A growing demand for energy, coupled with an increase in prices, has led to consistent growth in Canada's oil and gas sector during the past 10 years, according to a new study.

The study, published in the online edition of Perspectives on Labour and Income, analyzes economic activity in three components of the sector—upstream, midstream and downstream—as well as trends in employment between 1997 and 2006.

In 2006, the contribution of the oil and gas sector to Canada's gross domestic product exceeded $40 billion (in 1997 dollars). In addition, during the past decade, employment in the industry increased at a somewhat faster pace than the national average.

Total employment in all oil and gas industries amounted to roughly 298,000 in 2006, a 22% increase from 1997, a slightly faster gain than the average of 20% for the economy as a whole.

In the upstream component, which covers oil and gas exploration, extraction and production, employment increased at three times that pace, about 65%, from 107, 000 to roughly 177,000. The majority (75%) of the jobs were in Alberta, with its vast oil and gas reserves.

The impact on wages was pronounced. In 1997, employees in oil and gas extraction earned 58% more per hour than the average worker. By 2006, this gap had widened to 80%.

For example, workers in oil and gas extraction earned on average about $30.36 an hour in 2006, compared with $16.73 for the labour market as a whole.

In terms of volume, crude oil production rose 21% between 1997 and 2005. In 1997, total crude production amounted to just under 112.7 million cubic metres, with a value of $15.9 billion. By 2005, the volume had increased to 136.2 million cubic metres, and the value had nearly tripled to $45.2 billion.

Natural gas production increased by about 8% in terms of volume, but because of higher prices, the value rose by more than 312%.

The midstream component of the industry includes pipelines, rail, truck and tanker transportation, and storage. The downstream component consists of refining and marketing, and includes refineries, gas distribution utilities, oil product wholesalers, service stations and petrochemical companies.

Combined, these two components contributed about $10.8 billion to Canada's gross domestic product in 2006, and employed around 121,000 people.

Canada is currently the world's eighth-largest producer of crude oil, pumping out about 2.5 million barrels a day. Current world demand is about 84 million barrels, while production stands at about 86 million barrels.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. government would underwrite up to $2 billion in construction of biorefineries and bioproduct plants under a House Agriculture Committee plan being considered this week.

The bioenergy package would authorize a total of $4.5 billion for biomass research and loan guarantees to biofacilities through fiscal 2012. An Agriculture subcommittee was scheduled to discuss the package on Tuesday.

At least 14 plants could be built under the loan guarantee program. It would allow $1 billion for projects costing up to $100 million each and $1 billion for projects costing $100 million to $250 million each.

Guarantees could cover up to 90 percent of the principal and interest on a loan for development and construction of biofacilities, said a draft prepared for the subcommittee. It says Congress would authorize the guarantees if lawmakers are unable to tap a reserve fund that requires offsets for all spending.

Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson, Minnesota Democrat, said the House vote early this year to repeal some tax breaks for oil companies should save enough money to pay for the committee's biomass initiatives.

Major proposals in the package, along with the loan guarantee program, are:

- $1.5 billion for fiscal 2008-12 for bioenergy research into crops and cellulosic biomass, mill residues and agricultural and forest residue including used vegetable oils and animal waste;

- $500 million during fiscal 2008-12 for biomass research, mostly on less costly and more efficient ways to use cellulose in biofuels and bioproducts;

- $500 million in grants for development and use of renewable energy in rural areas during fiscal 2008-12.

Like the loan guarantees, the three research and development programs would be financed by the reserve fund if possible. If not, Congress would be asked to appropriate the money.

Besides the funding proposed by Agriculture Committee leaders, the 2005 energy law calls for $200 million a year in research and development on biomass.

© Reuters 2007

Everything from an energy-efficient, two-wheeled, all-terrain vehicle to a hydrogen-powered office will be on display this week at the UK's largest renewable energy exhibition and conference.

More than 300 companies are travelling from the United States, New Zealand, Thailand and all over Europe to attend All-Energy '07 at the Aberdeen Exhibition & Conference Centre for the seventh staging of the event.

More than 3000 visitors are expected to attend the two-day event, most to listen to some of the 180 speakers who include Lord Truscott, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Energy, and US Ambassador Robert H Tuttle.

The conference will focus on a range of renewable energies from wave and tidal to onshore and offshore wind and bioenergy and will look at specific issues such as carbon capture and storage and how farmers can enter the energy crops market.

At the parallel exhibition, the Ecorider off-road all-terrain vehicle will be on show. Built in Nairn, it has numerous applications ranging from farming, forestry and gamekeeping to golf, leisure and equestrian use. It achieves 120 miles per gallon of diesel and has the ability to tow up to 250kg.

Another exhibitor is the Hydrogen Office. It will feature information on the world-leading demonstration project under construction at Methil in Fife.

The building will be powered by a novel renewable and hydrogen energy system, using renewable energy directly when available, but storing surplus energy as hydrogen for a proportion of the building's needs during periods when renewables are unable to meet demand.

Judith Patten, project director for All-Energy 07, said organisers had been extremely encouraged by the diversity of sectors represented by those who had registered.

"Not only are we seeing people from every element of the renewable energy industry itself registering, but people from the oil and gas industry interested in diversification and in our carbon capture and storage conference session; teachers eager to take part in the skills opportunities and challenges conference stream; farmers coming to take part in the stream designed especially with them in mind; prospective links in the supply chain for the wind and wave and tidal sectors; community representatives eager to consider schemes; and architects, builders and the allied trades who want to be able to satisfy client microgeneration aims.

"A representative from Wal-Mart will be participating in the US inward mission to All-Energy, she added.

"Wal-Mart will be scouting innovative renewable/clean energy and energy-efficiency technologies."

Copyright © 2007 Newsquest (Herald & Times) Limited.

PARIS - At the International Energy Agency (IEA) Ministerial meeting, the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources, committed to continued partnerships to achieve a clean, secure, global energy supply.

"It is a mark of our Government's leadership that the priorities identified at the IEA meeting are the priorities we are already pursuing," said Minister Lunn.

For example, building on the ongoing work of Canada's Carbon Capture and Storage Task Force, Canada will host an IEA workshop in the fall to share best practices and technological advances with the international community.

Minister Lunn noted that Canada's status as an emerging energy superpower brings with it considerable responsibility.

"As a result of our tremendous amount of conventional energy resources, we have expertise to share with the international community when it comes to energy and the environment," said Minister Lunn.

During the Ministerial IEA session, Minister Lunn promoted Canada's ecoACTION initiatives, including the new Regulatory Framework for Air Emissions. He emphasized the need to boost clean energy, energy efficiency, and clean energy technologies, while recognizing that mandatory regulations and a technology fund will provide industrial sectors with the tools required to reduce greenhouse gases and air pollution.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) was founded in 1974 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to coordinate emergency measures in times of oil supply crises. Its mandate has evolved over time to incorporate three aspects of energy policy-making: energy security, economic development and environmental protection. The IEA comprises 26 countries and has become the premiere international forum for addressing energy issues.

VANCOUVER - Plans to burn pine-beetle-killed wood to generate electricity are gaining momentum in British Columbia, where a pine beetle plague affects some 9.2 million hectares, an area roughly three times the size of Vancouver Island.

The infestation has resulted in a scramble to cut affected wood before it loses economic value and to find alternative uses for pine-beetle- killed timber.

One of the most promising alternatives is using the damaged wood as fuel.

Two privately held companies are expected to announce an ambitious proposal to build a network of 15 to 20 small, community-based power plants in Interior B.C. that would turn wood waste, including pine-beetle-infested wood, into electricity.

The proposal, by Vancouver-based Nexterra Energy Corp. and Calgary's Pristine Power Inc., would see Pristine Power finance and build plants based on Nexterra's gasification technology.

The estimated cost of the network is $500-million.

Nexterra's technology converts wood residue from sawmills, or pine-beetle-affected wood, into "syngas" that can be used to generate electricity through steam turbine equipment.

Such systems can help mills reduce their energy bills and their greenhouse gas emissions.

A system installed last year at a plywood mill near Kamloops will save the mill more than $1.5-million in fuel costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12,000 tonnes a year, Nexterra says.

The joint proposal from Nexterra and Pristine Power follows a provincial plan in February that flagged the energy potential of beetle-killed wood and committed the province to becoming energy sufficient by 2016.

The plan also calls for 90 per cent of the province's electricity to come from renewable resources.

B.C. Hydro issued a request for expressions of interest in bioenergy proposals in March and has to date received more than 80 proposals.

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

Since the popularity of Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth - one of the top-grossing documentaries in the United States - it has become clear that concern for global warming is widespread in America.

In his film, Gore predicts a series of catastrophes that would result from the continued progress of global warming, including the melting of massive glaciers in the Himalayas. Carbon emissions, produced by motor vehicles, are the leading cause of global warming, and the quest for alternative fuels is now a hot topic worldwide.

Israeli researcher Dr. Amir Sharon of Tel Aviv University is on the trail. Sharon has discovered a transgenic fungus strong enough to convert even the most resilient plant parts into bioethanol, a chemical used for biofuel. Strengthened with an anti-death gene, this fungus is resistant to harsh conditions such as heat and toxic substances - both of which are released while converting plant biomass into ethanol. As a result, the production of ethanol using this transgenic fungus could be much more efficient than with conventional fungi.

Biofuel - fuel derived from plant biomass - has emerged as one of the most viable alternatives to oil. The US bioethanol industry is booming. In 2006, 13% of the US corn crop was used for the production of ethanol.

But there are drawbacks to biofuel's production - it is expensive and wasteful. Most bioethanol produced in the US is derived from the edible parts of corn crops. The stalks and leaves, comprised of cellulose and known to scientists as cellulosic biomass, are much harder to convert into ethanol. The cellulose is bound with a chemical called lignin, which causes the plant material to be rigid and difficult to break down. Consequently the production of bioethanol from cellulosic biomass is not carried out on an industrial scale in the US.

As a result, some grain crops that could be used for food production are being used for fuel production instead. The prevailing criticism is that there is not enough farmland to produce crops for biofuel and still maintain an adequate supply of food. Additionally, Americans consume about 400 million gallons of gasoline per day, and that figure is growing. Bioethanol only provides 70% of the energy contained in a tank of gasoline.

However, Sharon's new fungus, with its capability to convert inedible plant cellulose into ethanol, could have a significant impact on ethanol production. According to Sharon, fungus is normally very difficult to culture.

"It is spoiled. Fungus needs very specific conditions in which to thrive. These transfungi are much more resistant to stress conditions, even oxidant chemicals like hydrogen peroxide or UV radiation, which usually harms the DNA and causes mutations, has little effect on the new transfungi," he told ISRAEL21c.

How does this apply to the production of ethanol? Since fungi require specific conditions for survival, the stress conditions produced during the conversion process eventually kill the fungi.

"When you apply the fungus to the plant material, degradation will release heat and toxic material, which usually kills it. But this transgenic fungus is more tolerant so it can withstand heat and toxins, making the plant degradation process more efficient," said Sharon.

Sharon discovered the unique properties of this fungus by accident. "We were exploring ways to modify the germination of the fungus using anti-death genes... about a year later when we went to clean out the cold room, we were astonished to discover a bright fungal colony that should have died months before."

The unusual hardiness of the fungus may also be important for the food and drug industries, which rely on the process of fermentation. More than 20 drugs, including penicillin, require fungi in the manufacturing process. Sharon says, "Our fungus can grow for much longer in the fermenter - twice as long or more. This can allow for the production of many more fermentation units." Doubling the efficiency of food and drug manufacture could mean significant cost savings for these industries.

According to David Zaks, an American expert on environmental issues who contributed to the popular website Worldchanging, Sharon's research bodes well for future cellulose conversions.

