Home/Posts Tagged ‘biodiesel’
Posts Tagged ‘biodiesel’
Climate Change, Green living, Pollution, Science & Technology, Jun 23rd, 2011,
Ethanol is a fuel alternative that is derived from the fermenting and distilling of starch crops like corn, switch grass, sugar beets, sugar cane and barley. As a fuel source, it is quite credible. It is renewable in that it comes from the crops that we already grow and have been growing for years. Also, in ethanol only engines the power is much greater than a gasoline-powered car. And testing does indicate there is a much lower emission of greenhouse gas. The down side to this fuel is that it is expensive to produce and ship. It is projected that…
Tags: alternative fuels, biodiesel, compressed air powering vehicles, eco-friendly driving, electric vehicles, ethanol, gasoline
Politics, Science & Technology, Sep 27th, 2010,
It may sound illogical to produce biofuels in the Middle East, a region generally associated with oil. It may sound even stranger to ship biofuel all the way from the US to the Afghanistan in order to power the vehicles of the US military. Well this is geopolitics, don’t try to make simple sense of it. Afghanistan, though neighbors with some big oil producers in the Persian Gulf, does not have a fossil fuel industry. It does, however, have a big opium and heroin economy. A recent study proposes that a biofuel industry in Afghanistan, with the US military as…
Tags: Afghanistan, biodiesel, biofuels, fossil fuels, Military, Navy, opium, poppies, poppy, United States, US, war
Climate Change, Pollution, Science & Technology, Sep 12th, 2010,
Coconut methyl ester (CME), the biodiesel extracted from coconut, is considered “green” since it is environmentally friendly and can help mitigate global warming. Greenhouse gases produce the so-called “greenhouse effect,” which traps heat near the Earth’s surface. Many human activities increase the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which can result in a gradual increase in the Earth’s surface temperature. Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, occurs naturally but excessive quantities of it are released by burning fossil fuels such as coal and oil to generate electricity and gasoline for vehicles. Over 8 billion tons of carbon dioxide are…
Tags: biodiesel, CME, coconut, gas, greenhouse, Philippines
Science & Technology, Weird Stuff, Jun 21st, 2010,
Chickens are used for many things around the globe, but their main purpose has always been as a food source. Whether it’s for their meat, their eggs, or their strange helpfulness in the garden, these farmyard birds have been depended on for a long time. However, when it comes to the poultry industry, there is one oversight people probably make: the feathers. Did you know that nearly 6 billion pounds of chicken feathers are generated in the US per year? Yeah, that’s a crazy amount of feathers and they don’t really have much use once they’ve been removed from the…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, chicken feather meal, chicken feathers, chickens, circuit boards, poultry industry, research, scientists, study
Climate Change, Nature, Politics, Feb 10th, 2010,
Malaysian palm oil lobbyists have apparently succeeded in keeping – and even increasing – the amount of biodiesel sourced from palm oil used in European cars and power plants. In an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the European Commission’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) requires 10% of fuels in the EU to come from renewable sources. Yet despite palm oil being technically renewable as a fuel source, its cultivation is a serious threat to rainforests and peatlands in Malaysia and Indonesia. On top of deforestation and the loss of ecosystems and species such as orangutans, the slash and burn methods…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, Brazil, European, greenhouse gas, Independent, Indonesia, Malaysia, palm, palm oil, rainforest, Renewable Energy Directive, sugar cane
Climate Change, Green living, Dec 23rd, 2009,
Can a new generation of biofuels ensure we don’t increase greenhouse gas emissions and take food from the poor to fuel our cars? –Guardian The issues surrounding biofuels are complicated and confusing. While all biodiesel or ethanol burns cleaner than fossil fuels, some biofuel production creates as many or more greenhouse gas emissions than regular gasoline or petrol. Biodiesel from palm oil, for example, turned out to be environmentally hazardous due to the utilization of slash and burn agriculture and clearing of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia. In some cases, crops which are traditionally food sources are used to make…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, emissions, ethic, food, fuel, greenhouse, Guardian, Indonesia, oil, palm
Green living, Science & Technology, Nov 30th, 2009,
It seems everyone excited over KLM announcing that it will run the first ever commercial flight using biodiesel fuel. For years we’ve been hearing all about biodiesel fuel, perhaps more so jokes about the french fry smell it emits when being burned. But what exactly is biodiesel and can it really help the environment? First, let’s make a distinction. The biodiesel we’re referring to it the product made from vegetable oil or animal fat meant to be blended with regular fuels to run on diesel engines. It’s not the same as pouring that stuff you use to fry up your…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuels, corn, EPA, KLM, soybeans
Climate Change, Science & Technology, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 21st, 2009,
“One groundbreaking new study in Science concluded that when this deforestation effect is taken into account, corn ethanol and soy biodiesel produce about twice the emissions of gasoline.” – Michael Grunwald, Time I recently wrote an article about Indonesia’s bad biofuel industry, which is based on palm oil, resulting in mass deforestation via intense CO₂ producing slash and burn methods. One of the main problems was not Indonesia’s environmental policy per se, but that the laws are nowhere near being sufficiently enforced. And so the responsibility lies largely with the oil companies who were being encouraged – or coerced –…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, Brazil, corn, ethanol, Green, soy
Science & Technology, Videos & Documentaries, Sep 20th, 2009,
When I visited Brazil several times during the latter half of the 1990s I noticed that many of the petrol/gas stations sold something called álcool. When I asked my friends what this was, they explained that it is a fuel made in Brazil from sugar cane. I thought this was brilliant: growing gasoline from yummy plants that are produced right in your own backyard and free from any mess involving oil spills, Gulf Wars or foreign despotic tyrants. It was renewable and it didn’t pollute nearly as much as gasoline. I was subsequently enraged to hear that it was less…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, Brazil, carbon emissions, ethanol, Green, rainforest, sugar cane, sugarcane
Climate Change, Sep 5th, 2009,
Is palm oil ‘biofuel’ a complete waste and are big oil companies just incapable of getting it right? It’s like they just can’t resist doing the wrong thing. As is the case with tobacco companies and arms dealers, a conscience must be a liability in the energy industry if there is a lot of money to be made, especially if the money is quick. So paint this poison Green, sell it to the world and call it biofuel. Maybe I’m being too cynical. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not in principle against all biofuels, bio energy, bioplastics, etc. I’m not…
Tags: biodiesel, biofuel, global warming, greenhouse gas, Indonesia, orangutan, palm oil
