Synthetic biology, and particularly advances in metabolic engineering, show strong promise for personalized therapeutics, sustainable biofuels and textiles, animal-free meat, and many new and sustainable products.
Madhu Khanna discusses cellulosic biofuels, their economic and sustainability benefits and tradeoffs, and what's needed to see cellulosic biofuels thrive.
A common water plant's immune system offers a wide range of possibilities to help society, from wastewater treatment to antibiotics.
Jeremy discusses the role of dry-grind corn biorefining in the bioeconomy, the opportunities it presents, and how it will affect our future.
Watch a discussion on the future of energy.
A team of researchers at the University of York have discovered a set of enzymes in fungi that could help make wood an even more promising source for advanced biofuels.
One day a simple yoga class or stroll down the street may power wearable electronics, and one research team thinks it has created the ideal power source.
Watch 2015 WISE intern Jami Summey-Rice interview the 2017 WISE interns about their projects and experiences.
Until now, biodiesel could not be used undiluted in a conventional diesel engine since its boiling point is higher than that of petroleum diesel.
Researchers at Penn State have engineered a strain of bacteria that is the key to converting methane to electricity.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego and Sapphire Energy have completed the first outdoor field trial sanctioned by the U.S.
Watch 2015 WISE intern Jami Summey-Rice interview the 2016 WISE interns about their projects and experiences.
Low carbon jet fuel just got a big boost.
It's all hands on deck for the monumental task of decarbonizing the world energy system, and some speculate that may take a decade shy of the next century before it's complete, if ever.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have identified specific strains of a bacteria that could one day make biofuel production more efficient.
Neste Oil, a Finnish oil refining and marketing company, officially dropped "oil" from its name, given its major emphasis on biofuels.
Any company that prefers stability over the trauma of change should avoid the energy business for the next couple of decades.
ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel company, joined by LanzaTech, the world's leading waste-gas-to-biofuels developer, and Primetals Technologies, a seasoned steel plant construction
This week, impressive findings emerged when a group of researchers at the University of Tokyo revealed for the first time the three-dimensional structure and mechanism of action of a key enzyme of biofuel production, cellobionic acid phosphorylase (CBAP).
Oil may be playing nice for now as it calmly toys with $50 a barrel, but airline executives who watched manic prices spike above
Fulcrum Bioenergy's Sierra BioFuels Plant is due to start construction on the outskirts of Reno — in the same industrial park as Tesla’s Giga-factory.
With oil trading at $60 a barrel and predicted to soon hit another wall, everyone's yanking the emergency brakes on new oil exploration.
This month CEP features a look at lignocellulosic biofuels, from various production processes to what's needed to scale up bioenergy operations.
Plants in the future may be reengineered for better biofuel feedstocks, thanks to geneticists' work to understand plant cell wall thickening through the synthesis of three polymers.
Dr. Shijie Liu of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry presented a thoughtful overview of the biofuels evaluation protocol that was assembled and applied in The Manomet Report for the State of Massachusetts.
Ramon Gonzalez of the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E to discuss liquid fuels from the bioconversion of methane and from bioelectrosynthesis.
Genetics and biological engineers are behind the re-engineering of a new jotropha that can now produce abundant yields required for cost-effective biofuel production.
A San Diego–based startup has just announced an agreement to commercialize its algae crude oil with industry giant Phillips 66.
University of Delaware's Dr. Terry Papoutsakis discusses the work that helped him earn the 2013 D.I.C. Wang Award, as well as about D.I.C. Wang's contribution to biological engineering.
The results on the first all-civilian biofuel flight are in: a 50% reduction in aerosol emissions compared to jet fuel, and a significant drop in black carbon emissions, with 1.5 % better fuel consumption.
After hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital funding and stock market IPOs, second-generation biofuels still hadn't moved beyond small pilot plants, despite rosy federal projections.
How does a small Australian algae startup end up partnering with global giant Lufthansa to build a state-of-the-art bio jetfuel plant?
Researchers at Stanford and Pennsylvania State have devised a way of using microbes t
As the US Navy successfully winds up the first "Great Green Fleet" maneuvers off Hawaii, a subsidiary of Honeywell is building the nation's first dedicated biorefinery on a former pineapple field outside of Honolulu.
The inefficiencies of previous generation solar cells are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. In collaboration with the UCLA California NanoSystems Institute and Sumitomo Chemical of Japan, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have created a “tandem” solar cell that increases efficiency to a certified 10.6% by capturing energy in multiple spectra.
Arun Majumdar, ARPA-E's Director, gave the Keynote speech at the third annual ARPA-E
The current method for producing alcohol biofuels, in particular butanol, is through metabolic cellular processes. Clostridia species are used to produce butanol, but they are not very suitable because they are complex and not well understood. Biological pathways have also been developed for strains of Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae; both of these microbes have better genetic tools available.
During pyrolysis, when the intense temperatures inside a bioreactor break down wood, dismembering the large molecules, multiple reactions produce a cascade so complex that current computer models c
Built on 24 known data sets, the first genome-scale model for predicting the functions of genes and gene networks in a grass species, called RiceNet, is expected to help speed the development of new advanced biofuels from Miscanthus and switchgrass.
There has always been a roadblock in the way of algae's potential as an efficient biofuel: no economical method to harvest and remove the water. Until now.
Located in the heart of the revitalized oil-rich Permian Basin, just five miles from west Texas, dusty and dry H
Huber's research team can take wood, grasses, or any other renewable biomass and create five of the six petrochemicals that serve as the building blocks for the chemical industry. And he's just made another major breakthrough.
Researchers under the direction of geneticist Martin Spalding, at Iowa State University, have produced 50 to 80 percent more biomass by activating the expression of two separate Chlamydomonas algal genes.
The growing demand for carbon-neutral energy sources has fueled the search for biologically derived products. While the predominant liquid fuel is gasoline, the search is on for biofuel alternatives, but many pose considerable challenges. Currently ethanol is the most widely used biologically generated fuel. Ethanol, however, is difficult to transport in pipelines and also contains just 70% of the energy content of gasoline.
Algae and plant oils have shown great promise towards answering the energy density question, but I am reminded of a 3-step business plan that I encountered in school: Step 1 – Collect algae, Step 3 – Profit. The presenters in this session are concerned with that mysterious Step 2.
