Other News

Celanese Corporation has received government approval to set its plans to upgrade its integrated acetyl facility at the Nanjing Chemical Industrial Park in to motion. The company is intending to convert the facility so that it can produce ethanol for industrial uses, and expects it to be operational by mid-2013. The company has seen advancements with its TCX ethanol technology, meaning that from…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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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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…
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JOil, a scientific bioenergy crop developer of a new generation of jatropha, has achieved first-year yields in its India field trials of over 2 tons of seeds per hectare. 'Our [JO S1 and JO S2] seedlings started flowering three months after planting and in five months yielded their first harvest of fruit. Most current jatropha plants have no fruiting in the first year after planting and any …
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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…
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The refining and marketing venture jointly owned by affiliates of Shell and Saudi Aramco, Motiva Enterprises (Motiva), is planning to convert its High Sulfur Diesel Heating Oil (2000 ppm) to Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel (ULDS) (15 ppm) at its 5,000,000+ barrel Sewaren Terminal, located in New Jersey. The conversion has been prompted by a State of New York mandate which states that all heating oil…
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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…
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Verbio (Vereinigte BioEnergie) is continuing to expand its sales of biomethane. VNG (Verbundnetz Gas) is now selling verbiogas, a fuel derived solely from agricultural residue, at all 10 of the natural gas filling stations belonging to VNG-T (VNG-Erdgastankstellen, a wholly owned subsidiary of VNG AG). Furthermore, VNG has opened 2 natural gas fuelling stations in Berlin, which allow motorists to…
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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…
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