Global News Wire - Europe Intelligence WireCopyright 2006 The Financial Times Limited All rights reserved Borsen-ZeitungFebruary 21, 2006 Tuesday

ACC-NO: A2006022159-10287-GNW HEADLINE: SOLARWORLD INVESTS IN SILICON RECYCLING (SOLARWORLD STARKT SILIZIUM-RECYCLING)

German solar cell manufacturer SolarWorld is to expand recycling of silicon at subsidiary Deutsche Solar. The SolarWorld subsidiary is to invest 5m euros in setting up a second recycling plant in Freiberg, doubling current capacities and complementing the expansion of wafer production.

Deutsche Solar said that the silicon to be recycled would comprise of both waste from the production of wafers for solar cells and material from outside sources. New technology means that the company will be able to recycle material that was deemed to be of insufficient quality previously. Deutsche Solar also hopes to provide its silicon recycling services to other companies in the future.

Abstracted from Borsen Zeitung

Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information Ltd.  Packaging (Australia)

July 2005 HEADLINE: Smashing new glass recycling plant VISY Recycling has launched a new multi-million dollar fully automated glass recycling facility at Laverton, upgrading its ability to recover and recycle to about 100,000 tonnes of glass every year.

The facility uses high-tech electronic identification to "see" up to 16 million different colours at high speed.

Highly accurate air jets then sort the glass into different colours and removes non-recyclables such as caps and corks.

The facility automatically sorts glass pieces as small as 6mm.

Visy Recycling general manager Steven Boland said the new technology was an investment for all Victorians.

"Visy Recycling supports the effort Victorians put into recycling," Boland said.

"We are recycling more and more today which means the recycling industry needs to invest in better technology and systems that enable better and more efficient recovery of recyclables."

"This facility means that bottles and jars that Victorians put out for recycling will have improved recovery and recycling, and recycling efforts will be supported for many years to come."

Visy's facility is said to be the only one of its kind in Australia.

EcoRecycle Victoria has provided funding to support this facility.

LOAD-DATE: July 8, 2005

The New York Times Nov 2, 2005 pC1(L) California Family Tests Honda's Fuel Cell Car. (Business/Financial Desk)(Taking The Future For a Drive) Hakim, Danny

Abstract: Jon Spallino is testing the new hydrogen fuel cell powered Honda FCX. For now he has to refuel at the Honda headquarters in Torrance, California, but the company is trying to install hydrogen fueling facilities at service stations near his home.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 The New York Times Company

You would never guess that Jon Spallino drives what is probably the most expensive car in this city known for automotive excess. Or that he is the world's most technologically advanced commuter.

''When the cars pull up to me, the Porsches and the Bentleys and all that, I just sort of say, well, that's nice, but for what this costs I could buy 10 of those,'' said Mr. Spallino, while driving up Interstate 405, the freeway from his office in Irvine toward his home in Redondo Beach.

He was at the wheel of his silver Honda FCX, a car worth about $1 million that looks like a cross between a compact -- say, a Volkswagen Golf -- and a cinder block. The FCX is powered by hydrogen fuel cells, the futuristic technology that many automakers see as an eventual solution to the world's energy woes, though its real potential is a subject of vigorous debate inside and outside the auto industry.

Mr. Spallino, a 40-year-old executive at a California construction and engineering firm, and his wife, Sandy, have been leasing the FCX for $500 a month since July in one of the more unusual experiments in the auto industry's history.

The Spallinos, including daughters Adrianna, 11, and Anna, 9, ''aren't just the first fuel cell family on their block,'' as one Honda ad recently put it. ''They're the first in the world.''

So grandiose is the experiment that Honda has made arrangements with a distributor of hydrogen to have a refueling station built near the Spallinos' house. Not that they can use it. The local fire department, wary of this elemental zeppelin gas, has yet to let the station open.

So the car is being refueled at Honda's American headquarters in Torrance. Putting compressed hydrogen in a car sounds more like putting air in a tire than filling up with gas.

Honda is also working on upgrading an existing station that is near Mr. Spallino's office, and California is financing refueling stations to form what is called a ''hydrogen highway'' in the state.

Honda has been a pioneer in bringing advanced technologies, like hybrid electric cars, to consumers. While every major automaker has built a fuel cell prototype, Honda's is the only one that has been crash-tested.

Why did Honda pick the Spallinos? Mr. Spallino was already one of a few thousand owners of a Civic that runs on natural gas; filling one up is not unlike refueling the FCX. He also lived near the company's headquarters, and its refueling station. And the normality of the Spallino family appealed to the company, which wanted to see how the vehicle held up under the stresses of family driving.

''I use it for everyday life,'' said Sandy Spallino, 40, who also drives a Ford Taurus station wagon. ''I go to the market in it, I take the girls to school in it, I take them to soccer, just little one-mile jaunts here and there.''

Ben Knight, a vice president for research and development at Honda, said making the Spallinos pay to be guinea pigs was done to make them more critical.

''The feedback from these consumers will be very astute,'' he said, adding, ''an individual that is paying out of their own pocket for a vehicle will be very conscious of the value received, and the vehicle limitations.''

Fuel cells have been around since the 1800's; they were used to provide internal power for the Apollo spacecraft, as well as drinkable water for the astronauts. Cars powered by fuel cells are electric cars that do not rely on batteries, but instead generate their own electricity. Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen from the air in a chemical reaction, with water vapor as their only emission, at least from the tailpipe.

If that sounds utopian, many think fuel cells are ill-suited to power cars.

''We're either talking several decades or never,'' said Joseph J. Romm, an assistant energy secretary during the Clinton administration, referring to the likelihood of fuel cells' supplanting internal combustion engines in cars. Though Mr. Romm pushed for financing of hydrogen research in the mid-1990's, he has since become deeply skeptical of its prospects, to the point that last year he published a book titled ''The Hype About Hydrogen.''

General Motors is most bullish on the technology.

''We're going to prove to ourselves and the world that a fuel cell propulsion system can go head to head with the internal combustion engine,'' said Lawrence D. Burns, G.M.'s vice president in charge of research and development.

He said that by 2010, G.M. will have designed a fuel cell car that can go as far on a full tank and is as durable as a gasoline car. Some financial analysts are skeptical that G.M. will have even staved off bankruptcy by then.

Honda comes down somewhere between Mr. Romm and Mr. Burns.

''We see this, right now, as the most promising technology to lower greenhouse gas,'' Mr. Knight said. He added, though, that it was ''too hard to put a date on'' the timing for large-scale production.

Honda's experiment started cryptically, when an executive called Jon Spallino last year and kept him on the phone for half an hour without mentioning fuel cells. Mr. Spallino was not surprised to be quizzed, because his natural-gas Civic made him a likely target of consumer research.

''I said, O.K., this is an extensive survey, but there you go,'' said Mr. Spallino, who has the laid-back demeanor of a lifelong Southern Californian.

He was more perplexed when the same man called him back a few weeks later with another round of questions. Then the Honda executive asked him out for breakfast at a local Chili's restaurant, and the questions kept coming about his Civic. Why do you drive it? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it?

''It's like some kind of James Bond thing,'' Mr. Spallino recalled thinking. ''I told him, 'There has to be something else here; I've told you everything I could possibly tell you.' ''

Finally, the executive leveled with him. ''Very, very confidentially,'' he told him, ''I want to talk to you about trying out a fuel cell vehicle.''

In his State of the Union address in 2003, President Bush said there would be ''a new national commitment'' to developing hydrogen technology, which would ''make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy.''

Environmentalists like the promise of the fuel cell, but see it being used as an excuse for not toughening fuel economy regulations more aggressively.

''It's a long-term hope, but in the meantime we want to use the technology available today to make clean hybrids,'' said Daniel F. Becker, the top global warming strategist at the Sierra Club.

In the FCX, long stacks of the waferlike cells are housed under the passenger compartment, giving it a high ride, like a sport utility vehicle. It weighs in at nearly two tons, because of the heft of the technology, including added batteries. Despite having just 107 horsepower, it accelerates briskly, a feature of electric cars.

So far, the Spallinos give it a thumbs up. ''You're not really making any sacrifice,'' said Mr. Spallino, in Ralph Lauren sunglasses and a Hawaiian-style shirt with his company's emblem. As a Californian, his interest in alternative fuels was as much practical as anything else. On traffic-choked California roads, such vehicles get coveted access to high-occupancy-vehicle lanes. He is concerned about the environment, but not militantly so.

''I'm, I would say, right of center politically,'' Mr. Spallino said. ''I don't like our dependence on foreign oil. I think it causes us to do a lot of stupid things as a country,'' he said, explaining his decision to start using alternative fuel cars.

But ''the H.O.V. lane is a big bonus, sure,'' he said.

Will a day ever come when you can roll up to a Honda dealer and order an FCX? The hurdles could be insurmountable. First, the decimal point on the price would have to move over to the left by a couple of digits. That would be no small feat. Then there is the question of figuring out how to store hydrogen in the vehicle -- most likely either as a highly compressed gas in onboard tanks or in a spongelike solid state. None of these are ready for widespread use. Then the fuel cells would need to be as durable and long-lasting as conventional engines.

That's not to mention the big undertaking of reconfiguring the nation's gas stations to dispense hydrogen, or figuring out how to create and ship it.

''When you start piling miracle upon miracle, it's just really hard to believe,'' Mr. Romm said.

On the positive side, hydrogen can be generated in a number of different ways. It could be a solution to issues like oil dependency, and possibly cheaper than gasoline in the future. Fuel cell cars are not truly emission-free, because it takes energy, and emissions, to create pure hydrogen. But they would be an improvement in terms of global warming and air pollution, depending on how the hydrogen was produced.

One mental challenge to overcome would be the image in people's minds of a certain exploding airship filled with hydrogen, though automakers contend that fuel cell cars would be no more flammable than cars filled with gasoline.

