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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UPM has joined forces with Norwegian packaging company Elopak and chemical producer Dow to convert its renewable naphtha into cartons. Alongside renewable diesel, the Finnish company’s UPM Lappeenranta Biorefinery produces naphtha, an excellent raw material for bioplastics. The naphtha can be converted into renewable resins which can be used in the packaging industry. According to a…
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Stakeholders in the US biodiesel industry have called for the biodiesel tax credit to be extended until 2018 “as soon as possible”. The call comes in a letter from the US National Biodiesel Board, addressed to a range of high-ranking US politicians including Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Democrat House Leader Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. “Tens of thousands…
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The US biofuels industry has slammed the decision to relieve the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery of roughly half of its $350 million (€283 million) in outstanding Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) compliance obligations. On 12 March, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Carlyle Group backed Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) came to the agreement that the troubled refiner would…
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A representative from the US biodiesel industry has testified before the Ways and Means Subcommittee on the need to renew the biodiesel blender’s tax incentive through to at least 2018. Cal Meyer, CEO of Ag Processing, was acting as witness for the National Biodiesel Board (of which Ag Processing is a member). As well as urging Congress to renew the blender’s credit, he advocated…
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Green nano-chemistry company Sylvatex and Valicor, a specialist in advanced separations and recovery, have announced a new joint development agreement (JDA). The JDA will see the development, construction and commercialisation of Sylvatex’s MicroX technology, which can convert distillers corn oil (DCO) and other plant-based oil feedstocks into the company’s proprietary renewable…
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A joint project between the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and NASA is aiming to determine whether aircraft pollutant emissions are reduced by using biofuels. In addition, the pioneering new study aims to determine the effects alternative aviation fuels have on the formation of contrails. With additional participation from the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry and the Institute for Atmospheric…
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Biofuels are crucial to improving the US energy outlook, according to an expert from ethanol trade association Growth Energy. Chris Bliley, Growth Energy’s vice-president of regulatory affairs, says that the forecasts in the recently released US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) Annual Energy Outlook 2018 demonstrate a clear need for US biofuels. “Blending more…
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An international team of scientists have found a group of enzymes in fungi that can break down a main component of wood, enabling a more efficient refining process. The researchers say that the process could be used to convert wood into a variety of useful chemical products according to a University of York press release. They hope that the discovery can help the viability of wood as a source of…
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China is set to expand its production and consumption of bioethanol in 2018, according to the country’s State Administration of Grain. The move comes as China seeks more channels to use its grain and corn stockpiles, according to Brinkwire.com. Continued state support for corn farmers has left China with a substantial stockpile of grain and corn. Data from the country’s National…
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The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) based out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) is moving from the development of crop-based ethanol to creating fuels and chemicals that are fungible with their petroleum-based equivalents. The change was announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Austin, Texas by the centre’s…
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A consortium of companies, including Canadian advanced biofuel producer Enerkem, have signed a project development agreement for an advanced waste-to-chemistry facility in Rotterdam. According to a statement, the new facility will be the first of its kind in Europe. It will provide a sustainable alternative solution for non-recyclable waste, allowing plastics and other mixed wastes to be…
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