Second Generation Biofuels: We Love CO2!

Many environmental websites are revealing their ignorance of the state of the art in biofuels R&D. If they want to be taken seriously on the topic of biofuels, they need to start up the learning curve of second generation biofuels.

Vijayanand S Moholkar of the Guwahati-based Indian Institute of Technology said, “Pre-liminary experiments show tremendous potential for micro-algae derived oil feedstock for economic synthesis of bio-diesel. Proper cultivation of micro-algae can produce 10 times more oil than Jatropha in the same piece of land. Jatropha and Karanja yield not more than 1 to 1.5 tonne of oil per hectare of cultivation —a major limitation, which adversely affects the bio-diesel Economy.”

Moholkar was in Delhi last week to participate in the 5th International Bio-fuels Conference organised by Winrock International-India. He said largescale production of micro-algae can be done in raceway ponds (closed loop recirculation channels) and photobioreactors. The prices of micro-algal oil and crude fossil oil must differ by two orders of magnitude, so as to make microalgal bio-diesel a cost-effective alternative, he said.

K Subramaniam from the biotechnology department of Sathyamangalam-based Bannari Amman Institute of Technology favoured biochemical conversion of rice straw and other biomass into bio-ethanol. He said that the bio-ethanol production from cheaply available rice straw by separate enzymatic hydrolysis and fermentation can be economically viable.

According to Mritunjay Kumar Shukla of the Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum bio-ethers, particularly Dimethyl ether (DME), Diethyl ether (DEE) and methylal seem to be promising among all the bio-fuels due to their oxygenated molecular structure, better combustion characteristics, superior well-to-wheel efficiency, low GHG emissions and higher production efficiency.

The director-general of International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), William D Dar said that his institute has found out the way for production bio-ethanol without comprising food security. The stalks of the varieties of sweet sorghum developed by the institute can produce bio-ethanol and increase livelihood options for farmers in dryland areas.____Financial Express

Many species of algae and seagrass thrive on artificially raised levels of CO2. Land plants such as trees and grasses show the same accelerated growth in atmospheres artificially boosted in CO2 levels.

The researchers report that the elevated CO2 "led to significantly higher reproductive output, below-ground biomass and vegetative proliferation of new shoots in light-replete treatments," i.e., those receiving light at 33% of the surface irradiance level. More specifically, they write that "shoots growing at 36 µM CO2(aq) were 25% larger than those in the unenriched treatment [16 µM CO2(aq)]," while "at 85 µM CO2(aq) shoots were 50% larger than those in the unenriched treatment and at 1123 µM CO2(aq) shoots were almost twice as large as those in the unenriched treatment." In addition, they found that at 1123 µM CO2(aq) "22% of the shoots differentiated into flowers, more than twice the flowering output of the other treatments at this light level."___Source

By coupling the growth of biofuel biomass with the CO2 of power plant effluent gas, you accomplish accelerated growth of biomass while transferring the CO2 and pollutants from power plant effluent to the growing biofuel feedstock.

Algae, seagrass, and other organisms living in the sea, thrive on higher CO2 levels. But if it is politically advantageous to remove CO2 from the air--thus depriving sea life of its food--humans may have to use the "power plant effluent to algal bio-diesel and bio-petroleum" route.