Political Ecology

Driving through Vail, Colorado, the colors of the landscape are impossible to ignore. Glancing out of a car window you cant help but notice the crystal clear water, blue skies, green vegetation and… rusty red trees?With nearly 80 percent of the lodge pole pine trees in the Vail Valley expected to die within the next [...]

The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected 8 research projects for funding that will focus on gasification of coal/biomass to produce synthetic gas (syngas) as a pathway to producing power, hydrogen, fuel or chemicals. The total value of the projects is approximately $8.2 million, with $6.4 million of DOE funding and $1.8 million of [...]

This paper, which is the first part of a series of papers, introduces a hybrid coal, biomass, and natural gas to liquids (CBGTL) process that can produce transportation fuels in ratios consistent with current U.S. transportation fuel demands. Using the principles of the H2Car process, an almost-100% feedstock carbon conversion is attained using hydrogen produced [...]

‘Enhanced Biomass-to-Liquid’ (EBtL) refers to BtL processes (biomass gasification and liquid fuel synthesis) with a significant increase in fuel production by means of external energy inputs. The conversion yield of biomass carbon into fuel carbon is multiplied by a factor of 3 in comparison with existing (autothermal) gasification processes. The technical options of such processes [...]

Biofuel pellets were prepared from biomass (pine, chestnut and eucalyptus sawdust, cellulose residue, coffee husks and grape waste) and from blends of biomass with two coals (bituminous and semianthracite). Their mechanical properties and combustion behaviour were studied by means of an abrasion index and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), respectively, in order to select the best raw [...]

The main objective of this paper is to find the optimum operating condition to upgrade the EFB-derived pyrolysis oil (bio-oil) to liquid fuel, mainly gasoline using Taguchi Method. From the analysis that has been done, it is found that the optimum operating condition for heterogeneous catalytic cracking process is at 400 °C, 15 min of [...]

At the Biomass Research Centre – University of Perugia some LCA studies were carried out on different biomass chains, using a detailed software (Simapro 7.0) and the EcoIndicator 99 model in order to evaluate the global burden. Results showed that EcoIndicator 99 lacks some important features (e.g. freshwater consumption, nutrient emissions into water, soil erosion) [...]