Other News

Honda Motor company has announced an agreement for the construction of a new cellulosic ethanol research facility in Japan. Honda plans to build a single 1,050m2 building as a testing facility. The construction is scheduled to begin in April 2009, with operations targeted for November 2009. The new Kazusa-branch facility of Honda R&D Fundamental Technology Research Center, will be built…
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US producer Pacific Ethanol says it will temporarily close its $120 million (€95.4 million) ethanol plant in Burley in southwest Idaho. Plant manager Ken Wilson says low petrol prices make biofuels too expensive to compete. Burley Mayor Jon Anderson says it is unclear how long the plant could be mothballed. He notes company officials say it could be as short as three weeks, or much…
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State-owned Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) plans to develop at least three ethanol plants in collaboration with other companies. The plants will be set up in the southern province of Binh Phuoc, the northern province of Phu Tho, and at Dung Quat in the central province of Quang Ngai. PetroVietnam will develop the facilities in the northern and southern provinces. Each plant…
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Brazil’s oil giant Petrobras has announced a business plan for investments of $2.4 billion (€1.89 billion) into biodiesel and ethanol production for the 2009-2013 period, 91% of which will be in Brazil. This amount is part of the total of $2.8 billion Petrobras has earmarked for the biofuels business, which also foresees expenditures of $400 million in infrastructure, such as ethanol…
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The Netherlands-based private equity firm Waterland has reached a final agreement with sustainable energy company Econcern for participation in BioMCN’s biomethanol projects. The additional capital enables producer BioMCN to continue further investments in the construction of processing units for the production of biomethanol, on the world’s largest second generation biofuel plant. The…
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Brazil’s BNDES state development bank will lend 2.5 billion reais (€834 million) to ethanol producers to boost production. The funding will be used to stockpile 3.3 billion litres of ethanol, the Agriculture Ministry says. Producers will be required to commit some of their own funds to store ethanol, boosting total inventories under the programme to 5 billion litres, the ministry said. The…
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Brazilian company Uniduto Logistica will begin building the first phase of a major Brazilian ethanol pipeline in April 2010, with operations due for 2011-2012. The pipeline will run from Brazil's main sugarcane-producing region in Sao Paulo state to the port of Santos. The first phase has a budget of 1.8 billion reais (€603 million) to build 600km of pipeline. Uniduto was created…
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Swedish power utility Vattenfall plans to convert its power plant facilities in Denmark to use large quantities of biomass fuel instead of coal. Project MaxBio will replace up to 724,000 tonnes of coal a year, beginning in 2018. As a result, it will prevent at least 1.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. According to the company, in the Nordic region alone…
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A palm oil processing facility will be built in the Mersey docklands, UK London-based New Britain Palm Oils will build the plant on a six-acre site near Regent Road, Bootle. A key factor at Merseyside was an agreement with Tate & Lyle to use existing nearby tanker storage capacity, the company says. ‘There is the deep water facility ideal for our tankers and the tank storage capacity is…
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RWE Innogy and the Westphalia-Lippe Agricultural Association (WLV) have announced plans to construct and operate biogas plants run almost entirely on liquid manure. The project will take place in Münster, Germany. The fermentation residues that are created during the production of biogas will be processed in a newly developed, complex process. All that will remain is a high quality…
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Praj Industries’ cellulosic ethanol pilot plant at Praj Matrix in India has successfully demonstrated production of ethanol from corn cobs and sugarcane bagasse under varying operating conditions. A new laboratory facility at Praj Matrix, the company’s research and development centre in Pune, India, began working on the company’s process in April 2008. The Praj team of scientists and…
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According to The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the UK produces more than 100 million tonnes of organic material per year that could be used to produce biogas. Around 90 million tonnes of this material comes from manure and slurry. Defra is launching a task force to help farmers and the water industry meet goals to produce energy from anaerobic digestion, which…
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Solid Energy’s subsidiary Biodiesel New Zealand is proceeding with its development plans, increasing capacity at its existing Christchurch facility to 4 million litres a year, but reconsidering stage two of its plans. In recognition of the economic conditions, the company is reviewing its next planned step to 15 million litres a year. During 2009 Biodiesel New Zealand will complete the first…
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Switzerland-headquartered biodiesel producer Biopetrol has announced a major corporate restructuring, but will continue output at both its major German biodiesel plants on a short-time working basis. The short-time basis is being prepared at its 200,000 tonne capacity biodiesel plant in Rostock alongside its previously announced short-time working basis for the 150,000 tonne plant in…
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