Plant-based transportation fuels were the focus of extended criticism in the press, especially during 2008 when a portion of the blame for a spike in global food prices was associated with growth of the United States’ corn ethanol industry. The critique is based on an unsophisticated portrayal of the ethical issues at stake in the food security implications of biofuel. Three ethical critiques c...

In this work, bacteria are regarded either as production organisms or as interacting organisms with another production organism, namely yeast. The aim of using bacteria as a production organism was, to optimize Rubisco activity by introducing additional gene cassettes of Rubisco in Cyanobacteria. At first, RBC operon was tried to clone in pDF-Trc plasmid, using infusion cloning, but did not obt...

In this chapter, we highlight some important aspects of biofuels development and policies from partial and general equilibrium perspectives. We first examine US biofuel policy backgrounds to determine factors which caused the boom in the ethanol industry in recent years. Then, we use a partial equilibrium model to investigate the economic consequences of further expansion in the ethanol industr...

Enzyme-based biofuel cells are attracting attention rapidly partially due to the promising advances reported recently. However, there are issues to be addressed before biofuel cells become competitive in practical applications. Two critical issues are short lifetime and poor power density, both of which are related to enzyme stability, electron transfer rate, and enzyme loading. Recent progress...

Marginal croplands, such as those in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), have been suggested as a source of biomass for biofuel production. However, little is known about the composition of plant species on these conservation grasslands or their potential for ethanol production. Our objective was to assess the potential of CRP and other conservation grasslands for biofuel production, descri...

A self-powered glucose biosensor (SPGS) system is fabricated and in vitro characterization of the power generation and charging frequency characteristics in glucose analyte are described. The bioelectrodes consist of compressed network of three-dimensional multi-walled carbon nanotubes with redox enzymes, pyroquinoline quinone glucose dehydrogenase (PQQ-GDH) and laccase functioning as the anodi...

BACKGROUND Biofuel has been the focus of intensive global research over the past few years. The development of 4th generation biofuel production (algae-to-biofuels) based on metabolic engineering of algae is still in its infancy, one of the main barriers is our lacking of understanding of microalgal growth, metabolism and biofuel production. Although fatty acid (FA) biosynthesis pathway genes h...

Abstract Despite the challenges, depending on the local conditions and practices, renewable energy sources are already a significant contribution to the energy mix. Although this is true for electricity generation, the same does not apply for the transportation sector, where the available renewable sources are limited and still have a modest impact in the overall consumption. In this context, a...

Forests make up large ecosystems and by the uptake of carbon dioxide can play an important role in mitigating the greenhouse effect. In this study, mitigation of carbon emissions through carbon uptake and storage in forest biomass and the use of forest biofuel for fossil fuel substitution were considered. The analysis was performed for a 3.2 million hectare region in northern Sweden. The object...

Metabolic engineering has developed microbial cell factories that can convert renewable carbon sources into biofuels. Current molecular biology tools can efficiently alter enzyme levels to redirect carbon fluxes toward biofuel production, but low product yield and titer in large bioreactors prevent the fulfillment of cheap biofuels. There are three major roadblocks preventing economical biofuel...