carbon capture and storage through geological storage of compressed CO2. Although potentially a reliable technique, this approach favors larger-scale sequestration.
One example of a smaller-scale method is using biochar, a byproduct of pyrolysis, a high-temperature breakdown of cellulosic materials that produces a liquid hydrocarbon, which could be converted to green diesel or other liquid fuels.
Biochar has high carbon content and stays in the soil for decades, increasing agricultural productivity and sequestering carbon for a long time. However, the regulatory framework doesn’t favor developing this technology.
There is great promise for biofuels to augment our energy supply. New ideas, technologies and discoveries are emerging from universities and research centers daily. Development and use of these discoveries could be faster if regulatory framework would support deeper exploration into novel crops that don’t pit fuel against food.
Encourage innovation
We need policies to encourage processes and technologies that create jobs and income for farms and small businesses. We need support that allows us to investigate diverse feedstocks and low-cost, efficient production methods that protect and enhance the environment.
If we are to reach 36 billion gallons of biofuels in our transportation fuel mix by 2022 while reducing GHG emissions, all avenues of exploration must be open and barriers to development removed.
By K.C. Das
University of Georgia
K.C. Das is director of the Biorefining and Carbon Cycling Program with the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Faculty of Engineering. This editorial was presented as testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business’ subcommittee on regulations and healthcare.
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Friday, May 29, 2009
Radish oil for biodiesel
Corn and soybeans are excellent crops for use in ethanol and biodiesel production, but chickens, cows and people like to eat the crops, too. University of Georgia engineers are searching for non-food crops that can be used to make alternative fuels.
The oilseed radish is one crop that could be used to produce biodiesel in Georgia, said Dan Geller, a biological engineer with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Canadian cover crop
The radish is widely grown in Canada as a cover crop, or one that is planted to improve the soil and prevent erosion in fields. But it isn’t typically grown for food.
Its seed is about 40 percent oil by weight, said Nicholas Chammoun, a CAES graduate student working with Geller. This makes it an excellent candidate for the biodiesel market.
For his research, Chammoun had oilseed radish seeds crushed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Peanut Research Laboratory. The oil was then converted into biodiesel by the CAES biological and agricultural engineering department.
“This sounds like a short and easy process,” he said. “But it actually took a long time since there was very little data on converting oilseed radish oil to biodiesel.”
Engine-tested
Next, he had to prove the new biodiesel would actually work in diesel engines and perform as well or better than No. 2 diesel and other existing biodiesels.
The oilseed radish biodiesel passed the engine tests, performing much like No. 2 diesel, he said.
With the help of the UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, Chammoun determined whether farmers would benefit economically from growing the crop.
“No matter the crop, it will take land to produce it,” said John McKissick, director of the center. “It’s still a battle for food production over fuel production on the same limited land. In Georgia, food is still more economically viable.”
The economic research data on the radish as a biodiesel crop was also used to assess its economic potential as a Georgia cover crop.
“They would harvest in the spring, and the crop would also protect the soil in the winter,” Geller said.
Roots aerate soil
And as a cover crop, its extra-long tap root breaks up and aerates soil and draws up nutrients for the following crop, or one grown for food or fiber.
Georgia farmers could grow peanuts and cotton in the summer months and follow with a crop of oilseed radish in the fall.
“Oilseed radish isn’t grown for the food market, but it can be grown for the fuel market,” Geller said. “And it can be grown cheaper with a greater oil yield per dollar than soybean, and with lower inputs.”
The economic evaluation showed the oilseed radish had potential to be an economically viable crop for Georgia, McKissick said. But more research is needed to determine the yield and costs of producing the crop.
Crushers needed
Geller calls the university’s research results promising but notes there is one large missing piece to the puzzle.
“We can get the seed, and the agronomic data is available,” he said. “The farmers just need someone to crush the seed. The big kicker is which comes first, the farmer or the crusher?”
Crushers are companies that process seeds to extract oil.
If crushers are found, Geller says Georgia farmers could begin growing these new crops in a few years.
CAES researchers are also studying the use of algae, switchgrass and sunflower as oil sources for biodiesel production.
By Sharon Dowdy
University of Georgia
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The oilseed radish is one crop that could be used to produce biodiesel in Georgia, said Dan Geller, a biological engineer with the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Canadian cover crop
The radish is widely grown in Canada as a cover crop, or one that is planted to improve the soil and prevent erosion in fields. But it isn’t typically grown for food.
Its seed is about 40 percent oil by weight, said Nicholas Chammoun, a CAES graduate student working with Geller. This makes it an excellent candidate for the biodiesel market.
For his research, Chammoun had oilseed radish seeds crushed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Peanut Research Laboratory. The oil was then converted into biodiesel by the CAES biological and agricultural engineering department.
“This sounds like a short and easy process,” he said. “But it actually took a long time since there was very little data on converting oilseed radish oil to biodiesel.”
Engine-tested
Next, he had to prove the new biodiesel would actually work in diesel engines and perform as well or better than No. 2 diesel and other existing biodiesels.
The oilseed radish biodiesel passed the engine tests, performing much like No. 2 diesel, he said.
With the help of the UGA Center for Agribusiness and Economic Development, Chammoun determined whether farmers would benefit economically from growing the crop.
“No matter the crop, it will take land to produce it,” said John McKissick, director of the center. “It’s still a battle for food production over fuel production on the same limited land. In Georgia, food is still more economically viable.”
The economic research data on the radish as a biodiesel crop was also used to assess its economic potential as a Georgia cover crop.
“They would harvest in the spring, and the crop would also protect the soil in the winter,” Geller said.
Roots aerate soil
And as a cover crop, its extra-long tap root breaks up and aerates soil and draws up nutrients for the following crop, or one grown for food or fiber.
Georgia farmers could grow peanuts and cotton in the summer months and follow with a crop of oilseed radish in the fall.
“Oilseed radish isn’t grown for the food market, but it can be grown for the fuel market,” Geller said. “And it can be grown cheaper with a greater oil yield per dollar than soybean, and with lower inputs.”
The economic evaluation showed the oilseed radish had potential to be an economically viable crop for Georgia, McKissick said. But more research is needed to determine the yield and costs of producing the crop.
Crushers needed
Geller calls the university’s research results promising but notes there is one large missing piece to the puzzle.
“We can get the seed, and the agronomic data is available,” he said. “The farmers just need someone to crush the seed. The big kicker is which comes first, the farmer or the crusher?”
Crushers are companies that process seeds to extract oil.
If crushers are found, Geller says Georgia farmers could begin growing these new crops in a few years.
CAES researchers are also studying the use of algae, switchgrass and sunflower as oil sources for biodiesel production.
By Sharon Dowdy
University of Georgia
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Tuesday, April 14, 2009
High-Yielding Switchgrass the Focus of Ceres and University of Georgia Researchers
/PRNewswire/ -- Energy crop company Ceres, Inc., announced today that it will work with University of Georgia researchers to develop new high-yielding switchgrass seed varieties and improved crop management techniques for the southeastern United States. Switchgrass, which can reach yields of 6 to 10 dry tons or more in the Southeast, is widely considered an ideal raw material for next-generation biofuels and biopower.