"This research is definitely an important step in providing the technology needed to do [the conversion of cellulose] on a more industrial scale. In the future we'll be able to do it with things like switchgrass," Zaks told ISRAEL21c.

A graduate student of the University of Wisconsin, Madison at the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, Zaks predicts that cellulosic ethanol is going to be 'the next big thing'. "There are many different small-scale production companies that are going to be working on it," he explained. "There's a lot of money being put into this field right now to make it an important part of our energy future."

Sharon also sees biofuel as an important alternative to fossil fuels, both to prevent global warming and to supplement the world's supply of fuels. "When we use plants [for biofuel] we're not damaging the environment because we're recycling carbon dioxide - releasing the same molecule that plants have already absorbed," he said. "We also need alternatives because in 30 or 40 years we'll have used up our supply of petrol."

Irit Ben Chlouch, director of business development at Ramot, Tel Aviv University's technology transfer company, realized the financial implications of Sharon's findings. "Not even mentioning biofuels, the fungal biotechnology market which includes drugs, enzymes and the food market, is estimated at over $100 billion a year," she said.

Ben Chlouch added that Ramot is in negotiations with several companies to develop and commercialize Sharon's breakthrough technology. "We are not at liberty to disclose the names [of the companies] until a final agreement has been reached," she said.

© 2001-2005 ISRAEL21c.org.

TOKYO - In a significant step in the government-led campaign for promoting biofuel, major Japanese oil distributors have begun to sell bio-gasoline at a limited number of filling stations in the Tokyo metropolitan area on a trial basis.

Still, the nation's biofuel drive, ignited by growing environmental and energy concerns, faces a bumpy road ahead. It remains to be seen whether the world's second-largest economy will be able to reach the government-set goal of saving 500,000 kiloliters of crude oil per annum through the use of biofuel by 2010.

Two weeks have passed since bio-gasoline hit some pumps with much fanfare. But sales to Japanese motorists are still stuck at noticeably low levels, although it is too early to draw a conclusion about the future level of bio-gasoline consumption.

Nippon Oil Corp and nine other Japanese wholesalers began to sell ETBE-blended gasoline at 50 filling stations in Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures on April 27. The other wholesalers are Idemitsu Kosan Co, Taiyo Oil Co, Fuji Oil Co, Cosmo Oil Co, Kyushu Oil Co, Showa Shell Sekiyu KK, Japan Energy Corp, TonenGeneral Sekiyu KK and Kyokuto Petroleum Industries Ltd as well as Nippon Oil.

ETBE (ethyl tertiary butyl ether) is a gasoline additive made by combining bioethanol - grain alcohol derived from such plants as sugarcane and corn (maize) - with isobutylene, a petroleum product. ETBE-blended gasoline can be used in automobiles in the same way as regular gasoline.

The bio-gasoline now on sale in the Tokyo metropolitan area is 7% ETBE-blended and 3% bioethanol-blended. It is the first time that bio-gasoline has been sold in Japan on a commercial basis. Prices for the bio-gasoline are about the same as for regular gasoline.

The 10 Japanese wholesalers jointly imported 7,500kl of ETBE from France for the first time ahead of the start of the test sales. Bio-gasoline is already popular in Europe. The volume of ETBE imports may double in fiscal 2008 - which starts next April - when 100 filling stations will be selling bio-gasoline.

The oil distributors plan to spread the sale of bio-gasoline, selling the fuel at 1,000 outlets across the country in fiscal 2009 ahead of the planned full-scale nationwide introduction in fiscal 2010.

Biofuel products are made from corn, palm oil, sugarcane and other agricultural products, and they have been seen by many as a cleaner and cheaper way to meet the world's soaring energy needs than greenhouse-gas-emitting fossil-fuel products.

The European Union and the United States are also promoting biofuels. The 27-nation EU has recently set a target of increasing the share of biofuel products, such as bioethanol and bio-diesel, to 10% by 2020, while the US Congress is working on a proposal that would boost biofuel production sevenfold by 2022.

A United Nations report released on Tuesday agreed that biofuel products can bring real benefits, but at the same time it warned that the benefits may be offset by serious environmental problems and increased food prices for the hungry.

The report, prepared by UN-Energy, a consortium of 20 UN agencies and programs, and titled "Sustainable Energy: A Framework for Decision Makers", said there can be serious consequences if forests are razed for plantations and if food prices rise as a result of the diversion of food crops, as shown by the recent steep rise in corn and sugar prices. The report also concludes that biofuel is more effective when used for heating and power rather than in transportation.

Environment, energy concerns

In Japan, the Environment Ministry and the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry are pressing forward with the introduction of bioethanol, saying that it helps prevent global warming.

Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Japan is required to slash its emissions of carbon dioxide and several other greenhouse gases by 6% between 2008 and 2012 - the protocol's first commitment period - from the 1990 levels. But the nation's emissions have actually risen by about 8% from the 1990 levels. Japanese officials acknowledge that it is now almost impossible to achieve the 6% reduction target.

Under the protocol, which took effect in February 2005, carbon dioxide generated from the combustion of bioethanol is not subject to reduction obligations, since it is produced from crops that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. As part of measures to achieve the target, the Japanese government decided in April 2005 to introduce biofuels worth 500,000kl of crude oil by fiscal 2010.

Fumiaki Watari, president of the Petroleum Association of Japan (PAJ), said the start of bio-gasoline sales "is a revolutionary project because people can foster awareness of environmental measures by using it".

The government-orchestrated drive to promote bio-gasoline is also part of efforts to ensure the resource-poor nation's energy security in the medium and long terms, amid stubbornly high prices and increasingly tough global competition for oil.

The New National Energy Strategy, which was compiled last year by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), set a goal of reducing the nation's reliance on oil for transport to 80% from the current 100% by 2030. Japan imports almost all of its oil, nearly 90% of which comes from the volatile Middle East.

Starting in 2010, the Environment Ministry will require all new cars to be able to run on a blend of 10% bioethanol and 90% regular gasoline. Japan currently allows ethanol mixtures of up to 3% at the nation's pumps, but in practice only a handful of cars had actually been running on bioethanol blends in the country until bio-gasoline sales began on April 27.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry is embarking on projects, either on its own or in cooperation with the other government ministries, to encourage the use of domestically produced bioethanol to help farmers. In response to the ministry's proposal, the government has recently set a new, longer-term goal of boosting domestic annual production of bioethanol to 6 million kiloliters by 2030. This amount is equivalent to about 10% of annual gasoline consumption at present.

Roadblocks to the goal

The bio-gasoline-promotion project is not free of problems, including a currently negligible volume of domestic bioethanol production and almost complete reliance on imports, slightly higher production costs of bio-gasoline than those of ordinary gasoline, and the dispute between the petroleum industry and the Environment Ministry over how bioethanol should be mixed with gasoline.

Global demand for bioethanol has been snowballing, resulting in a sharp rise in the price of corn and other crops. Last year, US auto makers unveiled plans to double production of vehicles using so-called flexible-fuel technology by 2010. Also, no country other than Brazil, the world's largest producer, has any significant biofuel-export potential, and fears are rising around the globe over stable supplies. The United States and Brazil agreed in early March to promote the production and use of ethanol, when President George W Bush visited the South American country and held talks with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Japan is looking to Brazil as its major source of the alternative fuel. Last year, the governments of Japan and Brazil set up a study group on trading in the fuel. Japan could lock up a sizable chunk of future ethanol supplies from Brazil.

Major Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co and Brazilian state oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras as it is better known, are said to be in advanced negotiations about how to supply Japan with as much as 3 million kiloliters of ethanol annually within four years. At the end of February, Mitsui signed a memorandum of understanding with Petrobras and Brazilian Construcoes e Comcio Camargo Correa SA to undertake technical and economic viability studies for the deployment of a pipeline infrastructure to transport ethanol produced in the midwestern and southeastern parts of Brazil.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Environment Ministry will ramp up production of ethanol fuel on the southern island of Miyako, where a plentiful supply of sugarcane will be converted into fuel for the island's estimated 20,000 cars. The ultimate goal is to have all cars on the nation's roads capable of running on bio-gasoline by 2030.

In fiscal 2010, bio-gasoline is projected to constitute 20% of all gasoline sold in Japan, while there are plans to produce ETBE domestically from fiscal 2009, according to the PAJ. Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry is scheduled to launch a series of demonstration tests in August on a new type of biofuel produced by directly mixing gasoline and bioethanol. The Osaka prefectural government will conduct the tests on commission.

Petroleum-industry people say customers generally welcomed bio-gasoline put on sale in the Tokyo metropolitan area. "Customers are in favor of the new fuel. People's awareness of the need to protect the environment appears to be rapidly rising," said an official at PAJ.

But some analysts caution that the industry is too optimistic about sales. Production costs are said to be 1 to 2 yen (up to 1.6 US cents) higher per liter than those of ordinary gasoline. To fill the gap and thereby encourage the spread of the new fuel, the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans to provide subsidies to the petroleum industry.

Meanwhile, the petroleum industry and the Environment Ministry are at odds over how bioethanol should be mixed with gasoline. The petroleum industry favors ETBE, while the ministry prefers the direct bioethanol-gasoline mixture. This disagreement could hamper the spread of bioethanol.

Environment Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi said: "Many Japanese-made cars are used in such countries as Brazil, the United States and Canada, where the direct-mixing formula is employed. This means there's no major technical problems in adopting the direct-mixing method."

The ministry also argues that the ETBE formula makes it technically difficult to raise the concentration of bioethanol in bio-gasoline. The ministry plans to raise the legal limit on the percentage of bioethanol in the mix from the current 3% to 10%.

As reasons for opposing the direct-mixing formula, the petroleum industry cites higher costs, among other things. "The ETBE formula can be done through existing petroleum-refining facilities," PAJ president Watari said. The direct-mixture formula, by contrast, requires additional capital expenditures and cooperation from many companies to produce bio-gasoline, Watari said.

The petroleum industry plans to blend 360,000kl of ETBE with gasoline in fiscal 2010 to save consumption of 210,000kl of crude oil. But the figure will still be far less than the government's target of saving 500,000kl of crude oil through the use of biofuel.

"The petroleum industry's project can never be considered sufficient to realize the government-set goal," said Yoshio Tamura, administrative vice minister of the Environment Ministry.

Hisane Masaki is a Tokyo-based journalist, commentator and scholar on international politics and economy. Masaki's e-mail address is yiu45535@nifty.com.

Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.

Europe's car manufacturers, led by Saab and closely followed by Ford, are endangering their credibility with buyers as they exaggerate the environmental benefits of ethanol and hide its disadvantages in a desperate scramble to catch up with the need to appear green.

After soft-pedaling the problem for years, Europe's automotive manufacturers have been caught out by a sudden sea change in public opinion, which now wants more attention paid to the need to conserve fuel and protect the environment. Tire-squealing, macho advertising campaigns underlining speed and performance are on the way out; green, tree hugging is in.

Saab, General Motors' Swedish up-market subsidiary, is running a TV ad campaign which claims its new ethanol Flex Fuel engines, powered by renewable fuel which sucks in CO2 as it grows, can cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to an amazing 70 percent. Ford Europe claims a Flex-fuel powered little Focus sedan also cuts carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent compared with a gasoline-engine car. At the same time, in theory at least, a significant amount of imported gasoline would be replaced by homegrown fuel.

But these claims are coming under attack from experts, who say the real savings from using biofuels like ethanol are closer to neutral. Others say if you examine the whole life cycle and implications of growing fuels like ethanol, more energy is consumed than produced. If ethanol really boomed using a huge amount of new agricultural land, we could see the ludicrous result of planet-saving rainforests being decimated in the name of saving the planet.

