“This could be the most exciting and significant development in alternative fuels in years,” Lovley says. His microbial electrosynthesis (ME) process is carbon neutral and uses solar energy more efficiently than plants. In fact, it provides a solution to one of the major problems of using solar panels to produce electricity: Storage. This technique immediately turns solar power directly into chemicals, which are then readily stored with existing infrastructure and distributed on demand.

Further, ME requires no biomass feedstock or arable land, uses far less water and requires no elaborate post-production fermentation, for example. And, once established, the microbial cells and electrode food sources don’t get used up, so they are more than 90 percent efficient at turning electrons into fuel without further processing. Lovley and colleagues published their experimental results and discuss implications in the current, May issue of mBIO, an online journal of the American Society of Microbiology.

Findings are being presented this week at the American Society for Microbiology’s annual meeting in San Diego, which runs from May 23–27.

“One reason this process is so exciting is that we go directly from carbon dioxide to fuel, bypassing all kinds of difficulties encountered in producing fuels from biomass. We’re very excited about the high efficiencies and the promise of extremely high payback for the investment in this new alternative energy process,” says Lovley.

At present, their bench-top process produces small quantities of fuel, but a recent $1 million initial grant from the U.S. Department of Energy means work at UMass Amherst will proceed on developing larger scale production. The grant and recent recognition of his lab as one of the nation’s most promising alternative energy incubators were gratifying, but Lovley says he’s even more thrilled to be developing a technology that could decisively free us from dependence on greenhouse gas-emitting foreign oil.

This new technology is based on the discovery in the UMass Amherst lab that some bacteria can feed on electrons delivered by electrodes. These microbes live on the electrodes and use electrons released from them as their food source. “This is basically a new form of photosynthesis, in which carbon dioxide and water are combined to produce organic compounds, and oxygen is released as a byproduct,” Lovley explains.

Electric energy powers the microbes to “breathe in” carbon dioxide and “exhale” fuels and chemicals. Any source of electricity will do, but the technology is primarily designed to be used with solar panels as a source of clean, renewable solar energy. A notable advantage to this new method is that the photovoltaics, or solar panels, can harvest solar energy 100 times more effectively than plants.

Right now the main product is acetate or acetyl-Co A, a basic building block or “central intermediate” from which all sorts of fuels and other chemicals can be easily produced, notably butanol, which is a direct replacement for gasoline and deliverable through existing pipelines. “Acetyl-Co A is central to all biology and bacteria can be directed to make almost anything from this,” Lovley says.

In practical terms, the closed ME system Lovley envisions could be located anywhere sunlight is available, and harvested with an array of solar panels. As he explains, “It’s a two-electrode system. One electrode extracts electrons from water and produces oxygen as a byproduct. The electrons travel to the second electrode where the bacteria are, and they take in carbon dioxide and spit out acetate. With further engineering the bacteria are expected to also be able to produce fuels or other valuable commercial chemicals, for example, butanediol, used to make plastics. ”

If positioned next to a smokestack, the process could reduce the carbon footprint of existing CO2 emitters such as power plants, Lovley confirms.

“This is the first time anywhere that a premium renewable diesel fuel will be tested across a range of different cars,” says Neste Oil’s Executive Vice President, Oil Retail, Sakari Toivola.

The trial will include private individuals and Neste Oil employees. Test drivers from outside the company will trial Neste Green 100 diesel from mid-May to Midsummer, while test drivers recruited from the company’s employees have begun today and will continue after Midsummer. Drivers will fill up at selected Neste Oil service stations in Greater Helsinki.

Neste Oil is looking forward to the results of the trial with interest. Previous trials have shown that Neste Oil’s renewable diesel offers significant advantages compared to conventional biodiesel. The fuel’s greenhouse gas emissions over its entire life cycle are 40-80% lower than those of fossil diesel, and its tailpipe emissions are also lower.

“The majority of Neste Oil stations in Finland already offer Neste Green diesel, which contains a minimum of 10% renewable diesel blended with conventional diesel fuel,” says Sakari Toivola. “We plan to make Neste Green 100 diesel, which is produced form 100% renewable sources, available to motorists as soon as possible.”

The CPUC approval includes the installation of four FCE 1.4 megawatts (MW) fuel cell power plants at four state universities in California. PG&E’s Fuel Cell Project will include the installation and operation of two FCE 1.4 MW facilities at California State University-East Bay and San Francisco State. The fuel cells plan to utilize the byproducts of the energy conversion process, including waste heat and water to meet the campus needs including thermal demand for heating the swimming pool at CSU-East Bay and using excess water for landscape irrigation. Southern California Edison’s Fuel Cell Project will include two FCE 1.4 MW units located at CSU-San Bernardino and CSU-Long Beach. The fuel cells will interconnect and operate in parallel with Edison’s distribution system and utilize the byproduct heat.