The multi-year project will bring together plant breeders, agronomists and support scientists at Ceres and the University of Georgia to develop improved seed varieties. Field researchers will also evaluate cropping practices in the Southeast, adapting developments made by The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, an Oklahoma-based agricultural research institution with which Ceres has a long-term product development collaboration.
"This project allows us to expand our internal and collaborative plant breeding activities in a region where we believe the industry will have a strong presence," said Ceres plant breeding director Jeff Gwyn, Ph.D. He noted that University of Georgia has experienced researchers and a well-regarded collection of switchgrass breeding materials and germplasm -- the precursors of commercial seed varieties. "There's a lot of headroom for improvement and I'm confident that working together we can continue to drive up yields at a robust pace," he said.
Plant breeder Charles Brummer, Ph.D., University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, said that regionally focused research will be valuable for growers across the region since Georgia and the Southeast have a unique set of environmental factors, owing to their long growing season and high rainfall.
"By trialing and selecting new products in the middle of their target market, we can make greater gains more quickly and with greater certainty," Brummer said. He noted that in addition to selecting higher-yielding plants, researchers will examine seeding rates, row spacing and no-till planting recommendations, and other crop management practices.
Ceres will have commercialization rights for products developed under the Ceres-funded project. The Noble Foundation will also participate in the project, including both field research and switchgrass breeding lines. Other aspects of the collaboration were not disclosed.
In December, Ceres launched the first switchgrass and sorghum varieties developed for bioenergy, which are sold under the company's Blade Energy Crops (www.BladeEnergy.com) label. Ceres has established the largest field-trial network for dedicated energy crops in the United States, including more than a dozen leading universities and institutions.
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The multi-year project will bring together plant breeders, agronomists and support scientists at Ceres and the University of Georgia to develop improved seed varieties. Field researchers will also evaluate cropping practices in the Southeast, adapting developments made by The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, an Oklahoma-based agricultural research institution with which Ceres has a long-term product development collaboration.
"This project allows us to expand our internal and collaborative plant breeding activities in a region where we believe the industry will have a strong presence," said Ceres plant breeding director Jeff Gwyn, Ph.D. He noted that University of Georgia has experienced researchers and a well-regarded collection of switchgrass breeding materials and germplasm -- the precursors of commercial seed varieties. "There's a lot of headroom for improvement and I'm confident that working together we can continue to drive up yields at a robust pace," he said.
Plant breeder Charles Brummer, Ph.D., University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, said that regionally focused research will be valuable for growers across the region since Georgia and the Southeast have a unique set of environmental factors, owing to their long growing season and high rainfall.
"By trialing and selecting new products in the middle of their target market, we can make greater gains more quickly and with greater certainty," Brummer said. He noted that in addition to selecting higher-yielding plants, researchers will examine seeding rates, row spacing and no-till planting recommendations, and other crop management practices.
Ceres will have commercialization rights for products developed under the Ceres-funded project. The Noble Foundation will also participate in the project, including both field research and switchgrass breeding lines. Other aspects of the collaboration were not disclosed.
In December, Ceres launched the first switchgrass and sorghum varieties developed for bioenergy, which are sold under the company's Blade Energy Crops (www.BladeEnergy.com) label. Ceres has established the largest field-trial network for dedicated energy crops in the United States, including more than a dozen leading universities and institutions.
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Monday, March 16, 2009
For New Energy Options to Work, Better Storage Methods Needed
/PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In order to save money and energy, many people are purchasing hybrid electric cars or installing solar panels on the roofs of their homes. But both have a problem -- the technology to store the electrical power and energy is inadequate.
Battery systems that fit in cars don't hold enough energy for driving distances, yet take hours to recharge and don't give much power for acceleration. Renewable sources like solar and wind deliver significant power only part time, but devices to store their energy are expensive and too inefficient to deliver enough power for surge demand.
Researchers at the Maryland NanoCenter at the University of Maryland, College Park, have developed new systems for storing electrical energy derived from alternative sources that are, in some cases, 10 times more efficient than what is commercially available. The results of their research are available in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
"Renewable energy sources like solar and wind provide time-varying, somewhat unpredictable energy supply, which must be captured and stored as electrical energy until demanded," said Gary Rubloff, director of the University of Maryland's NanoCenter. "Conventional devices to store and deliver electrical energy - batteries and capacitors - cannot achieve the needed combination of high energy density, high power, and fast recharge that are essential for our energy future."
Researchers working with Professor Rubloff and his collaborator, Professor Sang Bok Lee, have developed a method to significantly enhance the performance of electrical energy storage devices.
Using new processes central to nanotechnology, they create millions of identical nanostructures with shapes tailored to transport energy as electrons rapidly to and from very large surface areas where they are stored. Materials behave according to physical laws of nature. The Maryland researchers exploit unusual combinations of these behaviors (called self-assembly, self-limiting reaction, and self-alignment) to construct millions -and ultimately billions - of tiny, virtually identical nanostructures to receive, store, and deliver electrical energy.
"These devices exploit unique combinations of materials, processes, and structures to optimize both energy and power density--combinations that, taken together, have real promise for building a viable next-generation technology, and around it, a vital new sector of the tech economy," Rubloff said.
"The goal for electrical energy storage systems is to simultaneously achieve high power and high energy density to enable the devices to hold large amounts of energy, to deliver that energy at high power, and to recharge rapidly (the complement to high power)," he continued.
Electrical energy storage devices fall into three categories. Batteries, particularly lithium ion, store large amounts of energy but cannot provide high power or fast recharge. Electrochemical capacitors (ECCs), also relying on electrochemical phenomena, offer higher power at the price of relatively lower energy density. In contrast, electrostatic capacitors (ESCs) operate by purely physical means, storing charge on the surfaces of two conductors. This makes them capable of high power and fast recharge, but at the price of lower energy density.
The Maryland research team's new devices are electrostatic nanocapacitors which dramatically increase energy storage density of such devices - by a factor of 10 over that of commercially available devices - without sacrificing the high power they traditionally characteristically offer. This advance brings electrostatic devices to a performance level competitive with electrochemical capacitors and introduces a new player into the field of candidates for next-generation electrical energy storage.
Where will these new nanodevices appear? Lee and Rubloff emphasize that they are developing the technology for mass production as layers of devices that could look like thin panels, similar to solar panels or the flat panel displays we see everywhere, manufactured at low cost. Multiple energy storage panels would be stacked together inside a car battery system or solar panel. In the longer run, they foresee the same nanotechnologies providing new energy capture technology (solar, thermoelectric) that could be fully integrated with storage devices in manufacturing.
This advance follows soon after another accomplishment--the dramatic improvement in performance (energy and power) of electrochemical capacitors (ECC's), thus 'supercapacitors,' by Lee's research group, published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. (Figure 1). Efforts are under way to achieve comparable advances in energy density of lithium (Li) ion batteries but with much higher power density.
"U-Md.'s successes are built upon the convergence and collaboration of experts from a wide range of nanoscale science and technology areas with researchers already in the center of energy research," Rubloff said.
