How the bad boys of pollution have (some of) the power to help save the world.

In all areas of life, it’s currently pretty tough.  Recession is a bitter pill to swallow and it’s something that is affecting all of us in many different ways.  We can’t deny it, we’re there; we’re in a mess, so let’s start dealing with it.

Recently, there have been many reports popping up in research papers crossing my desk, RSS feeds, Tweet contacts and News bulletins racing across my TV screen citing the increased importance of climate change mitigation, the importance of supporting local groups and how we need to stimulate the economy if we’re going to get anywhere.

One of the slightly alarming topics that I keep picking up on is the idea of should we prioritise growth (any growth!) over environmental concerns to just get us going again. So will we line our pockets at the expense of our climate?

My answer; complex arguments need complex answers.

With Recombitex being involved in the development of biofuels, I get to see many different facets of people’s views and arguments over energy, renewable and sustainable sources and the economy.  These have ranged from sheer jubilation that something is being done about climate mitigation and understand the technology that is in development, to those that have protested against biofuels and other clean tech projects dressed in gorilla suits.

This has prevented myself and others from speaking to influential people that have the power to push for low carbon economies at various conferences.  I wonder if the protestors pick up on the irony of those that want to prevent climate change are hampered because of their protests for preventing climate change?

Last week was the Geneva Motorshow.  Although sitting in Liverpool, the shiny new motors may as well be a million miles away from me, the impact of those exhibiting will have a far reaching impact on you, me, the economy and the future environment.  Cars are here to stay.  They are the trappings of a modern economy.  How we interact with, buy, trade, build and dismantle then and deal with there emissions and fuels will be influenced by the floors of last weeks show, and influence the plant that our children and grandchildren will grow up in.

This is where I believe the recession will be one of the defining moments not of our generation, but of our future generations and the habitability of the planet.  The big three car producers (GM, Cyrseler and Ford) are all in trouble, not to mention the numerous smaller companies that are also feeling the pinch.

Complacency of thinking that life will go on past the recession will undoutable spell the end of these companies if innovation is relegated to a luxury and not embraced as a necessity of survival.  The shiny new cars that do sell in these constrained times will increase the numbers of tyres on our tarmac, but will at least start the precedent that in frugal times, frugal cars are needed.

The demand for the power hungry SUV are dwindling while high MPG, hybrid and the early electric cars are steeling the headlines and the wallets of those that are looking to buy.  It maybe a small number of cars sold, but the trend will increase (think of the Prius.  Hideous car, but look how well the take up has been).

Which is the more environmentally friendly?  Bioethanol supercar or the humble Prius?  Which will adorn the bedroom walls of our future scientists and engineers and inspire innovation and development in an eco-friendly way?

So where have these innovations come from?  Has this been consumer driven?  Has this been mandated developments?  Has it been company survival and PR?  No, it’s been a bit of all of them, with F1 thrown in for good measure.

Cars that appear on this years F1 circuits this year will have technology that will trickle down and eventually end up under our right foot, driving us forwards.  Those companies that receive financial aid and bailouts that then think that they can go back to the ways of old will find that there market models won’t work in the same way as they did five years ago.  Those that take the money and innovate will find that their new direction will pave the way ahead and will be rewarded for it through returning customers.

So how does this affect you and your purse?  It may not line your purse directly, but the green shots of innovation will help push us out of the doldrums.  Innovation breeds competitive advantage, which breeds succession.

Our cars will be superseded by newer, more efficient cars just in the same way our current companies will only succeeded through new ideas and ways of delivering the consumer what they want, and not what they think they want.  New companies that trade on innovation and moving forwards will replace those that only rely on a family name or brand.
Two hundred years ago this year, Darwin was born.  Hundred and fifty years ago, Darwin published his ideas on Evolution.  How appropriate that today the evidence of evolution is manifesting itself in the Earths evolution from high carbon economy into a newer, fit and invigorated low carbon economy fit to survive our current turmoil.

Times will be hard (they will probably get harder in the meantime) but this is the growing pains that we have to deal with.  With innovation, globally we will come out better and with what we all need -a sustainable future for all of us- not what we think we want or need -consumerism and inefficiency at the expense of the environment and unsustainable growth.

In recent weeks, I have been liaising with several investment groups and interested parties about what exactly I do. Looking at a possible investment opportunity took me to an evening meeting with a group of technical managers from the mobile phone industry through NorthWest StartUp 2.0.  Here, people from the mobile phone world discussed phone operating systems, online communications and applications that transform the mobile world with a focus on commerce and business development.

