(National Petrochemical & Refiners Association/Yahoo!)  The National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, American Petroleum Institute and Western States Petroleum Associationjointly filed a petition today requesting that the Environmental Protection Agency waive the 2011 cellulosic biofuel volume mandate in its entirety, …

(Oak Ridge National Laboratory)  To comply with the mandate to increase the use of alternative fuels, the Coast Guard has enlisted the help of Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers with expertise in fuels and engines. …

by Zoe Cormier (Nature)  Engineered bacterium can produce ethanol directly from seaweed.
Bioengineers have devised a way to produce ethanol from seaweed, laying the groundwork for a biofuel that doesn’t sacrifice food crops.
Yasuo Yoshikuni and his …

This webinar will highlight opportunities for financing biomass projects from a variety of different sources such as government programs, hybrid financial mechanisms, offshore funding and the US capital markets.  Topics include the status of government …

(US Department of Agriculture)  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the launch of a USDA energy website that will provide stakeholders fast and efficient access to USDA energy efficiency and renewable energy data. Today’s announcement builds …

(Green Car Congress)  The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved a conditional commitment for a $25 million guaranteed loan to build a biorefinery plant with funding support from USDA’s Biorefinery Assistance Program. The plant will be …

by Emily Chad and Todd Taylor (Biomass Power and Thermal Magazine)  A veritable alphabet soup of government funding programs exist that can help you get your project off the ground. These programs include:
• USDA Biorefinery …

(Iowa State University)  Now, an Iowa State University-based study over the next five years will examine whether a single, coordinated production system can address all of these concerns while making profits for producers.
A multi-state, interdisciplinary …

by Anna Austin (Biomass Power and Thermal)  …(Sierra Energy CEO Mike) Hart was the keynote speaker at the third annual Pacific West Biomass Conference & Trade Show in San Francisco, Calif., Jan 16-18. He delivered a …

by Umair Irfan  (ClimateWire/Scientific American)Scientists are seeking help from microbes to produce road-ready biofuels
…As they move, breathe, eat and reproduce, bacteria produce byproducts like ethanol and hydrogen while feeding on simple sugars, starches and sunlight. …

by Brian Jennings (Ethanol Producer Magazine/American Coalition for Ethanol)  … The new CAFE standards apply to light-duty vehicles beginning in model year 2017, requiring a nationwide average of 54.5 miles per gallon by model year 2025. …

by Jacob Barker (Columbia Tribune)  Despite large cuts to the federal program supporting it and concerns from some groups about environmental impacts, a project to begin growing a giant perennial grass to serve as a …

(OriginOil)  Company partners with Idaho National Laboratory to enable algae growers to enter the global crude oil market
OriginOil, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough technology to extract oil from algae and an emerging leader in the …

by Anne Marie Edwards (DomesticFuel.com)  Last July, the government announced plans to raise corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards to 54.5 MPG by 2025. The automotive industry responded saying the MPG number was an attainable goal …

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  …Power plants were found to be the largest stationary source of direct emissions, producing a combined total of more than 2,300 million metric tons of CO2e from 1,555 facilities …

by Cindy Zimmerman (DomesticFuel.com)  …During a press conference at AFBF (American Farm Bureau Federation) on Monday, (Agriculture Secretary Tom) Vilsack said he believes it is important to keep the RFS2 in place for multiple reasons. “One, …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  …Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Council, turned attention to free market principles and market access, after the New York Timesran astory on cellulosic biofuels mandates, titled “A Fine …

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  It’s only been a few months since Abengoa Bioenergy broke ground on its 23 MMgy multifeedstock cellulosic ethanol plant in Hugoton, Kan., but so far, construction of its first …

by Bob Dineen (Renewable Fuels Association/Ethanol Producer Magazine)   …The scientific community has better data, improved modeling tools, and a better appreciation of the uncertainty and complexity involved in ILUC analysis. But, above all, they …

by Lynn Yarris (PhysOrg.com)   JBEI researchers determined the structure of the AgBIS enzyme and found it to consist of three helical domains, the first three-domain structure ever found in a synthase of sesquiterpenes. This …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  …First commercial projects from newly-minted public companies Solazyme, Gevo and KiOR. Two trash-to-biofuels projects from INEOS Bio and Enerkem, located in Florida and Alberta. Europe’s largest biosuccinic acid project, scheduled …

by Guy Gugliotta (New York Times)   …Dr. (David A.) Mullin (a professor of molecular biology at Tulane University)was collecting manure from giraffes and other exotic ruminants at the zoo, a few blocks from his laboratory. …

(US Environmental Protection Agency)  EPA is issuing a direct final rule identifying additional fuel pathways that EPA has determined meet the biomass-based diesel, advanced biofuel or cellulosic biofuel lifecycle greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction requirements specified …

by Erin Voegele (Biodiesel Magazine)  On Jan. 5, the U.S. EPA issued a direct final rule regarding RFS2 pathways for four new biofuel feedstocks, including camelina oil, energy cane, giant reed and napiergrass. While the …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  In North Carolina, Applied Combustion Technologies announced the completion of a DOE grant to build and test a prototype crude glycerol burner. The 20 kW burner utilizes a novel spray atomization, …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  ZeaChem launches its 250,000 gallon per year core process.  How could this possibly matter, in the context of a 500 million gallon cellulosic biofuels target for 2012, that was waived …