Mr. Spallino says he hears about this a lot.

''Everybody says, 'You're driving the Hindenburg,' '' he said, adding, ''I assume that Honda's not going to give me a car that's going to blow up on me.''

Beyond Gasoline

Articles in this series are periodically examining alternative technologies for powering cars. Previous articles can be found online at nytimes.com/business.

CAPTION(S):

Photos: The Honda FCX leased by Jon Spallino, center above, gets the hydrogen needed to power its fuel cells from a station at Honda's American headquarters in Torrance, Calif., top. (Photographs by J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times)(pg. C1); Jon and Sandy Spallino, with daughters Anna, left, and Adrianna. Honda wanted to see how the FCX held up under family driving. (Photo by J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times)(pg. C4)

Document Number: A138209361

The New York Times Jan 18, 2006 pC1(L) With Ample Supplies, Qatar Becomes Hub For Converting Natural Gas to Vehicle Fuel. (Business/Financial Desk)(A New Old Way To Make Diesel) Romero, Simon

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 The New York Times Company

In this tiny emirate near the border with Iran, the world's largest oil companies are betting billions of dollars on an obscure method for making diesel fuel that stems from apartheid South Africa's aggressive efforts to wean its economy off imported oil.

Yellow school buses shuttle thousands of Indian and Pakistani workers from nearby labor camps each day to work in a giant meandering knot of pipes and turbines, showcased with a logo of an oryx, Qatar's antelope mascot.

No one is angling for oil here. In fact, rising oil prices have lifted the fortunes of a once-shunned technology that converts another fossil fuel, natural gas, into clean-burning diesel.

Even as geologists fiercely debate whether depleting oil fields can satiate intense demand for oil in the rising economies of Asia, the actions of the international energy industry may speak louder than words. Big oil is betting on once-derided unconventional energy sources, like this stranded natural gas in the Persian Gulf and remote tar deposits in Canada and Venezuela, to help meet surging demand for transportation fuel.

''It's time to take the genie out of the bottle,'' Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah, Qatar's energy minister, said in an interview. ''We want to be the capital of the world for this new age of fuels.''

These different types of fuels may have clunky nicknames, like G.T.L. and L.N.G. But they draw big money. Mr. Attiyah rattled off a roster of ventures with Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, Chevron and Sasol of South Africa to produce a new form of diesel from natural gas and said they were expected to invest more than $14 billion in capital over the next five to seven years.

This new diesel fuel is far cleaner than the diesel commonly used in passenger cars in Europe and heavy trucks in the United States. Diesel is usually made from the sulfur-laden parts of crude oil and traces its origins to the sturdy 19th-century engine invented by Rudolf Diesel.

Exxon Mobil and Qatar Petroleum are working together on one venture to produce cleaner diesel from natural gas that is expected to require $7 billion over the next several years. It would be the single largest investment in Exxon Mobil's history.

Qatar, a small peninsula nation off Saudi Arabia, is not alone in what may be the largest multination experiment with alternative fuels. Chevron is building another $3 billion complex in Nigeria to produce 34,000 barrels a day. Elsewhere, Syntroleum, based in Tulsa, Okla., is trying to advance similar ventures in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, while in Algeria, companies including Shell, Statoil of Norway and Sasol of South Africa are vying for a project focused on that country's Tinhert gas field. Energy companies are also looking at gas-rich nations like Australia, Iran, Egypt and Trinidad and Tobago for other projects.

By 2015, overall production of this fuel may reach more than one million barrels a day, according to an estimate by Cambridge Energy Research Associates. That is roughly equivalent to Venezuela's current daily oil exports to the United States.

Qatar has attracted the largest projects thanks to its plentiful natural gas reserves and an aggressive investment strategy that builds on a longstanding cultivation of American and European energy companies. Only Russia and Iran are believed to have more natural gas than Qatar, a nation of 800,000 people -- mostly foreign laborers -- that is already positioned to soon become the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

The liquefied natural gas industry in Qatar, however, is much different from the wager on technology to convert gas to a liquid fuel. Liquefied natural gas is extremely complex to transport, requiring an elaborate system of cooling plants near gas deposits, double-hulled tankers and reheating facilities in the markets where the fuel is consumed. Liquefied natural gas is largely used to generate electricity.

The gas-to-liquid method, on the other hand, provides an alternative to oil as a transportation fuel. Gas-to-liquids essentially transforms natural gas into liquid diesel that can be transported and sold using existing tankers, refineries and gas stations.

Diesel is much more commonplace in Europe than in the United States, where consumers still think of it as a heavily polluting fuel used in big trucks and machinery. Two German scientists, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch, developed the process in the 1920's after discovering a way of converting coal into a liquid fuel.

Energy analysts say gas-to-liquid plants become competitive when oil prices climb above $30 to $35 a barrel, as they have during the last two years. [On Tuesday, crude oil prices closed at $66.31 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, more than double the price on Dec. 31, 2003.]

Gas-to-liquid producers contend the fuel might attract a premium in nations looking for alternatives that reduce toxic diesel emissions. A report by the California Energy Commission recently recommended blending the cleaner diesel with existing fuel stocks to meet stringent fuel standards.

''One key aspect of the fuel is its low smog formation,'' said Andrew Brown, Shell's country manager in Qatar, who has imported a gas-to-liquid-powered Audi sedan to Doha to show how the fuel burns quietly and without the smell of early forms of diesel.

Transforming gas-to-liquids into an environmentally-friendly fuel source is new, even if production methods have already gone through several incarnations. During World War II, Germany developed methods to convert coal into fuel for their army. And, apartheid leaders in South Africa adapted methods to convert coal into a transportation fuel to survive economic isolation.

The United States flirted with the method after the oil shocks of the 1970's, but eventually withdrew most funding of synthetic fuel research when oil prices fell. Then, breakthroughs

enabled companies to use cleaner-burning natural gas instead of coal to produce a fuel that emits far fewer pollutants than diesel that is made from crude oil.

Though methods vary, the process essentially combines natural gas with water and oxygen, then exposes that mixture to cobalt to produce a transparent liquid fuel. This fuel currently amounts to a minuscule portion of total global fuel production, with Shell operating the largest such plant in Bintulu, Malaysia, a pilot operation with output of about 14,700 barrels a day. Overall global oil production, by comparison, is more than 80 million barrels a day.

A small experimental plant also exists in Ponca City, Okla., though gas-to-liquid production in the United States is likelier to one day come from coal since the nation's natural gas is expensive and in short supply.

Still, worldwide gas-to-liquid production is set to grow rapidly over the next decade. It joins fuel sources like bitumen, which is mined in vast open-pit operations in Canada, and ethanol, which is widely consumed in sugar-cane-rich Brazil, in easing reliance on crude oil for transportation.

Although the use of oil in factories and power plants has declined in the last two decades, the United States still relies on oil for more than 95 percent of its transportation needs. Qatar's projects capture the ambitions and risks of turning gas-to-liquid into an internationally viable fuel. The first shipments of gas-to-liquid out of the country are expected to be marketed this year with the opening of Oryx GTL, a venture by Chevron, Sasol and Qatar Petroleum producing 34,000 barrels a day.

Shell is also forming a venture with Qatar Petroleum to produce 140,000 barrels a day of gas-to-liquid by 2009. Exxon Mobil's larger venture is aiming for production of 154,000 barrels.

Wayne A. Harms, Exxon Mobil's country manager for Qatar, said in an interview in Doha that the company was drilling appraisal wells for the project in the North Field, the world's largest pure natural gas field. Qatar shares the field with Iran, and there are plans to start production by 2011.

''Qatar is in a unique position,'' Mr. Harms said, ''in that it has a large field that's accessible, a politically stable government and a good vision of what it's doing.''

The dizzying scale of these projects, though, presents challenges for Qatar and its Western partners. Construction costs, for instance, have been climbing in the last year as companies scramble to acquire building material not just in Ras Laffan but also in the capital, Doha, where dozens of skyscrapers are going up. The cost of a bag of cement is up more than 20 percent since the start of 2005, according to the Doha office of Davis Langdon, a construction consulting firm.

Higher project costs, as well as concern over managing the extraction of gas from the North Field, weighed on Qatar's abrupt move last year to delay the start of other gas-to-liquid ventures with ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil of Houston.

Still, huge projects are finally taking off here above all for one reason. More than any other gas-rich country, Qatar has aggressively seized on new ways of monetizing its natural gas. And Qatar's model is likely to be studied in a world that has more natural gas than oil, with global gas reserves expected to last another 67 years compared with 41 years of annual supply of crude oil, according to BP, the British energy giant.

The ample supplies of gas, of course, are far away from the largest markets for the fuel, in industrialized countries. That explains why the investments in Qatar, Nigeria and other countries might signal an extension of the international trade in energy.

Even as renewable energy captures the public imagination, hydrocarbons, whether found in oil or natural gas or bitumen, are growing more vital in meeting energy needs. ''It's simply a shift away from crude oil to natural gas,'' said Bernard J. Picchi, international oil and energy technology analyst with Foresight Research Solutions in New York. ''I'm not particularly concerned about the ability of hydrocarbons to survive, even thrive, well into this century.''

CAPTION(S):

Photos: Excess natural gas is flamed at Ras Laffan Industrial City in Qatar, which will be a base for transforming natural gas into clean diesel. (Photo by Stephanie Kuykendal for The New York Times)(pg. C1); Andrew Brown, Shell's manager in Qatar, has imported a gas-to-liquid-powered Audi sedan to Doha to show how the fuel burns cleanly. (Photo by Stephanie Kuykendal for The New York Times)(pg. C14)

Document Number: A140981265

The Christian Science Monitor March 23, 2006 p01 Carbon cloud over a green fuel; An Iowa corn refinery, open since December, uses 300 tons of coal a day to make ethanol. (USA)

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Science Publishing SocietyByline: Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Late last year in Goldfield, Iowa, a refinery began pumping out a stream of ethanol, which supporters call the clean, renewable fuel of the future.

