In Brazil, Boeing and Embraer S.A. have announced plans to create a joint research center for sustainable aviation biofuel. In addition to joint research, the partnership will also fund research with Brazilian universities and other institutions in order to fill gaps in the sustainable aviation biofuel chain in Brazil. Located in Sao Jose dos Campos […]
In Indiana, Indiana University biologists will receive over $6.2 million from the U.S. Army Research Office to study how bacteria evolve in response to both their internal, population-influenced environments and their external natural environment. With repeatable, predictable results, the work would be expected to have important practical applications related to a number of issues including […]
In New York state, the University at Buffalo’s new interdisciplinary research initiative RENEW (Research and Education in eNergy, Environment and Water) promises to tackle the most difficult and pressing issues that society faces in trying to create a more sustainable world. UB has dedicated up to $15 million over the next five years, with a […]
In Switzerland, researchers at the Transport Processes and Reactions Laboratory, ETH Zurich, have found and patented a method to pretreat the plant parts in order to break up wood structures. Pretreatment increased the efficacy of the enzymes and the sugar yield increased twofold compared to steam pretreatment with no naphthol admixture.
In Florida, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researchers working to produce ethanol from plant material are taking a hard look at eucalyptus as a possible source for the clean fuel. In their study, published online by the journal Applied Energy in April, they found that some eucalyptus had an increased sugar content, […]
In the UK, a PhD student at the University of Liverpool is studying a plant that may provide part of the solution to this problem. Agave sisalana is a proposed biofuel plant that can be grown in semi-arid conditions unsuited to food crops. This plant is already grown for fibre in countries like Brazil, Tanzania, […]
In Tennessee, Genera Energy has announced a 14% reduction in harvest costs thanks to Genera’s recently demonstrated in-field harvesting operations using self-propelled field harvesters. The new process also included a commercially-viable method to bulk harvest biomass crops. The process reduced unload time for bulk harvested material by 21%, and decreased the moisture levels of the […]
In Canada, a new report by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade (FAST), Environment and Trade in a World of Interdependence (ENTWINED) and the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) says that commodities certified under sustainability schemes jumped 41 percent in 2012 […]
In Wisconsin, Accelerated Renewable Energy (ARE) project located a 5,000 head dairy farm will build a biorefinery set to produce biogas, fertilizer and even cellulosic ethanol from manure. A $7 million grant from the USDA Biomass Research and Development Initiative is partially funding the project in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin, local agencies and […]
In Indiana, a Northwestern University study by an economist and a chemist reports that when fuel prices drove residents of São Paulo, Brazil, to mostly switch from ethanol to gasoline in their flexible-fuel vehicles, local ozone levels dropped 20 percent. At the same time, nitric oxide and carbon monoxide concentrations tended to go up. The […]
