Pecologix Political Ecology Blotter

► Water-containing ethanol was mixed with diesel using biodiesel and butanol as stabilizer and co-solvent, respectively. ► Fuel blends with 4 v% water-containing ethanol, 1 v% butanol, 5–30 v% biodiesel and conventional diesel yielded a stable blended fuel after more than 30 days. ► Due to more complete combustion and water quench effect, target fuel [...]

In addition to looking at market access, in the form of blender pump and ethanol pipeline investments – the ethanol industry may well need to look carefully at its strategy to distribute E85 ethanol at a 25 percent discount to gasoline on a wider basis, and work carefully with automakers on rapidly increasing the number [...]

This year, Cole Gustafson led a research project that looked at the feasibility of sugarbeet ethanol in North Dakota. The finding? A breakeven ethanol price of $1.52 per gallon for a 20 million gallon plant – well below the $2.58 per gallon price for ethanol reported yesterday in Chicago by OPIS, and the $2.78 prices [...]

OverviewThe E-Fuel MicroFueler™ is the world’s first portable ethanol micro-refinery system; it replaces the traditional ethanol reflux column system with a solid state distillation technology, making it possible for homeowners and small businesses to safely and cost-effectively create their own fuel, on-site.The E-Fuel Corporation’s technological breakthrough significantly reduces the size and weight of traditional fermentation [...]

A complete process for the production of bioethanol and fungal biomass from spruce and birch was investigated. The process included milling, pretreatment with N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO), washing of the pretreated wood, enzymatic hydrolysis, and cultivation of the zygomycetes fungi Mucor indicus. Investigated factors included wood chip size (0.5–16 mm), pretreatment time (1–5 h), and scale of [...]

The economy of the production of lignocellulosic ethanol could be supported by the simultaneous use of different components of the biomass other than sugars. Among these, protein is present at high concentration in leaves and is a candidate for different possible utilizations. Among dietary applications, plant protein may be used as animal feed and possibly [...]

Algae are efficient biocatalysts for both capture and conversion of carbon dioxide in the environment. In earlier work, we have optimized the ability of Chlorella vulgaris to rapidly capture CO2 from man-made emission sources by varying environmental growth conditions and bioreactor design. Here we demonstrate that a coupled biodiesel-bioethanol facility, using yeast to produce ethanol [...]