Other News

Jeffrey Gunselman, the man behind US-based biofuels company Absolute Fuels, has pleaded guilty to several accounts of money laundering and federal fraud in relation to a $42 million (€31.6 million) biodiesel fraud investigation. He pleaded guilty in federal court in Lubbock, Texas in December to 51 wire fraud counts and 24 of money laundering. He also further admitted to being guilty on four…
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Florida-based company BioTork has converted papayas into fatty acids which it says can be refined into biofuels. Under a research development programme working with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center (PBARC) and Rivertop Solutions, BioTork says this discovery is a positive breakthrough for the local agriculture and military markets. The…
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VTT, a company working at developing Vietnam’s solid biomass fuel resources on an industrial level as part of the Energy and Environment Partnership Programme run by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, is to create multi-fuel delivery chains for power plants and industrial boilers. The programme will make sure biomass fuels are available all year round through the use of storage…
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Cool Planet BioFuels has announced a breakthrough in converting biomass to petrol. A 4,000 gallons per acre biomass to petrol conversion was achieved in pilot testing using the giant miscanthus, an advanced bioenergy crop developed at the University of Mississippi. With petrol boasting approximately 150% higher energy levels than ethanol, achieving nearly 12 times more yield than existing corn…
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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…
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Biofuels solutions provider, Lincoln Energy Solutions (LES), is constructing new storage tanks at their facility in Belton, South Carolina. The tanks will increase the facility's ethanol storage capacity by 1.5 million gallons and its biodiesel capacity by 400,000 gallons. To meet the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards, a 225,000-gallon water tank is also being constructed. The…
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Crop technology provider for biofuel production company Agrisoma is working with several partners to test a new kind of jet biofuel in Canada. Along with Honeywell UOP, the Canadian National Research Council and the Genome Prairie project, Agrisoma is road-testing a fuel blend derived from its Brassica carinata (Ethiopian mustard) variety Resonance. ‘Brassica carinata is drought and heat…
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South African oil refineries have estimated the cost of updating facilities as ‘billions’ as calls to move up from E2 to E5 biofuel. The country currently uses fuel that contains 2% ethanol made primarily from sugarcane and maize crops. While the upgrade has be estimated as reducing vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by around 40%, the government proposal is at the mercy of the…
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US-based champions of second generation ethanol Epec Biofuels announce a supply chain partner agreement with Biodimensions Delta Biorenewables (BDB). Epec provides an industry integration platform to realise the commercial reality, from production to utilisation, of second generation ethanol from sweet sorghum feedstock. BDB is a joint venture company that assesses the potential of sweet sorghum…
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A new report conducted energy research publisher SBI claims algae biofuels technologies should grow by double digits in the short-term. The report states algae biofuels will post a compound annual growth rate of 43.1% and lead the market to $1.6 billion (€1.29 billion). Investment by strategic partnerships and internal company revenue growth, which are slowly replacing government grants, is…
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The total volume of liquid bulk handled in the Port of Rotterdam rose by 10.6% to 107.5 million tonnes in the first half of 2012. Crude oil incoming trade was close to reaching record levels for the first six months of 2012 after it reached 50.6 million tonnes, a 9.6% increase. The handling of mineral oil was also up – by 13.8% - to 39.9 million tonnes, while fuel oil throughput was…
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German bioethanol association BDBE has hit back that rising country bioethanol output is contributing to higher global food prices. Since the German government raised the allowed amount of bioethanol blended in petrol from five to 10% in 2011, overall output for the first half of 2012 was 295,000 metric tonnes (a 21% rise). But Germany’s development minister Dirk Niebel claimed the…
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Felda Global Ventures Holdings is developing a renewable energy plant in Malaysia that will turn palm oil mill effluent (POME) into biogas. The RM8 million (€2 million) pilot plant will be built in Kota Tinggi, Johor by technology company Weida Bhd, who says construction will be completed within four months. The biogas will be used to generate 2MW of electricity that will be sold to Tenaga…
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Germany-based biotechnology company Direvo is set to commercialise its new conversion process of non-food feedstocks into fuels and chemicals. Its BluCon platform is the result of an intensive research programme to identify microorganisms viable to cheaply produce chemicals and fuels from carbohydrates created from non-food biomass, so-called second generation biomass conversion. ‘After two…
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