(Penn State News)  Slowed as much by extremely low oil prices as supply-chain and technological challenges, the effort to integrate biofuels into the nation’s aviation fuel supply is nonetheless progressing, according to a researcher in …

(BECOOL/AltEnergyMag) A new Horizon 2020 project will foster cooperation between Europe and Brazil in the development of advanced biofuels from sustainable agricultural value chains, based on lignocellulosic biomass. Coordinated by the University of Bologna, Department …

by Jennifer Hermes (Environmental Leader)  …   Other airlines have committed to advancing and commercializing sustainable aviation biofuels, as well – most airlines claim they are doing so in order to become more sustainable and lower carbon …

(SkyNRG)  On Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) 70th anniversary, the carrier operated its first flight on sustainable biofuel. The morning flight departed from San Francisco Airport on May 1st and arrived in Singapore the next day. SIA …

(PR Newswire/C_FARE)  The Council on Food, Agricultural and Resource Economics and the USDA Office of the Chief Economist Energy Policy and New Uses (OEPNU) have joined together to host a discussion entitled: “American-Made BioEnergy from …

(U.S. Department of Energy)  The Energy Department (DOE) and the Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) jointly announced $22.7 million today to support the optimization of integrated biorefineries (IBR). DOE is …

by Neil A. Belson (LeafPro Bioproducts/Biofuels Digest)  … Despite its potential benefits and some very real achievements, the biobased economy has overall progressed more slowly than many had hoped.  There are several reasons for this slow progress. …

by Ann Bailey (Ethanol Producer Magazine) NREL finds more infrastructure is needed for more ethanol and high-octane fuels.  — Changes to existing terminals will need to be made if higher octane fuels are added to the U.S. …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  What’s the Department of Energy working on with respect to feedstocks? The Bioenergy Technologies Office’s Alison Goss-Eng answered the question in this update, given at ABLC Feedstocks. In this deck, she looks …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  …  The headline from the event is that projects and feedstock providers are more engaged than we have seen previously — a wave of technology development that once took place …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  These days, Cathay Pacific trades under the slogan “Life Well Travelled” and the delivery of the first of 48 super-modern, super-quiet, super-chic Airbus 350-900s is another milestone for that branding …

(U.S. Grains Council)  The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) and its industry partners sought to dispel myths about U.S. ethanol and open the door for the renewable fuel in the Japanese market this week at a …

(Yahoo! Finance/Air Canada)  Air Canada today announced Canada’s Biojet Supply Chain Initiative (CBSCI) will be held at Montréal-Trudeau Airport. It is a three-year collaborative project with 14 stakeholder organizations to introduce 400,000 litres of sustainable …

by Lorenz Bauer and William Quapp (Biofuels Digest)  …  However, attempts to translate these small scale successes into commercial technologies have been less successful.   It is easy to blame lower oil and natural gas prices …

(Yahoo! Finance/Air Canada)   Air Canada today announced it will participate in Canada’s Biojet Supply Chain Initiative (CBSCI), a three-year collaborative project with 14 stakeholder organizations to introduce 400,000 litres of sustainable aviation biofuel (biojet) into …

(AZO CleanTech)  A few years ago, petroleum-based products, including gasoline, were not available at affordable prices, unlike the case today. However, the prices are likely to return to the same level in the coming years.
Due …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Green Plains is a vertically-integrated ethanol producer based in Omaha, Nebraska. They currently have an ethanol production capacity of approximately 1.0 billion gallons per year with 12 plants located in …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Although American Process has been most closely associated with its complete cellulosic biofuels package — of late, the company has been much in focus because of its capabilities in producing …

by Bill Levy (Pacific Ag/Biofuels Digest)  …  Amazon has become the world’s largest retailer by winning at logistics. They simply found (and keep finding) ever more efficient ways to meet demand with supply. And that’s …

by Kristy Moore (Renewable Fuels Association)  It is never acceptable to sensationalize the facts to the point where they are no longer facts. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) learned this lesson when …

(Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials)  The Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), a globally recognised sustainability certification standard for biomaterials, and Elements Software Ltd, a leading web based traceability software provider, are working together to help RSB …

by Shawn Grushecky, Jingxin Wang, Sarah Cross Owen, and Lawrence E. Osborn  (Appalachian Hardwood Center)  West Virginia is the third most heavily forested state in the U.S., with a total biomass production potential of 4.67 million …

by Commander Pasquale Tripodi (Italian Navy/Biofuels Digest)  Italy’s Navy joins the global green fleet movement with its first sea trials and certifications.   Including a dramatic at-sea rescue, powered by alternative fuel blends.   The complete story, in …

(Iowa State University/Biomass Magazine)  The loan of two tractors by New Holland Agriculture to Iowa State University’s BioCentury Research Farm has provided new options for its biomass research projects.
The BioCentury Research Farm combines biomass feedstock …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  In Iowa, farmers are now harvesting and delivering cob bales for the 2014 opening of Project LIBERTY in Emmetsburg. The 20 million gallon per year POET-DSM plant will use corn …

by Susanne REtka Schill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  Bruce Dale urges careful thought about energy and agriculture.
A 1-ton-per-day pilot facility on the campus of Michigan State University geared up this spring to produce pretreated biomass for …

by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuels USA)  What used to be known as “The New York Sugar Conference” has become “The ISO and Datagro Sugar & Ethanol Conference” with a record-setting number of attendees (350 from …

(U.S. Department of Energy)  Supplying high-quality feedstock for use in a broad range of sustainable conversion processes to produce advanced biofuels is a complex, multi-step process. Each step in the feedstock supply and logistics chain—from …

by Dan Conable (Cato Analytics LLC/Ethanol Producer Magazine)  Despite weather challenges and the learning curve for farmers unfamiliar with this energy sorghum, one of the first commercial-scale plantings of the crop in the northeastern U.S. has …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) … The entropy problem in feedstocks   In bioenergy, it’s the chief reason, for example, that otherwise perfectly acceptable fruit waste from citrus harvest is a difficult feedstock for energy production. The …

by Erin Voegele (Biorefining Magazine)  …The BioFeed model is the product of University of Illinois researchers funded by BP’s Energy Biosciences Institute under a research program titled Engineering Solutions for Biomass Feedstock Production. According to …

by Dan Piller (Des Moines Register)  Fuel for carriers, jets adds demand for biofuel source other than corn
A Missouri cooperative called (what else?) ShowMe Energy is building an $80 million, 3 million gallon facility that …

by Robert Kozak (Advanced Biofuels USA)  Problem Definition:  The production of biofuels in the US is at a substantial roadblock. Due to the high cost of transporting large quantities of low density, low value biomass …

(EurekAlert/Michigan State University)  MSU research looks for ways to improve shipping of materials for biofuels
If the increased use of biomass to produce alternative fuels is to become a reality, more attention needs to be paid …

(EurekAlert!)  Research into biofuel crops such as switchgrass and Miscanthus has focused mainly on how to grow these crops and convert them into fuels. But many steps lead from the farm to the biorefinery, and each could …

by Graham Warwick (Aviation Week)  As airlines launch the first commercial biofuel flights in the U.S., the government is working with industry to scale up production of biomass-derived jet fuel to commercial quantities beginning in …

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  Three years ago, ag giants John Deere & Co., Archer Daniels Midland Co. and Monsanto Co. pooled their respective areas of expertise and embarked on an experiment. Each company …

(Bloomberg)  Logum Logistica SA, a joint venture backed by Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4), won a 1.7 billion real ($924 million) loan from development bank Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social for a project to transport …

(University of Tennessee)  Center to coordinate woody biomass production and utilization studies
The Center for Renewable Carbon, a program of the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, has been named by the USDA as a recipient …

by Erin Voegele (Biodiesel Magazine)  The market for biodiesel-blended heating oil is growing swiftly as oilheat dealers look for ways to green their offerings and supply a product that offers comparable economic benefits to natural …

by Bryan Sims (Biodiesel Magazine)  Selling direct can improve a small-scale producer’s bottom line
…Aside from producing biodiesel, however, producers are faced with unpredictable swings in feedstock price and availability as well as fees associated with …

by Luke Geiver (Biodiesel Magazine)  …Professor Jae-Dong Hong of South Carolina State University and his team are getting closer to having the information they need to create a tool that will help fleet managers calculate …

