In Vermont, the USDA has awarded the Vermont Fuel Dealers Association a $51,000 grant to study growing algae for biodiesel on a dairy farm in the state. Waste streams from the Fiddlehead Brewery will be added to the phosphorous and nitrogen produced from the dairy’s existing anaerobic digester to provide the new home for algae.
In Illinois, researchers at Argonne National Laboratory found that only 2.4 liters of blue water—water for processing or irrigation—is consumed per liter of wood waste-based ethanol. Its gray water usage is also low, at only 25 liters, but its green water (rainfall, fresh water) usage is high at up to 443 liters. Water footprints for […]
In California, Greenbelt Resources Corporation and its wholly-owned subsidiary Diversified Ethanol Corporation announced their investment in a research effort with California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo focused on fermentation testing related to various ethanol production-related feedstocks. The focus of the study is on the efficacy of food waste and sweet potato fermentation for […]
In the United Kingdom, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has launched a new £6 million grant funding program has been launched to help Local Authorities in England and Wales to develop new heating and cooling networks, and expand existing networks. Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: “Thanks to the Coalition Government’s […]
In Michigan, a researcher from the University of Michigan has published a study in the open journal Climate Change debunking the idea that biofuels are carbon neutral. He says that although biofuels can play a mitigation role when certain conditions are met, deemphasizing biofuel production in favor of terrestrial carbon management may offer more immediate […]
In Spain, the EU-funded project ‘Biodiesel production from microalgae’ (ALGFUEL) investigated new species and processes for the production of next-generation biofuels. The project aimed to identify promising new candidates for biofuel production, and to improve the understanding of microalgal triglyceride production at pilot scale. Another aspect of the project involved the development of mathematical and […]
In Spain, the University of Pais Vasco’s chemical engineering department is looking for new ways to develop acetols found in wine that can help boost biodiesel production. The alcohols can be produced from glycerol, adding a new use for the biodiesel byproduct. Though laboratory tests have so far been promising, the new challenge is to […]
In Israel, Evogene announced a three year extension of its research collaboration with Syngenta Biotechnology, Inc. The collaboration was established in mid-2009 to identify plant genes providing resistance to Soybean Cyst Nematode. The three year collaboration extension follows successful results obtained by Syngenta for candidate genes provided by Evogene as part of the original collaboration. […]
In Minnesota, Michael Ceballos’s research team has been awarded an NSF Innovation Corps Team Program grant to research commercialization of enzyme platforms for biofuels at the industrial scale. The lab has a partnership with Energetix and DENCO II, allowing implementation and full testing capability for the company. The work is a spinoff of the work […]
In the UK, an analysis, by a cross-departmental team of scientists, engineers and economists at Imperial College London, considers the technologies required, and associated energy system costs, of limiting global energy-related CO2 emissions to about 15 Gt in 2050. The analysis uses models representing the electricity, transport, buildings and industry sectors of each of ten […]
