News

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 Midwest Renewable…
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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 companies'…
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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 plant will be built in…
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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 flight. Lufthansa has also…
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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 disrupted production. The…
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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 leader such as DuPont to…
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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 was however a 9.5% increase…
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A new ethanol plant may be built in Onida, Iowa, US. Plans started earlier this year for a facility that is capable of producing 70 million gallons per year of ethanol and 200 tonnes of distiller’s grain. ‘What ethanol has done for agriculture is help balance supply and demand,’ says Walt Wendland, who, along with Chris Schwarck, has been involved in the start-up of several…
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The European renewable ethanol association, ePURE, has appointed Robert Wright as its new secretary general. Wright will start this position immediately. Wright has over 20 years' experience working in European Union public policy and public affairs and has previously worked for the EU Commission and in the energy and high technology sectors. 'I am delighted to be joining ePURE and to take up the…
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Swiss Jatropower, a developer of Jatropha curcas seeds and associated agronomic technologies, has acquired a large majority of Quinvita’s assets. Quinvita grew these activities over a period of seven years through their breeding programme and agronomic evaluations and experiments in several Asian, African and Latin American countries and scientific collaboration with numerous research…
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Sales of commercial and passenger vehicles, particularly flex-fuel vehicles that allow end users to choose customised biofuel-fossil fuel blends have increased. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Strategic Analysis of the Global Automotive Biofuels Market, has found that the market generated revenues of $94.61 billion (€73.63 billion) in 2013 and estimates this will reach $149.25…
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Refineries in the Iowa, US, will begin full operations using feedstocks other than corn kernels. Iowa has two major cellulosic plants under construction that will use corn plant leaves, stalks and cobs to produce ethanol. Project Liberty, a plant in Emmetsburg built by Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based ethanol-maker POET and biotechnology company Royal DSM. The $250 million plant will produce 25…
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Lurgi, a member of the Air Liquide group of companies, has completed construction and start-up of an ethanol facility for Calgren Renewable Fuels. The Calgren plant is currently the only ethanol plant operating in the US state of California. Calgren and Lurgi worked together to design a plant that optimises the plant's energy efficiency, while producing value added co-products. The facility will…
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