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Battery systems that fit in cars don't hold enough energy for driving distances, yet take hours to recharge and don't give much power for acceleration. Renewable sources like solar and wind deliver significant power only part time, but devices to store their energy are expensive and too inefficient to deliver enough power for surge demand.
Researchers at the Maryland NanoCenter at the University of Maryland, College Park, have developed new systems for storing electrical energy derived from alternative sources that are, in some cases, 10 times more efficient than what is commercially available. The results of their research are available in the latest issue of Nature Nanotechnology.
"Renewable energy sources like solar and wind provide time-varying, somewhat unpredictable energy supply, which must be captured and stored as electrical energy until demanded," said Gary Rubloff, director of the University of Maryland's NanoCenter. "Conventional devices to store and deliver electrical energy - batteries and capacitors - cannot achieve the needed combination of high energy density, high power, and fast recharge that are essential for our energy future."
Researchers working with Professor Rubloff and his collaborator, Professor Sang Bok Lee, have developed a method to significantly enhance the performance of electrical energy storage devices.
Using new processes central to nanotechnology, they create millions of identical nanostructures with shapes tailored to transport energy as electrons rapidly to and from very large surface areas where they are stored. Materials behave according to physical laws of nature. The Maryland researchers exploit unusual combinations of these behaviors (called self-assembly, self-limiting reaction, and self-alignment) to construct millions -and ultimately billions - of tiny, virtually identical nanostructures to receive, store, and deliver electrical energy.
"These devices exploit unique combinations of materials, processes, and structures to optimize both energy and power density--combinations that, taken together, have real promise for building a viable next-generation technology, and around it, a vital new sector of the tech economy," Rubloff said.
"The goal for electrical energy storage systems is to simultaneously achieve high power and high energy density to enable the devices to hold large amounts of energy, to deliver that energy at high power, and to recharge rapidly (the complement to high power)," he continued.
Electrical energy storage devices fall into three categories. Batteries, particularly lithium ion, store large amounts of energy but cannot provide high power or fast recharge. Electrochemical capacitors (ECCs), also relying on electrochemical phenomena, offer higher power at the price of relatively lower energy density. In contrast, electrostatic capacitors (ESCs) operate by purely physical means, storing charge on the surfaces of two conductors. This makes them capable of high power and fast recharge, but at the price of lower energy density.
The Maryland research team's new devices are electrostatic nanocapacitors which dramatically increase energy storage density of such devices - by a factor of 10 over that of commercially available devices - without sacrificing the high power they traditionally characteristically offer. This advance brings electrostatic devices to a performance level competitive with electrochemical capacitors and introduces a new player into the field of candidates for next-generation electrical energy storage.
Where will these new nanodevices appear? Lee and Rubloff emphasize that they are developing the technology for mass production as layers of devices that could look like thin panels, similar to solar panels or the flat panel displays we see everywhere, manufactured at low cost. Multiple energy storage panels would be stacked together inside a car battery system or solar panel. In the longer run, they foresee the same nanotechnologies providing new energy capture technology (solar, thermoelectric) that could be fully integrated with storage devices in manufacturing.
This advance follows soon after another accomplishment--the dramatic improvement in performance (energy and power) of electrochemical capacitors (ECC's), thus 'supercapacitors,' by Lee's research group, published recently in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. (Figure 1). Efforts are under way to achieve comparable advances in energy density of lithium (Li) ion batteries but with much higher power density.
"U-Md.'s successes are built upon the convergence and collaboration of experts from a wide range of nanoscale science and technology areas with researchers already in the center of energy research," Rubloff said.
-----
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Friday, February 13, 2009
GT: Nanogenerators Produce Electricity from Running Rodents
Could hamsters help solve the world’s energy crisis? Probably not, but a hamster wearing a power-generating jacket is doing its own small part to provide a new and renewable source of electricity.
And using the same nanotechnology, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have also generated electrical current from a tapping finger – moving the users of BlackBerry devices, cell phones and other handhelds one step closer to powering them with their own typing.
“Using nanotechnology, we have demonstrated ways to convert even irregular biomechanical energy into electricity,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regent’s professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. “This technology can convert any mechanical disturbance into electrical energy.”
The demonstrations of harnessing biomechanical energy to produce electricity were reported February 11 in the online version of the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. The research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Air Force, and the Emory-Georgia Tech Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.
The study demonstrates that nanogenerators – which Wang’s team has been developing since 2005 – can be driven by irregular mechanical motion, such as the vibration of vocal cords, flapping of a flag in the breeze, tapping of fingers or hamsters running on exercise wheels. Scavenging such low-frequency energy from irregular motion is significant because much biomechanical energy is variable, unlike the regular mechanical motion used to generate most large-scale electricity today.
The nanogenerator power is produced by the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which certain materials – such as zinc oxide wires – produce electrical charges when they are bent and then relaxed. The wires are between 100 and 800 nanometers in diameter, and between 100 and 500 microns in length.
To make their generators, Wang’s research team encapsulated single zinc oxide wires in a flexible polymer substrate, the wires anchored at each end with an electrical contact, and with a Shottky Barrier at one end to control current flow. They then attached one of these single-wire generators to the joint area of an index finger, or combined four of the single-wire devices on a “yellow jacket” worn by the hamster.
The running and scratching of the hamster – and the tapping of the finger – flexed the substrate in which the nanowires were encapsulated, producing tiny amounts of alternating electrical current. Integrating four nanogenerators on the hamster’s jacket generated up to up to 0.5 nanoamps; less current was produced by the single generator on the finger.
Wang estimates that powering a handheld device such as a Bluetooth headset would require at least thousands of these single-wire generators, which could be built up in three-dimensional modules.
Beyond the finger-tapping and hamster-running, Wang believe his modules could be implanted into the body to harvest energy from such sources as muscle movements or pulsating blood vessels. In the body, they could be used to power nanodevices to measure blood pressure or other vital signs.
Because the devices produce alternating current, synchronizing the four generators on the hamster’s back was vital to maximizing current production. Without the synchronization, current flow from one generator could cancel out the flow from another.
The research team – which also included Rusen Yang, Yong Qin, Cheng Li and Guang Zhu – solved that problem by using a substrate that was flexible in only one direction, forcing the generators to flex together. Still, there was substantial variation in the output from each generator. The differences result from variations in the amount of flexing and from inconsistencies in the hand-built devices.
“The nanogenerators have to be synchronized, with the output of all of them coordinated so the current adds up constructively,” Wang noted. “Through engineering, we would expect this can be resolved in the future through improved design and more consistent manufacturing.”
To ensure that the current measured was actually produced by the generators, the researchers took several precautions. For instance, they substituted carbon fibers – which are not piezoelectric – for the zinc oxide nanowires and measured no output electrical signal.
The research team encountered a number of obstacles related to its four-legged subjects. Wang’s team first tried to outfit a rat with the power-generating jacket, but found that the creature wasn’t very interested in running.