There's just one twist: The plant is burning 300 tons of coal a day to turn corn into ethanol - the first US plant of its kind to use coal instead of cleaner natural gas.

An hour south of Goldfield, another coal-fired ethanol plant is under construction in Nevada, Iowa. At least three other such refineries are being built in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

The trend, which is expected to continue, has left even some ethanol boosters scratching their heads. Should coal become a standard for 30 to 40 ethanol plants under construction - and 150 others on the drawing boards - it would undermine the environmental reasoning for switching to ethanol in the first place, environmentalists say.

"If the biofuels industry is going to depend on coal, and these conversion plants release their CO2 to the air, it could undo the global warming benefits of using ethanol," says David Hawkins, climate director for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington.

The reason for the shift is purely economic. Natural gas has long been the ethanol industry's fuel of choice. But with natural gas prices soaring, talk of coal power for new ethanol plants and retrofitting existing refineries for coal is growing, observers say.

"It just made great economic sense to use coal," says Brad Davis, general manager of the Gold-Eagle Cooperative that manages the Corn LP plant, which is farmer and investor owned. "Clean coal" technology, he adds, helps the Goldfield refinery easily meet pollution limits - and coal power saves millions in fuel costs.

Yet even the nearly clear vapor from the refinery contains as much as double the carbon emissions of a refinery using natural gas, climate experts say. So if coal-fired ethanol catches on, is it still the "clean, renewable fuel" the state's favorite son, Sen. Tom Harkin likes to call it?

Such questions arrive amid boom times for America's ethanol industry.

With 97 ethanol refineries pumping out some 4 billion gallons of ethanol, the industry expects to double over the next six years by adding another 4.4 billion gallons of capacity per year. Tax breaks as well as concerns about energy security, the environment, and higher gasoline prices are all driving ethanol forward.

The Goldfield refinery, and the other four coal-fired ethanol plants under construction are called "dry mill" operations, because of the process they use. The industry has in the past used coal in a few much larger "wet mill" operations that produce ethanol and a raft of other products. But dry mills are the wave of the future, industry experts say. It's their shift to coal that's causing the concern.

More plants slated for Midwest, West

Scores of these new ethanol refineries are expected to be built across the Midwest and West by the end of the decade, and many could soon be burning coal in some form to turn corn into ethanol, industry analysts say.

"It's very likely that coal will be the fuel of choice for most of these new ethanol plants," says Robert McIlvaine, president of a Northfield, Ill., information services company that has compiled a database of nearly 200 ethanol plants now under construction or in planning and development.

If all 190 plants on Mr. McIlvaine's list were built and used coal, motorists would not reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions, according to an in-depth analysis of the subject to date by scientists at University of California at Berkeley, published in Science magazine in January.

Of course, many coal-fired ethanol plants on the drawing board will not be built, Mr. McIlvaine says. Others in planning for years may still choose natural gas as fuel to meet air pollution requirements in some states.

Other variations on ethanol-coal are emerging in Goodland, Kan., and Underwood, N.D., where ethanol plants are being built next to coal-burning power plants to use waste heat. Efficient, but still coal.

That could spell trouble for ethanol's renewable image.

"If your goal is to reduce costs, then coal is a good idea," says Robert Brown, director of Iowa State University's office of biorenewables. "If the goal is a renewable fuel, coal is a bad idea. When greenhouse-gas emissions go up, environmentalists take note. Then you've got a problem."

Ethanol industry officials say coal-power is just one possibility the industry is pursuing.

"I think some in the environmental community won't be all that warm and fuzzy about [coal-fired ethanol]," says Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, the national trade association for the US fuel-ethanol industry. "It's fair to say there's a trend away from natural gas, but coal is just one approach. Other technologies are part of the mix, too."

He cites, for instance, a new ethanol plant in Nebraska strategically located by a feed lot, using methane from cattle waste to fire ethanol boilers. Another new plant in Minnesota uses biomass gasification, using plant material as its fuel.

Coal for now, wood in the future

Coal may end up being merely a transitional fuel in the run-up to cellulosic ethanol, including switch grass and wood, says another RFA spokesman. While ethanol production today primarily uses only the corn kernel, cellulosic will use the whole plant.

Cellulosic ethanol, mentioned by President Bush in his State of the Union speech, could turn the tide on coal, too, by burning plant dregs in the boiler with no need for coal at all.

"It's a fact that ethanol is a renewable fuel today and it will stay that way," says Matt Hartwig, an RFA spokesman. "Any greenhouse-gas emissions that come out the tailpipe are recycled by the corn plant. I don't expect the limited number of coal-fired plants out there to change that."

Still, Hawkins insists that if ethanol is made using coal, the carbon dioxide should be captured and injected into the ground.

"We favor getting ethanol production up," Hawkins says. "But we obviously favor a cleaner process. We need large cuts in global warming emissions from transportation. It's not good enough for ethanol to simply be no worse than gasoline."

(c) Copyright 2006. The Christian Science Monitor

Document Number: CJ143540595

The Christian Science Monitor Jan 11, 2006 p01 Algae - like a breath mint for smokestacks. (USA)

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2006 The Christian Science Publishing Society

Byline: Mark Clayton Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BOSTON -- Isaac Berzin is a big fan of algae. The tiny, single-celled plant, he says, could transform the world's energy needs and cut global warming.

Overshadowed by a multibillion-dollar push into other "clean-coal" technologies, a handful of tiny companies are racing to create an even cleaner, greener process using the same slimy stuff that thrives in the world's oceans.

Enter Dr. Berzin, a rocket scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. About three years ago, while working on an experiment for growing algae on the International Space Station, he came up with the idea for using it to clean up power-plant exhaust.

If he could find the right strain of algae, he figured he could turn the nation's greenhouse-gas-belching power plants into clean-green generators with an attached algae farm next door.

"This is a big idea," Berzin says, "a really powerful idea."

And one that's taken him to the top - a rooftop. Bolted onto the exhaust stacks of a brick-and-glass 20-megawatt power plant behind MIT's campus are rows of fat, clear tubes, each with green algae soup simmering inside.

Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant's exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly even in the wan rays of a New England sun. The cleansed exhaust bubbles skyward, but with 40 percent less CO2 (a larger cut than the Kyoto treaty mandates) and another bonus: 86 percent less nitrous oxide.

After the CO2 is soaked up like a sponge, the algae is harvested daily. From that harvest, a combustible vegetable oil is squeezed out: biodiesel for automobiles. Berzin hands a visitor two vials - one with algal biodiesel, a clear, slightly yellowish liquid, the other with the dried green flakes that remained. Even that dried remnant can be further reprocessed to create ethanol, also used for transportation.

Being a good Samaritan on air quality usually costs a bundle. But Berzin's pitch is one hard-nosed utility executives and climate-change skeptics might like: It can make a tidy profit.

"You want to do good for the environment, of course, but we're not forcing people to do it for that reason - and that's the key," says the founder of GreenFuel Technologies, in Cambridge, Mass. "We're showing them how they can help the environment and make money at the same time."

GreenFuel has already garnered $11 million in venture capital funding and is conducting a field trial at a 1,000 megawatt power plant owned by a major southwestern power company. Next year, GreenFuel expects two to seven more such demo projects scaling up to a full pro- duction system by 2009.

Even though it's early yet, and may be a long shot, "the technology is quite fascinating," says Barry Worthington, executive director of US Energy Association in Washington, which represents electric utilities, government agencies, and the oil and gas industry.

One key is selecting an algae with a high oil density - about 50 percent of its weight. Because this kind of algae also grows so fast, it can produce 15,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre. Just 60 gallons are produced from soybeans, which along with corn are the major biodiesel crops today.

Greenfuel isn't alone in the algae-to-oil race. Last month, Greenshift Corporation, a Mount Arlington, N.J., technology incubator company, licensed CO2-gobbling algae technology that uses a screen-like algal filter. It was developed by David Bayless, a researcher at Ohio University.

A prototype is capable of handling 140 cubic meters of flue gas per minute, an amount equal to the exhaust from 50 cars or a 3-megawatt power plant, Greenshift said in a statement.

For his part, Berzin calculates that just one 1,000 megawatt power plant using his system could produce more than 40 million gallons of biodiesel and 50 million gallons of ethanol a year. That would require a 2,000-acre "farm" of algae-filled tubes near the power plant. There are nearly 1,000 power plants nationwide with enough space nearby for a few hundred to a few thousand acres to grow algae and make a good profit, he says.

Energy security advocates like the idea because algae can reduce US dependence on foreign oil. "There's a lot of interest in algae right now," says John Sheehan, who helped lead the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) research project into using algae on smokestack emissions until budget cuts ended the program in 1996.

In 1990, Sheehan's NREL program calculated that just 15,000 square miles of desert (the Sonoran desert in California and Arizona is more than eight times that size) could grow enough algae to replace nearly all of the nation's current diesel requirements.

"I've had quite a few phone calls recently about it," says Mr. Sheehan. "This is not an outlandish idea at all."

(c) Copyright 2006. The Christian Science Monitor

Document Number: CJ140723093

San Francisco Chronicle July 16, 2005 pB1 BAY AREA; House OKs water project study; Funds to find site for desalination plant. (BAY AREA) Hoge, Patrick; Epstein, Edward

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 San Francisco Chronicle

Byline: Patrick Hoge, Edward Epstein

Prospects for a Bay Area desalination plant that would produce drinking water for the region received a boost this week when the House of Representatives approved legislation to help identify the best site for such a facility.