This approval is part of a program to support ultra clean distributed power generation. Distributed generation can provide increased reliability, power quality and energy security. The fuel cell power plants are expected to be configured to generate base load electricity for the facilities in addition to recovering the surplus heat byproduct for heating needs. This configuration can achieve up to 80% efficiency. Additionally, because fuel cells produce power electro-chemically, without combustion, they produce near-zero harmful emissions.

In conjunction with the installation of the fuel cell power plants, the state universities are expected to incorporate fuel cell technology into their respective curriculums to teach students and the public about the benefits of fuel cell systems. In the application for approval filed with the CPUC, F. King Alexander, President California State University – Long Beach was quoted from a letter of support stating, “A fuel cell system on campus would not only be a great addition to our energy infrastructure but would also be a significant educational opportunity for students to learn and experience emerging clean power technology.”

The State of California is one of the country’s leading environmental advocates with over 75 different incentive programs and laws to encourage the use of clean energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, AB32 caps carbon dioxide emissions while the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard requires 33% clean energy generation by 2020 and the Government Office Building initiative aims to reduce state-owned energy use by 20% (1,935 MW) by 2015 from a 2003 baseline. Additionally, the California Air Resources Board’s CARB07 strictly regulates distributed generation power plants, specifying limits for emissions of nitrous oxides, carbon monoxide and volatile organic compounds. FuelCell Energy products meet all of these stringent emission requirements.

Chief Executive Dr. Carl Kukkonen recently returned from business meetings with eight biomass energy companies in India. He also made an invited presentation and served on two special interest panels at the World Renewable Energy Technology Congress held March 18-20 at the Le Meridien Hotel in New Delhi.

Kukkonen remarked that biomass power plants in India use agricultural waste such as rice husks, mustard plants, corn straw, cotton straw and many other crop leftovers as fuel. However, due to increasing demand for these materials, agricultural waste is becoming scarce, and prices are rising dramatically. In addition, agricultural waste is seasonal, and its quality as a fuel source varies depending on what crop is available. As a result, power plant owners are aggressively seeking alternative, reliable and lower-cost sources of renewable biomass for fuel.

“I believe this condition has created an attractive opportunity for Giant King Grass to meet the needs of this large market for renewable energy,” Kukkonen stated. “The fuel quality of Giant King Grass is superior to current materials being used. The climate in India is also great for growing Giant King Grass, which can be planted and harvested continuously. This ‘just-in-time’ advantage means simpler fuel logistics and less biomass storage. And based on our experience with cultivating Giant King Grass, it can be grown in India at a lower price than they currently pay for agricultural waste.”

According to Kukkonen, one of the Indian companies has already visited the Company’s grass operation in China, and confidentiality agreements have been signed with several companies in order to proceed with further steps in business discussions.

India plans to very significantly raise its total output of electric energy. India’s population of 1.2 billion people is four times that of the United States; however, India uses only about one-tenth the electricity per capita compared to the United States. An Indian official at the Congress stated that the country’s goal is to initially provide electricity to its 40% of poor citizens, and then raise the country’s electricity use to near Western country levels, which would require a 40-fold increase in electricity output. However, to achieve that goal using fossil fuels, India’s fuel consumption and carbon emissions would be 40 times higher than it is today and generate four times the carbon emissions of the United States. India plans to use large amounts of renewable and low carbon energy to meet its electricity goals.

To promote the use of renewable, low-carbon energy, India provides guaranteed subsidies for electricity generated from biomass and other renewable, low carbon emitting sources. The country already has many direct combustion biomass power plants in the size of 5 to 20 megawatts, and biogas power plants of about 1 to 2 MW each. In addition to the government subsidies, these power plants earn carbon credits which add a substantial amount to their profitability.

Kukkonen’s presentation at the Congress was entitled “Giant King Grass for Biomass Electricity Generation, Biogas Production and Cellulosic Biofuels”. The presentation provides an update on Giant King Grass and is available to download on the lower right-hand side of the homepage of the VIASPACE website www.VIASPACE.com. The Congress was sponsored by the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. (ONGC), the Indian national oil and gas company, and by other companies. There were more than 500 attendees from 26 countries.

