Articles tagged with: Sustainability
by Matthew McDermott (Treehugger) …According to Anna Stephenson from the University of Cambridge, when algae is grown in clear-tubed bioreactors the energy required to move the algae around so that it gets enough sunlight means …
(Renewable Fuels Association) A newly released report from the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank, conludes that “…the effect of biofuels on food prices has not been as large as originally thought, but that …
by Katie Allen (The Guardian) Leaked report says wealthy investors are threatening local resources as they buy up farmland to gain on commodity prices
A leaked World Bank report into investors from rich nations buying up …
(New Zealand Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment) The purpose of this report is to take a fresh look at biofuels – to think strategically about how they might lessen our dependence on fossil fuels and thus …
by Jim Lane (Biomass Digest) Following the all-but-certain defeat of a renewal of the ethanol tax credit, left-wing environmental activists, confederated into the National Anti-Biomass Incineration and Forest Protection Campaign, are making a move to destabilize …
by Ashley Bray (Minnesota Daily) The University (of Minnesota)’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering is working to develop sustainable, domestic biomass solutions.
…The University’s Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering — a division of the …
by Joanna Schroeder (DomesticFuel) The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is far from over on discrediting biofuels as part of their mandated policy known as the Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS). For the past year, …
(EurekAlert) Policies needed to address potential conflicts, but report views bioenergy as crucial to ‘unlocking Africa’s latent potential’.
Crops can be produced for bioenergy on a significant scale in west, eastern and southern Africa without doing …
by Brooke Coleman (Biofuels Digest/New Fuels Alliance) Securing Foreign Oil is the title of Adam Liska’s and Richard Perrin’s recent article in Environment Magazine detailing why military emissions should be included in the carbon intensity (CI) …
By Luke Geiver (Biodiesel Magazine) The U.S. EPA has released a Notice of Data Availability (NODA) for its recent modeling of the canola oil biodiesel pathway. As of March 26, when the EPA officially announced …
The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) is an international initiative coordinated by the Energy Center at EPFL in Lausanne that brings together farmers, companies, non-governmental organizations, experts, governments, and inter-governmental agencies concerned with ensuring the …
by Sreenivas Ghatty (Commodity Online) …Pongamia, a plant producing non-edible oilseeds, has the potential to become one of the cheapest feedstocks that can be produced in most of the tropical and sub tropical regions of …
by Adam J. Liska and Richard K. Perrin (Environment Magazine) Military operations are major industrial activities that use massive amounts of fuel and materials that significantly contribute to climate change. In this article, we assert …
by Andrew Willis (Bloomberg Businessweek) EU and Brazilian leaders are set to announce a new “triangular co-operation” initiative, under which they will aim to work together in some of the world’s poorest countries, but NGOs say …
(China Economic Net) A huge potential for producing biofuels is expected in Tanzania without hampering the cultivation of food crops, according to a new study.
Conducted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently, the …
(Business Standard) Editorial …Though, at present, international food prices are ruling lower than their peaks in 2008, FAO expects them to begin picking up again due to a surge in consumer demand as well as …
(The Economist) Palm oil is a popular, cheap commodity, which green activists are doing their best to turn into a commercial liability. Companies are finding them impossible to ignore.
…The charges against palm oil are serious: …
(Renewable Fuel Association) …Let’s start with what the scientists say. Those scientists who served on federal agency panels convened in recent years to examine hypoxia issues concluded that the hypoxia zone has many causes and it …
by Carolyn Lochhead (San Francisco Chronicle) While the BP oil spill has been labeled the worst environmental catastrophe in recent U.S. history, a biofuel is contributing to a Gulf of Mexico “dead zone” the size of New …
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) …(D)oomsayers who have been predicting an inevitable conflict between food and fuel appear to have been completely off the mark.
Rather than a shortage of food, the increased pace of biotechnology …
(Washington Post) Editorial …Many lawmakers want the government to require utilities to derive a certain percentage of their electricity from clean sources. And one of the sources that would probably qualify is so-called renewable biomass …
(Alpha Galileo) An interdisciplinary team headed by Empa researcher Rainer Zah has been studying the sustainability of second generation biofuels and has calculated how much fuel might be saved in Switzerland through the use of …
(Renewable Fuels Association) The amount of land dedicated to crops in the United States has dropped for the second straight year in 2010, according to a report released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The …
(ETCGreen.com) Vehicle owners now understand the ever dwindling supply and higher expense and risks of extracting petroleum will continue to increase the price at the pumps.
