Other News

Chicago, US-based biofuel group Coskata is searching for a partner to set up a multi-million-dollar ethanol conversion plant in Victoria, Australia, capable of producing up to 200 million litres of the fuel a year for use in cars. The company is looking for sources of waste material in Australia that it could feed into the process. This includes food and garden scraps gathered from household…
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Clean technologies investment company Ludgate Environmental Fund has invested €3 million into agri.capital, a specialist developer, owner and operator of biogas plants in Germany. The investment has been structured as 8% preferred stock with detachable warrants and is part of a €10 million funding round into agri.capital with Valiance Special Situations Fund investing alongside…
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Japan Airlines (JAL) will be the first airline to conduct a demonstration flight using camelina-based biofuel, planned for 30 January 2009 at Haneda Airport, Tokyo. A blend of 50% biofuel and 50% traditional Jet-A jet (kerosene) fuel will be tested in one of the four Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines of a JAL-owned Boeing 747-300 aircraft. The biofuel component to be used will be a mixture of…
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Air New Zealand has postponed its biofuel test flight planned for Wednesday 3 December after an Airbus crash last week near France. The two-hour test flight, now scheduled for January, will use a jatropha-based fuel, which has been certified by engine maker Rolls-Royce. Air NZ will confirm the revised date later this week. ‘The full efforts and resources of Air NZ will be focused over the…
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The Canadian province of Alberta will implement renewable fuel standards as part of a provincial energy strategy. Beginning in 2010 Alberta will require regular fuel to contain 5% ethanol, and diesel to contain 2% renewable diesel. The blending requirements are in line with federal standards to reduce carbon emissions. The province has set aside CA$239 million (€140 million) to support the…
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One of the world's most energy-efficient ethanol plants is set for start-up in Norrköping, Sweden. Sweden-based manufacturer Lantmännen Agroetanol will produce more than 3 million litres of ethanol a week, using technology from Vogelbusch, making it the largest ethanol plant in north Europe. Initially the plant was due to come on line before the end of 2008, but is now likely to reach…
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The US Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Food for Progress programme has funded a biodiesel facility in Guatemala. The Biodiesel Mazat Agui facility in the country’s coastal region of Escuintla began operations this month. The Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture at Texas A&M University was also involved in establishing the cooperative biodiesel plant, which will use…
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Renewable energy company Principle Energy plans to start building a $290 million (€224 million) bioethanol plant in Mozambique in 2009. Principle Energy, in which London-listed fund manager Principle Capital has a stake, raised $70 million towards the project in 2007. To date this year it has held back from raising a targeted $90 million due to adverse market conditions. 'Seeing as the…
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Italian oil refiner Saras plans to start up a 200,000 tonne biodiesel plant in Cartagena, Spain, in December. The plant will use various vegetable oils as feedstock. The refiner has estimated investment in the plant at €35 million. Spain is due to introduce a 2.5% compulsory target for biofuels share in total car fuel use next year and raise it to 3.9% in 2010. That target will require…
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Poet, the US' largest ethanol producer, is engaging in buyout talks with a number of ethanol companies. Several US ethanol companies have encountered financial battles brought on by volatile market conditions. VeraSun Energy, the second largest US producer, sought bankruptcy protection on 31 October after it suffered significant losses in Q3 due to a dramatic rise in the cost of…
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US-based Blackhawk Biofuels has opened a 45 million gallon a year biodiesel plant in Danville, Illinois. The plant on the Indiana border will manufacture biodiesel from vegetable oil. Blackhawk expects the plant to sell biodiesel by the end of the year. The company bought the plant just before Biofuels Company of America completed construction. In early March, Blackhawk learned that a major…
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US-based GreenHunter BioFuels, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GreenHunter Energy, has initiated start-up of biodiesel production at the company's biodiesel refinery in Houston following repairs and recovery from Hurricane Ike. GreenHunter's biodiesel refinery, one of the country's largest, located along the Shipping Channel in Houston, Texas, sustained a direct hit from Hurricane…
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The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Brazil-based energy company Petrobras have signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate for two years on research to accelerate the development and commercialisation of second-generation biofuels. Research will be conducted jointly at NREL’s laboratory in Golden, Colorado, and in Brazil. NREL’s research…
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The European Commission (EC) is contemplating new rules for biofuels by the end of 2010 to prevent production from causing destruction to rainforests. Environmentalists have criticised the Commission's initial January proposals to instill 10% of all road transport fuel derived from renewable sources by 2020. Of that 10% biofuels would play a key part, stoking the engines of big exporters…
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