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Most biodiesel today is made from soybeans or recycled vegetable oil and does not offer the same performance as petroleum-based diesel. A California startup engineers microbes to transform them into molecular oil refineries, digesting sugar to produce low-carbon equivalents of petroleum based fuel.
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Turning plants such as corn, soybeans and sunflowers into fuel uses much more energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generated, according to a Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley study. The World desperately needs a liquid fuel replacement for oil in the near future, but producing ethanol or biodiesel from plant biomass is the wrong way to do it, because you use more energy to produce them than you get out from the combustion of these product.
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Algae is the cheapest, highest yielding feedstock for biofuels and biomass for energy. It accumulates waste toxins, grows from polluting waste, does not require conversion of food crops to energy, does not lead to deforestation, and voraciously consumes carbon dioxide. Algae can produce lipid oils for biodiesel, carbohydrates necessary for ethanol, generate hydrogen, generate methane for electrical generation, be used as fertilizer, animal feed, and co-firing in coal electrical plants. Best of all, the energy produced by algae products is carbon neutral as the algae biomass is produced from CO2 in the atmosphere present today.
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The tropical rainforest tree Copaifera langsdorffii is known as the "diesel tree" or "kerosene tree". It produces a large amount of terpene hydrocarbons in its wood and leaves. One tree can produce 30 to 40 liters of hydrocarbons per year. The oil is collected by tree tapping much like rubber trees, but instead of rubbery latex, it gives up a natural biodiesel.
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Biodiesel is a diesel-equivalent processed fuel derived from biological sources (such as vegetable oils) which can be used in unmodified diesel-engine vehicles. It is biodegradable and non-toxic, typically producing about 60% less net carbon dioxide emissions than petroleum-based diesel.
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