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Volume 10, Issue 4
Published: July 25, 2016
Ever get that feeling of déjà vu?
It seems we are indeed doomed to repeat history. Everybody in the biofuel industry surely remembers the controversy a year ago when the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was preparing to retroactively...
Nebraska rising
After nearly 20 years of policy work on Capitol Hill, at USDA, and the association world, I moved the family to Lincoln, Nebraska, to become the executive director of the Association of Nebraska Ethanol...
Big interview
At the heart of Hull, in the northeast of England, lies oneof Europe’s biggest producers of bioethanol. Liz Gyekye caught up with Vivergo Fuels’ managing director, Mark Chesworth to find out...
Small scale, big benefits
Lack of access to reliable and clean energy is a worldwide problem – particularly for people living in developing countries. In Africa, the challenges are even greater. More than 630 million people...
Out of Africa
Ugandan local sugar companies are racing against time to diversify into commercial ethanol production as they look to tap into the country’s increasingly lucrative energy sector. Leading the pack...
Letting the cat out of the bag
Although the advantages of torrefaction are tremendous, well recognised, and enumerated in publication after publication, the process of safely and efficiently producing torrefied biomass has proven difficult....
The theory of ethanol evolution
Earlier this year a Fortune Magazinearticle (4 February,2016) announcedthat “ethanol’s days are numbered”. According to the magazine’s theory, the outlook for ethanol is bleak due...
Surface-to-air: All eyes on jet fuel
US company Vertimass was organised in 2012 to commercialise game-changing technology invented at Tennessee-based Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for ethanol conversion into jet fuel, as well as petrol...
Spotlight on lignin
The US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 mandates the development of 79 billion litres of second-generation biofuels annually by 2022. As a result, approximately 56 million tonnes of lignin,...
Catching wind
An Alaska Airlines flight from Seattle to San Francisco made history as the first commercial flight to use renewable alcohol-to-jet fuel(ATJ) based on isobutanol. This new fuel, recently incorporated into...
Biocide solution
Microbiological contaminationin biodiesel/gasoil mixtures represents a major operative and qualitative problem both at a refinery level and along the fuel distribution system.Bacterial proliferation can...
Good fuel husbandry lowers operational costs
Microbial infection can create serious risks to any fuel storage operations. Microbes occur naturally in the water phase found within fuel supplies. They multiply inthe water and at the fuel/water interface...
Momentum continues to grow for Tank Storage Asia
Tank Storage Asia2016, the leading event for the Asian tank storage industry, returns to The Marina BaySands, Singapore, on 27-28 September with an expanded show floor, improved conference programme, and...
A second chance
Despite research advances on conversion of biomass residues into so called second-generation biofuels, vegetable oils remain a preferred raw material, especially for the production of bio-middle-distillate...
Corn oil extraction aids on trial
Most fuel ethanol plants use a chemical extraction aid to increase the amount of corn oil they extract as a by-product of their manufacturing process. Their goal is to create a corn oil revenue stream,...
Becoming independent
At Borderview Farm in Alburgh,Vermont, US, Roger Rainville’s dairyturned-energy farm makes biodiesel from locally-grown sunflower seeds. In 2008, when diesel prices in the US rose from $4 to $5 per...
Flexing the productive muscles
In the South American sugarcane ethanol industry, sugarcane cannot be stored and must be harvested and taken immediately to a sugar mill or ethanol plant for processing. During the non-growing season and...
Reassessment time
In August 2011, the first voluntary sustainability schemes (VSS) were recognised by the European Commission (EC) for verifying compliance of biofuels with the sustainability requirements of the Renewable...