Other News

Veolia has launched an innovative online trading platform with the aim of making it easier to sell and buy organic resources. Aimed at a variety of industries, one potential beneficiary could be the biofuels sector. Dubbed BioTrading, the new website will function as a sales and auction market place. The idea, according to Veolia, is to connect buyers to the rest of the value chain. “Our…
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A project called Biogo-for-Production has developed new nanocatalysts to create an integrated modular and highly efficient process for producing fuels from renewable energy sources. The researchers focused on the development of advanced nanocatalysts, coupled with advanced reactor concepts to realise modular, highly efficient, integrated processes for the production of fuels from renewable…
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UPM Biofuels has received the ‘world’s first’ RSB (Roundtable of Sustainable Biomaterials) low ILUC (indirect land use change) risk certification. Specifically, the RSB low ILUC risk certificate has been received for crude tall oil, the feedstock used at UPM BioVerno renewable fuels production at the Lappeenranta biorefinery in Finland. The certification also covers UPM’s…
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April 20, Ireland’s Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment published a policy statement confirming its intention to increase the biofuel obligation to 10% from 1 January 2019 and to 11% in 2020. Ireland’s Biofuels Obligation Scheme requires suppliers of road transport fuel to ensure a certain proportion of the fuel that they place on the market is…
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The US Department of Energy Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkley Lab) have discovered an enzyme that enables the production of a renewable alternative to toluene, a petroleum-based octane booster in gasoline that sells 29 million tons per year. According to the researchers, the enzyme enables the production of aromatic hydrocarbon biofuel from…
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Researchers at the National University of Singapore have identified a species of bacteria that converts cellulose into biobutanol, a replacement for petrol. The scientists first discovered and cultivated the bacterium in 2015 by isolating it from mushroom crop residue. The team claims that producing biofuels with the microorganism could replace traditional processes for producing biofuels due to…
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A new, £5 million project is set to develop the bioeconomy across Yorkshire, the Humber region and the Tees Valley in the north of England. Dubbed the THYME (Teesside, Hull and York - Mobilising Bioeconomy Knowledge Exchange) project, the three year initiative is being led by the University of York. It’s aiming to ‘build on’ expertise and innovation in the…
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The UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has published its Energy Trends data for 2017. The report includes in depth statistics on the country’s biofuels industry. According to the report, overall biofuel consumption in transport was down 0.5% on the previous year, falling from 1,467 million litres to 1,460 million litres. However, year on year, biofuel…
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The US biofuels industry has slammed the decision to relieve the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery of roughly half of its $350 million (€283 million) in outstanding Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) compliance obligations. On 12 March, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Carlyle Group backed Philadelphia Energy Solutions (PES) came to the agreement that the troubled refiner would…
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University of York researchers have discovered another source for an enzyme that might be able to improve cellulose digestion and produce biofuels more efficiently. The paper shows that the enzymes that insects called firebrats (which are closely related to silverfish) use to digest cellulose could be applied to industrial processes, including ‘the production of sustainable low carbon fuels…
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The grass is native to the US, non-edible and grows across North America. Fuel produced from the plant emits far less CO2 than gasoline. Researchers from Colorado State University (CSU) in the US have studied switchgrass as an alternative biofuel feedstock to corn (corn often comes under fire for being resource intensive and competing with demands for food). The new fuel has a climate footprint…
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A study from a government-owned research group is urging increased biofuel use to develop a renewable low-carbon transport sector. The report follows two years of research by Crown Research Institute Scion and looks at how New Zealand could grow and refine feedstocks into biofuels for heavy transport, shipping and air travel. According to the Institute, in 2015 burning liquid fossil fuels…
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Next generation biofuels producer Gevo has signed an exclusive right to sell agreement with national fuel distributor Musket Corporation. Amending an existing supply agreement, the deal will see Musket sell Gevo’s renewable isobutanol within a 300 mile radius of Houston, Texas. According to Gevo, the agreement establishes a market region for its isobutanol that encompasses Austin, Dallas,…
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