Biofuel

Biofuel is defined as solid, liquid or gas fuel derived from recently dead biological material and is distinguished from fossil fuels, which are derived from long dead biological material. Theoretically, biofuels can be produced from any (biological) carbon source; although, the most common sources are photosynthetic plants. Various plants and plant-derived materials are used for biofuel manufacturing. Globally, biofuels are most commonly used to power vehicles, heating homes cornstoves and cooking stoves. Biofuel industries are expanding in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

What such good news is that recently the technology developed at Los Alamos National Lab in USA even allows for the conversion of pollution into renewable bio fuel, this means that the carbon dioxide that believe to be a threat of our health will transform it into a useful renewable energy that might use for other purposes.

Do we need Biofuels in Timor Leste?

Well, technically speaking, in the short term we do not need the biofuel, but if we dream about this country one day to be a developed country then we need to look at long term that in the future we might need biofuel, and we use it for powering our cars engine and electrified our homes. For time being the biofuel isn’t an interesting topic to be discussed by our politicians, since it is not an urgent. Believe or not in the future we have to use other form of energy to use in our daily lives as we are running out of fossil fuel in the future.

The American Petroleum Society and Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) estimated that the world still have sufficient reserve of oil and gas from fossil fuel for the next 50 years, this is because recent years many international oil and gas companies discovered many new fields and invention of advanced technologies to rig the oil and gas from the beneath of the earth surface (i.e. deep water) that was impossible, therefore the expected life of the fossil fuel might be a bit longer. But, if we only focus on the oil and gas we might not that concern as we do now, but the world also faces new challenge, about its atmosphere, the amount of the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) on the atmosphere will increase as much as 3 times in the next 50 years if the world leaders do not take necessary actions now.

The Timorese leaders need to have a far vision about this issue because ignorance of today’s problems, the new generation will pay-cost in the future, Timor Leste is an half island, with this small country we need to take necessary actions to save it, or else, our dreaming to be a developed country yet achieved, our country no longer exist, or so-called “melted”

In addressing these two tremendous problems so called dependent oil and gas and global warming, Scientists and engineers all over the world have proposed many alternative solutions that will be good candidates of replacing the fossil fuel in the future, the candidates are: biomass/biofuel, wind power, solar power

Biofuels offers the possibility of producing energy without a net increase of carbon into the atmosphere. This is because the plants used in the production of the fuel removed CO₂ from the atmosphere; unlike fossil fuels, which return carbon that was stored beneath the surface for millions of years back into the atmosphere. Therefore, biofuel is, in theory, more carbon neutral and less likely to increase atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. (However, doubts have been raised as to whether this benefit can be achieved in practice). The use of biofuels also reduces dependence on petroleum and enhances energy security.

There are two common strategies of producing biofuels. One is to grow crops high in sugar (sugar cane, sugar beet, and sweet sorghum) or starch (corn/maize), and then use yeast fermentation to produce ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The second is to grow plants that contain high amounts of vegetable oil, such as oil palm, soybean, algae, or jatropha. When these oils are heated, their viscosity is reduced, and they can be burned directly in a diesel engine, or they can be chemically processed to produce fuels such as biodiesel and its by products can also be converted into biofuels such as woodgas, methanol or ethanol fuel. It is also possible to make cellulosic ethanol from non-edible plant parts, but this can be difficult to accomplish economically.

Biofuels are discussed as having significant roles in a variety of international issues, including: mitigation of carbon emissions levels and oil prices, the "food vs. fuel" debate, deforestation and soil erosion, impact on water resources, and energy balance and efficiency.

Beside the biofuel, the wind power also stands as a good candidate and its clear alternative energy, with it environment-friendly the wind power will be great renewable resource that we will use when we run out of oil or will be using to replace the fossil fuel, because the wind power does not contribute much carbon dioxide into atmosphere compare to the fossil fuel.

