Article Archive for October 2009
Tim Holden (D-PA) chair of the Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research, held hearings concentrating on the future of next generation biofuels.
Dallas Tonsager, Under Secretary for Rural Development in the U.S. Department of Agriculture …
At Frederick County’s Solid Waste Options presentation, Dave Specca, Assistant Director of the Rutgers EcoComplex described how landfill gases fuel compressed natural gas garbage trucks at the EcoComplex. Watch video of similar process in California. …
In support of the Department of Defense Assured Fuels Initiative for securing domestic fuel sources to meet the military’s energy needs, Air Force Research Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute conducted tests of the first …
by Nate Ryan (USA Today) …The concept might seem incongruous in a sport inherently tied to an internal combustion engine that many find synonymous with global warming, but NASCAR, despite cars with an eye-popping 5 …
Prepared Floor Statement of Senator Chuck Grassley: Biofuels and the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday, October 29, 2009
… The first issue I’m speaking about relates to the EPA’s proposal to penalize biofuels for greenhouse gas emissions …
(Alpha Galileo) Aston University in Birmingham, UK is involved in a € 3.73m (£3.4 million) research project, which will transform organic residues from biofuel production processes into a renewable biofuel that can reduce reliance on fossil …
(National Corn Growers Association) The Midwest Legislative Conference of The Council of State Governments issued a series of resolutions recently containing policy resolutions adopted that aim to increase the use of both ethanol and blender …
The contemporary biofuels market, born amid the chaos of the Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, has alternately sputtered, stalled and lurched, but has yet to cruise at its objective speed limit on the road to …
With gas prices continually in flux, interest in domestically produced bio-fuels like ethanol (E85) is on the rise. Recently, Coskata Inc., a leading developer of alternative bio-fuels, announced the successful start-up of its semi-commercial flex-ethanol …
Dear Secretary Chu:
The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), the national trade association representing the U.S. ethanol industry, is writing to express our concern about the current operation and direction of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) …
FAME is where the most influential professionals involved in the biofuel and biomass market gather to share their views, learn about the latest in the industry and listen to consequential, in-depth presentations – from policy …
The publicly available tool–driven by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati content–aggregates and frequently updates the numerous financing opportunities, such as grants, loan guarantees, tax credits, and other programs, being offered by federal and state governments. …
by John Lorinc (New York Times) Enerkem, a green energy company based in Quebec, has developed an alternative approach to mining the carbon out of non-recyclable plastics, construction waste and other materials found in the municipal …
Bio Base Europe, the Biopark Terneuzen and Ghent Bio-Energy Valley joint initiative launched in April 2009, has said its new bio-focused Training Centre is on course to open in early 2011. The Bio Base Europe …
(Novozymes) … “The article in Science overlooks one important fact: Biofuels recycle atmospheric carbon while fossil fuels release carbon that has been stored underground for millions of years. In the transport sector, biofuels are the …
by Katharine Grayson (Minneapolis-St.Paul Business Journal) BioCee Inc. a startup that’s commercializing technology invented by a University of Minnesota professor, has received a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The firm …
In California, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that ARPA-E — the Department’s recently-formed Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy — has awarded $151 million in funding for 37 research projects. Biofuels Digest lists and describes the …
(Philstar.com) Visiting US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said on Monday that the US government is seeking partnership with the Philippines in terms of research on biofuel.
Speaking at a press conference, Vilsack said both countries recognize …
The ‘peak oil’ debate is polarised, contentious and characterised by competing interpretations of the available data. A growing number of commentators are forecasting a near-term peak in global oil production with potentially serious economic impacts. …
Our solution is creation of utility towers used for production of bio fuel and city air recuperation. The idea is to place these towers on positions of existing petrol stations in cities. Our research led …
The International Centre of Science and High Technology of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (ICS-UNIDO) has been promoting programmes on capacity building and knowledge transfer in developing countries in several selected areas, including renewable …
by Juliet Eliperin (Washington Post) More than a decade ago in the northeast corner of Bolivia, a group of polluters and environmentalists joined forces in the first large-scale experiment to curb climate change with a …
by Inae Riveras (Reuters) … Brazil’s largest sugar and ethanol producing group, said it expects to crush 58 million tonnes of cane in 2010/11 (April-March), up from 54 million tonnes in 2009/10.
