By Douglas Faulkner, “The Cleantech Conservative” The International Energy Agency recently issued its World Energy Outlook 2012 with much press attention (and some misreporting), because of its dramatic projections about the emergence of new global energy landscape. Its main highlight: The U.S. could become, in less than a decade, the largest oil producer in the […]
In Michigan, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, in a visit to Michigan State University, announced $10 million in research grants to spur production of bioenergy and biobased products. USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) awarded the grants through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI). which supports work in six priority areas: plant health […]
In Colorado, Johnson Matthey and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory announced a five-year, $7 million effort to economically produce drop-in gasoline, diesel and jet fuel from non-food biomass feedstocks. The goal is to improve vapor phase upgrading during the biomass pyrolysis process in order to lower costs and speed production of lignocellulose-based fuels – a […]
In Washington, Fuels America has launched its new Facebook page, and is publishing infographics and articles there — attracting 490 likes in its first day on the web. Fuels America is a coalition committed to protecting the Renewable Fuel Standard and promoting the benefits of renewable fuel already growing in America. Members include BIO, the American […]
In Scotland, Celtic Renewables received the “Best Innovation” award at the Scottish Green Energy Awards for their technology which converts two key by-products of whisky production, ‘pot ale’ and ‘draff’, into biobutanol. In CE’s process, draff and pot ale are mixed and then fermented to produce a “broth”. The broth is then distilled to produce […]
In Italy, the Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) reconfirmed the Chairmanship of Italy and Brazil and by endorsing the forthcoming capacity building activities in Latin America. The Partnership welcomed representatives of the ECOWAS participating as special guests and of Denmark and Zimbabwe as new Observers. The Partnership has launched a bioenergy week to be held in […]
In the Emirates, in 17 months since commencing to use waste fryer oil biodiesel as fleet fuel, McDonald’s UAE is reporting that its fleet has completed 808,411 miles on biodiesel and has reduced its truck-based carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent. Neutral Fuels is collecting, filtering, and processing the waste fuels from McDonald’s locations across […]
In France, Altuglas International and NatureWorks have signed a global co-marketing agreement. The agreement is designed to deliver a range of newly formulated bio-based, high performance alloys based on polymethylmethacrylate and Ingeo. The new materials will be marketed by Altuglas International as Plexiglas/ Altuglas biopolymer alloys. Primary co-marketing efforts for these materials will be for […]
In Germany, researchers from UFZ, Technical University of Dresden) , the University of Stockholm, the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, and Leibniz University Hannover have refuted the thesis that organic components of the soil are comprised mostly of decomposed plant material which is directly converted to humic substances. Instead, the team found that 40 […]
In Washington, the US Department of Energy announced up to $12 million for up to five R&D projects that will improve the carbon, hydrogen, and separation efficiencies in bio-oil production and upgrade processes. The aim of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (DE-FOA-0000812) is also to boost biofuel yields from non-food-based lignocellulosic feedstocks such as agricultural residue, […]