The solar power is also one of greater candidate for the alternative energy; it uses sun rays power and transforms it in the form energy. This energy will use to generate electricity and appliances such as Radio, Television, and Freezer and also can be used to cook our food.

My pictures

I was in Kuala Lumpur.

Biofuel of the future: Oil from algae

The future of biofuel may lie in one word: algae. The tiny primitive plants can produce a lot of oil in a little space. Solix Biofuels has a pilot plant in the New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colo. USA, that uses the excess carbon dioxide from beer making to feed algae growing in indoor tanks. Global Green Solutions has a test facility in El Paso, Tex., that grows algae in tall, thin, sunlit bioreactors.

One company prefers to stay in the dark, however. Solazyme in South San Francisco leases the vast fermentors used in industrial processes to grow specially tailored strains of algae in the dark. The algae swim in a bath of sugar water that delivers the sustenance they need to produce copious quantities of oil. The company can select different types of algae and alter the conditions they grow in to produce various oils that can be turned into diesel fuel, plastics or other products. “Some strains come from a swamp in Africa; some strains come from a high-altitude snowfield in South America,” says Harrison Dillon, a microbiologist and co-founder.
The firm has already produced thousands of gallons of oil, though not at “commercial economics,” as Dillon puts it. Notably, the company car, a diesel Jeep, runs on the stuff. And the U.S. military and the American Society for Testing and Materials have certified the diesel for a broad range of vehicles; the company plans to open its first dedicated production facility later this year. Dillon says refining production and scaling up processes will allow Solazyme to make algal oil a feedstock for diesel fuel that will cost only $2 per gallon. Because sunlight is not needed, improvements are easier to come by, he maintains. Solazyme may be the algae company furthest along in producing different oils at commercial volumes, which could potentially be used in everything from jets to kitchens. “My birthday cake was made with oil from algae: no butter, no oil, no eggs,” Dillon notes. “And it was delicious.”
Note: This article was originally printed with the title, "Dark Horse: Oil from Algae".

TIMOR IS A BLESSED COUNTRY

The wind power is a renewable energy source that our planet has, it occur by its natural and no man kind that able to challenge it, however, instead of challenging this great creation man kind able to use it for the good purposes.

In the midst of energy crisis that the world will face in the near future, Many experts all over the world are working tirelessly to solve the energy crisis and find the alternatives energy sources that will be good candidates to replace our fossil-fuel.

Replacing something from other form source is rather challenging and further studies need to carry out in years, and the cost also need to take an account in this challenge task.

One of best candidate for the alternative energy is wind power, the wind power is actually energy produced by the power of wind blowing around us. Many of us may wonder how could the wind power transform it to be an alternatives energy that will use for powering our house, Freshing our food and beverage, power our favorite car and for cooking.

All of this doubt will be solved with the help of knowledge and technology that are boosting in today's era.

The wind power will be a clean energy that help to reduce green gas emission so that we would like to extend our surviver of planet, we believe that one day our planet will be melted out and there will be no lives on the surface of earth, but instead we let it happen in the next 100 years why can't we postpon it the next 500 years or even 1000 years, and there are ways to solve it.

Of course there many aspect that need to be looked at, but the fundamental solution will be creating the energy that free from polution, because the rising temperature due to man kind activities and economic boosting, such as carbodiaoxide produced by our car's engine, power plant, production oil and gas in offshore as well as onshore platforms, and carbodioxide produced by jet engine. All of these contribute direct in destroying our planet.

By inventing the wind power we will reduce the amount of carbon dioxide immersed to our atmosphere.

We are blessed that our beloved country Timor Leste, beside having valuable fossil fuel reserves that yet to be produced and discovered, we are also blessed with tremendous resources such our weather that will be possible alternative energy in the future, the wind power station suitable to set up in East Timor anywhere in the country, because we have a turbulent wind flows, it changes direction of its flows only twice in a year,lesser changing in its direction will be high effieciency as it will reduce the cost and the labors, so there will be economically benefit to transform our wind flows to be very useful energy source that we will use for powering our houses, cooking, freshing our food and beverage, so on and so forth.