“We expect to grow …
by Peter Murphy (Reuters) Some Brazilian motorists who fuel their cars solely on cane-based ethanol are switching back to gasoline as high sugar prices now make the biofuel more costly in some states. Brazil is a …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Washington, the US Department of Energy is requiring that to receive DOE loan guarantees renewable energy projects meet a debt rating standard higher than 63 percent of all US …
by Jerry M. Melillo, et al. (Science Express) A global biofuels program will lead to intense pressures on land supply and can increase greenhouse gas emissions from land-use changes. Using linked economic and terrestrial biogeochemistry …
by Harry deGorter and David R. Just (Policy Analysis, Cato Institute) The federal “sustainability standard” requires ethanol to emit at least 20 percent less carbon dioxide (CO2) than gasoline. Recent rulings by California and the Environmental …
(Science Daily) Converting the rubbish that fills the world’s landfills into biofuel may be the answer to both the growing energy crisis and to tackling carbon emissions, claim scientists in Singapore and Switzerland. New research …
(Reuters) Biodiesel is better than ever at harnessing the power of the sun and turning it into fuel. In fact, a study shows the fuel is returning more than four times the energy that
it takes …
New Zealand’s National Instititue of Water and Atmospheric Research’s mission is to conduct leading environmental science to enable the sustainable management of natural resources for New Zealand and the planet.
In order to produce biofuels cost-effectively …
… Damages per vehicle mile traveled were remarkably similar among various combinations of fuels and technologies — the range was 1.2 cents to about 1.7 cents per mile traveled — and it is important to …
by Guy Chazan (Wall Street Journal) The biofuels industry, hit hard by the global credit crunch, is getting a shot in the arm from a new source–the oil majors. Among the oil companies, BP PLC and …
Verenium Corporation, a pioneer in the development of next-generation cellulosic ethanol and high-performance specialty enzymes, announced that it has entered into an agreement with Value Prior to Pulping (VPP), an organization created by the Agenda …
The Global Sustainable Biomass Fund supports developing countries in making their biomass production for energy uses sustainable. It thus enables them to access the local or international market of sustainable biomass for energy uses. The …
by Professor Shiro Saka (IEA Bioenergy Task 39 Newsletter) … According to our research in recent years, approximately 370 million tons of biomass resources are annually produced in Japan. Among these, approximately 77 million tons …
(The Korea Herald) Kumho Petrochemical Co., the South Jeolla provincial government and a local biotechnology firm agreed Thursday to establish an algae bioethanol plant by 2013, officials said, according to Yonhap News. The agreement calls …
by Michael Totty (Wall Street Journal) It’s a tall order: Over the next few decades, the world will need to wean itself from dependence on fossil fuels and drastically reduce greenhouse gases. Current technology will …
(United Nations Environment Programme) The number of scientific publications devoted to biofuels is growing exponentially, and the number of reviews is increasing rapidly. For decision makers it has become a hard job to find robust …
Boeing [NYSE: BA], the Airports and Auxiliary Services agency (ASA), an arm of Mexico’s Ministry of Communications and Transport, and Honeywell’s UOP today announced a collaboration to identify, research and further the development of a …
by Peter Fairley (Technology Review) … Producing advanced biofuels on the scale of tens of billions of gallons per year will mean financing several hundred commercial-scale biorefineries at a net cost of roughly $250 billion. …
Biofuel Africa Ltd. has begun commercial production of jatropha oil, the first company in West Africa to move from growing and selling jatropha fruits and seeds to production and sale of jatropha oil on a …
by Inae Riveras (Reuters) Use of sugar cane-based ethanol as a substitute for gasoline is among the cheapest and easiest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, according to a Brazilian study. Cane ethanol provides about …
by Robert E. Kozak (Advanced Biofuels USA) Looking at some real-world numbers, it becomes clear that the fear raised in Fixing a Critical Climate Accounting Error, Science, October 23, 2009, misses the point. Growing energy …
A study published in Science magazine promotes a policy which would penalize American biofuels industries in US legislation and regulation and in international global climate change agreements. Advanced Biofuels USA would like to point out …
by Juliet Eilperin (Washington Post) The world’s policymakers and scientists have made a critical error in how they count biofuels’ contribution to human-generated greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a paper published Thursday in the journal Science. …
(Detroit Public Television) When most folks see a number like 10% they’re receiving a discount on a sale item or reading a nutritional chart at the grocery store. But the number that we’re talking about …
Tom Buis (Growth Energy) “Ethanol is part of the natural carbon cycle. It has taken the lifetime of our planet to produce the oil that is in the ground. Biofuels come from the top of …
(Renewable Fuels Association) Biofuels produced from biomass feedstocks (i.e. plant matter) are, by definition, carbon neutral because carbon dioxide tailpipe emissions from the combustion of biofuels are readily absorbed by growing plants. As such, the tailpipe …
(Nitrogen News)… “The error is serious, but we can fix it,” said lead author Tim Searchinger, a research scholar at Princeton University and a fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. “The solution …
by Keith Johnson (Wall Street Journal) The law of unintended consequences strikes yet again. Global plans to tackle climate change, from the Kyoto Protocol to the recently-passed Waxman-Markey bill, have a fatal flaw: They essentially encourage …