(Virent)  Company Increases Protection of its BioForming® Technology
Virent announced the issuance of five new U.S. patents covering aspects of its catalytic BioForming® platform. Three of the patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 8,053,615, 8,017,818 and 7,977,517, cover …

by Ann Perry (US Department of Agriculture)  Work by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) suggests that farmers in the Southeast could use the tropical legume sunn hemp (Crotalaria juncea) in their crop rotations …

(Bloomberg)  LanzaTech NZ Ltd., a closely held biofuels company backed by billionaire Vinod Khosla, will convert a U.S. cellulosic ethanol plant it bought from Range Fuels Inc. to produce chemicals from biomass.
The $5.1 million deal completed …

(Bloomberg)  Range Fuels, Inc.,…, a closely held U.S. cellulosic ethanol company that was offered $156 million in federal government backing, sold its only factory to LanzaTech NZ Ltd. as part of a government-approved liquidation.
The U.S. Department …

(Biotork)  BioTork has successfully converted unmarketable Hawaiian papayas to fatty acids that can be refined into green fuels. This result is a first milestone in a developmental research project conducted in collaboration with the US Dept of …

(US Department of Energy)  A single commercial mower can use as much gasoline or diesel fuel each year as a commercial work truck does. Fortunately, petroleum-based fuels aren’t the only options when it comes to …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  …10. Advanced biofuels capacity surges to 1 billion gallons, globally. We see 570 million gallons in capacity from Neste Oil alone; 137 Mgy from Diamond Green, 75 Mgy from Dynamic …

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)   The USDA announced the final round of fiscal year 2011 Renewable Energy for America Program awards on Dec. 14. The awards included grants for 12 blender pump projects …

by Lynn Yarris (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)  The computer assisted design (CAD) tools that made it possible to fabricate integrated circuits with millions of transistors may soon be coming to the biological sciences. Researchers at …

by Erin Voegele (Biodiesel Magazine)  The USDA’s Risk Management Agency has developed a pilot program to insure camelina. The program, which will be available in selected counties in Montana and North Dakota for the 2012 …

by Mary Rosenthal (Algal Biomass Organization)  …Many of you will remember that 2011 began with a discouraging report that claimed algae biofuels could never play a role in US energy security. We at the Algal …

(Algae Industry Magazine)  Since early October, New Mexico State University’s Institute for Energy & the Environment (IEE) researchers have been transitioning from algae operations in the IEE water and energy lab to the Algae Test …

by Dr. Steven Thomas (US Department of Energy)  Biomass feedstocks – the raw organic material that can be converted into biofuel, biopower, or bioproducts – come in many forms, from woody crops like hybrid poplar and …

by Neil Rossmeissl (US Department of Energy)  Despite Americans’ voracious appetite for paper products — a staggering 700 pounds per person annually — America’s pulp and paper industry has been struggling as of late due to …

by Tim Hoskins  (Iowa Farmer Today)  Blender gas pumps are viewed as one way to increase ethanol sales and allow for a transition to higher ethanol-blended gasoline.
A blender pump is connected to two fuel tanks, …

by Cole Gustafson, Thein Maung and David Ripplinger (North Dakota State University/Ethanol Producer Magazine)  NDSU quantifies the cost and time involved in corn stover collection
…The research team at  North Dakota State University in Fargo recently …

by Holly Jessen (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  Despite the promise of methane from anaerobic digestion technology, low natural gas rates and other factors have kept ethanol producers from jumping in with both feet.
…On top of the …

(Environmental Protection Agency)  he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today finalized the 2012 percentage standards for four fuel categories that are part of the agency’s Renewable Fuel Standard program (RFS2). EPA continues to support greater …

(WLNS/AP)  Critics of a refinery planned for the Upper Peninsula have filed a second lawsuit against the project.
Larry Klein and the Sierra Club claim the U.S. Energy Department failed to follow federal environmental law when …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  There were IPOs a go-go, a big comeback from biodiesel. The global ethanol fleet has acquired new popularity amongst advanced biofuels developers looking for capital light steel in the ground. …

by Tina Casey (CleanTechnica)
The U.S. Army is developing high tech steam engines that can run on biofuels, and not just for show. The steam engines, manufactured by Florida-based Cyclone Power Technologies, Inc, will be used in combat …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  In Georgia, the University of Georgia has teamed with the University of Puerto Rico to develop a new R&D center that will focus on algae-based biofuels thanks to a $4 million grant …

(InfotechSpotlight)  …The Coast Guard announces its intent to enter into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Cummins, Inc., to identify and investigate the advantages, disadvantages, required technology enhancements, performance, costs, and other issues …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  The first gas fermentation technology to come to the public markets: Coskata files its $100 million IPO.  Here’s our 10-minute version of the filing, with a translation of the risks …