News

Wilmar Indonesia, the biggest palm oil producer in the country, plans to produce palm oil-derived aviation biofuel in a plant in Gresik, East Java, thanks to an investment of around $80 million (€61 million). Working with Elevance Renewable Sciences through its subsidiary PT Wilmar Nabati Indonesia, it will be the first biofuel plant for aviation fuel in Indonesia. The company’s…
Read More »

Canadian air carrier Porter Airlines is due to fly a commercial, biofuel-powered aircraft later this month, making it the nation's first carrier to do this. The flight comes after Porter's biofuel test flight, which took place in February earlier this year. Porter will operate one of its Bombardier Q400 turboprop airliners on a 50/50 blend of biojet and conventional fossil aviation…
Read More »

Regus Advisors has invested in Algae International so that it can build its first $2 million algae to biofuel development in California. Regus, a private global investment banking firm, says the plant will be a large scale project will use CO₂, fuel cells, nitrates, phosphates, sunlight and algae to produce the biofuels. Regus’ president, Mervyn Price, explains: ‘This process…
Read More »

Following the success of the Qantas biofuel powered flight, Algae.Tec says that in the future most of the Australian biofuels could be derived from algae that is grown locally. The biofuel flight, which saw the plane fly between Sydney and Adelaide, was powered on cooking oil-derived biodiesel which was supplied by SkyNRG. However, Algae.Tec says it would be beneficially if the biofuels could be…
Read More »

Boeing, Airbus and Embraer have agreed to work together on the development of drop-in, affordable aviation biofuels. The agreement was signed by all respective CEOs and Presidents, at the Air Transport Action Group (ATAG) Aviation and Environment Summit in Geneva. It will see the airframe manufactures speak in unity to government, biofuel producers and other key stakeholders to support, promote…
Read More »

Verbio Bioenergie has reported a rise in sales to €754 million for the 2011 financial year, with EBITDA growing by more than 50%. Using the profit made, €150 million will be invested into growing the biomethane sector of the company. The main reason for the 45% increase in sales was because of third party sales from the Märka branch of the business, which made more than €71…
Read More »

The US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division (NAWCWD )has signed a deal with Albemarle for it to produce biojet fuel derived from bio n-butanol which will be provided by Cobalt Technoloigies. Albemarle will use technology provided by NAWCWD to produce the renewable jet fuel from Cobalt’s n-butanol in its processing facility located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The manufacturing contract…
Read More »

Italy-based Agroils Technologies has received investment funds of €900,000 from X-Capital, which it says it will use to develop technology to produce biofuel, protein biomass for animal feed and jatropha. The process of production was developed by Roberto Crea, who also developed the first recombinant production of human insulin at Genentech in California in 1978. ‘The industrial…
Read More »

Enzyme developer Codexis has been awarded a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office which covers a component of the company’s enzymatic technology used for the production of cellulosic biofuels. Codexis received US Patent Number 8,143,050: Recombinant Beta-Glucosidase Variants for Production of Soluble Sugars from Cellulosic Biomass and says that it will help the company to…
Read More »

Kior, a renewable fuels company, says it made net loss of $64 million (€48 million) in 2011, which was more than the $46 million loss it made the year prior. The company did not make any revenue throughout last year because it was investing in the construction of its first commercial facility in Columbus, Mississippi, as well as into R&D which it hopes will improve the production yields…
Read More »

World Health Energy Holdings has signed a letter of intent with Prime, an Indian industrial and transport company, to build a biodiesel production facility on a budget of $100 million (€75 million). The development will be built on 250 acres and Prime has tested batch samples of spirulina algae which it plans to cultivate under the project, for biodiesel production. The proposed areas for…
Read More »

Porter Airlines is to power a Bombardier Q400 turboprop airliner on biofuels in Canada as the first such revenue flight in the country. As part of the test flight, the aircraft was the first in Canada to fly on the ASTM D7566 bio derived jet fuel, which has recently been certified. The fuel is made up of a 50/50 blend with Jet A1 fuel. The biofuels is produced from Camelina sativa (49%) and…
Read More »

Australian airline Qantas is to operate the country’s first commercial flight on biofuels on 13 April 2012. The flight will run from Sydney to Adelaide and an Airbus A330 will be used, powered by biofuels made from used cooking oil (50%) and conventional jet fuel (50%). Qantas says that it wants to get involved in aviation biofuels because with rising fuel prices affecting the industry, it…
Read More »