[Biofuel] Sweden's Vattenfall abandons research on CO2 storage
http://phys.org/news/2014-05-sweden-vattenfall-abandons-co2-storage.html [Funny how once the taxpayer money disappears, none of the fossil-fuel combustion to carbon capture and storage projects make economic sense. Another one bites the dust. Fortunately for oil, natural gas and coal producers, the U.S. and Canadian governments still have tons of taxpayer money to spend on CCS research. Notice the North American fossil fuel energy producers are not investing their own money in this research. Wind power is now cost-competitive with coal and - in some places - natural gas for electricity generation. That's before we saddle the fossil fuels with CCS costs.] Sweden's Vattenfall abandons research on CO2 storage Swedish energy giant Vattenfall said Tuesday that it had given up its research on CO2 capture and storage, intended to make the company's coal power plants greener. Vattenfall will discontinue its RD (research and development) activities regarding coal power with CCS (carbon capture and storage), the group said in a statement explaining its new research plans. The state-owned giant had been investing in this technology for more than 10 years, with plans for a power plant equipped with CCS in 2016. Capturing and liquifying CO2 coming from carbon combustion to later store it underground was meant to curb greenhouse effect gas emissions, but its costs and the energy it requires make the technology unviable. These difficulties had already forced Vattenfall to give up in 2011 a large project at a pilot plant in Jaenschwalde, in eastern Germany. The European Union then demanded the reimbursement of funding worth 45 million euros ($62.75 million), but neither Vattenfall nor the EU ever said whether the group complied with the request. In late 2011, the Swedish company said it still believed in the project and stated that it expected to build a coal power plant equipped with CCS by 2025. But Tuesday, the group said that CCS was not among its priorities anymore. We are evaluating our research portfolio in order to invest in RD projects which can contribute more quickly to our business development, Research and Development Nordic head Karl Bergman said. With a capacity of 11,300 megawatt in 14 plants in Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Vattenfall is one of the biggest European coal and lignite—a combustible rock considered the lowest rank of coal—electricity producers, which accounted for 40 percent of its total production in 2013. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] UPDATE 2-U.S. appeals court rejects challenge to 2013 renewable fuel standard | Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/06/usa-court-energy-idUSL2N0NS0VO20140506 UPDATE 2-U.S. appeals court rejects challenge to 2013 renewable fuel standard Tue May 6, 2014 4:05pm EDT (Adds companies' comments, biofuel trade group reaction, background on additional challenges) By Ayesha Rascoe and Cezary Podkul May 6 (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday threw out an oil industry challenge to the Obama administration's 2013 biofuel mandate, ruling that the government has wide latitude to decide whether to modify renewable fuel use targets, and by how much. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected arguments from refiners that the Environmental Protection Agency had not thoroughly considered how renewable fuel credits are used to satisfy federal targets. The ruling could have broad implications for the biofuel mandate, as various groups weigh challenges to EPA's management of the program. The EPA's final 2014 quotas are due out in June. The Renewable Fuel Standard requires increasing amounts of biofuels such as ethanol to be blended into U.S. gasoline and diesel supplies through 2022. U.S. refiners need to accumulate credits, or Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), to prove they have blended their share of renewable fuels into gasoline and diesel. If they do not blend, they need to buy RINs. The oil industry unsuccessfully urged the EPA to lower the federal mandate to use 16.55 billion gallons of biofuels in 2013, saying it would unduly burden refiners. In its challenge, PBF Energy said the EPA should not consider the use of left over ethanol credits from 2012 when setting targets for 2013. This contention is meritless, the court said, adding that EPA was entitled to conclude, as it did, that it had wide latitude to consider a range of factors as appropriate. PBF said it is evaluating its legal options. We are disappointed in the court's ruling and do not agree that EPA properly exercised its discretion, a PBF spokesman said in an email. Monroe Energy, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines which operates the 185,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Trainer refinery in Pennsylvania, argued the EPA's decision not to cut 2013 biofuel targets did not take into account that companies might need to carry over some ethanol credits for use in 2014, when it finalized the 2013 targets. The company said a spike in RIN prices last year could cost Monroe more than $100 million. The ethanol blending credits topped out at around $1.45 each in July 2013 and remain elevated, with trades spotted at 43.00 cents each on Tuesday. But the court ruled that expensive fuel credits were not enough to warrant vacating the target and that there was no ground to conclude the 2013 standards are unlawful simply because RINs are costlier than in prior years. The court added that higher RIN prices should provide an incentive to invest in more fueling infrastructure and in diversification of the fuel supply. In a statement reacting to the court decision, Monroe Energy disagreed strongly with this reasoning: These prices will not increase the volume of renewable fuel consumed in the U.S., and are in essence nothing but a tax on refiners, the company said in an email. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER Biofuel supporters have been locked in a pitched lobbying battle against the oil industry to keep the mandate intact. On Tuesday, they had reason to celebrate at least one victory in a larger battle over the biofuel content of fuel supplies. Today's decision is a victory for American consumers, said a coalition of biofuel trade groups including the Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy and the Biotechnology Industry Organization. The court also rejected claims from the refineries that the 2013 rule should be thrown out because it was issued more than eight months after the legislative deadline of November 30. The court noted that companies could estimate their obligations based on fuel consumption estimates from the Energy Information Administration. The decision seems to indicate that the delay, while inconvenient, does not prohibit refiners from complying with the rules, some legal experts said. The unanimous nature of the decision, that the EPA can miss the statutory deadline by more than eight months, is very significant not just for the 2013 standards but also the 2014 standards, said David McCullough, a lawyer at Sutherland Asbill Brennan LLP who specializes in energy issues. It means that, even if the EPA is late finalizing the rules, the court held that refiners and other obligated parties still had notice under the statute establishing the mandates to plan ahead for their compliance, and therefore the court views it as not unreasonable for the EPA to adjust them, said McCullough, whose firm is not involved in the case. Last month, the American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers asked the court to hold out on ruling on their
