EIA forecasts paints gloomy fuel price projection: $8.68 gasoline, $268 crude oil by 2040. Despite more pain at the pump, EIA cuts back sharply on projections for flex-fuel and all-electric vehicles. Where are the alternatives? When six press releases arrive from the biofuels community in the space of two hours, offering perspective and caution on [...]
Biofuels Digest has released the next wave of its 5-Minute Guides – a “news you can use” digest on the leading companies in biofuels. Each 5-Minute Guide provides a company description, 3 top milestones for 2010-12 and projected for 2012-14, description of the business model; plus project info (location, feedstocks, product set, processing technology, capacity, [...]
By Mackinnon Lawrence There are few topics that get the clean technology sector excited less than trash. Meanwhile, the news is littered with stories discussing municipal areas from Zimbabwe to Los Angeles and Mumbai to Moscow struggling to implement long-term strategies for dealing with municipal solid waste (MSW). Even as intellectual capital is thrown at [...]
In Nebraska, the Mid-America Business Conditions Index shows that pressures on the ethanol industry are one of the factors keeping the region’s economy from recovering. “Nondurable goods producers, including food manufacturers and ethanol processors, are experiencing job losses while durable goods manufacturers are expanding their job levels, but at a slow pace. As a result [...]
In New York state, SavOn convenience stores has converted its gas station in Oneida to only provide ethanol-free gasoline, a move the company says was as a result of customer demand. It is the fourth gas station in the 12-store chain to go ethanol-free.
In Washington, DOE figures show that ethanol imports during the third quarter have jumped four-fold on the year, which in turn is boosting freight rates for ethanol from Brazil and shrinking the current glut of freight vessels in the market. Shipments in chemical tankers that transport ethanol rose to a record $70.39 per metric ton [...]
In India, sugar millers are pushing for the government to gazette the E5 blending policy, saying that further delays which are in turn delaying oil marketing companies from floating tenders to buy ethanol, is forcing mills to do things other than produce ethanol with the molasses that is being produced from the current sugarcane crush.
In Peru, sugar producer Coazucar will begin ethanol production in March using sugarcane from its three plantations in an 8,000 gallon per day facility. Though Peru has an 8.7% ethanol blending mandate, that demand is filled mostly by other producers so the fuel will likely be for export. The plant is the country’s third ethanol [...]
In the Netherlands, Shell Lubricants says that despite CO2 benefits, biofuels blended in gasoline and diesel can affect engine operating efficiency and longevity. This provides substantial concern for Europe’s automotive producers, they say, who through the release of the 2012 ACEA oil sequences, look to engine lubricant manufacturers to provide enhanced protection for the current [...]
In Colorado, the DOE has awarded a $2 million grant to Colorado State University to develop a system that will allow plants currently unable to be genetically modified to be genetically modified for use as biofuel feedstock such as sorghum, which currently is difficult to use in biofuel production.
In Illinois, researchers at the University of Illinois have located a bacterium in a garbage dump that they believe can be used to break down both cellulose and hemicellulose. The researchers are very excited about the enzymes that this bacterium because it contains all of the proteins and enzymes needed to break down xylan, which [...]
In Colorado, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) combined different microscopic imaging methods to gain a greater understanding of the relationships between biomass cell wall structure and enzyme digestibility, a breakthrough that could lead to optimizing sugar yields and lowering the costs of [...]
In Switzerland, the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Global Subsidies Initiative has prepared a policy brief, Cultivating Governance: Cautionary tales for biofuel policy reformers, which investigates the challenges of designing and implementing good biofuel policies. The policy brief pays particular attention to how policies can be effected by pressure from various interest groups. The paper stresses [...]
In Texas, the state’s Farm Bureau is unclear about the direction it wants to take, with a plank for its state lobbying efforts approved that will seek to eliminate ethanol blending mandates while also ratifying its support of the national Farm Bureau’s policy to maintain the RFS mandate.
In Washington, the National Association of Fleet Managers is taking a stand on the renewal of advanced biofuel and biodiesel tax credits, encouraging its members to stand in favor of the credits because they are among of the early adopters of biofuel vehicles. In a letter to the members of NAFA Fleet Management Association, Executive [...]
Today on Twitter. Go2CleanBreak: CO2 feeds algae biofuel bonanza …Happy to see Pond Biofuels, which I first wrote about in 2010, making solid headway TaigaCompany: Municipal Waste-to-Biofuels – A New Trend? niawag2011: agriculture is schizophrenic on biofuels. Texas Farm Bureau conference exposes rift on ethanol ICISchemicalbiz: US ethanol stocks increase as production rises: HOUSTON (ICIS)–US [...]
Today on Twitter. farmdaily: Grain #sorghum receives eligibility as feedstock under RFS #biofuels #renewablefuels #ag canadianbiomass: BEN at #crfs12 – Alliance but already with cracks around NextGen #Biofuels Fund applicability to forest sector and unique products. adamKMeyer: $10 rise in oil means $1.4b to Pentagon budget. Advanced #biofuels help reduce costs, save lives VIDEO cubouldernews: [...]
Today on Twitter. aCORE: Bottom line: #biofuels helps our military kick some butt on the battlefield and and spurs economic growth. aksvi: How to Keep Biofuels Sustainable: RP Siegel asks Jesper Hedal Kløverpris, who is Sustainability Manager for Novo… nuffbioethics: @Arakwai Thanks for sharing that link. We designed a ‘dragons den’ style activity for thinking [...]
In France, Global Bioenergies and Synthos announced the discovery of a direct biological pathway to convert renewable resources into butadiene, a light olefin lying at the heart of the petrochemical industry. Presently, 10 million tons of butadiene are produced each year from oil, representing a market exceeding $20 billion. 7 million tons are used to [...]
The Biofuels Digest Index™ (BDI), a basket of public biofuels stocks, shed 0.24 percent to 61.28 as advanced biofuels dipped. For the day, Amyris (AMRS) retreated 2.15 percent to $2.73, while Gevo (GEVO) gave up 3.25 percent to $1.49. Among other equities, Rentech (RTK) advanced 1.77 percent to $2.87. Overall, declines led advances 6 to [...]
Locations: Rapid City – SD and Upton – WY, United States São Paulo – SP, Brazil Company description: Converting sugarcane bagasse into lignin Blue Sugars is now commercializing its process technology to companies in the global sugarcane industry. In April 2012, Blue Sugars licensed its technology to Petrobras SA, Brazil’s largest company and one of [...]
Address: Biotech & Renewables Center, Staffelseestr. 6, 81477 München, Germany Year Founded: 1995 Annual Revenues: CHF 7.4 billion (2011) Company description: Clariant is an internationally active specialty chemical company, based in Muttenz near Basel. The group owns over 100 companies worldwide and employed 22 149 employees on December 31, 2011. In the financial year 2011, [...]