For over 100 years we have enjoyed this cheap energy …
by Jennifer A. Burney, Steven J. Davis, and David B. Lobell (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) As efforts to mitigate climate change increase, there is a need to identify cost-effective ways to avoid emissions of …
by Erica Gies (New York Times) …One group, Growth Energy, has blanketed the Metro subway station closest to the U.S. Capitol with ads that send a pointed message: “No beaches have been closed due to …
(Center for Alternative Technology) zerocarbonbritain2030 is a fully integrated solution to climate change. It examines how we can meet our electricity and heating requirements through efficient service provision, while still decreasing carbon dioxide, methane, …
(USDA) USDA’s Chief Economist Joseph Glauber today announced the publication of a report by the Office of Energy Policy and New Uses that surveyed corn growers for the year 2005 and ethanol plants in 2008, which …
by Jim Lane (Biomass Digest) In Washington, the Environment Working Group has released a study that claims the impacts of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA)—which has already passed the House of Representatives—would …
(Farm Chemicals International) The US Grains Council (USGC) says China could increase its corn purchases from the US to more than 1 million tonnes during the next 18 months, according to Bloomberg. Thomas Dorr, USGC president, …
by Louis Bergeron (Stanford University) Advances in high-yield agriculture over the latter part of the 20th century have prevented massive amounts of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere – the equivalent of 590 billion metric tons …
(HECO) The Hawaii Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has approved Hawaiian Electric Company’s plan to test biofuel blends in a 90-megawatt steam turbine generating unit at Kahe Power Plant that presently runs on low sulfur fuel oil …
by David Schwartz (Algae Industry Magazine) … I’ve heard a lot of people say that developing algal biofuels is just an engineering issue, that is, all we have to do is engineer more efficient growth ponds …
(BERNAMA.com) The European Commission on Thursday (June 10, 2010) adopted guidelines to implement the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive which forms part of its 2008 climate and energy package.
“The adopted package gives clear guidance to the …
(Times of India) In a major eco-friendly step towards renewable energy generation in India, seaweed sourced ethanol (ethyl alcohol), a biofuel additive in transport fuel, has been used to run a car for the first …
(Union of Concerned Scientists) The Billion Gallon Challenge: Advanced Biofuels from diverse sources such as grasses and agricultural waste hold the promise of sustainably reducing U.S. oil dependence and global warming emissions. Unfortunately the advanced biofuels …
(Renewable Fuels Association) The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), Growth Energy, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) today countered the tired claims of the Environmental Working Group (EWG) that …
by POET (RenewableEnergyWorld.com) Biogas production highlighted in lifecycle analysis for Project LIBERTY.
Ethanol produced by Project LIBERTY, POET’s first planned commercial cellulosic ethanol plant, will reduce carbon emissions by 111 percent over gasoline, an independent lifecycle …
(Climate-L) To prepare for implementation of the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive, the European Commission has released three documents on biofuels: a communication on voluntary schemes and default values in the EU biofuels and bioliquids sustainability …
(Innovations Report) South Dakota State University research shows a traditional Asian flatbread called chapathi, or chapati, gets a big boost in protein and fiber when fortified with food-grade distillers grains.
SDSU food scientist Padu Krishnan said it …
by Michael Dynes (The New Economy) Of the billions of dollars that have been ploughed into the biofuel sector around the world over the past decade, only a tiny fraction has ever found its way …
(New Hampshire Public Radio Earth Talk) Ethanol—a biofuel derived from corn and other feedstocks—is already playing a major role in helping to reduce emissions from many of the traditional gasoline-powered cars on the road today. According …
by Michael Whitaker and Garvin Heath (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) This life cycle assessment of Jatropha biodiesel production and use evaluates the net greenhouse gas (GHG) emission (not considering land-use change), net energy value (NEV), and net petroleum …
by Gary Truitt (Hoosier Ag Today) After a Sunday touring Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China, it was back to work Monday for the delegates on the Indiana Agricultural, Jobs and …
by Patrick Westhoff (Huffington Post) When U.S. food price inflation hit 5.5 percent in 2008, a lot of people pointed to growth in biofuel production as the culprit. A lot has happened in the last …
by Beth Gardiner (New York Times) Ubiquitous in products from cookies to cosmetics, and increasingly in European fuel tanks, too, palm oil is driving the destruction of some of Southeast Asia’s last tracts of untouched …
(Renewable Fuels Association) The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) today continued to call into question accounting gimmicks and unproven theories used by environmental activists seeking to undermine the growth of biofuels as a way to displace fossil …
by Dr Ma Xiangshan (CAAC, GreenAirOnline.com) …The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) defines the sustainable development of the civil aviation sector as “the development of civil aviation towards a resource-economical and environment-friendly industry by …
by Timothy D Searchinger (Environmental Research Letters) Use of biofuels does not reduce emissions from energy combustion but may offset emissions by increasing plant growth or by reducing plant residue or other non-energy emissions. To do so, …
by Treena Hein (Australian Farm Journal/June 2010) Despite all the debate about negative climate change impacts on agriculture and rising world population increasing demand for food, the stark reality is that world grain stocks are …