[Biofuel] Scientists Develop Coal-Killing Solar Cell Made From Tin | CleanTechnica
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/05/05/tin-solar-cells-could-push-coal-gas-and-diesel-out-of-the-market/ [links in on-line article] Scientists Develop Coal-Killing Solar Cell Made From Tin Weren’t we just saying that perovskite solar cells are the next big thing? Well, make that tin perovskite solar cells. Tin perovskite solar cells are suddenly a thing this week, with not one but two major new research announcements coming out of the US and the UK. The significance is not so much in the tin perovskite cells’ conversion efficiency, which is laughably low compared to other solar hot rods on the market. It’s their potential for commercializing super cheap solar cells. Tin is an inexpensive, abundant material and its use in solar cells would drive costs down while alleviating the kind of geopolitical supply chain issues that bedevil other solar cell materials. Tin also has the advantage of being easier on public health and the environment than lead, which is the conventional alternative for perovskite solar cells. Tin Perovskite Solar Cells From The US Perovskite solar cells just sailed across CleanTechnica’s radar a couple of weeks ago. Perovskite refers to a mineral composed mainly of calcium titanate. Perovskite has a particular crystalline structure that lends itself to solar conversion, which can be adapted to modify other materials for use in solar cells. The problem is that earlier perovskite solar cell research was focused on lead, which is toxic, which explains why the latest news just came out yesterday from Northwestern University under the header “Taking the lead out of a promising solar cell.” If Northwestern’s research translates into the commercial market the impact will be significant. The new cell gets a commercial market threefer: using materials that are low cost, non-hazardous, and adaptable to a standard manufacturing process. Northwestern hit upon the lead substitution partly because tin is in the same group in the periodic table. The new solar cell is composed of five layers. The first two, a layer of conducting glass and a layer of titanium dioxide form the front contact. Not for nothing but titanium dioxide should ring some bells – before there was Django Unchained we had Titanium Dioxide, Unchained!. The tricky part is the third layer, the tin perovskite in the form of methylammonium tin iodide. Methylammonium tin iodideoxidizes in contact with air, so that part of the process had to be done in a sealed environment (a nitrogen glove box, to be specific), along with the next step since the top of the tin was still exposed at this point. The next layer is the one that closes the electrical circuit, and this part was also tricky because the team had to find something that would not eat away at the tin, which entailed a lot of digging around into the perovskite structure in order to understand its reactivity. The final layer is a gold cap, forming the back contact electrode of the cell. According to Northwestern, lead perovskite has about 15 percent solar conversion efficiency, and the research team anticipates that the new cell could surpass that, although right now it’s hovering at around 5.73 percent (we warned you — don’t laugh!). Tin Perovskite Solar Cells From The UK The UK tin perskovite solar cell announcement came out from Oxford University, a few days before the Northwestern announcement. The team’s figure for the best lead perskovite efficiency is 17 percent and their tin version came in around the same as Northwestern’s, at six percent. Like Northwestern, the Oxford team anticipates bettering the record for lead, reaching up to 20 percent or more. The Oxford team focused on a similar problem, the degradation of the tin layer when exposed to air and moisture, and ended up with a similar solution: a sealed nitrogen fabrication environment. Coal-Killing Solar Cells! As for solar’s ability to compete in the electricity market with coal and other fossil fuels, the true cost of coal is finally being exposed including regional air quality and ash disposal issues on top of its contribution to global warming, and solar is already competitive with diesel in some global markets. In the US, cheap shale gas has been pushing coal out of the electricity market and there are already indications that industries are beginning to prepare for the day when solar and other renewables push shale gas out of the energy market, by shifting into higher value products. Exxon, for example, is looking to expand its gigantic Baytown, Texas refinery to include a gas-to-plastics operation, and the German chemical company BASF is exploring the possibility of making its largest single-site investment ever, by building a shale gas-to-plastics facility on the Gulf Coast. By the way, we’re not exactly giving up our crushing on graphene, but you can expect to hear a lot more about perovskite from CleanTechnica from now on. ___
[Biofuel] Stanford to Purge $18 Billion Endowment of Coal Stock - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/education/stanford-to-purge-18-billion-endowment-of-coal-stock.html?_r=0 [If you own coal equity, it might be a good time to dump your stock before Stanford and others do. The leveraging effect of dumping mutual funds that hold coal stocks, as well as direct equity, could be huge.] Stanford to Purge $18 Billion Endowment of Coal Stock By MICHAEL WINESMAY 6, 2014 Stanford University announced Tuesday that it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, becoming the first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments. The university said it acted in accordance with internal guidelines that allow its trustees to consider whether “corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury” when choosing investments. Coal’s status as a major source of carbon pollution linked to climate change persuaded the trustees to remove companies “whose principal business is coal” from their investment portfolio, the university said. Stanford’s associate vice president for communications, Lisa Lapin, said the decision covers about 100 companies worldwide that derive the majority of their revenue from coal extraction. Not all of those companies are in the university’s investment portfolio, whose structure is private, she said. Over all, the university’s coal holdings are a small fraction of its endowment. “But a small percentage is still a substantial amount of money,” she added. The trustees’ decision carries more symbolic than financial weight, but it is a major victory for a rapidly growing student-led divestment movement that is now active at roughly 300 universities. At least 11 small universities have elected to remove fossil-fuel stocks from their endowments, but none approaches Stanford’s prestige or national influence. Tuesday’s decision seems likely to increase the pressure on other major universities to follow suit. Among other universities, Harvard has resisted student pressure for divestment, and one student was arrested on Thursday after pro-divestment activists blockaded the entrance to the school’s administrative