The measure, included in an $11 billion water projects bill, would give $4 million to study a location for the plant, which would serve four water agencies serving East Bay, Peninsula and San Francisco customers.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District is a partner in the desalination effort with the Contra Costa Water District, Santa Clara Valley Water District and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which together serve 5.4 million people a day. Last week, the Marin Municipal Water District opened its own pilot desalination plant in San Rafael.

While the House appropriation is a relatively small amount of money, it is considered important for laying the groundwork for a plant that could produce 60 to 80 million gallons of drinking water a day, said Michael Carlin, assistant general manager of water for the San Francisco utility.

That is enough water to supply roughly 500,000 to 600,000 people, although the water would probably be used primarily as a backup supply in an emergency, such as an earthquake, or when other water facilities undergo maintenance, he said.

Officials from the four agencies initially discussed a plant that would produce 120 million gallons a day and cost between $450 million and $750 million to build, but they have since scaled back their plans.

The desalination process remains relatively costly and energy intensive compared with other water sources, particularly river and stream water, but other sources are being overtaxed as the area's population increases.

"This may be our best hope for providing increased water supplies and reliable water supplies," said EBMUD spokesman Randy Kanouse.

The Senate is considering its own $11.7 billion water projects bill, which does not include a similar appropriation, but the Bay Area agencies hope a final bill will retain funding for the desalination project, Kanouse said.

If the $4 million is not allocated, the site studies would probably be delayed by a year, he said. The money was requested by Democratic Reps. George Miller of Martinez and Ellen Tauscher of Walnut Creek.

A key consideration for siting a plant, considering the state of the technology, would be proximity to a power plant. The leading candidate right now is a spot next to Mirant Corp.'s power plant in Pittsburg on the Carquinez Strait. The other two leading sites are next to the San Francisco wastewater treatment plant at the south end of Ocean Beach and next to EBMUD's wastewater treatment plant in Oakland near the Bay Bridge.

In addition to the desalination study funding, the House bill passed Thursday also includes $23 million for EBMUD to conduct a feasibility study and construct a recycled-water facility in Richmond that would supply industrial users, thus cutting demands on the system's drinking water supplies. The envisioned project would supply 3 million gallons a day.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, put $20 million in the bill for three projects at the Port of San Francisco.

These include repairs to the port's passenger ship terminal at Pier 35 near Fisherman's Wharf and the removal of Pier 36 south of the Bay Bridge in preparation for construction there of the port's new cruise ship terminal. Money was also included for repairs at Pier 80, the port's principal cargo terminal.

Among other Bay Area projects included in the bill are dredging for the Larkspur ferry channel and restoration at the Bel Marin Keys and in the Napa River salt marshes.

Document Number:

Science News March 26, 2005 v167 i13 p206(1) Paint additive hammers coral. (Environment)

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Science Service, Inc.

Ocean corals around the world are ill or dead for reasons that remain mysterious. One of the first signs of sickness is bleaching, in which reef-building animals lose the symbiotic algae that give them color and nutrients (SN: 1/30/99, p. 72). New laboratory experiments indicate that one contributor to coral decline may be the paint additive tributyl tin (TBT).

For decades, ships throughout the world relied on TBT to limit the growth of drag-inducing barnacles, algae, and other organisms on their hulls. Although the United States is among nations that have banned the toxic additive, many foreign ships still ply the seas wearing TBT-impregnated skins, notes Jai Dwivedi of St. John's University in Jamaica, N.Y. He adds that such marine paints are designed to slowly leach the pesticidal additive from their hulls.

When those ships run aground on coral reefs, says Dwivedi, they leave paint debris. Reports of high concentrations of TBT in sediment 8 years after the 1992 grounding of a ship on Australia's Great Barrier Reef prompted his team to investigate the additive's potential impact on coral.

Dwivedi incubated staghorn coral (Acropora semoensis) and its symbiotic algae in aquarium water containing TBT concentrations from 5 to 100 nanograms per liter. Such amounts could easily be encountered at ship-grounding sites, he says.

All treated corals immediately showed a decline in their symbiotic algae. Aquarium tanks with low TBT concentrations lost 30 percent of their algae, while the A. semoensis in tanks with high TBT concentrations lost 80 percent of their algae.

Skin cells of individual corals quickly began sloughing off in the aquariums at all doses, but high TBT doses produced the most severe skin shedding. Underlying muscle cells in the animals also showed signs of damage. Within 12 hours of exposure, animals in tanks with even the lowest TBT concentrations were dead.

Dwivedi's team is now trying to identify biochemical changes in coral tissues chronically exposed to TBT. With such markers, scientists might discern whether coral illnesses such as bleaching are an early indication of TBT poisoning or some other threat.--J.R.

Document Number: A131607868

Inhibition of marine bacteria by extracts of macroalgae: potential use for environmentally friendly antifouling paints

Source: Marine Environmental Research, Volume 52, Number 3, September 2001, pp. 231-247(17)

Publisher:Elsevier Science

Keywords: Algal extract; Antibacterial activity; Antifouling; Biofilm; Marine bacteria; Natural product; Toxicity

Language: English Document Type: Research article DOI: 10.1016/S0141-1136(01)00092-7

Abstract: Although a total ban on the use of TBT coatings is not expected in the short term, there is a growing need for environmentally safe antifouling systems. A search for new non-toxic antifoulants has been carried out among marine macroalgae. Antifouling activity of aqueous, ethanolic and dichloromethane extracts from 30 marine algae from Brittany coast (France) was examined in vitro against 35 isolates of marine bacteria. About 20% of the extracts were found to be active. The high levels of inhibitory activities against bacteria recorded in some extracts and the absence of toxicity on the development of oyster and sea urchin larvae and to mouse fibroblast growth suggests a potential for novel active ingredients in antifouling preparations.

Biofouling   Publisher: Taylor & Francis   Issue: Volume 19, Supplement 1 / 2003   Pages: 197 - 205   DOI: 10.1080/0892701031000061778 The Development of a Marine Natural Product-based Antifouling Paint

J GRANT BURGESS A1, KENNETH G BOYD A1, EVELYN ARMSTRONG A1, ZHONG JIANG A1, LIMING YAN A1, MATZ BERGGREN A2, ULRIKA MAY A2, TONY PISACANE A3, ÅKE GRANMO A2, DAVID R ADAMS A4

A1 School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UKA2 Kristinebergs Marine Biological Station, P1 2130, S-450, 34 Fiskebäckskil, SwedenA3 X-Gnat Laboratories Ltd, Cumbernauld, Scotland, UKA4 Department of Chemistry, Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, UK

Abstract:

Problems with tin and copper antifouling compounds have highlighted the need to develop new environmentally friendly antifouling coatings. Bacteria isolated from living surfaces in the marine environment are a promising source of natural antifouling compounds. Four isolates were used to produce extracts that were formulated into ten water-based paints. All but one of the paints showed activity against a test panel of fouling bacteria. Five of the paints were further tested for their ability to inhibit the settlement of barnacle larvae, Balanus amphitrite, and algal spores of Ulva lactuca, and for their ability to inhibit the growth of U. lactuca. Two paints caused a significant decrease in the number of settled barnacles. One paint containing extract of Pseudomonas sp. strain NUDMB50-11, showed excellent activity in all assays. The antifouling chemicals responsible for the activity of the extract were isolated, using bioassay guided fractionation, and their chemical structures determined.

UPI NewsTrack Nov 22, 2005 pNA

Mersey River tidal power station proposed.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 United Press International

LIVERPOOL, England, Nov. 22 (UPI) -- The Mersey River may soon become the first river in Britain to generate electricity by tidal activity.

The river, known for its leaping salmon, is now being tested as a possible renewable energy source.

Attendees at the annual meeting Tuesday in Liverpool of the Mersey Basin Campaign were to hear of plans to construct a tidal power fence that could generate an estimated 2,000 megawatts of electricity -- enough power to meet 15 percent of northwest England's electricity requirements, the Independent reported.

Scientists say the Mersey has more tidal power potential than virtually any other river in Europe, by virtue of its 33-foot tidal range and strong currents.

Under the plan, a fence would be built across the width of the river, the Independent said. Water would be trapped behind gates that would be shut at high tide and then allowed to escape through the turbines of a hydroelectric plant.

The model for such a project is the tidal power station at the estuary of the La Rance River in France. That tidal station delivers about a fifth of the output of a nuclear or coal-fired power plant.

Document Number: A138993570

E Nov-Dec 2005 v16 i6 p12(2) Harnessing the waves. (ocean energy usage) Hendrick, Daniel

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Earth Action Network, Inc.

The notion that ocean tides can be harnessed to create pollution-free electricity made a crucial jump from drawing board to reality this fall. After seven years of prototype testing and preliminary studies, state and federal regulators have approved Arlington, Virginia-based Verdant Power's plan to install six underwater turbines in New York City. This array--which could eventually include as many as 300 turbines--is expected to be the first grid-connected, multi-turbine source of tidal energy in the world.

Resembling underwater windmills, the 15-foot-diameter turbines will tap the tidal flow of the East River when they are completed in 2007. The narrow eastern channel of the river moves up to six miles an hour, making it one of the fastest water bodies on the East Coast. The sleek, three-pronged turbines swivel to face the oncoming tide, generating up to 35 kilowatts of electricity each.

The goal, says Verdant Power President Trey Taylor, is to generate an environmentally sustainable and commercially viable source of electricity near where it's consumed. During an 18-month trial, the turbines will help power a supermarket and public parking garage a few hundred feet away. If all goes as planned, the array will expand to produce five to 10 megawatts--enough power for 4,000 homes.

The Verdant Power project marks a "very important first step" in the development of ocean energy projects in the U.S., says Carolyn Elefant of the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition. France has harnessed tidal power since 1966, and there are tidal power plants operating in Russia and Canada. Interest in ocean-energy projects in the U.S. lost momentum under President Reagan and has only rebounded in the past decade, Elefant adds.

