(Solutions from the Land)  U.S. agricultural producers have long understood that healthy soil is a critical requirement for the production of our nation’s food supply. They also know that as the world’s population grows by more …

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 …

(25 x ’25/North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance) Last November, we wrote here of a major breakthrough occurring at the global climate talks in Bonn, Germany, where, for the first time, delegates approved plans to …

by Jeff Mulhollem (Penn State News)  Agroforestry could play an important role in mitigating climate change because it sequesters more atmospheric carbon in plant parts and soil than conventional farming, according to Penn State researchers.
An agricultural system …

by Louis Verchot (Quartz)  … Positive agricultural interventions could achieve up to 6% of reduction emissions needed to achieve the Paris Agreement goals—showing that this sector is not only part of the problem, but part of the solution …

by Jessie Stolark (Environmental and Energy Study Institute)  New research from Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Chicago at Illinois and the International Food Policy Research Institute shows that incorporating conservation practices can both increase soil …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest)  Sometimes, what an engine needs to roar to life is a spark. Or a SPARC, as in this case.
As in the Southeastern Partnership for Advanced Renewables from Carinata (SPARC), a consortium consisting of …

(CGIAR) Evidence-based science on the mitigation and socio-economic impacts of soil carbon sequestration is needed to support commitments to sustainable development goals and the Paris Agreement target.
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Soil carbon sequestration, they say, “can have equal or larger …

by Josephine Marcotty (Star Tribune) Newly plowed land in Minnesota released 1.6 million metric tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year between 2008 and 2012, a consequence of high corn prices and the ethanol mandate.
Only …

by Thin Lei Win (Reuters)  Improving soil health in farmlands could capture extra carbon equivalent to the planet-warming emissions generated by the transport sector, one of the world’s most polluting industries, experts said Tuesday.
Soil naturally absorbs …

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) … You’d be forgiven if you mistook Ahb Subi Banr-Sbar for a well-placed official in the Iranian government — but, in fact, it’s a 9-project network to facilitate the development of regionally-based …

by Kathy Swisher (West Virginia University)  West Virginia University biologists are part of a $40 million Department of Energy effort to create sustainable, cost-effective bioproducts through four new bioenergy research centers.
As part of the Center …

by Chelsea Harvey (The Washington Post)  … In a paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that land use changes associated with planting crops and grazing livestock have caused a …

by Jim Lane  (Biofuels Digest)  … The world of feedstocks is watching biochar very carefully these days, and for good reason. Although it might feel quite a long ways upstream from the world of making and …

Significant scientific uncertainty exists about crop residue removal and potential effects on soil carbon.
Advanced biofuels and bioproducts are being made from crop residues in the US and elsewhere; however, the market value and sustainability of …

by Ron Alverson (Ethanol Producer Magazine/American Coalition for Ethanol)  Life-cycle modeling for ethanol needs to be updated to reflect big improvements in corn’s GHG emissions profile  —  … Fuels that help automakers achieve efficiency standards are going …

by Caitlin E. Hicks Pries, C. Castanha, R. C. Porras, M. S. Torn (Science Magazine) Soils contain about twice as much carbon as Earth’s atmosphere, so their response to warming is crucial to understanding carbon fluxes in a changing …

(Vega Biofuels)  Vega Biofuels, Inc. (OTCPink:VGPR) announced today that it has signed a five year Agreement to provide the Company’s Biochar to legal cannabis growers in Alaska.  The state of Alaska is the most recent …

by Helena Tavares Kennedy  (Biofuels Digest)  … While there were big questions, there were big answers, beginning with a panel on The Sustainable Agriculture Imperative. John Pieper from Dupont Industrial Biosciences shared their latest work with …

by Ivy Ashe (Hawaii Tribune Herald) … The latest stop along that path comes from researchers at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, who are investigating potential dual …

(U.S. Department of Energy/Ethanol Producer Magazine)  The 2016 Billion-Ton Report (BT16), Volume 2: Environmental Sustainability Effects of Select Scenarios from Volume 1, jointly released by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office and Oak Ridge …

(EurekAlert!/PLOS)  Two potential biofuel crops in Hawaii–sugarcane and napiergrass–may sequester more carbon in soil than is lost to the atmosphere, according to a study published January 4, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by …

by Julie Chao  (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)  Two projects will provide a window to the underground, yielding information on roots and soil  —  As advanced as agriculture has become, there remains a pressing need for …

