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.

What exactly is deriving oil prices high. Is less shortage of oil, oil production issues or simply demand for oil has sky rocketed. What we see today is only tip of iceberg. The day is not far when we will see oil barrel at $200 or more. While emerging economies are battling with established economies for control of third world oil for growth of business. The nations have started capturing untapped oil market for future expansion, along with current rising consumption of oil is the leading cause of price touching record high. What exactly, we have options for Fuel To Burn beyond Oil.

According to statistic, the America consumed 20 million barrels of petroleum every day in year 2006. This is really a big number but when we look at the numbers of China and India and other emerging economies the situation looks more grim.

 

There is urgency to come up with alternate fuel solution to oil, the world leaders, corporate leaders and environmentalist are working closely to create alternate fuels. The research universities are working tirelessly and corporate leaders are pumping huge amount for future fuel technologies.

We all know oil is made up of fossilized remains of ancient marine plants and animals, we also know this process takes millions of years to convert fossil into crude oil. The problem is there is a long process to get oil, where as demand for consumption is growing every minute in leaps and bounds.

Now the big question is, where do we stand if we run out oil. Already signs are not good. Refineries are running at high out put still not able to keep consumption requirements, Some of the oil rigs are running dry, sure signs of bad days. Some of the oil regions are involved in long conflict, resulting into delay and short supplies. Bottom line we no longer can depend upon on oil as major energy source.

Another factor, why alternate technologies for fuel are being pursued is the risk to environment. The most damage to earth has happened in last century, with explosion of industrial revolution and expansion of industries across all fields has created tremendous impact on global warming. People are able to see changes in environment, changing weather patterns, too much or no rain in different part of world, temperature soaring and glaciers shrinking all are signs of global warming.

The future needs are not only alternate fuel to gasoline but the future fuel has to be clean and no hazard to environment, unlike oil which creates greenhouse gases a prime reason of global warming. The next fuel will be clean, environment friendly, cheap and will be available in all countries. One more thing next generation fuel will help in reducing the tension among nations fighting for oil share.

 

The emerging economies China, India and Mexico are buying or leasing oil fields in Asia, Africa and Europe to keep their counties interest intact. The developed countries are busy in filling their oil reserves to safe guard national reserves. All this fight for oil and fierce competition among nation is bound to create conflict and war. The next generation fuel not only will help in reducing consumption demand but also help in keeping peace in world.

Now we have talked in length about the current issues related in respect to gap in demand supply of oil. Let’s look at alternate fuels available and which one are in research. Read more on Green Energies    ”http://www.fueltoburn.com/”

Pure Biofuels announced the increase of capacity at its primary Callao Port facility, built on a 47,000-square-meter parcel of waterfront land near the capital city of Lima, Peru. With three 17.5 million gallon per year modules, the facility is set to produce an annual capacity of 52.5 million gallons of biodiesel. The Callao plant is situated in close proximity to the La Pampilla Refinery which is one of Peru’s biggest oil refineries.

The Callao Port refinery of the company will process biodiesel from crude palm oil feedstock. The company has already secured memorandums of understanding with local fuel distributors for all of Callao Port’s annual biodiesel production.

Luis Goyzueta, the Pure Biofuels’ president, earlier provided the names of the construction company that will be building the refinery as well as the engineering firm designing the facility. Polindustria, a veteran Peruvian engineering firm, is chosen as the General Contractor. Consequently, Capricorn Chemical Engineering SA, popularly known as Capricorn, will be providing Pure Biofuels basic engineering, instrumentation, control schematics, and process flow design. The two companies are famous in infrastructure projects that Pure Biofuels is planning.

“We are extremely pleased with the team we have pulled together for our primary facility and we’re very confident in our plans to establish Pure Biofuels as one of South America’s true leaders in alternative energy production,” said Goyzueta. “With a 50 million gallon per year facility, Pure Biofuels can make a significant impact on the amount of diesel fuel used in Peru, and, more importantly, we can help contribute to the energy independence of all of South America.”

At present, automakers are aimed at discovering and producing biofuels, renewable energy sources derived from biomass, to replace oil and natural gas. The studies also focus on the use of cheap organic matter like sewage and agricultural wastes as well as cellulose. These organic matters efficiently produce gas and liquid biofuels that give off high net energy gain.

Biodiesel is basically derived from vegetable oil. It can be utilized by unmodified diesel engines. Biodiesel improves the overall performance of engines. It is a hundred percent compatible with today’s diesel vehicles and infrastructure. Aside from this, biodiesel is also proven reliable in over fifty million miles of road testing.

Biodiesel complements Borla and other exhaust system. Biodiesel is famed for its ability to reduce harmful exhaust emissions that contribute significantly to global warming. This biofuel is the first and only fuel to have passed the Clean Air Act. By 2025, the United Nations expects biofuels to account for 25 percent of world energy needs.

