by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Gevo has two proprietary technologies that combine to make it possible to retrofit existing ethanol plants to produce isobutanol, a four carbon alcohol which serves as a hydrocarbon platform molecule. They …

by Michael E. Kraft  (Tribune News Service/Bradenton Herald)  … Ideally, Congress would reboot the renewable fuel mandate in a new way for today’s economy, and design it as one component of a comprehensive response to climate change.
For …

by Emma Nobel (ABC Central Victoria News)  Environmental microbiologist and science champion Marianne Haines hopes her work converting bacteria into biofuel will lead to more sustainable outcomes, and more women studying science at the postgraduate level.
Growing up …

by Craig Kohn, Joyce Parker and Andy Anderson (Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center)  Global climate change is a serious problem that requires the involvement of a scientifically literate public to solve. But what does the public …

by Don Scott (National Biodiesel Board)  … Everyone knows that trees (and other plant life) absorb carbon from the atmosphere. It’s important to remember that plants also return their carbon to the atmosphere when they die …

(Renewable Fuels Association)  Today, University of Michigan Energy Institute researchers, led by longtime biofuels critic Professor John DeCicco, released a study funded by the American Petroleum Institute (API) claiming biofuels do not reduce carbon emissions …

(ACS Green Chemistry Institute)  Global Bioenergies is one of the few companies in the world and the only one in Europe to develop a process to convert renewable resources into hydrocarbons through fermentation. The company …

by William R. Levesque (Tampa Bay Times)  … But the biodiesel industry remains something of an enigma to most Americans despite its production of an estimated 2 billion gallons of fuel in 2015, a figure that …

(Renewable Fuels Association)  Today (November 3, 2015), the House Science, Space and Technology committee held a joint hearing of the subcommittees on Environment and Oversight titled “Renewable Fuel Standard: A Ten Year Review of Costs …

(Science Daily)  Nearly all of the studies used to promote biofuels as climate-friendly alternatives to petroleum fuels are flawed and need to be redone, according to a researcher who reviewed more than 100 papers published …

(25 x ’25)  Making sure the federal accounting system for biogenic carbon emissions—ensuring that it is an accurate system, and taking into scientific account the unique features of biomass in the carbon cycle is front …

by Bruce E. Dale,  James E. Anderson, Robert C. Brown, Steven Csonka⊥ Virginia H. Dale, Gary Herwick, Randall D. Jackson,  Nicholas Jordan, Stephen Kaffka, Keith L. Kline, Lee R. Lynd, Carolyn Malmstrom, Rebecca G. Ong, Tom L. Richard, …

by Rafaela Relvas  (BioNews Texas) Researchers at Texas A&M University conducted a study that brought new insights regarding bioenergy sorghum, finding that, more than an energy supply, it may offer a “sink” for greenhouse gases.
…
The team …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Reduce carbon? Rid the world of excess CO2? Not so fast, buster. A new generation of technologies has come along that capture, re-purpose and monetize CO2 emissions. Will they realize their promise? As …

by Ann Perry (USDA/Biomass Magazine)  Findings at the USDA are providing information about the soil carbon dynamics that play a crucial role in lifecycle assessments of bioenergy production. These studies at the Agricultural Research Service, USDA’s chief …

by Noel P. Gurwick, Lisa A. Moore, Charlene Kelly, Patricia Elias (PLOSone)   Claims about the environmental benefits of charring biomass and applying the resulting “biochar” to soil are impressive. If true, they could influence land management worldwide. Alleged benefits …

(Nanowerk News)  …His paper concludes that for now, it makes more sense to enable plants to soak up carbon dioxide through reforestation and to redouble efforts to protect forests, rather than producing and promoting biofuels.
Corn …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  … When you first harvest a forest or other biomass, you take all that carbon that’s been sequestered — if you use the “first cut” for energy or fuels, that carbon …

by Geoff Cooper (Renewable Fuels Association/The Energy Collective)  …Incredibly, the American Petroleum Institute’s anti-RFS “training center” (yes, Big Oil has a “training center” apparently intended to spawn an army of certified RFS haters) has the …

by Vicki Ekstrom (Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change/Renewable Energy World)  …Their study, recently released in Geophysical Research Letters, found that land-use changes caused by a major ramp-up in biofuel crops — enough …

by Jessica Shankleman (BusinessGreen.com)   …Three campaign groups, backed by 12 organisations in the timber, paper and furniture industries, yesterday warned that a surge in demand for wood as a result of renewable electricity subsidies …

by W.M.J. Achten, A. Trabucco, W.H. Maes, L.V. Verchot, R. Aerts, E. Mathijs, P. Vantomme, V.P. Singh, B. Muys  (ScienceDirect.com/Journal of Arid Environments)  Biofuels are considered as a climate-friendly energy alternative. However, their environmental sustainability is …

