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Volume 3, Issue 2
Published: March 27, 2009
‘Drop in’ fuels: the next generation
Until recently, most biofuels companies have focused on producing first generation biofuels from terrestrial crops (corn, soya, rapeseed, palm oil, sugarcane) for biodiesel and ethanol. A more recent generation...
Cause for celebration
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The European Biodiesel Board is celebrating this month after robust measures against unfairly traded US biodiesel were officially published, and the associations’ claims were recognised. Following member...
Renewable energy aspects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
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On 17 February 2009 President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion (€562 billion) economic stimulus package that contains numerous tax provisions related...
Bosnian biodiesel
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System Ecologica is the Bosnian-based subsidiary of Better Energy Solutions Today (BEST), a US biofuels company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Nairobi, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The biodiesel...
Eastern bloc gridlock
A year ago the outlook for soft commodities was anything but positive. Severe droughts were leading to poor harvests, causing prices to soar. Not only was the biofuels industry partly blamed for these...
Decreasing diesel demand pressures US market
Fundamentals remain dreadful for the industry owing to the deepening recession gripping the nation while federal policy uncertainty shakes investor confidence. The rallying call, it would seem, is to stay...
Green, green grass
Traditionally a food for fuelling animals, one particular kind of grass, the most abundant plant on earth, is attracting interest in biofuels circles. Switchgrass has caught the attention of big name producers...
Biomass to energy via anaerobic digestion
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is not new, bacteria have been doing it for millions of years, and as an industrial process it has been used in sewage treatment for decades. AD takes place naturally in sealed...
Effective bioethanol dehydration
Sharp separation of ethanol/water mixtures during bioethanol production is simply not possible by multi-stage distillation. A point is reached during multistage distillation where the vapour boiled from...
Heterogeneous catalysts
Despite well-known disadvantages, the majority of biodiesel is still produced using base catalysts such as sodium and potassium hydroxides dissolved in methyl alcohol. This is partly due to a long historic...
The hard sell
Low prices in recent years for crude glycerol have made it more of a liability than an asset. In January the US spot price was $728-992/tonne, (€563-€776) according to global chemical market intelligence...
Back to nature
TThe ethanol industry, particularly in the US, has been marked by numerous plant cut backs and closures over the past six months, led by the widely-publicised bankruptcy and auction of several VeraSun...
Down but not out
Everyone knows the crash of the economy has injured markets the world over. This year’s World Biofuels Markets two-day conference and exhibition in Europe’s economic heart of Brussels addressed the...