For a person with a biotech background, I may not be up to date with all the latest developments in the mobile world, but turning a blind eye to the developments in business communications in the 21st century is like missing the typewriter in early 1800s.
So while sipping on a glass of orange juice and tucking into a buffet laid on by the organisers, part of the conversation from several of the managers turned towards me and asked “So, what do you do?”  Entrepreneur mind kicks in and the 90 second elevator pitch comes into focus.  91 seconds later and quizzical looks are flashed back at me as the concept hits home, but the practicality, methods and means of getting there fly past them.

A number of them apologise that the last time they did biology was during their O-levels and that they like the idea, the commercialisation prospect and the market scope, but found it difficult to join me in the world of biotech, microbes and cellulosic waste (they prefer Symbion to Symbiosis and talk to a BlackBerry, rather then eating them).  Then one of the managers, Stuart Kay from Untitled1 says “so it’s like the DeLorean from Back to the Future when the Doc fills it from the dustbin?”

This sets a whole line of thought tumbling into place and later that night, while on the slow train back home, a few pages from the web are browsed on the phone to look at this analogy in more detail.
A quick search finds that the film explains that the DeLorean time machine runs of electricity (1.21 Gigawatts to be exact) originally from a stolen plutonium power source.  After travelling to the future (2015), the car is re-fitted with a method by which it can use household garbage as a fuel source.  This allows the Doc and Marty to use any waste as a fuel source.  Truly a hybrid car that even Californian VC’s would be proud to invest in.
So is this car that futuristic?  Is the future of biofuels already here (waste materials), waiting to happen (Doc’s little bioreactor from 2015) or something we need to revive from the past (DeLorean DMC-12)?  (And more importantly, will I have invented a small bio-reactor for when the Doc comes knocking in 2015??!!)
Some answers are easy and have been around us for thousands or hundreds of years.  Others are on the verge of being answered.  Some are a lot harder to answer and look likely to stay in the realms of science-fiction for a very long time.
Biofuels have been around as long as the internal combustion engine and one of the easier problems to solve.

Henry Ford originally had his cars running on ethanol, and Rudolf Diesel ran his engines on peanut oil.  Mineral oil engines may be just an interlude in the life cycle of bio-based combustion engines.  But the biggest problem is the volume required.  To replace mineral oils, even at low blends, requires more feedstocks than we can grow without competing for foods.  Cellulosic fuels have massive amounts of abundance and can make much bigger dents into the oil requirements but require development and innovation to make them competitive.  To form a bioreactor as we see in the film though, looks like maybe a technology development too far with our current understanding.
Can we revive technologies from the past?  Some of them we will, and others we have needed to already (wind, solar and wood chip biomass and biodiesel energy all on the increase) but with a modern twist using modern developments.  These will continue and develop as the world energy needs adapt to the climate change mitigation protocols coming in.
Some answers are much harder and will always stay in the realms of science fiction (at least for now).  The Doc’s car does show a very futuristic idea of a biofuelled car, but recovering all the energy contained within a banana skin and a left over ham sandwich in such a small physical package is likely to be a very long way off.  The technological challenges for micro-generation at the point of application will always be a stumbling block in automotive industry compared to industrial scale application of the same technology.  But the science required is something that I and others are focussed on solving.
As a final thought, the DeLorean time machine of Back to the Future does give a glimpse of what could be in store.  Not too long ago, the communication devices seen in Star Trek appeared to be in the realm of science-fiction.  Now we have around 3 billion of them in circulation.  But just like the teleportation device on the Enterprise, some technologies may always be out of reach.  I think the technological minds of the mathematicians and tech-managers I met that evening may be closer to working out the flux capacitor than me.

The use of first-generation biofuels will increase food insecurity in the world’s poorest countries and is unlikely to deliver any significant greenhouse gas mitigation benefit for at least 30 years, according to a report commissioned by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID). The report, “Biofuels and Food Security — Implications of an Accelerated Biofuels Production” which was prepared by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), was published last week (18th March).

According to Suleiman Jasir Al-Herbish, the Director-General of OFID, “the study provides further evidence that current biofuels may have serious unintended consequences, particularly for developing nations, and could work against the Millennium Development Goal of reducing world hunger.”

The study emphasizes, however, that there is substantial potential for the commercial production of second-generation biofuels feedstocks in tropical grasslands and woodlands. This offers opportunities to develop innovative and mutually beneficial private sector and local community partnerships that would combine biofuels production for the market with food production by and for the local community. Such partnerships would need to be well designed, monitored and legally binding to minimize social and economic risks of exploitation.