And buried in the small print of Saab's claims for its Flex-fuel engines, is the admission that ethanol or E85 is much less efficient than gasoline, penalizing fuel consumption by about 30 percent.

These ethanol-enabled engines are engineered to run on normal gasoline or E85, which is just as well in Europe because very few gas stations actually sell the stuff. Here, close to a large town on the south coast of England, the nearest ethanol gas station is 40 miles away. According to Saab's own ethanol locater Web site, there are only 13 gas stations in all of Britain which sell it.

You don't have to believe that humans are destroying the climate to acknowledge that fossil fuels will run out sooner rather than later, and any new technology which seeks to address that problem must be a good thing.

Hype about CO2 emissions

Saab claims that its flex-fuel engines burning corn or sugar derivatives can slash CO2 emissions by more than half. But some experts say if you examine the data carefully, this is not the case, and that the role of these renewable fuels has been hyped way past their capabilities.

Saab now offers what it calls a BioPower flex-fuel technology option (cost:$1,200) right across its model range and says this means these vehicles effectively emit 50 to 70 percent less carbon dioxide than conventional engines when you fill up with biofuel like ethanol.

Saab flex-fuel engines using E85, a mixture of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, emit roughly the same amount of CO2 as other cars while being used on the road. But the crop-growing process effectively slashes emissions overall.

"Bioethanol fuel is produced commercially from agricultural crops like wheat, corn, grain, sugar beet and sugar cane. Unlike petrol, its consumption does not significantly raise atmospheric levels of CO2, which some scientific research suggests is a major contributor to global warming. This is because emissions released during driving are balanced by the amount of CO2 that is removed from the atmosphere when crops for conversion (into ethanol) are grown," Saab said.

However, this advantage is disputed by some experts like Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, who said the resources used to expand ethanol production - extra fertilizer, water, transportation, energy needed to convert it to industrial alcohol, not to mention the need to expand agricultural land and cut down CO2 friendly forests - will actually lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions than traditional fuels like petrol and diesel.

Next-generation ethanol

Tiffany Groode of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently published research casting doubt on the benefits of ethanol, saying converting corn into ethanol may use more fossil energy than the fuel provides. Groode's research, for MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, did hold out hope for so-called "cellulosic" ethanol, capable of much higher energy content, but it won't be available for years. Cellulosic biofuels use parts of crops which would usually go to waste, so do not affect food prices. But this development will be very expensive

President George W Bush has said Americans must use 20 percent less gasoline over the next decade. Hybrids, which use electric power to enhance the economy of gasoline engines, will contribute to this, but Bush expects ethanol to be a major provider. The European Union has said biofuels should account for 10 percent of the energy used for transport by 2020.

But Al Bedwell, analyst at J.D. Power's European headquarters, doesn't expect ethanol market penetration in Europe to reach much beyond 5 percent of car sales.

"This is not (yet at least) the panacea that some manufacturers would have us believe. Maybe with second-generation (cellulosic) biofuels we will see greater penetration. As far as ethanol is concerned I don't see a tremendous mid-term market for it above the 5 percent or so that is targeted," Bedwell said.

Consultants Frost & Sullivan expects a European market penetration of 4 percent for flex-fuel vehicles by 2015.

Garel Rhys, Emeritus Professor at Cardiff University Business School, said ethanol is a palliative, not a solution to the CO2 issue, and can make a minor contribution, with hybrids and other ideas, while the drive to hydrogen takes place in a minimum of 20, perhaps 50 years.

'Muddle through'

"In the interim we will muddle through with various technologies where none are really obviously better than others. Ethanol does use more fuel but some will say ethanol is better for them - the Swedes with their huge wood crop for instance, Brazilians with sugar cane, while Americans are perhaps more interested in hybrids, others in (bio) diesels," Rhys said.

For ethanol to become a mass-market fuel, according to Bedwell, four conditions must be met: Governments must cut taxes on ethanol (currently it is only pennies cheaper), availability must be improved, sales incentives are needed for flex-fuel vehicles, and exemptions invoked from road pricing schemes.

Despite these sobering disadvantages, led by the fact that fuel economy is a major negative, more European manufacturers plan to add ethanol vehicles including Ford's Volvo, and Renault and Peugeot of France, Bedwell said.

Skepticism on biofuels is coming from some unlikely sources, including global warming activists like the Brussels-based European Federation for Transport and the Environment.

"We have a series of concerns about biofuels, and there are signs that policy makers are now realizing that they are not a straightforward solution," said Dudley Curtis, communications officer for Transport & Environment.

He points out that a jump in the cost of some staple food in Mexico recently caused riots because U.S. demand for corn to make ethanol squeezed out crops for food.

A difficult case to make

"There are good biofuels and bad biofuels. The bad ones result in more CO2 overall than using crude oil. We need sustainability criteria to ensure that biofuels sold in Europe don't come from cleared rainforests, for example," he said.

Other experts say a massive increase in ethanol use will cause health problems, worse than those caused from gasoline, including ozone and particulates.

Despite the efforts of Europe's carmakers to push ethanol, J.D.Power's Bedwell doesn't think the sums add up.

"At present it is difficult to make a case for flex-fuel cars in most European markets as a result of their poor performance in a cost-benefit analysis versus both gasoline and diesel alternatives," Bedwell said.

The only European country where E85 has taken off is Sweden, where the government offers substantial financial incentives to motorists.

Meanwhile, the long-term solution will be hydrogen, according to Rhys.

"It could be fuel cells; it could be liquid hydrogen in internal combustion engines, which would be a good way to go using existing engines. But it's going to take a huge amount of research and huge expenditure to be commercially attractive. Also there has to be a clean way of making hydrogen, because using fossil fuels will end up making things (greenhouse gasses) worse. Nuclear, or wave power or solar power; you simply can't use existing CO2 based methodology to provide hydrogen," Rhys said.

© Copyright 2007 The Detroit News.

- raw material and energy costs increasing pressure on global business
- businesses to lose competitiveness if no action is taken to combat environmental issues

TORONTO - Energy and raw material costs are an increasing worry for global businesses according to the latest findings from the Grant Thornton International Business Report (IBR). The biggest worry for businesses are raw material costs with 44% of global businesses identifying these as having a major impact on cost pressures in the next twelve months, followed by 41% who were concerned about staff costs, 37% about energy costs and 34% about transport costs. Property costs (15%) are expected to have a lesser impact over the coming year.

Raw material and energy cost pressures

Energy costs appear to be affecting Europe more than the rest of the world with five of the region's top ten countries citing energy as having a major impact on cost pressures: Germany (58%), Ireland (47%) and France, Luxembourg and Italy (all 44%). Globally, companies in the Philippines (68%) are due to be most impacted by energy cost pressures, followed by Botswana (65%). Companies in Australia (18%) are least likely to be impacted by the cost of energy.

In comparison, raw material costs are due to have a greater impact on global businesses with companies from every continent appearing at the top of the table. Businesses in Spain (61%) are due to be most impacted by the cost of raw materials, followed by Botswana and Singapore (both 60%), and Thailand and France (both 56%). Raw material costs are due to affect businesses least in the Netherlands (29%), followed by the US, UK and Sweden (all at 31%).

The International Business Report covered the opinions of 7,200 privately held businesses in 32 countries, representing 81% of global GDP.

Managing future energy cost pressures

Companies in the emerging markets have done most to date to manage future energy cost pressures(*) according to the Grant Thornton International Business Report. Out of a maximum score of 600, companies in the Philippines (410) lead the way, followed by: Brazil (360), mainland China (341), Malaysia (307), Germany (306) and Turkey (303). <<

Main action taken by companies to reduce energy cost pressures:

- 58% of businesses globally have undertaken an energy review to understand how they may be wasting energy, led by companies in the Philippines (83%)

- 59% of businesses have reduced their energy consumption, again led by the Philippines (85%)

- 60% of businesses have put in place measures to ensure all computers and electrical equipment is turned off, top were Malaysian companies on 85%. The least action taken was by businesses in Thailand (16%) and Sweden (39%)

- 44% of businesses have spent most on energy saving equipment with Brazilian businesses (66%) the most likely to invest

- 20% of businesses have invested in alternative fuel/energy supplies. European businesses are more likely to have invested in these (24%)

- 22% of businesses have considered relocating to reduce transportation costs with companies in mainland China (46%) most likely to have contemplated this. >>

Alex MacBeath, global leader of privately held business services for Grant Thornton International, said:

"There is a simple clear message from our findings. Unless environmental factors such as energy and raw material costs become issues that significantly affect a company's profitability there is no incentive for it to take action, and reduce its impact on the environment. There must be motivation to take action on raw material and energy costs or companies will continue to focus on other cost pressures such as salaries and wages.

"We are now at a tipping point in looking at climate change and environmental management. It is time businesses recognised the fact that unless they take action to reduce their impact on the environment, it will harm their long-term competitiveness.

"There is also a role for national Governments to look at the long-term competitiveness of their economies and factor energy and raw material costs into that equation. Unless they take action to actively encourage businesses to invest for the future and reduce their impact on the environment, they will ultimately damage their economies." <<

(*) Respondents were measured by whether they had undertaken six energy and environmental initiatives:
- if they had undertaken an energy review
- reduced energy consumption
- put measures in place to turn off electrical equipment
- invested in energy saving equipment
- investigated alternative fuel/energy supplies
- considered relocating to reduce transportation costs. >>

Each country in IBR was given a score based on the percentage of businesses who had carried out each of the criteria. For each of the six criteria, the highest score a country could receive was 100, with a total maximum score for the management of energy and environmental issues league table of 600.

Unfortunately, the way we are going about implementing this "good" idea could mean we are headed from the frying pan to the fire.

There are two kinds of biofuel: ethanol, processed from sugarcane or corn, and biodiesel, made from biomass. Climate-savvy Europe gave the first push to biofuel, mandating they should contribute 6 per cent of fuels used in vehicles by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020. The bulk of biodiesel comes from domestically grown rapeseed. But to meet its growing needs, it is looking at importing soyabean-based fuel from Brazil and Argentina, and palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.

US President George Bush has this year called on his country to produce 132 billion litres of biofuel by 2017, to cut dependence on foreign fuel. The US' favourite biofuel is ethanol, which it produces from corn starch. Brazil, the world's largest ethanol producer, mostly uses sugarcane. It is estimated that ethanol plants will burn up to half of the US' domestic corn supplies in the coming few years. In addition, its biofuel industry is looking to make fuel out of soya and other crops to feed the automobile industry's growing hunger.

Already, the repercussions of this switch are beginning to show. Late last year, Mexico saw its tortilla wars, as people found the price of their staple-corn-had doubled. The hike was a result of the crop's new market as a source of vehicle fuel and the control over the crop and its uses by corporate USA. In this case, one company, Archer Daniels Midlands, has dominant interests in the corn and wheat market and is the largest ethanol processor in the region. In addition, it has a financial stake in a Mexican company that makes tortillas and refines wheat. In other words, the company benefits when corn price increases and consumers switch to wheat. Or when the switch takes place from food to fuel, they benefit.

Similarly, Cargill, the agribusiness multinational, is now the big name in the biofuel market. In this scenario, prices of other food commodities- wheat, soya, palm oil-are rising as well, in turn, impacting the poorest consumers globally. The projections are that food prices will increase between 20-40 per cent in the next 10 years or so because of this switchover.

The problem is compounded by the fact that this "switch" will do little to avert climate change. It is clear that all the biofuel in the world will be a blip on the total consumption of fossil fuel. In the US, for instance, it is agreed that if the entire corn crop is used for ethanol, it can only replace 12 per cent of current gasoline-petrol-used in the country. A recent paper in the US journal Foreign Affairs estimates that filling a 95-litre fuel tank with pure ethanol will require about 200 kg of corn, which has enough calories to feed a person for a year.

