Other News

An explosion shook Columbus Foods’ biodiesel plant in Chicago, US, on 17 July, injuring two people. The injured victims, a truck driver and a plant worker, were taken to hospital for treatment. Other workers at the plant exposed to chemicals that rained on them after the blast were reportedly decontaminated. Police and fire investigators blamed the explosion to the mixture of wrong chemicals…
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A company in the central east African country of Tanzania is planning to venture into the production of biogas from waste from the sisal plant, following the successful piloting of the project at Hale Sisal Estate in Korogwe District. Segera Estates, which owns three sisal estates in the region and another in the Coast Region, is currently looking for partners to develop the biogas production…
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Biofuel made from paddy rice is now being sold at a petrol station pump in Niigata, Japan. The National Federation of Agricultural Cooperative Associations Zennoh (JA Zennoh) began sales of the biofuel, a mixture of petrol and bioethanol made from rice for animal feed, on 17 July. An annual ethanol production of about 1,000 kilolitres is expected from some 2,250 tonnes of brown rice grown in…
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Indian Railways is planning to introduce biodiesel and compressed natural gas (CNG) as locomotive fuels in an attempt to cut down on pollution says. Currently, the railways uses diesel and electricity, which is an indirect pollutant as a bulk of the country’s power capacity is coal-fired. ‘Successful trials have been carried out by using 10% blend of biodiesel on trains,’ minister of…
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Just weeks after a predicted bust, UK-based energy crop developer D1 Oils has reached a conditional agreement with BP to acquire BP's 50% interest in D1-BP Fuel Crops, its joint venture with BP for the planting of jatropha. D1 will thereby to take back sole ownership the global planting assets and interests of the joint venture. In June the company announced it had failed to attract a…
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Texas, US-based Terrabon is working on a renewable green petrol fuel, identical to ordinary petroleum-based fuel, which can be made from organic material like cornstalks. Terrabon has been testing a technology known as MixAlco. Developed by scientists at Texas A&M University, it uses an acid fermentation process that can convert biomass into chemicals that can be further processed into…
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While many ethanol producers are going down, California-headquartered GreenHouse Energy is going bottoms-up. The producer is teaming-up with Karl Strauss Brewing Company to convert spent beer yeast into ethanol fuel. Together, the two companies and the state are part of the GreenHouse Developmental Pilot Program, a distribution model being introduced first in Southern California. Within the…
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Brazil’s largest producer of sugar and ethanol Cosan has signed a three-year contract with Mitsubishi to export bioethanol to the Japanese market starting in 2010. Cosan will ship around 80,000 kl of bioethanol a year, reports say. Mitsubishi will the import it as the raw material for making ethyl tertiary butyl ether (ETBE), a petroladditive used for production of biopetrol. Brazilian-made…
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For the year ended 30 April 2009 Canadian cellulosic ethanol developer Lignol made a loss of $6.2 million (€4.4 million) compared to a loss of $4.6 million in fiscal 2008. The company has spent more on research and development attributed to the construction and start-up of operations of the company’s new fully integrated pilot plant and expansion of research and lignin product development…
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Consent has been given to one of the world’s largest biomass plants from the UK Government. Approval for the £500 million (€587 million) Tees Renewable Energy Plant being built by MGT Power was given under Section 36 of the Electricity Act. The 300MW plant, which will enter commercial operation in 2012, will save 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and will generate enough…
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In the US a lawsuit to clean up 75,000 gallons of ethanol that leaked following a train derailment in Rockford, Illinois, on 19 June has found a railway company responsible. Canadian National Railway and its subsidiary Chicago, Central & Pacific Railroad, will be required by Illinois to perform the environmental cleanup of ethanol in surrounding soil and nearby waterways. According to the…
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Management, engineering and development consultancy Mott MacDonald has completed a report on Thailand’s eight-year programme working to promote the renewable energy sector, funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented through the Energy for Environment Foundation. The programme which includes a biomass energy focus has seen by many in the industry as significantly…
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It’s been 22 years since crime-fighting Robocop cleaned up the dirty Detroit streets. Now a new ‘greener’ robot has entered the scene. A steam-powered, robot designed for the Pentagon, headquarters of the US Department of Defense, has been programmed to fuel itself on biomass. Maryland-based Robotic Technology’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR) can find, ingest, and…
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Only a few slots remain for the upcoming Biofuels International Asia expo & conference, being held in Singapore on 19-20 November 2009. After the success of Biofuels International expo & conference in Europe in 2008, leading global publication Biofuels International magazine widened its portfolio to include Biofuels International Asia expo & conference. Confirmed speakers for the…
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