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March 7th, 2012 | 
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LONDON |
LONDON (Reuters) – Water management company Aqualia plans to launch a commercial-scale demonstration project using waste water to cultivate algae for biofuel production, which could fuel 400 vehicles, the firm said on Monday.
Spain’s Aqualia, owned by construction and services company FCC, in collaboration with European partners, has already started construction of algae culture ponds at a waste water treatment plant in Chiclana, northern Spain, which should be able to produce 500 litres of biodiesel a year and 1,500 cubic meters of biomethane.
The project will cultivate fast-growing micro-algae by using the nutrients in waste water and converting it into biofuels like biodiesel and biomethane which can be used in transport fuel.
If 3,000 kilograms of dry algae a day can be produced with an oil content of 20 percent, the project will be ramped up to commercial-scale size of 10 hectares to produce 200,000 litres of biodiesel a year and 600,000 cubic meters of biomethane – together enough to fuel 400 cars, Aqualia said at a briefing.
“Today we are wasting resources and producing useless sludge. Now we can use it to produce biofuel and have a positive impact,” Frank Rogalla, innovation and technology manager at Aqualia, told Reuters.
Micro-algae has benefits over first generation biofuel crops like palm oil, sugar cane and canola, said Rogalla. It can be grown in as little as three days and has needs less land than other biofuel crops.
“Oil productivity can be 10 to 20 times higher than from any known plant,” Rogalla said.
More than half the 12 million euro ($15.9 million) project has been funded by the European Commission, which is aiming for 10 percent of energy used in transport in the European Union to be derived from renewable sources by 2020.
Analysts doubt the EU will be able to meet its 2020 targets for cutting transport fuel emissions if it excludes some biodiesel feedstocks which could release as many climate-warming emissions as conventional diesel.
Most biofuels are currently derived from land crops, including sugar cane, maize and vegetable oil, which have been criticized for competing with food production for water and land resources, prompting the search for alternatives.
Some of the alternatives being explored – called second generation biofuels – come from wood, waste, grasses and agricultural residues and from algae.
COMMERCIAL SCALE
However, algae biofuel has only been demonstrated at small scale and has not been cost effective. Many researchers estimate that production of micro-algae biodiesel on a commercial scale is at least ten years away.
With an oil yield of 25 percent typical for many algae species, the industry would need to be scaled up at least 300 times to produce 5 percent of the diesel used in the UK in 2009, according to a UK government report in 2010.
Algae biofuels would also need to be able to compete with the price of conventional oil.
“We need to decrease the cost of production by five times to be competitive with oil,” Rogalla said.
“We think it could be competitive with fossil fuels by 2015, but I could be wrong by a year or two.”
The race is on to develop the first commercial-scale plant. The United States government has invested $78 million into algae biofuel research.
“I think we will be the first in Europe,” Rogalla said. ($1 = 0.7557 euros)
(Reporting by Nina Chestney. Editing by Jane Merriman)
Posted in 
Story By: Guy Raz and Brent Baughman
An anti-pipeline bumper sticker on rancher Sue Luebbe’s pickup. Four years ago, she stood on the hood of the truck and pointed a rifle at a helicopter that was surveying her land for TransCanada.
Rancher Randy Thompson is fighting to keep the Keystone XL pipeline from being built in Nebraska.
Luebbe says she worries the pipeline would ruin her land.
Another rancher, Sue Luebbe, lives right in the heart of the Sandhills. The water table on her land is so close to the surface, you need to dig down only two feet to hit the aquifer.
One afternoon four years ago, she noticed a helicopter hovering over her land. Inside the cockpit were two surveyors working on behalf of TransCanada.
The chopper terrified Luebbe’s cattle, causing a stampede that sent them into a barbed-wire fence. Luebbe got on the hood of her pickup truck and pointed a rifle at the helicopter.
“I saw both of them and I also gave them some sign language. They kind of understood,” she says. “So they took off as fast as they could.”
She says she refused an $18,000 offer from TransCanada to build the pipeline on her land. Like Thompson, she’s joined Bold Nebraska, a group that’s made it its mission to stop the Keystone XL.
The Battle Continues
TransCanada says it will submit a new proposal to the U.S. government next year. The proposed route, the company says, won’t go through the Sandhills.
But now, Thompson and other ranchers are convinced the whole enterprise is bad for the environment and a raw deal for Nebraska.
Thompson says remembering his parents’ perseverance through the Great Depression and droughts drive him. If they were able to survive those hard times, he says, he can get through this.
“I know what my folks went through to get a piece of ground. And these sons of bitches come along and they tell me we’re going to take this land away from you whether you want us to or not,” he says, “and they got a fight on their hands.”
Heineman says he’s sympathetic, but only to a point.
“The fact of the matter is we’re still going to be using coal and oil for a long period of time. Hey, I’m a supporter that we need to move to cleaner coal technology and those things,” he says, “but it is not going to happen overnight.”
TORONTO |
TORONTO (Reuters) – Barrick Gold named a corporate social responsibility board on Friday, which will advise the world’s top gold producer on community relations, sustainable development and human rights, as miners around the globe face tougher public and investor scrutiny of their activities.
Toronto-based Barrick was hit by a torrent of criticism last year after at least five people were killed and many more were hurt, when hundreds of people raided a gold mine in Tanzania owned by its subsidiary African Barrick Gold.
Some of Barrick’s peers have faced similar issues at their mines, while others have encountered strong opposition to their projects.
There have been scores of shootings by unidentified snipers around Freeport McMoRan’s huge Grasberg copper-gold mine in Indonesia in recent years, with victims including workers, illegal miners and security officers.
Construction work at Newmont’s $4.8 billion Conga gold-copper project in Peru has been halted since November, following weeks of protests against the development.
The Peruvian government has asked three foreign experts to evaluate Newmont’s environmental impact study for Conga, which would be the largest mining investment in Peru’s history if it is built.
Barrick said the five-member board will also advise it on the structuring of both its ongoing and future corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices and programs.
The board is comprised of notable experts in the CSR field, including Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the former head of the United Nations Environment Program, and Robert Fowler, who was Canada’s longest serving ambassador to the United Nations.
“Their input and guidance will help us to further improve our practices and manage emerging issues affecting our company and the global mining industry,” Barrick Chief Executive Aaron Regent said in a statement.
(Reporting By Euan Rocha; editing by Rob Wilson)