If we factor in the fuel inputs that go into converting biomass to energy-from diesel to run tractors, natural gas to make fertilisers, fuel to run refineries- biofuel is not an energy-efficient option. It is estimated that roughly 20 per cent of corn-made ethanol is 'new' energy. This does not account for the water it will take to grow this new crop. There is also evidence that rainforests will be cut to expand the cultivation of soya, sugarcane and palm oil, which in turn will exacerbate climate change.

Don't get me wrong: I am in favour of biofuel. But the question we need to ask is how to use it to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, though we are only interested in maximising corporate profits, we believe rather naively that social objectives are being met.

Firstly, let us be clear that biofuels cannot substitute fossil fuels; but they can make a difference if we begin to limit the consumption of the latter.

If this is the case, governments should not provide subsidies to grow crops for biofuel, as is being done in the US and Europe, but spend to limit their fuel consumption by reducing the sheer numbers of vehicles on their roads. If this is done, biofuels, which are renewable and emit less greenhouse gases, will make a difference. Otherwise, we are only fooling ourselves.

Secondly, the question is where will the biofuels be used? Let us be clear that the opportunity for a massive biofuel revolution is not in the rich world's cities, to run vehicles-but in the grid-unconnected world of Indian or African villages. It is here that there is a scarcity of energy-electricity to power homes, fuel to cook, to run generator sets to pump water and to run vehicles. It is also here that the use of fossil fuels will grow because there is no alternative.

Instead of bringing fossil fuel long distances to feed this market, this part of the world can leapfrog to a new energy future- from no fuel to the most advanced fuel. The biofuel can come from non-edible tree crops- jatropha in India, for example- grown on wasteland, which will also employ people.

This fuel market will demand a different business model. It cannot be conducted on the basis of the so-called free market model, which is based on economies of scale and, therefore, demands consolidation and leads to uncompetitive practices. In today's model, a company will grow the crops, extract the oil, transport it first to refineries and then back to consumers.

The new generation biofuel business needs a model of distributed growth in which we have millions of growers and millions of distributors and millions of users. Remember, climate change is not a technological fix but a political challenge. Biofuel is part of a new future.

© Central Chronicle 2007

A: I wish I could say biodiesel, a renewable alternative to diesel fuel, is produced in such a way that it could safeguard our food supply from the effects of declining oil reserves and permanently higher fuel prices. Unfortunately, biodiesel is not a silver bullet, able to eliminate American agriculture's dependence on fossil fuels. But biodiesel, produced sustainably and reducing our petroleum demand, can make the transition to a new energy economy less painful.

In 2005, America's farms spent $27.4 billion on energy-related expenses. That breaks down to $3.4 billion on electricity and $12.8 billion on fertilizers that along with pesticides create a significant, indirect source of fossil fuel-dependent energy consumption for agriculture. The fuels and oils required to operate equipment and machinery cost farmers $11.2 billion, and included the cost of about 3.5 billion gallons of diesel fuel used to plant, tend, and harvest our crops and raise our livestock (1).

It sounds like a lot but the total energy use by the agriculture sector peaked in 1978, and has decreased since then despite increased agricultural output (2). Farm equipment and practices have become more efficient as farmers stay competitive in the market by keeping their energy costs down.

In America, a common way to produce biodiesel is from virgin soybean oil. The oil is harvested from the plant and sold on the commodities market. A biodiesel producer purchases the oil and ships it to a biodiesel refinery, where the process of making biodiesel, a transesterification reaction, takes place. The large triglyceride molecules of vegetable oil are broken into the smaller and less viscous, long chain mono alkyl esters of biodiesel. The reaction requires a short chain alcohol (usually methanol) and a catalyst (usually sodium or potassium hydroxide) (3). Glycerin, a sugar, is also produced in the reaction and is often sold to industry for use in soap, cosmetics, and many other applications.

The American biodiesel industry is experiencing tremendous growth, from its humble beginning of less than 10 biodiesel plants in 2000 to 65 plants operating and 58 more under construction or expanding in 2006. Biodiesel production capacity is projected to reach 1.7 billion gallons by 2008 (4).

1.7 billion gallons of biodiesel would cover almost half of the 3.5 billion gallons of diesel we use on farms, but biodiesel is not just sold to farmers and 1.7 billion gallons is more of a drop in the bucket when it comes to the annual 60 billion gallons of diesel fuel consumed in America.

Making a dent in the total diesel consumed in the U.S. would require a lot of biodiesel. According to a white paper from John Deere & Company, use of a B2 (2% biodiesel, 98% petroleum diesel) blend nationwide is an attainable goal. "It would require 1.1 billion gallons of pure biodiesel... [and] consume all the soybean oil from 18 million acres, or about one-fourth of current U.S. soybean production (5)." (John Deere & Co. is forgetting about my favorite, sustainable feedstock, Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO). And are you wondering about algae? Stay tuned for my next column.)

Eighteen million acres of soybeans grown for fuel to meet 2% of our nation's diesel fuel demand, when my salad came all the way from California? Biodiesel cannot replace all or even close to all of the diesel fuel we consume here in the U.S. But there are simple and delicious ways to reduce our food supply's dependence on petroleum like buying local, organic produce.

I live on the East Coast and on average the produce available here is 3 to 4 days older than the produce available in California. I don't want to spend a lifetime eating old lettuce and wasting fuel. Fortunately, there is a growing movement towards Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in America, where small organic farms can provide enough vegetables to support 200 to 300 local families on 5 to 10 acres of land. Here in upstate New York, I can get almost all of my produce during the growing season from the local farmers' market or join a CSA and have a weekly share of what is in season. I can ride a bike (the chain greased with biodiesel) to where my beets are grown, instead of having them shipped to me from California. I find fresh vegetables and efficiency very appetizing.

So make your biodiesel sustainable and eat your locally grown kale and we might just make it out of this pinch.

Footnotes:

1. United States Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration. "Adjusted Distillate Fuel Oil and Kerosene Sales by End Use," 2005.

2. United States Department of Agriculture. "Energy and Agriculture," August, 2006.

3. United States Department of Energy. "Biodiesel Handling and Use Guidelines," March, 2006.

4. Borgman, Don. "Agriculture, Bio-fuels and Striving for Greater Energy Independence: A John Deere perspective on the realistic role US agriculture can play in satisfying America's increasing appetite for renewable fuels," January 4, 2007.

5. Ibid

Copyright © 1999-2007 Renewable Energy Access

"The ethanol industry has been chugging along for 20 years at low levels and now, all of a sudden, it's really taking off," Brent Erickson, executive vice president of the Biotechnology Industry Organization ' s industrial and environmental section, told UPI in a telephone interview Monday. "We have to let the market work. What you ' re going to find is that corn farmers are going to plant more corn this year. "Next year, this won't be an issue because supply and demand will come into balance. I think this whole issue about food is going to go away." Although most of the corn grown in the United States is used as feedstock, the demand for ethanol has pushed corn prices to an all-time high, spiking the price of foodstuffs such as milk, eggs and chicken.

The Bush administration wants to reduce gasoline use by 20 percent over a 10-year period. In his State of the Union address in January, President Bush set a goal to produce 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels by 2017.

The United States already consumes some 7 billion gallons of corn-based ethanol a year. Ten years ago less than 5 percent of corn production was used to manufacture ethanol. In 2005 it was 14 percent. In 2006 it touched an estimated 20 percent.

Critics say ethanol is driving up prices or other crops and some food; its supporters, however, say it's the best way to achieve energy independence.
Copyright 2007 by UPI

Escalating energy costs and the growing fear of climate change have encouraged a headlong rush to renewable energy. Biofuel from biomass is emerging as a preferred source of liquid energy for transport - but the huge areas of agricultural land that are being, or will be, diverted from food production pose questions about the morality of industrial-scale biofuels development.

These industrial biofuels are mainly ethanol from starch and sugar crops and oil from oilseed crops such as canola and oil palm. In the background, cellulosic alcohol production is receiving close attention as biotechnology research attempts to develop new ways to convert complex structural carbohydrates to soluble sugars for conversion to ethanol.

Diversion of land from food to biofuels production is already driving up the price of food: Mexican maize prices have doubled in the last year forcing the government to put a ceiling on tortilla prices. Sugar prices have also doubled, while construction of distilleries in the USA and South America is only now taking off. Virtually all countries are now considering biofuels production from various crop sources. In general these will be grown on land that previously grew food or else is newly-cleared forest country. And these fuels will be produced by industrial processes that lower the net energy yield. Subsidized agribusiness has bought into biofuels with expectations of high profits.

The industrial production of biofuels threatens to create conflict over food for humans, feed for animals and feedstocks for liquid energy sources.

In 2006 about 17% of the US corn crop was converted to ethanol and supplied 2% of the nation’s auto fuel. The Earth Policy Institute predicts ethanol production will claim 50 percent (or 140 million metric tones,mmt) of US corn in 2008, with 79 new ethanol plants due to come on line in the next two years. This will double ethanol capacity at a time when world grain stocks are at their lowest level in 25 years and falling. By 2020 alcohol production could remove conservatively 400 mt of grain from world food -feed markets, either directly or by diversion of land from food crops. If maize was the sole source of the feedstock, President Bush's call for the USA to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel by 2017 would require about 320 mt of maize - more than the present annual production.

The world trade in all grains is around 240 mmt of which around 80-90mmt are exported from the USA. The acquisition of grain by the ethanol industry in the USA will thus have major impact on world grain prices and availability. Present world wheat and coarse grains reserves are about 280 mt, down from 450 mt in 6 years. However world demand for grain is increasing. India in particular has emerged as a huge importer of grain this year having used up its 23mt stockpile in just 5 years to import 4 mt in 2006. China is also a net importer. World grain consumption has exceeded production in 5 of the last 6 years. Global per capita grain availability is also declining.

Some of the grain reserves diverted to ethanol production will be offset by increased production from South America - but this is being achieved through agricultural industrialisation which is displacing small farmers and increasing poverty. Higher production in South America also often depends on clearing forest country, which adds to global warming and ‘the new’ land quickly loses its initial high fertility.

Climate also poses a major threat to world food supplies. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) has warned that global warming will shrink South Asia’s wheat area by half. New models of the effects of global warming predict increasing aridity in many of the food bowls and reduced water availability for irrigated agriculture. Recent studies are showing that increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may stimulate plant growth but it also increases soil microbe activity which decreases carbon levels in soil. Higher temperatures can have adverse effects on plant growth: rice yields decline by 10% for every oC increase in night time temperature. Add the higher cost of fertilizers, which is already discouraging their use leading to lower yields and output which will shrink the yield of rice further.

The signs are clear. There is a growing scarcity of staples and high global food prices will result. The CGIAR has warned of a possible return to large-scale famines in developing countries even without the additional impost of biofuels on the world food supply. Heading off the refugee wave that could result will be an economic burden to developed countries.

It is hard to avoid concluding that the livelihood of billions of people in developing countries and the standard of living and security in developed countries will be severely affected as global food production falls and land is diverted to biofuels production.

Contrary to the “clean energy” claims of their proponents, biofuels are wreaking ecological and climatic devastation. 80% of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions arise from deforestation of the Amazon basin mainly to grow sugar cane for ethanol. Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests are being destroyed for oil palm plantations. As forest cover is removed carbon sinks in the biomass and the soil depreciate with time; it is almost certain this will alter rainfall patterns which could decrease at the same rate.

The effects of all this will be more pronounced in the developing countries where famine now seems inevitable, particularly when drought induced by global warming bites. The world food balance is already precarious. What will happen when the next disaster or monsoon failure occurs in a country with high population densities?

The cost to developed countries of the ensuing global destabilization will be a high price to pay for the minor benefits of producing industrial biofuels which cannot meet more then a few percent of the world’s energy needs.

