In Minnesota, the US ethanol industry is descending upon Minneapolis this week for the annual Fuel Ethanol Workshops, and the theme is efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. You can feel the “get back to business” vibe, a steel-eyed “if you want a friend for ethanol, you can count on, get a puppy” perspective. The industry knows that growth […]
This short post on first-gen biofuels vs solar went viral on LinkedIn last week — thousands of likes, shares went bananas, it made a deep impression across the internet. Say 1 acre of corn ethanol produces 500 gallons, one acre of solar, 200kW, avg. US insolation on tracker produces 300,000kwh per year. Electric cars use .325kwh/mile […]
In Washington, hearings took place today on the future of E15 ethanol in the United States Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on S. 517, the Consumer and Fuel Retailer Choice Act. S. 517 was introduced in March and has 18 bipartisan sponsors, including Sens. Deb Fischer (R-NE), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The […]
The value of cellulosic fuels has reached $4.33 per gallon in the California market. That’s real-world, today, including the energy and the low-carbon attributes, and not based on speculation. The value has risen 59 cents, or 15.7 percent in the past 17 months. The soaring fuel values are prompting at least two companies to substantively […]
In Finland, we reported last week commercial vehicles operated by the City of Helsinki and bus services commissioned by HSL will fully switch to renewable fuels by 2020. HSL, Stara, UPM, Neste, Teboil, St1, the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Employment, the Finnish Petroleum and Biofuels Association and the Technical Research Centre of Finland VTT […]
In the Netherlands, a BBI subsidy of €25 million has been granted to “PEFerence,” a consortium consisting of 11 companies including Synvina, Avantium, BASF, Tereos Participations (France), Alpla Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co Kg (Austria), OMV Machinery Srl (Italy) and Croda Nederland B.V. (The Netherlands), Nestec Sa (Switzerland) Lego System As (Denmark), Nova-Institut für […]
In Washington, the US Patent & Trademark Office has just issued a “notice of allowance” for a patent by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency for a high efficiency, high compression engine that would reduce the cost per mile for the American driver by 26.2 percent, compared to using straight gasoline and a conventional engine. […]
The US ethanol industry is working hard on E15 deployment right now — from market deployment to regulatory relief, there’s action on every front aimed at making E15 a widely-available, lower-cost source of octane that can replace mid-grade 89-octane fossil fuels at US pumps. Those fossil fuels generally cost the consumer 10-20 cents per gallon […]
200,200 downloads for the DOE’s classic report on value-added chemicals — but some hot molecules are missing! “Top Value Added Chemicals from Biomass” a 2004 survey, completed by staff led by Gene Petersen and Todd Werpy, at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and NREL, is the Dark Side of the Moon of biobased, a perennial classic […]
What’s it worth? It’s the cry of a thousand fortune-hunters combing garage sales and close-out auctions this spring. Whether you are owner or seller, you need to know the underlying value of a feedstock in the advanced bioeconomy — and that is not the same thing as its current market price. In fact, what makes […]
