USDA Awards $5 Million To Develop BioJet Fuel

Posted on September 28, 2011 by quest

Gevo, Inc., a leading renewable chemicals and advanced biofuels company, received a $5 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the development of biojet fuel from woody biomass and forest product residues. The award is a portion of a $40 million grant presented to the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance (NARA), a consortium led by Washington State University (WSU).”This is an opportunity to create thousands of new jobs and drive economic development in rural communities across America by building the framework for a competitively-priced, American-made biofuels industry,” said U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. “Public-private partnerships like these will drive our nation to develop a national biofuels economy that continues to help us grow and out-compete the rest of the world while moving our nation toward a clean energy economy.”

NARA includes a broad consortium of scientists from universities, government laboratories and private industry. The WSU-led grant aims to address the urgent national need for a domestic biofuel alternative for U.S. commercial and military air fleets. The NARA project envisions developing a new, viable, aviation fuel industry using wood and wood waste in the Pacific Northwest, where forests cover almost half of the region. The project also will focus on increasing the profitability of wood-based fuels through development of high-value, biobased co-products to replace petrochemicals that are used in products such as plastics.

“The airline industry and the United States Department of Defense are eagerly looking for near-term alternatives to petroleum-based jet fuel,” said Patrick Gruber, Ph.D., CEO of Gevo. “Woody biomass has the potential to be a cost-effective and sustainable option for biorefineries. This project should help accelerate the commercial deployment of cellulosic biorefineries, grow the economy in rural America and contribute to home grown energy independence.” Gevo previously announced its progress to airline engine testing using starch derived isobutanol to jet fuel. Gevo expects to receive full fuel certification by 2013 from the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) for its biojet fuel.

Serious Eco Fashion In Portland

GREEN NEWS WALL

Eco Friendly Sustainable Clothes You Grow

Posted on May 22, 2011 by quest

The concept for BioCouture originated during the research for Suzanne Leeʼs book ʻFashioning The Future: tomorrowʼs wardrobe.’ A serendipitous conversation in 2003 with Dr. David Hepworth, a biologist and materials scientist, presented a new vision of future fashion – one that emerges fully-formed from a vat of liquid.

Rather than exploit plants or petrochemicals to provide the raw material for fabric BioCouture is  investigating the use of microbes to grow a textile biomaterial. Certain bacteria will spin  microfibrils of pure cellulose during fermentation which form a dense layer that can be harvested and dried. It can then either be used wet or molded onto a 3D form, like a dress shape, or dry it flat and then cut and sewed into a garment. From there it can readily be dyed and printed on the material and since it requires far less dye than other fibres it has a huge environmental advantage.

With so many environmental concerns related to the production, consumption and disposal of fashion textiles BioCouture is pioneering a new eco-friendly and sustainable alternative. The future scale up of this material would also seek to use waste streams, for example from the food or drinks industry, to fuel the microbial-cellulose production.

What Suzanne started as a fashion project has now evolved into a bio materials project. They are only just  beginning to imagine what other uses there might be for this material. Right now these clothes  are experimental prototypes and not commercially available, and, as the material is still in development. See: Susanne Lee on growing clothes

NEW YORK ECO FASHION WEEK

Eco fashion runway at Yellowstone National Park

Posted on October 12, 2010 by quest

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Talk about green pioneers, Anna & Carl Herman have made a mark not just in the small town of Deer Lodge, Montana but also in the eco fashion world. Fall is a big season in the world of fashion and so it is in eco fashion as well. Eco fashion shows in New York, London and Vancouver just wrapped up so it’s refreshing to see it’s not just those cities that have eco swagger. Anna Herman Eco has been designing clothes most of her life and went green some time ago as a result of an interest in making clothes that are fair trade, safe, well made and fashionable.

Anna Herman Eco just put on The Green Eco Show on location at Yellowstone as the backdrop and runway. “We’re considered a bit colorful in our little town. We run the local general store, do recycling, run a small organic farm and do composting. Not only do we do well with our hemp clothes online with customers in the US, we also sell and ship around the world. Every time we sell our mens’ yoga pants we mark it on a map we’ve posted on the wall in our studio, which is located in the attic of an old white victorian we also live in. If someone in town wants to buy any of our clothes they just go around to our little retail store and buy it there.”

ANNA HERMAN ECO FASHION SHOW AT YELLOWSTONE

This is the second year of The Green Eco Show but the first at Yellowstone. The models are friends and family…and yes that’s Carl and Anna “struttin their eco stuff” in the video. Work it!

See some other eco fashions

Surfer Dudes make Rapanui Eco Fashion Cool

Posted on October 9, 2010 by quest

Rapanui has just won the UK 2010 Sustainable Business Awards and now employs 12 full time staff in its office in Bembridge. This achievement is even more remarkable considering the brand was founded with only $316 of savings in University halls; recognized when Rapanui won a runners-up place at the 2010 Enterprising Young Brits Awards. The Brothers’ ethos of ‘doing business the right way’ won them a finalist place at the 2010 RSPCA Good Business Awards. Rapanui was set up by brothers Mart and Rob Drake-Knight in early 2008 now aged 23 and 25 respectively. Through surfing they saw and experienced the changing environment and climate at their local beach and as inspired, unemployed graduates in a recession, they took a different path; if you can’t find a job, make one. The aim still is to inform through the brand and mix eco with trend – to make it fashionable for people to go green.

Rapanui makes clothing from natural organic fabrics in a Fair Trade audited, wind powered factory. They say it’s not that people don’t care about child labor, the environment, our climate, it’s just they don’t know. They make it easier for people to see where clothing comes from and how it is made so they can make informed choices. It’s called Traceability. The brand’s forte is its radical approach to Sustainability: Rapanui take a total life cycle approach to their product’s human, environmental and climatic impact, and address each aspect. This is not a clothing company ticking the green box. This is a company aiming to change the entire fashion industry. Rapanui uses Certified Organic fabrics, Fair-Trade labor and Renewable Energy.

Rapanui has held Seminars and Lectures at UK and EU universities and multinational companies such as Centrica PLC on Sustainable Business and sit on the Panel at Plymouth University’s All our Futures Conference. These events have helped Rapanui share their Eco-Labelling idea, a way of packaging textiles products to communicate the effects caused by their buying action, essentially a way of forcing and regulating transparent business ethics in textiles. Rapanui also hosts the national petition for Textiles Eco-Labelling at 10 Downing Street. Rob and Martin Drake-Knight are listed on the Future 100 List of Top young Ethical Entrepreneurs.

NEW SOLAR ENERGY INTL ONLINE COURSE

Blue jeans go green

Posted on October 7, 2010 by quest

Looks as if everyone’s getting into going green. Gap has just announced from Blue to Green. Gap wants shoppers to gather their old jeans and bring them to a local Gap store where they will receive 30% off new “1969″ jeans purchases just in time for fall.

Today through October 20, Gap and Cotton Incorporated are teaming up to collect old denim, which will be given a “new life” by being converted into UltraTouch Denim Insulation and donated to communities in need. Shoppers can recycle their denim at more than 1,000 Gap stores in the U.S. and Canada.

Gap North America President Marka Hansen said, “Earlier this year, we partnered with Cotton Incorporated on their first ever national denim drive with a retailer, and it was met with such success that we wanted to give our customers another opportunity to recycle their old denim, help communities in need, and update their fall wardrobe with the latest 1969 jeans. FROM BLUE TO GREEN.’ merges the ideas of fashion, environmental sustainability and helping others.” I still want too see if you can get solar power from jeans.