In The Ordeal of Change, Eric Hoffer, American philosopher and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1983) said “In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” Timeless words for rapidly changing times. 

Let’s Face It, We’re Addicted to Oil 

America, let’s face it, we’re so addicted to oil, not only do we divert hundreds of billions of dollars a year from our own communities to obtain it abroad, we devote vast military and political resources to court hostile anti-American regimes, corruption, and instability in countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Bottom line: We must simultaneously diversify sources of oil supplies, dramatically slash oil consumption, and increase production of alternative-energy sources to clean up the environment, increase our energy efficiency, protect national security interests, reduce the military and political leverage of OPEC oil, revitalize the U.S. economy, and shrink trade deficits. 

It is of vital military and political importance we end our uneasy alliance with the House of Saud and our footprint in the unstable Persian Gulf region. We should start by forming an oil consortium with other non-OPEC nations, including Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Norway, and the United Kingdom to compete directly with OPEC for world oil revenues. We should follow this up by seizing the assets of Petróleos de Venezuela in the United States as compensation for President Hugo Chávez’s seizure of assets of American oil companies operating in his “Bolivarian Republic.” This seizure should include the assets of the CITGO Petroleum Corporation.

Role of Domestic Production and Refining Capacity

We also need to ramp up the domestic production and refining capacity of oil. World energy consumption has surged due to the rapid growth of economies in countries like China and India. It also has surged due to the growing energy needs of non-producing countries like Germany and Japan. This wouldn’t matter one iota if supplies were keeping pace with the growth in demand. Global exploration and development as a percentage of oil-related revenues has fallen well below long-term averages since the early 1990’s. With at least 100 billion barrels of untapped oil reserves in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge of Alaska, the lower 48 states, and off U.S. shores, we are shooting ourselves in the foot by not developing the domestic sources at our disposal. We should start by uncapping the numerous closed oil fields in America’s heartland, creating jobs for Americans and revenues for America. We also need to construct new refineries on closed military bases, on tribal reservations, and on land in defunct communities like Cheshire, OH. In addition to exploiting our untapped oil reserves, we also must exploit our untapped natural gas supplies, whether they’re located on or off shore.

Role of Automotive Technologies and Alternative Fuels

As nearly half our domestic and imported oil is consumed primarily in the form of gasoline to fuel personal vehicles, this is where we need to focus a great deal of our attention and investment dollars. We need to nurture breakthrough automotive technologies and investment in commercially-viable alternative-fuel sources (i.e., ammonia, bio-diesel/bio-fuels, compressed natural gas, gas/electric hybrids, plug-in electrics, etc.) through targeted financial and tax incentives. Credit trading mechanisms that currently enable automakers to “borrow” or “swap” fuel efficiency should be suspended entirely. Instead, we need to put mechanisms in place that reward automakers for producing (and consumers for buying) vehicles that perform better than Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. Whatever mechanisms we put in place should require market-driven increases in the CAFE threshold on an annual basis. We also do not necessarily need to end federal subsidies for “Big Oil,” rather we need to force Big Oil to reinvest these subsidies in retrofitting retail gas station pumps to handle multiple alternative fuels. One thing is certain, OPEC nations, including state-owned sovereign wealth funds, should be prohibited from investing in or controlling our alternative-fuel resources, as it would make no sense for us to allow OPEC to maintain its death grip on our economy as we shift from oil.

Automakers can drive up CAFE thresholds in a couple of ways. One is by substituting the same lighter-weight carbon-fiber composite body panels used by our military for steel. Another is by harnessing kinetic energy from the natural motion, rotation, and vibration of the vehicle and its parts as a supplemental power source.

We also must replace current “flex-fuel” (a.k.a. E85) vehicles with “multi flex-fuel” vehicles capable of using any pure or blended fuel source. This should include bio-diesel/bio-fuels, and not the kind made from valuable food crops, such as corn. Switchgrass or some other source of so-called “cellulosic ethanol” might be a better fit, but we must learn to produce it in a way that doesn’t increase air pollution, global warming, soil erosion, or water pollution, or harm environmentally-sensitive habitats. In addition to excluding valuable food crops, we also must exclude bio-fuels produced on cleared old-growth forest or tropical rainforest lands. To fully move the U.S. away from oil, we must use bio-fuels as an alternative to gasoline rather than as an additive; we also must phase out petro-diesel in favor of bio-diesel. Additionally, we must create a viable national high-speed passenger and freight rail network to ease traffic congestion and improve logistics. Imagine “land ferries” that transport people and their vehicles from point A to point B.

While hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, most of it remains locked up in more complex compounds such as ammonia, methane (natural gas or propane), or water. Not only does it require tremendous amounts of energy to separate the hydrogen from its natural compounds, it requires tremendous amounts of energy to liquefy and condense hydrogen; however, scientists are experimenting with electrolyzers, genetically-engineered bacteria, and various reactive metals that might one day lead to an abundant alternative-fuel source. According to Kevin Mayhood in a June 30, 2008 article in The Columbus Dispatch, Gerardine Botte, director of Ohio University’s Electrochemical Engineering Research Laboratory, is working on a method to pull hydrogen from the ammonia in animal and human urine. This is important for several reasons. First, we already have the infrastructure in place to distribute ammonia to retail gas station pumps, as it’s been used to make fertilizer for decades. Second, separating hydrogen from ammonia does not produce “greenhouse gases” as long as the required electricity comes from a source which produces no greenhouse gases. (The same can be said for gas/electric hybrids and plug-in electrics.) Third, ammonia is more easily liquefied and condensed than hydrogen.

Role of Power Production for Businesses and Homes

In addition to transforming our automotive fleet and fuel-distribution infrastructure, we need to transform power production for our businesses and homes. This can be accomplished through farm-waste power generation, geothermal heating systems, landfill-gas power generation, solar panels, and wind turbines. We’ve already noted that nearly half our domestic and imported oil is consumed primarily in the form of gasoline to fuel personal vehicles. Likewise, nearly one quarter of all electricity we produce is used to light our businesses and homes. We need to scrap incandescent lights in favor of more-efficient compact fluorescent lights and light-emitting diodes, not in phases, but immediately. We also need to invest in dual-fuel furnaces and water heaters, providing the end-user with the power to automatically switch between electricity and natural gas, depending on real-time energy costs. Buildings and homes must be retrofitted to make better use of daylight and heat gain/loss. Imagine advanced roofing materials that are white (to reflect heat) in the Summer to reduce cooling load and black (to absorb heat) in the Winter to reduce heating load. Additionally, new appliances and electronic devices must be developed that do not require “stand-by” power. Finally, we need to deploy wind turbines across The Great Plains from North Dakota to Texas, harnessing the power of an emissions-free, inexhaustible energy source that does not require oil or other fossil fuels, radioactive materials, or water.

Role of U.S. Dollar and Speculation

A large chunk of the price of every barrel of oil can be tied to the strength of the U.S. Dollar and speculation. Government policies should focus on strengthening the U.S. Dollar and reining in rogue speculators with federal oversight. We’ve provided ample opportunity for energy traders to responsibly exercise the rights of a free market, and they’ve squeezed every drop out of our wallets. Remember Enron?

Role of the Environment and Other Issues

Our thirst for oil and other fossil fuels spews enormous quantities of greenhouse gases and toxic pollutants into the atmosphere each year. Every effort we make now to diversify sources of oil supplies, dramatically slash oil consumption, and increase production of alternative-energy sources will enable us to clean up our act and reduce our “carbon footprint.” In addition to the measures mentioned above, we need to develop chemicals, lubricants, plastics, and road pavements that do not require oil as a feedstock. Not only will this dramatically slash oil consumption, it will enable the heat content traditionally locked up in these products to be used elsewhere. For existing oil-based products, we must implement mandatory recycling or reuse programs. It’s senseless for oil to end up in our landfills or to be poured out on our highways. Additionally, we should explore using “energy labels” on foods and other products detailing the amount of energy required (and the CO2 emissions generated) to produce and transport it, with particular emphasis on the amount of oil and its source. Back to wind turbines: it’s hypocritical for environmental “advocates” to vehemently oppose an emissions-free, inexhaustible energy source that does not require oil or other fossil fuels, radioactive materials, or water. 

www.christophermengland.com

 

Bhatatbook.com included a new report on “Global Biofuels Market: Opportunities, Emerging Technologies and Production” which gives details about the Biofuel and Bioenergy production.

Global Biofuels Market: Opportunities, Emerging Technologies and Production

This report is the most comprehensive treatment of the biofuels market available. Worldwide data is provided on biorefineries, conversion and separation technologies, manufacturing, research and development, organic biofuels, consumption, capacity, components and competition. ( http://www.bharatbook.com/Market-Research-Reports/Global-Biofuels-Market-Opportunities-Emerging-Technologies-and-Production.html )

This report delves into the global efforts to develop technologies that improve the refining processes associated with many different types of biofuels and its growing consumption among nations throughout the next few decades. Biofuel is expected to become a major renewable resource to produce fuel, electricity, heat, and other sources of power. To compete with other energy types will require development and implementation of an enhanced biorefinery process that minimizes its impact on local environments. Developing sustainable fractionation and separation technologies will be a key factor for the success of refining biomasses into renewable energy.

Biorefinery technology differs from traditional oil based refinery technology because it will be mainly water-based. Today’s biofuels involve either ethanol or diesel, with the former accounting for roughly 90 percent of the market. Brazil, the United States, and China are the greatest producers. More than half of the world’s bioethanol is generated from sugar cane; the rest comes mainly from corn. Biodiesel is mostly derived from rapeseed and sunflower.

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