There are now several proposals in development from Rhode Island to Hawaii, but getting them launched is no small challenge. Each project must be extensively researched, tested, sited and licensed, requiring time and millions of dollars of start-up capital. State governments have subsidized some projects, and the energy bill President Bush signed in August offered the first federal recognition to renewable ocean energy in two decades, but also bypassed giving it a key tax credit.

Still, the tide appears to have turned in favor of ocean energy, according to Jeff Deyette, an energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "There's a growing awareness." he says, "that our current energy system is unsustainable. There is an interest in finding ways to generate electricity from cleaner, reliable energy sources." CONTACT: Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition, (202)297-6100, www. oceanrenewable.com; Verdant Power, (703)528-6445, www.verdantpower.com.--Daniel Hendrick

Document Number: A138859487

Copyright 2006 VNU Business Media, Inc.All Rights Reserved

Brandweek

April 3, 2006

HEADLINE: Packaging: Marketers See 'Green' In Nature-Friendly PackagesBYLINE: Sonia ReyesHIGHLIGHT:

Wal-Mart, Publix, Mrs. Fields, Biota good to grow with NatureWorks PLA.

BODY:In January, Biota Brands of America tested the first bottled water in the U.S. sold in compostable, biodegradable containers. The eco-friendly product was such a success at 238 Publix supermarkets in Florida that Biota has since extended distribution statewide and beyond, with 480 locations including Whole Foods and Wild Oats. Biota Spring Water was included in the ecoSwagg bags distributed at the Academy Awards last month.

Biota is just one of numerous retailers and brands to partner with NatureWorks, Minnetonka, Minnesota, the leading manufacturer of 100% sustainable packaging. The company uses a technology that turns corn starch into a clear plastic called polylactide (PLA). NatureWorks PLA can be shaped into bottles, containers, trays, film and other packaging. It not only is �ber-environmentally friendly compared to the widely used petroleum-based plastic containers (PET), but also cost-effective. PLA packages are compostable when they disintegrate under high heat after 75 days, while it could take 1,000 years for a PET bottle to break down, per the Biodegradable Products Institute, New York. And with the price of oil expected to reach $70 a barrel this year, NatureWorks uses 20-50% less fossil fuels to make PLA.

These were key drivers behind Wal-Mart's decision to form an alliance with NatureWorks. This past November, Wal-Mart began a year-long effort to phase in NatureWorks PLAs for its store-brand produce, veggies, cakes and donuts. The world's No. 1 retailer also plans to launch gift cards made from NatureWorks PLA for the 2006 holiday season.

"We've found comfort in PLA and its ability to provide us a price-stable product as the price of oil needed to produce conventional packaging keeps climbing higher," said Tara Stewart, Wal-Mart's environmental affairs rep.

A study conducted by Wal-Mart prior to its first product launch showed that by replacing packaging on just four items (about 100 million PETs annually) with PLAs, it could save the equivalent of 800,000 gallons of gasoline and prevent more than 11 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from polluting the air.

"Clearly, when Wal-Mart wants to engage in an eco-friendly dialogue with consumers and

considers it part of their overall environmental strategy, they are raising the bar for others to follow," said Dennis McGrew, CEO at NatureWorks, a division of Cargill, Minneapolis.

NatureWorks partnerships also include Wild Oats, Newman's Own, Mrs. Fields and Del Monte. These alliances mark its first entry into the grocery aisle and are part of a broader strategy to brand NatureWorks PLA in the same way that Dupont has branded products that use its Solae soy.

A national print effort, via Campbell Mithun, Minneapolis, will break in May. Meanwhile, NatureWorks' logo will appear on-pack, with information via POP, brochures and at Natureworksllc.com

"People [are looking] to food and beverage marketers to help make a difference and present them with more planet-friendly choices," said David Zutler, founder and CEO at Biota, Telluride, Colo.

For Mrs. Fields, using NatureWorks PLA for its new Breezer smoothies made good sense. "We're able to offer our customers high-quality containers that are gentle on the environment," said Dale Thompson, vp-marketing at Mrs. Fields, Salt Lake City. "And they're price-competitive."

PLA-packaged items are not more expensive than their PET counterparts, said McGrew. But consumers are willing to pay more for "green." A study from research firm Grapentine, Ankeny, Iowa, conducted for NatureWorks in 2003, found that 50% of those surveyed would pay 20 cents more for products in PLA packages versus PET-packaged foods.

Wal-Mart may be preparing a broader PLA push. "We're still working on our marketing options for promotion in-store and other means to help educate consumers," said Stewart. "We'll be replacing our existing packaging with PLA containers in many phases. And that's just to start."

LOAD-DATE: April 9, 2006

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information Ltd.  Packaging (Australia)February 2006

HEADLINE: Sweet deal for 'Greener' packaging

Amcor Australasia and Plantic Technologies Limited have announced an alliance to work towards the development of a new biodegradable material, which if successful, has potential to change the mainstream confectionery packaging market and provide manufacturers and retailers with a cost effective, functional and environmentally-sustainable packaging solution.

The collaboration will encompass a research program over two years and will seek to build the Intellectual Property (IP) of both companies.

Plantic will provide its patented Plantic material: a plastic created from plants, which dissolves rapidly on contact with water.

Amcor will use the Plantic material to undertake trials of the resin in a commercial packaging film operation.

Plantic Technologies' COO Brendan Morris said: "We expect our alliance with Amcor will expand the market for Plantic resin into flexible packaging and further advance our technology.

"The market for flexible packaging is one of the largest in the world. Future commercialisation of the product will contribute to environmental sustainability by reducing the dependence on petrochemical plastics and ultimately achieve a cleaner environment for future generations."

To date, Plantic materials have been used as a rigid plastic in confectionery and biscuit trays.

Plantic's collaboration with Amcor aims to develop a thin and durable plastic for the flexible packaging of food and confectionery, such as chocolate bar wrappers and over wrap.

Plantic is also developing its portfolio of resins to include injection moulding grades.

Amcor Research and Technology general manager Dr Michele Allan, said: "This alliance combines our state-of-the-art forensic and development capability with Plantic's expertise in biodegradable product technology. It responds to demand from our customers for an improved biodegradable packaging solution and to consumer demand for environmentally friendly packaging in a broader range of products."

"Plantic is an international leader in the field of biodegradable plastics and therefore the logical partner for Amcor, given our leading position globally in flexible packaging," Dr Allan added.

Plantic is an Australian innovation success and has developed out of the Federal Government's cooperative research programs. This latest collaboration with Amcor further demonstrates the significant potential for use of Plantic materials both in Australia and overseas.

In the last three years, Plantic has completed commercial supply deals with Cadbury Schweppes, Lindt and Sprungli and Byron Bay Cookie Company.

Plantic has expanded its Melbourne facilities and has offices in the United Kingdom and continental Europe.

Since commercialisation of the company in 2002, Plantic's revenue has grown strongly and was ranked as one of BRW's Top Upstart companies in 2005.

Amcor is a leading global packaging manufacturer headquartered in Melbourne.

In Australia, the company produces a broad range of fibre, metal, plastic and glass packaging primarily for the food and beverage sector.

Amcor has extensive packaging research and technology capability supported by a range of strategic technical cooperation partnerships within Australia and overseas.

LOAD-DATE: February 7, 2006

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information, UK, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.All Rights Reserved

New Scientist, February 11, 2006

SECTION: NEWS; This Week; Pg. 8HEADLINE: Rebuilt from scratch this plant could help save 2 billion people; Wheat is doomed to lose its battle against drought and disease. But there is a way to keep on supplying the world's daily breadBYLINE: Andy Coghlan

WHEAT, the chief ingredient in everything from Ethiopian flat breads and Indian chapattis to French baguettes and American doughnuts, faces a crisis. Unless something drastic is done, climate change, disease and drought will ravage the crop that is the main source of food for 2 billion people.

Fortunately, a strategy is emerging to save wheat from oblivion. It involves neither genetic engineering nor subtle changes to farming techniques. Instead, the plant is being recreated over again from scratch. And test plantings of these "synthetic" wheats are raising hopes they will be resilient enough to feed billions of people well into the next century.

As plants go, wheat is a bit of a freak, originating some 30,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq, when two unrelated wild grasses Triticum urartu and Aegilops speltoides came together in a genetic accident, hybridising to create "emmer wheat", the forerunner of durum wheats used to make pasta today. Some 20,000 years later, a third wild plant, the goat grass Triticum tauschii , joined the party, creating Triticum aestivum , the type of wheat suitable for making bread.

This serendipitous coming together produced a hexaploid plant - one that contains three pairs of chromosomes. But hexaploidy contains the seeds of wheat's current problems: such plants cannot be cross-bred with other species, which usually have only one or two pairs of chromosomes. This makes it almost impossible to introduce new traits such as tolerance to salt or drought. An inefficient method called genetic introgression can be used to fuse chunks of chromosomes of related plants into wheat, but it is not very successful. Instead, plant breeders have focused on maximising wheat's own genetic potential, which, in the main, has meant selecting for new wheat varieties with progressively higher yields.

Now even this limited room for manoeuvre is running out. As the natural genetic variability of wheat becomes exhausted, the crop has been left exposed to a rapidly changing environment. New fungal diseases are emerging and in the American Midwest, the country's bread basket, farmers are suffering the worst drought for more than a century. History reminds us how calamitous such events can be. In the 1930s, the "Dust Bowl drought" wreaked havoc on American agriculture. During the 1950s a fungal disease called stem rust 15b devastated the nation's pasta wheat crop.

Scientists raced to head off another catastrophe. A breakthrough came 15 years ago, when scientists at the International Wheat and Maize Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico

discovered a way to cross a wild variant of emmer wheat with a wild variant of goat grass. Normally, the result of such crosses is triploid, with just three chromosomes, each lacking the twin it needs to be fertile (the hexaploidy that made Triticum aestivum fertile was a lucky genetic accident). But by exposing the triploid plants to the chemical colchinine, each chromosome could be tricked into making the twin it needed to become fertile, and thus crossable with modern hexaploid wheats.

