Other News

US Green Energy Technology (GET) and the Philippines-based biotechnology firm Secura International (SIC) have signed an agreement to construct a $30 million (€23.7 million) biodiesel plant using malunggay oil as feedstock. Malunggay is a versatile plant that can grow anywhere, except in rice-growing, flooded areas. It is suitable for rainfall of less than 1,000 millimeters a year and needs…
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Stratos Renewables, an agro-energy company developing a South American sugarcane ethanol operation, has secured sufficient land in the northern coastal region of Peru required for the production of up to 90 million gallons a year of sugarcane-based ethanol. Stratos intends to use this land for extensive sugarcane cultivation, milling and distillation into ethanol primarily for export. Peru has…
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Malaysia’s government has approved 91 biodiesel production licences with a total capacity of 10.2 million tonnes of biodiesel. Deputy minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities senator A. Kohilan Pillay says that to further promote the use of renewable and sustainable forms of energy on 30 October the government approved the mandatory blending of 5% palm methyl ester with petroleum…
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The government of South Korea has announced plans to increase the biodiesel blend ratio from its current level of 1% to 3% by 2012. In an effort to meet these targets, the government has extended industry tax breaks and has taken steps to increase local feedstock production to minimise import dependency, according to a report by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Foreign Agricultural…
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Espoo, Finland-based VTT Technical Research Center, the largest applied research organisation in Northern Europe, has launched a three-year project to produce biodiesel from waste generated by a Vietnamese fish processing plant. VTT is working with organisations in France, Germany, the UK and Vietnam on the project known as ENERFISH to construct a biodiesel facility next to the Hiep Thanh…
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Norway-based biofuels firm ScanFuel is due to begin a jatropha-based biodiesel production project outside Ghana's second largest city. ScanFuel expects to start commercial operations in Kumasi, Ghana, early in 2009, producing 5,000 barrels a day of crude oil equivalent by 2015. ScanFuel's operation will plant 10,000 hectares of the high oil-yielding jatropha plant, with another 10,000…
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A new joint venture between a unit of Kawasaki Heavy Industries and an agricultural public corporation led by the prefectural government of Akita in northern Japan is the country’s third waste to ethanol project. The projects, making ethanol from farm waste with subsidies, will pay for building and running of plants totalling about €24.8 million over 5 years. The ministry set aside 3.2…
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Vital Renewable Energy Company (VREC), a new Brazilian company, has secured funding amounting to $1 billion (€799 million) for ethanol and electricity generation projects in Brazil. The funding was completed by an international consortium of private investors including Paladin Capital Group, Vision Brazil Investments, Leaf Clean Energy Company, Petercam Asset Management and PCG Clean Energy…
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The federal government is raising the target for the amount of ethanol used in the US petrol supply to 11.1 billion gallons. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has set its 2009 Renewable Fuels Standard at 10.21%, equating to 11.1 billion gallons of ethanol. The 2008 RFS was 7.76%, or an approximate 9 billion gallons. The US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 formed a…
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Agribusiness US Sugar has entered into an agreement with Illinois-based renewable energy company Coskata to explore building a 100 million gallon a year cellulosic ethanol facility in Clewiston, Florida. The facility would be the world's largest second generation ethanol facility. It would convert left-over sugarcane material into ethanol, and would help Florida meet its aggressive second…
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Dominican Republic-based W2E Resources will construct a plant to produce ethanol and electricity, transforming solid waste, including sugarcane bagasse, at a cost of around US$200 million (€158.5 million). The company is undertaking the environmental impact study and engineering of the final draft, with construction expected to begin early next year, and around 24 months for the plant's…
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Cambodia opened its first ethanol factory to generate biofuel from cassava flour on Monday 17 November. The plant has a capacity of 36,000 tonnes a year. ‘This factory will become the market place of cassava product for local farmers,’ Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen comments. The project, with $40 million (€31.5 million) investment from MH Bio-energy Group of South Korea, has already…
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Ethanol producer VeraSun Energy expects to report a Q3 net loss of approximately $464 million (€367.6 million). The figure is more than four times the number quoted in an earlier announcement that accelerated the company's fall into bankruptcy protection. The second largest US producer, with about 13% of the nation's ethanol capacity, filed for bankruptcy protection in early…
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