Mean Green

When one discusses biofuels, one is usually talking about biodiesel. Biodiesel is an amazing breakthrough in fuel technology that can save a person an amazing amount of money in transportation costs. With the current state of the economy motivating people to reduce costs and with the growing awareness and support of environmental responsibility, many people have turned to biodiesel as a way to not only save money, but to do their part to help the environment as well.

Biodiesel is a hybrid of standard diesel and vegetable oil mixed together at certain proportions that is capable of running a standard diesel engine. The fact that biodiesel is made largely of vegetable oil makes this fuel cost significantly less than regular diesel. Furthermore, many have found that the vegetable oil that they mix with the regular diesel does not have to be fresh oil, but can be used oil that fast food restaurants would otherwise have thrown away. People are usually able to obtain this used oil for free, which makes biodiesel even cheaper.

Once a person has the ingredients, it is possible to mix and refine them into biodiesel with their own homemade refinery. This is not a dangerous proposition, as long as the liquids are well contained, and is fairly easy to accomplish. There are an abundance of resources in print and online that will show one how to build an affordable biodiesel refinery that is safe to have in a garage, shed or on a porch.

In the early stages, critics of biodiesel complained that the chemical makeup of the biofuel was such that it would tend to clog fuel injectors and would cause fuel pumps to burn out. While this may have been the case early on, today’s methods of mixing biodiesel have evolved to avoid these problems and do not pose a threat to ones vehicle. The engine power and torque one can get from biodiesel is almost identical to regular diesel.

The emissions from biodiesel still contain a certain amount of hydro carbons and pollutants, but at levels dramatically lower than regular diesel, since the vegetable oil by products burn so cleanly. By running a vehicle on biodiesel, one can save a dramatic amount of money, many times over half of what they were paying to run the vehicle on standard diesel.

I am just back from spending a week with 250 agricultural journalists from all over the world. The International Federation of Agricultural Journalists congress is an annual event that meets each year in a different country. This year we visited Austria and Slovenia – next year the congress will come to the United States and we will entertain the group in Fort Worth, Texas. It is always interesting to get perspectives on agriculture from other countries. Biofuels production was a big topic of discussion and many people that I talked to were very interested in the progress being made in the US toward cellulosic ethanol. We visited a wood biomass plant in Austria, but their focus is using that for energy production, rather than liquid biofuels. Of course, food versus fuel was a topic of discussion. The organizer and president of this year’s congress was former European Union agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler, who is a native Austrian. He calls the food versus fuel controversy “unfair.” “They don’t differentiate between food price and agriculture price and the agriculture price is usually only a small component of the final food product,” Fischler told me during an interview about biofuels production in Austria. Fischler says that second generation biofuels will be key in meeting long term renewable fuels goals for all countries, but it has to start with first generation ethanol from corn. “That’s why we have to start now,” he added. Austria has ten biodiesel plants but so far only one ethanol plant. “It seems to me that biodiesel is the most difficult concept as far as sustainability is concerned,” Fischler said, mainly because soybeans and other oilseeds are less economical to grow in that region, compared to corn.

ght (c) 2009 Wes Fernley

Remember when you were a child and the family sat in front of the fireplace after dinner on a cold, snowy evening? The warmth of the fire was only part of the reason those times are so memorable. The flickering logs and the smell of burning hickory wood all contributed to the physical and emotional warmth the roaring fireplace brought to those evenings. Nowadays, if we stoke our fireplaces, we feel guilty because we are consuming trees, those magical, natural, renewable (but threatened) sources for so many of the comforts we take for granted in this age of consumption.

Never before has so much paper (made, of course, from those precious trees) flooded every aspect of our lives. We can’t keep up with the piles that arrive in our mailboxes. Recycling centers even have separate containers for newspapers and magazines. It’s impossible to think of what we would give up in our comfortable lives if we didn’t have trees. For that reason, burning it in our fireplaces seems an outrageous waste.

The good news is that we don’t have to give up our fireplaces or the warmth and satisfaction they bring. We can use other fuels, and with a set of artificial logs, we will still get much of the same satisfaction. If we want the smell that comes only from logs, there are many artificial sources for that, too.