This technique has since been used to create more than 1000 varieties of synthetic wheat from the many thousands of wild varieties of emmer wheat and goat grass that have spent the past 10,000 years adapting to new conditions. "These relatives have carried on evolving in very hot, dry places," says Jonathan Crouch, head of the genetic resources programme at CIMMYT. The new synthetic wheats obtained by crossing tough wild strains can be cross-bred with conventional wheat to introduce new traits. "The synthetics are ugly things, but they contain valuable genes," says Richard Trethowan, senior wheat breeder at CIMMYT.

They are now beginning to show their worth. Last December, Crouch told a conference in Cambridge, UK, that one artificial variety has just produced yields 50 per cent greater than normal wheat in drought conditions in Mexico. Yields proved 5 to 40 per cent higher than with normal wheat in test plantings in India, Pakistan, Ecuador, Australia and Argentina. In a paper submitted to The Journal of Experimental Biology , the researchers say the success of this synthetic wheat lies with its unusually deep roots, which dig into the soil to find water.

Other synthetic wheats tested show tolerance to extreme heat, with varieties coping well with temperatures of up to 40 oC in Mexico's Sonora desert. Such heat-tolerant strains will be vital if climate change leads to higher temperatures. A 2 oC rise depresses wheat yields by up to 15 per cent in warm countries such as India and Pakistan, Trethowan says. "If wheat production fails in these countries, you're talking about considerable social and economic instability."

Synthetic wheats are also appearing that are resilient to a range of emerging crop diseases. In east Africa, the Ug99 strain of stem rust has been causing wheat to wither in the field, while elsewhere a disease known as Take-all, caused by a soil fungus that damages roots, can cut yields by 40 per cent. Another, fusarium head blight, not only attacks the ears of growing wheat plants but contaminates the harvest with toxins that render the crop dangerous to eat. Synthetic wheats resistant to these and other fungal diseases have been identified, and researchers are working to turn these into commercial crops.

Last month the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, in Cambridge, UK, signed a contract with CIMMYT to co-develop new varieties. Wayne Powell, the institute's chief executive, says he hopes it will become a model for developing crops without genetic modification.

The new strains could have many desirable traits, such as extra mineral content. CIMMYT has identified synthetic wheats with 50 per cent more iron than usual and 80 per cent more zinc. The new varieties could help farmers as they try to adapt to climate change. As temperatures change, wheat will grow at other latitudes, where the length of day is different. "We can't change that, but we can change the way wheat responds to it," says Powell, who envisages synthetic wheats that develop at the right times in unfamiliar environments.

The New York Times April 16, 2005 pC1(L) China's Problem With 'Anti-Pest' Rice. (Business/Financial Desk) Barboza, David

Abstract: Greenpeace claims that rice grown in the Hubei province of China has been genetically modified. Commercial cultivation of genetically engineered crops is currently illegal in China, but approval for the pest-resistant rice is expected later this year.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 The New York Times CompanyThe farmer reaches down into a sack he keeps stored on the second floor of his house in a small farming village south of here and pulls up a fistful of rice that he says has no equal. ''This is really remarkable rice,'' he says, forcing it into the hands of his guests. ''All you do is plant it and it grows. You don't need to use all those chemicals any more.'' The farmer and other crop growers in this area call this unique variety ''anti-pest rice'' because it acts as its own insect repellent in the rice paddies. But some Chinese growers and foreign specialists say they suspect much of this region's rice has been genetically modified. And in China, it is illegal to sell genetically modified rice on the open market. The environmental group Greenpeace, which had rice in this area tested by an independent lab in Germany, says the results show that some of the rice was altered with a gene that creates resistance to pests. Although experiments with gene-altered rice are under way in most rice-producing countries, including the United States, no country produces it for commercial sale. Cultivation and consumption have been tempered by criticism over the potential health or environmental consequences. Although no such effects have been proved, the opposition has worried regulators, leading them to be cautious in approving gene-altered rice. It also has prompted reluctance among growers around the world to embrace a crop that may be labeled Frankenstein food. Yet in several small villages around Wuhan, in Hubei province, a large rice-growing region in central China, genetically engineered rice appears to be for sale, even by government officials who are supposed to be enforcing a ban on its sale until it is approved for commercialization, perhaps this year. Chinese officials hope the commercialization of genetically engineered rice in China, the largest producer and consumer of rice, will be a momentous global event, because rice is the world's largest and most important food staple. If the technology works, genetically engineered rice could offer higher yields. But now activists like Greenpeace are warning that in Hubei, genetically engineered rice has prematurely seeped into a corner of China's food system. They say the possible health and environmental risks are worrisome because genetic engineering is still in the experimental stage. If biotech rice has found its way into the food system here, China has become the first place in the world where a major crop, in this instance rice, is being directly consumed by humans -- and without regulatory approval. But there are many unanswered questions, starting with the scale or even the existence of any risks to health. Gerard Barry, a scientist at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, said there was virtually no evidence that genetically modified crops were harmful to humans. He said the

gene used in China's biotech rice could be similar to the gene in what is called BT corn and cotton, which is approved for use in Europe and the United States. ''There have been multiple approvals in corn and cotton, and there has been nothing to suggest allergies or other problems,'' he said. There are other unanswered questions. Chinese government officials say they are beginning their own investigation, so aside from explanations from local farmers, there are no official answers to questions about how much or how long the rice has been sold and how many people may have eaten it. Greenpeace said it bought rice in seed markets and had the suspect packages tested by GeneScan, a respected biotech lab in Germany. Many sellers here said the supplies came from a local university that specializes in biotech rice research. They said bags of rice could be bought there. But the university store was also out of the rice. ''All the anti-bug seeds have been sold out,'' said a woman operating the store at the Huazhong Agriculture University in Wuhan. ''We started to sell them around January, and it was the most popular product and sold out in the middle of February.'' At a government-owned seed market south of Wuhan, a sales agent said the ''anti-pest rice'' was no longer available and in any case, it was not legal to sell it. There was none at the government store, he said.

But minutes later, after some negotiation, the government sales officer agreed to sell a bag of ''anti-bug rice'' for a premium price. His assistant then pulled a bag from under a shelf and placed it in a dark bag.

The bag of seed has the same label that Greenpeace identified as containing a variety of genetically engineered rice. The label shows a lightning bolt striking a bug.

The package does not identify the seeds as genetically modified rice but only as ''anti-pest'' rice.

Greenpeace's accusations are certain to complicate China's aggressive push to commercialize genetically engineered rice, which proponents had hoped would drastically alter the debate over the safety of genetically modified crops.

Scientists here hoped the Chinese government would approve biotech rice and declare its consumption safe later this year, setting the stage for other rice-producing countries in Asia to introduce their own versions of biotech rice. But now, China is dealing with a situation that has plagued biotech efforts in other parts of the world after unapproved varieties of corn, for example, leached into the food supply and black market biotech seeds were smuggled across borders.

In the United States, genetically modified corn is a growing portion of the market, and modified soybeans are widely sold and well accepted. But the health and environmental concerns that crept up in the late 1990's have stalled the commercialization of biotech wheat.

This week, Anheuser-Busch, the nation's largest beer maker and the No.1 buyer of rice, threatened to stop buying rice in Missouri if some farmers grew genetically modified rice in field tests. Yesterday, however, the company reached a compromise after the state pushed the farmers to grow the gene-altered crops 120 miles from other rice fields.

Fears in Europe and America that the crops have not been sufficiently tested has spurred debate over the last seven years, but not in China, where biotech research, particularly on rice, is largely driven by government labs trying to improve crop yields and reduce pesticide use. But now, the government investigation, led by China's agriculture ministry, will examine Greenpeace's assertion that a group of ''rogue scientists'' have sold experimental varieties of genetically altered rice on the open market to consumers in Hubei.

''This is irresponsible and dangerous,'' says Sze Pang Cheung, a Greenpeace official who helped uncover the sales in Hubei and estimates that more than 1,000 tons of genetically engineered rice are on the local market. ''The government needs to act. If they cannot control G.E. rice even at the experimental stage, how are they going to control large-scale commercialization?''

Still, just a day after Greenpeace announced its findings, seed market officials in Hubei talked openly about the popularity of the ''anti-pest rice'' and admitted selling it at a premium price, saying they had recently run out of stock.

Farmers and seed market officials here say the planting of biotech seeds is widespread in the region and has occurred for about two years. But they also say many farmers do not eat the rice they harvest. Some farmers think that anything that kills a field pest could also prove harmful to people.

But the farmer holding the fistful of rice in his home says he and his family eat all the anti-pest rice he produces.

''Why not?'' he says with a broad smile. ''I don't believe the government would poison its own people.''

