In Virginia, Jason Holliday, assistant professor of forest genetics and biotechnology in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources and Environment, is using a $1.5 million Faculty Early Career Development Program grant from the National Science Foundation to gain insight into how tree populations adapt at the genomic scale as a result of climate change. The […]
In Iowa, PhD student David Correll at Iowa State University has created “ISU BioBus” – a program created to convert spent cooking oil from one of the university’s dining halls into biofuel for a Cyride (the Ames, IA bus system) bus. He has secured two college sponsored grants and has gotten the approval he needed […]
In Vermont, researchers from St. Michael’s College have teamed with researchers from the University of Missouri, University of Florida, Purdue University and the University Nebraska-Lincoln, on a five-year project to study the genes that control the movement of carbohydrates in corn in an attempt to increase corn yield, make more drought resistant plants, larger plants […]
In Hawaii, the US Army Installation Management Command-Pacific and Pacific Biodiesel have finalized a a two-year biofuel crop research project aimed at reducing the Hawaii’s dependence on fossil fuels. The first step in the project is locating suitable land to grow biofuel crops. Pacific Biodiesel is looking at various agricultural sites within the State and will […]
In Connecticut, UConn professor Richard Parnas has patented a biodiesel reactor that uses gravity, heat, and natural chemical reactions to make the biodiesel and separate the glycerol in one step rather than the traditional two-step method that requires mechanical removal of the glycerol. The existing facility produces about 2,000 gallons of biodiesel fuel a year. […]
In California, an F-22 Raptor successfully flew at supercruis (supersonic flight without using the engine’s afterburner) on a 50/50 fuel blend of conventional petroleum-based JP-8 and biofuel derived from camelina. The flight was the capstone of a series of ground and flight test events conducted by the 411th Flight Test Squadron at Edwards Air Force […]
In California, Stanford University has published an article about work done by David Lobell, assistant professor of environmental Earth system science and a center fellow at Stanford’s Program on Food Security and the Environment, Matei Georgescu of the Center for Environmental Fluid Dynamics at Arizona State University and Chris Field, professor of environmental Earth system […]
In Oklahoma, researchers at Oklahoma State University have discovered that waste from soda pop production can be used as feedstock for ethanol production simply by adding nitrogen and yeast. The presence of sodium benzoate, a common food preservative, was the major indicator in whether a particular brand of soda would ferment well or not. Soda […]
In the UK, Rothamsted Research says if the UK is serious about attracting more people into growing beet for food, energy, and bio-products, more investment in breeding and scientific techniques is needed to enhance yields and create these new markets. Average beet yields in the UK are 60-70t/ha and Broom’s Barn’s highest yield was 139t/ha […]
In California, SGBiofuels announced it is applying more than 1.6 million genetic markers (SNPs) for Jatropha curcas toward the development of marker assisted selection (MAS) methods to produce elite, high-performing cultivars of the energy crop. The work, in partnership with Lfie Technologies, accelerates the identification and development of specific genetic traits in Jatropha including fruit […]