The companies would evaluate installation of a demonstration-scale unit to produce green transportation fuels at an existing IOCL site using non-food feedstocks available within India. IOCL and Honeywell’s UOP would also evaluate the viability of pyrolysis oil technology to convert lignocellulosic materials, or plant biomass, into renewable power and heat.

IOCL would also focus on research and development for the production of algal oil for use as a feedstock in the green fuels production.

“This collaboration is focused on the development of viable and sustainable green fuels that will enable reduced greenhouse gas emissions in India,” said Jennifer Holmgren, vice president and general manager of Honeywell UOP’s Renewable Energy and Chemicals business unit. “We are honored to work with IOCL to support this initiative and movement toward a reduced carbon footprint in India.”

“We have to reduce the carbon footprint of our business operations at least by 25 percent from the present level. It is not only our moral responsibility, but also necessary for sustaining the growth of our business. Green operation will allow us to reduce costs by reducing the energy intensity of our operations and thereby becoming cost competitive. It also helps us produce more from the same or even less inputs. We are looking forward to working with UOP to bring together our respective areas of expertise and achieve these goals,” said Mr. Anand Kumar, director of research and development for IOCL.

The UOP/Eni Ecofining™ process uses catalytic hydroprocessing technology to convert natural oils and animal fats to Honeywell Green Diesel™ fuel. The product, which is chemically indistinguishable from traditional diesel fuel, offers improved performance including a higher cetane value, excellent cold-flow performance and reduced emissions over both biodiesel and petroleum-based diesel. Green Diesel offers value as a blending stock for refiners seeking to enhance existing diesel fuels and expand the diesel pool.

Honeywell’s UOP has also developed process technology to produce Honeywell Green Jet™ fuel under a contract from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for both military and commercial aircraft. The process produces a fuel that meets all critical specifications for flight while offering reduced emissions and improved energy density to enable aircraft to fly farther on less fuel.

In 2008, Honeywell’s UOP formed the joint venture Envergent Technologies LLC with Ensyn Corp. to offer RTP® rapid thermal processing technology that converts biomass such as forest waste or agricultural residuals into pyrolysis oil, which can be used to generate heat and power.

“The report, prepared for the European Commission, shows that Brazilian sugarcane ethanol production will have virtually no impact on food prices, is highly competitive on the European market and provides the most significant reduction in greenhouse gases (GHG),” says UNICA’s Chief Representative in the European Union, Emmanuel Desplechin.

UNICA welcomed the Commission’s efforts to engage independent experts in its assessments but called for improvements in the current analysis. “The report currently contains a certain number of inaccuracies, so once these are corrected, we anticipate even higher benefits resulting from the use of Brazilian sugarcane ethanol. For example, the type of land for sugarcane expansion highlighted in the report does not take into consideration the agro-ecological zoning for sugarcane in Brazil, which prevents cane from expanding into any type of native vegetation,” Desplechin added.

A 2008 study published by The Netherlands’ Wageningen University forecast that about 62% of the expansion of sugarcane in South-Central Brazil, the heart of the country’s sugarcane harvesting region, would take place primarily on pasture land, while 37,8% would happen in lands previously occupied by other crops. The projection covered the period from 2008 to 2018.

As Europe progresses towards workable solutions to reduce global climate gases, one of the world’s biggest challenges, UNICA is urging the European Commission to engage in a comprehensive stakeholder consultation process, to ensure accuracy of data, multiplicity of positions and constructive recommendations for improvement.

“An open and transparent consultation process will enable European policy makers to reach decisions that meet equally the interest of markets, consumers and the environment,” Desplechin said. “As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the State of California have recognized, Brazilian sugarcane ethanol is an advanced, low carbon biofuel that dramatically reduces greenhouse gas emissions. Sustainably-produced, sugarcane ethanol’s environmental performance can reduce Europe’s carbon footprint and help meet the 10% target of renewable energy use in its transport sector,” Desplechin concluded.

Launch of new and upgraded fuels will enable the citizens of Delhi and the NCR to use environment friendly transportation fuels of international standards. 10 years back Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, in association with Delhi Govt., started an ambitious programme to supply CNG for all Public Transport vehicles along with PNG for domestic use. Delhi was one of the world’s 10 most polluted cities, with vehicles contributing about 65 per cent of the polluting emissions. Delhi has now transformed itself into a show piece with improved and safe air quality and its entire public transport fleet converted to run on Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) at a scale unparalleled anywhere else. Indraprastha Gas Limited (IGL) provides CNG to nearly 3,50,000 vehicles, including about 2 lakh private vehicles. This effort by IGL has significantly contributed in reducing pollution in Delhi. The launch of BS-IV fuels will further strengthen the State Government’s efforts for a cleaner and greener city.