At the suggestion of Wang’s daughter, Melissa, the researchers found that hamsters are more active creatures – but only after 11PM They had to experiment with a jacket configuration that was tight enough to stay on and to wrinkle the nanogenerator substrate – but not so tight as to make the hamster uncomfortable.
“We believe this is the first demonstration of using a live animal to produce current with nanogenerators,” Wang added. “This study shows that we really can harness human or animal motion to generate current.”
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And using the same nanotechnology, Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have also generated electrical current from a tapping finger – moving the users of BlackBerry devices, cell phones and other handhelds one step closer to powering them with their own typing.
“Using nanotechnology, we have demonstrated ways to convert even irregular biomechanical energy into electricity,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regent’s professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering. “This technology can convert any mechanical disturbance into electrical energy.”
The demonstrations of harnessing biomechanical energy to produce electricity were reported February 11 in the online version of the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. The research was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Air Force, and the Emory-Georgia Tech Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence.
The study demonstrates that nanogenerators – which Wang’s team has been developing since 2005 – can be driven by irregular mechanical motion, such as the vibration of vocal cords, flapping of a flag in the breeze, tapping of fingers or hamsters running on exercise wheels. Scavenging such low-frequency energy from irregular motion is significant because much biomechanical energy is variable, unlike the regular mechanical motion used to generate most large-scale electricity today.
The nanogenerator power is produced by the piezoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which certain materials – such as zinc oxide wires – produce electrical charges when they are bent and then relaxed. The wires are between 100 and 800 nanometers in diameter, and between 100 and 500 microns in length.
To make their generators, Wang’s research team encapsulated single zinc oxide wires in a flexible polymer substrate, the wires anchored at each end with an electrical contact, and with a Shottky Barrier at one end to control current flow. They then attached one of these single-wire generators to the joint area of an index finger, or combined four of the single-wire devices on a “yellow jacket” worn by the hamster.
The running and scratching of the hamster – and the tapping of the finger – flexed the substrate in which the nanowires were encapsulated, producing tiny amounts of alternating electrical current. Integrating four nanogenerators on the hamster’s jacket generated up to up to 0.5 nanoamps; less current was produced by the single generator on the finger.
Wang estimates that powering a handheld device such as a Bluetooth headset would require at least thousands of these single-wire generators, which could be built up in three-dimensional modules.
Beyond the finger-tapping and hamster-running, Wang believe his modules could be implanted into the body to harvest energy from such sources as muscle movements or pulsating blood vessels. In the body, they could be used to power nanodevices to measure blood pressure or other vital signs.
Because the devices produce alternating current, synchronizing the four generators on the hamster’s back was vital to maximizing current production. Without the synchronization, current flow from one generator could cancel out the flow from another.
The research team – which also included Rusen Yang, Yong Qin, Cheng Li and Guang Zhu – solved that problem by using a substrate that was flexible in only one direction, forcing the generators to flex together. Still, there was substantial variation in the output from each generator. The differences result from variations in the amount of flexing and from inconsistencies in the hand-built devices.
“The nanogenerators have to be synchronized, with the output of all of them coordinated so the current adds up constructively,” Wang noted. “Through engineering, we would expect this can be resolved in the future through improved design and more consistent manufacturing.”
To ensure that the current measured was actually produced by the generators, the researchers took several precautions. For instance, they substituted carbon fibers – which are not piezoelectric – for the zinc oxide nanowires and measured no output electrical signal.
The research team encountered a number of obstacles related to its four-legged subjects. Wang’s team first tried to outfit a rat with the power-generating jacket, but found that the creature wasn’t very interested in running.
At the suggestion of Wang’s daughter, Melissa, the researchers found that hamsters are more active creatures – but only after 11PM They had to experiment with a jacket configuration that was tight enough to stay on and to wrinkle the nanogenerator substrate – but not so tight as to make the hamster uncomfortable.
“We believe this is the first demonstration of using a live animal to produce current with nanogenerators,” Wang added. “This study shows that we really can harness human or animal motion to generate current.”
-----
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Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Biofuels Can Provide Viable, Sustainable Solution to Reducing Petroleum Dependence, say Sandia Researchers
An in-depth study by Sandia National Laboratories and General Motors Corp. has found that plant and forestry waste and dedicated energy crops could sustainably replace nearly a third of gasoline use by the year 2030.
The goal of the 90-Billion Gallon Biofuel Deployment Study was to assess whether and how a large volume of cellulosic biofuel could be sustainably produced, assuming technical and scientific progress continues at expected rates. The study was conducted over a period of nine months.
Researchers assessed the feasibility, implications, limitations, and enablers of annually producing 90 billion gallons of ethanol — sufficient to replace more than 60 billion of the estimated 180 billion gallons of gasoline expected to be used annually by 2030. Ninety billion gallons a year exceeds the U.S. Department of Energy’s goal for ethanol production established in 2006.
The 90 Billion Gallon Study assumes 75 billion gallons would be ethanol made from nonfood cellulosic feedstocks and 15 billion gallons from corn-based ethanol. The study examined four sources of biofuels: agricultural residue, such as corn stover and wheat straw; forest residue; dedicated energy crops, including switchgrass; and short rotation woody crops, such as willow and poplar trees. It examines the costs of producing, harvesting, storing and transporting these sources to newly built biorefineries.
Key findings
Using a newly developed tool known as the Biofuels Deployment Model, or BDM, Sandia researchers determined that 21 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol could be produced per year by 2022 without displacing current crops. The Renewable Fuels Standard, part of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, calls for ramping up biofuels production to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022.
The 90 Billion Gallon Study, which focused only on starch-based and cellulosic ethanol, found that an increase to 90 billion gallons of ethanol could be sustainably achieved by 2030 within real-world economic and environmental parameters.
Other findings:
Continued support of R&D and initial commercialization is critical because sustained technological progress and commercial validation is a prerequisite to affordably producing the large volumes of ethanol considered in this study.
Policy incentives such as a federal cap and trade program, carbon taxes, excise tax credits and loan guarantees for cellulosic biofuels are important to mitigate the risk of oil market volatility.
The domestic investment for biofuels production is projected to be virtually the same as the investment required to sustain long-term domestic petroleum production.
Cellulosic biofuels could compete without incentives with oil priced at $90 per barrel, assuming a reduction in total costs as advanced biofuels technologies mature.
Large-scale cellulosic biofuel production could be achieved at or below current water consumption levels of petroleum fuels from on-shore oil production and refining.
The industrial processes by which nonfood forms of biomass are converted into sugars suitable for production of biofuels were a focus of the study.
Sandia’s analysis also included land use, water availability, energy used to produce cellulosic biomass, transportation of feedstocks and other potential leverage points for the development and use of cellulosic biofuels. In conducting its research, Sandia utilized models that examined current and future technologies for development of ethanol.
Future enhancements to Sandia’s BDM are planned, contingent on additional partnerships. Such improvements to the current software tool, says Sandia business development associate Carrie Burchard, would provide an even more comprehensive systems understanding of the biofuels industry.
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The goal of the 90-Billion Gallon Biofuel Deployment Study was to assess whether and how a large volume of cellulosic biofuel could be sustainably produced, assuming technical and scientific progress continues at expected rates. The study was conducted over a period of nine months.
