ARPA-E's PETRO Program Plans to Create Better Biofuel Crops, Cutting Costs in Half, By Clay Dillow

Rapeseed, Grown for Biofuel Production Mark Walton via Wikimedia

The Department of Energy’s ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency--Energy) has just doled out its fourth round of funding, and $30 million is going toward the ambitious goal of trimming the cost of biofuels by 50 percent. PETRO, or Plants Engineered to Replace Oil, looks to breed or genetically modify plants that boost energy-per-acre by boosting their abilities to capture and convert solar energy.
The problem with biofuels is that they can actually cost more in energy to produce than they end up yielding in BTUs, delivering a poor return (sometimes a negative return) on energy investment over the course of a given acre’s life cycle. Then there’s food prices that must be taken into consideration; crops like corn, when used to make ethanol, are removed from the food supply. That can cause price spikes, which tend to cause problems ranging from famine to civil unrest.

PETRO will try to optimize plants for energy capture and conversion, so more energy is absorbed, stored, and converted to final fuel products than is being extracted from current biomass crops. To quote ARPA-E:

ARPA-E seeks to fund technologies that optimize the biochemical processes of energy capture and conversion to develop robust, farm-ready crops that deliver more energy per acre with less processing prior to the pump. If successful, PETRO will create biofuels for half their current cost, finally making them cost-competitive with fuels from oil.

If it works, new breeds of plants (and GM biofuel crops) could help the U.S. meet its mandate to manufacture 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 (up from about a third of that today).
[IEEE Spectrum]

Ref. : http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-04/arpa-es-petro-program-plans-create-better-biofuel-crops-cutting-costs-half

Burning Waste From Whisky Production, a Scottish Energy Project Will Power 9,000 Homes, By Clay Dillow

Whisky Pot Stills at the Glendronach Distillery Akela NDE via Wikimedia

Regretting having that “one more” scotch last night? This might make you feel a little better: your tipple of choice may soon be providing sustainable energy
The project, slated to begin operating in 2013, will be located in Rothes in Speyside, the famed whisky producing region that is home to such recognizable labels as the Famous Grouse, Chivas Regal, and Glenfiddich (all of which will contribute biomass to the plant). The plant will burn a blend of wood chips and draff, the spent grains used in the whisky-making process. Additionally, pot ale--another residual product of the process--will be donated from distilleries and turned into organic fertilizer and animal feed for local farmers.

Of Scotland’s 100 distilleries, 50 are in Speyside and 16 of those will ship their draff to the site, which will burn nothing that comes from more than 25 miles away. That makes this a pretty sustainable and very locally-sourced energy project--it’s even drawn a bit of praise from the local World Wildlife Fund folks. And it’s a model that could feasibly be replicated across other regions if successful.

This is not Scotland’s first foray into whiskey-fueled energy projects, but it is the first that will provide power to a public utility. Scotland’s largest distillery, Fife, has nearly completed its own on-site bioenergy plant that will feed energy back into the distillery. And researchers at Scotland’s Napier University last year announced that they had devised a means to turn scotch-making residuals like pot ale and draff into biofuels that could burn in ordinary automobile engines.
So raise a glass, for your scotch habit is now contributing to the renewable energy revolution.
[Guardian]

Ref. : http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-05/burning-whisky-based-biomass-scottish-energy-project-will-power-9000-homes

'Concrete Canvas' Makes Erecting Permanent Buildings As Easy as Pitching a Tent, Drapeable fabric turns into solid concrete when it gets wet , By Clay Dillow

Concrete Canvas A concrete shelter in just 24 hours. via BBC

When disaster strikes and permanent structures are leveled, as they were recently by earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand (and more distantly in Haiti), they are usually replaced in the short term by tent cities. Two engineering students thought they could do better and invented Concrete Canvas, a fabric impregnated with concrete that can turn a tent into a hardy, permanent structure in 24 hours. Just add water.
Fundamentally, Concrete Canvas is a clever means to erect a sturdy, permanent structure anywhere. Packed in a crate, the entire building comes ready to erect with a minimum of infrastructure or extra tools. The exterior fabric, the Concrete Canvas, is basically like normal tent canvas loaded with dry cement particles. That fabric is bound to an interior airtight bladder.

When deployed at a site, the shelter is simply unpacked, unfolded, and attached to an air pump that fills it with compressed air like a balloon. Once rigid, the exterior simply needs to be thoroughly hosed down--dirty water works just fine--to hydrate all that concrete embedded in the Concrete Canvas. By the next day, the concrete is hardened and you’re left with nearly 600 square feet of interior space sheltered by a rigid concrete shell.

Since the interior is already lined with the airtight bladder, it’s sterilizable for an easily deployable triage facility. And like any concrete structure the walls can be drilled to install electricity, light fixtures, surfaces, or whatever the situation calls for. All said, two people can put the thing up in an hour (plus drying time), and the units can be organized end to end to create larger interior spaces. When the clock is ticking and manpower is at a premium, it’s a clever way to quickly put a roof over peoples’ heads.
To see an impressive video of a Concrete Canvas tent going up, click through the BBC link below.
[BBC]

Citizens in Flood Zone Build Homemade Levees to Protect Their Homes, By Clay Dillow

Homemade Levee Click here to read more about our efforts to tame the mighty Mississippi--and how those efforts are failing--in our feature. Scott Olson/Getty Images

View Photo Gallery

All of that water pouring out of spillways and topping levees up and down the Mississippi River has to go somewhere, and many living in those areas prone to flooding have taken drastic action to keep from being inundated. In what could be called a testament to the human instinct to protect hearth and home, some in the disaster zone are holding out by taking civil engineering into their own hands, building makeshift levees to keep the rising waters at bay. Click through the gallery to see how far some homeowners have gone to protect their properties.

Click to launch the photo gallery

Many residents of low-lying areas can't rely on government infrastructure to protect their homes--in fact, in some cases it's the government that's flooding them. In an effort to spare population centers like New Orleans and Baton Rouge, the Army Corps of Engineers have opened the Mississippi's three major spillways--the Birds Point-New Madrid spillway in Missouri, the Morganza spillway near Morganza, La., and the Bonnet Carre just north of New Orleans--the first time all three have been opened up at the same time.
In other places, the overflowing Mississippi has left local rivers with no place to put their overflow. Floodwaters claimed their first victim today as a 69-year-old man was pulled form the waters by firefighters in Vicksburg, Miss., which is today buried beneath the levee-topping Yazoo river. The destruction in Vicksburg--where the water is expected to crest at 57.1 feet today--and along the Yazoo River (where the images in the gallery above were taken) is just a microcosm of the larger devastation stretching from the Great Lakes to the Gulf.

Ref.:  http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-05/fighting-back-floods