#What Will It Take for the U s. to Maintain Leadership in the Biopharma Industry? The biopharmaceutical industry is an important contributor to U s. economic growth and sustainability,
with more than 650,000 direct jobs (supporting a total of nearly 4 million jobs) and an economic output that totals more than $900 billion
#Ruptured pipeline spills 79k litres of oil along California coast A broken pipeline spilled 21,000 gallons (79,500 litres) of crude oil into the ocean before it was shut off Tuesday,
They traced the oil to the onshore pipeline that spilled into a culvert running under the U s. 101 freeway
The pipeline was shut off about three hours later but by then the slick stretched 45 metres into the water.
The 60-centimetre pipeline is owned by Plains All American Pipeline, which said it shut down the flow of oil
and the culvert carrying the oil to the ocean was blocked.""Plains deeply regrets this release has occurred
and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact, "the company said in a statement.
because so much of the oil was so close to the shore, Coast guard spokeswoman Jennifer Williams said.
About 3, 200 litres of oil have been recovered from the water, Williams said. The accident occurred on the same stretch of coastline as a 1969 spill that at the time was the largest ever in U s. waters
Several hundred thousand gallons spilled from a blowout on an oil platform and thousands of sea birds were killed along with many marine mammals.
It was surpassed later in size by 1989's Exxon valdez spill off Alaska and the 2010 Gulf oil spill off Louisiana.
The stretch of coastline about 32 kilometres northwest of the pricey real estate of Santa barbara still is home to offshore oil rigs
#California oil spill 5 times bigger than first estimated A broken pipeline spilled 21,000 gallons (79,500 litres) of crude oil into the ocean before it was shut off Tuesday,
They traced the oil to the onshore pipeline that spilled into a culvert running under the U s. 101 freeway
The pipeline was shut off about three hours later but by then the slick stretched 45 metres into the water.
The 60-centimetre pipeline is owned by Plains All American Pipeline, which said it shut down the flow of oil
and the culvert carrying the oil to the ocean was blocked.""Plains deeply regrets this release has occurred
and is making every effort to limit its environmental impact, "the company said in a statement.
because so much of the oil was so close to the shore, Coast guard spokeswoman Jennifer Williams said.
About 3, 200 litres of oil have been recovered from the water, Williams said. The accident occurred on the same stretch of coastline as a 1969 spill that at the time was the largest ever in U s. waters
Several hundred thousand gallons spilled from a blowout on an oil platform and thousands of sea birds were killed along with many marine mammals.
It was surpassed later in size by 1989's Exxon valdez spill off Alaska and the 2010 Gulf oil spill off Louisiana.
The stretch of coastline about 32 kilometres northwest of the pricey real estate of Santa barbara still is home to offshore oil rigs
Kenneth Irving, the former CEO of Irving Oil, left three decades in the oil industry to work on improving mobility in cities.
#EV Batteries Good, Paper EV Batteries 10x Better No matter how fast the cost of oil drops, it just can keep up with the pace of improvements in electric vehicle batteries.
and noted wind energy fan Warren Buffett reportedly just ditched his interest in Exxonmobil to the tune of 41 million shares,
and you can see why the prospects for future petroleum dependency are dimming with every advance in EV battery technology.
What Now, Petroleum? The advantages of EV technology are becoming more and more apparent practically by the minute,
but wee not saying that petroleum will disappear completely off the personal mobility map any time soon.
So, before you start cheering about the Exxonmobil divestment, keep in mind that Buffett Berkshire hathaway firm reportedly upped its shares in Suncor at the same time.
Wee guessing that Suncor wind energy and biofuel operations attracted some of the interest, but the company is also a longtime oil sands developer in Canada, sobaby steps r
#Imergy Power systems & Geli Awarded College Microgrid Project Advanced energy storage systems leader Imergy Power systems and Growing Energy Labs Inc. Geli) are collaborating on a microgrid project for Chabot-Las Positas Community college District in Livermore, California.
and oil, preventing the car from getting dirty. It been proven effective against road spray, sleet, standing water,
what under the hood apparently just a 1. 0 liter gas generator paired with a 12.2 kilowatt lithium-ion battery integrated with a rear-mounted electric motor
If you average that out to about $30 per day, that $210 in fuel savings per week
but the savings regardless of the £ to $ exchange rate will be substantial for those driving these fuel efficient vehicles over in London.
#Cow Manure to Ethanol Plant Switches On in California's San joaquin valley The San joaquin valley has become America breadbasket over the past few decades.
