(US Department of Energy) ...More than 600 speakers, moderators, sponsors, exhibitors, and attendees were able to listen to discussions about the ongoing challenges and achievements in the bioenergy industry. Biomass 2011 addressed key issues in important areas, such as feedstock supply, conversion pathways,
fermentation
Back TO HOMEPhase Shift: 12 Hot Gas-Based Biofuels Technologies
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...But a new generation of technologies is coming along fast, primarily in advanced biofuels, which is gasifying biomass at the front end along its path towards making fuels, chemicals or other biomaterials – or in
August 09, 2011 Read Full Article
Malaysia: Producing Biofuel from Algae
(Algae Industry Magazine) Marilyn Tenn in the Borneo Post talks about biotechnologists and researchers from Swinburne University of Technology, in Sarawak, Malaysia pooling their expertise to meet the challenge of developing viable alternative fuels. The university has been involved in research
July 30, 2011 Read Full Article
Is China for You? The Opportunities, the Risks, the Way
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...A combination of industrial biotech know-how, an array of biomass feedstocks (particularly lignocellulose), a strong and growing domestic market, and ready access to scale-up debt for scale-up through China’s steadier project finance system – well,
July 22, 2011 Read Full Article
The Rising Tigers of the China Bioenergy Trade
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... That the freighters out of China contain low-cost manufactured goods would surprise no one. The trick of the trade, from the ship owners’ point of view, has always been to develop a profitable cargo
July 05, 2011 Read Full Article
FEW: Large Crowd Attends Cellulosic Integration Discussion
by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) ...(I)ndustry experts discussed their views toward integrating cellulosic production at existing corn ethanol facilities. ...The panelists seemed in agreement that integrating cellulosic ethanol production with existing first-generation plants presents an ideal expansion opportunity. However their
June 30, 2011 Read Full Article
DSM Strengthens Yeast Technology Leadership for 2G Biofuels
(DSM) Royal DSM, the global Life Sciences and Materials Sciences company, today announces that it has reached an agreement to acquire C5 Yeast Company B.V. (Bergen op Zoom, Netherlands) from Royal Cosun. The acquisition will allow DSM to combine C5
June 29, 2011 Read Full Article
Sydney, Australia Home of New Algal Biomass Facility
by Joanna Schroeder (DomesticFuel.com) Algae.Tec Limited in collaboration with Manildra Group have announced the construction of an algae demonstration facility in Shoalhaven One, in Nowra south of Sydney, Australia. Manildra Group is the country’s largest ethanol producer. Algae.Tec Executive Roger Stroud
June 29, 2011 Read Full Article
Iowa State Hybrid Lab Combines Technologies to Make Biorenewable Fuels and Products
(Iowa State University) Laura Jarboe pointed to a collection of test tubes in her Iowa State University laboratory. Some of the tubes looked like they were holding very weak coffee. That meant microorganisms - in this case, Shewanella bacteria - were
June 24, 2011 Read Full Article
Syngas Fermentation: The Third Pathway for Cellulosic Ethanol
(Advanced Biofuels USA) ...(T)here is a third, hybrid process which combines both biochemical and thermochemical elements, capturing the benefits of each pathway while mitigating some of their deficiencies. This process, called syngas fermentation, is a process where a biomass feedstock
June 08, 2011 Read Full Article
Consolidated Bioprocessing: A Revolution in Biofuels Development
by Jeremy Fordham (Green-Trust.org) ...Microorganisms are incredibly abundant and diverse, especially in their metabolic functionality. Consolidated bioprocessing takes advantage of this versatility. ...Cellulose is a crystalline molecule that is critical to a plant cell’s structure, so it is hard for microbes
June 03, 2011 Read Full Article
Logos and EdeniQ Receive Department of Energy Funding for Corn-to-Cellulosic Pilot Biorefinery
(Logos Technologies) DOE commits full $20.5 million to retrofit and build pilot plant in Visalia, CA Logos Technologies®, Inc. and EdeniQ, Inc., announced U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) approval to fully fund $20.5 million in federal cost share under DOE’s Integrated
May 06, 2011 Read Full Article
The Biofuels Technology Square Dance
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...How’s an investor to parse out all these technologies. For many, it’s a case of “you’re making what, from what, using what?” ...Here at the Digest, we think of it as a kind of old fashioned
April 18, 2011 Read Full Article
USDA Grants Support Sustainable Bioenergy Production
(U.S. Department of Agriculture) Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced research grants awarded to spur production of bioenergy and biobased products that will lead to the development of sustainable regional systems and help create jobs. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s
April 13, 2011 Read Full Article
Key Players: Advanced Biofuels
by David Beattie (Renewable Energy World Magazine) ...Importantly, and what sets these latest fuels apart from their first-generation predecessors, is the fact that they are produced using feedstock that would normally be classed as waste or non-food. These include parts
April 05, 2011 Read Full Article
Builders Erect Cellulosic Ethanol Plant at Port of Morrow
by Dean Brickley (East Oregonian) Zea-Chem’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant is more than one-third finished. Builders erected three 40,000-gallon fermentation tanks this week and continued bolting together the steel structure for the two-story operations building. Excavation began last fall, and contractors poured