Researchers assessed the feasibility, implications, limitations, and enablers of annually producing 90 billion gallons of ethanol — sufficient to replace more than 60 billion of the estimated 180 billion gallons of gasoline expected to be used annually by 2030. Ninety billion gallons a year exceeds the U.S. Department of Energy’s goal for ethanol production established in 2006.
The 90 Billion Gallon Study assumes 75 billion gallons would be ethanol made from nonfood cellulosic feedstocks and 15 billion gallons from corn-based ethanol. The study examined four sources of biofuels: agricultural residue, such as corn stover and wheat straw; forest residue; dedicated energy crops, including switchgrass; and short rotation woody crops, such as willow and poplar trees. It examines the costs of producing, harvesting, storing and transporting these sources to newly built biorefineries.
Key findings
Using a newly developed tool known as the Biofuels Deployment Model, or BDM, Sandia researchers determined that 21 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol could be produced per year by 2022 without displacing current crops. The Renewable Fuels Standard, part of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, calls for ramping up biofuels production to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022.
The 90 Billion Gallon Study, which focused only on starch-based and cellulosic ethanol, found that an increase to 90 billion gallons of ethanol could be sustainably achieved by 2030 within real-world economic and environmental parameters.
Other findings:
Continued support of R&D and initial commercialization is critical because sustained technological progress and commercial validation is a prerequisite to affordably producing the large volumes of ethanol considered in this study.
Policy incentives such as a federal cap and trade program, carbon taxes, excise tax credits and loan guarantees for cellulosic biofuels are important to mitigate the risk of oil market volatility.
The domestic investment for biofuels production is projected to be virtually the same as the investment required to sustain long-term domestic petroleum production.
Cellulosic biofuels could compete without incentives with oil priced at $90 per barrel, assuming a reduction in total costs as advanced biofuels technologies mature.
Large-scale cellulosic biofuel production could be achieved at or below current water consumption levels of petroleum fuels from on-shore oil production and refining.
The industrial processes by which nonfood forms of biomass are converted into sugars suitable for production of biofuels were a focus of the study.
Sandia’s analysis also included land use, water availability, energy used to produce cellulosic biomass, transportation of feedstocks and other potential leverage points for the development and use of cellulosic biofuels. In conducting its research, Sandia utilized models that examined current and future technologies for development of ethanol.
Future enhancements to Sandia’s BDM are planned, contingent on additional partnerships. Such improvements to the current software tool, says Sandia business development associate Carrie Burchard, would provide an even more comprehensive systems understanding of the biofuels industry.
-----
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Thursday, February 5, 2009
Georgia Tech Research Helps Protect Against Lightning Damage
Firing bolts of lightning at expensive electrical equipment is all in a day’s work at NEETRAC – the National Electric Energy Testing Research and Applications Center. The goal for the lightning research and other testing done by the center is to improve reliability for the nation’s electric energy transmission and distribution system.
The 2.2 million-volt impulse generator needed to produce artificial lightning is just one part of the test gear used to evaluate utility industry equipment that ranges from wooden poles and aluminum transmission lines to transformers and switches. Part of Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the center is supported by 32 equipment manufacturers and utility companies that provide nearly 60 percent of the electricity used in the United States.
A major part of the work is ensuring reliability during the lightning storms that threaten utilities and their customers.
“Lightning is electricity of the wrong sort,” explained Rick Hartlein, NEETRAC’s director. “Electric utilities must do a number of things to keep lightning from damaging the power delivery system, which can cause power outages or damage to equipment plugged into electrical outlets in homes and businesses.”
Thunderstorms can produce more than 100 million volts – compared to the 120 volts in household wall outlets and 240 volts that power large home appliances. To deal with those added millions of volts, utilities rely on a complex array of lightning arrestors, static lines and grounding systems.
Lightning arrestors, for instance, contain special materials that under normal conditions do not permit the flow of electrical current. But when they sense a sudden surge of electricity from a lightning strike, they change properties in a few microseconds, becoming conductors rather than insulators. When strategically placed on the electric grid, the arrestors carry the lightning surges away to the ground – after which the arrestors return to their role as insulators.
Without the arrestors, lightning could arc across the insulators that support power lines, causing interruptions and damaging other equipment. In severe cases, the damage could cause line circuit breakers to trip, resulting in power outages to businesses, hospitals and whole communities.
At NEETRAC’s facilities near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Hartlein and his research team evaluate the arrestors and help utilities choose the right locations for them.
“Lightning arrestors are not inexpensive devices and they must be maintained once they are put on the system,” Hartlein said. “You want to distribute them on the system frequently enough to protect it, but not so frequently that you are wasting money.”
After multiple lightning strikes and years out in the elements, lightning arrestors themselves can fail, creating a momentary short-circuit on the power grid. If that happens, a device built into the arrestors senses the problem and fires a tiny explosive charge that physically disconnects the faulty arrestor from the distribution system. NEETRAC has developed specialized laboratory testing procedures to evaluate the performance of these devices.
Helping the industry develop better equipment requires an understanding of lightning and how it works. For instance, though it’s generally not visible to the human eye, most lightning strikes in the Southeast are made up of between three and five separate pulses between 30 and 120 milliseconds apart, each one containing potentially damaging electrical energy.
In the Southeast, 90 percent of lightning has a negative charge. But positively-charged lightning also occurs, most often in the winter. Positive lightning ionizes the atmosphere more efficiently than negative lightning and can therefore travel longer distances.
“Positive lightning can travel 10 miles from the storm before striking an object on the ground, so the storm clouds may not even be visible when the lightning strikes,” said Ray Hill, a research technologist with NEETRAC. “This is the source of what people call a ‘bolt from the blue.’ Because it tends to be a single pulse, positive lightning can be more dangerous since all of the energy is in a single stroke – and people aren’t expecting it.”
Though NEETRAC’s lightning impulse generator can create explosive results, most testing at the center’s facilities is less dramatic.
For instance, salt fog chambers simulate long-term exposure in moist and corrosive environments to study how utility system components will withstand years of exposure to the elements.
Strong ultraviolet lights and high temperatures test the ability of rubber seals to withstand summertime heat and strong sunlight while keeping moisture away from sensitive components. Computer simulations developed by Sakis Meliopoulos, a member of the Georgia Tech electric power faculty, help determine the most efficient way to ground the electric grid, which provides the only effective way to control damaging current.
“The utility companies do a lot to keep lightning from damaging their systems, which helps keep the lights on,” Hill added. “When it comes down to that last bit of lightning protection for the service that comes into a home, consumers should consider additional surge protection, particularly for electronic equipment. But nothing is absolute – all you can really do with lightning protection is to get the odds in your favor.”
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The 2.2 million-volt impulse generator needed to produce artificial lightning is just one part of the test gear used to evaluate utility industry equipment that ranges from wooden poles and aluminum transmission lines to transformers and switches. Part of Georgia Tech’s School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the center is supported by 32 equipment manufacturers and utility companies that provide nearly 60 percent of the electricity used in the United States.