On the upside, all that agricultural waste creates a solid biofuels pipeline. Forget the food-versus-fuel debate:
many of the crops grown in the valley are high-value products that are lucrative,
Biofuels, clean energy, renewable energy, biofuels, biogas, cow manure, waste diversion, Pixley, Calgren, Regensis, Tulare County, DVO, California Energy Commission, dairy industry, San joaquin valley
The recent launch of the Calgren Ethanol Plant in the Tulare County town of Pixley is a step in helping California meet its clean energy goals while addressing the San joaquin valley terrible air pollution.
will churn cow manure into bioethanol which can then be blended with conventional gasoline. The core of Calgren plant is an anaerobic digester built by DVO,
which is based in Wisconsin. Regensis, a Washington state building contractor, was in charge of the plant construction.
Calgren Renewable fuels operates the plant, the output of which will be enough to fuel 145,000 cars annually.
In addition to generating ethanol biogas will also be produced in order to power the facility, nixing any need to be connected to the local grid.
The process starts with a nearby dairy, Four J Farms. Cow manure from the 1,
800 milk-producing cattle will flow down a pipeline to the Calgren plant. The manure is deposited then into the DVO-designed digester that is 16 feet deep
while clean fuel is culled from the manure, moisture is extracted also and then recycled so local farmers can use it to water their crops.
and hydrogen are getting a lot of media attention these days as the fuels of the future.
But it is the workhouse plants like this Calgren facility that reduce the carbon content of our fuel supply,
said Jim Mckinney, a project manager for CEC Alternative and Renewable fuel and Vehicle technology Program. Mckinney added that the ethanol produced at this plant results in the lowest carbon-emitting ethanol currently refined at an industrial scale throughout California.
More biorefineries such as the Calgren plant could help California solve multiple challenges a boost in production of clean transport fuels, the reduction in agricultural waste and for local residents,
better air quality in the San joaquin valley. here is enough organic waste (in California) to power 2 to 3 million homes
ultra-low carbon transportation fuels, said Regenis Vice president Bryan Vanloo. Furthermore, Steve Dvorak, President of DVO, reminded the audience that one cow alone creates about 100 to 130 cubic feet of biogas a day,
or the equivalent of 65, 000 BTUS or 6 kilowatt-hours daily. California dairy industry is not going away anytime soon,
Doubtless, some historical controversiesike the fights over the Keystone XL pipeline from Alberta oil sands to the US Gulf coast extensive petroleum infrastructureill remain,
#Big Oil & Gas Embraces Carbon Pricing Six of the world major oil and gas companies have called for national or regional carbon pricing.
Join m The oil companiesjoint statement effectively reverses previous claims from industry that petroleum causes the environmentnd the crucial atmospheric greenhouseo harm.
Here how the top 10 oil companies in the world stack up by revenue, according to the Fortune Global 500:
BP, Shell, Total, and three other predominantly European oil and gas companies (BG GROUP plc, Eni S. p. A,
. and Statoil ASA) lmost a third of the Top 10 list, including#2 and#3ntered the agreement.
They detailed their thoughts in a joint letter from their chief executives to UNFCCC Executive secretary Christiana Figueres and Laurent Fabius of France, who will preside over the upcoming COP21 conference in Paris this December.
The petroleum executives also sent an additional letter to the media, setting out their call for carbon pricing.
In it, they also expressed a strong role for natural gas in reducing carbon emissions. The subject of natural gas raises many eyebrows because although that fuel is currently available and inexpensive,
it too contributes to carbon pollution, emitting half the carbon dioxide of coal and producing additional methane, a more potent greenhouse gas over the short term (20 years).
However, the call is still a major step forward to decarbonization because, for the first time, major polluters at the source have shown eagerness to support potent climate change efforts.
but today, six of the oil and gas industry biggest players did just that. Their joint letter sends an unequivocal message to the international community As we look ahead to the U n. climate change conference in Paris at the end of the year,
With these fuel savings, this new wind propulsion technology has a payback period of just four years.
and voyage time while reducing fuel and emissions. Rotor Sails can be installed on new vessels
when fuel prices have risen, the focus on technologies like Norsepower in the shipping industry has intensified. But, as soon as fuel prices drop, attention drifts back to other priorities,
even though these technologies offer returns no matter the fuel price. Now, market trends are converging to create promise for efficiency technologies,
despite low fuel prices. A growing number of stakeholders are prioritizing efficiency, including charterers (those that rent ships), banks, port authorities,
and ship registries. With this growing prioritization, these parties are starting to shift money towards
WHY CHARTERS SHOULD RIDE THIS WAVE Fuel buyers can buttress their balance sheet by adopting fuel-saving technologies,
automatically protecting them from the pressures of a tenuous oil market. What makes the proposition even more enticing is the fact that successful technologies
and scaled quickly. odern wind systems are demonstrating measurable and meaningful fuel savings for ships.
