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Chicken fat may represent a cheap and plentiful source of biofuel, with the potential to make the fuel a rival to traditional petrol, scientists have claimed.
A team from the University of Arkansas discovered a simple chemical process allowing them to derive biodiesel from chicken fat both quickly and with minimal waste.
The process, known as supercritical methanol treatment, involved subjecting the fat to both high temperatures and pressure, and proved significantly more successful than previous efforts to produce economically viable biofuel.
"Biodiesel provides an effective, sustainable-use fuel with many desirable properties," said Brent Schulte, a student at the university.
Drivers begin chip fat fuel rally
Cars powered only by chip fat and cooking oil are setting off on a two-week rally from London to Greece.
Competitors must not use conventional petrol or diesel, so are relying on waste cooking oil from restaurants and bars they come across on the way.
Thirty cars are taking part in the "Grease to Greece" rally, which aims to be environmentally friendly.
Organiser Andy Pag said: "We are really running the gauntlet and it's going to be quite a challenge."
Kebab shops
Drivers began the 2,500-mile trip from the Ace Cafe in Stonebridge, north London, to Athens on Saturday.
They aim to travel through Germany and Austria, before following the Adriatic coast down to Greece.
Hollywood Films, Music Glow Green With New Biodiesel Generators
It’s well known that filming productions of any kind produce a tremendous amount of waste and consume massive amounts of energy. According to a recent UCLA study, the Film Industry in California was the #2 polluter in the state! Much like we’ve seen with the sustainable practices on Evan Almighty, the new environmental watchdog positions created at the major studios, and a general leaning towards environmental stewardship, Hollywood is rethinking old practices.
The Virgin Voyager has been modified to run on eco-friendly fuel and the company is aiming to convert more in the future. The train uses a blended fuel which is 20% biodiesel - to reduce CO2 emissions without harming the engine. The London-to-Llandudno passenger train left on Thursday morning. The journey was launched by prime minister-in-waiting Gordon Brown. Biodiesel is a processed fuel derived from biological sources including rapeseed, soya bean and palm oil. It is biodegradable and produces less CO2 than conventional diesel. During a six-month trial, the train will run from Birmingham to Scotland, across South Wales, North East England, the North West, the West Country, the South West and the South coast. The experiment has been organised by Virgin Trains, the Association of Train Operating Companies and the Rail Safety and Standards Board. If successful, Virgin hopes to convert its entire Voyager fleet to biodiesel fuel, which could cut emissions by 14%.
The Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation has granted DKK 15 million (€2 million) towards research in biodiesel until 2012.
The project will seek to develop a new technology to replace the chemical production of biodiesel with an enzymatic process that will reduce concerns about biodiesel, both for the environment and the supplies of food.
The five partners in the research project are three Danish research institutes, located at the Technical University of Denmark and Aarhus University, and two Danish companies, Novozymes in Bagsvaerd and Emmelev in Otterup.
'The chemical process demands raw materials of high quality that can often also be used as food,' Per Munk Nielsen, project leader, Novozymes A/S, says. 'With a process based on enzymes we will be able to use raw materials of poorer quality, such as animal fats, recycled restaurant oils, and waste products, all materials that cannot be used as food.'
Emmelev A/S, one of the participating companies, already produces biodiesel.
'With the new enzymatic process we will be able to use many more different raw materials than we can use today, being mainly rapeseed and soy,' Morten Simonsen, sales director, Emmelev A/S, comments. 'We will be able to use waste oils that today are simply thrown away. We will produce only the main products and no by-products.'
Andy Pag (l) said international cooking habits might hamper the journey
Mr Pag said different international laws and cooking habits might hamper the journey.
"In Belgium the kebab shops use lard rather than oil to fry their chips, in Germany they have very strict waste regulations so they may not be allowed to give us their oil."
As a result, teams will be allowed to resort to biodiesel and in emergencies buy fresh cooking oil from supermarkets.
Last year Mr Pag drove a truck from the UK to Timbuktu powered by bio-fuel made from waste chocolate.
From Grease To Greece
"In addition to being a renewable, biodegradable and carbon-neutral fuel source, it can be formed in a matter of months from feed stocks produced locally, which promotes a more sustainable energy infrastructure."
Currently the majority of biodiesel production is undertaken using sources such as soybean and rapeseed oil, accounting for over half the cost of the fuel's productio
If it is not addressed, we will have dirty fuels and the clean fuels will head abroad to countries such as France and Germany instead." He said the company hoped in future to use 100% biodiesel - equivalent to removing 100,000 vehicles from the road. Speaking ahead of the launch, Mr Brown said: "I want Britain to be a world leader in the development and use of environmentally-friendly fuels. "I believe they will play a fundamental part in our efforts to reduce emissions and tackle climate change."
Helping the industry move towards a more sustainable future is a new company called Green Power Generators. While the name might throw you off, their specialty is providing clean-burning biodiesel generators to film sets, events, and anything else that might request green energy. The company spent over a year developing the cleanest engines and the results comply with the lowest emissions standards set by the EPA — something only 1% of generators used currently qualify for.
