...! BIODIESEL INCORPORATED (Case Study p565-569) Joshua Maxwell shut down his laptop and looked out the window. From the second floor of the Graduate School of Management’s new building, he could see a number of cars driving on the nearby freeway and sitting in the adjacent parking lot. Josh was in his last term of the full-time MBA program at UC Davis. He would soon be graduating and entering a new chapter of his life. While he had the luxury of having several management-level job offers from which to choose, he was unsure whether he wanted to follow such a traditional route. There was one opportunity in particular that had recently come across his path which gave him pause. Background The previous term, Josh had been enrolled in Professor Dorf’s class on Business and Sustainability. While the class was offered at the GSM, it was open to the entire university. In this class, he met Hannah Long, who was in her final year of her undergraduate studies in Agricultural Economics, and Matthew Hammond, who was a senior in the Mechanical Engineering department. The three began working on a class project, which would ultimately turn into a formidable business opportunity. The impetus for their collaboration began with a lecture-discussion regarding the challenges and opportunities in the emerging renewable energy industry. The Challenge Dependence on energy is a worldwide reality. Energy powers the machines and equipment around us in order to make life more convenient and efficient...
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...production (to power machinery, to transport crops, etc) does have a large impact on the overall savings achieved by biofuels. Biofuels prove to be substantially more environmentally friendly than their alternatives. Biofuels can be made from many sources such as plant material, fungi and algae and since these source are available in abundance and can potentially reproduced on a massive scale they are an energy source that is potentially unlimited, this will end our need to depend on other foreign countries for our energy needs and can potentially help to bring world peace. Biofuel operations help rural development. One type of biofuel is biodiesel, it can be used in any diesel vehicle and is biodegradable and non-toxic. Plus Biodiesel has a high flash point, making it safer and less likely to burn after an accident. ( from Bignerds.com) Biodiesel can also be produced from...
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...Reading 1.3 Jackall, R. (1988), Chapter 4, “Looking up and looking around”, in Moral Mazes, Oxford University Press, NY Abstract The heart of managerial system is the skills in making decision. The routine decisions are the main areas of managerial decision making. In bureaucratic setting, which is functional rationality, the managers are expected to follow the policy rather than create a new way of solving problem. Many managerial decisions usually base on procedure; however, if unusual problem occurs, the managers are expected to find the solution that satisfies their bosses. Managers have to face “gut decisions” when those decisions involve big influences to organizations and looking up and looking around are necessary in these situations. There are two perspectives of looking up and looking around. First aspect is uncertainty of organization and second one is bureaucratic work structure. Example from coking plant is shown to prove that decision making has an impact on advancement of company. American managers prefer short term gain, focusing on financial techniques and ignoring production management can help them success in short time. Structure of work (need rapid decision on piece by piece) is another aspect of short run. Managers think that they can only cope with short run issues to reach the long run goal. The most feared time in every firm is “blame time”. Blame is the action that attacks the person by verbal and it can make person less creditable. The different...
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...Biofuels are becoming an increasingly important alternative to traditional forms of energy Even though production of biofuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, is rapidly increasing, their contribution to total fuel consumption will remain limited. Biofuels are sources of energy produced directly or indirectly from organic material including animal waste and plant material. In order to be considered a biofuel, at least 80% of the fuel must be made from renewable materials. There are 3 main types of biofuels: ethanol, biodiesel and biojet fuel. Biofuels are considered to be renewable since they can be replaced as quickly as they are used however biofuels biofuel production requires the use of fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers, agrochemicals,...
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...than ever because of such high petroleum prices. According to Choices magazine the main advantage of ethanol is cost reducing as a gasoline additive and as a gasoline replacement using E85, which are motor fuel blends of 85% ethanol and just 15% gasoline. The problem is there are not enough corn crops to supply the gasoline demands. Other technologies are needed if bio-energy is going to expand its role in the national energy scene. Biomass processing could become profitable in the future with improvement in technology. The most important benefit of renewable energy systems is the decrease of environmental pollution and using up our current resources. However the role of biomass-ethanol in natural energy supply depends upon the success of fuel processing technologies and the energy price increase. Is there enough public knowledge to help promote and fund the need of modern technology that is needed to supply us with ethanol and biodiesel? “Biomass is a generic term for all vegetable material. It is generally a term for material derived from growing plants or from animal manure. The term modern biomass is generally used to describe the traditional biomass use through the efficient and clean combustion technologies and sustained supply of biomass resources using modern conversion technologies”(Demirbas,2010,para.3). There has been rapid progress with technology with converted biomass into fuel; the problem is the high cost. Biomass is renewable matter such as crops, forest...