the industry will reap the rewards of lower fuel costsore sustainable than those from short-term price decreases,
#Weirdest Biofuel Ever Powers Strangest Car Ever The folks at Columbia University have come up with a loating enginethat runs on evaporating water
Wee covered microbe-assisted biofuel plenty of times, but this spore business hadn crossed our radar before.
Weirdest Biofuel Ever, For anything Columbia press materials sum up the strange new car in one pithy sentence:
More & Better Biofuel Just the other day, we were talking about what a big week this has been for biofuel news,
and that was before we even got wind of the Columbia spore-enabled engine. On Monday, BMW teased out word of its plans for a fuel cell electric vehicle launch in 2020.
Wee thinking that could have something to do with the biofuel landfill gas, to be precise source for hydrogen that the company has been messing around with (visit our sister site Gas2. org for more coverage).
The company Joule updated us on new patents for its cyanobacteria-to-biofuel process powered by sunlight and carbon dioxide, researchers at Tohoku University hit upon a new method for converting algae to biofuel precursors,
and a new pathway to converting biomass to jet fuel was announced by a team from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in partnership with the petroleum giant BP of all people (corporations are people too,
#The Fossil fuel energy Industry Is Now Entering Terminal Decline It time to make the call fossil fuels are finished.
that the fossil fuel age is coming to an end, and within 15 to 30 years not 50 to 100 we risk making serious and damaging mistakes in climate and economic policy, in investment strategy and in geopolitics and defence.
It is now becoming clear wee reached a tipping point where fossil fuels will enter terminal decline, independently of climate policy action.
fossil fuels are double dead. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, o long and thanks for all the energy I understand this is a very big call, especially in regards to timing.
The resources they compete with coal oil and gas follow a different pattern. If demand kept increasing,
prices would go up because the newer reserves cost more to develop, such as deep sea oil. They may get cheaper through market shifts,
as they have done recently, but they can keep getting cheaper and they can never get any better.
on the verge of being price competitive with fossil fuels and already are in many situations. So in 10 years, maybe just five, it is a no-brainer that renewables will be significantly cheaper than fossil fuels in most places
and will then just keep getting cheaper. And better. Then we add in electric cars, which are now on the same path converting a staid, slow moving industry (traditional auto companies like GM) into a disruptive technology-driven one (innovators like Tesla).
Electric cars will accelerate the end of fossil fuels by joining with renewables to create a system shift,
will find the motor vehicle fuels market very appealing. This would then unleash a huge political and commercial driver for growth in electric cars with the utility sector providing infrastructure to use their product
cheaper to own and more fun to drive than petrol-fueled cars. Then it will just be a matter of turning over the fleet.
Oil companies will then have their Kodak moment. Coal will already largely be gone, replaced by renewables.
Fast beats slow One of key competitive advantages the fossil fuel industry has had is the huge capital,
They can play on the edges, like shale gas, oil trading or mineral exploration, but they can play the main game.
So the very thing that the fossil fuel industry had relied on for its growth the rapidly expanding need for energy in the developing world is the very thing that will drive the competition to wipe them out.
But the assumptions pretty much everyone working with that without policy intervention the energy system will be dominated by fossil fuels in 2050
whether we stop burning fossil fuels in 15 years or 30 years is important, but it not the main question because either way it a very different outcome than most are planning for.
and innovation of renewables while denying capital to fossil fuels, constraining their options. Then the only logical strategy for fossil fuel companies will be to get their depreciating assets out of the ground as fast as possible
and invest zero in exploration and development, instead paying out spare cash as dividends to shore up their stock price.
undermining the value of the fossil fuel industry, and reducing its political influence further. All businesses, like humans, fight death.
But in the end, the fossil fuel giants have no strategy that involves fossil fuels which makes any business or economic sense.
Other companies like utilities and auto companies, meanwhile, have great options like taking away a large share of the oil industry market with renewable powered electric cars.
They know that today we spend around twice as much on motor transport fuel as we do on electricity.
