In Illinois, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Chicago are finding new computational ways to describe bacterial cognition, a concept that emerged in the 1940s. These methods enable scientists to quantitatively measure how bacteria collect information, store that information and use it to interact […]
In New Mexico, researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory and partner institutions provided the first published report of algae using raw plants as a carbon energy source. The research shows that a freshwater production strain of microalgae, Auxenochlorella protothecoides, is capable of directly degrading and utilizing non-food plant substrates, such as switchgrass, for improved cell […]
In Mexico, researchers from the Center for Scientific Research of Yucatán are leading an international team looking at the Cocoyol palm fruit as a potential feedstock for solid biofuel but also at the possibility of developing advanced composite materials with high strength and low density using the fruit. A number of biomimicry tests have been […]
In Colorado, Nanette Boyle, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at Colorado School of Mines, has been awarded funding through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Early Career Research Program. Boyle will receive $750,000 over five years to develop predictive metabolic models for algae – work that could help speed up the commercialization of strains […]
In Sweden, researchers from Luleå University of Technology (LTU), IIASA, and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden found that increased biofuel production will not affect the production of wood products and that increased biofuel targets will introduce fringe feedstocks to the fuel mix. An opportunity that the forest industry, including sawmills and pulp mills, provides is […]
In Belgium, the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council (EASAC) says it has worked to draw the attention of policy makers to a glaring oversight in this ambition: the EU and its Member States continue to classify all biomass from forests as carbon neutral, renewable energy. It is simplistic and misleading to classify all types of […]
In Ireland, SFI Research Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI)has secured an additional €4.4 million in funding from Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) and industry partners under the Sustainable Energy and Fuel Efficiency (SEFE) SFI Spokes Program. The program of work will also include the technical and commercial expertise of ten national and international […]
In Washington state, a team of researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and National Renewable Energy Laboratory performed a detailed analysis of cattle waste, wastewater, sludgy grease ensconced in restaurant and cafeteria grease traps and food wastes’ potential for biofuel production on a site-specific basis across the conterminous United States. The results of the team’s […]
In Tennessee, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are using neutrons to understand why certain hydrocarbons produced by blue-green algae are important to their biology, so new strains can be engineered to sustainably produce biofuels. Neutron scattering makes it possible to non-destructively see inside living algae at real world temperatures and in real time. Researchers […]
In South Africa, Reuters reports that local social enterprise Fetola, WWF, and SkyNRG have teamed up to use $1.4 million in funding from the European Union’s SWITCH Africa Green Program to develop aviation fuel from waste biomass. Called the Waste to Wing program, it aims to find other alternative feedstocks for producing jet fuel in […]
