Could converting the huge amounts of garbage sitting in landfills around the world into biofuel be the answer to the growing energy crisis and a means of wrangling out-of-control carbon emissions?

Scientists in Singapore and Switzerland think so. Their research, published in Global Change Biology: Bioenergy, shows that by converting processed waste such as paper and cardboard into what is known as cellulosic ethanol, a second-generation biofuel, it would be easy to cut global carbon emissions by 80%.

Using data from the United Nation’s Human Development Index, the scientists estimated that …

Tags: biofuel , cellulosic ethanol , garbage to fuel , landfill , urban waste

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Date palm plantations line the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. Once leading date exporters, they now rely heavily on the domestic market. But Iraq only consumes around half of the 350,000 tonnes of dates it produces annually, leaving around 150,000 tonnes of dates a year to be disposed of. Some are fed to animals. Many are left to rot.

Now, according to Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s, there is a third option – converting the unused dates to biofuel.

In a move that is more economically …

Tags: biofuel , biofuel from dates , dates , iraq and climate change , Iraq date plantations , iraq's agricultural sector

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If you think that watermelons are only good as thirst quenchers during the hot summer months, think again.

Last year, watermelons made headline news when scientists announced that it can have a Viagra-like effect.

Now, studies conducted at the Oklahoma Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have proven that the simple sugars in watermelon juice can be converted to ethanol. But with each 20 pound watermelon only producing enough sugar to derive approximately seven-tenths of a pound of ethanol, it’s going to take a whole lot of watermelons to make …

Tags: alternative fuel , ARS , biofuel , ethanol , Oklahoma , watermelons

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If you’re thinking about shifting to biomass-fuelled appliances, beware – they might not be as clean as you think.

It’s true that biomass is a renewable, and therefore technically green, fuel. It’s also part of the carbon cycle, as burning wood and any other plant matter releases carbon dioxide into the air.

The main ecological advantage between such fuels and fossil fuels is that with biomass, the carbon is continually cycling – it hasn’t been locked away underground, and it can theoretically be tracked, offset and generally kept going round without adding …

Tags: biofuel , biomass , renewable , sustainable , technology , wood

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Meet Colin Coon. He’s an ordinary high school senior with a not so ordinary senior project. Having spent the last year converting a 1980 Mercedes station wagon to run on vegetable oil, he has just taken off on a six week cross-country road trip. His goal – to make people more aware of alternative energy sources.

Now, not all high schools would be open to a student’s “˜senior project’ involving a road trip of 8500 miles in a car that’s running on vegetable oil. But then, New Gate School …

Tags: alternative , biofuel , car , Colin Coon , New Gate School , transportation

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Imagine capturing the CO2 people exhale and converting it into biofuel to power diesel vehicles and heating systems. It’s all part of an experiment that’s taking place at the Liverpool John Lennon Airport in the UK.

The Eco-Box, designed by scientists from Origo Industries, works by capturing CO2 through a photo-bioreactor. This CO2 becomes feedstock for algae which then produces a biomass that can be refined and converted into green fuel.

The Eco-Box carbon recycling system was installed at the airport in January, with a goal of harnessing 24,000 during its …

Tags: algae , alternative fuel , biofuel , carbon , eco-box , emissions , Origo , transportation

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Hundreds of years ago, it used to eat the bottoms of sailing ships. Now, it could help keep the bio-energy industry afloat.

It’s called the gribble. A marine isopod with a taste for wood (think woodlouse), the four-spotted variety called Limnoria quadripunctata used to burrow through the hulls of wooden ships, causing no end of grief for medieval sailors. In fact, lore holds Christopher Columbus was stranded in Jamaica for a year after his ship suffered a particularly nasty gribbling.

But gribbles have just made the transition from pest to scientific …

Tags: biofuel , energy , natural world , nature , news , science , sustainable

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Last year Virgin Atlantic ran a Boeing 747-400 from London to Amsterdam using an aviation fuel mix containing coconut oil biofuel. Undoubtedly a triumph of technical engineering, it was also labeled “high-altitude greenwash” by environmentalists. The problem was a familiar one.

“If Virgin would power its entire fleet with biofuel, it would have to use about half of the UK’s arable land.”

- Jos Dings, European Federation of Transport and the Environment

Last week, a Continental Boeing 737-800 took a

…

Tags: airships , aviation , biofuel , environment , global warming , green , sustainable , technology

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