Germany's biofuel consumption was 2.9 million tonnes in the year to October, a drop of 8.9% compared with the first 10 months in 2012, reports the country's economics agency BAFA. Despite a 0.5% increase in total road fuel consumption, bringing the total to 43.75 million tonnes and blending rates dropping for all biofuel types, the overall consumption still fell. There... [Read More]

DuPont Industrial Biosciences (DuPont) has selected Murex to market cellulosic ethanol produced from its 30 million gallon plant in Nevada, Iowa. Once completed, the facility will be the largest cellulosic ethanol plant in the world. The Nevada biorefinery will use all parts of the corn stover – the stalks, leaves and cobs. 'We are excited to work with an industry... [Read More]

Renewable energy technology provider INEOS Bio is restarting its new cellulosic ethanol plant in Florida after contamination forced it to decrease production considerably. The company has upgraded the facility's technology and is also finishing the installation of equipment to remove impurities from one of the plant's process streams. As a result, this contamination has... [Read More]

Swedish Taurus Energy has partnered with France-based CIMV, and sent a proposal to the EU Commission detailing the construction of a demonstration plant for the production of ethanol from biomass. The plan is for the demonstration plant will be built in France. Taurus Energy will be responsible for the yeast-based fermentation step in the process and the demonstration... [Read More]

The Lufthansa Group is operating its LH 190 flight from Frankfurt to Berlin Tegel using a 10% blend of the new biofuel component farnesane. This is the first scheduled flight in Europe to run on this sugar-based bio-kerosene fuel mix. A rig test at Lufthansa Technik's facility in Hamburg last year, as part of the EU's 'Blending Study' project preceded Lufthansa's... [Read More]

Buffalo Lake Advanced Biofuels has restarted its Minnesota, US plant. Repairs and upgrades have been installed and tested on the plant since June. The 18 MMgy plant was originally idled in 2009. It was then purchased by Purified Renewable Energy and run briefly in 2012. The company then filed for bankruptcy in 2013 and the facility was bought by West Ventures, one of the... [Read More]

Energy Management Solutions (EMS), a subsidiary of ICM, has signed two new plant management agreements with Red River Energy, Rosholt, South Dakota and Midwest Renewable Energy, Sutherland, Nebraska. The Red River Energy ethanol plant, which has a current operating capacity of 25 million gallons per year, will shortly restart full production after an 18-month idle period. The... [Read More]

SGB, an agricultural biotechnology and seed company, has successfully created a hybrid jatropha which has both high yield and rapid time to maturity. In conjunction with these results, the company has closed an $11 million (€8.5 million) Series C financing to drive commercial rollout. With its latest generation of jatropha hybrids, SGB has reduced the time to maturity... [Read More]

In India, Numaligarh Refinery (NRL), a Government of India Enterprise, and Finnish biorefinery technology corporation Chempolis have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU). Under the MoU, the two companies have agreed to jointly study and build a biorefinery in Assam, northeastern India, which will produce cellulosic ethanol from locally sourced biomass – namely... [Read More]

Brazilian senators have approved a bill raising the mandatory amount of ethanol in petrol sold at the country's service stations as demand for the biofuel declines, reports Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The blend percentage will be raised from 25% to 27.5%, according to the Senate, though the bill is yet to be ratified by President Dilma Rousseff. Government policies limiting... [Read More]

Asset advisory and auction company Heritage Global Partners (HGP) is to hold a telephonic auction of almost 10% economic interest in North Star Biofuels and related intellectual property owned by R Power Biofuels and Sauber, including a patent and certain trade secrets. The winning bidder will acquire a 9.871% economic interest in a Watsonville, California-based company... [Read More]

Eco-Energy, a US-based biofuel supply chain company, has announced the development of an ethanol unloading, storage, and outbound truck loading facility in Augusta, Georgia. This facility will serve the Augusta and Savannah markets in Georgia. The ethanol unit train facility will be equipped to receive up to 80 tank cars via Norfolk Southern Railway for distribution by... [Read More]

Flint Hills Resources, a refining, chemicals and grain processing company, has signed an agreement with Southwest Georgia Ethanol to acquire its ethanol plant in Camilla in the US state of Georgia. The plant opened in 2008 and is able to produce 100 million gallons a year of ethanol. It also produces more than 275,000 tonnes of dried distillers grains and approximately... [Read More]

Corn Oil One has begun constructing its new distillers corn oil facility, based in Iowa, US. The new plant, expected online early next year, will be one of the first to purify constituents out of distillers corn oil via a patent-pending process. The plant is co-located with Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy's (SIRE) ethanol plant and, in addition to removing high-value... [Read More]

Fulcrum Sierra Biofuels, a sustainable fuels company, will receive a loan from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the construction of waste-to-jet fuel facility. The USDA is to award a $105 million (€81.5 million) Biorefinery Assistance Program loan guarantee to Fulcrum, which the company will use to build a biorefinery in Nevada, US. The new facility, which... [Read More]

Finnish pulp and paper manufacturer Stora Enso is investing €32 million in a new demonstration plant, to be built in Louisiana, US, following its recent acquisition of biotechnology association Virdia. The plant will be used to validate, on an industrial scale, Virdia's technology. This newly acquired extraction and separation process enables cellulosic biomass, such... [Read More]