offices. Stanford’s trustees acted after Fossil Free Stanford, the campus branch of the movement, petitioned the board to re-evaluate the university’s holdings in energy companies, Ms. Lapin said. Yari Greaney, 20, a Fossil Free Stanford organizer, said the group was “very proud of Stanford taking this leadership position.” Nationally, leaders of the divestment movement praised the school for its decision. As a global institution, Stanford “knows the havoc that climate change creates around our planet,” Bill McKibben, the president and co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement. “Other forward-looking and internationally minded institutions will follow, I’m sure.” Maura Cowley, the executive director of Energy Action Coalition, an assemblage of groups active on climate change issues, called the decision “a huge, huge victory.” “Their decision, coming from such a major university and from such a huge endowment, shows that the coal industry and other fossil fuel industries are quickly becoming relics of the past,” she said in an interview. The trustees began studying divestment after Fossil Free Stanford petitioned them to re-evaluate their holdings of energy companies. An advisory panel that included students, faculty, staff and alumni spent roughly five months studying the issue before recommending that coal stocks be sold, Deborah DeCotis, the chairwoman of the board’s special committee on investment responsibility, said in an interview. Among other deciding factors, Ms. DeCotis said, the panel noted that coal produces the most carbon per British thermal unit of any widely used fossil fuel, that practical alternatives to burning coal are available, and that the university was not dependent on coal or coal-derived products. Other fossil fuels did not meet some of those criteria, but “this is not the ending point. It’s a process,” she said. “We’re a research institute, and as the technology develops to make other forms of alternative energy sources available, we will continue to review and make decisions about things we should not be invested in. Don’t interpret this as a pass on other things.” Ms. Lapin said the school is already asking its investment advisers to review endowment holdings and sell stocks of coal companies. The order covers mutual funds with coal stocks as well as investments in individual companies, she said. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Citgo’s Corpus Christi Environmental Crimes: Too Big to Punish | The Texas Observer
http://www.texasobserver.org/citgos-corpus-christi-environmental-crimes-big-punish/ [links in on-line article] Citgo’s Corpus Christi Environmental Crimes: Too Big to Punish by Priscila Mosqueda Published on Tuesday, May 6, 2014, at 9:00 CST After seven years of waiting, Corpus Christi pollution victims finally learned what restitution they’ll be receiving from Citgo Petroleum Corp.: nothing. Last week, a federal district judge determined that residents of a neighborhood exposed to toxic chemicals from Citgo’s Corpus refinery weren’t due any compensation, including medical expenses or relocation costs. In 2007, a jury convicted Citgo of violating the Clean Air Act, a first for a major oil company. The company had illegally stored oil in two uncovered tanks, exposing nearby residents to toxic chemicals including the carcinogen benzene. It took seven years for U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey to sentence the company, finally ruling in February that Citgo owed $2 million—a paltry sum next to the $1 billion prosecutors argued the company had earned from its illegal operation. Still, victims held out hope for some restitution. On Wednesday, Rainey denied victims any restitution, including funding to pay for annual cancer screenings and other diseases that could be linked to chemical exposures. The Justice Department had requested that Citgo set up a fund to cover relocation costs, and another for victims’ future medical expenses, for a total of $30 million in restitution for victims and $25 million for the government. Ironically, Rainey wrote that determining how much victims are really owed would “unduly delay the sentencing process” and “outweighs the need to provide restitution to any victims.” The Citgo case is also the first in which victims of air pollution are recognized as victims of crime under the Crime Victims Rights Act and allowed to present oral testimony in court. Rainey had originally rejected 20 victims’ request for that status, but the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Rainey to reconsider. He eventually did grant more than 800 residents the status, but in his latest ruling Rainey says the operation of the tanks only caused short-term health effects on “at least two specific days.” He writes that there’s no evidence emissions could have caused long-term effects. Paul Cassell, a University of Utah law professor and former federal judge who is representing 20 of the victims in the case pro bono, says he is appealing the ruling. “We intend to argue to the Fifth Circuit [Court of Appeals] that Judge Rainey required indigent victims to come forward with expensive expert testimony that simply isn’t realistic in these kinds of cases,” Cassell says. “In this situation when you have a wealthy company and many indigent victims, we think in some ways the order was backwards, focusing too much on the defendant’s interests and not giving enough attention to the victims’ interests,” Cassell says. The restitution ruling was the prosecution’s last hope that Citgo would be made to pay more than the minimum fine of $2 million the judge set months ago. The Department of Justice calculates that Citgo made $1 billion in profit as a result of illegally operating two uncovered oil tanks. In February, Rainey ruled that empaneling a jury to determine exactly how much money Citgo made—and therefore what the appropriate fine would be—would “unduly” prolong the sentencing process that had already lasted seven years. He applied the same logic to determining restitution: Though in this case he wouldn’t have to empanel a jury, it would take the court too long to determine what each victim is owed. “Had he come to that conclusion [seven] years ago, he might have something there. But after you’ve unduly prolonged it for [seven] years, spending a little bit more time making a determination is not going to unduly prolong it,” says Bill Miller, a former EPA attorney who worked on the Citgo conviction but has since retired. “I think he’s completely ignored the word ‘unduly.’” The Observer contacted the Department of Justice for comment and received this statement: “We are disappointed in the court’s decision, especially for the residents of the community surrounding the refinery who suffered as a result of Citgo’s crimes.” The Justice Department wouldn’t comment on whether or not it intends to appeal. It has less than two weeks to do so, and Miller isn’t optimistic. “It doesn’t look like Department of Justice has any intention of appealing the sentencing of Citgo, which is a crime in itself in my opinion,” Miller says. “It basically emasculates environmental crime prosecution in the United States completely.” Miller says if Citgo’s sentence goes unchallenged, it will send the message that some corporations are too big to punish simply because it’s too hard to determine how much they profited from committing environmental crimes.