A major part of the work is ensuring reliability during the lightning storms that threaten utilities and their customers.
“Lightning is electricity of the wrong sort,” explained Rick Hartlein, NEETRAC’s director. “Electric utilities must do a number of things to keep lightning from damaging the power delivery system, which can cause power outages or damage to equipment plugged into electrical outlets in homes and businesses.”
Thunderstorms can produce more than 100 million volts – compared to the 120 volts in household wall outlets and 240 volts that power large home appliances. To deal with those added millions of volts, utilities rely on a complex array of lightning arrestors, static lines and grounding systems.
Lightning arrestors, for instance, contain special materials that under normal conditions do not permit the flow of electrical current. But when they sense a sudden surge of electricity from a lightning strike, they change properties in a few microseconds, becoming conductors rather than insulators. When strategically placed on the electric grid, the arrestors carry the lightning surges away to the ground – after which the arrestors return to their role as insulators.
Without the arrestors, lightning could arc across the insulators that support power lines, causing interruptions and damaging other equipment. In severe cases, the damage could cause line circuit breakers to trip, resulting in power outages to businesses, hospitals and whole communities.
At NEETRAC’s facilities near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Hartlein and his research team evaluate the arrestors and help utilities choose the right locations for them.
“Lightning arrestors are not inexpensive devices and they must be maintained once they are put on the system,” Hartlein said. “You want to distribute them on the system frequently enough to protect it, but not so frequently that you are wasting money.”
After multiple lightning strikes and years out in the elements, lightning arrestors themselves can fail, creating a momentary short-circuit on the power grid. If that happens, a device built into the arrestors senses the problem and fires a tiny explosive charge that physically disconnects the faulty arrestor from the distribution system. NEETRAC has developed specialized laboratory testing procedures to evaluate the performance of these devices.
Helping the industry develop better equipment requires an understanding of lightning and how it works. For instance, though it’s generally not visible to the human eye, most lightning strikes in the Southeast are made up of between three and five separate pulses between 30 and 120 milliseconds apart, each one containing potentially damaging electrical energy.
In the Southeast, 90 percent of lightning has a negative charge. But positively-charged lightning also occurs, most often in the winter. Positive lightning ionizes the atmosphere more efficiently than negative lightning and can therefore travel longer distances.
“Positive lightning can travel 10 miles from the storm before striking an object on the ground, so the storm clouds may not even be visible when the lightning strikes,” said Ray Hill, a research technologist with NEETRAC. “This is the source of what people call a ‘bolt from the blue.’ Because it tends to be a single pulse, positive lightning can be more dangerous since all of the energy is in a single stroke – and people aren’t expecting it.”
Though NEETRAC’s lightning impulse generator can create explosive results, most testing at the center’s facilities is less dramatic.
For instance, salt fog chambers simulate long-term exposure in moist and corrosive environments to study how utility system components will withstand years of exposure to the elements.
Strong ultraviolet lights and high temperatures test the ability of rubber seals to withstand summertime heat and strong sunlight while keeping moisture away from sensitive components. Computer simulations developed by Sakis Meliopoulos, a member of the Georgia Tech electric power faculty, help determine the most efficient way to ground the electric grid, which provides the only effective way to control damaging current.
“The utility companies do a lot to keep lightning from damaging their systems, which helps keep the lights on,” Hill added. “When it comes down to that last bit of lightning protection for the service that comes into a home, consumers should consider additional surge protection, particularly for electronic equipment. But nothing is absolute – all you can really do with lightning protection is to get the odds in your favor.”
-----
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Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Continuous Descent: Saving Fuel and Reducing Noise for Airliners
Airline passengers arriving in Atlanta on early morning “redeye” flights during the past few months may have noticed something different during their descent to the runway. Instead of the typical sound of engine power rising and falling as the aircraft descended in a series of level flight steps, they may have noticed a quieter arrival – without the steps.
The changes were part of Georgia Tech’s flight-testing of “continuous descent arrivals,” a procedure designed to save fuel and time while producing environmental benefits by reducing both noise and emissions. Involving more than 600 flights, the Atlanta study was done in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), FedEx and Atlanta’s two dominant air carriers: Delta Air Lines and AirTran Airways.
The continuous descent arrival procedure has already been studied at Louisville and Los Angeles airports. Proponents hope the 90-day test at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – currently the nation’s busiest airport – will move the concept one step closer to nationwide implementation. Estimates suggest that continuous descent arrivals could save a large airline as much as $80 million per year in fuel costs alone.
“In commercial aircraft, we see anywhere between 300 and 1,000 pounds of fuel saved for each arrival,” said John-Paul Clarke, director of the Air Transportation Laboratory at Georgia Tech and an associate professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering. “With fuel cost at $3 per gallon, that would amount to as much as $600 per arrival and could really add up for the airlines at a time when they need all the savings they can get.”
Because aircraft engines don’t throttle up and down during a continuous descent arrival, there are also significant reductions in noise and emissions. Keeping engines at idle power can cut emissions of nitrogen oxides by nearly a third, and reduce noise by 6 decibels along certain portions of the flight path – both significant reductions that would improve the environment in the vicinity of airports.
And the technique could cut two minutes off the approach and landing portion of a flight. While that doesn’t seem like much, it could result in more efficient utilization of aircraft and reductions in flight times for crews.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the nation’s busiest.
Continuous descent arrival is one in a series of improvements aimed at creating the next generation of air transportation technologies. The goal is to redesign the airspace to allow future airliners to travel the most efficient paths to their destinations.
Though the final numbers from the Atlanta evaluation won’t be known for several months, the potential savings have been demonstrated by more than 60,000 landings at Los Angeles with a continuous descent arrival technique developed by Georgia Tech. But adopting the procedure throughout the airspace system won’t be easy. Safety considerations must be paramount, and there are a number of optimization challenges caused by widely varying aircraft types, wind conditions and airport configurations.
“Imagine a line of aircraft descending through a long tube that’s fixed laterally and limited vertically to be within a narrow band,” explained Clarke. “If each airplane were like a ball with a different coefficient of friction, then when you put the balls in the tube at equal intervals, they would begin to catch up with one another. The ball with the lower coefficient would tend to catch up with the ball with a higher coefficient. That’s something that we have to work very hard to avoid.”
While the risks of getting aircraft too close are obvious – and governed by FAA rules on minimum spacing – too much spacing between landing aircraft can waste time and reduce airport throughput.
“The goal is to design a procedure that allows the aircraft engines to throttle back to idle power at the point of initial descent and to remain at idle power along the flight path to the runway as long as possible,“ Clarke added. “We have figured out how to put altitude and speed constraints along the flight path so they can stay at idle power as long as possible while achieving the required minimal spacing at the runway threshold.”
Determining those constraints requires detailed knowledge of the performance of each aircraft type in use. Clarke and his research team have obtained performance data for most Boeing aircraft, as well as some of those manufactured by Airbus. Based on the performance data, they have simulated the operation of each aircraft type under varying wind and weight conditions.
The researchers have also modeled variation in pilot behavior, because small differences in when flaps are deployed and landing gear lowered create variations in speed, which affect aircraft spacing.
