Researchers from the Center of Plant Genomics and Biotechnology at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the U s. Department of energy's Argonne National Laboratory report as an advance
which included Lydia Finney and Stefan Vogt from the APS used high-energy X-rays from the 8-BM and 2-ID-E beamlines of the APS to track the distribution of minute iron
This is the first high-energy X-ray analysis of plant-microbe interactions. X-rays such as those from the APS provided a high sensitivity to elements and a high spatial resolution not attainable by other means.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Argonne National Laboratory. The original article was written by Tona Kunz.
The isotopic compositions of these presolar grains provide clues to the complex nuclear and convective processes operating within stars
which requires substantially less water and energy to produce. Soy-based proteins are a common pet food ingredient
and their production is estimated to be 6 to 20 times more efficient in terms of fossil fuel requirements.
In addition to delivering toxic substances from the charcoal and tobacco the heat causes chemical reactions in the mixture which produce toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCS) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS).
The Mediet is characterized by a high consumption of fruits vegetables legumes olive oil nuts and whole grain;
The five-year study looks at 7447 participants assigned to one of three intervention diets (two Mediets enriched with extra virgin olive oil or mixed nuts or a control low-fat diet.
That means the plants contain significantly more biomass for fuel production he said. If you look at a slide of the cells under a microscope anyone can understand it.
Concern over methane is mounting due to leaks associated with rapidly expanding unconventional oil and gas extraction and the potential for large-scale release of methane from the Arctic as ice cover continues to melt
At the same time methane is a growing source of energy and aggressive methane mitigation is key to avoiding dangerous levels of global warming.
We used free-energy profiling and geometric analysis in these candidate zeolites to understand how the distribution
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Turning algae into clean energy and fish food; helping Africans to irrigate cropscould algae that feast on wastewater produce clean biofuels and a healthful supply of fish food?
pollution control the limited supply of fossil fuels and production of healthy food. This team dubbed Algafuture is composed of undergraduates and graduate students from the departments of Geography and Environmental Engineering and Chemical and Biomolecular engineering.
and do not require electricity or fuel. Instead they use the kinetic energy of flowing stream water to power the lifting of a fraction of this water to a higher elevation.
Additional resources were contributed by the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life sciences'Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research center the Shell Gamechanger Program and the U s. Department of energy Bioenergy Science Center along with the Division of Chemical sciences
Geosciences and Biosciences Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the Department of energy. Chen was supported partially by the China Scholarship Council.
which can be explained only partly by the high energy content of this snack he said.
Although carbohydrates and fats also were a source of high energy the rats pursued the chips most actively and the standard chow least actively.
In addition to biomedical applications the materials also have potential uses in solar cells and as nanosensors and biomedical imaging reagents Warner pointed out.
and physiology of the hangover at a symposium Chemistry of the Bar which connects with the ACS meeting's core theme The Chemistry of Energy and Food.
She says there's a high energy cost associated with common lawn-care methods such as mowing irrigation
To make your lawn look nice you need to use fossil fuels which emit carbon dioxide. Depending on the management intensity lawns could
Fossil fuels are used to power lawn mowers and trimmers to pump irrigation water and to make fertilizers
and fossil fuel energy expended to keep lawns looking lush consumes so much energy that it counteracts the soil's natural carbon sequestration abilities.
whether you can reduce the amount of energy you need to make a lawn pretty
and land use change and our energy choices (such as biofuels oil sands and shale gas). In this talk we discuss the drivers affecting water sustainability
Now researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) through support from the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) have shed literally new light on cellulase catalysis. Using an ultrahigh-precision visible light microscopy
technique called PALM--for Photo-Activated Localization Microscopy--the researchers have found a way to improve the collective catalytic activity of enzyme cocktails that can boost the yields of sugars for making fuels.
Increasing the sugar yields from cellulosic biomass to help bring down biofuel production costs is essential for the widespread commercial adoption of these fuels.
if the United states is to significantly reduce its use of fossil fuels in the coming decades.
Fossil fuels are responsible for the annual release of nearly nine billion metric tons of excess carbon into the atmosphere.
EBI which provided the funding for this research is a collaborative partnership between BP the funding agency UC Berkeley Berkeley Lab and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Giving plants the right amount of lightenormous amounts of energy are wasted in greenhouses where our food is grown
The technology has enormous potential for energy savings says Torsten Wik. We are counting on being able to save about 30 per cent by switching from sodium lamps to LED.
