News

A team from US Grains Council (USGC), a US grains export advocate, and two ethanol industry representatives have completed an overview of ethanol’s possibilities in East Asian markets. The group traveled to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan is December 2015 to review the ethanol markets in these countries and evaluate potential for ongoing US ethanol export promotion programmes in the region. The…
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The UK Government has pledged to do more to increase the proportion of renewable energy used to heat the nation's buildings and fuel its cars, trucks and trains as it aims to meet binding EU targets by 2020. The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) made the pledge in its recently published report entitled Third progress report on the promotion and use of energy from renewable sources…
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Dutch GoodFuels Marine, the first marine biofuel company focused on the global commercial fleet, has received the highest standard of certification from the Roundtable of Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB). The two-year certification, which assesses the sustainable viability of the biomaterials used by GoodFuels to generate marine bunker fuel, enables the company to actively sell and promote…
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The board of directors of Australian Renewable Fuels (ARFuels), the country’s largest biodiesel producer, has placed the company into voluntary administration. Under Australian law, voluntary administration is a form of insolvency arrangement, which creates an opportunity for flexible approaches to bring about a better outcome for stakeholders than may otherwise occur in liquidation. The…
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Researchers from the Melbourne School of Engineering, in Australia, have discovered a new way to deliver carbon dioxide to microalgae, which in turn, can be harvested to make renewable fuels such as biodiesel. Carbon dioxide is well known to speed up the growth of microalgae, according to the scientists. However, the carbon dioxide has to be free of contamination or the algae die. Researchers…
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US-based biofuel and agriculture groups have asked a US court to a review the US Renewable Fuel Standards for 2014, 2015, and 2016, according to a court filing on Friday, kicking off a widely-expected legal battle over the controversial program. A spokesman for Biotechnology Innovation Organisation told media agency Reuters that groups representing biofuels manufacturers and corn and sorghum…
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Second-generation biofuel crops like the perennial grasses Miscanthus and switchgrass can efficiently meet emission reduction targets without significantly displacing cropland used for food production, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Illinois and collaborators published their findings in the inaugural edition of the journal Nature Energy. The researchers call it the…
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The Governors' Biofuels Coalition, a US ethanol lobby group, has appointed Missouri Governor Jay Nixon as its chairman. Nixon replaces Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, who led the Coalition from 2014 to 2015. The trade association also announced that Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts will become vice chairman of the group for 2016. "For more than 20 years the Governors' Biofuels Coalition has worked…
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China’s Ministry of Commerce (MoC) launched on Tuesday anti-dumping and countervailing duties investigations on US dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) imports. The move comes after complaints from Chinese producers that DDGS from the US were sold at prices “below normal value” which hurts domestic industry, according to China’s state news agency Xinhua. Further…
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The number of car manufacturers approving the use of E15, a fuel blend of 15% ethanol and 85% gasoline, for their vehicles, continues to grow, according to an analysis by the Renewables Fuels Association (RFA). RFA estimates that E15 was unequivocally identified by car manufacturers as an approved fuel for slightly more than 60% of model year (MY) 2015 vehicles sold, equating to some 10.7m…
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CropEnergies, a Germany-based ethanol producer, said its revenue for the first three quarters of fiscal year 2015/16, decreased by 11% to €558m, compared to the same period last year, due to the temporary closure of its bioethanol plant in Wilton, UK. However, in a statement, the firm said that its profitability improved significantly due to favourable proceeds for bioethanol. Earnings…
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President Barack Obama used his last State of the Union address to make an economic case for action against climate change and call for accelerating the US away from "dirty energy" like coal. Earlier in the week (12 January, 2015), the President broadly touted job growth in renewable energy industries and said making "technology work for us" to solve urgent issues like climate change is among the…
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The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has predicted that ethanol production will average 970,000 barrels per day in both 2016 and 2017 in the US. The organisation published the information in the January issue of its 'Short-Term Energy Outlook'. The EIA has increased its prediction for 2016 when compared to the 960,000 barrel per day prediction included in the December Short-Term Energy…
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