Arrivals would be customized for each airport, taking into account wind and traffic patterns. And because the spacing between aircraft is determined well before they arrive at their destinations, adoption of the technique will require changes in the nation’s air traffic control system.
“The air traffic control system currently isn’t designed to allow the kind of fine-tuning we need, but I’m very optimistic about being able to change that,” said Clarke. “Throughout all the areas, the FAA and the airlines, there is a growing acceptance that this is a solution. We have been able to do the analysis, the flight-testing and the number crunching to show that it can be done.”
Clarke, who began the research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Georgia Tech in 2005, believes the cost savings will ensure adoption of continuous descent arrivals. He compared the technique to the adoption of fuel-saving winglets, small vertical attachments that have replaced traditional wingtips on many aircraft.
“For years people knew that winglets provided better performance, but it costs money to install them,” he added. “When fuel got more expensive, airlines started installing winglets because the savings justified the costs. The benefits of continuous descent arrival may also take some time to be realized.”
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Research Horizons, Georgia Tech’s research magazine.
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The changes were part of Georgia Tech’s flight-testing of “continuous descent arrivals,” a procedure designed to save fuel and time while producing environmental benefits by reducing both noise and emissions. Involving more than 600 flights, the Atlanta study was done in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), FedEx and Atlanta’s two dominant air carriers: Delta Air Lines and AirTran Airways.
The continuous descent arrival procedure has already been studied at Louisville and Los Angeles airports. Proponents hope the 90-day test at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – currently the nation’s busiest airport – will move the concept one step closer to nationwide implementation. Estimates suggest that continuous descent arrivals could save a large airline as much as $80 million per year in fuel costs alone.
“In commercial aircraft, we see anywhere between 300 and 1,000 pounds of fuel saved for each arrival,” said John-Paul Clarke, director of the Air Transportation Laboratory at Georgia Tech and an associate professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering. “With fuel cost at $3 per gallon, that would amount to as much as $600 per arrival and could really add up for the airlines at a time when they need all the savings they can get.”
Because aircraft engines don’t throttle up and down during a continuous descent arrival, there are also significant reductions in noise and emissions. Keeping engines at idle power can cut emissions of nitrogen oxides by nearly a third, and reduce noise by 6 decibels along certain portions of the flight path – both significant reductions that would improve the environment in the vicinity of airports.
And the technique could cut two minutes off the approach and landing portion of a flight. While that doesn’t seem like much, it could result in more efficient utilization of aircraft and reductions in flight times for crews.
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the nation’s busiest.
Continuous descent arrival is one in a series of improvements aimed at creating the next generation of air transportation technologies. The goal is to redesign the airspace to allow future airliners to travel the most efficient paths to their destinations.
Though the final numbers from the Atlanta evaluation won’t be known for several months, the potential savings have been demonstrated by more than 60,000 landings at Los Angeles with a continuous descent arrival technique developed by Georgia Tech. But adopting the procedure throughout the airspace system won’t be easy. Safety considerations must be paramount, and there are a number of optimization challenges caused by widely varying aircraft types, wind conditions and airport configurations.
“Imagine a line of aircraft descending through a long tube that’s fixed laterally and limited vertically to be within a narrow band,” explained Clarke. “If each airplane were like a ball with a different coefficient of friction, then when you put the balls in the tube at equal intervals, they would begin to catch up with one another. The ball with the lower coefficient would tend to catch up with the ball with a higher coefficient. That’s something that we have to work very hard to avoid.”
While the risks of getting aircraft too close are obvious – and governed by FAA rules on minimum spacing – too much spacing between landing aircraft can waste time and reduce airport throughput.
“The goal is to design a procedure that allows the aircraft engines to throttle back to idle power at the point of initial descent and to remain at idle power along the flight path to the runway as long as possible,“ Clarke added. “We have figured out how to put altitude and speed constraints along the flight path so they can stay at idle power as long as possible while achieving the required minimal spacing at the runway threshold.”
Determining those constraints requires detailed knowledge of the performance of each aircraft type in use. Clarke and his research team have obtained performance data for most Boeing aircraft, as well as some of those manufactured by Airbus. Based on the performance data, they have simulated the operation of each aircraft type under varying wind and weight conditions.
The researchers have also modeled variation in pilot behavior, because small differences in when flaps are deployed and landing gear lowered create variations in speed, which affect aircraft spacing.
Arrivals would be customized for each airport, taking into account wind and traffic patterns. And because the spacing between aircraft is determined well before they arrive at their destinations, adoption of the technique will require changes in the nation’s air traffic control system.
“The air traffic control system currently isn’t designed to allow the kind of fine-tuning we need, but I’m very optimistic about being able to change that,” said Clarke. “Throughout all the areas, the FAA and the airlines, there is a growing acceptance that this is a solution. We have been able to do the analysis, the flight-testing and the number crunching to show that it can be done.”
Clarke, who began the research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before joining Georgia Tech in 2005, believes the cost savings will ensure adoption of continuous descent arrivals. He compared the technique to the adoption of fuel-saving winglets, small vertical attachments that have replaced traditional wingtips on many aircraft.
“For years people knew that winglets provided better performance, but it costs money to install them,” he added. “When fuel got more expensive, airlines started installing winglets because the savings justified the costs. The benefits of continuous descent arrival may also take some time to be realized.”
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Research Horizons, Georgia Tech’s research magazine.
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Monday, December 22, 2008
'The 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy': 2008-09 Rankings Published by Biofuels Digest
/PRNewswire/ -- Cellulosic ethanol pioneer Coskata took the #1 spot in the "50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy" rankings for 2008-09, published today in Biofuels Digest, the online daily bioenergy news service. The list recognizes innovation and achievement in bioenergy development.
Sapphire Energy, Virent Energy Systems, POET, Range Fuels, Solazyme, Amyris Technologies, Mascoma, DuPont Danisco and UOP also were ranked in the top ten.
Among the top 50, 17 are active in cellulosic ethanol development, nine are developing algae-to-energy systems, and nine are producing other advanced biofuels or waste-to-energy technologies. The companies range from start-ups, funded by venture capital and corporate investors, to new divisions of established companies such as DuPont, Genencor, and Honeywell.
Rankings were established by a Biofuels Digest panel, and reflected the importance of research or production achievements recorded by each company in 2008. Votes were weighted by industry and region to ensure a fair and broad representation of companies and technologies.
"Innovation in renewable energy is gaining speed," said Jim Lane, editor and publisher of Biofuels Digest. "A slew of advanced bioenergy systems are coming to market from some of the brightest biologists, chemists, agronomists and engineers in the world. These companies are the hottest of the hot."
Biofuels Digest is the world's most widely read biofuels daily. The Miami, FL-based free online magazine and email newsletter published more than 3,000 news stories on bioenergy in 2008, and serves more than 15,000 daily readers in 195 countries with bioenergy production, research, policy and financial news.
The Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy
1. Coskata
2. Sapphire Energy
3. Virent Energy Systems
4. POET
5. Range Fuels
6. Solazyme
7. Amyris Biotechnologies
8. Mascoma
9. DuPont Danisco
10. UOP
11. ZeaChem
12. Aquaflow Bionomic
13. Bluefire Ethanol
14. Novozymes
15. Qteros
16. Petrobras
17. Cobalt Biofuels
18. Iogen
19. Synthetic Genomics
20. Abengoa Energy
21. KL Energy
22. INEOS
23. GreenFuel
24. Vital Renewable Energy
25. LS9
26. Raven Biofuels
27. Gevo
28. St.1 Biofuels Oy
29. Primafuel
30. Taurus Energy
31. Ceres
32. Syngenta
33. Aurora Biofuels
34. Bionavitas
35. Algenol
36. Verenium
37. Simply Green
38. Carbon Green
39. SEKAB
40. Osage Bioenergy
41. Dynamotive
42. Sustainable Power
43. ETH Bioenergia
44. Choren
45. Origin Oil
46. Propel Fuels
47. GEM Biofuels
48. Lake Erie Biofuels
49. Cavitation Technologies
50. Lotus/Jaguar - Omnivore
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Sapphire Energy, Virent Energy Systems, POET, Range Fuels, Solazyme, Amyris Technologies, Mascoma, DuPont Danisco and UOP also were ranked in the top ten.
Among the top 50, 17 are active in cellulosic ethanol development, nine are developing algae-to-energy systems, and nine are producing other advanced biofuels or waste-to-energy technologies. The companies range from start-ups, funded by venture capital and corporate investors, to new divisions of established companies such as DuPont, Genencor, and Honeywell.
Rankings were established by a Biofuels Digest panel, and reflected the importance of research or production achievements recorded by each company in 2008. Votes were weighted by industry and region to ensure a fair and broad representation of companies and technologies.
"Innovation in renewable energy is gaining speed," said Jim Lane, editor and publisher of Biofuels Digest. "A slew of advanced bioenergy systems are coming to market from some of the brightest biologists, chemists, agronomists and engineers in the world. These companies are the hottest of the hot."
Biofuels Digest is the world's most widely read biofuels daily. The Miami, FL-based free online magazine and email newsletter published more than 3,000 news stories on bioenergy in 2008, and serves more than 15,000 daily readers in 195 countries with bioenergy production, research, policy and financial news.
The Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy
1. Coskata
2. Sapphire Energy
3. Virent Energy Systems
4. POET
5. Range Fuels
6. Solazyme
7. Amyris Biotechnologies
8. Mascoma
9. DuPont Danisco
10. UOP
11. ZeaChem
12. Aquaflow Bionomic
13. Bluefire Ethanol
14. Novozymes
15. Qteros
16. Petrobras
17. Cobalt Biofuels
18. Iogen
19. Synthetic Genomics
20. Abengoa Energy
21. KL Energy
22. INEOS
23. GreenFuel
24. Vital Renewable Energy
25. LS9
26. Raven Biofuels
27. Gevo
28. St.1 Biofuels Oy
29. Primafuel
30. Taurus Energy
31. Ceres
32. Syngenta
33. Aurora Biofuels
34. Bionavitas
35. Algenol
36. Verenium
37. Simply Green
38. Carbon Green
39. SEKAB
40. Osage Bioenergy
41. Dynamotive
42. Sustainable Power
43. ETH Bioenergia
44. Choren
45. Origin Oil
46. Propel Fuels
47. GEM Biofuels
48. Lake Erie Biofuels
49. Cavitation Technologies
50. Lotus/Jaguar - Omnivore
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Siemens and USDA/ARS Partner in Pilot to Convert Second Generation Biofuel Feedstocks to Fuels and Chemicals
PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. and the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) that will improve the processes used to convert second generation, non-food-based, biofuel feedstocks, including perennial grasses, animal wastes and agricultural residues such as corn stover, into liquid bio-fuel intermediates, such as bio-oil.
As part of the CRADA, Logical Innovations of Richmond, Va., will work with researchers at USDA/ARS's Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) in Wyndmoor, Pa., to improve on pyrolysis oil production via innovative control technologies. They will install a distributed control system (DCS) based on Siemens SIMATIC(R) PCS 7 Box technology on ERRC's bench scale, fluidized bed pyrolysis system that heats the biomass in a reactor and converts it to liquid bio-oil, bio-char, and synthetic gas. The project will be commissioned in late 2008.
"We think distributed control will help accelerate second generation biofuels and biochemicals development by improving the repeatability, consistency and efficiency of our research processes," said USDA/ARS Research Leader Dr. Kevin Hicks.
According to Dave Hankins, vice president of Siemens Chemical and Pharmaceutical Center of Competence, the PCS 7 Box technology provides a new level of flexibility to biofuels producers, as well as improves worker safety and equipment protection.
"Siemens is proud to partner with the USDA in this important, environmentally friendly, pilot program," Hankins said. "This investment in the future of second generation feedstocks is another example of Siemens commitment to alternative fuel development and production. New feedstocks that can be quickly and easily processed will benefit the nation and the biochemicals and biofuels industries."
About Siemens:
Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. is one of Siemens' operating companies in the U.S. Headquartered in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Ga., Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. manufactures and markets one of the world's broadest ranges of electrical and electronic products, systems and services to industrial and construction market customers. Its technologies range from circuit protection and energy management systems to process control, industrial software and totally integrated automation solutions. The company also has expertise in systems integration, technical services and turnkey industrial systems. For more information: www.sea.siemens.com.
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As part of the CRADA, Logical Innovations of Richmond, Va., will work with researchers at USDA/ARS's Eastern Regional Research Center (ERRC) in Wyndmoor, Pa., to improve on pyrolysis oil production via innovative control technologies. They will install a distributed control system (DCS) based on Siemens SIMATIC(R) PCS 7 Box technology on ERRC's bench scale, fluidized bed pyrolysis system that heats the biomass in a reactor and converts it to liquid bio-oil, bio-char, and synthetic gas. The project will be commissioned in late 2008.
"We think distributed control will help accelerate second generation biofuels and biochemicals development by improving the repeatability, consistency and efficiency of our research processes," said USDA/ARS Research Leader Dr. Kevin Hicks.
According to Dave Hankins, vice president of Siemens Chemical and Pharmaceutical Center of Competence, the PCS 7 Box technology provides a new level of flexibility to biofuels producers, as well as improves worker safety and equipment protection.
"Siemens is proud to partner with the USDA in this important, environmentally friendly, pilot program," Hankins said. "This investment in the future of second generation feedstocks is another example of Siemens commitment to alternative fuel development and production. New feedstocks that can be quickly and easily processed will benefit the nation and the biochemicals and biofuels industries."
About Siemens:
Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. is one of Siemens' operating companies in the U.S. Headquartered in the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta, Ga., Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc. manufactures and markets one of the world's broadest ranges of electrical and electronic products, systems and services to industrial and construction market customers. Its technologies range from circuit protection and energy management systems to process control, industrial software and totally integrated automation solutions. The company also has expertise in systems integration, technical services and turnkey industrial systems. For more information: www.sea.siemens.com.
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