But big oil versus big utilities aligned with big auto is not the only disruptive impact for investors.
and join the party that will dance on the grave of fossil fuels: battery manufacturers, copper and lithium miners, electronics producers, software developers, electric engine makers, smart grid builders and, of course, solar and wind power manufacturers, installers and financiers.
With fossil fuels on the run, that industry support will evaporate. Governments are inclined much more to regulate when
So as fossil fuels are falling off the cliff, governments will give them a kick so they can claim credit.
make fossil fuels harder, make solar easier. The only change, now, is that victory is at hand.
The fossil fuel energy industry is now entering terminal decline and will be gone all but within 15-30 years.
which fossil fuels can match. Because of the nature of this transformation, there will be a wide variety of new business players entering the market from the side
undermining the historically dominant political and economic resistance of the fossil fuel companies. In combination these forces will unleash the predictable pattern of technology driven market disruption.
Fossil fuels are dead. The rest is detail e
#High-performance 3-D Silicon Anodes Made From Reed Leaves A low-cost approach to fabricating nanoporous silicon a potentially highly useful material for next-generation anode material in batteries,
The cars spent 750 hours of drive time gathering 150 million data points on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitric oxide (NO), ozone (O3), carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon
According to the U s. Environmental protection agency coal-and natural gas-fired plants were responsible for one-third of U s. greenhouse gas emissions in 2012.
That's why the agency has proposed rules mandating dramatically reduced carbon emissions at all new fossil fuel-fired power plants.
Current carbon capture technology uses caustic amine-based solvents to separate CO2 from the flue gas escaping a facility's smokestacks.
MECS provide a new way to capture carbon with fewer environmental issues says Roger D. Aines leader of the fuel cycle innovations program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and a co
This innovative gas separation platform provides large surface areas while eliminating a number of operational issues including corrosion evaporative losses
Perhaps this is why the powerful and wealthy Rockefeller family recently sold out of fossil fuels and switched their investments towards clean energy?
It was theorised that solar sails could accelerate spacecraft far beyond the speeds of traditional fuels, to make interplanetary-and interstellar travel more feasible.
When a black hole feeds, gas falls in and heats up, blasting out light. The pressure of the light actually pushes the gas away
creating a limit to how fast the black hole can continuously scarf down matter. If a black hole broke this limit,
'It was able to go more than Mach 5 until it ran out of fuel.''It was a very successful test of an airborne hypersonic weapons system.'
#The gas powered 3d printed supercar that can go from 0-60 in TWO seconds It can go from 0-60mph in just two seconds,
Its 700-horsepower engine can use either compressed natural gas or gasoline, and altogether it weighs just 1400lbs-90%less than some modern cars.
This results in better fuel economy and less wear on roads, it claims. Equipped with a 700-horsepower bi-fuel engine that can use either compressed natural gas or gasoline
Blade goes from 0-60 in about two seconds and weighs around 1, 400 pounds.
or discomfort. he device is re-useable once the gas cylinder is removed and the nylon inflatable can be deflated and packed back into its pouch,
ready for use when a new gas cylinder is installed. Kingii is available to pre-order via Indiegogo from $69 (£44) i
The company behind the idea, construction firm Volkerwessels, said that the surface would require less maintenance than the traditional road building material asphalt
as asphalt is responsible for 1. 6m tons of CO2 EMISSIONS a year globally, making up two per cent of all transport emissions, according to the firm.'
'Unfortunately for petrol heads, the special project is a onetime collaboration, and won't go on general sale.
Lexus unveil the world's first ever car with a heartbeat LEXUS RC F SPECS Unfortunately for petrol heads,
which converts electrical energy into thrust without the need for rocket fuel. Martin Tajmar, professor and chair for Space Systems at the Dresden University of Technology, presented his work at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics'Propulsion and Energy Forum in Orlando yesterday.
which is why propellant is required in traditional rockets. Researchers from the US, UK and China have demonstrated EMDRIVES over the past few decades,
which means that no propellant is needed. The implications for this could be huge. For instance, current satellites could be half the size they are today without the need to carry fuel.
Humans could also travel further into space generating their own propulsion on the way. When London-based Roger Sawyer came up with concept in 2000,
multispectral cameras and gas sensors to assess the health of someone looking into it. It does this by examining the person face,
while the gas sensors take samples of the user breath looking for compounds that give an indication of how much they drink or smoke.
The hottest hot beverages in Manhattan are the sippable one brothsfrom Brodo single-service window, with add-ins like Calabrian chili oil, shiitake mushroom tea and fermented beet juice.
