Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say a shorter-term solution, with cheaper start-up costs, could help spread the use of carbon capture and storage at coal plants and still clean up a large amount of carbon dioxide.

Although CCS has been touted as the answer to the problem of cleaning up coal, there are still no full-scale commercial plants using the system, in part because it carries a hefty price tag for power companies. Carbon capture alone, not including transporting and storing the CO2, can boost the cost of a power plant by 30 to 60 percent, depending on the type of plant. It can also decrease plant efficiency, according to the study, raising the cost per kilowatt-hour.

The researchers said partial capture, for both pulverized coal and integrated gasification combined cycle plant (aka “clean coal”), represents a smaller capital investment, because smaller or fewer pieces of equipment are necessary. Full capture, defined as 90 percent of emissions captured, is often accomplished with two trains of carbon dioxide absorbers and strippers, while a single train can be used for partial capture up to a certain level, according to the study. It won’t help with operating costs, though. Once the plant is up and running, the MIT study showed that the cost per ton for operating a power plant with CCS is about the same at 60 percent capture as at 90 percent.

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While we’re still waiting for wider validation of BlackLight Power’s purportedly physics-defying fuel cell, in the mean time we’ll have to settle for a video of the independent validation that BlackLight has already announced. BlackLight has created a video of the Rowan University researchers who concluded that the mysterious reaction produces the levels of energy that BlackLight claims.

Take the video with a grain of salt, but it does give you a glimpse at the company’s technology and gives some face time to BlackLight’s controversial founder Randall Mills, whose “hydrino theory” doesn’t quite jive with quantum mechanics.

The validation process was headed up by Rowan University’s Dr. Peter Jansson, who ambiguously concluded that “there is a novel reaction of some type causing the large exotherm which is consistently produced.” Controversy not withstanding, BlackLight has found well-heeled backers and raised $60 million for its venture.

Video courtesy of BlackLight Power.

The MIT Energy Initiative has doled its second round of seed funding — $1.7 million in grants in total — to 17 separate projects. The initiative, which was established in September 2006 and first proposed during MIT President Susan Hockfield’s inauguration in May 2005, aims to tackle the challenges of energy and the environment. A broad goal, sure, but we like the idea that funding basic scientific research is the best way to get good ideas out of the laboratory and onto the market.

Thermoelectrics was the most prevalent area of research, with four different projects that focused on developing materials and systems to turn heat energy directly into electricity. The hope for some of the projects is that super-efficient thermoelectric materials could replace the dirty and dangerous kerosene and wood-burning lamps and stoves used all over the developing world. A proposed solar-powered, thermoelectric stove is pictured below.

Smart grid and energy management solutions were also popular themes, including policy elements, which are often barriers in regulated markets. Meanwhile, although oil prices have come down, the technology of drilling for deep-sea petroleum also got some attention and money, although that type of drilling can also be used to further geothermal development.

See the complete list of grant recipients after the jump.

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Green chemistry startup Genomatica said this morning it has successfully produced a commonly used chemical in plastics and rubber products using sugar instead of petroleum. The chemical is called “1,4‐butanediol,” or BDO for short. Genomatica uses an engineered microorganism to convert sugar into BDO to produce a 100 percent renewable chemical. And the company says it’s the first to publish evidence that a microorganism can produce BDO.

Genomatica, which was founded in 2000 and is backed by Mohr Davidow, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Alloy Ventures and Iceland Genomic Ventures, first started producing its green BDO back in February. Since then, it says it has increased the productivity of its generation by 1,000-fold, and has managed to engineer the organism to survive in the high BDO concentrations needed to produce a whole lot of the chemical. That means it’ll be ready to start scaling up to the volumes needed to compete in the chemical industry.

BDO is used in everyday plastics, rubbers and fibers, many of which need to withstand rugged conditions at high heats. Genomatica CEO Christopher Gann says that its green BDO can be used in any products that traditionally used BDO, such as spandex, airbags and textiles. The sugar-derived BDO molecule is “identical” to a petroleum-based BDO, Gann says. Genomatica plans to license its technology to chemical companies, sugar producers and manufacturers that use BDO, and the company hopes to sign its first major licensing deal in 2009. Gann joined the Genomatica team earlier this year after spending 27 years at Dow Chemical.

Compared to his colleagues at the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) — a $500 million academic and industry collaboration to fight carbon emissions with bio-energy — Mitchell Altschuler’s job could sound a little dry. While EBI’s researchers out of the labs of UC Berkeley, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Lawrence Berkeley National are using funds from oil giant BP to investigate new ways of producing biofuels, Altschuler spends his time aiding those scientists in filing patents and advising them on issues of intellectual property.

But anyone familiar with the money-making side of technology knows that Altschuler job, as EBI’s Intellectual Property Manager, is fundamental to the organization’s workings. Altschuler, who previously managed IP for Cargill for three years, works with the group’s hundreds of faculty and student researchers to get EBI’s valuable innovations patented, ensure that critical information isn’t disclosed too soon in research papers, and most importantly, he says, “help professors move forward with as little interruptions as possible.”

