Eideard

The seeds of a lowly weed could cut jet fuel’s cradle-to-grave carbon emissions by 84 percent.

David Shonnard analyzed the carbon dioxide emissions of jet fuel made from camelina oil over the course of its life cycle, from planting to tailpipe. “Camelina jet fuel exhibits one of the largest greenhouse gas emission reductions of any agricultural feedstock-derived biofuel I’ve ever seen,” he said. “This is the result of the unique attributes of the crop–its low fertilizer requirements, high oil yield, and the availability of its coproducts, such as meal and biomass, for other uses.”

Camelina sativa originated in Europe and is a member of the mustard family, along with broccoli, cabbage and canola. Sometimes called false flax or gold-of-pleasure, it thrives in the semi-arid conditions of the Northern Plains; the camelina used in the study was grown in Montana.

Oil from camelina can be converted to a hydrocarbon green jet fuel that meets or exceeds all petroleum jet fuel specifications. The fuel is a “drop-in” replacement that is compatible with the existing fuel infrastructure, from storage and transportation to aircraft fleet technology…

Because camelina needs little water or nitrogen to flourish, it can be grown on marginal agricultural lands. “Unlike ethanol made from corn or biodiesel made from soy, it won’t compete with food crops,” said Shonnard. “And it may be used as a rotation crop for wheat, to increase the health of the soil…”

I’m a firm advocate of running biofuel wherever and whenever possible. Sounds like a win-win situation to me. It’s even high in omega-3 fatty acids.

In research that touches on two of Americans’ great obsessions — coffee and cars — scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno, have made diesel fuel from used coffee grounds. The technique is not difficult and there is so much coffee around that several hundred million gallons of biodiesel could potentially be made annually.

Dr. Mano Misra, a professor of engineering who conducted the research with Narasimharao Kondamudi and Susanta K. Mohapatra, said it was by accident that he realized coffee beans contained a significant amount of oil. “I made a coffee one night but forgot to drink it,” he said. “The next morning I saw a layer of oil floating on it.” He and his team thought there might be a useful amount of oil in used grounds, so they went to several Starbucks stores and picked up about 50 pounds of them.

Analysis showed that even the grounds contained about 10 to 15 percent oil by weight. The researchers then used standard chemistry techniques to extract the oil and convert it to biodiesel. The processes are not particularly energy intensive, Misra said, and the researchers estimated that biodiesel could be produced for about a dollar a gallon.

Even if all the coffee grounds in the world were used to make fuel, the amount produced would be less than 1 percent of the diesel used in the United States annually. “It won’t solve the world’s energy problem,” Misra said of his work. “But our objective is to take waste material and convert it to fuel.” And biodiesel made from grounds has one other advantage, he said: the exhaust smells like coffee.

Perish the thought we decide to run our economy more sensibly. It’s called recycling, folks. There is a small percentage of people who learned about this decades ago.

Our politicians in all their wisdom decided it was unimportant. Maybe we should recycle the politicians into jobs they’re better suited for?

Olive stones can be turned into bioethanol, a renewable fuel that can be produced from plant matter and used as an alternative to petrol or diesel. This gives the olive processing industry an opportunity to make valuable use of 4 million tonnes of waste in olive stones it generates every year and sets a precedent for the recycling of waste products as fuels.

“The low cost of transporting and transforming olives stones make them attractive for biofuels,” says researcher Sebastián Sánchez.

The olive stone, produced in processing of olive oil and table olives, makes up around a quarter of the total fruit. It is rich in polysaccharides (cellulose and hemicellulose) that can be broken down into sugar and then fermented to produce ethanol.

The quantities of stones produced are relatively small in comparison with other agricultural and forestry wastes. However, if similar principles were employed across all agricultural industries, energy gains would be significant.

Some of the olive oil used directly in prepared foods might be better for the world if burned in a diesel engine, anyway. There is some rank old oil floating around the marketplace at any given time.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists have produced oils of camelina, canola, Cuphea, lesquerella, milkweed and pennycress by the barrelful in their commercial-scale pilot plant. These alternative crops may be able to provide alternative domestic sources of industrial products ranging from soap to biofuels for cars, trucks and—in the case of Cuphea—even jet fuel.

Plant physiologist Russ Gesch and colleagues…have studied Cuphea since 1999. They work closely with companies such as Procter & Gamble of Cincinnati, Ohio. Procter & Gamble uses the type of fatty acids found in Cuphea to make laundry detergent and other products.

These crops all offer ways to sustainably grow fuel and industrial products without depleting either the U.S. food supply or soils. The Morris scientists also are beginning a long-term study of a corn-soybean crop rotation plan that includes grasses for making cellulosic ethanol: switchgrass, big bluestem, indiangrass, and a sorghum-Sudangrass hybrid. Their goal is to develop cropping systems for optimal biomass production while maintaining or enhancing soil productivity.

Cuphea is one of the few sources of oils in the United States that contain the type of fatty acids needed to make soaps, cosmetics, motor oils and industrial lubricants. These oils currently are produced commercially only in the tropics, from palm kernel and coconut oils.

Interesting research. And discovering the Agricultural Research Service website from the USDA has been rewarding. I’ll be making this a regular stop.