[Biofuel] Research Finds Real-Time Biodiesel Analysis | Domestic Fuel
http://domesticfuel.com/2014/05/08/research-finds-real-time-biodiesel-analysis/ Research Finds Real-Time Biodiesel Analysis Posted on May 8, 2014 by John Davis New research shows a way to conduct quality analysis in real-time. Biodico’s VP of Research and Development, Trey Teall, presented the results of a five-year research project at the recent American Oil Chemists’ Society (AOCS) Annual Meeting Expo in San Antonio, Texas that focused on the use of Fourier Transform Near-infrared Spectroscopy (FT-NIRS) to provide real-time in-situ analysis of the biodiesel production process as an alternative to conventional ASTM biodiesel methodology. ASTM 6751 protocols require the use of techniques that are relatively time-consuming and provide data about the state of the biodiesel reaction kinetics after the fact. For example, the use of gas chromatography to determine mono, di and tri glycerides, and free glycerin will take a trained technician over 45 minutes. It requires that a sample be drawn, reacted (silylated) and run through the GC; and the results indicate what the reaction state was instead of what it is in real time. In contrast, Teall’s research has shown that the use of FT-NIRS can be conducted with sensors imbedded into various production process streams and provide highly accurate near-instantaneous data about the state of the reaction. It can also detect low level contaminants to ensure that finished biodiesel meets the requirements of ASTM D 6751 for finished biodiesel. The research is continuing and is funded by grants from the California Energy Commission and is in collaboration with the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center, California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo, University of California Santa Barbara, and Marquette University. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Biodiesel Magazine - The Latest News and Data About Biodiesel Production
http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/articles/70062/tenn-professor-philip-ye-receives-award-for-glycerin-research [Perhaps, someday, biodiesel homebrewers will be able to use their glycerin byproduct for something other than compost.] Tenn. professor 'Philip' Ye receives award for glycerin research By The American Cleaning Institute | May 07, 2014 Research aimed at finding ways to overcome roadblocks to industrial production of value-added chemicals from glycerin is being honored with the 2014 Glycerine Innovation Award. The yearly honor is sponsored by the American Cleaning Institute and the National Biodiesel Board and is presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Oil Chemists’ Society. The 2014 honoree is Xiaofei “Philip” Ye, associate professor at the University of Tennessee's Department of Biosystems Engineering Soil Science. The ACI/NBB Glycerine Innovation Award recognizes outstanding achievement for research into new applications for glycerin, with particular emphasis on commercial viability. Ye undertook his research in response to the rapid growth of the biodiesel industry worldwide resulting in the production of large amounts of glycerin, creating an urgent need to quickly and effectively convert crude glycerin into value-added chemical products. Three major commodity chemicals that can be derived from glycerin—acrylic acid, lactic acid, and propylene glycol—have attracted extensive research worldwide in recent years. These chemicals serve as building blocks for plastics and polymers that are environmentally friendly, with wide applications in superabsorbent polymers, textile treating agents, adhesives, thermosetting resin and synthetic fibers. However, there are still “bottleneck problems” hindering the industrial production of these chemicals from glycerin. “These bottleneck problems are the use of crude glycerin instead of purified glycerin as feedstock, the catalyst deactivation in the conversion of glycerin, and energy and hydrogen efficiency in the conversion of glycerin,” said Ye. “My research focuses on innovative technology development to overcome these bottleneck problems. In addition, I also conducted engineering modeling and economic analysis that justify and promote the use of innovative technologies for the commercial production of value-added chemicals from glycerin.” Ye’s recent research in this area has been published in such journals as the Journal of the American Oil Chemists' Society, ChemSusChem, Biofuels, Fuel Processing Technology, and Catalysis Letters. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Report: Pentagon Paid $150 Per Gallon for Green Jet Fuel | Washington Free Beacon
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/report-pentagon-paid-150-per-gallon-for-green-jet-fuel/ [links in on-line article] Report: Pentagon Paid $150 Per Gallon for Green Jet Fuel GAO report notes exorbitant prices act as de facto subsidy for biofuel firms BY: Lachlan Markay May 7, 2014 3:26 pm The Department of Defense (DOD) paid $150 per gallon for alternative jet fuel made from algae, more than 64 times the current market price for standard carbon-based fuels, according to a report released on Wednesday. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted in its report that a Pentagon official reported paying “about $150 per gallon for 1,500 gallons of alternative jet fuel derived from algal oil.” GAO’s report examined the financial challenges facing increased purchases and use of alternative jet fuels by federal agencies. “Currently, the price for alternative jet fuels exceeds that of conventional jet fuel,” the report noted. The price for conventional jet fuel is currently $2.88 per gallon. GAO’s report reveals that federal agencies have paid significantly higher prices in an effort to promote biofuels in commercial and military aviation. “Of the two alternative jet-fuel production processes approved for use in commercial and military aircraft (Fischer-Tropsch and HEFA), DOD, according to a DOD official, paid from about $3 to $150 per gallon,” GAO reported. HEFA is an acronym for Hydroprocessed Esters and Fatty Acids, and refers to “renewable oil (e.g., vegetable oils, animal fat, waste grease, and algae oil) … processed using hydrogen treatment (hydroprocessing) to yield a fuel in the distillation range of jet fuel and diesel.” GAO interviewed 23 “academic, federal government, and private industry stakeholders” about challenges facing the increased adoption of alternative jet fuels. Twenty-two of them cited the fuels’ exorbitant costs. “Five of these stakeholders noted that for fuel produced using the HEFA production process, the cost of some types of feedstock—even before it is transported or converted—currently exceeds that of conventional fuel,” the report says. HEFA and other alternative jet fuels are currently produced in large measure by small firms that do not have the economies of scale to manufacture them in a cost-effective way. To address that problem, federal agencies have been buying extremely expensive alternative fuels as a means of subsidizing those firms. “Some stakeholders (5 of 23) elaborated that since most fuel producers are generally companies with limited funds and small-scale operations, it is extremely costly for them to produce fuel in large quantities,” the report noted. Purchasing HEFA fuels, some