From Green Right Now Reports

San Francisco Bay Area-based Eco-Fuel Global this week signed an agreement with the Government of Rwanda to produce bio-fuels from Jatropha Curcas. The deal, estimated to be worth in excess of $250 million, would replace up to 20 percent of the Rwandan fossil fuel requirement with low emission bio-fuels.

Jatropha Curcas is a poisonous shrub whose seeds contain oil that is used to produce biodiesel fuel that is usable in a standard diesel engine.

“This marks the beginning of one of the largest sustainable biofuel projects in the world,” Mark O’Brien, CEO of Eco-Fuel Global, said in a statement. “Rwanda is leading the world in a new generation of environmentally friendly and economically responsible energy production.”

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From Green Right Now Reports

The City of Houston and Reliant Energy are launching a program to bring plug-in hybrid electric vehicles to the streets of Houston, to demonstrate the important role that electric cars can play in the city’s clean energy future.

Under the program, called the “Power of the Plug-In,” 10 city-owned Toyota Prius cars will be converted to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and 10 vehicle-charging stations will be installed to power them. The Power of the Plug-In is designed to raise consumer awareness and education about plug-in electric cars and to promote Houston and Texas as an electric vehicle center. Seven of the 10 stations will be available to the public, representing the largest public charging infrastructure in Texas, the city said.

“We’re committed to making Houston the nation’s green energy capital,” Houston Mayor Bill White said in a statement. “That commitment begins at City Hall and these clean-running electric cars and the charging stations that will be available to all Houstonians will get us farther down that road.”

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Farm Power, a Washington-based renewable energy company, and Washington utility company Puget Sound Energy (PSE) are giving new meaning to making something new out of something old. Farm Power says it has developed a “manure digester” — a system that turns cow manure into electricity — in Skagit County, Wash.

The manure digester captures the methane biogas from the waste, and holds it in an air tight tank, which then heats the manure to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. The harvested methane becomes an alternative fuel and is sold to PSE. The leftover processed manure is then taken to other farms and used as an organic fertilizer.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Ocean waves near Freeport, Texas (Photo: National Weather Service)

Ocean waves off the coast of Texas may soon provide the first commercial wave power in the US to generate electricity and desalinate water.

Renew Blue Inc. said today that the Texas General Land Office has granted it the first-ever state off-shore wave energy lease. The company said it will use ocean water and waves to produce desalinated water; the first 100 percent fossil-fuel-free bottled water.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Coulomb Technologies, Inc., the creator of ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations, is taking its electric vehicle charging stations to Norway. Europe is already familiar with ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations, with locations in Holland, Germany, Belgium and the Czech Republic.

“The Scandinavian countries are quite progressive about clean air projects. The Kyoto protocol has some impact as these countries are serious about rolling back emissions. Norway is a proud leader in the EV world because of their company Think Global, which developed one of the premier and early electric vehicles,” said Richard Lowenthal, CEO of Coulomb Technologies, Inc.

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By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

We’re used to windy debates in Washington. Now the debates about wind have blown in gale force.

It’s been a while coming. At first, wind power seemed hard to argue against. It is emissions-free, technologically proven, shovel-ready, local and works well on the gusty plains of the US – with one key roadblock, there are some kinks to work out in getting it from there to here on the unprepared national grid system. The plan for many was straightforward: Fix the grid, keep building turbines, replace fossil-fuel dependent energy with renewal wind, and keep adding to an already robust wind sector job force of some 80,000.

Texas wind turbines (Photo: Texas State Energy Conservation Office.)

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From Green Right Now Reports

Terrabon LLC, a Houston company that’s been investigating making fuel from waste for more than a decade, announced this week that waste collection giant Waste Management of Houston will become an investment partner.

WM, along with existing investment partner Valero Energy Corporation, hopes to make Terrabon’s vision of producing gasoline from waste a viable green alternative fuel within about two years.

Terrabon, unlike ethanol producers, will make its fuel, called MixAlco, from sewage, human solid waste and organic food garbage, not food stock. And it’s output will be a virtual chemical match (but at a higher octane) for the stuff that’s already powering your car or truck, not a gasoline additive. This key difference means that the Terrabon fuel can be added directly to the existing gasoline fuel stream, a convenience that the company is promoting as an easy, green way to reduce US reliance on foreign oil.

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From Green Right Now Reports

The U.S. Postal Service announced it will replace 6,500 vehicles with 1,000 E-85 ethanol-capable and 900 gasoline/electric hybrid vehicles to its delivery fleet. The rest of the new fleet purchase will be fuel-efficient, four-cylinder vehicles, which will replace aging vehicles at postal offices and facilities across the country as the Postal Service continues to reduce the size of its fleet..

At nearly 220,000, the Postal Service operates and maintains the largest civilian fleet in the country. The 1,900 vehicles, paid for by the U.S. General Services Administration, will bring the total number of alternate fuel-capable vehicles in the Postal Service fleet to more than 43,000.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Restaurants looking to green their operations by generating some of their own electrical power are finding it easier as vendor companies try to fill in the gaps.

Owl Power Company, for instance, has developed a way for restaurants to more conveniently use vegetable oil as fuel. Owl’s Vegawatt is a combined heating and power system that runs on vegetable oil and can be connected to existing heating and power systems to be used as supplemental green energy.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

Camelina sativa, a member of the mustard family, is an oilseed crop that is proving to have a great industrial potential in the near future. Studied throughout the entire process, from planting to plane, Camelina has shown to be one of the more promising alternatives to petroleum jet fuel, according to a study done at Michigan Technological University.

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From Green Right Now Reports

Solano County, Calif., is getting its first bio-fuel station with the opening Thursday at Plaza Oliver Valero in Fairfield. The station will have two renewable biofuels, E85 ethanol and B5 biodiesel, which are considered cleaner burning and less expensive than comparable gasoline and diesel fuels.

Biofuels are fuels made at least partially from renewable biological sources such as corn, soybeans, or vegetable oil. E85 ethanol and B5 biodiesel are both low carbon fuels consistent with California’s new Low Carbon Fuel Standard and both are clean burning fuels that result in lower Greenhouse Gas vehicle exhaust emissions. Many current vehicles are capable of operating on less expensive, cleaner burning E85 ethanol and B5 biodiesel with no modification.

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By Ashley Phillips
Green Right Now

The friendly skies are getting cleaner thanks to efforts made by Continental Airlines in partnership with Boeing, GE Aviation/CFM International, and Honeywell’s UOP. In early January of this year, Continental Airlines conducted the first biofuel demonstration flight by a commercial carrier in North American. Wednesday, Continental Airlines announced their analysis of this flight in a statement.

The 90-minute test flight, taking off from, and then returning to, Houston, successfully completed many necessary flight operations. Engine 1 operated on 100% jet fuel, while Engine 2 of the Boeing 737-800 operated on a blend of 50% jet fuel and 50% biofuel. The biofuel was made from a combination of algae and jatropha plants, which do not impact food harvests, water resources or contribute to deforestation.

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