In Malaysia, the government dropped export taxes on crude palm oil as of January 8 for a period of three months in an effort to reduce the 2.6 million metric tons of palm oil stocks that are currently weighing on the market. The target is to reduce the stocks by 1 million tons but analysts […]
In the world of drop-in military biofuels, two major updates appeared this week. In Oregon, Red Rock Biofuels got good news on Monday when the governor approved $245 million in bonds that will allow the company’s planned aviation biofuel plant thanks to overwhelming support by state level legislators and business groups. The facility set for […]
Back in 2016, researchers at Washington State University Tri-Cities landed a National Science Foundation I-Corps grant to explore the market potential of their biojet fuel research. The team had successfully demonstrated a new, water-based process for deconstructing and recovering lignin from biomass and converting it into jet fuel-range hydrocarbons. These could be certified as jet fuel […]
In Illinois, Syngenta has announced an agreement with CHS Inc. to use Enogen corn enzyme technology at its 130-million-gallon ethanol plant in Rochelle. Several million dollars in premiums are expected to be paid annually to growers raising Enogen corn, locally, for the CHS plant in Rochelle. The Rochelle plant is an 81-acre, dry mill corn-based […]
In the UK, Professor Martin Tangney – founder of Celtic Renewables – has been awarded an honorary Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE). The Queen makes honorary awards to non-British citizens on the advice of the UK Foreign Office. The Edinburgh based scientist hails from County Cork in Ireland, and […]
In the UK, CropEnergies is concerned that European policymakers will destroy a decade’s worth of climate action by killing the ethanol market going into the 2020s, in turn hitting the communities where it produces ethanol, such as in northeast England where it recently restarted the Ensus ethanol plant bringing prosperity to local wheat farmers. The […]
In Japan, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry has opened a public comment period through January 18 regarding proposed policy changes that would allow the import of US-produced corn-based ethanol for ETBE by setting the greenhouse gas emissions for that ethanol at 43.15. US ethanol must be blended with Brazilian ethanol. The proposed changes […]
In Fiji, the Xinhua news agency reports that whereas governments in Europe are trying to discourage biofuel production from agricultural crops, the Fijian government is offering a 10-year tax holiday for those investing in crop-based bioenergy projects. The policy is part of the country’s wider push to tackle climate change with its Green Growth Framework […]
In Brazil, Platts reports that hydrous ethanol prices have soared to the highest level since April 2014 as supplies tighten during the January-April inter-harvest period. Most mills have sold the majority of the season’s production, leaving low supply levels in the hands of the few. Despite stronger prices, hydrous ethanol has remained competitive to gasoline […]
In California, Salk Institute scientists studying a plant protein called SOBER1 recently discovered one mechanism by which, counterintuitively, plants seem to render themselves less resistant to infection. The work, which appeared in Nature Communications, sheds light on plant resistance generally and could lead to strategies to boost plants’ natural immunity or to better contain infections […]