Hollywood's Going Greener
Virgin Trains to cut CO2 by 14% Using Biodiesel Blends = 23k Autos off the Roads
Remember 'Go To Work On An Egg'? Now You Can Go To Work On A Chicken!
Sagunto, Spain, 27 June 2008: Earthrace, the world’s fastest eco-boat, has smashed the world
speed record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe, completing the 24,000 km journey in
just 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes.
The boat crossed the finish line in Sagunto at 14:24hrs CET on Friday 27 June and completed
the journey using 100% biofuel to demonstrate and draw global attention to the potential for
alternative fuel sources.
Earthrace is a 24m tri-hull wavepiercer built in New Zealand, and the record attempt, run by a
team of international volunteers from New Zealand, UK, Sweden, Guyana and Hungary, has
been completed as a carbon neutral project.
She set off from Spain on 27 April at 14:35hrs CET in an attempt to challenge the world record
that has remained unbroken since 1998, when it was set by the British boat, Cable and Wireless
Adventurer. The finish in Spain by Earthrace was monitored by D. Jaime Pérez López,
Presidente de la Federación Territorial Motonaútica de la Comunidad Valenciana.
Earthrace, a not for profit enterprise, has overcome many obstacles during its journey, the most
challenging of which were the replacement of the boat’s driveshaft and propeller after hitting sea
debris in Palau, encountering monsoon conditions in the India Ocean, and bypassing a massive
backlog of ships waiting to transit the Panama Canal. Despite this, the crew has emerged
victorious after almost two months at sea.
Skipper Pete Bethune, a former oil worker, has dedicated the past six years of his life towards
reaching his goal of smashing the record in his amazing boat using biodiesel, including an
attempt last year, called off after meeting three huge storms in the Mediterranean.
“We’re completely stoked to have achieved something so incredible,” says Bethune.
“Earthrace’s success has proved that any form of transport, including marine, can be nondamaging
to the environment as well as being high performance. It is still early days for
alternative fuel and there are issues that need to be addressed by those with the power to make
change happen. But I hope that Earthrace and her adventure highlight to the world the
importance of continuing to research and develop alternative fuel sources for global use.”
“This fantastic team of people and our amazing boat have broken the record by a massive
margin, and I finally feel that all the sacrifices made, especially by my family, have been worth it.
I’m also enormously grateful to all the individuals and companies that have supported us along
the way, some of them since the very beginning. Without them, none of this would have been
possible”.
After crossing the finish line at Vulkan Shipyard, Sagunto, the boat will be docked at Marina
Real Juan Carlos 1 in Valencia for a few days to allow supporters and the public to go on board
and meet the crew.
Earthrace eco-boat smashes round-the-world speed record by 13 days, 21 hours and 9 minutes
What next for Earthrace?
Following a visit to Portugal to meet fuel sponsor, SGC Energia, Earthrace will embarking on a further tour that will take in more of Europe as well as the Caribbean and Australia, with the boat returning home to New Zealand in 2009. Skipper Bethune is actively looking for new volunteers to travel with the boat as crew during the tour. Keep up-to-date with news and see if the boat will be visiting a town near you on
Green Fungus Might Provide A More Efficient Way To Make Biofuels Such As Ethanol.
Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico sequenced the complete genome of Trichoderma reesei and found important clues about how it breaks down plant fibres into the simple sugars needed to make plant-based fuel.
The fungus could provide a way to use switch grass and other non-food plants to make biofuels. One barrier to using non-food plants to make biofuels has been the difficulty in converting them into sugar. Food crops such as corn more readily convert.
'Our analysis, coupled with the genome sequence data, provides a road map for constructing enhanced T. reesei strains for industrial applications such as biofuel production,' Diego Martinez of Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico says.
The fungus has already been exploited commercially. 'It has enjoyed a long history of safe use for industrial enzyme production,' Martinez adds.
It uses enzymes it creates to break down plant fibres into the simplest form of sugar, known as a monosaccharide. But it has fewer genes dedicated to the production of cellulose-eating enzymes than other fungi do.
'We were aware of T. reesei's reputation as producer of massive quantities of degrading enzymes.
However we were surprised by how few enzyme types it produces, which suggested to us that its
protein secretion system is exceptionally efficient,' Martinez says.
T. reesei could be grown on an industrial scale to secrete its fibre-eating enzymes, which in turn
could be added to pulped-up plants to produce sugar. The sugar can then be fermented by yeast
to produce ethanol.
'Using this information, it may be possible to improve both of these properties, decreasing the cost of converting cellulosic biomass to fuels and chemicals,' Joel Cherry of Denmark based Novozymes, a biotechnology company that took part in the study, notes.
Virgin boss Richard Branson said the environmental impact was equivalent to taking 23,000 cars off the road At the launch, Sir Richard said: "It's fantastic that we are leading the rest of Europe in developing this fuel." He added that it was bizarre that the tax on clean fuels was higher than on dirty fuels. "Our indications are from Gordon Brown that he will address this problem.