March 28, 2011 Read Full Article
Mind-Bending Microbes
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) New isobutanol-producing and protein-munching microbes from UCLA remind us that biofuels remain in the anything-but-static, eye-popping era of their development. The Digest’s “mind-bending breakthrough” in-basket is overflowing this week with advances in the fermentation of protein
March 08, 2011 Read Full Article
Portable Ethanol Machine Studied as Way to Have Grand Rapids Community Fuel Depot
by Myron Kukla (Grand Rapids Press/MLive.com) Angel Gonzalez looks over a new portable ethanol machine designed for farm use and wonders if it could help families in his Belknap neighborhood make low-cost “community fuel.” “It’s just an idea at this point,
March 08, 2011 Read Full Article
The Brew Barons: Masters of Advanced Fermentation, Driving the Redefinition of Biofuels: Pt 1
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...Is there enough energy, food, fiber and feed for all? Advances in industrial fermentation – a/k/a an incredulous “you’re making what? from what? using what? – will be the key to answering that question. The stars of this drama
March 01, 2011 Read Full Article
Amyris Technology Performs Successfully at Industrial Scale
(Amyris, Inc.) Amyris, Inc., announced that it has completed multiple runs of its fermentation process using Amyris engineered yeast to produce Biofene™, Amyris renewable farnesene, in 100,000 and 200,000 liter capacity fermentors. These runs were completed through contract manufacturing operations
February 24, 2011 Read Full Article
Municipal Solid Waste to Biofuels Summit: Conference Report
by Bill Brandon (Advanced Biofuels USA) On February 10 & 11, about 120 participants gathered in chilly Chicago for the first Municipal Solid Waste to Biofuels Summit presented by the British firm, Eye for Energy. The conference drew participants from
February 21, 2011 Read Full Article
INEOS Bio JV Breaks Ground on 1st Advanced Waste-to-Fuel Commercial Biorefinery in U.S.
(INEOS) $130 million facility to produce ethanol and renewable power from waste; major first step in INEOS Bio global licensing strategy * Today the Indian River BioEnergy Center officially started construction; it will be the first commercial-scale facility in the United
February 10, 2011 Read Full Article
Vinod Khosla on the Technology Pathway to Biofuels
by Vinod Khosla (Green Tech Media) Part 1: Production technologies: where are we? The financial crisis of 2008 set back a number of projects and slowed actual construction of pilot and demo plants like it did in all industries, be
January 24, 2011 Read Full Article
IndianOil and LanzaTech Sign MOU for Fuel Grade Ethanol Technology
(myCFO/LanzaTech) IndianOil, India's flagship petroleum major, and LanzaTech, a leading clean energy technology company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for collaboration in a technology demonstration that will enable IndianOil to produce fuel grade ethanol. The MOU was signed in
January 17, 2011 Read Full Article
Enzyme Cocktail Could Eliminate a Step in Biofuel Process
(NewsGuide) Conversion of biomass to fuel requires several steps: chemical pretreatment to break up the biomass – often dilute (sulfuric) acid, detoxification to remove the toxic chemicals required in pretreatment, and microbial fermentation to convert the soluble sugars to fuels. Virginia
December 28, 2010 Read Full Article
Green Biologics Strikes Deals in China
by Fiona Harvey (Financial Times) ...Green Biologics, an unlisted company, has signed deals with two Chinese biochemical businesses – Guangxi Jinyuan Biochemical and Lianyungang Union of Chemicals. Under the deals – expected to be worth about £10m ($15m) over the next five
December 28, 2010 Read Full Article
The Charge of the Capital Light Brigade
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...But a new generation of companies has come along with new ideas about how to develop scale in a world of empty wallets. You might have heard of them as Amyris, Solazyme, LS9, Gevo, Joule
December 20, 2010 Read Full Article
Seaweed as Biofuel? Metabolic Engineering Makes It a Viable Option
(PhysOrg.com) Is red seaweed a viable future biofuel? Now that a University of Illinois metabolic engineer has developed a strain of yeast that can make short work of fermenting galactose, the answer is an unequivocal yes. ...(M)arine biomass can be easily
December 17, 2010 Read Full Article
Bioengineers Develop Bacterial Strain That Could Increase Ethanol Production
(Wiley Press Room/Renewable Energy World) A team of Bioengineers in the United States have modified a strain of bacteria to increase its ability to produce ethanol. The research, published in Biotechnology and Bioengineering, reveals how adaptation and metabolic engineering can
December 14, 2010 Read Full Article
The Development of Butamax
(Butamax) This PowerPoint presentation describes the development of Butamax as a company, a joint venture between Dupont and BP. It also diagrams the process of biobutanol production and explores their analysis that isobutanol production combines economic manufacture with high value
November 11, 2010 Read Full Article
Revival! INEOS Awards $100 Million construction Contract for Florida Bioenergy Center
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Florida, INEOS New Planet BioEnergy has awarded the EPC contract to build its 8 million gallon per year advanced bioenergy facility in Vero Beach to AMEC of Tucker, GA. The facility will also produce up
November 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Feedstock-Conversion Interface Projects – Connecting Feedstock Resources to Conversion Processes
by Dr. J. Richard Hess (Biomass Program Technology Manager, Idaho National Laboratory) Dr. Hess details the biomass attributes that impact the nature of and cost of feedstock preparation, biochemical conversion, and thermochemcal conversion, along with general flow diagrams for each process.
