29. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

An opportunity for the Delta or the best example of the Food vs Fuel Debate ?

http://nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.22a.html

Japan to Make Ethanol From Super-Harvest Rice

Japan’s first commercial plant to produce ethanol for cars from locally grown rice will reach full capacity of 1,000 kilolitres a year by March 2009, a few months behind schedule.

The project in Niigata, central Japan, for which the Japanese government is paying half the plant construction cost of 1.6 billion yen (US$15 million), is one of Japan’s three such government-backed commercial production schemes.

It is managed by the National Federation of Agriculture Co-operative Associations (Zen-Noh) and will use non-food rice.

Ippei Koike, general manager of Zen-Noh’s farming planning department, said the delay is partly due to paperwork for construction approval.

He said farmers were planting two types of super-harvest rice in more areas than planned this year after the 2007 harvest of one type gave a lower-than-expected yield of 602 kg of brown rice, excluding broken rice, per 10 ares.

An are is 100 square metres (1,076 sq ft).

In Japan, the average rice farming household cultivates a rice area of 107 ares, or 1.07 hectares, with an annual revenue of 1.8 million yen (US$17,000).

“We had expected this type to consistently harvest 800 kg per 10 ares — 30 to 40 percent more than that of ordinary rice. But last year’s experience made us realise that’s hard to achieve,” Koike said in an interview.

“We won’t give up. Japanese farmers are accustomed to much tougher conditions,” Koike said, referring to unusually low temperatures in July last year that thwarted the development of rice kernels.

RICE PLANTING

The Niigata project involves engineering company Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding Co and Satake Corp, a food processing machinery maker based in Hiroshima, western Japan.

Japan lacks competitive farm produce to make enough ethanol to mix with gasoline and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

But the project aims to use non-food rice planted in abandoned farmlands. A fall in domestic consumption of rice every year results in the Japanese government’s plan to reduce planting for food rice by some 100,000 ha in 2008 from 2007.

Zen-Noh has said it will buy rice from farmers at 20 yen a kg to make its auto fuel competitive with regular gasoline.

Ordinary food-quality rice costs well above 100 yen a kg and harvests 500 to 600 kg per 10 ares.

“Despite the loss-making process, farmers now think that the rice for ethanol is one of the forward-looking options to make the best use of the abandoned fields,” Koike said.

Zen-Noh, which retails gasoline mainly for farmers, plans to sell gasoline directly blended with 3 percent of the rice-origin ethanol at its 40 gas stations in Niigata.

Posted in Foriegn Agriculture, Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

29. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

http://nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.18c.html 

Syntec Biofuel to Make Biomass Ethanol for 40¢ a Gallon

Syntec Biofuel Inc., a company developing biomass to fuel conversion technologies, is pleased to announce that it has achieved a yield of 105 gallons of alcohol per ton of biomass (making the fuel cost about 40¢ a gallon to produce). This marks a major milestone for Syntec as this yield is equivalent to revenues in excess of $27 million per year for a 300 ton per day biomass processing facility.

“We are consistently seeing monthly improvements in our Biomass to Alcohols (B2A) Process,” says Michael Jackson, President of Syntec Biofuel Inc. “This level of achievement makes the B2A process profitable in relatively small scale facilities using a wide variety of waste biomass feedstocks in any combination.”

The Syntec B2A technology, initially developed at the University of British Columbia, is focused on second-generation cellulosic ethanol production. The Syntec process parallels the low-pressure catalytic synthesis process used by methanol producers. Syntec’s innovative technology uses any renewable waste biomass such as hard or soft wood, sawdust or bark, organic waste, agricultural waste (including sugar cane bagasse and corn stover), and switch-grass to produce syngas. This syngas, comprised of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, is then scrubbed and passed through a fixed bed reactor containing the Syntec catalysts to produce ethanol, methanol and higher order alcohols. The Syntec technology can also produce alcohols from biogas (sourced from anaerobic digestion of manure and effluent), landfill gas or stranded methane.

Recent media coverage on ethanol produced from food crops, such as corn, and the use of agricultural cropland for biofuel production, has prompted an international questioning of the ethics and “hidden costs” behind the production of such alternative fuels. “Syntec’s technology only uses sustainable waste biomass to produce its biofuel,” explains Mr. Jackson. “We believe strongly that fueling the worlds energy needs can be achieved without further impact to our environment, and that we possess the best and most ethical solution to bio-ethanol production.”

Posted in Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

29. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

For what it’s worth :

http://nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.27a.html

Research Breakthrough Could Lead to Super Synthetic Corn

Iowa State University researchers helped write the first draft of the corn genome sequence that will be announced Feb. 28, at the 50th Annual Maize Genetics Conference in Washington, D.C.

Patrick Schnable, a Baker Professor of Agronomy and director of the Center for Plant Genomics and the Center for Carbon Capturing Crops, and Srinivas Aluru, a Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering and a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, led the work at Iowa State and provided the project with expertise in corn genomics and supercomputing.

Schnable and Aluru led Iowa State’s work to refine assemblies of the genomic sequences generated by researchers at Washington University. In addition, they identified almost 100 genes which have nearly identical copies in the genome. Schnable said these nearly identical paralogs may have played important roles during the evolution and domestication of corn and may have contributed to the ability of breeders to mold this important crop species to meet human needs. The Schnable and Aluru teams also discovered several hundred new corn genes that are not present in other plants. Some of these genes may be responsible for unique attributes of corn.