stakeholders said, would allow those businesses to grow their operations and, eventually, market alternative jet fuels at a lower price. However, those HEFA fuels will still need to be subsidized to be competitive, GAO noted, citing a recent Federal Aviation Administration study. “Alternative jet fuels produced on a commercial scale using the HEFA process would require a subsidy of $0.35 to $2.86 per gallon to be price-competitive with conventional jet fuels in 2020,” the report found. The Pentagon has previously come under fire for paying exorbitant prices for aviation biofuels. Reuters reported in 2012 that the Air Force had purchased 11,000 of alcohol-based jet fuel for $59 per gallon from a Colorado-based biofuel company. That company, Gevo Inc., was backed financially by high-dollar Democratic donor Vinod Khosla, who has invested in a number of companies that have received federal support from the Obama administration. A week before that story broke, the Navy spent $26 per gallon to fuel its Great Green Fleet during the 2012 Rim of the Pacific exercise. The $150-per-gallon DOD reportedly paid for HEFA fuels would dwarf those previous purchases, which came under fire from critics of the Obama administration’s green energy push. “Though some energy technologies that are too expensive for general civilian use may make sense for the military, biofuels are not among them,” wrote Heritage Foundation senior energy policy analyst David Kreutzer in 2012. “The military needs to rethink its biofuels program.” ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Harper has tarnished Canada's reputation for 'sustainable governance' -- new report | rabble.ca
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/karl-nerenberg/2014/05/harper-has-tarnished-canada%E2%80%99s-reputation-%E2%80%98sustainable-governan [links in on-line article] Harper has tarnished Canada's reputation for 'sustainable governance' -- new report By Karl Nerenberg | May 8, 2014 The Harper government must be getting used to negative report cards from respected international bodies. The latest comes from the Bertelsmann Foundation, based in Germany. It says that a strong case can be made that the quality of governance provided by the government of Canada deteriorated since Harper got his majority in 2011. Bertelsmann is especially critical of Canada's environmental performance in the Harper majority era. Bertelsmann points to the Conservatives' omnibus budget bill of 2012, which gutted federal environmental oversight of major projects while, at the same time, announcing Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto Accord. These and other retrograde environmental measures tarnished the government's reputation for sustainable governance, both domestically and internationally, Bertelsmann says. All of this and much more comes in the third edition of Bertelsmann's Sustainable Governance Indicators project, which is a cross-national survey of 41 OECD and EU countries. According to Bertelsmann's Canadian partner, the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS), the Indicators project analyzes each country's future viability based on 140 quantitative and qualitative indicators. It ranks countries in terms of policy performance, quality of democracy and governance. The 2014 edition of this report finds that Canada has dropped overall since the last one in 2011. In policy performance, Canada fell from 13th out of 31 countries in 2011 to 18th in 2014. In the category they call quality of democracy, Canada fell from 10th to 13th; while in governance, the fall was only of one place, from 9th to 10th. That sort of ranking numbers game is probably too-wonky-by-half for most of us who are non-specialists. At this time of year, many Canadians might ask, in the face of such figures: Yes, but did we still make the playoffs? What is more impressive are the clear -- and very damning -- statements Bertelsmann makes about a number of crucial areas of public policy and Canada's performance in them. To begin, the Foundation makes the overarching observation that, historically, Canada has had what it calls high quality governance structures. The term governance here refers to the actions of elected political bodies, political parties, the civil service and other public entities (such as the CBC), and the business and voluntary sectors in their relations with government and the public sphere. In other words, this concept of governance is a broad description of how well a country is organized and managed, in all its many dimensions. In 2014, based on its analysis of those 140 indicators, Bertelsmann says of Canada: While the government has... implemented effective policies in many areas over many decades, the actions of the Conservative government since winning a majority of the seats in the House of Commons in May 2011 have jeopardized this situation. Lack of commitment to evidence and economic inequality The report looks, for a start, at the methods the Conservatives have used to concoct their policies. Good governance requires evidence-based decision-making and such decision-making requires high-quality data, the report says. There are numerous examples in which Canada's government has demonstrated a lack of commitment both to the use of evidence in its decision-making and to the provision of high-quality data. For example, the crime rate has exhibited a strong downward trend in Canada for many years. Yet the government continues to pursue a 'tough on crime' agenda, allocating scarce resources to the issue that many feel could be better deployed elsewhere. Political calculations in this case trump evidence. While the report generally praises Canada's economic performance and economic governance, on the issue of economic fairness and economic equity, it has this to say: Canada has seen a substantial rise in income inequality over the past few decades. The share of total income going to the top 1% of earners has increased dramatically since 1980, mirroring trends in the United States and other Western economies. It then goes on to point to those groups that have least benefitted from economic growth. [C]ertain groups, such as recent immigrants and Aboriginal Canadians, are to a considerable degree excluded or marginalized from mainstream society. For these groups, social policy has done an inadequate job of preventing social exclusion. For immigrants, social disparities tend to diminish with the second generation. Indeed, second-generation immigrants often outperform the mainstream population on a variety of socioeconomic measures (including education, for example). The same cannot be
[Biofuel] New Movement Aims to ‘Reset the Net’ Against Mass Surveillance | Threat Level | WIRED