“Food security and energy security are co-dependent, and if biofuels are to be seen as part of the fuel security, or climate change mitigation, an early transition to second-generation biofuels technologies and a shift away from the use of food staples is needed urgently to avert a growth in world hunger and unsustainable agricultural practices,” adds Fischer.

The study notes that Brazil has successfully implemented a biofuels strategy based on ethanol from sugarcane grown under rainfed conditions in former pastoral and grasslands areas. This program was privatized in the late 1990s, after being strategically developed with public funding from the early 1970s.

Shah points out that, for more than thirty years, there have been countless debates on the concerns of feeding cereals to livestock in a world where over one-sixth of the population lives with chronic hunger and debilitating poverty. “There is a risk that we might spend the next thirty years debating the merits of feeding cereals to cars,” he says. “This time the situation though is different, as the entire world’s population will be affected if we fail to deal with the challenges of climate change mitigation, providing clean energy and ensuring food security, all of which are interrelated and need to be tackled together.”

Al-Herbish describes the study as “a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussions about climate change mitigation, and in particular, OFID’s concern to ensure the interests of developing nations are considered, as nations work together to address the co-dependent issues of food security, energy security, rural development and climate change.”

The full report will be available in April 2009.

Source: http://www.biofuelreview.com/content/view/1871/

By Tony Fitzpatrick (Washington University, ST Louis)

March 16, 2009 — Last summer, it was very expensive to fill up a gas tank when the gasoline price hit close to four dollars a gallon. Transportation by road or air consumes fuel, which not only increases our vulnerability to foreign imports but also is a source of greenhouse gas emissions that will impact adverse change in climate and global warming.

A mechanical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles — planes, autos and trucks. Drag is an aerodynamic force that is the result of resistance a body encounters when it moves in a liquid or gaseous medium (such as air). Reduction in drag means less fuel would be required to overcome the fluid resistance encountered by the moving vehicle.

Working with undergraduate and graduate students, Ramesh K. Agarwal, Ph.D, the William Palm Professor of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has successfully demonstrated that the drag of airplane wings and cars/trucks can be reduced by employing the active flow control (AFC) technology.

The idea behind the AFC is to deploy actuators on the surface of these vehicles to modify the flow in a way that the overall resistance is reduced. Using computational fluid dynamics software, Agarwal has found that the actuators modify the flow, which results in drag reduction, which in turn reduces the fuel amount needed.

“The most promising actuators are the so called synthetic jet or oscillatory jet actuators which are embedded in the surface of the body (an airplane wing for example), and essentially perform injection and suction of the fluid from the surface in a periodic manner,” said Agarwal. He has demonstrated that the transonic drag of an airplane wing can be reduced by 12 to 15 percent with the incorporation of three-ounce actuators, about 20 to 30 spaced optimally on the surface of the wing.

“We use the genetic algorithms and artificial neural net algorithms to optimize the placement of actuators.” Agarwal said. His students have recently applied the concept on cars and trucks and have achieved 15 to 18 percent reduction in drag by placing the actuators on the back surface of these vehicles. Although the technology has not yet been deployed on any commercially available vehicle, it is being researched and investigated by airplane and automobile companies worldwide.

“There are approximately 100 million cars and trucks on the road in the United States alone and hundreds of millions more worldwide. Similarly there will be a substantial increase in air transportation worldwide. The AFC technology can therefore play an important role in fuel conservation and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions,” said Agarwal, one of the most decorated engineers in the United States and a fellow of ten national science and engineering societies including the American Association for Advancement of Science, American Physical Society, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Agarwal will receive the James B. Eads Award from the Academy of Science of St. Louis on April 30, 2009. It is the latest of several distinguished awards he has received in just the past three years. An internationally renowned scholar who is considered a leading authority in aerodynamics and computational fluid dynamics, he has been the recipient of almost all the major national and international awards in these fields.

In 2007, he received the Gold Award from the Royal Aeronautical Society of U.K., an award given to fewer than five Americans in more than fifty years. In 2008, he received the “Aerodynamics Award” for outstanding contributions to Aerodynamics; it is the highest national award given by the AIAA in Aerodynamics. In 2008, he was also the recipient of William Littlewood Award given jointly by AIAA and SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers). Established in 1971, the award has only been given twice to a member of academia including Agarwal. It is normally given to CEOs and senior executives of aerospace companies worldwide. He received the “Fluids Engineering Award” in 2001 from ASME; the highest national technical award given by ASME in fluid dynamics.

Agarwal is also working for the United States Air Force on development of techniques to predict heat transfer and to design improved thermal protection systems for the next generation of space access vehicles.

(This article was featured on the Washington University of St Louis website - http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/13678.html)