October 27, 2010 Read Full Article
Cellodextrin Transport in Yeast for Improved Biofuel Production
by Jonathan M. Galazka, Chaoguang Tian, William T. Beeson, Bruno Martinez, N. Louise Glass, Jamie H. D. Cate (Science) Fungal degradation of plant biomass may provide insights for improving cellulosic biofuel production. We show that the model cellulolytic fungus Neurospora crassa
October 18, 2010 Read Full Article
Zero Discharge Sweet Sorghum Ethanol Process Development
(PRNewsWire) AdvanceBio LLC, a Cincinnati-based advanced biofuel technology company, today announced the development of its next generation, sugar-based fuel ethanol process. The process is capable of utilizing sugars derived from sugar cane, sweet sorghum, sugar beet and other similar crops as feedstock
August 31, 2010 Read Full Article
Advanced Biofuel Developer to Buy Minnesota Ethanol Plant
(Brighter Energy) Gevo, the biobutanol technology developer based in Colorado, looks set to acquire an ethanol production plant in southwest Minnesota to use as a base to commercialize its process. The company has signed definitive agreements to acquire the Agri-Energy ethanol facility
August 10, 2010 Read Full Article
Hydrocarbon Fuels: National Advanced Biofuels Consortium
by Dr. Thomas D. Foust (Executive Director of the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium, National Renewable Energy Laboratory) The DOE created the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium (NABC) to help develop cost-effective technologies to develop advanced “drop-in” biofuels compatible with our current infrastructure,
August 04, 2010 Read Full Article
Construction Begins on £25m UK Facility for Bioenergy Research
(ClickGreen) Work has begun on construction of a multi-million pound research facility for bioenergy and biofuels, brewing technology and food and drink processing at The University of Nottingham. The Bioenergy Centre, the first of its kind in the country, is being
July 07, 2010 Read Full Article
New Yeast Can Ferment More Sugar, Make More Cellulosic Ethanol
(Purdue University) Purdue University scientists have improved a strain of yeast that can produce more biofuel from cellulosic plant material by fermenting all five types of the plant's sugars. Nathan Mosier, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering; Miroslav Sedlak,
June 24, 2010 Read Full Article
Antibiotics Concerns Ooze into Ethanol Process
(Des Moines Register) ...Ethanol producers have long used antibiotics to control bacteria that can contaminate the fermentation process. But now, the Food and Drug Administration is developing a policy to regulate the use of the drugs and is conducting tests
June 03, 2010 Read Full Article
Firm Looks to China for Biofuel Technology Agreement
by Max Showalter (JCOnline.com) A startup company at the Purdue Research Park in West Lafayette has developed an innovative yeast-based cellulosic ethanol technology and will get a big boost Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing. Representatives of Green Tech America Inc., founded by
June 01, 2010 Read Full Article
Nalco Introduces Yeast Activity Monitor, a New Technology for Global Brewing and Ethanol Markets
(NALCO) The Nalco Yeast Activity Monitor is innovative technology that gives producers unique insight into their fermentation processes that has never before been possible. Dr. Michael Bradley, Naperville R&D, was instrumental in developing the Nalco Yeast Activity Monitor equipment and
June 01, 2010 Read Full Article
The Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment Awards over $5.1 Million to 24 Energy Projects at the University of Minnesota
(University of Minnesota) The Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE) recently awarded over $5.1 million to 24 renewable energy research and demonstration projects at the University of Minnesota. The selected projects focus on a wide-range of topics including solar
April 26, 2010 Read Full Article
Qteros and UMass Amherst Announce the Issuance of a U.S. Patent for Production of Ethanol from a Unique Microorganism, the Q Microbe™
Qteros, Inc., and the University of Massachusetts Amherst announced today that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued U.S. Patent No. 7,682,811 titled “Systems and Methods for Producing Biofuels and Related Materials” describing the novel creation of products, including
March 24, 2010 Read Full Article
Ethanol Industry Can Stop Using Unnecessary Antibiotics,
The ethanol industry should voluntarily stop the unnecessary use of antibiotics in the production process, particularly because viable alternatives are readily available, concludes a new report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP). For decades, ethanol producers have added
July 28, 2009 Read Full Article
Biologist Finds Cell Wall Construction Pathway
Wood with altered properties and cheaper ethanol through more efficient production are two possibilities as a result of a find by a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Erik Nielsen, Ph.D., Washington University adjunct professor of biology in Arts