News

A scientist from the University of Manchester has argued that developing a modern bioenergy and biofuels system “has huge potential for providing sustainable, low-carbon energy facilitating a range of key sustainable development goals.” Dr Mirijam Roeder is a scientist from the University of Manchester’s School of Mechanical, Aerospace & Civil Engineering and Tyndall Centre…
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Advanced Biofuels USA has made a new appointment to its board of directors. Chris Tindal, former director for Operational Energy working for the deputy assistant secretary for the Navy for Energy, has joined the nonprofit’s board. Frederick, Maryland based Advanced Biofuels USA is an educational organisation dedicated to the understanding, development and use of advanced biofuels. "Chris…
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Scientists in the US are working to produce biofuels from poplar that could compete with the oil industry. The US Pacific Northwest has an abundant supply of poplar, a fast growing and versatile tree whose wood can be transformed into biofuels and high value chemicals. However, even though scientists are exploring poplars’ potential to be used in ethanol production, a commercial-scale…
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A bio-based process to create crude oil from lignin could soon be ready for commercialisation following extensive development at Chemelot InSciTe (the Chemelot Institute for Science & Technology) in the Netherlands. Researchers in the Lignin RICHES project are working on a thermo-catalytic chemical process invented at the Eindhoven University of Technology. InSciTe is a public-private…
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The National Biodiesel Board’s (NBB) governing board members have sent a letter to President Trump calling on him to protect renewable fuel standard (RFS) volumes. In the letter, the NBB’s governing board members thank the president for his leadership and support of the RFS programme, explain the industry’s capacity to produce biodiesel and highlight some of the contradictions…
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Giant clams in the Indian and Pacific Oceans could provide insights into improving biofuel production processes, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) are claiming. Alison Sweeney, an assistant professor of physics in the Penn School of Arts and Sciences, and her collaborator Shu Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering at Penn’s School of Engineering and…
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American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), a US bioethanol trade body, has announced the first two in a series of fuel marketer-focused videos on the flexfuelforward.com website, part of a campaign to feature real world E15 and flex fuel retailer success stories. The series will address common marketer questions about E15 and flex fuels with straightforward answers from retailers who have…
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Britain’s power supply is now the seventh cleanest in the world after climbing 13 places in a global league table, according to a new Electric Insights report. The report was  produced by researchers at Imperial College London, who in collaboration with power giant Drax, compared the carbon content of electricity supplies across various large countries between 2012 and 2016. They said…
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CRI/Criterion Catalyst Company (CRIUK) has awarded an FEL-2 license agreement for the IH2* technology which converts biomass to liquid transportation fuels, to Biozin Holding AS (BZH). CRI is a global catalyst company wholly owned by Royal Dutch Shell. It operates research laboratories, development facilities, manufacturing plants and business units throughout the world. Biozin Holding is a…
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Newly published research has demonstrated the importance of microbial communities as a source of stable enzymes that could be used to convert plants to biofuels. The research was carried out by scientists from the Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) based at Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Microbiology, and…
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Hawaiian Electric Company and Pacific Biodiesel Technologies have reached a new agreement for the Maui-based biofuel company to supply biodiesel processed from recycled waste cooking oil and other local feedstocks for the 50-MW Schofield Generating Station, 8-MW Honolulu International Airport Emergency Power Facility, and other O’ahu generation facilities as needed. The three-year renewable…
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CPL Industries, a well-known manufacturer and supplier of smokeless fuels and other carbon‐based products, has announced plans to install a commercial‐scale HTC facility at its production site in Immingham, North Lincolnshire, UK. This facility, scheduled to begin production in mid‐2018, will be the first commercial‐scale example of this technology, developed by CPL’s Spanish…
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Current methods to make aviation more sustainable, including subsidies for biofuels, will not be enough to meet climate targets, according to a PhD student from Delft University in the Netherlands. Paul Peeters, who has completed his PhD on the sustainability of the aviation sector, concludes that climate targets will not be reached without a ‘severe reduction’ in growth. According to…
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Austria-based plant engineering company BDI has been awarded a new contract to help build a biodiesel plant for Crimson Renewable Energy in the US. The plant will be recycling waste oils and fats into high-quality biodiesel using patented BDI RepCAT technology. Crimson claims to be the largest biodiesel producer in California. A year after the successful commissioning of two new major subsystems…
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