CAPTION(S): Photos: A bag of rice labeled as ''anti-pest.'' (Photo by David Barboza/The New York Times)(pg. C1); At a news conference, the environmental group Greenpeace allowed reporters to inspect the genetically engineered rice. The group said that some of the rice was altered with a gene that creates resistance to pests. (Photo by Samantha Sin/Agence-France Presse -- Getty Images)(pg. C3) Document Number: A131545527

Environment April 2005 v47 i3 p7(1) Suds in the soil. (SPECTRUM)(phytoremediation for soil contaminants)

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Heldref Publications

Detergent-producing plants may pave the way for a new method of cleaning up toxic sites, a Michigan State University scientist says. Clayton Rugh, an assistant professor of crop and soil sciences, explains that in the early stages of phytoremediation--using plants to remove contaminants from the soil--plants were used like sponges, soaking up toxic substances so they could be safely discarded. The next step, Rugh says, is to use plants with roots that make detergents to break down toxins. "What we're looking at now are kind of 'Mop & Glo[R]' plants," Rugh says. "These plants make detergents that secrete into the soil, making the plant a kind of site custodian." Rugh is collaborating with an international team of colleagues to prompt plants to produce biological detergent compounds, called biosurfactants, that target hydrophobic pollutants. These water-insoluble pollutants--which include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), pesticides, and dioxins that cling tightly to soil--present some of the most difficult remediation challenges. Cleaning up these persistent chemicals usually requires large-scale, expensive dredging or aggressive chemical or thermal treatments. Rugh and colleagues are having success with genetic engineering, isolating bacteria that naturally produce biological detergents and inserting them into plants. The plants then gain the ability to release detergents that "ultimately strip the toxic compounds off the soil particles and into the rhizosphere [the root structure], where they meet their demise. If you change the soil chemistry properly, you really can crank up the phytoremediation process," says Rugh. The plants and soil microbes can then convert the toxins into more benign chemicals. "We're engineering tobacco plants to treat cancer-causing pollutants," Rugh said. "Now there's some beautiful irony." This method offers a cheaper, less ecologically disruptive alternative to digging up enormous polluted sites.

--Michigan State University press release, 18 February. (S.B.)

Document Number: A131366148

The Futurist  April 1999 v33 i4 p6(2)

Flowers that fight pollution.

AUTHOR(s): Johnson, Dan

ABSTRACT

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance found out some varieties of flowering plants can help clean up polluted water and land. The processes used by certain plants in cleaning are called phytoremediation. This process has been tested against petroleum, pesticides and explosives.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1999 World Future Society

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DOCUMENT: Plants clean up contaminated fields and ponds.

Sunflowers, poplar trees, and other plants are helping to clean up contaminated land and water, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a group that tracks environmentally sound economic development strategies.

Certain plants can absorb soil contaminants such as heavy metals and store them in their tissue. Other plants clean the soil surrounding their roots by stimulating microbial degradation. The right kind of vegetation can also purify groundwater or turn absorbed contaminants into less-toxic substances. These processes are called phytoremediation, and pollution researchers have been testing it against everything from petroleum and pesticides to chlorinated solvents and explosives.

Cleaning up with plants has several advantages over the traditional techniques of soil excavation, incineration, chemical treatment, and land filling. It can be used to decontaminate large areas, to minimize disturbance to the environment, and to permanently neutralize organic contaminants rather than just transferring toxic materials to a landfill.

Phytoremediation also has some disadvantages: Animals may feed on the contaminated plants. In some cases, pollutants are released directly into the atmosphere. Soil remediation is limited to about three feet (the depth of the plant's roots). Also, the process sometimes requires several growing seasons.

Most significantly, cleaning up with plants costs only about one-half to one-fifth as much as conventional cleanup methods. For example, digging up and incinerating metal-contaminated soil costs between $200 and $1,500 per ton, while plants can do the job for $25 to $100 per ton, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. There is a $12 billion annual U.S. market for

cleaning up polluted areas, and attempts to commercialize the power of plants have increased in recent years.

A number of companies are conducting demonstration projects in plant-cleanup technology. Phytotech Inc., of Monmouth Junction, New Jersey, specializes in getting rid of metals and radioactive material. in a 1996 field study at a pond near Chernobyl, the company used sunflowers to remove 95% of the pond's radioactive strontium and cesium in 10 days. Phytotech has also had success using Indian mustard plants to remove lead from soil. Phytokinetics Inc., of Logan, Utah, has used perennial ryegrass on one site contaminated with wood-preservative chemicals and tall fescue grass to tackle petroleum hydrocarbons at a former petroleum terminal.

"It is too early to determine if this young industry will develop into a viable solution to polluted land and water," says Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. "But these field tests are providing mounting evidence of phytoremediation's effectiveness, a necessary step toward building commercial credibility and acceptance among regulators and the public."

Source: The Carbohydrate Economy (Winter 1998), Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 1313 Fifth Street, S.E., Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414. Telephone 1-612-379-3815; Web site www.ilsr.org.

Source Citation: "Flowers that fight pollution." The Futurist, April 1999 v33 i4 p6(2). Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 09 April 2006 <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=A54349236>

Document Number: A54349236

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Popular Science  March 1, 2005 v266 i3 p28

The 54-Story Air Filter: New York City is hatching the world's greenest skyscraper. Recycling has never looked so swank. (Headlines/Architecture)

(Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park)AUTHOR(s): Di Justo, Patrick Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Time Inc. DOCUMENT: Byline: Patrick Di Justo

With mandatory composting, recycled rainwater, and abundant fresh air, it sounds like a hippie commune, not a sleek New York high-rise. But when it's completed in 2008, the Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, on the corner of 42nd Street and Sixth Avenue, should be the most environmentally friendly skyscraper in the world. By combining new technologies--vertical-axis wind turbine, waterless urinals, LED lighting--with old tricks such as composting, ice-based air conditioning, and rainwater collection, the building's designers expect it to be the largest structure to earn a top-level "platinum" rating for efficiency from the U.S. Green Building Council, the nation's foremost coalition to promote environmentally sustainable architecture and construction.

To make One Bryant Park a model of extreme energy-efficiency, the $1-billion structure is being built with as many recycled materials as possible. Some 45 percent of its concrete, for instance, will consist of blast-furnace slag--leftover waste generated from iron processing--which means cement manufacturers won't have to make new aggregate, avoiding the release of more than 50,000 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And an estimated 75 percent of the tower's construction debris will be recycled.

Although the eco-features will boost construction costs by about 6.5 percent, the building will save its occupants about $3 million a year in energy costs, and increase productivity by $7 million annually, according to Cook+Fox, the architectural firm designing the skyscraper. If that's the case, the green features will have paid for themselves just seven years after the building opens.--PATRICK DI JUSTO

THE ECO-FRIENDLY SKYSCRAPER

1 LET IT RAIN New York City receives an average of 49 inches of rain a year. Over the building's two-acre footprint, that adds up to 2.6 million gallons of free water. Collectors on the building's rooftops will pipe rainwater into four storage tanks, where it will be treated and used to flush toilets, irrigate green space, and cool the air.

2 HOME-GROWN JUICE An on-site 5.1-megawatt electrical generator--the largest ever installed in a New York City office building--will provide for all of the building's base electrical needs (lights, elevators, pumps). Only office equipment will be powered by the city's electrical grid. The generator can also output power to the city's grid if needed.

3 GROUNDWATER The city's groundwater, buried in bedrock, maintains a near-constant temperature of 53[degrees]F. A heat exchanger in the basement pulls this residual heat out of the ground in winter and uses it to warm the building. In summer, it pumps excess building heat into the bedrock.

4 SKY-HIGH TURBINE An estimated 50 percent of the building's electrical power may be purchased from green sources, such as wind farms in upstate New York. In addition, the building's smaller spire may house a vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) to generate auxiliary power. (The Freedom Tower, to be built on the site of the World Trade Center, is also expected to make use of a VAWT.)

5 A BETTER JOHN Each of the building's 200 waterless urinals saves an estimated 40,000 gallons of water a year. Urine flows through a funnel-shaped cartridge installed just above the drain. A fluid sealant inside the cartridge traps odors, leaving a fresh-smelling latrine. No flushing necessary.

6 DREAM CUBICLES Unlike many office towers, which recirculate air so that one person's exhale is another's inhale (giving rise to so-called sick-building syndrome), One Bryant Park's ventilation system sucks in outside air through vents at the eighth floor. This air is filtered to remove particulates, circulated throughout the building, refiltered, and then released outside cleaner than when it came in.

7 A SMARTER VIEW An all-glass skyscraper can quickly turn into a vertical greenhouse during a steamy New York summer. One Bryant Park will be faced with 20,825 square feet of double-insulated glass that reflects 100 percent of ultraviolet rays but lets in 73 percent of visible light. This design keeps the interior cooler in summer and reduces heat loss in winter.

8 TRASH DIGESTION Every day, two tons of waste, including shredded paper and food scraps from the building's cafeteria, will be dumped into a 1,000-gallon vat of organic waste seeded with bacteria. The bacteria will digest the slurry and turn it into methane or biodiesel fuel. This is then fed to a turbine, which produces an additional 75 kilowatts--enough to power the on-site Bank of America branch.

9 CLIMATE CONTROL Human bodies and office equipment can quickly make a well-insulated building uncomfortably warm. To cool the building, fresh air is passed through tanks of ice made by the building's electrical generator each night and then gently blown throughout the building during the day. The air emerges through floor vents, which can be individually controlled at each office cubicle. A conventional A/C draws most of its power during peak daytime hours.

Source Citation: "The 54-Story Air Filter: New York City is hatching the world's greenest skyscraper. Recycling has never looked so swank." (Headlines/Architecture)(Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park) Popular Science, March 1, 2005 v266 i3 p28. Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 10 April 2006 <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=A129183508>

Document Number: A129183508

Popular Mechanics  Feb 2003 v180 i2 p22(1)

Windows made from trash. (Technology Watch). (Royal Group Technologies Ltd.)(Brief Article)

AUTHOR(s): Coledan, Stefano; Gourley, Scott; Ross, Jim; Turnbull, Andy

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 ? Hearst Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved

DOCUMENT: Plastic-rich city trash is a valuable raw material, say executives for Royal Group Technologies (RGT). The Toronto-based company turns urban waste into feedstock for molding machines. When the trash is shredded, the plastic uniformly disperses. Upon heating, it acts as a binder and the other materials serve as filler. This year, RGT plans to convert about 200,000 tons of trash from Canada into homebuilding products.