http://www.wired.com/2014/05/reset-the-net/ [video (1 minute 47 seconds) and links in on-line article] New Movement Aims to ‘Reset the Net’ Against Mass Surveillance By Kim Zetter05.06.14 | 6:30 am A coalition of nearly two-dozen tech companies and civil liberties groups is launching a new fight against mass internet surveillance, hoping to battle the NSA in much the same way online campaigners pushed back on bad piracy legislation in 2012. The new coalition, organized by Fight for the Future, is planning a Reset the Net day of action on June 5, the anniversary of the date the first Edward Snowden story broke detailing the government’s PRISM program, based on documents leaked by the former NSA contractor. “Government spies have a weakness: they can hack anybody, but they can’t hack everybody,” the organizers behind the Reset the Net movement say in their video (above). “Folks like the NSA depend on collecting insecure data from tapped fiber. They depend on our mistakes, mistakes we can fix.” To that end, the groups are calling on developers to add at least one NSA resistant feature to mobile apps, and on websites to add security features like SSL (Secure Socket Layer), HSTS (HTTP Strict Transport Security), and Perfect Forward Secrecy to better secure the communication of users and thwart government man-in-the-middle attacks. They also want mobile apps and websites to post a Reset the Net splash screen on June 5 and are distributing a privacy packet for users that contains a bundle of various free software tools, like Adium and Pidgin (for encrypted chat), Textsecure, and Redphone (encrypted phone calls and text messaging) and GPG (for encrypted email). Members of the coalition so far include Reddit, Imgur, DuckDuckGo, the Free Software Foundation, and CREDO Mobile, along with a number of civil liberties groups. CREDO Mobile is believed to be the anonymous telecom behind a constitutional battle over the government’s use of National Security Letters to obtain data from telecoms and other companies. “A year after Snowden’s shocking revelations, the NSA is still spying on innocent Americans without a warrant,” Michael Kieschnick, CEO of CREDO Mobile, said in a statement about the Reset the Net campaign. “CREDO will continue to demand Congress and the president take action to stop unconstitutional mass warrantless surveillance, and until we win real reform, we will encourage users to adopt encryption tools to protect their personal communications from government abuse of the 1st and 4th amendment.” The call to action recalls a similar grassroots movement that swept the internet in 2012 to protest two federal bills — the Senate’s Protect IP Act and the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. In that case, thousands of websites went dark or partially dark to halt the legislation. That successful campaign, however, was backed by powerhouse tech firms like Google and Twitter. So far, none of these companies has joined the coalition. “We are speaking to different people at a lot of these larger platforms,” says Tiffiniy Cheng, co director of Fight for the Future, which launched the Reset the Net movement. “We’re not sure where we are in those conversation but the conversations are going well.” She notes that the fight against mass surveillance is much more complex than the anti-SOPA campaign, and large companies may take different approaches this time around. “A lot of companies have either made some public statement or have taken on security practices that would move us towards making mass surveillance very difficult to conduct, so they’re headed in the right direction,” she says. “We expect that they will come out and support the greater movement to make mass surveillance extremely hard to do…. Because the surveillance is done in so many different ways … there are different ways that you can push back on mass surveillance.” ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Hazardous Cargo: Shipping Highly Flammable Bakken Crude Oil by Rail
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/23568-hazardous-cargo-shipping-highly-flammable-bakken-crude-oil-by-rail [image and links in on-line article] Hazardous Cargo: Shipping Highly Flammable Bakken Crude Oil by Rail Thursday, 08 May 2014 09:27 By Adam Federman, Earth Island Journal | Report When residents in the Quebec town of Lac-Mégantic describe the scene after an oil-train derailed and then exploded there last July, they say the burning petroleum was like a wall of fire, or a river of fire. The blaze, which burned for 36 hours, sent flames and smoke hundreds of feet into the air. At one point, the fire was pulling in so much oxygen that nearby trees were whipping about as if in a tropical storm. Several blocks from the blast site leaves turned an orange-red color from the overwhelming heat. It was early summer, but they looked like autumn foliage. The explosions and fire destroyed some 40 buildings and killed 47 people, most of whom were enjoying live music at a popular cafe. Wooden homes along the lakeshore burned from the inside out as fire erupted out of water pipes, drains, and sewers. A 48-inch storm pipe that runs from the train yard to the nearby Chaudière River became a conduit for the petroleum, spewing flames and oil more than half a mile into the water. It looked like a Saturn V rocket, says Robert Mercier, director of environmental services in Lac-Mégantic. Manhole covers on the Boulevard des Veterans exploded as columns of fire shot into the air. By the time the fire had been contained, the soil surrounding the blast site was a layer of grey ash. It was like being on the moon, says Sylvaine Perreault, an emergency responder who arrived early Saturday morning. It was all dust. On Friday, July 5, a 79-car train carrying petroleum from North Dakota's Bakken oil fields had been parked for the night on a modest but steady incline in the town of Nantes, seven miles outside of Lac-Mégantic. The sole engineer employed to secure the train and responsible for applying handbrakes in some of the cars left his shift at 11:25 p.m. At 11:30 p.m. a 911 call was made reporting a fire on one of the locomotives. Twelve firefighters from the town of Nantes arrived, along with two track-maintenance employees from Montreal, Maine Atlantic, the company operating the train. They extinguished the fire and left the scene. Just before 1:00 a.m. the train began to roll down the incline. It eventually reached a speed of more than 60 miles per hour before it careened off the track toward the Musi Café nightclub and exploded. Rejean Campagna, a 73-year-old Lac-Mégantic native, was awoken by the sound of the train screeching past his apartment and then of steel piling on steel. As if somebody had a big drum of steel and was hammering on it with a sledgehammer right beside my window, he told me. The train tracks are a scant 200 feet away from Campagna's front window, and when he opened the blinds the first thing he saw was a large ball of fire. It grew and grew and grew and then it mushroomed. Campagna and his wife, Claudette Lapointe, grabbed their pillboxes and cell phones and fled. The hood of their car was so hot that he couldn't touch it. (According to Mercier, the heat could be felt for more than a mile.) From a safe distance, about a quarter-mile away, they watched as the town burned. In the early morning hours a steady rain began to fall. The surface of Campagna's umbrella was so warm that when the drops of water bounced off it they sent spirals of steam into the night. If not for the rain, Campagna says, the whole town would have been destroyed. The rain saved us, he says. Lapointe lost two cousins. Campagna knew everyone who lived in the homes along the lake, some of whom also died. Roger Paquette, a 61-year-old friend of Campagna's, could not be awoken in time. Neighbors tried to wake him up, but the back of his house was already on fire, he says. All of these people never had a chance to get out of their homes, so swift was the flow of fire. Lac-Mégantic residents had little warning they were in danger. Few residents interviewed for this article knew that millions of gallons of highly flammable light crude oil were passing through their lakeside village nearly every day. When it comes to transporting oil by rail, the railroad industry and oil and gas companies operate in near total secrecy, with little federal oversight or regulation to ensure public safety. The oil moving through Lac-Mégantic was mislabeled – classified as packing group III instead of packing group II or I, which refer to more dangerous substances with lower flashpoints. A hazardous-materials inspection team issued safety warnings in 2011 and 2012, but no changes have been made to tank cars since then. Inspections of loading facilities in the Bakken oil fields conducted in October 2011 and June 2012 found that there were shortages of suitable rail cars; those in use were often being overloaded; and, because of the many different