#Microalgae produce more oil faster for energy, food or productsscientists have described technology that accelerates microalgae's ability to produce many different types of renewable oils for fuels chemicals foods
Walter Rakitsky Ph d explained that microalgae are the original oil producers on earth and that all of the oil-producing machinery present in higher plants resides within these single-cell organisms.
Solazyme's breakthrough biotechnology platform unlocks the power of microalgae achieving over 80 percent oil within each individual cell at commercial scale
while changing the triglyceride oil paradigm by their ability to tailor the oil profiles by carbon chain and saturation.
The ability to produce multiple oils in a matter of days out of one plant location using standard industrial fermentation is a game-changer.
Solazyme's patented microalgae strains have become the workhorses of a growing industry focused on producing commercial quantities of microalgal oil for energy and food applications.
Rakitsky is with Solazyme Inc. of South San francisco Calif. one of the largest and most successful of those companies
In a keynote talk at the ACS meeting Rakitsky described Solazyme's technology platform that enables the company to produce multiple oils from heart-healthy high-oleic oils for food to oils that are tailored to have specific performance
and oils that are the highest-value cuts of the barrel for advanced fuels. The benefits of these oils far surpass those of other oils that are currently available today.
For the first time in history we have unlocked the ability to completely design and tailor oils he said.
This breakthrough allows us to create oils optimized for everything from high-performance jet and diesel fuel to renewable chemicals to skin-care products and heart-healthy food oils.
These oils could replace or enhance the properties of oils derived from the world's three dominant sources:
petroleum plants and animals. Producing custom-tailored oils starts with optimizing the algae to produce the right kind of oil
and from there the flexibility of the fermentation platform really comes into play. Solazyme is able to produce all of these oils in one location simply by switching out the strain of microalgae they use Rakitsky explained.
Unlike other algal oil production processes in which algae grow in open ponds Solazyme grows microalgae in total darkness in the same kind of fermentation vats used to produce vinegar medicines and scores of other products.
Instead of sunlight energy for the microalgae's growth comes from low-cost plant-based sugars. This gives the company a completely consistent repeatable industrial process to produce tailored oil at scale Sugar from traditional sources such as sugarcane
and corn has advantages for growing microalgae especially their abundance and relatively low cost Rakitsky said.
The company's first fit-for-purpose commercial-scale production plant is under construction with their partner Bunge next to a sugarcane mill in Brazil.
Initial production capacity will be 110000 tons of microalgal oil annually expanding up to 330700 tons. In addition the company has a production agreement with ADM in Clinton Iowa for 22000 tons of oil expandable to 110000 tons.
Ultimately cellulosic sources of sugars from non-food plants or plant waste materials like grasses or corn stover may take over as those technologies reach the right scale
and cost structures. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society (ACS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Reducing waste of food: A key element in feeding billions more peoplefamilies can be key players in a revolution needed to feed the world
It also wastes energy fertilizers pesticides and other resources used in the food supply. Supplying more food however is only part of the challenge Floros emphasized.
The demand for sustainable energy may divert more cropland to production of crops for biofuel production.
Brown expressly pointed out that one of the major barriers to commercializing nanocellulose fuels involves national policy and politics rather than science.
In the long run the United states will need sustainable biofuels he said citing the importance of national energy policies that foster parallel development and commercialization of biofuels.
and conclude that those of the same colour must also contain lots of energy-rich nectar.
UAVSAR uses a technique called interferometry that sends microwave energy pulses from the sensor on the aircraft to the ground.
As for how this happened the prevailing theory holds that massive stars in the early galaxies produced an abundance of high-energy ultraviolet light that escaped into intergalactic space.
when we looked at galaxies nearby the high-energy radiation doesn't appear to make it out.
The pollutants products of fossil fuel combustion are emitted by cars trucks and buses. Pollutants rise up into the atmosphere
#Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel production could revolutionize alternative energy marketa team of Virginia Tech researchers has discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant a breakthrough that has the potential to bring a low-cost environmentally friendly fuel source
Our new process could help end our dependence on fossil fuels said Y. H. Percival Zhang an associate professor of biological systems engineering in the College of Agriculture and Life sciences and the College of Engineering.
