Other News

French renewable energy firm Global Bioenergies has completed a €6.5m private placement with French and international investors. The proceeds of the placement will be used to further the development of its isobutene process and to launch commercial roll-out. The company placed 274,931 new shares at a par value of €0.05 per share, at a unit price of €23.70, including share premium,…
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Spanish renewable energy business Abengoa is planning to restructure its firm, shrink itself by about a third to avoid bankruptcy and potentially sell off its bioenergy arm, according to media reports. According to media agency Bloomberg, the firm is making the plans to convince creditors it can survive as a smaller company. Quoting a person familiar with the matter, Bloomberg stated: "The…
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A bacterium found in the remote Gobi Desert may become a valuable partner for researchers working with biofuels. The bacterium has shown talents for using the sun's light as energy and now researchers have revealed that it can be found in surprisingly many different places, including water treatment plants. To date, species capable of performing photosynthesis have been reported in six bacterial…
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A team from US Grains Council (USGC), a US grains export advocate, and two ethanol industry representatives have completed an overview of ethanol’s possibilities in East Asian markets. The group traveled to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan is December 2015 to review the ethanol markets in these countries and evaluate potential for ongoing US ethanol export promotion programmes in the region. The…
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President Barack Obama used his last State of the Union address to make an economic case for action against climate change and call for accelerating the US away from "dirty energy" like coal. Earlier in the week (12 January, 2015), the President broadly touted job growth in renewable energy industries and said making "technology work for us" to solve urgent issues like climate change is among the…
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The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has predicted that ethanol production will average 970,000 barrels per day in both 2016 and 2017 in the US. The organisation published the information in the January issue of its 'Short-Term Energy Outlook'. The EIA has increased its prediction for 2016 when compared to the 960,000 barrel per day prediction included in the December Short-Term Energy…
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The American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) group said it has filed a motion to intervene to support the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a challenge against the US biofuels standard from the country's biofuel and agricultural groups. AFPM, which represents oil companies, stands by EPA's authority to reduce biofuels requirements from volumes established by Congress in…
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Bioenergy France 3, the French arm of Spanish biofuels producer Ambene, has obtained permission from local officials to build a 41MW biomass-fired cogeneration plant in the south of France. According to SeeNews, the plant will be constructed in the Torremila industrial zone of Perpignan. At the end of December, the Pyrenees-Orientales prefecture gave the green light to the €50m ($54m)…
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Researchers from US-based Indiana University have developed a virus-like biomaterial that catalyses the formation of hydrogen for the production of biofuels. The biomaterial or 'nano-reactor', as scientists at Indiana University describe it, is produced by placing a modified enzyme inside the protective protein shell of a virus, called a capsid. The resulting 'nano reactor' catalyst is 150 times…
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British Airways (BA) has announced that it has been forced to abandon plans to turn landfill waste into green jet fuel, partly due to lack of government support. The airliner and green fuels specialist Solena Fuels announced last year that it would move forward with long-standing plans to develop a state-of-the-art facility called GreenSky at an ex-oil refinery in Thurrock, Essex. The GreenSky…
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The Turley family have bought out their 50% partner in Ethanol Europe Renewables — one of the continent's biggest producers of bioethanol. The company was a joint venture between the Turleys and Fagen, an American developer of energy plants. According to The Sunday Times, accounts show that the Turley family, who made more than €100m from the sale of the online car rental company…
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India has doubled its target of blending ethanol with gasoline to 10%, as it aims to promote cleaner fuel to tackle pollution. According to Reuters, oil companies have never met the current 5% blending target as ethanol derived from molasses - the thick syrup produced by boiling down sugarcane juice in sugar refining - costs more than gasoline without including taxes. India does not allow ethanol…
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Republican Party candidate Ted Cruz is due to face criticism from a pro-ethanol lobby group as he conducts a bus tour through Iowa this week, according to media reports. According to news website Politico, pro-ethanol group America's Renewable Future is hunting the presidential candidate in an attempt to derail his candidacy. The group, which supports the mandate that gasoline contain 10%…
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