News

The companies ICM and The Andersons are planning to build a combined heat and power plant in Colwich, Kansas and intend the facility to be ‘the most advanced ethanol plant in the world’. The venture, dubbed ELEMENT is meant to see the construction of a plant capable of offsetting over 70% of natural gas requirements and up to 80% of electricity demand. ELEMENT will use ICM’s…
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The Growing Renewable Energy through Existing and New Environmentally Responsible (GREENER) Fuels Act is the most recent proposal to reform the long-contested Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). Talks have been going on for some time about the RFS. Now the minority Democratic Party has introduced a bill into the House and Senate to amend the programme. The changes would see madates for first…
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The CO2 has been contracted by Airgas USA. The company will liquefy the gas at a nearby facility that is expected to begin operation by the end of 2018. The US-based biofuel producer Pacific Ethanol has reached an agreement with Airgas USA to sell it CO2 out of its Stockton, California plant. Airgas USA, a supplier of gases, welding equipment and supplies, and safety products, plans to construct…
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The Energy Information Administration (EIA) in the US is anticipating consistent growth in ethanol production and consumption through 2019 thanks to mandated production under the Renewable Fuel Standard and stable corn prices. In its newest Short-Term Energy Outlook, the EIA is projecting continued growth in ethanol production and limited export growth through 2019, with the average…
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The oil and gas company and its partner Synthetic Genomics has advanced to testing naturally occurring algae strains in California. The test will inform how the project scales up the technology in the commercial phase. The companies announced 6 March that their biofuels project has proceeded to the next stage: outdoor field tests of algae in contained ponds. The tests are meant to provide data to…
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The mandate was increased 1 March after the country’s National Energy Policy Council approved the measure at the end of 2017. Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy anticipates that the new blend will see demand for biodiesel grow by 1 billion litres in 2018.  This introduction of B10 (a 10% blend of biodiesel with conventional fossil fuel) coincides with the soybean harvest to…
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A cap on RIN prices and a waiver of the Environmental Protection Agency’s E15 ban were discussed to try and reach a ‘win-win’ solution to the competing interests of Big Corn and Big Oil in the biofuels debate. The meeting was of a mix of industry representatives and Senators from oil producing and corn producing states. Statements describing the discussion were tentative, with…
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The project will see the co-generation of fuel and power, and comes as part of a wider push to industrialise Nigeria’s agriculture. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Kogi State Government for the development of a cane-fed bioethanol plant. Kogi is a region about 200km south of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja. This…
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SIKB, a ‘network organisation’ based out of the Netherlands, has observed accelerated corrosion in uncoated steel tanks when they store biofuels and has released a report into the causes. The aim of the report is to adjust legislation related to storage, says the organisation. The interim report finds that when biodiesel is added to conventional diesel the environment in that tank…
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A study from a government-owned research group is urging increased biofuel use to develop a renewable low-carbon transport sector. The report follows two years of research by Crown Research Institute Scion and looks at how New Zealand could grow and refine feedstocks into biofuels for heavy transport, shipping and air travel. According to the Institute, in 2015 burning liquid fossil fuels…
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The grass is native to the US, non-edible and grows across North America. Fuel produced from the plant emits far less CO2 than gasoline. Researchers from Colorado State University (CSU) in the US have studied switchgrass as an alternative biofuel feedstock to corn (corn often comes under fire for being resource intensive and competing with demands for food). The new fuel has a climate footprint…
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The US Department of Energy (DoE) has granted a team of researchers money to create enhanced sugarcane (also called ‘energycane’) and elephant grass to increase the production of green fuels. The new crops can reach up to 20% oil content, compared to less than an tenth of a percent in conventional crops, says the university. Announced 25 February, the new research project, called…
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University of York researchers have discovered another source for an enzyme that might be able to improve cellulose digestion and produce biofuels more efficiently. The paper shows that the enzymes that insects called firebrats (which are closely related to silverfish) use to digest cellulose could be applied to industrial processes, including ‘the production of sustainable low carbon fuels…
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