4K years ago, Sahara reportedly a vegetated savannah. 27M people in world. And in Ur, Hammurabi was chiseling out his laws against murder, robbery, adultery and renting out arable fields for cultivation that were subsequently not cultivated. Huh. In our past 50 years now, a 3x increase on global food production with severe depletion of acquifers. Long story short, without the cultivation, Ur's fields increased in salinity and became desert.
Sacramento-San Joaquin river delta now 57 islands formed by canals, dikes, ditches, levees, pipes and pumping stations. 98% is below sea level. Pumps work 24-7 to keep crop roots dry enough to grow. Salt from Bay intruding, threatening aquifer. Islands shrinking from rising sea. Cattails, duckweed, mosquito fern possible help. "Subsidence".
Monday was Biodiesel Day in US. Woo hoo. Right on top of St Patty's, too. Rudolf Diesel's birthday. In 1912: "veg oils may become as important as oil".
Inland Empire Oilseeds (WA) filed Chap 7. $3.8M debt. $1M loan from state, $2M from USDA. 8M gal/y biodiesel plant project hit by soaring canola costs.
Channel Biorefinery & Terminals renovating, restarting 105M gal/y biodiesel facility in Houston. Hurricane Ike hit it during commissioning. Up to 36M gal/y rate by summer, 75M by '15.
DOE: liquid fuels demand can be sufficiently reduced in future so that biomass can meet all needs. Part of Obama 15-point energy strategy (an interesting read).
Transportation sector accounts for 71% of total US petrol use, 33% of US total carbon emissions.
Sara Volz of Colorado won $100K top award in Intel Science Talent Search. Research of algae for biofuels. Used artificial selection to establish populations of algae cells with high oil content. Built home lab under her loft, slept on same cycle as the algae. (Dedication, pards. Way to go, Sara.)
Fiji to implement 30% biofuels by '15.
Indian state expanding biofuels projects to advance ag, decentralize biofuel extraction units, sell plant saplings, seeds to produce biofuels.
Brazil launched biodiesel from tilapia waste project. 8K liter/d production. Petrobras primary customer.
Citibank sees World Bank's green bonds as better way to fund next gen biofuels. Equities markets failed for most comps, most trading at half IPO value.
Valero restarted ethanol plant in OH, to restart IN plant. Corn futures down 15%, eth trading at highest since Aug.
Chemtex $170M planned grass-to-ethanol plant could break ground this fall, online in '15. 1 already in Italy. Would process 20M tons/y from 20K acres. Comp wants to put it in NC.
Kansas State researchers developing green concrete from biofuel byproducts from corn stover, wheat and rice straw. Replaces part of portland cement.
Raizen to invest $102M in add-on cellulosic ethanol plant in Brazil. 40M liter/y, bagasse feedstock. Shell part of JV. Iogen or Codexis tech.
MIT spinoff Transatomic developing meltdown-proof, nuke waste-eating reactor. Factory made, larger than small modular reactors. Updated molten salt reactor. Comp needs $5M to run 5 experiments to prove design. 8 yrs to build proto for $200M. China reportedly investing $350M over 5 yrs to develop molten-salt reactors.
Exxon predicts EV's will fail for decades and China's econ will decline. Talking mid-'20's to '40's.
GAO: DOE reviewing 9 loan guarantee aps from comps seeking $4.8B. $2.8B ap for coal gasification, carbon capture project. Others are 2 biomass projects, 1 solar elgen farm, 3 solar manufacturers, 2 wind elgen farms.
Total (France), Abengoa (Spain) opened $750M, 100Mw concentrated solar plant in Abu Dhabi. NG drives turbines at night.
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