[Biofuel] America's Oil And Gas Industry Averaged At Least 20 Spills Per Day In 2013 | ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3437109/oil-spills-2013/ [image and links in on-line article] America’s Oil And Gas Industry Averaged At Least 20 Spills Per Day In 2013 By Emily Atkin May 13, 2014 at 10:31 am Updated: May 13, 2014 at 10:53 am Despite missing data from one of the largest natural gas-producing states in the nation, an EnergyWire analysis released Monday found that the U.S. oil and gas industry was responsible for at least 7,662 spills, blowouts, and leaks in 2013 — an average of about 20 spills per day. The figure represents an 18 percent increase in the number of spills EnergyWire counted in 2012, when 6,546 accidents were tallied. Though most of the spills were small, their combined volume added up to more than 26 million gallons of oil, gas, hydraulic fracturing fluid, and other substances, the report said. The increase in drilling accidents since 2012 is particularly jarring because the United States has not actually seen an increase in drilling sites. According to January data from the American Petroleum institute, the total number of wells in the country in 2013 stayed largely the same, actually decreasing one percent since 2012. The decrease, according to API, is because the U.S. drilled substantially less gas wells in 2013, but increased its oil drilling — a trend seen most notably in Montana. There, spills were up 48 percent, largely in line with the 42 percent increase in rig count figures. In North Dakota’s booming Bakken Shale, though, spills jumped by 42 percent while rig numbers dropped 8 percent, another startling figure apparently driven by hasty, irresponsible development. “We still have this mentality that we have to go faster and faster,” Don Morrison of the environmental group Dakota Resource Council, told EnergyWire. “When you’re rushing, things go wrong.” Despite exhaustive state-by-state analysis of data, EnergyWire was unable to retrieve spill information from Louisiana, because the state did not apparently have an accessible list of spills. Louisiana officials reportedly told the publication that the information could be found in a Coast Guard’s National Response Center database, which is shut down. The state has not yet fulfilled EnergyWire’s March 21 Freedom of Information Act request for the data. The lack of information from Louisiana is especially troubling given the amount of potential the state has for spills. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Louisiana was second only to Texas in 2013 in both total and operating refinery capacity, and also has an enormous industrial sector consisting of multiple refineries and petrochemical plants. Louisiana in 2011 was one of the country’s top natural gas producers, accounting for a little under 10 percent of total natural gas production in the nation. As EnergyWire’s report notes, data for each state’s spill records are difficult to compile. There is no national database for oil spills or other fossil fuel-related accidents. (An exhaustive Nexis search was required for ThinkProgress’ list of the 45 worst fossil fuel disasters of 2013.) Each state reports spills differently — some requiring official public records requests, and some charging money for the information. And even that information is not always comprehensive. According to an October report in the Associated Press, nearly 300 oil spills and 750 “oil field incidents” that occurred in North Dakota since January 2012 went unreported to the public. Like many other oil-producing states, North Dakota regulators are not obliged to tell the public about oil spills under state law. ___ Sustainablelorgbiofuel mailing list Sustainablelorgbiofuel@lists.sustainablelists.org http://lists.eruditium.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel
[Biofuel] Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Energy Needs From Renewable Energy | ThinkProgress
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3436923/germany-energy-records/ Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Energy Needs From Renewable Energy [Despite assurances from North American energy experts that the grid cannot possibly accommodate more than 40% (previously 10, 20 and 30% - but always a round decadal number) of its supply from renewables without crashing the entire grid, German power consumers noted no irregularities, except that the price of electricity went negative for part of the day. images and links in on-line article] By Kiley Kroh May 13, 2014 at 11:16 am Updated: May 14, 2014 at 12:22 pm On Sunday, Germany’s impressive streak of renewable energy milestones continued, with renewable energy generation surging to a record portion — nearly 75 percent — of the country’s overall electricity demand by midday. With wind and solar in particular filling such a huge portion of the country’s power demand, electricity prices actually dipped into the negative for much of the afternoon, according to Renewables International. In the first quarter of 2014, renewable energy sources met a record 27 percent of the country’s electricity demand, thanks to additional installations and favorable weather. “Renewable generators produced 40.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, up from 35.7 billion kilowatt-hours in the same period last year,” Bloomberg reported. Much of the country’s renewable energy growth has occurred in the past decade and, as a point of comparison, Germany’s 27 percent is double the approximately 13 percent of U.S. electricity supply powered by renewables as of November 2013. Observers say the records will keep coming as Germany continues its Energiewende, or energy transformation, which aims to power the country almost entirely on renewable sources by 2050. “Once again, it was demonstrated that a modern electricity system such as the German one can already accept large penetration rates of variable but predictable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar PV power,” said Bernard Chabot, a renewable energy consultant based in France, via email. “In fact there are no technical and economic obstacles to go first to 20 percent of annual electricity demand penetration rate from a combination of those two technologies, then 50 percent and beyond by combining them with other renewables and energy efficiency measures and some progressive storage solutions at a