Beside we have weather, our country also located at the place where we can access sun rays in 12 hours a day in dry season and at least 5 hours in raining season, with the beauty natural resources we have we are in the right place to argue to the world that we Timorese are able to create our own energy sources that will use to save our planet.

Now the question that we would like to ask ourselves is that, are we ready to work on in this challenging project? and I hope that my fellow academics, government, ecominists, politicians and society would agree with me, and let us stand and answer with confident that YES we are ready.

THANKS TO TIMOR-ONLINE

My gratitude to editor of timor-online.blogspot.com for supporting to introduce this blog in their blog. I am looking forward to have more discussion both direct and indirect in this blog in term of energy. However, other topics such as the information related on educations and training will be welcoming as well in the blog.

As the name implies "The future Energy" this blog has its own limit in use, it will only provide the literature reveiw of science and engineering specially in the energy matter.

As we all aware that the energy is an essential sector that need to be looked at and the improvement of its efficiency need to improve further for a better efficiency in the future for the sake of man kind use.

Next month on november I will release the latest information about the future energy and its possibilities be implemented in our beloved country TIMOR LESTE.

TIMOR LESTE is a blessing country on earth, though, we are small country but we have blessed tremendous natural resources from renewable till unrenewable resources. Further studies and researches need to be done in transforming these valuable assets into a useful wealth that will be a pride of our people and our nation, and more importantly for the use of it in our dailly lives.

Please do no hesitate to contact me in person if there are some issues that we would like to discuss, I would be happy to respond you at the best of my ability.

The solar power

We all want to get rid of our dependency on fossil fuels and their side effects. Alternative sources of energy seems clean and green but they have a poor conversion rate which makes some people extra cynical about the viability of renewable energy.

But researchers at U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have set a world record in solar cell efficiency. This photovoltaic mechanism transforms 40.8 percent of the light that goes through it into energy. This is the highest confirmed efficiency of any photovoltaic device to date.

NREL’s Mark Wanlass is the person behind the invention of original inverted cell. This design was awarded the R&D 100 award. His design was improved upon by a team under the leadership of John Geisz. The material properties of the mismatched semiconductors allows for superior potential conversion of sunlight.

This new solar cell is using the constituents of gallium indium phosphide and gallium indium arsenide for splitting the solar spectrum into three equal parts. These spectrums of light are absorbed by cell’s three junctions for better potential effectiveness. This system is extremely thin and light, factors that contribute to the efficiency of the solar cells. These cells have better performance, design, operation and costs.

This photovoltaic device is meant for space satellites and for terrestrial concentrated photovoltaic arrays which use mirrors or lenses to focus sunlight onto the solar cells. The 40.8 percent efficiency was calculated under the concentrated light of 326 suns. One sun is equivalent to the quantity of light that naturally strikes Earth on a bright day. This high efficiency solar cell is designed, fabricated and independently measured at NREL.

Welcoming message

It has been honor to create this useful blog for the readers especially for those having a spectacular knowledge in energy sector to contribute their ideas and thoughts that are useful of course, for the sake of the world future energy.

As the high demand of energy and rapid growth of world population that have contribute to the severity of energy sector, that we will be running out of fossil fuel that we are leaning now. However, the studies have been conducting in many phases and the exact answer is yet to be found. There the presenting of this blog I would like to ask all readers that having both academics and skills in energy sector to share their views and thoughts in this channel.

And for students and for the ordinary people that are keen to learn about energy matter, It will be my please to present you all, with the article and journal in energy related so that you may learn and enhance your knowledge in this valuable asset that need to be found.

WE BELIEVE IN FUTURE ENERGY .

Regards
Ir.Eng.Luis Pereira