IP management is what will eventually help generate funds from the research, and is the reason UK oil giant BP has jumped on board. BP is eligible to license the technology, mostly in non-exclusive agreements, but in certain cases exclusive agreements, Altschuler says. BP’s early access to any breakthrough innovation at EBI could give it a leg up in the competitive world of fuel, and the public/private initiative is just one of BP’s biofuel investments.

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The California Academy of Sciences, a collection of exhibits including a massive aquarium, a planetarium and a natural history museum in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, has gotten a new and much greener home. When the academy’s doors reopen in September, they hope for LEED Platinum certification (the highest honor in green building) for the 410,000-square foot building, that its designers say will consume 30 to 35 percent less energy than is required by code.

The Academy gave a sneak peek to the media this week, and we snapped some photos of the new green elements. The entire roof is surrounded with a 30 foot overhang that shades the building and has a strip of 60,000 high-efficiency solar cells (seen below) in the middle that the Academy says satisfies between 5 and 10 percent of the building’s electrical needs.

More eco-eye-candy after the jump.

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Using nanorobots to build circuits is so last year’s fantasy. The latest technology of tomorrow uses viruses to construct everything from transistors to tiny batteries to solar cells. Researchers at MIT published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week describing how they’ve successfully created tiny batteries, just four- to eight-millionths of a meter in diameter, using specially designed viruses. The hope is that these tiny batteries — which could be used in embedded medical sensors — and eventually other electronics, could be printed easily and cheaply onto surfaces and woven into fabrics.

Viruses are very orderly little critters and in high concentrations organize themselves into patterns, without high heat, toxic solvents or expensive equipment. By tweaking their DNA, the viruses, called M13, can be programmed to bind to inorganic materials, like metals and semiconductors. So far, the researchers have been able to use viruses to assemble the anode and electrolyte, two of the three main components of a battery. Eventually the work could also be used to make tiny electronics made up of silicon-covered viruses. Gross and cool.

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What could have more green-geek cred than using computer modeling to demonstrate a molecule used to break down plants from which biofuels are made? Winning an award for making the visuals look so dope. National Renewable Energy Labs Senior Scientist Michael Crowley recently took home second prize in the DOE’s Electronic Visualization competition for his animation of the “cellobiohydrolase Cel7A” molecule, an enzyme that decays plants. (We’d also like to give the accompanying image an award for our favorite pic this year — a satisfied, bearded do-gooder scientists having fun with nifty graphics.)

The animation isn’t the end unto itself. Crowley has visually mapped it out to help researchers eventually bioengineer a version of Cel7A that could be useful for cellulosic biofuel production. In nature, Cel7A turns cellulose into simple sugars at a pace that’s good enough for plants, but not quite fast enough for an industry that wants to pump gallons of the end product into our fuel tanks. Engineering the enzyme could deliver an efficient way to churn out biofuels from cellulosic — and more importantly, non-food feedstocks.

Crowley’s research is being funded by the NREL to the tune of $1 million a year over five years. He’s working with researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Cornell University, Forest Products Research Lab, Scripps Research Institute and the University of California at San Diego. The work could not only help deliver innovations for biofuels, but will likely produce computer science work in the form of codes and algorithms that will help researchers do similarly complex supercomputer-based modeling.

Prices for platinum have dropped more than 30 percent in recent weeks, to around $1,478.80 an ounce, off a high of more than $2,100 an ounce earlier this year. It’s part of an overall slide in commodity prices, from corn to precious metals to crude, taking place as global supply chains respond to a slowing U.S. economy.

But platinum prices are still high and supply isn’t expected to keep up with demand — a major point of concern for fuel cell companies, which use platinum as a catalyst for converting hydrogen gas into electricity and water. It’s also a point of innovation as researchers and firms have scrambled to find a way to replace (or at least reduce) the expensive material in their designs.

Hydrogen fuel cells have two main reactive surfaces: an anode, which splits oxygen, and a cathode, which splits the hydrogen gas. Both electrodes typically use platinum to catalyze the reaction, but a team of Australian researchers has developed a way to outfit the cathode with a conductive, Gore-Tex-like material to replace the platinum. The Monash University researchers told Greener Design they’re optimistic about ditching platinum in the anode as well:

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We haven’t heard if the wind-powered VW Bug Rep. Devin Nunes designed for Democrats last week has moved out of committee yet, but engineers from Stuttgart University are way ahead and say they have successfully tested their wind-powered Ventomobile. The Ventomobile, with its three bicycles wheels and two-bladed rotor, will compete with five other European teams in the Aeolus Race in Den Helder, Netherlands, on August 23. Competitors will race along a three kilometer track powered solely by the wind.

The race is being organized by Windenergy Events as part of the the Tall Ships Races 2008 taking place in the waters off Den Helder. According to the competition rules wind-powered vehicles must have at least three wheels, a rotor area of no more than four square meters and be no more than 3.5 meters tall. Prizes will be awarded in nine categories, including fastest team, best design and even “bad luck” for those who can’t get the wind behind them.

If we have any E2T readers near Stuttgart, the Ventomobile engineers are demoing their vehicle on August 12 and any attending the Tall Ships Races, make sure to report back on how the Aeolus race goes. For those who won’t be able to visit the land of tulips, wind mills and now wind-powered vehicles, check out the videos after the jump of the Ventomobile’s construction.

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