Other News

A poisonous extract of Cassava root is expected to produce 1% of the ethanol used in Venezuela. Cassava root, or yuca, is the third largest source of carbohydrates for human food in the world. It is processed into casabes, or flat breads. However, this leaves behind a residue called yare, which, owing to its high cyanide content, is highly toxic to humans and animals. Now a team of Venezuelan…
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In the US, the Minnesota-based Guardian Energy has agreed to purchase a 100Mgy corn ethanol plant in Janesville, Minnesota from the financial services company AgStar Lending Group. Guardian Energy hopes to close the deal by 15 September. The Janesville plant has passed through a string of owners since planning originally began in 2004. The plant was originally built by US BioEnergy, which…
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Crimson Renewable Energy, operator of California’s largest biodiesel plant which opened on 29 July, is doing what few producers in the nation are. The 30 million gallon a year producer will move away from the nation’s predominant choice of feedstock, soyabean, and process 50 million pounds of the crude glycerine by-product, turning it into high quality refined glycerine to tap into…
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Hot on the heels of its launch of Butamax earlier this month BP is further strengthening its biofuels efforts with the inception of a joint venture company with Verenium, Vercipia Biofuels. While Butamax will focus R&D resources on biobutanol, Vercipia Biofuels will continue to develop one of the US’ first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facilities, located in Highlands County,…
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Colorado-based cellulosic ethanol specialist ZeaChem is on track to achieve yields of over 2,000 gallons per acre per year at a demonstration plant under construction in Boardman, Oregon, US. This yield is comparable with algae, but with fewer technical challenges to surmount. By contrast, the highest attained yields of ethanol from corn are about 450 gallons per acre per year. The…
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The US Department of Energy (DoE) and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) are together planning to award $6.3 million (€4.4 million) in research grants towards the development of second-generation feedstocks for conversion to bioethanol. The joint programme will award seven grants, initially for a maximum of three years. Energy secretary Steven Chu recently highlighted the benefits of…
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The world market for biofuels is set to rise from $100 billion (€70 billion) to over $280 billion by 2022, according to a report by the Pike Institute. The report predicts that the increasing number of countries introducing biofuel consumption mandates and the higher production capacity from improved second-generation feedstocks will drive a worldwide annual growth rate of 15% between 2009…
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Italian biodiesel producers currently producing from food crops are working together to substitute seaweed for first-generation feedstocks. The eight companies involved in the €10 million scheme currently produce diesel from crops like corn and rapeseed. They hope to be able to produce fuel from seaweed commercially within five years. ‘The initiative aims to substitute or integrate the raw…
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Pakistan’s 27 million acres of saline land provide an ideal medium to cultivate algae for biofuel production, according to Ehsan Ali of Mie University of Japan. Various organisations are already aiming to produce biofuel from jatropha and castor oil cultivated in Pakistan, but the use of algae as a feedstock would have numerous benefits for the country, Ali said in a recent seminar. In…
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US-based Aston Renewable Resources has signed a deal with French nuclear power expert Areva to contribute €100 million to the development of biomass plants across India. Astonfield will contribute about €60 million to the project, which is rumoured to include 10 planned biomass facilities with a capacity of about 10MW each. Construction of the first facility in West Bengal state is…
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Healy Biodiesel is to convert from production of traditional biodiesel to become the first commercial producer of a new type of renewable diesel. The Kansas-based producer signed a letter of intent with New Mexico’s Cetane Energy on 17 July. It is to abandon transesterification to become the first manufacturer to produce renewable diesel using Cetane’s patent-pending hydroprocessing…
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The global biofuels market is set to grow by an average of 12.3% a year between 2007 and 2017, according to a report by industry research specialists RNCOS. Global ethanol and biodiesel production will grow at 6.04% and 5% a year respectively between 2008 and 2019. In the near future, the increase in biofuel production will largely be driven by ethanol from Brazil and the US, which pledged to…
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The Arctic Technology Centre (ARTEK) is heading a pilot study to produce biofuel from fishing industry waste in Greenland. The Greenland Shark, one of the world’s largest species of shark, is killed in large numbers by fishermen, either accidentally when they become entangled in nets or deliberately to prevent predation of commercially valuable species such as squid. The flesh is toxic to…
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