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...Journals Review Biodiesel production from Jatropha curcas: A review Wilson Parawira Department of Applied Biology, Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Avenue de I' Armee, B. P. 3900 Kigali, Rwanda, E-mail: aparawira@yahoo.co.uk. Tel: +250785561670. Accepted 2 July, 2010 Biodiesel has attracted considerable attention during the past decade as a renewable, biodegradable and non-toxic fuel alternative to fossil fuels. Biodiesel can be obtained from vegetable oils (both edible and non-edible) and from animal fat. Jatropha curcas Linnaeus, a multipurpose plant, contains high amount of oil in its seeds which can be converted to biodiesel. J. curcas is probably the most highly promoted oilseed crop at present in the world. The availability and sustainability of sufficient supplies of less expensive feedstock in the form of vegetable oils, particularly J. curcas and efficient processing technology to biodiesel will be crucial determinants of delivering a competitive biodiesel. Oil contents, physicochemical properties, fatty acid composition of J. curcas reported in literature are provided in this review. The fuel properties of Jatropha biodiesel are comparable to those of fossil diesel and confirm to the American and European standards. The objective of this review is to give an update on the J. curcas L. plant, the production of biodiesel from the seed oil and research attempts to improve the technology of converting vegetable oil to biodiesel and the fuel properties...
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...Case study of the Economic Problem The basic economic problem Economists distinguish between wants and needs; needs are those things which people require to survive. These comprise food, water and protection from the elements in the form of shelter and clothing. Nestlé products fall into two of these categories (food and water). However they can only be described as wants because it is possible to survive without consuming any Nestlé products at all. All resources are considered scarce because the wants for them (the demand) outstrip the various uses for them (the supply). This means that they have to be shared out (distributed) by a mechanism such as price. There are numerous ways in which a resource may be used, an opportunity cost is therefore created whenever one use is preferred over another. If water is used for industrial production, it is not available for agriculture or domestic consumption. Water is a classic example of the distribution problem of scarce resources. There is actually enough water in the world for everyone's needs, and it is not a resource that is ever 'used up' in the way that other resources can be consumed. The amount of water in the earth's water cycle - evaporating from the sea, then falling as precipitation over land - is constant, the problem is one of distribution - it is not always located where it is needed. Read more: http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/nestle/sustainability-and-water/the-basic-economic-problem.html#ixzz1oPYHca55 Case...
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...Decree-Law No. 737 extended the obligation of mixing 5% of alcohol also to gasoline produced within Brazil. In the 60s, the discovery of vast oil reserves in the Middle East lessened the world’s interest in biofuels. However, with the first world oil crisis in 1973, the search for new energy sources restarted. In 1975, Brazil launched the National Alcohol Program (known as Proálcool) – the largest program for the commercial use of biomass for energy purposes in the world. Two years later, Professor Expedito Parente, of the Ceará Federal University, discovered biodiesel made from cotton oil and, in 1980, he registered the first world wide biodiesel patent, now in the public domain. Throughout the world, with the passing of the years and the intermittent energy crises, associated to a greater demand for fossil fuels, new and strong stimuli emerged for the development of production technologies both for ethanol and biodiesel. These two products are starting to have a leading role in the world’s energy matrix and in the international fuel market. Thanks to its climate, geography, vast areas available for cultivating grain and sugar cane and, also, the high technology developed by Petrobras, in the past few years Brazil has become, in world terms, one of the largest producers of biofuels, with a singular and enviable potential Presentation for growth. Currently, nine out of ten cars sold in Brazil have flex fuel engines, that is, they are...
