In Iowa, farmers who are considering selling corn residue from their fields to produce cellulosic ethanol first should weigh a range of site-specific factors to their operations, according to new research from an Iowa State University agronomist. Mahdi Al-Kaisi, a professor of agronomy, is urging farmers to take a thoughtful approach that accounts for variables […]
In Virginia, a team of Virginia Tech researchers discovered a way to create hydrogen fuel using a biological method that greatly reduces the time and money it takes to produce the zero-emissions fuel. This method uses abundantly available corn stover to produce the hydrogen. Unlike other hydrogen fuel production methods that rely on highly processed […]
In the UK, a new study pinpoints five strains of yeast capable of turning agricultural by-products, such as straw, sawdust and corncobs, into bioethanol – a well-known alcohol-based biofuel. It is estimated that more than 400 billion liters of bioethanol could be produced each year from crop wastage. The research team from the University of East […]
In Europe, a leading global forest products company has entered into an FEL-1 license agreement with CRI Catalyst Company (CRI), a global catalyst technology company. CRI will be providing its IH2 technology, which is a thermal catalytic process that produces liquid transportation fuels from forest residues. The IH2 technology is an efficient conversion route for woody biomass and […]
In Wisconsin, clearing grasslands to make way for biofuels may seem counterproductive, but University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study that crops, including the corn and soy commonly used for biofuels, expanded onto 7 million acres of new land in the U.S. over a recent four-year period, replacing millions of acres of grasslands. The […]
In Ohio, the National Science Foundation has awarded the University of Toledo $199,997 for improving and demonstrating the recovery of algal biomass from dilute growth cultures with minimal cost and energy input. This project has the potential to lead to economical use of alternative fuels derived from algal biomass. The lack of low-cost technologies for […]
In Indiana, a new study by Timothy Searchinger published in the journal Science found that government biofuel policies rely on reductions in food consumption to generate greenhouse gas savings. Shrinking the amount of food that people and livestock eat decreases the amount of carbon dioxide that they breathe out or excrete as waste. The reduction in […]
In Georgia, researchers at the University of Georgia have discovered that manipulation of a specific gene in a hardwood tree species not only makes it easier to break down the wood into fuel, but also significantly increases tree growth. In a paper published recently in Biotechnology for Biofuels, the researchers describe how decreasing the expression […]
In Illinois, a new analysis produced by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s principal research economist Dr. Stefen Mueller found that giving consumers more access to cleaner fuel options like E15 would provide significant environmental benefits. In Kansas, giving consumers the choice to use E15 would reduce carbon pollution by 184,226 metric tons per year. […]
In Japan, graduate researchers at Mie University Graduate School of Bioresources plan to commercialize their method for producing biobutanol from spoiled tangerines in the next two to three years. The region is a major producer of mandarin oranges and as such about 150 tons of fruit go to waste annually, with about 2/3 being incinerated. […]