Runaway growth in consumption of Petrol and Diesel in the recent past, and constraints, both economic and physical, in executing fuel quality upgradation projects at the refineries added to the problems of the oil companies. While most refineries have completed and commissioned the fuel quality upgradation projects for both BS-IV and BS-III Petrol and Diesel, the remaining ones are in the final stages of completion.

The hydrogen will supply the state-of-the-art hydrogen fueling station developed and to be installed by Air Products at the Orange County Sanitation District’s (OCSD) wastewater treatment facility in Fountain Valley, California. The system will be fueled with biogas from wastewater treatment operations and produce 300 kilowatts of power and up to 300 pounds of hydrogen per day. This hydrogen could be used for early market fuel cell applications such as back up power and forklifts and is sufficient to fuel roughly 100 fuel cell cars. The electricity will be available for use by OCSD for its operations.

“The award of the prime contracts giving rise to the announced subcontracts is a clear acknowledgment by DOE and California of the importance of using a renewable resource such as biogas to generate energy,” said Christopher Bentley, FuelCell Energy’s Executive Vice President of Government Research & Development Operations. “Our research indicates that hydrogen efficiently produced as a byproduct by the DFC-H2® can be less costly than hydrogen produced by other methods and can enable the expansion of ultra-clean, hydrogen production systems worldwide, while providing the benefits of distributed power generation.”

During the past two years under the ongoing DOE program, FuelCell Energy and Air Products have developed a co-production test unit and successfully validated the test unit in 2009 at FuelCell Energy’s research and development facility. The test unit produced hydrogen and power meeting the predeployment testing objectives in advance of its siting at OCSD.

“In a given hour, more energy from sunlight strikes the earth than the entire planet consumes in a year, but solar cells currently contribute less than 0.1 percent of electricity supply — primarily as a result of cost,” said Dr. David Mitzi, who leads the team at IBM Research that developed the solar cell. “The quest to develop a solar technology that can compare on a cost per watt basis with the conventional electricity generation, and also offer the ability to deploy at the terawatt level, has become a major challenge that our research is moving us closer to overcoming.”

The IBM researchers describe their achievement of the thin-film photovoltaic technology in a paper published in Advanced Materials this week, highlighting the solar cell’s potential to accomplish the goal of producing low-cost energy that can be used widely and commercially.

The solar cell development also sets itself apart from its predecessors as it was created using a combination of solution and nanoparticle-based approaches, rather than the popular, but expensive vacuum-based technique. The production change is expected to enable much lower fabrication costs, as it is consistent with high-throughput and high materials utilization based deposition techniques including printing, dip and spray coating and slit casting.

Currently available thin film solar cell modules based upon compound semiconductors operate at 9 to 11 percent efficiency levels, and are primarily made from two costly compounds — copper indium gallium selenide or cadmium telluride. Attempts to create affordable, earth abundant solar cells from related compounds that are free of indium, gallium or cadmium have not exceeded 6.7 percent, compared to IBM’s new 9.6 efficiency rating.

The station opening today – at JFK international airport – is the result of a partnership between Shell, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the US Department of Energy and General Motors. A third station in the Bronx, due to open late in July, has been developed with the New York City Department of Sanitation. A station has been operating in the City of White Plains, New York, since April 2008.

The cluster of stations will provide New York drivers of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles with greater flexibility and convenience. It is a significant step on from stand-alone, demonstration stations and is part of Shell’s strategy to build expertise in the distribution and dispensing of hydrogen.

“The prospects for hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are strong in the longer-term”, said Duncan Macleod, Shell Vice President of Hydrogen. “This first cluster is an important step as we continue to build capability in retailing hydrogen fuel, in line with the auto makers’ plans to develop hydrogen vehicles.”

Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward said: “Through efforts with governmental and corporate partners, the Port Authority leads by example towards the goal of sustainability. The opening of this hydrogen pumping facility is another positive step for the region and the globe. I want to personally thank everyone at Shell for helping to bring this project to fruition.”

NYC Sanitation Commissioner John J. Doherty said: “As all city agencies strive to reach the goals of Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC initiative and bring a sustainable future to all New Yorkers, public-private partnerships like the hydrogen cluster project announced today will be critical to our success.”

The average range of a hydrogen fuel-cell vehicle is between 150 and 200 miles (240-320 km). The three hydrogen stations in New York are within approximately 30 miles (50 km) of each other.