The UK’s Department of Transport has published a consultation on the future of renewable transport, setting out long-term targets towards 2030. The consultation proposes capping crop-based fuels to below EU levels. It also introduces a new sub-target for development fuels such as biomethane, hydrogen and aviation fuels. Some of the proposals include the following: Raise... [Read More]

The European Commission has released its long-awaited revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and proposed the phase-out of food crop-based biofuels from 2021. The EC also wants to simultaneously introduce a sub-mandate for advanced biofuels. It also proposes to introduce a new sustainability criterion on forest biomass. It proposes an obligation on European transport... [Read More]

Finnish forest industry company UPM has announced that it has successfully tested Finnish wood-based diesel fuel both in laboratory conditions as well as in traffic. According to the frim its renewable diesel called UPM BioVErno, works just “like the best diesel fuels”. The laboratory tests of renewable UPM BioVerno diesel were conducted in the VTT Technical... [Read More]

Ecologist, environmental policy analyst and former Ontario Environment Commissioner Gord Miller has criticised Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission’s anti-biofuels report titled Course Correction. Miller's report, Staying the Course, rejects Ecofiscal's data, methodology and conclusions. According to the Ecofiscal report, provincial and federal production... [Read More]

Climate policies will continue chipping away at fossil fuels’ role as the mainstay of global energy use, despite Donald Trump's appointment as US president in 2017, according to a new report by The Economist Intelligence Unit. The report expects that while the election of Trump as US president is not likely to halt the gradual transition towards cleaner energy... [Read More]

An ethanol factory owned by Thai Agro Energy based in Dan Chang, Thailand, has been ordered to partly suspend operations until it corrects procedures after local residents complained of hydrogen sulphide emissions. According to the Bangkok Post, an industry ministry inspection at the plant found hydrogen sulphide levels exceeding the allowable limit. It ordered the factory... [Read More]

A group of graduate biotechnologists from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC) has for four years been conducting research with whey and its potential in biodiesel production. The entrepreneurial project – called Cibus 3.0 – seeks to utilise bacteria to convert the dairy by-product into biofuel usable in transportation, industrial machinery... [Read More]

EXCLUSIVE: The government of Finland approved a new national Energy and Climate Strategy outlining how the country plans to reach both domestic and EU climate targets by 2030. In the outline, Finland’s centre-right government set a goal to have the share of renewables in the Finnish energy pool surpass 50% during the 2020s, with a long-term goal of reaching carbon... [Read More]

The biofuels industry has welcomed the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final rule to set 2017 renewable volume obligations (RVOs) under the renewable fuel standard (RFS), along with 2018 RVOs for biomass-based diesel. The conventional biofuel amount of 15 billion gallons is an increase from 14.8 billion gallons in the proposed rule, and sets the levels... [Read More]

Spanish ethanol producer Abengoa is asking a US bankruptcy court to prevent legal action and future claims by creditors who are unsatisfied with a $10 billion (€9.4bn) debt restructuring plan. The Spanish company with a global renewable energy footprint put its US subsidiaries in Chapter 11 protection this year and filed for Chapter 15 protection from creditors... [Read More]

An Imperial College climate finance specialist has called on private investors to invest in proven green technologies. Speaking at the UN’s climate summit in Marrakech (COP22), Charles Donovan, director of Imperial's new Centre for Climate Finance & Investment, said: “There’s a huge difference between technologies that are merely possible... [Read More]

Oil giant Shell and Brazilian bioethanol company Cosan have reached an agreement to strengthen their sugarcane ethanol joint venture (JV), Raízen, in Brazil, through a change in its contractual structure. The partners have agreed to remove the mutual time-bound buyout options included in the original JV agreement, signed in June 2011, and in doing so have transformed... [Read More]

Hungarian bioethanol producer Pannonia Ethanol has announced that it has successfully completed a €135 million credit facility agreement with a consortium of Hungarian banks. The facility will support expansion at the company’s Dunaföldvár, Hungary biorefinery, investment in new projects, cost reduction, additional jobs, and increases in both corn... [Read More]

Canadian renewable diesel technology specialist Cielo Waste Solutions Corp. has signed a commercial purchase agreement with XR Resources to purchase a property located in High River, Alberta, on which there is an existing biodiesel refinery. This multi-feedstock processing plant was built in 2009 for an approximate capex cost of $10.2 million (€9.4m) and was capable... [Read More]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalised increases in renewable fuel volume requirements across all categories of biofuels under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) programme. In a required annual rulemaking, today’s (23 November, 2017) action finalises the volume requirements and associated percentage standards for cellulosic biofuel, advanced biofuel,... [Read More]

The European Commission’s (EC) leaked draft proposal to continue supporting first-generation biofuels until 2030 will increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from European transport over the period 2021-2030 by an amount equivalent to the emissions from the Netherlands in 2014, according to environmental campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E). These... [Read More]