In Florida, BP is testing two advanced biofuels that could be commercially available by 2014. The company is planting energy grasses to feed a 36 million gallon-a-year cellulosic ethanol plant planned in Florida. The BP/DuPont joint venture (Butamax) biobutanol technology demonstration plant in Hull (England) is already operational and has produced biobutanol for some of […]
In Kansas, a University of Kansas researcher has developed a method to produce algae for biodiesel production using nitrogen– and phosphorus-laden wastewater. She has won this year’s Excellence in Environmental Engineering Award from the Academy of Environmental Engineers for her work.
In Michigan, a biofuel production process with a yield 20 times higher than current processes was discovered by a Michigan State microbiologist. Dr. Gemma Reguera’s process uses a second bacterium in the breakdown process, which removes the nonethanol materials while generating electricity. The process averaged 35 to 40% energy recovery from the fermentation process using […]
In Washington, the National Science Foundation has awarded a Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I grant to Protabit, LLC, a Pasadena-based spin-off of the California Institute of Technology. The grant will be used to engineer cellulase enzymes for production of biofuels from non-edible corn stover biomass. Protabit is the developer of Triad, a computational […]
In Spain, the National Renewable Energy Center of Spain has chosen Ohio-based AdvanceBio Systems’ SuPR2G Bench Scale Pretreatment Reactor for its new second-generation ethanol research facility in Navarra.
In the UK, researchers have created OPEC, for Orange Peel Exploitation Company, to explore options for using citrus peels as feedstock for biofuels and bio-based chemicals, and have teamed with the University of York, the University of Sao Paulo and the University of Cordoba to test a model bio-refinery. About 15.6 million tons of citrus […]
In North Carolina, a new study indicates that indirect land use change is not statistically correlated with high crop prices, at least to the degree that many models predict. The study, conducted by researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of Illinois at Chicago found that as prices increase on crops, farmers make […]
In Tennessee, the identification of key proteins in a group of heat-loving bacteria by researchers at the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center could help light a fire under next-generation biofuel production. Scientists have long been on the hunt for cost-effective ways to break down complex plant material such as switchgrass in order to access sugars […]
In Michigan, six research teams from the University of Michigan and Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) have won a share of $1.16 million in funding for renewable energy and biomedical technology projects in the third year of a joint program that teams up investigators from both schools. The main biofuels-related project is: Engineering the right fuel […]
In Massachusetts, a group of 70 researchers led by David S. Hibbett of Clark University, in Worcester, Mass. and Igor V. Grigoriev of the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute comparing the genomes of 31 fungi to determine how white rot fungi breaks down lignin and could be a major breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol technology.