The ventless fireplace has been in the market place for some time now. In other words, a chimney is not required for these fireplaces. They can burn gel fuel or gas—either propane or natural. These fireplaces come with realistic-looking logs and usually don’t cost a lot to operate. The purchase price for a freestanding one is quite low—beginning generally at about $500. Vented fireplace inserts that use either propane or natural gas and have realistic logs have also been on the market for several years and are not very expensive but must be installed by a professional.

Now comes the best solution of all for those who hanker for the fireplace of their childhood without the guilt that comes with burning nonrenewable fuels: fireplaces that burn biofuel. The good news is that they can be obtained in either ventless or vent-free setups. In other words, if you already have a chimney, you can install a bio-fuel burner; however, if you don’t have a chimney, you can buy the ventless model providing you have good air circulation in the room.

These are ideal for the user who suffers from allergies because no smoke or airborne particles will be released. They can even be mounted on a wall.

The fuel is produced from agricultural crops and does not pose a hazard to the environment. Forty percent more efficient than gas, a liter can burn for up to five hours. While it gives off a little steam and a very tiny amount of carbon dioxide, the amount is so small that it doesn’t create greenhouse gases. The fireplace itself is a bit more pricey than gas models. The fuel, itself, can be ordered via subscription with 12 liters a month costing a little over $100 per month.

The Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG), formerly and still commonly known as Fuel Duty Rebate (FDR), is something those that operate local bus services are able to claim. There are however a number of requirements that have to be met that will qualify an operator for the bus service operators grant according to Section 19 of the Transport Act of 1985.

 

Aside from holding a Section 19 permit, eligible operators should provide evidence that they are operated by non-profit business entities and prove that they provide service to:

 



Individuals at least 60 years of age

Disabled individuals

Individuals on income support

Individuals on job seeker’s allowance

Persons influenced by social exclusion whether by poverty, cultural principles, religious inclinations or health issues

Individuals assisting any of the aforementioned



 

 

There were however a number of amendments to the  Bus Service Operators Grant in 2004(England and Wales). These stipulated that the criteria for the qualification of the Bus Service Operators Grant now included that at least half of the spaces available on the bus should be available to members of the general public. This amendment also takes the stops into account in the sense that they should be marked and located for public convenience.

 

In cases where stops are not clearly designated, the public should be able to disembark at locations of their choice on a regular basis. In addition, the service should provide passengers with the ability to make a single journey between two locations and he fee thereof should remain reasonable. The Payment of the aforementioned fee should also be at a location and during a time which is of convenience to the passengers. Finally, those applicants for the Bus Service Operators Grant should expressly aim to include all groups within society and supply sufficient public information regarding operating times and stop locations.

 

According to Internet sources there are additional rebate benefits for certain members of the Bus Service Operators Grant. These specify that should the bus service be making use of biofuel, then the rebate will amount to 100 percent of the fuel duty. This is contrasted to those within the Bus Service Operators Grant community that receive an 80 percent rebate as they are making use of conventional fuels.

 

So, to sum it all up, you are eligible for the Bus Service Operators Grant if you provide at least 50 percent of the seating (or standing areas) on your bus to the general public in a specific geographical area which has a certain number of well marked stops at a reasonable price. Showing consideration to disadvantaged and aged individuals with regard to the fee of their travel will also count toward your eligibility. The initiative of the government seems set to focus on combining the Bus Service Operators Grant objective with environment friendliness as well as the specific service provider’s performance.

 

For more information on the Bus Service Operators Grant as well as the original publications, visit The Department For Transport website

 

 

Biofuels are created by converting organic matters into fuel so that mankind can be supplied with energy. The biofuels represent alternative ways to stop using the fossil fuels which are already depleting for the near future. Biofuels include under this designation ethanol, derivatives of plants namely sugar cane, corn oils and vegetables. Nonetheless, not all products made from ethanol can be used to generate power. The agency catering for international energy has concluded that ethanol can be used to supply ten percent of the total amounts of gasoline necessary to mankind starting from 2025, and thirty percent of it until 2050. Until now, the percentage remains relatively low, only two percent.