modest level.” To reach the lofty goal of 80 percent renewables by 2050, Germany had to move quickly. Despite being known for gray skies, the country has installed an astonishing amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) power — setting multiple solar power generation records along the way. At the end of 2012, Germany had installed considerably more solar power capacity per capita than any other country. The rapid growth has slowed, however, with 3.3 GW of PV installed in 2013, compared to 7.6 in 2012. And as countries like the U.S., Japan and China catch up, installations have continued to drop in 2014. Regardless, a recent analysis by the consulting firm Eclareon found that solar power has reached grid parity in Germany, meaning once all of the costs are accounted for, the price of commercial solar power is now equal to retail electricity rates. And wind power reached record output levels last year — producing a massive 25.2 GW and accounting for 39 percent of the electricity supply on a single day in December. The unprecedented growth of solar PV in particular has been fueled in large part by policies that incentivize clean energy. Germany’s simple feed-in tariff (FIT) policy, which pays renewable energy producers a set amount for the electricity they produce under long-term contracts, has driven the solar power boom. But as installations continued to outpace government targets, Germany announced last year that it would begin scaling back its feed-in tariff. The FIT is financed by a surcharge paid by utility customers, but a major part of the problem stems from the fact that industry is largely exempt from the renewables surcharge — meaning the burden falls on households. Rather than adjust the industry exemption, the government instead proposed a “PV self-consumption charge” on new photovoltaic systems, something Germany’s Solar Industry Association recently announced it plans to challenge in court. The equity of the renewables surcharge isn’t the only criticism of Germany’s power transformation. Along with cutting out fossil fuel-generated energy to a large extent, the transition to renewables includes completely phasing out nuclear power. These goals are only achievable in combination with greatly reduced energy demand. Instead, coal imports are increasing in order to meet the country’s baseload power demands. And retail electricity rates are high and rising, putting pressure on lower income individuals in particular. But many of
[Biofuel] 'Energy [R]evolution': Nearly 100% Renewable Is Doable, says Report | Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/05/13-4 [images and links in on-line article] Published on Tuesday, May 13, 2014 by Common Dreams 'Energy [R]evolution': Nearly 100% Renewable Is Doable, says Report Study shows how US could democratize systems, create jobs, and radically reduce emissions by 2050 - Jon Queally, staff writer Dramatically reduce carbon emissions and the use of fossil fuels. Create millions of new jobs in the renewable energy sector and beyond. Democratize the energy system by increasing local control of production and resources. Not only can all this be accomplished, say researchers and experts, it can be done with readily available technologies and on an expedited timeline that—if executed—would prove humanity capable of acting to address the crisis of planetary climate change before it's too late. Produced by both Greenpeace and the Global Wind Energy Council, which represents the international wind industry, a new report released Monday—titled Energy [R]evolution - A Sustainable USA Energy Outlook (pdf)—details how by 2050, renewable energy sources could be producing close to 97% of electricity in the U.S. and approximately 94% of the country's needs for heating and cooling homes and businesses. The driving goal of the Energy [R]evolution, reads the report's introduction, is stopping global climate disruption, which is caused primarily by burning coal, oil, and methane gas. But the reasons to modernize our energy system are in numerable. The five key principles behind the Energy [R]evolution will be to: • Implement renewable solutions, especially through decentralized energy systems and grid expansions • Respect the natural limits of the environment • Phase out dirty, unsustainable energy sources • Create greater equity in the use of resources • Decouple economic growth from the consumption of fossil fuels Following on the heals of the IPCC's latest review of the international scientific consensus on the perils of climate change in April and the U.S. National Climate Assessment last week, the report presents the case for a radical and rapid energy transformation and a pathway for meeting the reduced emissions that the scientific community says is urgent. The E[R] demonstrates that transitioning to a renewable energy economy can free resources for economic development, said Kyle Ash, senior legislative representative for Greenpeace USA. It means more and better jobs, greater energy independence, and it is more democratic as citizens attain more control of energy production. The blueprint would lead to about 1.5 million energy-related jobs in 2030, say the authors of the report, which is a full 35% more than projected under the “business as usual” scenario outlined by the Energy Information Agency in its 2013 Annual Outlook (pdf). According to the report, the renewable energy strategy is designed to wean the economy off dirty fuels as thoroughly and quickly as possible, and in a way that is technologically, politically, and ecologically realistic. Sven Teske, a renewable energy expert with Greenpeace International, says that the climate realities and the economics of business as usual simply cannot be reconciled and that swift action must be taken. “Growing concerns about climate change and air pollution, along with quickly falling costs of renewable energy, are already upending the utility industry’s business model and threatening to turn fossil fuel reserves into stranded assets, said Teske. The Energy [R]evolution report demonstrates that the rapid changes in the energy sector could expand dramatically, with major implications for many industries.” In order to shift the rules that govern energy production and deployment in the U.S., the report argues that the following policies—at the local, state, and/or federal level—should be enacted to make such an energy [R]evolution possible: 1. Abolish all subsidies, including any policies which confer a financial benefit, to fossil fuels and nuclear energy. The End Polluter Welfare Act, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN) is an example of federal action that must move forward. 2. Internalize the currently socialized cost of industrial climate pollution, such as with a federal carbon fee. 3. Mandate strict efficiency standards for all energy consuming appliances, buildings and vehicles. 4. Establish legally binding targets for renewable energy and combined heat and power generation. 5. Reform electricity markets by guaranteeing priority access to the grid for renewable power generators. 6. Provide defined and stable returns for investors, for example by feed-in tariff schemes. 7. Implement better labeling and disclosure mechanisms to provide more environmental product information. 8. Increase research and development budgets for renewable energy and energy
