biodiesel

If you think buying a "green" car is as easy as picking the paint color, we've got news for you--there are different types of green and many different car choices. Are you trying to reduce smog and its attendant health risks, or are greenhouse gases and global climate change your biggest concern? And those aren't exclusive concerns, either. Amongst the types of cars you can choose, there are hybrids, PZEVs, SULEVs, flex fuel vehicles, natural gas vehicles, and even diesels. We also take a look at future technologies that are in heavy development and could the … Read more

GreenFuel Technologies on Wednesday said that it has completed a round of funding to ramp up its algae-farming projects.

The company landed $13.9 million, which was led by Access Private Equity, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Polaris Venture Partners.

A portion of the money will retire debt the company borrowed following a corporate shakeup last year that put Bob Metcalfe in as interim-CEO. The remaining $7.6 million in new capital, which completes its series B round, will go to scale up technology projects.

In a statement, Metcalfe said the company will announce a new CEO, a C round of … Read more

It's not uncommon on California roadways to spot diesel cars with bumper stickers that boast of biofuels in the engine, using slogans such as "Fuel for the revolution."

"This is the largest underground movement in the United States since the Civil War and the underground railroad," said Michael Wittman, an environmental activist and biodiesel user in Los Angeles.

But many drivers who began using biofuels to reduce their carbon emissions and save money fear that little-known government regulations are nipping the adoption of homegrown, "green" fuels in the bud.

In California, it's … Read more

Algae may one day be the preferred feedstock for biofuels. But in the meantime, it can have a job cleaning up waste water.

Seattle-area start-up Bionavitas is one of several companies moving into the algae business. Because it doesn't compete with food and has a high energy density, algae has a lot of potential as a source of biodiesel.

But it will take years before algae biodiesel will make a dent in the petroleum diesel market, said Bionavitas CEO and co-founder Michael Weaver.

So in the short term, the company is growing algae for alternative markets: oils for pharmaceuticals … Read more

Can the lowly algae ease a growing food-versus-fuel debate?

A growing number of start-ups are betting against the dominant biofuel crops--corn and soy--and looking to sidestep the backlash against biofuels, which are being blamed in part for higher food prices and deforestation around the world.

Melbourne, Fla.-based PetroAlgae says that it hopes to test a commercial system as early as next year.

The company licensed strains of freshwater algae bred by Arizona State University and is developing the bioreactors and harvesting methods to grow the algae at large scale, said Fred Tennant, PetroAlgae's vice president of business development. … Read more

The rising price of soybeans is putting the squeeze on biodiesel producers, leading some to close down operations.

The prices of soybeans and soybean oil have more than doubled in the last two years, according to the National Biodiesel Board.

For producers, that sharp uptick in price is forcing them to either close down or go to different sources of oil, such as animal fats or fry grease from restaurants.

Most biodiesel in the United States is made from soy. Soybean oil is around 60 cents a pound, while at the beginning of 2007 it was under 30 cents a … Read more

Amyris, a rapidly growing biotech company that coaxes genetically enhanced microbes to produce fuel and medicine, has signed a deal with two Brazilian companies to come out with a sugar-cane-based diesel and other fuels by 2010.

Right now, Brazilian sugar cane growers convert a substantial amount of their crop into ethanol. Ethanol, however, isn't as flexible a fuel as biodiesel. For one thing, only certain types of cars can run on ethanol-heavy fuels like E85. Biodiesel works pretty much in any diesel engine. Ethanol is an alcohol. Biodiesel and other fuels produced via Amyris' process are hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons … Read more

With Earth Day upon us, CNET News.com's green reporters sat down and selected five leading companies in five different clean-technology categories. Here are the transportation companies selected:

1. A123 Systems: Like a number of other companies, A123 wants to sell lithium-ion battery packs for electric cars and plug-in hybrids. The difference is that A123, which spun out of MIT, has influential friends. General Motors invested in the company and is testing A123 batteries for its hybrids, including the Chevy Volt expected in 2010. So is Norway's Think, which makes an electric town car. In all, the company … Read more

Indonesia is probably the worst place in the world to grow biofuel crops, according to David Lobell, who is part of a project to determine good and bad places in the world to grow fuel crops.

"There are meters and meters of carbon in tropical peat lands," said Lobell, a senior research scholar at the Woods Institute on the Stanford University campus. Cutting down these old tropical forests for agricultural land would release a massive amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Conceivably, it could take a few hundred years of biofuel consumption to displace the carbon released in … Read more