The U s. Department of energy says that hydrogen fuel has the potential to dramatically reduce reliance of fossil fuels
but not affiliated with this project said this discovery has the potential to have a major impact on alternative energy production.
The potential for profit and environmental benefits are why so many automobile oil and energy companies are working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as the transportation of the future Zhang said.
Many people believe we will enter the hydrogen economy soon with a market capacity of at least $1 trillion in the United states alone.
The energy stored in xylose splits water molecules yielding high-purity hydrogen that can be utilized directly by proton-exchange membrane fuel cells.
Even more appealing this reaction occurs at low temperatures generating hydrogen energy that is greater than the chemical energy stored in xylose and the polyphosphate.
This results in an energy efficiency of more than 100 percent--a net energy gain. That means that low-temperature waste heat can be used to produce high-quality chemical energy hydrogen for the first time.
Other processes that convert sugar into biofuels such as ethanol and butanol always have energy efficiencies of less than 100 percent resulting in an energy penalty.
We think this discovery is a game-changer in the world of alternative energy. Support for the current research comes from the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech.
Additional resources were contributed by the Shell Gamechanger Program the Virginia Tech College of Agriculture and Life sciences'Biodesign and Bioprocessing Research center and the U s. Department of energy Bioenergy Science Center along with the Division of Chemical sciences
Geosciences and Biosciences Office of Basic Energy Sciences of the Department of energy. The lead author of the article Julia S. Martin Del Campo who works in Zhang's lab received her Ph d. grant from the Mexican Council of Science and Technology.
All diets contained the same amounts of energy standardized ileal digestible indispensable amino acids and digestible phosphorus. Fat content was held not constant across diets;
But as fossil fuels replaced timber as a heat and energy source forestry and grazing practices evolved
and reforestation and habitat regeneration occurred in parts of the their former range the bears rebounded.
#Waste heat may economize CO2 capturein some of the first results from a federally funded initiative to find new ways of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants Rice university scientists have found that CO2 can be removed more economically using waste heat
because capturing CO2 with conventional technology is an energy-intensive process that can consume as much as one-quarter of the high-pressure steam that plants use to produce electricity.
Hirasaki's team was one of 16 chosen by the Department of energy (DOE) in 2011 to develop innovative techniques for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.
Power plants fired by coal and natural gas account for about half of the CO2 that humans add to the atmosphere each year;
Some steam has insufficient energy to run a turbine. This is often referred to as waste heat
The Department of energy wants us to investigate how our process compares with what's already on the market
The research is supported by the Department of energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Rice university.
Childhood nutritionchildhood from two to fourteen years old is a growth period during which the requirements for energy and nutrients increase.
and how they are created researchers at the University of Illinois's Energy Biosciences Institute have developed some suggestions on how to improve the regulation of all invasive plant species including new biofuels plants.
Quinn's job at the University of Illinois's Energy Biosciences Institute has been to investigate the potential for invasiveness in new nonnative crops that are being developed for biofuels.
Quinn who is a postdoctoral research associate at the Energy Biosciences Institute at the University of Illinois conducted the research along with James Mccubbins and A. Bryan Endres both U of
The research was funded by the Energy Biosciences Institute. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
But Ria has tremendous energy and curiosity and that convinced me to give this research project a try Bauer said.
efficient solar cellsolar cells are just like leaves capturing the sunlight and turning it into energy.
Georgia Institute of technology and Purdue University researchers have developed efficient solar cells using natural substrates derived from plants such as trees.
Just as importantly by fabricating them on cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) substrates the solar cells can be recycled quickly in water at the end of their lifecycle.
The researchers report that the organic solar cells reach a power conversion efficiency of 2. 7 percent an unprecedented figure for cells on substrates derived from renewable raw materials.
The CNC substrates on which the solar cells are fabricated are optically transparent enabling light to pass through them before being absorbed by a very thin layer of an organic semiconductor.
During the recycling process the solar cells are immersed simply in water at room temperature. Within only minutes the CNC substrate dissolves
and the solar cell can be separated easily into its major components. Georgia Tech College of Engineering Professor Bernard Kippelen led the study
and says his team's project opens the door for a truly recyclable sustainable and renewable solar cell technology.