Source Citation: "Windows made from trash. (Technology Watch)." (Royal Group Technologies Ltd.)(Brief Article) Popular Mechanics, Feb 2003 v180 i2 p22(1). Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 10 April 2006 <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=A96555113>

Document Number: A96555113

Journal of Environmental Health  July-August 2005 v68 i1 p53(1)

Cleaning water and controlling flooding with wetlands. (EH Update)

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 National Environmental Health Association

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DOCUMENT: Constructed wetlands in planned communities can aid in surface-water cleanup and flood prevention, according to Purdue University scientists who have completed a five-year study on the management system.

The research, begun in 1998 on three constructed ponds, or wetland cells, on a newly renovated golf course on the university campus, showed that 11 of 17 measurable chemicals in surface water were reduced after water was run through the system, said Ron Turco, soil microbiologist and senior author of the report. The results of the study are published in the February 2005 issue of Ecological Engineering.

"Golf courses are a perfect place for constructed wetlands used as part of a water management system, because wetlands can filter chemicals out of surface water, and they can also store excess water during storms," Turco said.

In addition, constructed wetlands act as a holding area that can provide recycled water for irrigation, a system the scientists used on the golf course, he said.

Constructed wetlands can also be a very good water management system in planned communities. "When you build houses, roads, and driveways," Turco said, "lots of hard surface is added, leaving no place for water to go. Building dikes and levees just moves the water problem somewhere else, causing flooding elsewhere."

The wetlands also are of aesthetic value on golf courses and in residential areas, and they create homes for wildlife and flora, Turco said. Using the recycled water for irrigation ensures that the wetlands remain wet, and the recycled surface water is less expensive than pumped groundwater.

The researchers evaluated a three-pond system on Purdue's Pete Dye-designed Kampen Golf Course. The almost 11,000 water plants placed in the ponds were responsible, along with microbes, for retaining or degrading the various chemicals associated with surrounding urban sprawl and the course itself. Chemicals found in water entering the system included atrazine, chloride, nitrate, ammonia, nitrogen, organic carbon, phosphorus, aluminum, iron, potassium, and manganese. In all, 83 chemicals were monitored, though only 17 were present in measurable amounts.

Four water quality monitors located along the wetland system checked for chemical levels. The first monitor was at the golf course's east end where surface water enters the course. The fourth monitor was at the northwest end, where water leaves the course and enters the celery bog.

The scientists also measured how much water entered and how fast it flowed through the system, and then compared data taken during both storm and nonstorm days.

It's important to design wetlands so they have enough capacity to handle the runoff in the particular water management area, Turco said. The speed of the water flow and the depths of the ponds must vary to ensure that the microbes remain active so that they can degrade contaminants.

Currently the scientists are planning new constructed-wetlands studies in other venues. In addition to Turco, they are Eric A. Kohler and Zac Reicher, both of the Department of Agronomy, and Vickie L. Poole, of the Department of Forestry and Natural Resources. The United States Golf Association, the Indiana Water Resources Research Center, and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) Region 5 provided funding for the study.

Source Citation: "Cleaning water and controlling flooding with wetlands." (EH Update) Journal of Environmental Health, July-August 2005 v68 i1 p53(1). Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 10 April 2006 <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=A135120703>

Document Number: A135120703

Machine Design  July 7, 2005 v77 i13 p86(5)

Machining with less coolant: minimum quantity lubricant machining is an economically and ecologically reasonable alternative to traditional wet

machining. (Advanced manufacturing industry focus)

AUTHOR(s): Quaile, Ron Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2005 Penton Media Inc.

Ron Quaile Vice President Cross Huller North America Sterling Heights, Mich.

It's common practice in manufacturing to rely on coolants to keep the machine, cutting tools, and workpieces thermally stable and undamaged. Coolant also washes away chips. But coolant has significant costs. These include the costs for buying, filtering, separating, and disposing of it, not to mention EPA documentation requirements. All together they make up 15% of the entire life cycle cost of a machine tool.

Tighter EPA rules are on the horizon for using and disposing of coolant, along with protecting workers from it. These rules will surely raise the cost of using coolant. (It already costs more to get rid of coolant than it does to buy it.)

A new approach, Minimum Quantity Lubricant (MQL) machining, could change the situation. Though primarily used for aluminum, MQL is an economical, environmentally friendly alternative to wet machining.

USING JUST ENOUGH

The goal of MQL is to use just enough oil in an aerosol to act as a coolant and lubricant to minimize friction and heat. The diameter of the aerosol particulates, however, must be within tight tolerances for optimum wetting and lubrication. Although early attempts at applying oil and air failed because they separate at high speeds, newer MQL machines are as effective as wet operations at maintaining lubricity. The Cross Huller Specht duo, for example, a high-performance, two-spindle CNC module built for wet and MQL operations, features a precision dosing system. It is built into the motorized spindle housing for rapid responses.

In ENC machines designed for MQL, the software for a specific part controls the amount and duration of aerosol spray. This is important because different parts are made using a variety of machining processes, and each needs a different amount of lubrication. Milling, for example, is a surface operation and requires a minimum amount of lubricity. But tapping and thread cutting call for much more because of the high surface pressures involved.

In the Specht duo, the CNC program controls a dosing valve, which meters out precise amounts of lubricant. The lubricant is then mixed with air to form the required aerosol, which is fed through ducts in the cutting tool to the cutting edge. It's such a short distance between the dosing

valve and the cutting surfaces, the aerosol stays cool and fully mixed for good cooling and lubrication.

To minimize the amount of lubricant used, the aerosol switches off as the spindle moves from one hole to another. This also eliminates oil buildup on the workpiece and the machine, making clean up faster. Chips produced with the MQL system remain essentially dry, so time-consuming and costly coolant-recovery operations are unnecessary.

Coolants for wet machining are typically water-based emulsions with 6 to 8% oil. Oil concentrations are not optimized for any specific tool and are never really an optimum concentration because constant evaporation and replenishment makes it either too diluted or too concentrated. In MQL, on the other hand, all the fluid in the aerosol is oil for superior lubricity and less wear on the tools.

KEEPING SILICON OUT

Tool life and surface finish with MQL are also improved because there are no abrasive silicon particles suspended in the coolant. Aluminum contains about 13% silicon, which is made from a quartzlike material and is extremely abrasive. In wet machining, silicon is practically always present in the recycled coolant despite filtration systems that eliminate 40-[micro]m particles. It's the silicon particles smaller than 40 [micro]m passing through filters that shorten tool life.

KEEPING THINGS COOL

There are considerations engineers should be aware of when designing for MQL. One of the most important is to maintain thermal stability and introduce as little heat into the machining process as possible. For example, changing the sequence of machining operations affects how much heat goes into the part. And temperature-compensation algorithms let the CNC machines calculate how a thermal load will affect machining accuracy and make adjustments that turn out parts and features within tolerances despite the heat.

Another way to minimize heat is to keep incoming parts quarantined until their temperatures stabilize. For example, at one plant, aluminum wheel knuckles are machined from parts received directly from a foundry next door. A probe measures the incoming parts' temperature. If it is too high, the parts are kept in a queue until cool enough for machining. Once the knuckles reach the right temperature, robots load them into machine tool.

If inventory is too small for quarantining parts, experts can develop a temperature compensation algorithm for a specific part. Complex parts may not expand uniformly when heated. To derive a temperature-compensation algorithm, a part is artificially heated to determine how it expands. A look-up table is developed and then included with the part program. Based on temperature readings from a probe, the program adjusts where the machine tool cuts specific features.

In wet machining, a part is normally rough machined then finish machined. For example, pockets and cavities, as well as threading and tapping operations, are done first, then finishing operations are run.

In MQL machining, however, designers should use rough machining only for what is essential to shape the part because it generates so much heat. The part is then finish machined before it can heat up. For example, bearing bores and dowel holes with a tight positional tolerance are finished relatively early in the process, versus later in a normal wet process. Finally, miscellaneous operations relatively immune to heat and in no need of much cooling, such as drilling and tapping, are handled after finish machining.

TOOL AND CHIP REMOVAL

Some MQL processes, including milling, drilling, and tapping, as well as finish cam boring and finish machining of valve seats and guides, call for cutting tools with lubrication ducts. These ducts transfer aerosol lubricants specified by the part program to the cutting edge of the tool. The duct needs to be properly tuned because any abrupt changes in the duct's diameter or blind endings will prevent the free flow of aerosol. This causes the aerosol to turn into large globules of oil and it looses its lubricity properties.

There are a variety of techniques and systems for effectively removing chips that don't rely on coolant. For example, stainless-steel chips cut at steep angles eliminate nests of chips. Vacuum systems can recover fine particulates (mists and dusts), and conveyors can remove chips from machines. Ultimately, however, the best way to minimize machine-tool contamination is by using MQL and a responsive mixing system. This eliminates the need to recover any coolant. It also means never manually cleaning chips off the walls of the machine.

PUTTING MQL TO WORK

Jumping headlong into MQL can lead to a variety of machining problems related to heat, tool fife, and chip removal. However, if you use tools designed for MQL and systems and strategies to control heat, you can replace coolants. Some times it takes special tooling with high-performance coatings, heat-resistant materials, and lubricant ducts, as well as chip evacuation systems.

With properly designed tools, however, you can use the same feed rates and speeds you used with wet machining. And tool life should stay the same.

MQL machining reduces costs and protects the environment. In the final analysis, as long as the mixing and dispersion of oil is precisely controlled, part quality remains as good as or better than wet machining processes.

Ron Quaile Vice President Cross Holler North America Sterling Heights, Mich.

Source Citation: "Machining with less coolant: minimum quantity lubricant machining is an economically and ecologically reasonable alternative to traditional wet machining." (Advanced manufacturing industry focus) Machine Design, July 7, 2005 v77 i13 p86(5). Science Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 10 April 2006 <http://0-galenet.galegroup.com.mill1.sjlibrary.org:80/servlet/SciRC?ste=1&docNum=A134383848>

Document Number: A134383848