Copyright © 2004-2007 ScienceAlert.com.au

MISSISSAUGA - The University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team (UWAFT) competing in Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility was given an official send-off today as the team prepares for Year Three of the international challenge held at the General Motors Proving Grounds in Milford, Michigan. The UWAFT team is the only Canadian team participating in the competition.

Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainable Mobility is an engineering competition that asks teams to re-engineer a Chevrolet Equinox crossover SUV to use advanced propulsion technologies for better fuel economy, emissions and performance.

"On behalf of Canada's New Government, I would like to congratulate the students of the University of Waterloo who are taking part in this competition. It is this kind of innovative thinking that will help Canada lead the way when it comes to our environment," said the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources. "This competition demonstrates that by working together we can achieve real, tangible and significant environmental progress through science and technology."

Natural Resources Canada sponsors the competition along with General Motors, the U.S. Department of Energy, and more than 30 other organizations.

General Motors is one of the headline sponsors of the Challenge X competition. GM donated new 2005 Chevy Equinox crossover vehicles to each of the university teams at the end of the first year of the competition, plus two control vehicles. GM also provided each university team with $10,000 in seed money and donated use of its engineering, testing and proving-ground facilities for student workshops and competitions. Finally, GM provided highly controlled access to its intellectual property and staff support - including a program manager, team mentors and event judges.

"At GM we know the importance of investing in the students of today since they are tomorrow's future," said Bryan Swift, Director, Environmental Activities, General Motors of Canada. "The University of Waterloo Alternative Fuels Team has worked hard throughout the last three years to explore innovative new approaches to vehicle propulsion that offer all the attributes of today's vehicle, but with even better fuel economy and lower emissions."

Hydrogenics Corporation, also a sponsor, supplied the university with the fuel cell and provided technical support.

"Hydrogenics' fuel cell power module technology has really been done proud by the University of Waterloo team," said Daryl Wilson, Hydrogenics President and Chief Executive Officer. "It has been such a privilege to mentor these young people, giving them a real experience to work with a clean energy technology that is important to the future of transportation. This is the first generation that, in many ways, will reap the greatest reward from this emerging technology."

Launched in 2004, Challenge X was originally scheduled for completion in 2007 but is being extended to a fourth year. The competition gives teams the opportunity to focus on customer acceptability, road reliability and the extended durability of their advanced propulsion systems.

"Natural Resources Canada, Hydrogenics Corporation and General Motors of Canada are to be thanked and commended for supporting this important project," said David Johnston, President of the University of Waterloo. "They are playing a key role in helping a group of very smart future leaders address the crucial challenge of developing alternative fuel technologies."

Canada is an emerging energy superpower. Innovation in energy technologies will provide significant benefits to our economy, our health and our environment.

WHAT:
Launch of Aboriginal Energy Conservation Program and unveiling of Household Energy Conservation Kits

WHEN:
Tuesday, May 8th, 2007, 10:15 AM

WHERE:
Provincial Room, Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel & Suites, 17 North Cumberland St., Thunder Bay, Ontario

WHO:
* Jan Carr, CEO, Ontario Power Authority
* Angus Toulouse, Ontario Regional Chief
* Charles Fox, Program Manager, Energy Efficiency and Conservation Measures for Aboriginal Communities Program

Media are also invited to the opening session on Tuesday, May 8th taking place in the Provincial Room from 9:00 AM to 10:15 AM.

Participants in the opening session will include Chief Harold Pelletier, FWFN; Mayor Lynn Peterson, City of Thunder Bay; Jan Carr, CEO, Ontario Power Authority; Ontario Regional Chief Angus Toulouse; Grand Chief Stan Beardy, NAN; Grand Chief Arnold Gardner, Treaty #3; Tim Pile, MNO; and Charles Fox, Program Manager, Energy Efficiency and Conservation Measures for Aboriginal Communities Program

In pursuit of its mandate of ensuring an adequate, long-term supply of electricity for Ontario, the Ontario Power Authority creates and implements conservation and demand management programs, ensures adequate investment in new supply infrastructure, performs long-term electricity system planning, and facilitates the development of a more sustainable and competitive electricity system.

This energy and transportation fuel research facility will facilitate the commercial acceptance of technologies that convert non-petroleum carbon resources into high value products such as clean diesel fuel, jet fuel, methanol, ethanol and electric power.

"The United States has one of the world's largest supplies of non- petroleum carbon resources including human and agricultural wastes, waste biomass, energy crops, coal, and others," said Stephen Piccot, director of Environment and Energy Research at Southern Research Institute. "If greenhouse gas emissions from the production and use of carbon-based resources are reduced or eliminated, we could likely supply our nation's energy needs for at least the next 150 years."

Piccot said that because Southern Research has long recognized the growing need for basic and applied research and testing services in the energy and transportation fields to help advance alternative fuels, the center will serve as an independent research facility for technology developers and project engineers to implement, test and refine pilot-scale technology designs in a cost-effective manner.

The C2L Development Center is located on a 28-acre site recently purchased by Southern Research Institute in the Treyburn Commercial Park north of Durham, NC. It includes 30,000 square feet of industrial high-bay space for locating pilot facilities and testing them with a modular distributed control system and online analytical equipment.

"For some time now, the engineers at Southern Research, with the encouragement of our Board, have analyzed and planned for us to make a strategic move such as this to enhance our capabilities in environmental and energy-related research," said Jack Secrist, Ph.D., president and CEO. "Given the global demand to find new energy sources, and our own pre-existing strengths in this arena, and the availability of the right kind of facility in which to conduct this work, this is the right time for us to make this move."

Southern Research has conducted environmental and energy-related research projects for more than 40 years for government agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency and the Dept. of Energy, as well as numerous commercial electric power generating companies around the world. Southern Research also operates the Greenhouse Gas Technology Verification Center based in North Carolina - an independent testing facility initially developed in concert with the U.S. E.P.A. and designed to verify and validate technologies designed by vendors to mitigate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions in real world operations.

Several U.S. states have introduced plans to capitalize on the country's emerging biofuels industry, producing technologies to end or reduce the nation's $1 billion-a-day expense on imported oil.

North Carolina will spend $25 million to fund biofuel research and infrastructure. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen has proposed a $73 million investment in biofuels research over the next five years. The Oklahoma legislature is mulling a $40 million Bioenergy Center to coordinate state research. And the Washington legislature has approved $17 million in the state's Bioenergy Program.

Here in Frederick, since 2000, Robert Kozak has been working to ensure that Maryland is not left out of the race to end the country's dependence on gasoline.

Kozak's company, Atlantic Biomass Conversions Inc., is investigating cost-effective biofuel alternatives at Hood College.

"It would be a shame to see other states leave Maryland behind on this grave economic and strategic issue -- producing the necessary technologies to end our need to spend $1 billion per day on imported oil," Kozak said. "People should realize that it's about national security when the country is no longer dependent on foreign oil."

Kozak has been developing enzyme-based systems to produce biofuels and other bioproducts from sugar beet pulp, a byproduct of the sugar-making process. One immediate use of the company's technology may be fuel for military jets.

"These types of fuels É will be needed to meet the real future of transportation fuels that cannot be met by ethanol," Kozak said.

The technology attempts to convert plant matter, such as beet pulp and grass crops, into jet fuel, biodesiel and chemical products other than ethanol.

Despite a national push to harness ethanol, a grain alcohol, Kozak said it will not solve the country's alternative-fuel problem. Ethanol has about 30 percent less energy per gallon than gasoline -- or about 30 percent less efficient, Kozak said. Also, storage and shipping are a problem.

"Ethanol is probably one of the worst motor fuels you could come up with," Kozak said. "It is a great economic model, but lousy science."

Kozak said certain types of grass will be the future for biofuel production.

"The best part of this system is that it can be grown on marginal land not used for food crops," Kozak said. "Once we get our biofuel production system working on sugar beet pulp, we will begin adapting it to these grass-based systems."

The entrepreneur said he expects to introduce his products to the market within two years, if he continues to receive funding. The project has received several grants over the years, including a recent $148,440 award from the National Science Foundation.

National priority

Program manager Thomas Allnutt said the foundation funds small business with innovative ideas, national priorities and high-risk ventures with a potentially high pay-off.

"This is high risk," Allnutt said during a visit to Hood College's Hodson Science Center, where Kozak's lab sits.

The foundation reserves judgment on what may work.

"We fund the earliest stage of ideas," Allnutt said. "We're not saying this is great or it's bad. If we thought it was bad, we wouldn't fund it."

If Kozak's company makes progress, it might be eligible for additional funding, Allnutt said.

Kozak credits Hood College Professor Craig Laufer with a mutually beneficial partnership on the project and Hood's graduate students who perform lab work for the project.

"Somebody is going to come up with the right solution for efficiently converting all this biomass into valuable stuff," Laufer said. "Right now, it's being thrown away. Why not take advantage of all this waste? The economics of it is so compelling. I think it's a very ambitious thing. You don't know until you try."

Laufer said Kozak was one of the early people to see the wisdom in turning agricultural waste into energy. Both credited Marie Keegin, the county's economic development executive director, for introducing them to each other, and the National Science Foundation and TEDCO for funding.

"We got an early start. Somebody believed in us," Laufer said.

Something like Viagra

But finding funding has been difficult.

"What we discovered is that venture capital people do not understand commodities," Kozak said. "They are looking for the next big thing. When you say cents per pound to a venture capitalists, they're tuned out. They are looking for something like the next Viagra."

Biofuels is agriculture, Kozak said.

"It is a continuous thing, it's almost a calling, not just the next company you have."

In Minnesota, Kozak met U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, who is trying to secure $5 billion in research funding for biofuels.

"I wish that the Maryland Congressional delegation will see the need," Kozak said. "It's not an easy thing. It will take a massive effort. People should realize that it's about national security."

A peek into the future

Kozak predicts that a mature U.S. biofuel industry will look quite different from the corn-to-ethanol and soybean-oil-to-biodiesel plants that make up the first-generation of biofuel plants in America.

In five to 10 years, biorefineries will produce gasoline substitutes, high-performance bio-jetfuel, liquid hydrogen for fuel cells, and bioplastics -- all from a single facility. Biorefineries, many started as add-ons to agricultural processing plants, will use a variety of biomass, Kozak said.

It also will be sustainable, both economically and environmentally.

These biorefineries will use advanced bioenzymes, which mimic natural biological processes to quickly synthesize these diverse bioproducts. And they could respond to market demands, much as current oil refineries switch from gasoline to heating-oil production.

"Reliance on imported oil, and the entangling foreign alliances it produced, will be a thing of the past - as will discussions about the efficiency of using corn for ethanol," Kozak said.

Joseph Schmidhuber, senior economist at the FAO Agricultural Development and Economics Division, said in a statement that a rebirth of agriculture was likely in developing countries where biofuels can be produced profitably.

"Bioenergy holds out enormous opportunities for farmers, especially in the developing world," added Gustavo Best, FAO senior energy coordinator.

Top international experts recently met in Rome to consider the impact of the rapidly expanding bioenergy industry on world environment and food security.

"It was the first time that experts in bioenergy, food security and the environment came together to discuss the important linkages between those sectors," said Alexander Müller, head of the FAO Natural Resources Management and Environment Department.

"While there is legitimate concern among some groups that bioenergy could compromise food security and cause environmental damage, it can also be an important tool for improving the well-being of rural people if governments take into account environmental and food security concerns," he added.

Müller said there was a need for an international commitment to make sure that food security was not impaired and that natural resources are used in a sustainable manner.

The Philippines is feeling the effect of rising demand for biofuels, with an increase in prices of corn, one of the main crops used to produce ethanol, which is added to gasoline.

