The Swedish Bioenergy Association (Svebio) estimates that the August tax cuts given to biofuels in Sweden had a large effect on commercial transport, but the impact on E85 in private transport was more meagre. “Private motorists seem to not be aware that after 1 August it’s become cheaper for them to fuel their cars with E85 ethanol than petrol if they have... [Read More]

Brazil-based oil company Petrobras said it is discussions to sell its stake in sugar and ethanol producer Guarani SA to France’s Tereos Internacional. Petrobras is planning to sell its 45.9% stake in the company, according to the Wall Street Journal. The proposed sale is part of Petrobras’ plan to sell certain assets to reduce debt. The company is planning... [Read More]

In Australia, the state of Queensland’s regional economies are set to benefit from the Palaszczuk Government’s biofuels mandate, the state cabinet said. The government is continuing to garner the attention of Queensland motorists with its E10 OK campaign. Speaking from Airlie Beach for the Palaszczuk Government's Whitsundays Community Cabinet, Minister for... [Read More]

Scientists at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have turned lignin into a source of biofuel by simply adding a common chemical The patent-pending method that converts up to 80% of lignin into valuable molecules for biofuel and plastics and can be scaled up to industrial levels has been published in Science. Lignin is an enormously... [Read More]

In Thailand, the government’s Pollution Control Department (PCD) is suing Rajburi Ethanol Co. for allowing molasses wastewater to leak into the Mae Klon River, devastating the waterway’s giant stingray population. According to the PCD, tests have indicated that wastewater leaked into the river in Ban Pong district of Ratchaburi, polluting it and killing aquatic... [Read More]

A significant portion of US-produced corn ethanol will likely meet Japan's 50% greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction threshold over petrol, a recently released US Grains Council (USGC) study finds. The study, USGC says, supports the case for ethanol's competitiveness and sustainability compared to other fuel sources. The results will help the USGC and its industry partners dispel... [Read More]

Five established research centres across the UK have formed a new alliance seeking to position Britain as a global leader in biorefining technology development and bio-based product manufacture. The founding centres of the BioPilotsUK projects are BEACON (Wales), the Biorenewables Development Centre (BDC – York), the Centre for Process Innovation (CPI – Redcar),... [Read More]

The Mayor of New York Bill de Blasio has signed legislation that will increase the amount of biodiesel in the city’s heating oil supply to 20%. The bill, which passed by a 47-3 vote in September, will increase the biodiesel percentage from the current 2% level to 5% by 1 October, 2017, and eventually up to 20% by 2034. The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) estimates... [Read More]

US biofuels producer High Plains Bioenergy, a subsidiary of Seaboard Foods, has officially opened its newest biodiesel production plant, HPB-St. Joe Biodiesel, located in St. Joseph, Missouri. The plant will use vegetable oils as the primary feedstock to produce up to 28 million gpy of biodiesel, and it marks High Plains Bioenergy's second venture into the biofuels market. “The... [Read More]

A joint investment between UK’s BBSRC and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in Brazil has been made to support collaborations between UK and Brazilian scientists in advanced biofuels research. The funding – £3.5 million (€3.9m) from BBSRC with equivalent funding of £1.5 million from FAPESP – has been awarded to two partnerships... [Read More]

German biofuel producer CropEnergies increased its ethanol output in the first half of the 2016/17 financial year, despite falling revenues. Bioethanol production at CropEnergies increased from 422,000m3 to 450,000 m3 in H1 2016/17, with the production of food and animal products correspondingly increasing. The rise in production volumes resulted from a higher capacity... [Read More]

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center (NCBC), aided by a $1.87 million (€1.7m) federal grant, has embarked on a three-year project to study the production of sorghum as biomass for fuel and high-value chemicals in the Mid-Atlantic region. The project, involving scientists at land-grant universities in two Southeast US states and numerous industry partners,... [Read More]

An illegal ethanol warehouse in Harare, Zimbabwe, went up in flames on Sunday afternoon, leaving eight people, including three firemen, critically injured. The firemen are currently being treated in a hospital in Harare, but officials say they’re considering flying them to South Africa to receive special treatment due to the severity of their injuries. Michael Chideme,... [Read More]

US exports of feed grains in all forms in 2015/2016 increased by more than 300,000 tonnes from the previous marketing year, US Department of Agriculture data shows. Totalling at 100.5 million tonnes, the export products include US corn, sorghum, barley, distillers’ dried grains with solubles (DDGS), corn gluten feed (CGF), corn gluten meal (CGM), ethanol as measured... [Read More]

Scottish Industrial Biotechnology Innovation Centre (IBioIC) has announced over £3 million (€3.3m) of investment across six synthetic biology projects, including a biofuels/biochemicals manufacturer. Twist Bioscience with University of Edinburgh was granted £500,000 to engineer yeast strains for fuels and pharmaceuticals. With its expertise in DNA, Twist... [Read More]

US scientists have found a way to nearly double the efficiency with which a commonly used industrial yeast strain converts plant sugars to biofuel. The newly engineered “super yeast” could boost the economics of making ethanol, specialty biofuels, and bioproducts, researchers from the University of Wisconsin­–Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy... [Read More]