#Battelle Big data Improves Oil & Gas Efficiency Battelle has developed a data analytics platform to increase oil and gas industry efficiency.
Elucidata brings analytical and machine learning methods originally developed for data-heavy applications such as national security and the healthcare industry to the oil and gas industry,
Battelle says. The technology can be used to help petroleum developers make smarter decisions and more effectively manage assets.
It can also develop predictive models for cost effective and optimized well designs. Stephanie Kute, Ph d.,who runs the program for Battelle,
says Elucidata can help oil and gas firms apply big data to improve their processes as well as save time
and money by using statistical modeling. Elucidata can pinpoint factors that separate good wells from poor performers,
It also can show how oil production is related to geologic formations and how to develop robust predictive models.
The difficulties with aluminum-air construction, in particular, has been rapid degradation of the anode and, in early models of Al-Air, the release of hydrogen gas.
This was given not in precise terms relative to the cost of gasoline (and the weight of the aluminum anode in these batteries is unknown),
and sandwiched a layer of oil in between. Then they carefully injected into the mix individual water droplets that had been infused with tiny magnetic nanoparticles.
a metric that allows China to demonstrate movement away from carbon-emitting fuels even as total emissions continue to rise with economic growth.
The hybrid merchant vessel will also use a Liquid Natural gas electric propulsion system which takes the ship to the necessary speed to generate aerodynamic lift on its hull.
However Chris Cheetham founder of Soter Advisors a fuel and energy risk management consultancy specializing in the shipping industry said that a number of factors could impact potential savings.
Cheetham cited the huge pullback in oil prices and the inventory of traditional ships that are scheduled already to be built as factors that companies will need to consider before licensing a revolutionary design such as the Vindskip.
or prevent oil from building up on bolts, scientists are also aiming to uncovering characteristics that might lead to large-scale solutions for society.
#Ultra-Fast Software Developed to Scan the Human genome Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital say they have developed an analysis pipeline that cuts the time it takes to search a person's genome for disease-causing variations from weeks to hours.
Dr. White and his team developed a computational pipeline called"Churchill.""By using novel computational techniques,
In comparison with other computational pipelines, Churchill was shown to have the highest sensitivity at 99.7%;
so our initial focus was to create an analysis pipeline that was extremely fast, but didn't sacrifice clinical diagnostic standards of reproducibility
it is critical that that we continue to develop new antimalarials that act against previously unexploited targets in the parasite to keep priming the drug pipeline."
Since the early 1900s, scientists have known that cancer cells prefer to use glucose as fuel even if they have plenty of other resources available.
This preference for using glucose as fuel is called the Warburg effect, or glycolysis. In a paper (road Anti-tumor Activity of a Small Molecule that Selectively Targets the Warburg Effect and Lipogenesis published in Cancer cell
but primarily due to clinical trial expenses related to its pipeline of product candidates, including its Hyperacute immunotherapy cancer programs and its IDO pathway inhibitor (indoximod) programs
#Audi claims first synthetic gasoline made from plants Just weeks after producing its first batch of synthetic diesel fuel made from carbon dioxide and water,
clean-burning and petroleum-free fuel called"e-benzin.""The fuel was created by Audi's project partner Global Bioenergies, in France.
In late 2014, Global Bioenergies started up the fermentation unit for a pilot program to produce gaseous isobutane from renewable biomass sugars such as corn-derived glucose.
Gaseous isobutane is a sort of raw material for the petrochemical industry that can then be refined into a variety of plastics, fuels and other applications.
Some of it was sent then to Germany to be converted into isooctane fuel creating a pure, 100 octane gasoline."
"To me this is a historic moment, "says Global Bioenergies CEO Marc Delcourt.""It is the first time that we have produced real gasoline from plants."
"Isooctane is used currently as an additive to improve fuel quality, but could also be used a stand-alone fuel.
Audi calls the final, refined form of the fuel"e-benzin"and claims that it burns clean due to its lack of sulfur and benzene.
Also, its high grade enables it to power engines using high compression ratios for more efficiency.
Audi will test the fuel composition and conduct engine tests to see how it performs before eventually trying it out in vehicle fleets.
Delcourt says he could see it being used in consumer cars on a large scale"very soon.""
"It's basically how we're moving away from an oil-based economy towards something that has a renewable, sustainable future to it."
We saw a similar project in Europe in 2014 that sought to make jet fuel. As part of its next phase, the company is building a new demonstration plant in Germany.
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