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India's government is urging its ethanol producers to boost ethanol production, according to a media reports. According to a report in the Times of India, the government has said it is ready to purchase the country's entire output. The development comes in the wake of the Indian government raising the ethanol blending target from 5% to 10%. "Government is ready to purchase the entire quantity of…
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Comet Biorefining, a Canadian cellulosic dextrose technology provider, has signed an off-take agreement with bio-succinic acid producer BioAmber for cellulosic dextrose from Comet's upcoming first commercial plant in Sarnia, Ontario. The dextrose will be produced from agricultural residues using Comet's innovative technology. The off-take agreement also includes provisions for Comet to supply…
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Mexican students from the Universidad del Valle de Mexico (UVM) Coyoacan Campus have created bioethanol using newspaper, according to media reports. The group of students, based in Mexico City, are called Alexys Stephanya Nájera, Ariel de Jesús González, Roberto Carlos Muñoz and Delia Calderón Crespo, according to news website mexiconewsnetwork.com. The students…
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RenFuel and Nordic Paper have signed an agreement to build a production test facility in Sweden to test manufacture an advanced biofuel based on lignin. The plant, to be located in the municipality of Bäckhammar in the region of Värmland, has been awarded a SEK71 million (€7.7m) grant by the Swedish Energy Agency. RenFuel has developed and patented a method to refine the lignin…
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The global biofuels market was valued at $168.18 billion (€149.05bn) in 2016 and is projected to reach $246.52 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 4.92%, a new market study finds. According to Transparency Market Research’s new study biofuels and bioenergy are a critical part of the renewable energy mix, being the only renewable energy that can be used across all three energy…
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Wood is the best feedstock choice to be converted into biofuels because it is the oldest energy source on the planet, according to a US-based data firm. In a statement, North Carolina-based Forset2Market said wood works as a logical choice for biofuels because “the number of trees growing in the US has increased by more than 50% in the past 60 years” and “the wood supply chain…
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Argentina's government plans to raise its requirement for ethanol blend in gasoline from the current 12% to up to 26% from next year, according to a report in Reuters. Information about the country's intention to follow suit with Brazil's long-standing ethanol policy came from Patrick Adam, executive director of Argentina's corn ethanol chamber. A spokesman for the energy ministry was cited as…
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ASTM International, an international standards organisation, has completed its process of approving the revision of ASTM D7566 (Standard Specification for Aviation Turbine Fuel Containing Synthesized Hydrocarbons) to include alcohol to jet synthetic paraffinic kerosene (ATJ-SPK) derived from renewable isobutanol.  In a press statement, US biofuels producer Gevo said its alcohol-to-jet-fuel…
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The Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit conservation organisation, and seven other groups have urged the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to withdraw, what they describe as, a misleading and inaccurate report on second-generation biofuels. In a letter to the UN organisation, the groups wrote that “the report contains so many factual inaccuracies and…
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Spanish renewable energy giant Abengoa Bioenergy said a US bankruptcy court has approved financing to help the firm restart its Nebraska production operations. The US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri issued an order approving “up to $41 million of debtor in possession financing for the six Abengoa Bioenergy companies that had recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy…
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KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, a Dutch airliner, is launching around 80 flights from Oslo to Amsterdam using only biofuel on its Embraer 190 aircraft. The flights will be operated over the coming five to six weeks, the Dutch airliner said. During these flights Embraer SA will be measuring the efficiency of biofuel in comparison with kerosene. This means that around 80 commercial biofuel flights will…
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An enzyme responsible for making hydrocarbons has been discovered by US-based scientists studying a common green microalga called Botryococcus braunii. The scientists are based at agricultural research specialist Texas A&M AgriLife Research. The study, published in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications, could enable scientists to use the enzyme in a plant to make large…
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