The corn genome is an especially difficult jigsaw puzzle to put together, Schnable said. There are some 2.5 billion base pairs that make up the double helix of corn DNA. The corn genome also has long lines of repetitive code. And corn has 50,000 to 60,000 genes to identify and characterize. That’s about twice the number of genes in humans. Plus, 50 percent or more of the corn genome is made up of transposons or jumping genes. Those are pieces of DNA that can move around the genome and change the function of genes.

Solving all those assembly challenges took a lot of computing power and some new software technology. Aluru and his research team developed software called “PaCE” and “LTR_par” that runs on parallel computers — including CyBlue, Iowa State’s IBM Blue Gene/L supercomputer capable of 5.7 trillion calculations per second. PaCE can generate draft genome assemblies in hours or days instead of months. LTR_par identifies retrotransposons, another mobile genetic element that can cause genome changes such as mutations, gene duplications and chromosome rearrangements.

Implications

Schnable said the resulting draft of the corn genome provides plant scientists with a lot of data to work with. He said it’s a lot like the collection of maps, diary entries, dried plants and animal specimens brought back by the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. The explorers gathered and assembled a great deal of basic information about the Louisiana Purchase that required years of subsequent analysis and study.

“This will enable so much exciting corn research,” Schnable said. “This will raise questions about the biology of corn and provide great tools to answer them.”

Those answers could help scientists modify and improve corn plants, Schnable said. The genome, for example, could help scientists:

• develop crops that can withstand global climate change
• add nutritional value to grain
• sequester more atmospheric carbon in agricultural soils
• or boost yields so crops can meet growing demands for food, feed, fiber and fuel.

“In addition, what we learn from the corn genome will allow us to better understand other grasses,” Schnable said.

The genome of corn is very similar to the genomes of rice, wheat, sorghum, prairie grasses and turf grasses. Therefore, Schnable said the draft of the corn genome can help researchers improve the other cereals and grasses.

Posted in Corn Soybeans & Wheat, Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Agrarianism, Difficult Issues in Agriculture & Rural Life, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

6. February 2008 by P. Leslie Riley.

Could this be an opportunity for botom-up economic development ?

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news2.5c.html

New Chemical Process Turns Forest Waste into Bio-Crude

CSIRO and Monash University have developed a chemical process that turns green waste into a stable bio-crude oil.The bio-crude oil can be used to produce high value chemicals and biofuels, including both petrol and diesel replacement fuels.

“By making changes to the chemical process, we’ve been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world,” says Dr Steven Loffler of CSIRO Forest Biosciences.

“This makes it practical and economical to produce bio-crude in local areas for transport to a central refinery, overcoming the high costs and greenhouse gas emissions otherwise involved in transporting bulky green wastes over long distances.”

The process uses low value waste such as forest thinnings, crop residues, waste paper and garden waste, significant amounts of which are currently dumped in landfill or burned.

“We’ve been able to create a concentrated bio-crude which is much more stable than that achieved elsewhere in the world.”Dr Steven Loffler

“By using waste, our Furafuel technology overcomes the food versus fuel debate which surrounds biofuels generated from grains, corn and sugar,” says Dr Loffler.

The plant wastes being targeted for conversion into biofuels contain chemicals known as lignocellulose, which is increasingly favoured around the world as a raw material for the next generation of bio-ethanol.

Lignocellulose is both renewable and potentially greenhouse gas neutral. It is predominantly found in trees and is made up of cellulose; lignin, a natural plastic; and hemicellulose.

Posted in Alternative Crops & Enterprises, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Family farm Opportunities, Alternative Energy | Print | No Comments »

22. December 2007 by P. Leslie Riley.

During the Campaign I talked a good bit about a decentralized system for Biofuel prodction that would provide maximum benefit for farmers & rural communities & maximum independence from foriegn oil/ big government/ big business.
This was built upon a market based, bottom up approach and centered on the production and farm level processing of sugar/ sweet sorgum based fuel.

This idea was detailed in this post :
BioFuels #2 - Ethanol Produced on Farms
Farm Scale Fuel Production would mean economic boom for rural communities and less dependance on oil from the Middle East

And was met with some skecticism. However, according to this piece in Next Energy News researchers agree with the basic premise — that Sugar is a much better source of biofuels than what is currently being pursued . . . .

“Production of energy, such as ethanol, from sugar is more efficient than production from grains in both cost per unit and energy efficiency,” Da Silva says. “Sugarcane is ranked first among all other crops for biomass production and can be a key component of biomass supply. Technology for producing ethanol from sugarcane is well established in tropical countries such as Brazil, where energy independence has been achieved.”

Why is such a strategy not being pursued ?

Likely because it doesn’t offer more power/ controll to politicians & more $$$ in the hands of the multinational corporations that feed them . . .

 The election is over, but our fight for family farmers & more freedom has only begun

The entire article is here :

http://www.nextenergynews.com/news1/next-energy-news10.30a.html

Posted in Sweet Sorgum & Sugar, Biofuels from Farms, Rural Development, Family farm Opportunities | Print | No Comments »