This year, Philippine corn production is expected to grow at least 13 percent. Corn prices have increased by P1.33 a kilogram.

Copyright Asian Journal Publications, Inc.

WATERLOO - Fuel-cell power holds the key to a more sustainable energy future in Ontario, says a University of Waterloo engineering professor involved in a new multi-disciplinary university-industry network developing the innovative technology.

Michael Fowler, a professor of chemical engineering, is one of 17 researchers from eight universities in the Ontario Fuel Cell Research and Innovation Network. It recently received $5.4 million in funding from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation. The network's budget totals $16.4 million, including additional contributions from major industry and other partners.

The network works to overcome technical roadblocks in order to achieve the full economic and environmental benefits of using fuel-cell technologies. More than 20 researchers from 12 private sector partners are also involved in the network.

"Fuel cell represents the future in power generation of vehicles where their high efficiency and zero emissions will improve urban air quality, and allow for the use of carbon dioxide-free energy sources such as wind, solar and nuclear energy," Fowler says.

"Even now fuel cells are starting to penetrate early markets for lift trucks and back-up power where they offer real performance and efficiency advantages, as well as harmful emission-free operation in Ontario's factories and warehouses."

Fuel cells are a clean energy technology producing electrical power from such fuels as hydrogen. They are considered essential for the so-called 'hydrogen economy.' This economy will make the implementation of clean energy sources easier by providing an energy vector (carrier) for the storage and transfer of energy.

Working in advanced laboratories, the network will train highly skilled staff to support the growth of the fuel-cell industry. Also, its work will provide the answers needed by the industry to move forward to commercialization.

Fowler's research focuses on the design and performance of fuel-cell stacks and systems. He models fuel-cell system reliability and studies potential failures in fuel-cell stacks. "Reliability techniques are needed to understand the life-cycle costs and performance of green-power generation systems," he says.

SAN FRANCISCO — A New Zealand company said Monday that it had secured financing from an investor in Silicon Valley to produce ethanol from an untapped source — carbon monoxide gas.

The company, LanzaTech, based in Auckland, said it had developed a fermentation process in which bacteria consume carbon monoxide and produce ethanol. Ethanol can be used as an alternative fuel or an octane-boosting, pollution-reducing additive to gasoline.

Sean Simpson, LanzaTech’s co-founder and chief scientific officer, said the company would use the $3.5 million investment from the venture firm, Khosla Ventures, to establish a pilot plant and perform the engineering work to prepare for commercial-scale ethanol production.

Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems who formed Khosla Ventures in 2004, has invested in more than a dozen start-ups involved in “clean fuel” technologies. He said in a telephone interview that LanzaTech stood out from the scores of proposals he sees each day for both its ability to scale up to industrial proportions and the credibility of the company’s founding scientists.

“When I passed it on to my partners for due diligence, the technology stood up to every test, and the intellectual property protection was awesome,” Mr. Khosla said.

Then, referring to the bacteria that are key to the process, he said, “The performance of the bugs was frankly mind-boggling to me, not something I would have expected from a tiny research effort in New Zealand.” He said his firm “sent the best process engineers we know to evaluate the technology and could it be industrialized, and the answer was yes.”

People have been using yeast to turn sugar into alcohol for thousands of years. Corn, the main source of ethanol in this country, provides carbohydrates that are easily broken into sugars.

LanzaTech’s innovation lies in using a bacterium to produce ethanol not from a carbohydrate, but from a gas, carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide is a waste product of a number of industrial processes, including the production of steel.

“The feed stock of corn ethanol accounts for 60 percent of the cost, so we felt that the place to attack was to move away from a farmed crop,” said Mr. Simpson of LanzaTech. “We started to focus on high-volume industrial waste, which led to carbon monoxide. The steel industry globally makes around half a ton of carbon monoxide per ton of steel made.”

A spokesman for the American Iron and Steel Institute said that the industry does not monitor the total volume of carbon monoxide it produces, some of which is recycled and reused.

Regardless of how it is made or what it is made from, ethanol as a fuel has its detractors. Some plastics and rubber materials commonly used in fuel lines are degraded by ethanol, and depending on the blend of ethanol and gasoline, ethanol may raise levels of nitrogen oxides produced. Ethanol also contains less energy than an equivalent amount of gasoline, so mileage may be reduced.

For Mr. Khosla, the positives of ethanol fuel, including reduced pollution and freedom from oil dependence, far outweigh the negatives. “There are many more weapons in the war on oil than the narrow-minded folks who do prognostication imagine,” Mr. Khosla said. “Most of the action in energy is coming from biotechnology, and the most interesting work in biotechnology is energy.”

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

Wisconsin officials hope to establish the state among biofuel industry leaders by joining 11 other states in a new Midwest alternative fuel alliance.

Wisconsin Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen will announce today the formation of the North Central Bio Economy Consortium and its plans to unite the Midwest's agriculture infrastructure and spur biofuel production.

Funded by a $100,000 grant from The Energy Foundation of San Francisco, the consortium will also include Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. The consortium will also receive a combined $72,000 from the state members.

"I think (this organization) allows us to leverage the capacity of what is going to be called the biobelt," said Nilsestuen, who was named the organization's president. "Wisconsin is going to be a major player (in the biofuel industry) but we're not the only player."

Through the management of The Great Plains Institute, a Minneapolis non-profit group, the consortium will coordinate promotion, regulation, education, funding and research for the biofuels industry through the member state's agriculture departments, university extensions and research stations.

This morning's announcement will also include a report that shows the consortium's member states can account for more than 50 percent of the nation's biomass needs including corn, switchgrass, and forest products.

"Functionally, the political boundaries aren't the business or industry boundaries," Nilsestuen said. "In this case (that includes) the natural resource base, too. The more we can coordinate and share information . . . the more we can win."

Nilsestuen expects the organization to help the state maximize its strengths in the bioeconomy such as the potential for cellulosic ethanol production in the paper industry and the University of Wisconsin System's research capabilities.

"If you look at corn ethanol, we're never going to produce as much as Illinois or Iowa," he said. "But the great strength of Wisconsin is . . . (that) we've got a very diverse ag base. We're not going to be totally dependent on row crops. We've got the number one paper industry in the country. We've also got the number one bio research university in the country."

Josh Morby, executive director of the Wisconsin Bio Industry Alliance, an organization of biofuel producers, said Wisconsin's participation in the group will help the state's industry.

"It gives Wisconsin an opportunity to showcase the leadership we have in the Midwest and take advantage of best practices from other states and other industries," Morby said.

But ethanol continues to face concerns over its environmentally friendly image.

On Thursday, a Stanford University study was published in Environmental Science & Technology that used a computer model to simulate what effect the use of an 85 percent ethanol blend in cars would have on air quality. The results found that the blend would actually increase ozone levels in some parts of the United States.

"Ethanol is being promoted as a clean and renewable fuel that will reduce global warming and air pollution," Mark Z. Jacobson, the study's author, said. "But our results show that a high blend of ethanol poses an equal or greater risk to public health than gasoline, which already causes significant health damage."

But Nilsestuen maintains that corn ethanol is only a part of the equation and the consortium will be well-equipped to address environmental concerns.

"I think there is a public policy benefit, in the long haul, of having a full discussion and some pushback," he said. "Issues about intense use of land, particularly from the soil and water aspects, are real. . . . Let's figure out ways to get (the biofuels industry) where we need to be in ways that are environmentally beneficial."

Gary Radloff, a spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, said one potential project for the consortium in Wisconsin involves working on switchgrass collection with Alliant Energy, which is considering using the biomass as a partial substitute at its proposed coal-burning power plant in Cassville.

"It all sounds great to say you're going to use woody biomass or switchgrass," he said. "But to actually collect it and get it to somewhere you can use it as energy is the next challenge."
Copyright © 2007 Wisconsin State Journal

Waterloo Region - The German Canadian Annual Conference on Wind Energy Technology Partnership is happening today Monday, April 23 at the Delta Hotel in Kitchener.

The Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce, in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry of Economy and the German Energy Agency, will bring a number of German companies specializing in wind energy to the Waterloo Region with a view to stimulating bilateral exchanges.

Schedule:

Susan Ritter, Director, Canadian German Chamber of Industry and Commerce - 9:00 am

John Tennant, CEO, Canada's Technology Triangle - 9:10 am

David Timm, Ontario Policy Manager, CanWEA - 9:20 am

Matthias Schick, German Energy Association - 9:50

Dr. Ing. Martin Hoppe-Kilpper, CEO, Network for Decentralized energy Technology - 11:00 am

Steffen Ebert, German Wind Energy Association - 11:40 am

Company presentation at 1:30 pm

Complete agenda available at:
http://www.techtriangle.com/Media/Events.cfm

Location: Delta Hotel, Grand Ballroom,
105 King Street East, Kitchener, ON N2G 2K8.30.

There are local wind technology experts who will be in attendance…

The University of Waterloo's Wind Energy Group, Department of Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering has a great story to tell from the installation of small off-grid turbines in Waterloo Region to very large scale wind test facility in Waterloo with controlled wind speeds to study wind turbine aerodynaimcs including blade stall, noise generation, power generation prediction and rotor/nacelle interaction. The recently built facility is unique in Canada and is of a scale that is one of a handful in the world.

UW is also a part of an application for a cross Canada Wind Energy network that encompasses researchers from diverse engineering areas from wind forecasting, turbine technology, power conversion/conditioning, and grid connection with researchers from every province Canada.

LONDON - The credentials of biofuels might have been dented by claims that current production methods are inefficient, lead to deforestation and drive up food prices, but a German firm hopes to change all this with new technology.

Tom Blades, chief executive of Choren, said his company planned to start the world's first commercial-scale plant to manufacture transport fuels from plants, using second-generation technology, later this year.

However, Blades said it would take time before the processes were refined to give western leaders concerned about energy security and people worried about climate change a realistic fossil fuel alternative.

"I wouldn't say we have discovered the holy grail but we're in the lead in the quest," Blades told Reuters on Wednesday.

Currently, there are two main types of biofuels -- ethanol, which is made by distilling sugars from corn or sugar cane, and biodiesel made by processing plant oil.

Rising biofuel demand due to government incentives has pushed up the prices of feedstocks, which are also foodstuffs, and led to rain forest being felled for oilseed plantations.

Inefficient production methods, which mean the equivalent of nearly a liter of fuel is used to produce a liter of biofuel, has seen limited net CO2 reduction, and high costs.

Second generation biofuels would use non-food crops such as straw and waste lumber, be more energy efficient, require less land use, offer more CO2 reduction, be cheaper and offer greater energy security.

Yet so far second-generation biofuels production has been essentially experimental.

Choren's new plant in Freiberg will manufacture a synthetic diesel from woodchips that produces much less CO2 than existing biofuels. Nonetheless, scale and cost will be remain an issue.

Blades said the plant would produce only 300 barrels per day (bpd) of "SunDiesel" at a cost of 0.90 euros per liter.

This compares with 0.48 euros per liter for regular diesel, based on a $65 per barrel crude price, and around 0.60 for first generation biodiesel.

Without tax breaks or government-mandates for biofuel use, Choren's diesel will not be economic and even with these, the Freiberg plant will not be a lucrative venture.

"It's not going to make us rich .. we're still on target to make a black zero," Blades said.

The Freiberg unit will enable Choren to refine its methods, with more plants planned in the coming years. Choren expects to start building a 5,000 bpd facility in Germany in the next two years that could manufacture for 0.70 euros per liter.

The company is also in talks on constructing a plant in the United States, where project economics are helped by feedstock costs being half the level of Germany -- partly because higher use of wood in construction means more waste lumber.

The improved prospects for energy security offered by Choren's technology may also bring U.S. opportunities.