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...Employing Microalgae Feedstock for the Production Biodiesel Name: Musfiq Islam UW ID: 20300084 Course: BIOL 443 Professor: Dr. Owen Ward Introduction Global interests in biofuel production as a substitute for liquid transport fuel have grown substantially in recent years, mainly due to concerns over energy security and climate change (Yahya et al, 2012). The most common used biofuels are biodiesel and bio-ethanol, which can replace diesel and gasoline, respectively, with limited or no modifications of vehicle engines (Karthikeya, 2012). These first generation biofuels are typically extracted from food and oil crops including rapeseed oil, sugarcane, sugar beet and corn as well as vegetable oil and animal fats using traditional technologies (Brennan and Owende, 2009). However, the use of first generation biofuels have generated wide-scale criticisms, primarily due to raising competition with food production, increased water consumption, soil degradation, biodiversity loss, their low energy potential and their role in greenhouse gas emissions (Barbosa et al., 2011). A particular concern is that the demand for biofuels could place substantial additional pressure on the natural resources such as arable land. Currently, about 1% (14 million hectares) of the world’s available arable land is used for the production of biofuels, providing 1% of global transport fuels (Beal et al., 2012). However, with a fixed and possibly reducing amount to arable land, increasing the share...
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...alternative fuels are the one which will come to use. I personally think that if even a small majority of the people in the world start using alternative fuels then the pollution and disease will decline and the pressure on fossil fuels, of course, will decrease. The advantages to use alternative fuels are massive. The impact of alternative fuels can have on earth, on people, on so many things is just great. Using alternative fuels can change a lot of things on earth a pollution free place. Here are some possible alternative means of propulsion for road vehicles. 1. Biodiesel 2. Electricity 3. Ethanol 4. Hydrogen 5. Natural Gas 6. Propane BIODIESEL Biodiesel is a fuel made by chemically reacting alcohol with vegetable oils, fats or greases, such as recycled restaurant greases. It is most often used in blends of two percent or 20 percent (B20) Biodiesel. It can also be used as neat Biodiesel (B100). Biodiesel fuels are compatible with and can...
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...could be that market ready alternative. In the article, “Biodiesel from algae: challenges and prospects”, Scott (2010) discussed biofuels ability to be used with the current infrastructure; Scott states: With the need to reduce carbon emissions, and the dwindling reserves of crude oil, liquid fuels derived from plant material – biofuels – are an attractive source of energy. Moreover, in comparison with other forms of renewable energy such as wind, tidal, and solar, liquid biofuels allow solar energy to be stored, and also to be used directly in existing engines and transport infrastructure. (Scott, 2010, p. 277) Most individuals are familiar with biofuels, such as ethanol, produced from corn, sugar cane and beets. Less known, but with numerous benefits over land-based sources are algae-based fuels. Some of the more notable benefits of algae-based fuels are; alga can increase in mass fourfold in just a single day; help remove Carbon Dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere; just two acres of algae can produce almost 13,000 gallons of biodiesel a year. (Herro, 2008) Best of all, unlike other land-based biofuel sources algae do not compete for lands used to produce food for humans and animals. The notion of using algae as a source for energy goes back more than 50 years. The inventor of the diesel engine, Rudolf Diesel, first demonstrated his engine at the Paris World’s Exhibition in 1900; the fuel he used was the first biodiesel, peanut oil. This was the fuel used in his engine until...
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...Republic of the Philippines OCCIDENTAL MINDORO STATE COLLEGE Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT Name: GRAZA NENET COTONER Surname First Name Middle Name Program: Master of Engineering Science – Mech. Eng. TOPIC PRESENTATION Topic No. 1 I. General Subject Area Application of Mathematical Tools in Material Characterization II. Specific Topic A PREDICTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE RELATION OF THE CETANE NUMBER TO THE PROPERTIES THAT VARY NON-INTUITIVELY IN BIODIESEL BLENDS III. Specifics of Research ` A. Introduction The lure of modernization is economic benefit that is the requisite of the good life. Unscrupulous and/or irresponsible practices in industrialization and urbanization lead to the considerable depletion of resources and to the worsening damage to life and environment. There are natural processes in the environment that are, in fact, part of the overall system that affects the life and development of organisms on earth. Left as they are, the processes shall proceed without disturbing the balance that proved most beneficial in the ecosystem. There are, however, individuals who use resources beyond the requirements of comfortable living, and without regard for environmental impact. As a result, there are already disadvantageous shifts in the environment in the last two hundred years. Estimate of the world’s proven reserves of petroleum is placed at 1000 billion...
