Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK) has been one of the fiercest critics of the Navy’s procurement of biofuels for its fleet of ships and aircraft. However, before calling the military’s $12 million R&D program for renewable fuels part of a “green agenda,” Inhofe secured millions of dollars for a company developing liquid fuels from natural gas that cost 29 times more than conventional fuel.

In 2002, Inhofe earmarked more than $2 million for the Oklahoma-based company Syntroleum, which is looking to produce gas-to-liquid fuels for military use. According to 2010 filings at OpenSecrets.org, Inhofe holds between $15,000 and $50,000 in assets through BlackRock, the largest investor in Syntroleum.

Jim Lane at the Biofuels Digest reported that Syntroleum’s fuel cost considerably more to produce than the renewable fuels used by the Navy today:

Adjusting for inflation, the $2.3 million contract in 2002 dollars equates to $2.93 million in today’s dollars, or $28.21 per gallon. Back in 2002, jet fuel was selling at considerably less than today – at an average price of 75 cents per gallon in the second half of the year, according to indexmundi.com.

Overall, the cost of the natural gas-based alternative fuel was 29 times more than the cost of conventional fuels at the time, and cost more, per gallon, in today’s dollars than the Navy’s advanced biofuels program.

Since the original contract in 2002, Syntroleum has reportedly secured nearly $6 million in contracts with the Department of Defense.

In a recent statement, Inhofe said he supports the development of alternative fuels. However, that support seems to be limited to fossil fuels. He called the Navy’s biofuels program a part of the “liberal green agenda” that could threaten “the lives of service men and women” — even while supporting a technology that was almost 30 times more expensive than conventional fuel when originally funded.

Jim Lane sums up Inhofe’s contradictory stance on renewable fuels:

There seems to be ample evidence that Senator Inhofe is intimately aware of the costs of developing and testing alternative fuels in small quantities. It appears to be a simple case of playing political games, by criticizing Dynamic Fuels for selling advanced biofuels for $26 per gallon, when the Senator himself won an earmark requiring the military to purchase even more expensive natural gas-based fuels from Dynamic’s parent.

Paying nine times as much for test quantities of advanced biofuels? “Far-left agenda.”

Paying 29 times as much for test quantities of alternatives to fossil fuels made from, ahem, more fossil fuels? “A real difference for America.”

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by Max Frankel

Biofuels have fallen out of favor in many environmental and political circles. But in the world of science, researchers around the world are working on some very innovative ways to produce gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel from more sustainable feedstocks.

Here’s a look at three cool recent developments in biofuels:

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em: Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California are working on converting tobacco plants into fuel powerhouses. The project is funded by the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. The scientists selected the plant because tobacco is “grown in large tracts throughout the U.S and in more than 100 countries. It generates multiple harvests per year, its large leaves could store a lot of fuel, and it’s amenable to genetic engineering.”

Tobacco has huge potential because it produces very high yields. The Berkeley lab estimates “that about 1000 acres of tobacco could yield more than one million gallons of fuel.”

Currently, tobacco is one of the most ubiquitous plants in the American south. But as sales of commercial tobacco products fall demand for the crop is declining (a good chart from Canada is here). It’s possible that this new use for the product could stimulate the industry for the benefit of our health, not the detriment. Tobacco grown for biofuel purposes can be planted at up to 16 times the density of tobacco planted for consumption, so fields already producing the plant could vastly increase production to meet potential future need.

The Berkeley scientists are working on creating tobacco plants that maximize the uptake of CO2 and sunlight and the production of fats and oils. Check it out:

Bottoms up: The Scotch Wiskey Association of Scotland is currently constructing a nearly $100 million combined heat and power plant capable of generating up to 7.2 megawatts of electricity from nothing but whiskey byproducts.

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Following President Obama’s “all-the-above” energy speech last Thursday, conservatives have ignored the speech and instead latched onto a single point about investing $14 million in algae-based biofuel research. “Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this [algae] fuel that we can grow right here in the United States,” Obama said.

Newt Gingrich said the president’s comments are “worthy of Leno or Letterman.” The same candidate who wants moon colonies during his presidency attacked the president for a “weird” technology both Republicans and their industry allies have endorsed.

Gingrich isn’t alone in the right-wing attempt to simplify the administration’s multifaceted energy proposals:

Newt Gingrich: “And maybe what we ought to do at Newt.org is we ought to get t-shirts that say ‘You choose.’ Gingrich went on to suggest the slogans, ‘You have Newt: Drill here, Drill Now, Pay Less. You have Obama: Have Algae, Pay More, Be Weird.”

Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): I think the American people realize that a president who’s out there talking about algae when they’re having to choose between whether to buy groceries or to fill up the tank is the one who’s out of touch.

Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer: Why build a keystone pipeline with real oil from Canada to put in real refineries and put in real existing cars when you can do algae? I think he is on to something. And I think this shows the vision, the hope and change he promised in 2008.

Rush Limbaugh: This guy is so out of his league, to throw out there, “I’m looking at algae.” It’s patently absurd. In a sane world this guy would be laughed out of office, not voted out.

By mocking the president, conservatives ignore a history of party leaders and their industry allies endorsing algae research.

Republicans from Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) to Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) have requested Department of Energy grants for algae research. All three lawmakers wrote that algae investments would reduce America’s oil use. For instance, Johanns wrote that an algae biotechnology center “would develop technology to decrease our dependence on imported oil.”

Republican allies in the oil industry have also invested in algae, including No. 1 oil lobbyist ConocoPhillips and ExonMobil, which sunk $600 million in algae biofuel research.