But organic solar cells must be recyclable. Otherwise we are simply solving one problem less dependence on fossil fuels
while creating another a technology that produces energy from renewable sources but is not disposable at the end of its lifecycle.
To date organic solar cells have been fabricated typically on glass or plastic. Neither is easily recyclable and petroleum-based substrates are not very eco-friendly.
For instance if cells fabricated on glass were to break during manufacturing or installation the useless materials would be difficult to dispose of.
Paper substrates are better for the environment but have shown limited performance because of high surface roughness or porosity.
Our next steps will be to work toward improving the power conversion efficiency over 10 percent levels similar to solar cells fabricated on glass
or petroleum-based substrates said Kippelen. The group plans to achieve this by optimizing the optical properties of the solar cell's electrode.
Purdue School of Materials Engineering associate professor Jeffrey Youngblood collaborated with Kippelen on the research. A provisional patent on the technology has been filed with the U s. Patent office.
Last year the center created the first-ever completely plastic solar cell. This research was funded in part through the Center for Interface Science:
Solar Electric Materials an Energy Frontier Research center funded by the U s. Department of energy Office of Science Office of Basic Energy Sciences under Award Number DE-SC0001084 (Y. Z
and Dave Weisrock both at Duke university at the time analyzed two mitochondrial and four nuclear DNA genes to figure out where the animals fit into the lemur family tree.
and power lines findings that could affect the oil and gas industry as much as farmers and land owners.
we've been fortunate that the wind energy companies have identified these places as potential problems
You have some of those areas that because of petroleum extraction stockyards or other human activity the chickens just won't said use Boal.
The Rice university lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan determined that the well-studied material is a superior cathode for batteries that could supply both high energy density and significant power density.
This is the direction battery research is going not only for something with high energy density but also high power density Ajayan said.
which held 204 milliamp hours of energy per gram. The researchers led by Rice graduate student Yongji Gong
and higher energy content fuels can be extracted efficiently. Domesticating these as crops requires a deep understanding of the physiology
The close relationship between peach and poplar trees is evident from their DNA sequence said Jeremy Schmutz head of the Plant Program at the U s. Department of energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI.
--and a key barrier to deconstructing biomass into fuels. For bioenergy researchers the size of the peach genome makes it ideal to serve as a plant model for studying genes found in related genomes such as poplar one of the DOE JGI's Plant Flagship Genomes
(http://bit. ly/JGI-Plants) and develop methods for improving plant biomass yield for biofuels.
which extends the growing season said Daniel Rokhsar DOE JGI Eukaryotic Program head under whose leadership sequencing of the peach genome began back in 2007.
The publication comes three years after the International Peach Genome Consortium publicly released the draft assembly of the annotated peach genome on the DOE JGI Plant portal Phytozome. net and on other websites.
Learn more about poplar and DOE JGI Plant Flagship Genomes at http://genome. jgi. doe. gov/programs/plants/flagship genomes. jsf.
In the United states the Initiative was funded by the U s. Department of energy Office of Science and led by researchers at the DOE JGI The Hudsonalpha Institute for Biotechnology Clemson University North carolina State university and Washington state University.
Additional support was contributed by U s. Department of agriculture and by the Energy Biosciences Institute of the University of California Berkeley who supported senior author Therese Mitros.
The Italian government also supported this international effort including the work of first author Ignazio Verde of the Fruit tree Research Centre/Agricultural Research Council in Rome Italy.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Joint Genome Institute. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and the quantity of lipids per cell (essential for obtaining fuel). Their study shows that one type of marine algae that has received little attention till now--dinoflagellate microalgae--is highly suitable for cultivation with the aim of producing biodiesel.
or temperature control in cultivation conditions with low energy costs and subject to seasonal fluctuations. Detailed analysis of all costs over 4 years gives promising results:
If we make simple adjustments to completely optimise the process biodiesel obtained by cultivating these marine microalgae could be an option for energy supplies to towns near the sea points out Sergio Rossi an ICTA researcher at the UAB.
and bioethanol (obtained from monoculture of palm oil sugar cane maize etc.)have presented problems that make them less attractive.
and their use implies diverting food products to the energy market. The possibility of creating energy from hydrocarbons extracted from organisms like marine phytoplankton the so-called third-generation biodiesel has several advantages.
Firstly algae offer the same production levels while taking up only between 4 and 7 per cent of the area occupied by crops on land thanks to their high concentration of energy per cell.