Blades said the Pentagon had expressed interest in using the technology to produce green jet fuel for its fighter planes.

To fund ambitious growth plans, Blades and fellow shareholders, including the oil major Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research), may float the company in an initial public offering or sell shares in the planned plants to investors, with Choren retaining a management contract.

"We'll probably make a decision on which route in mid-to-late 2008," Blades said.

Over time, the new facilities could push the manufacturing cost down to 0.50 euros per tonne -- competitive with diesel even without subsidies.

If oil prices stay high and governments offer incentives, Blades thinks green diesel could take up to 20-30 percent of the global market, although he expects to wait at least 30 years to see it.

Some scientists are less optimistic, saying the heat required in gasifying biomass to produce second-generation biodiesel will always limit its cost effectiveness.

Oil major BP Plc is more optimistic about cellulose ethanol - the next generation of ethanol, which uses enzymes to produce fuel from biomass, rather than distilling expensive sugars.

Shell is hedging its bets. It also has an investment in Iogen Corp., a company researching cellulose ethanol, although commercial-scale production seems some way off.

© Reuters 2007.

The Hon. Kathy Dunderdale, Minister of Natural Resources, Newfoundland and Labrador

"The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador fully supports the concept of an east-west grid given the abundance of clean energy resources we have to offer the rest of the country. We are pleased to participate in this discussion and to bring our province's perspective to the table. I would hope that after this discussion, we can all stand together in calling for a national green power corridor."

Based on stakeholder input from this meeting and broader consultations, Corporate Knights will draft a report to be released in two months time. The report will provide the basis for a follow-up meeting on November 29th, 2007.

To download a transcript of the conference, please go to:
http://www.corporateknights.ca/

Cross-Country Green Power Corridor MW Potential:

Canada's viable green power that could be accessed through enhanced grid structure: 163,173 MW Hydro Power, 175,000 MW Wind Power

Provinces / Territories Hydropower Potential (MW)
Technical
Alberta....................................11,775
British Columbia ......................33,137
Manitoba .................................8,785
New Brunswick.........................613.8
Newfoundland & Labrador..........8,540
Northwest Territories.................11,524
Nova Scotia..............................8,499
Nunavut....................................4,307
Ontario....................................10,270
Prince Edward Island..................2.6
Québec.....................................44,100
Saskatchewan...........................3,955
Yukon.......................................17,664
Canada ....................................163,173

Source: Study of the Hydropower Potential in Canada, report prepared by ÉEM for the Canadian Hydropower Association, March 2006.


Viable Wind Power Potential

Provinces / Territories Wind Power Potential**
Ontario....................................38,979 MW***
Quebec...................................101,000 MW****

Switch To Efficient Lights, Summer Programs Will Help Ontarians Save Electricity And Money, And Protect The Environment

TORONTO - Ontario is banning the sale of inefficient light bulbs by 2012 and launching five province-wide conservation initiatives as part of the government's commitment to build a conservation culture, Energy Minister Dwight Duncan and Environment Minister Laurel Broten announced April 18, 2007.

"It's lights out for old, inefficient bulbs in Ontario," Duncan said. "By making this one small change, we can all make an enormous difference in the way we use electricity."

New efficient lighting such as compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) use around 75 per cent less electricity than standard old fashioned incandescent bulbs. Replacing all 87 million incandescent bulbs in Ontario households with CFLs would save six million megawatt hours annually - enough to power 600,000 homes.

"Together, Ontarians can - and will - do their part to fight climate change starting with something as simple as changing a light bulb," said Broten. "This is an important day for Ontario's environment - this action alone represents a huge step forward in reducing greenhouse gas emissions - it's the equivalent of taking 250,000 cars off the road."

The Ministry of Energy will meet with industry, US regulators, and federal and provincial governments to develop new performance standards for lamps and to draft regulations to ban the sale of inefficient lighting by 2012 where alternatives exist in the market. In addition, as of today, the government will only purchase energy efficient light bulbs for its own buildings.

"We support the government's initiative to improve the efficiency of all lighting," said Elyse Allan, President and CEO of GE Canada which has a lamp manufacturing plant in Oakville. "By encouraging the use of high efficiency lighting, at home and at work, all of us will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

"Friends of the Earth congratulates the McGuinty government on their important decision to ban inefficient lighting," said Beatrice Olivastri, CEO, Friends of the Earth Canada. "A regulation for the ban plus their commitment to immediately cease provincial government's purchases of out-dated bulbs is a recipe for success - good for energy conservation and good for fighting climate change."

Today also marks the launch of five innovative energy conservation programs for summer 2007 that will give Ontarians the tools they need to save energy, money, and the environment: <<

- Every Kilowatt Counts - a coupon and incentive brochure being mailed to every household in Ontario. The program provides coupons for CFL bulbs, ceiling fans, timers and other energy-saving devices.

- Cool Savings Rebate Program - provides rebates for central air conditioner tune-ups and for the installation of energy-efficient central air conditioning systems and programmable thermostats.

- Great Refrigerator Roundup - will help take old, inefficient fridges out of service. Every 1,000 refrigerators retired will save enough electricity to power more than 130 homes.

- Summer Savings - offers residential and small business consumers an incentive for reducing power use: cutting use by 10 per cent during a set period gives consumers an additional 10 per cent rebate on their electricity bills.

- Peaksaver - a voluntary program that allows local distribution companies to remotely cycle down central air conditioners, water heaters and pool pumps when the electricity system is stretched.

"These five programs show that conserving electricity can be easy," said Peter Love, Ontario's Chief Energy Conservation Officer. "Consumers begin saving money immediately, both on the products they purchase and by reducing electricity costs."

Since 2003, the province has made available up to $2 billion for energy efficiency and conservation programs. The summer 2007 conservation programs are just the latest conservation initiatives introduced by the McGuinty government. Others include:

- A commitment to reduce Ontario's projected peak electricity demand by five per cent, and the government's own electricity use by 10 per cent, by the end of 2007.

- Increasing the range of products covered by Ontario's Energy Efficiency Act to save Ontarians money and encourage energy conservation.

- Legislating improvements to the Ontario Building Code to give it the toughest energy-efficiency standards of any building code in the country.

- Providing over $14 million to support low Income conservation programs including projects with the Social Services Housing Corporation, the Energy Efficiency Assistance for Social Housing Program and the Affordable Housing Energy Efficiency Program

- Supporting a wide range of incentive programs including the Every Kilowatt Counts Program that distributed over 2.8 million CFLs in 2006.

- Providing $1.5 million to Project Porchlight to deliver compact florescent light bulbs to communities across Ontario.

"Taken together, these programs represent the largest coordinated effort Ontario has ever made to conserve electricity," said Duncan. "We're working with Ontarians to build a culture of conservation that will help ensure our province has the power it needs to grow and prosper now and long into the future."

MIT researchers say they have developed an efficient chemical process for making propane from corn or sugarcane. They are incorporating a startup this week to commercialize the biopropane process, which they hope will find a place in the existing $21 billion U.S. market for the fuel.

While much of the attention on biofuels has focused on ethanol, the process developed by the MIT researchers produces propane, says Andrew Peterson, one of the graduate students who demonstrated the reactions. Propane is used in the United States for residential heating and some industrial processes, and to a limited extent as a liquid transportation fuel. "We're making a demonstrated fuel" for which a market and an infrastructure already exist, says Peterson, who works in the lab of chemical-engineering professor Jefferson Tester and has founded the startup C3 BioEnergy, based in Cambridge, MA, to commercialize the technology.

Propane, which is currently made from petroleum, has a higher energy density than ethanol, and although it is often used in its gaseous form, it's the cleanest-burning liquid fuel.

The C3 BioEnergy process depends on supercritical water--water at a very high temperature and pressure--which facilitates the reactions that turn a biological compound into propane. Peterson wouldn't reveal the starting compound, but he says that it is a product of the fermentation of the sugars found in corn or sugarcane. The reaction is driven by heat, requiring no catalysts. At supercritical temperature and pressure, Peterson says, "water does bizarre things. It becomes like a nonpolar solvent" and mixes with the organic compounds. Once the reaction has taken place, the solution is kept under high pressure and cooled to room temperature so that the propane comes out of the solution and floats to the top. "We've demonstrated that we can make propane," says Peterson. "Now we're trying to optimize the reaction rate and get it to a scalable stage."

Peterson says the biopropane conversion has a good energy balance: not much fossil fuel needs to be burned during production. The reaction does not require the input of a large amount of energy because the heat that's key to the biopropane conversion is recoverable using a heat exchanger, a device that transfers heat in and out of a fluid.

"All biofuel reactions involve removing oxygen from the starting compound," says George Huber, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst. There are a number of strategies for doing this, including reactions that rely on biological catalysts. But, says Huber, "supercritical fluids are a very promising way to make biofuels. You can do it in a very small reactor in a very short time, so you can do it very economically."

Other academic labs are developing processes that use high-temperature, high-pressure fluids to make biofuels. Douglas Elliott, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, in Richland, WA, is using near-supercritical conditions in combination with a catalyst to treat wastewater and unprocessed biomass. Under these conditions, organic compounds can be made into a mixture of methane (the main component in natural gas) and carbon dioxide. "We've gone all the way from small-batch reactors to treating a few gallons of wastewater per hour," says Elliott, who is working with a company on commercializing the technology for water treatment. "We're still in the lab with biomass."

Huber and Elliott say the MIT biopropane process is novel. "I've never seen anyone make propane with supercritical fluids," says Huber.

In some countries, including Australia, propane is more widely used as a transportation fuel. In the United States, "you would have to modify engines to use it," says Huber. "Biopropane could be used where we already use propane."

Copyright Technology Review

Consumers would be paying significantly less for their electricity if Ontario had more players generating power, says a University of Guelph economist who conducted a ground-breaking study on the restructuring of the province’s electricity market.

Talat Genc’s research concluded that if the government-owned, Ontario Power Generation (OPG) were to divide its capacity among just two other independent suppliers the annual costs of power would drop by 21 per cent. Ontario Power Generation (OPG) - the province’s largest electricity supplier - currently owns 77 per cent of the generation capacity in the province and the remaining is split between two other providers.

“The aim of deregulation is to have many players,” said Genc. “Having more players makes for a more competitive market, which means prices will go down. And a change in market price affects the end prices consumers take on.”

Genc’s study, which is to be published in Energy Economics next year, is based on comparing the outcomes of Ontario’s current electricity market structure with the market structure that would have existed if a policy created in 2001, aimed at reducing OPG’s monopoly, hadn’t been quashed by the government in 2003.

Ontario was at the beginning stages of deregulating the electricity market when an assessment report by the National Energy Board in 2001 stipulated that the capacity of OPG should be reduced to 35 per cent over the next decade by selling off portions to independent suppliers. This policy stuck until 2003 when the Liberals came into power and declined to sell off any of the province’s electricity-generating capacity.

If the policy had remained, two-thirds of OPG’s capacity would have been sold, allowing for five electricity suppliers instead of the current three, said Genc. It also would have created a level playing field and opened up opportunities for other interested suppliers to join the market. In the end, electricity prices would be cheaper and the power supply would be more dependable, he said.

“If there are only three players and one goes down, that can have a significant impact and can lead to blackouts or brownouts. Having more players means healthier improvements overall for the consumer.”

OTTAWA - For the eighth consecutive year, Canada is the main source of oil and natural gas to the United States. In 2006, Canada's oil exports grew by six percent over 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The strength of Canada's energy sector, both the oil sands and offshore, is due in part to years of government support for scientific research and technological innovation (S&T). "Canada and the United States share a unique energy relationship," said the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources. "Canada offers the United States a secure and dependable source of oil and natural gas."

In 2006, Canada supplied more than 2.3 million barrels of oil per day to the United States. Canadian oil represents 17 percent of U.S. imports and 11 percent of U.S. consumption.