On energy, the administration is doing far more than budgeting for biofuel research. The White House’s FY 2013 budget provides billions for R&D and manufacturing in clean energy technologies, while higher fuel economy standards will reduce U.S. oil consumption by more than 2 million barrels per day. Meanwhile, under Obama, domestic production of oil has reached record levels of quadruple the drilling rigs over the past three years.

by Cole Mellino

When copying the model of land-based industrialized farming, current aquaculture practices can have many of the same negative environmental impacts inherent in industrial-scale agriculture.

U.S. aquaculture operations, primarily producing shellfish, are subject to stringent environmental regulations. But due to the poorly regulated use of high amounts of chemicals and antibiotics to maintain massive, centralized monocultures of fish and shrimp particularly in South America and southeast Asia, aquaculture farms have gained a reputation for polluting water and producing poor-quality food.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Atlantic had a fantastic piece this week on the growing movement to clean up aquaculture operations — producing better food, sustainable biproducts, and making them a solution to environmental problems:

Unsurprisingly, once information got out among the general public, “aquaculture” quickly became a dirty word. Industry responded with a strategy of mislabeling seafood and upping their marketing budgets, rather than investing in more sustainable and environmentally benign farming techniques.

But a small group of ocean farmers and scientists decided to chart a different course. Rather than relying on mono-aquaculture operations, these new ocean farms are pioneering muti-tropic and sea-vegetable aquaculture, whereby ocean farmers grow abundant, high-quality seafood while improving, rather than damaging, the environment.

One of the keys? Seaweed. This type of algae, which can be used for everything from food to fertilizer, could be a major piece of creating a network of sustainable farming operations:

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ISU photo by Bob Elbert

Franken-algae may be key to reducing carbon emissions. But do they represent a different environmental threat?

Researchers at Iowa State University say they’ve unlocked a genetic pathway in algae that can dramatically increase the amount of CO2 consumed by the organisms, thus helping recycle more of the greenhouse gas and increasing oil yields for non-food based biofuels by as much as 50%.

Algae use two genes — LCIA and LCIB — to help them regulate CO2 intake. When growing in low-CO2 environments, these two genes are activated to help the organisms take in more of the gas to their cells. But when CO2 concentrations are high, the genes are shut off.

Researchers led by Iowa State Professor of Genetics Martin Spalding figured out how to keep those genes turned on all the time, turning this strain of algae (Chlamydomonas reinhardtii) into a CO2-sucking, biomass-producing machine:

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Other stories below: CIA Urged to be More Open About Climate Change; Lawmakers Scrutinize Foreign Aid to China

Photo: Steve Weaver

TransCanada says it will work with Nebraska on new pipeline route

Will the airline industry push non-food based biofuels to scale? There are signs that the push is underway.

Earlier this week, United Airlines became the first air carrier in the U.S. to make a commercial flight using a 40% algae-based jet fuel from Solazyme. And today, Air Alaska is flying the nation’s second commercial biofuels flight, using a fuel containing a 20% cooking-oil-based feedstock produced by Dynamic Fuels. Air Alaska will be making 75 trips within the U.S. over the coming weeks using the cooking oil blend.

It’s not cheap though. The fuel used by Air Alaska is roughly six times more expensive than traditional jet fuel. But a spokeswoman for the Air Alaska, Megan Lawrence, tells Climate Progress that the company is looking at a suite of options to reduce emissions, and finding new fuels is one of them.

“We’re trying to show that there’s demand for the product,” she said. “We know that we have to get out in front of these issues.”

These two U.S. announcements come after a series of commercial flights around the world using a variety of non-food based biofuels. Over the last few months, air carriers in the Netherlands, UK, Germany, Finland, Mexico, Spain and China all flew commercial flights using a blend of advanced biofuels. The flights prove that biofuels are safe, and that airlines are getting serious about alternatives to petroleum fuels.

Biofuels reporter Jim Lane, who runs the site Biofuels Digest, thinks that the aviation industry could be a “quick win” for biofuel companies now reaching scale:

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Many factors contribute to rising prices of food: Demand from rapidly-growing developing countries; droughts; energy prices; the value of the dollar; and, as a new report from Purdue University concludes, ethanol production.

While the Purdue researchers are careful to explain the phenomenon is caused by a combination of all these factors, the report targets two main culprits:  Chinese demand for soybeans and American ethanol. In 2010 and into this year, 27% of the U.S. corn crop went toward ethanol — up from 10% in 2005 and 2006.

[T]he demand surges from biofuels and Chinese soybean purchases appear to be persistent. While the demand shifts to date are expected to persist, the rate of increase in demand growth is expected to slow as corn biofuels mandates are reached and as China has built adequate soybeans stocks levels. This slowing of the demand surges may give world supply a better opportunity to catch up in coming years. Other events—such as additional demand growth, the degree of supply response, and macroeconomic variables—will all be important in determining how this cycle plays out.

[T]aking up around 27% of the corn crop (net of the by-product credit), there is little doubt that biofuels play a role in the corn price level and variability, and this has spilled over into other commodity markets. The RFS2 has been important in establishing ethanol production capacity and the minimum biofuels demand for corn realized today.

The researchers found, “Market inelasticity—a reduction in the responsiveness of prices to demand and supply forces—is one of the key mechanisms in today’s commodity markets.” They offer this remarkable chart of the  soaring amount of US crop acreage required to produce ethanol and soybeans for China:

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Land grabbing, a practice in which governments buy or lease land outside their borders, is a growing threat to food security. In 2009, total land grabs around the world equaled the size of France, with much of that activity happening in developing countries.

Some of the land grabbers are surprising.  While the culprits are typically nations and/or investors, even  American universities like Harvard and Vanderbilt have been channeling endowment dollars through hedge funds to make huge land grabs in Africa.

Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the United Nations and current chairman of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, has been drawing attention to the tri-fold problem of climate change, food security, and land grabs, calling for an end to predatory land grabs.  In a recent lecture Annan criticized the practice:

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