Indirect Land Use Change (iLUC) is in the news. The ‘iLUC Amendment’ to the Renewable Energy and Fuel Quality Directives is now set to pass into EU regulation over the next few months after...

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced proposed volume requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) programme for 2014, 2015 and 2016, while also proposing volume requirements...

EU ethanol raised its game in the second quarter of 2015 after a poor start to the year. Idled production capacity in response to poor Q1 margins helped rebalance a previously oversupplied market, with...

Spot soya methyl ester biodiesel prices in the US advanced during the second quarter of 2015, buoyed by the unveiling in late May of demand targets for the biofuel from 2014 through 2017, although the...

On 5 June 2015 St1 Biofuels, an ethanol manufacturer and technology producer headquartered in Finland, officially opened its 5 million litre per year ethanol plant in Gothenburg, Sweden. St1 Biofuels delivered...

The new EU framework requires a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to 1990 levels, and an EU wide binding target for renewable energy of at least 27%. Traffic is rapidly becoming...

The development of the biofuels industry has introduced new levels of trade complexity to the much longer-established mineral oil and agricultural markets. Rainfall and pestilence were not even blips on...

Establishing environmentally and economically sustainable processes in the ethanol industry is key to producers’ success. To be successful, an ethanol producer must reduce energy waste, maximise...

For many industrial sites, energy is the main cost of operations after raw materials. Not only is consuming energy very costly, but also most of the time a tremendous portion of this energy is lost due...

The use of steam for heating is prevalent in most chemical processing industries, including the biofuels industry, due to its high energy density and versatility. Common steam applications in traditional...

Towards the end of 2014, Danish biotech company Novozymes launched a new enzymatic solution for the production of biodiesel from waste oils. Known as ‘Eversa Transform’, the enzyme process...

When raising the question of what is a ‘good’ feedstock for biodiesel production, the answer must always be: the cheapest. Consequently, ‘good’ does not include materials such as...

Over the past 10 years, the production of biodiesel has been one of the most challenging business arenas. So many plants have been conceived, funded and built without vertical integration and have then...

The potential for biodiesel, generated from used cooking oil, is tremendous in regions such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which is focused on driving its hospitality and tourism sector as part of...

Some people love the term ‘creative destruction’. However, it seems often to be used as a flimsy excuse for destroying strong knowhow built over decades and replacing it with anarchy. But even...

Sterols are natural constituents of vegetable oils in their acylated (ASGs) form. They consist of three chemically connected units: fatty acids, glucose and steroids. Sterols are the major part of the...

As a leader in biofuel production, the US presents a key market for developing and protecting technology to convert biomass to biofuels. Patents, and their exclusionary rights, provide an important tool...