A new diesel biofuel derived from sugarcane is to be launched in Brazil after an accidental discovery made while researching malaria cures, the US and Brazilian companies producing it said Wednesday.
John Melo, the head of the US company Amyris involved, explained that one of his bio-engineers stumbled on the process while working on the Artemisia anti-malaria medicine.
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Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) on Friday said its entire sub 100 HP range of Massey Ferguson tractors, but one, has been made compatible for use with bio diesel.
“These tractors can use the current five per cent blend of regular diesel with diesel produced by esterising vegetable
oils obtained from corn, jatropha, rape seed etc,” TAFE said in a statement.
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After powering the micro-electronics revolution, silicon could carve out an important new role in speeding the debut of ultra-clean fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen, researchers in China suggest. Their calculations show for the first time that silicon nanotubes can store hydrogen more efficiently than their carbon nanotube counterparts.
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General Motors Corp.’s leading proponent of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles will challenge the energy industry and governments to commit to developing a public hydrogen fueling infrastructure when he addresses the National Hydrogen Association’s annual conference in Sacramento, Calif., today.
In his keynote address to the conference aimed at ramping up commercialization of hydrogen, GM Vice President of Research & Development and Strategic Planning Larry Burns is expected to urge cooperation from government and the energy industry and to outline GM’s proposed plan for establishing hydrogen fueling stations first in small numbers in and around a few major cities and over time connecting cities to one another along main arteries.
“The automobile industry has reached a critical juncture in our journey to realize the full potential of hydrogen fuel cell-electric vehicles,” Burns is expected to say as part of his prepared remarks. “We have now reached a point where the energy industry and governments must pick up their pace so we can continue to advance in a timely manner.”
Urban areas that could be first to establish hydrogen fueling infrastructures include Berlin, Shanghai and Los Angeles, Burns says.
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South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region became the 10th Chinese locality to have replaced gasoline and diesel oil with bio-ethanol fuel on Tuesday out of environmental and energy efficiency concerns.
Petrol stations in all the 14 cities of Guangxi began to sell bio-ethanol fuel on Tuesday and in two weeks, traditional petrol and diesel oil will be phased out, said Fu Jian, an official in charge of transport with the regional government.
Fu said about 350,000 motor vehicles and more than 3 million motorbikes will have their tanks cleaned up for the fuel change.
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It looks like gasoline, smells like gasoline and runs in regular gasoline engines, but it isn’t made from crude oil; it comes from crops.
It’s called “biogasoline,” and under a partnership announced Wednesday between Royal Dutch Shell and Virent Energy Systems, it could be coming to a filling station near you.
The European oil giant and the Madison, Wis.-based bioscience firm said they are working on a way to convert plant sugars found in non-food crops like switchgrass or sugarcane pulp into a synthetic gasoline that can be substituted for petroleum-based gasoline.
The fuel could be a breakthrough. Unlike ethanol, it can be used in high concentrations in conventional gasoline engines, and can be stored and transported in existing oil industry infrastructure — eliminating the need to build a whole new biofuels system, the companies said.
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