Nonetheless, we can still find a solution to make way for economic and practical changes in the ways biofuels will affect the current and future trends in energy. Studies carried out by scientists have pointed out so far that biofuel can be as much energy efficient as petroleum and traditional fossil fuels. With this in mind, we can easily make an impression on which one will prove to be the most effective in the long term. We need incredulous amounts of energy to provide input energy and this can be done by ensuring that we find some sort of energy source that will not deplete itself. Currently, fossil fuel resources are being depleted at high levels, therefore it is important to have a backup plan that might become the norm in some years from now on. Research has also pointed out that products made from corn ethanol derived sources is twenty percent efficient, compared to the relative success of gasoline, accounting for seventy five percent energy efficiency.

Therefore, it is important to point out that despite the fact that alternative energies and thus biofuels are under research, the ethanol derived from cellulose proved to be eighty five percent efficient, therefore even more that the efficiency of gasoline.

For instance, analysis inside the NYSE, the stock exchange of New York, predict a much wider scale and availability of biofuels to be used to create energy. By spanning the area of the impact of this technology, oil prices can be reduced and thus they can even drop under the crude amount of forty dollars per barrel or even less. Therefore, it is easily possible and predictable that the alternative energy industry would definitely have a negative impact on fossil fuel industries. Some analyses predict that alternative energies, thus biofuels will supply seven percent of total energy demands for transportation by 2030. Therefore, the energy market will definitely be affected in an irreversible way that will make institutions and government authorities unable to regulate the impact of biofuels. If the government nonetheless, agrees to subsidize firm and thus encourage the distribution of biofuels, then the eco friendly alternative will stand more chances in becoming the norm.

Worldwide, there are more nations involved and committed to promoting the usage of biofuels against the usage of more traditional fuels.

These countries include Brazil, who occurs to be the biggest producer of ethanol of them all. It produces ethanol mainly from sugar, around half a billion gallons each year of ethanol production.

While it is the largest consumer of fuels on earth at the moment, the US is also the second largest country producing biofuels, just behind Brazil. Thus, the biofuel quantity produced by the European Union amounts for up to four million tons of biofuel. About eighty percent of the amount of biodiesel fuels coming from the EU is obtained from rapeseed; the rest of it comes from soybean oils and well as some palm oil quantity . These sources represent the remaining twenty percent of the production of biofuel in Europe.

In 2009 the average, American household spent $2,200 annually on energy; and approximately half of that money was for heating and cooling. However, washing clothes in cold water saves money because up to 90% of the cost of washing clothes comes from heating water. Changing the thermostat by a degree for 8 hours a day – while homeowners are at work or asleep – saves 2% on heating or cooling. Sealing electric outlets in exterior walls with inexpensive foam gaskets keeps heated or cooled air from leaking out. It seems being energetic saves energy.

California will be the first state to save energy by imposing energy efficiency standards for televisions. As televisions increased in size, residential energy use attributed to televisions increased from 3%-4% in the 1990′s to 8%-10% in 2008. If nothing was done, the percentage was expected to reach 18% by 2023. As of January 2011, however, televisions 58 inches and smaller must consume 33% less electricity. By 2013 they must consume 49% less. Considering these new energy standards are expected to save California consumers $1 billion annually, the California Energy Commission’s unanimous vote put vision into television.

New vision is responsible for getting more natural gas from shale. Because of a combination of horizontal drilling and water fracturing (water and sand forced into rock at high pressure to open tiny cracks), U.S. natural gas reserves are 35% higher than previously thought. For example, a shale formation from New York to West Virginia is believed to hold 500 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – equal to 80 billion barrels of oil. Natural gas is cheaper than oil and produces less carbon dioxide than coal, but it is still a fossil fuel. Thus it’s being thought of as a transition fuel – not as energy’s last gas-p.

What the U.S. needs is sustainable fuel and E. coli can provide it. The same microbe in the news for tainting food can produce biodiesel fuel. Scientists at a San Francisco-based company have genetically engineered E. coli to excrete biodiesel. Because the excreted fatty acids are almost like conventional hydrocarbon fuels, delivering this new fuel to consumers wouldn’t require any changes from the present system of delivering gas. Large scale commercialization is expected by 2013 at a competitive price with oil at $40-$50 a barrel. In reshaping the world’s fuel supply efficient, economical, sustainable E. coli could be a driving force.