Secondly they do need not fresh water as sea water is sufficient which makes them viable even in deserts or arid areas near the coast.
which avoids the ethical problem of monoculture to provide fuel rather than food. This study was led by scientists from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona's Institute of Environmental science
The study is based on Flynn's research of a plant-based diet she developed that emphasizes cooking with olive oil
As part of the study participants attended six weeks of cooking classes where instructors prepared quick and easy plant-based recipes that incorporated ingredients like olive oil whole grain pasta
In the study Argerich and colleagues analyzed concentrations of stream nitrogen which despite regulations have been on the rise across the country as energy and food production release reactive forms of the compound into waterways.
Soybean meal is a bi-product following oil extraction from soybean seeds. It is rich in protein
Frederico Fiuza a physicist and Lawrence Fellow at LLNL performed the simulations in order to study the interaction of ultra-powerful lasers with dense plasmas in a proposed method to produce fusion energy the energy
and tritium (DT) fuel to temperatures exceeding the 50 million degrees Celsius needed to initiate fusion reactions and release net energy.
The project is part of the U s. Department of energy's Office of Fusion Energy Science Program. This method differs from the approach being taken by LLNL's National Ignition Facility to achieve thermonuclear ignition and burn.
and ignition of a spherical fuel capsule in an implosion much like in a diesel engine.
Sequoia is a National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) machine developed and fielded as part of NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program.
With simulations like this we can help transform the outlook for laboratory fusion as a tool for science energy and stewardship of the nuclear stockpile.
The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#Petroleum use, greenhouse gas emissions of automobiles could drop 80 percent by 2050: U s. reporta new National Research Council report finds that by the year 2050 the U s. may be able to reduce petroleum consumption
and greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent for light-duty vehicles--cars and small trucks--via a combination of more efficient vehicles;
the use of alternative fuels like biofuels electricity and hydrogen; and strong government policies to overcome high costs and influence consumer choices.
To reach the 2050 goals for reducing petroleum use and greenhouse gases vehicles must become dramatically more efficient regardless of how they are powered said Douglas M. Chapin principal of MPR Associates
In addition alternative fuels to petroleum must be readily available cost-effective and produced with low emissions of greenhouse gases.
i e. energy cost savings improved vehicle technologies and reductions in petroleum use and greenhouse gas emissions exceed the additional costs of the transition over and above
what the market is willing to do voluntarily. Improving the efficiency of conventional vehicles is up to a point the most economical and easiest-to-implement approach to saving fuel
and lowering emissions the report says. This approach includes reducing work the engine must perform--reducing vehicle weight aerodynamic resistance rolling resistance
The average fuel economy of vehicles on the road would have exceed to 180 mpg which the report says is extremely unlikely with current technologies.
and fuels including: hybrid electric vehicles such as the Toyota Prius; plug-in hybrid electric vehicles such as the Chevrolet Volt;
some will rely on fuels that are not readily available or have restricted travel range; and others may require bulky energy storage that will limit their cargo and passenger capacity.
Wide consumer acceptance is essential however and large numbers of alternative vehicles must be purchased long before 2050
and appropriate refueling infrastructure created they have great potential for reducing petroleum consumption. While corn-grain ethanol
This drop in fuel is designed to be a direct replacement for gasoline and could lead to large reductions in both petroleum use
and greenhouse gas emissions; it can also be introduced without major changes in fuel delivery infrastructure or vehicles.
The report finds that sufficient lignocellulosic biomass could be produced by 2050 to meet the goal of an 80 percent reduction in petroleum use
when combined with highly efficient vehicles. Vehicles powered by electricity will not emit any greenhouse gases
Achieving these goals requires that the improved technology focus on reducing fuel use rather than adding greater power
and fuel research and development supported by both government and industry designed to solve the critical challenges in each major candidate technology.
and fuels will require a rigorous policy framework that is more stringent than the proposed fuel economy standards for 2025.
This policy intervention could include high and increasing fuel economy standards R&d support subsidies and public information programs aimed at improving consumers'familiarity with the new fuels and powertrains.
Because of the high level of uncertainty in the pace and scale of technology advances this framework should be modified as technologies develop and as conditions change.
It is essential that policies promoting particular technologies to the public are introduced not before these new fuels
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