In France, the government’s auditor has released a new report showing the environmental benefit of the country’s ethanol policy was hard to determine, while fossil fuel use was only down by 5%. The big winner in the policy are farmers who have more outlets for their crop production. The auditor is recommending that tax breaks […]
In Massachussets, Metabolix has appointed Celeste Beeks Mastin to its board of directors. Ms. Mastin recently served as chief executive officer of MMI Products, Inc., where she had profit/loss responsibility for a $750 million building materials company.
The Biofuels Digest Index™ (BDI), a basket of public biofuels stocks, rose 0.56 percent to 73.30 as advanced bio surged again. For the day, BP gained 0.16 percent to $44.70, while KiOR (KIOR) surged 5.41 percent to $11.70. Among other equities, Gevo (GEVO) jumped 7.14 percent to $7.35. Overall, advances led declines 3 to 2 […]
Two titans form a monster JV, starting out with a $250M investment. How big, how fast could it grow? In Iowa, Poet has teamed with Dutch-based Royal DSM to create a 50/50 joint venture called Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels that will produce cellulosic ethanol and license the technology to other plants in the U.S. and globally. […]
Today in Biofuels Digest we are delighted to initiate our (US) Election 2012 coverage with a new interactive column written from the politically conservative point of view. Interactive, because your reactions and perspective can be expressed via our LinkedIn group site, here – where we hope to conduct a lively discussion all throughout the year […]
In Texas, National Corn Growers Association board member Wesley Spurlock is traveling around the Midwest speaking out against the food vs. fuel debate, calling it a fallacy. “To put it simply, growth in demand from the ethanol industry has mirrored an increase in productivity that yields larger corn crops,” Spurlock said. “We are still supplying […]
In Hawaii, the Navy is using a tiny robotic helicopter to help track more than 35,000 acres of Maui soil, on the fields of Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar as part of its $10 million, five-year pilot project to produce renewable jet fuel. The Leptron corporation’s tiny drone helicopter, the Avenger, will track every temperature fluctuation and […]
In the Philippines, ethanol production will be boosted by 133.4 million liters next year to reach a total of 200 million liters of annual production but that is still far behind the 420 million liters needed for the country’s E10 blending program. Green Futures Innovation’s 54 million liter facility should be commissioned in May while […]
In India, a high court judge in Andhra Pradesh has ruled that XTRAA Clean Cities Ltd hang on to temporarily hang on to its $14.17 million in biodiesel stocks as part of a case where the government has complained of the company importing US-produced biodiesel and attempting to sell it as Indian-produced.
In Mexico, sugarcane planting for the Inverbio project in Veracruz has begun. More than 1,400 farmers in the regions of Tierra Blanca y Tlalixcoyan will grow cane on about 2,000 hectares for the Central Energética de Atoyac project. The project’s developers have secured lines of credit for the farmers to help them start planting.
