In Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Kogi State Government have executed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of fuel-ethanol processing plant that would produce 84 million liters of biofuel per year. Speaking during the signing of the MoU in Abuja, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, […]
In Ireland, Platts reports that biodiesel consumption soared in January by more than a quarter to 12.85 million liters, outpacing fossil diesel consumption that only grew by little more than 8%. As a result, volumetric blending jumped to 4.88% from 4.16% during the same period last year. Ethanol consumption fell 7%, however, to 4.30 million […]
In Uganda, Bionas East Africa Group Limited, a subsidiary of Bionas Agropolitan Technology Corridor (BATC) Development Berhad, will invest $70 billion over the course of 25 years in four major bio-based economy projects based on jatropha that will create more than 1.8 million jobs. From a certified regime of the best technologies for jatropha seeds, […]
In the Netherlands, the Volkskrant reports that thousands of underground diesel storage tanks will probably have to be emptied and replaced over the coming years due to corrosion from bacteria growing in biodiesel and by lower sulphur content that failed to check the bacteria growth. Last year, storage tanks were already found to be leaking […]
In Iowa, the Argus Leader reports that POET’s $33 million dispute with Andritz for breach of contract, misrepresentation and fraud as well as its $7 million counter-claim against POET will move to arbitration after court arguments that disputes be settled out of court through arbitration processes. POET argues the cellulosic ethanol technology it hired Andritz […]
In South Africa, a body established in 2016 to help the country’s mining industry look at alternative energy sources including biodiesel found that the high cost of feedstocks along with unreliable producers cutting corners to boost profits means there are no financial savings switching to biodiesel, leaving only the environmental benefits of switching fuels as […]
In Armenia, the new Innovation Center for Microbiological Biotechnology and Biofuel at the Faculty of Biology of Yerevan State University was officially opened following two years of development to ensure a center of excellence where the best personnel, using the best equipment and the latest technologies could inspire and train the next generation of researchers. […]
In Washington, no agreement was reached during President Trump’s biofuels summit held with oil and corn state senators along with the agriculture secretary and administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency at the White House on Tuesday, a meeting aimed at ending the impasse over reforms of the Renewable Fuel Standard. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas […]
Source Integration has developed a technology that creates a 12x surface area for a 12x algae harvest and expects expects an optimized production of 8 – 10 times plain algae raceway for same (water/land) surface area. Source — which aims at discussing licensing, joint ventures or other business arrangements for this technology — prepared this illuminating […]
What’s the latest with carbon fiber? The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to develop and demonstrate an acrylonitrile (bio-ACN) production process from biomass-derived sugars at ≤ $1/lb. Additionally, the team led by NREL’s Adam Bratis aims to demonstrate suitability of bio-ACN for the production of carbon fiber relative to conventional practices . […]