(U.S. Department of Energy)  Selection of 26 projects across two programs will make transportation cleaner and mitigate carbon dioxide emissions  —  The Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) today announced up to $70 million …

by Steffen Mueller (University of Illinois at Chicago Energy Resources Center)  … The authors essentially challenge the accuracy of traditional life cycle analysis with their new model.
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The authors argue that “for a biofuel to provide a net …

by Marie-Joe Costantine (BioFuelNet)  Study stating “ biofuels are worse than gasoline” is fundamentally flawed  —  … In the study, when (John) DeCicco and colleagues calculate the CO2 emissions going into the atmosphere, they consider all parts …

by Kari Lydersen (Midwest Energy News)  …  The Argonne modeling shows that when grassland, cropland and pasture in the Midwest are converted to corn for biofuels, the level of carbon sequestration in the soil stays roughly …

by Jessie Stolark (The Hill/Environmental and Energy Study Institute)  … The total amount of U.S. land under production by American farmers is down– not just over the last 50 or 100 years, but also over the last decade according …

by Joanna Schroeder (Energy.AgWired.com) Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory are using computational modeling to predict which counties in Illinois could see increases in soil organic carbon from crops such as …

by Katie Elyce Jones (Phys.Org)  To help stakeholders in government and business make smart decisions about the best types of land and local climates for planting bioenergy crops, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s …

by Senator Timothy Wirth and C. Boyden Gray (Yale Environment 360)  The criticism of ethanol by environmentalists is misguided and just plain wrong. In fact, thanks to improvements in farming techniques, increasing the amount of …

(25 x ’25)  … While recognition of the role of agriculture in meeting climate change challenges is growing among world leaders, it is of concern that biofuels and the low-carbon benefits they provide, especially when compared …

(Environmental and Energy Study Institute)  On April 12, the Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) announced a new funding opportunity aimed at increasing the carbon storage potential of U.S. agricultural soils.  Land-use, …

by Louisa Burwood-Taylor (AgFunder News)  Cool Planet, the biocarbon and biofuel producer, has raised $9 million in extra funding to commercialize its soil amendment product CoolTerra, which just earned a USDA Certified Biobased Product Label.
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But …

by Louisa Burwood-Taylor (AgFunderNews)  … “Ecological farming is ‘AgTech’ but of a different kind. It is a return to the original definition of ‘technology’, which comes from two Greek words: technis, which means art, skill, craft or the …

by Ron Alverson (Ethanol Across America)  It has been seven years since Argonne National Labs (ANL), as part of the Energy Security and Independence Act requirements, first determined the Life Cycle Carbon Intensity of mid-west …

(Bioenegy Insight)  The Aberystwyth University in Wales, UK and the supply chain specialist Terravesta are running new trials to examine how the energy crop miscanthus survives in water-logged land and its effect on the soil …

by Anna Simet (Biomass Magazine)  U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz has announced that the U.S. DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has awarded $125 million to 41 energy technology projects, four of which involve bioenergy or …

(U.S. Department of Energy)  The Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Transportation (GREET) model allows researchers and analysts to fully evaluate the energy and emission impacts of advanced vehicle technologies and new transportation …

(Oklahoma Farm Report)  Leaders of the North American Climate Smart Agriculture Alliance (NACSAA) told policy makers and others attending climate talks here this week that agriculture can provide impactful and measurable contributions to global efforts …

(Renewable Energy Association/Ethanol Producer Magazine)  The conclusions of five years of field research in the UK show that the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by the UK’s arable sector are significantly lower than previously thought. …

(Michigan State University)  Michigan State University has earned a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to better understand how biofuel crops acquire nitrogen, insights that could help maximize yields while minimizing fertilizer …

(ECN Magazine/Argonne National Laboratory)  The handling of agricultural crop residues appears to have a large impact on soil’s ability to retain carbon, making land management practices increasingly important, especially under a scenario where cellulosic materials …

(Phys.org)  A new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that, when looking at the production site alone, growing biofuel crops can have a significant impact on climate depending on location and crop …

(Farm Futures)  Models predict that miscanthus will have higher fuel yield and profit when compared to corn stover and switchgrass
A recent study simulated a side-by-side comparison of the yields and costs of producing ethanol using …