by Mariah Sondergard (Commonwealth Magazine)  Global’s trains will bring in 3.6m gallons a week
MOST OF THE ethanol that is mixed with gasoline in Massachusetts enters the state by ship or fuel truck, but that will change …

by Ansley Haman  (TimesFreePress.com)  A local engineer wants to build a “moonshine” pipeline through county property in the Bonny Oaks Industrial & Office Park.
Mike Price, with M.A.P. Engineers, has been meeting individually with Hamilton County commissioners …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Alternative fuels have work to do, say retail marketing experts, to win customer acceptance, but the work can be done. Here are 14 points to consider.
“(A)lternative fuels need many things, …

As the ethanol market continues its international growth, this conference will provide insight and information on all aspects of ethanol export logistics, including legal, financial, and region-specific issues.
The conference will also provide significant networking opportunities …

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  …Inbicon conducted an extensive crop study and biomass research project to show just how much biomass is available in the Midwest. “Our findings confirm that North America’s great abundance …

by Megan Cassidy  (Columbia Missourian)  Shibu Jose and his team believe that today’s soggy river bottoms could be untapped grounds for the largest advanced biofuel economy in the nation.
Jose, director for MU’s Center for Agroforestry, is …

(US Department of Energy/Idaho National Laboratory)  The United States is increasing the use of lignocellulosic biomass as part of a portfolio of solutions to address climate change and improve energy security, in addition to other benefits that an invigorated …

Projects will help develop sustainable, renewable biofuels in the U.S.
As part of the Obama Administration’s comprehensive plan to address rising gas prices, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced …

by Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine)  In order for ag residues and energy crops to be profitably converted to biofuels, it is expected that biorefineries will need to acquire all of their feedstocks from within …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Game changer, breakthrough, revolution, quantum leap. A lot of technologies arrive on the Digest’s doorstep wrapped in one of those descriptors, or another. Sometimes wrapped in all of them.
But what …

(POET)  First farmers completed BCAP applications Monday
Farmers are now delivering biomass bales to POET’s 22-acre storage site in Emmetsburg, Iowa, the future home of the 25 million-gallon-per-year cellulosic ethanol plant dubbed “Project LIBERTY.”
Area farmers harvested 56,000 …

Kris Bevill (Ethanol Producer Magazine) Minnesota-based modular ethanol production system manufacturer Easy Energy Systems Inc. recently finalized its first commercial sale and will soon begin building equipment for a 2 MMgy corn-based plant in Lake …

(Sweetwater Energy)   Sweetwater has begun delivering concentrated sugar water from its expanded pilot system in Rochester, NY to sources developing bio-jet fuel. Production is ramping up over the next 3 months in preparation for major-scale deliveries beginning in 2011, utilizing Sweetwater’s …

by James Cartledge  (BrighterEnergy.org)  New research from Purdue University highlights the need to improve efficiencies in the logistics of cellulosic biomass feedstocks for ethanol production.
A study from the university’s agricultural and biological engineering researchers found that …

by Dr. Christopher Wright (Research Engineer, Idaho National Laboratory)  Dr. Wright’s presentation describes his current project on the creation of a mobile unit to preprocess bales of cellulosic feedstock into a form that can be utilized by …

by Dr. Timothy Volk (Research Associate, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry)   Dr. Volk proposes a cycle for growing and harvesting willow trees for use in advanced biofuel production. The amount of usable biomass per acre …

by Bob Matousek (Manager of Plant and Harvesting Research and Development, Agco Corporation)  Mr. Matousek’s presentation discusses techniques for collecting corn crop residues into solid bales that can be transported to fuel production facilities. He …

by John Lukas (Harris Group)   The Achilles heel of many of the new biomass conversion projects, be they for fuel energy or chemicals, will be the material handling portion of these facilities. The projects will utilize …

The ethanol transportation industry continues to develop and the margins remain as tight as ever. That being the case, everyone is looking for ways to improve efficiency, quality, safety, and profits. The 3rd Annual Ethanol …

by Tom Richard (Pennsylvania State University/Science)  Rapid growth in demand for lignocellulosic bioenergy will require major changes in supply chain infrastructure. Even with densification and preprocessing, transport volumes by mid-century are likely to exceed the …