Canadian oil production continues to increase each year, mainly from the oil sands in Alberta, as well as from the Atlantic offshore. Oil sands production now exceeds one million barrels per day and is projected to be three million barrels per day by 2015.

In addition, Canadian natural gas represents 16 percent of U.S. consumption. Natural gas exports from Canada declined slightly in 2006 due to warmer than normal weather and high storage inventories. However, as a share of U.S. imports, Canadian natural gas increased from 85 percent to 86 percent.

"As our exports to the U.S. expand, Canada is committed to making our energy production and use more efficient and environmentally sustainable," said Minister Lunn."Our scientific and technological research will continue to play a key role in Canada becoming a clean energy superpower."

To meet future needs, Canada is developing its large gas and coal bed methane resources, in addition to conventional reserves. Exploration continues in Canada's Frontier Lands, and projects such as the Mackenzie Gas Pipeline in the North and Deep Panuke in the Atlantic offshore, currently undergoing regulatory review, would bring new supply sources to markets. As well, the government's new ecoENERGY Initiatives will ensure that Canadians continue to realize in a sustainable manner the economic benefits that Canada enjoys as an energy producer.

This year, Natural Resources Canada is celebrating 100 years of excellence in Government of Canada energy and mining science and technology. Government S&T will continue to assist the energy sector with the development of innovations in energy technology, giving Canadians the advantage they need to succeed.

The programs set to be implemented this summer are a major step forward, and have been proven effective in test markets throughout the province. The programs set to be implemented this summer are a major step forward, and have been proven effective in test markets throughout the province. Five of the key programs include:

* A Beer Fridge Bounty program that will help take old, inefficient appliances out of service. Unplugging 1,000 old refrigerators will save enough electricity to supply more than 130 homes. Unplug the potential in Ontario and we're that much closer to taking a coal fired generating plant off line.

* A Peak Reduction program that will reduce energy use during peak demand. Subscribers to this voluntary program can have a device installed that allows system operators to turn down air conditioners, pool pumps and water heaters for short periods when supply is stretched.

* A Summer Savings 10/10 program that will offer residential and small business consumers an incentive for reducing power use. Cutting use by 10 per cent during a set period gives consumers an additional 10 per cent rebate on their electricity bills.

* A Cool Savings rebate program that provides rebates for central air conditioner tune-ups, the installation of energy efficient central air conditioner systems and programmable thermostats.

* An Every Kilowatt Counts program that provides coupon incentives for Ontario households to purchase energy efficient products.

More information about each of these programs can be found at

www.conservationbureau.on.ca: <http://www.conservationbureau.on.ca/> .

* battle climate change by enabling vast new supplies of clean secure energy to come on line
* enhance economic opportunities for Aboriginal Peoples and local communities
* protect ecological integrity by establishing valid conservation-first principles

In attendance;
* Harvey Yesno, Chair, Chiefs Steering Committee (confirmed)
* The Hon. Dwight Duncan, Minister of Energy, Chair of Cabinet, Ontario (confirmed)
* The Hon. Jim Rondeau, Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mines, Manitoba
* The Hon. Kathy Dunderdale, Minister of Natural Resources, Newfoundland and Labrador (confirmed)
* The Hon. Stephen Kakfwi, Chair, Green Power Corridor Summit (confirmed)

Each of the above will issue a short statement and there will be an opportunity for Q&A.

Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert opened the door to a more environmentally-friendly future in Saskatchewan April 17, showcasing an energy efficient home that uses 90 per cent less energy, and 50 per cent less water than an average existing Saskatchewan home.

Rolf and Shannon Holzkaemper and their two children will move into their energy-efficient home on Earth Day, Sunday, April 22.

“It’s very important for us to set a positive example for our children, all children,” Rolf Holzkaemper said. “This home shows how individuals can have a very significant impact on large issues like climate change and global warming.”

“The Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) used Smart Science Solutions™ to design and outfit a home that will help move us toward a sustainable future,” Calvert said. “With climate change an ever-growing concern, this home demonstrates technology that can greatly reduce impacts on the environment, reduce costs for the owners and provide a warm comfortable home for a family. I commend Rolf, Shannon and their family for participating and helping pioneer projects like these that help demonstrate in very real ways how we can make life better here for families and build a brighter future for our young people.”

The Factor 9 Home: A New Prairie Approach began as a demonstration project in 2005 to illustrate significant advances in home energy- and water-conservation technologies. The Saskatchewan Research Council co-ordinated the project, working in partnership with Communities of Tomorrow, Saskatchewan Office of Energy Conservation, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Natural Resources Canada.

“This home is a terrific example of what we can accomplish with existing products, and why further investment in clean technology, renewable energy and energy efficiency is so important to our environmental future,” said the Honourable Gary Lunn, Minister of Natural Resources. “I'm proud that our new government has been part of the Factor 9 project, helping to show that using less and living better is much more than a slogan.”

“Because of SRC’s long history of working on energy conservation initiatives, we were well positioned to meet the challenges associated with achieving an aggressive target on this project,” SRC president and CEO Dr. Laurier Schramm said. “This Factor 9 Home builds on past initiatives of low energy housing in Saskatchewan, keeping our province in the forefront of energy conservation.”

The house has high insulation levels, solar panels integrated with the windows on the southern exposure, and a rain water capture and storage system. To provide mechanical cooling in the summer, a network of plastic pipes was installed in 22 concrete pilings to extract cooling from the ground.

The Holzkaempers paid for construction of the house. Funding and other resources were provided by Communities of Tomorrow ($100,000), Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and Natural Resources Canada ($80,000 combined), Saskatchewan Office of Energy Conservation ($50,000) and the Saskatchewan Research Council ($50,000). The University of Regina and the City of Regina will collect scientific information on the effectiveness of the project for years to come.

The public is invited to tour the four-bedroom, three-bathroom, 150-square-metre (1,614-square-foot) home at 7335 Wascana Cove Place in Regina this week. An open house will run from Tuesday to Friday from 6-8 p.m. and then on Saturday and Sunday from 1-5 p.m.

More information about the project can be found at www.factor9.ca.

"As the global leader in BioEnergy, we are able to leverage our biofuel production and agricultural processing expertise to advance the development of cost-efficient processing technologies, including those that will turn cellulosic materials into ethanol and other co-products," stated Tom Binder, President-ADM Research.

"One of our goals is to reduce the cost of the process and make it applicable for commercial production," said Nancy Ho, the principal investigator and a researcher in Purdue's Laboratory of Renewable Resources Engineering (LORRE).

The development of improved fermentation organisms is a crucial step in the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol. In order to be cost-efficient and work in commercial-scale processing, such organisms must be able to produce high concentrations of ethanol from hexose and pentose sugar streams that can be derived from a wide range of plant lignocellulosic material, such as fibers, hulls, straws, soft and hardwoods.

The research team will include scientists from Purdue and from ADM. The joint project will receive federal funding, beginning this fiscal year and ending in fiscal year 2010, subject to Congressional appropriations. The Purdue-ADM project was selected, along with four other projects, by the Department of Energy for federal funding to develop improved fermentation organisms.

Undergraduate students at the University of Guelph have committed more than $4.3 million to improve energy efficiency on campus.

They recently approved a student-initiated referendum that asked them to contribute $10 per semester for the next 12 years to go toward energy conservation measures on campus, which may range from lighting and heating to water efficiency to retrofitting.

The University will match the money raised, earmarking all of the funds for energy conservation.

“I’m thrilled,” said Adam Scott, a U of G student who helped lead the referendum campaign. “This really shows that students care about the environment and are willing to take action, even if that action means a few extra dollars out of their pockets.”

The referendum was proposed by the Student Executive Council (SEC), a broad coalition of all student governments, and Guelph Students for Environmental Change’s Renewable Energy Group.

President Alastair Summerlee said he is “delighted and proud” of the outcome. “The students who organized the referendum displayed incredible initiative and successfully mobilized the student body around this very important cause,” he said.

The referendum was approved by a 14-per-cent margin. It’s the first student question that included a fee increase of $10 or more to be approved in several years.

“This says a lot about students’ concern for the environmental impact that the university has and confirms the University’s reputation as a leader in environmental initiatives,” said Derek Pieper, a fourth-year biological sciences major who co-chairs Student Senate Caucus and is a member of SEC.

“I think there’s a sense that individuals can take some responsibility for a shared challenge.” Pieper added that the student referendum has broader implications. “Hopefully this result will encourage students at other universities to press for energy conservation at other Canadian institutions, and I certainly hope that other members of the campus community take note of this action from the students and contribute to the cause,” he said.

Faculty and staff also have the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing energy conservation efforts and can pledge a portion of their salary each pay period or make one-time or ongoing contributions, with that money also being matched by the University.

All money raised in these programs will go into a special account that will be monitored by the Senate Committee on University Planning (SCUP), which has representation from faculty, staff and students.

“We have an extraordinary campus and work together to solve many problems,” said Summerlee. “Reducing our energy consumption should be one of these issues.”

Energy conservation, especially building retrofitting, has long been an important issue at U of G, he added. The University has launched a number of initiatives in recent years to reduce energy consumption and would like to do even more, but the money just isn’t there to make significant upfront investments while addressing other ongoing maintenance issues, he said.

The University has initiated some energy retrofit programs and engaged educational programming, which have had a positive impact on its overall energy consumption. The University has also identified a list of projects that it wishes to complete to further green our campus, which are available online.

The drive to increase production of biofuels is also under way in the United States and other countries, leading to concern that global food prices could rise as farmland is diverted from food to energy production.

"Some observers believe that there is already competition between the two markets: according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the rising demand for ethanol derived from corn is the main reason for the decline in world grain stocks during the first half of 2006."

The study calls for greater focus on biodiesel, which in Canada is manufactured mainly from canola, and which brings a better payoff than ethanol in reducing emissions.

The author also underlines the potential of cellulosic ethanol, which is made of waste products like straw and wood chips rather than from food crops. Iogen, an Ottawa-based company, is a world leader in this technology, and is currently negotiating to build its first commercial plant.

© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.

Crude oil and equivalent hydrocarbons production increased 0.3% in January. Higher crude production in Newfoundland and Labrador (+15.1%) was countered by lower synthetic production in Alberta (-5.7%).

Exports of crude oil and equivalent hydrocarbons reached 9.2 million cubic metres in January. The volume exported was 5.4% higher than the same period last year, and accounted for 68.7% of total production.

The production of marketable gas declined 1.7% from January 2006. Exports of natural gas, which made up 66.7% of marketable natural gas, jumped 16.8% from the same period last year. Domestic sales of natural gas grew 10.1% as a result of colder than normal temperatures, according to natural gas sales data.

Crude oil and natural gas
	January 2006	January 2007	January 2006 to January 2007
	thousands of cubic metres		% change
Crude oil and equivalent hydrocarbons1
Production	13 277.8	13 323.9	0.3
Exports	8 683.7	9 151.3	5.4
Imports2	3 694.1	4 774.3	29.2
Refinery receipts	8 704.7	8 802.4	1.1
	millions of cubic metres		% change
Natural gas3
Marketable production	15 341.2	15 079.8	-1.7
Exports	8 617.7	10 063.4	16.8
Canadian domestic sales4	7 721.6	8 502.4	10.1
1. Disposition may differ from production because of inventory change, industry own-use, etc. 2. Crude oil received by Canadian refineries from foreign countries for processing. Data may differ from International Trade Division (ITD) estimates because of timing differences and the inclusion of crude oil landed in Canada for future re-export in the ITD data. 3. Disposition may differ from production because of inventory change, usage as pipeline fuel, pipeline losses, line-pack fluctuations, etc. 4. Includes direct sales.