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Green Fuel's ethanol plant in Chisumbanje, Zimbabwe, is reportedly discharging harmful waste matter. Zimbabwe's parliament has heard how the waste matter has reportedly caused some people to become partially blind, while others are developing feet sores. Appearing before a parliamentary committee on Youth, Indigenisation and Empowerment, Mutsa Chasi, head of Environmental Management Agency (Ema)…
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GranBio Investimentos, a Brazilian biotechnology company, has started production at its cellulosic ethanol plant in Alagoas, Brazil. The company invested $190 million (€149 million) in the facility, which is the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the southern hemisphere. The Bioflex 1 plant has the capacity to produce 82 million litres per year of ethanol from sugarcane waste.
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A minor fire broke out earlier this week at Archer Daniels Midland's ethanol plant in Peoria, Illinois, US. At approximately 11.30 am on 22 September, an evaporator vessel that was down for repairs caught fire at the company's corn processing plant in Peoria. This then activated the sprinkler system, which contained the fire. There were no injuries and the plant is now back up and running.
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Elevance Renewable Sciences, a specialty chemicals company based in Illinois, the US, will partner with Malaysia's Genting Plantations, through its subsidiary Genting Integrated Biorefinery, to build a 240,000-tonne factory at POIC Lahad Datu. The factory, which will be the first in Malaysia, is thought to lead to new technologies in the area and a cluster of biorefineries in Sabah. The…
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Colorado-based Red Rock Biofuels will supply biofuel to Southwest Airlines and to the military starting in 2016. The airline has agreed to buy three million gallons of low-carbon jet fuel per year from advanced renewable provider Red Rock Biofuels. The fuel will be manufactured at a plant, soon to be constructed, in Lakeview, Oregon, US. The $200 million plant will convert woody biomass —…
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A stolen tanker crashed and leaked ethanol on Tuesday 24th September, in Autauga County, Alabama, US. The driver, who stole the tanker truck from Florida Rock and Tank Lines in Montgomery, Alabama, US, has now been identified. Shortly after 11 am, crews had started transferring ethanol to another tanker, after containing the leak. There were no reported injuries.
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A fire has broken out at Abengoa Bioenergy's ethanol plant in Madison, Illinois, US. At approximately 9.45am on Tuesday 24th September, a fire broke out in a corn silo following an electrical shortage. Despite firefighters spending four hours containing the fire, there was no major damage. No one was injured.
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The EPA's failure to finalise the 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) rules will create an increase in greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) that is equal to placing 4.4 million additional cars on US roads. The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has issued a white paper, 'Estimating greenhouse gas emissions from proposed changes to the renewable fuel standard through 2022', discussing estimates of…
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SPA Renewables, an emerging company that specialises in the collection and processing of Used Cooking Oil into biodiesel, is installing an 8,000 tonnes per year biodiesel plant in Corinth, Greece. IncBio, a Portuguese engineering company, which provides fully automated industrial ultrasonic biodiesel plants, has signed a contract with SPA Renewables to supply the plant. The facility will use…
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On 23 September, Finnair used sustainable biofuel to operate its Airbus A330 flight from Helsinki to New York. SkyNRG Nordic, a joint venture between SkyNRG and Statoil Aviation, provided the biofuel mixture, which was partly manufactured from cooking oil recycled from restaurants. At present, aviation biofuels costs more than double the price of conventionally produced jet fuel and so is not yet…
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Sales of commercial and passenger vehicles, particularly flex-fuel vehicles that allow end users to choose customised biofuel-fossil fuel blends have increased. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Strategic Analysis of the Global Automotive Biofuels Market, has found that the market generated revenues of $94.61 billion (€73.63 billion) in 2013 and estimates this will reach $149.25…
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Swiss Jatropower, a developer of Jatropha curcas seeds and associated agronomic technologies, has acquired a large majority of Quinvita’s assets. Quinvita grew these activities over a period of seven years through their breeding programme and agronomic evaluations and experiments in several Asian, African and Latin American countries and scientific collaboration with numerous research…
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