(WebWire)  Biofuels made from high yield, short rotation woody crops or from forest residuals and thinnings that are currently left unused have substantial potential to reduce CO2 emissions as well as to contribute to energy …

by John DeCicco  (The Energy Collective)  If biofuels benefit the climate, it’s not when they’re burned; those CO2 emissions are the same as from the fossil fuels they replace. Any potential benefit is due to the …

(Solve for X/CoolPlanet Energy Systems)  Solve for X is a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking and teamwork.
The fact is that plants have a carbon-negative phase – a time during which they remove …

by Anna Austin (Biomass Power and Thermal Magazine)  A recently released study authored by nine scientists from multiple organizations  and universities, including the U.S. Forest Service, may be poised to clear up some confusion. With …

by Dr. William Strauss (Renewable Energy World/FutureMetrics) This short article challenges the assumption that there is always a carbon debt incurred first and then a carbon dividend realized later (debt-then-dividend) when using woody biomass for …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Genencor CEO Tjerk de Ruiter says, “As long as they create a mandate, the $1.01 a gallon cellulosic tax credit will help, but could live without it.”
Last week, Genencor released …

by Bryan Sims (Biodiesel Magazine)  Boeing issued research conducted by Yale University’s School of Environmental Studies that showed significant potential for jatropha-based aviation fuel. The study showed that, if cultivated properly, jatropha could deliver strong …

(EurekAlert/Kansas State University)  “Fossil fuels are limited, and since we can’t use more than what Earth offers, a lot of people are looking for alternative fuel sources like algae,” said Peter Pfromm, professor of chemical …

by Lisa Gibson (Biomass Power and Thermal Magazine)   A growing number of U.S. ethanol plants are reaping the benefits of using biomass for power.
The demand for ethanol with a lower carbon footprint seems to …

by Nathanael Greene (Natural Resources Defense Council Representative)   Greene begins by making the point that “long-term environmental imperatives” need to be applied at a global level, and that bioenergy must be an integral part of a …

by Alexander Kunev (The McGill Daily)  …However, getting rid of a system of distribution that encompasses a large network of filling stations and refineries is far from the most efficient way to ensure that more …

by Matthew L. Wald (New York Times)  High oil prices are generally bad news for American companies, but one, Gevo of Englewood, Colo., says that $100-a-barrel oil is opening up a niche.
The company bought a factory …

(RAC)  The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned an ExxonMobil advertisement after its claims relating to environmental benefits of using algae to form biofuels were found to be misleading.
A complaint was filed by a viewer …

by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuels USA)  At the Green Car Summit on Capitol Hill on January 26, 2011, Don Hillebrand, Director of the Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National Laboratory spoke about the process …

(Michigan State University)  Most college students in the United States do not grasp the scientific basis of the carbon cycle – an essential skill in understanding the causes and consequences of climate change, according to …

by Luke Geiver (Biodiesel Magazine)  The German Biomass Research Center has conducted a study on optimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from rapeseed-based biodiesel. The goal of the study was to analyze the current default values …

By Don Hofstrand (Iowa State University Extension/JoplinStockyards.com)   U.S. energy policy has recently moved into the background due to concerns about the current economic downturn. However, the importance of the two major drivers of energy policy …

By: Sara Krauskopf  (The Science Teacher)  A life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool used by engineers to make measurements of net energy, greenhouse gas production, water consumption, and other items of concern. This article describes an …

(Europa)  The European Commission has authorised, under EU state aid rules, a €5 million investment aid for a pipeline infrastructure to transport waste CO2 from a bioethanol plant in Rotterdam to greenhouses in the “Zuidplaspolder”. The …

by Terry McDonald (EnergyBoom)  …The EPA agrees with the (U.S. Energy Information Agency) that biomass is a renewable fuel with no impact on the environment: “Although the burning of biomass also produces carbon dioxide, the primary …

by Roland Hiederer, Fabien Ramos, et al. (European Commission Joint Research Centre)  This study implements a new methodology developed by the JRC IES and IE for estimating changes in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from soil and …

(IBTimes/Green Energy UK)   More and more of the millions of flowers grown in Dutch greenhouses each year are receiving carbon dioxide from carbon capture and storage systems. As the leading European bioethanol producer, Abengoa Bioenergía …

by Joanna Schroeder (DomesticFuel)  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering equating biogenic carbon emissions with fossil fuel emissions under the Tailoring Rule, which requires the accounting and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions under the …

(Max Planck Society)  …”What’s new about this research is that we have integrated the carbon cycle into our model to obtain the emissions data,” says Erich Roeckner. According to the model, admissible carbon dioxide emissions …