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...1. What are the key factors in determining if this is a viable business opportunity for Josh, Hannah and Matthew The first step that everyone should go through is to ask the question, is the market real? In order to do so, the first thing you want to do is conduct what we call a customer analysis. You can do that perhaps in a very technical way, by conducting surveys. Or perhaps, in a less technical way, you can attempt to answer the question, “Who is my customer?” What does the customer want to buy? When does the customer want to buy? What price is the customer willing to pay? So, asking the “W questions” — who, where, what, when — is the first step. At the end of the day, the one thing every entrepreneur is looking for is revenue, and the revenue will come from customers. That is why you need to ask yourself, is there a market here? The second thing you want to ask yourself is, who else is supplying that particular market? That is what we call competitor analysis. Ask yourself who else is in this market, and what are they doing for the customers. Are they supplying a similar substitute product or service as you have in mind? That is the second thing you have to establish, and by doing that, you can understand better what need is not met at the moment. That will also give you the opportunity to zero in on the price points and feature points of where you can differentiate yourself from existing players in the market. You also need to conduct a broader industry analysis to...
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...Biodiesel Incorporated Teaching Notes The Biodiesel Incorporated case describes the process of one group’s efforts to effectively identify a business opportunity. Individual analysis and group discussion of this case are well-suited for illustrating and applying the terms and issues covered in Chapter 2 “Opportunity and the Business Summary.” Naturally, the case also allows for the discussion of additional concepts and topics, including material covered in Chapters 4, 8, 10, 17, and 18. Discussion Questions 1) What are the key factors in determining if this is a viable business opportunity for Josh, Hannah, and Matthew? 2) What market drivers should they research and be aware of? 3) What are the flaws in the current business strategy? 4) What type of financing should they use if they choose to go forward with this? 5) What types of distribution channels should they go into? 6) How can they improve their chances for success? 7) What is the next step? Answer Guide 1) What are the key factors in determining if this is a viable business opportunity for Josh, Hannah, and Matthew? Josh, Hanna, and Matthew have to determine if this is a viable opportunity for them. In particular, they need to decide if the expected income and level of independence (and other rewards of starting a new venture will outweigh the risk undertaken and significant amount of effort required. The case consists of little information regarding the leadership qualities of the three students...
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...BUSINESS PLAN MISSION STATEMENT: Project offers immense scope for rural employment and education to farmers. The project intends to churn the vast potential of Pongamia Pinnata oil with regard to its value as an eternal source of energy. The plan is to market the methyl ester of Pongamia Pinnata oil as a bio diesel, to be used without any changes to the existing diesel oil engines and hence solve the brunt of the huge energy crunch that India is facing today. This biodiesel is a cheaper, indigenous and “eco friendly” alternative to diesel that will shake the roots of India’s energy shortage. The vision, by this long term economic and energy planning, is to ameliorate the economic condition of the rural poor. INDUSTRY ANALYSIS: [pic] PRODUCT DETAILS: The product offering is a bio-diesel called PPME (Pongamia Pinnata Methyl Ester) which is extracted from the seeds of Pongamia Pinnata Milletia. The plant can be cultivated in any region or weather condition; it does not need fertile soil thereby leaving agricultural land unaffected. Eco-Friendly: Pongamia adheres to all international standards of emission especially in terms of carbon residue. It does not produce sulphur oxides, which lead to acid rain. Carbon monoxide and un-burnt hydrocarbons in the exhaust is reduced by 50%. FINANCIAL PLAN: An initial investment of Rs 10 Million is required for building up the required infrastructure, procuring seeds, storage and transportation infrastructure...
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