News

A new ethanol plant may be built in Onida, Iowa, US. Plans started earlier this year for a facility that is capable of producing 70 million gallons per year of ethanol and 200 tonnes of distiller’s grain. ‘What ethanol has done for agriculture is help balance supply and demand,’ says Walt Wendland, who, along with Chris Schwarck, has been involved in the start-up of several…
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New Generation Power International, a global renewable energy company, will build three 11.5 MW wood biomass plants in Japan. In collaboration, Chicago-based New Generation Power International (NGPI) and wood and biomass power specialist Nippon Energy Solution (NES) will initiate a new wood-based biomass energy generation project. The project will include the construction of three separate…
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Renewable energy technology provider INEOS Bio is restarting its new cellulosic ethanol plant in Florida after contamination forced it to decrease production considerably. The company has upgraded the facility's technology and is also finishing the installation of equipment to remove impurities from one of the plant's process streams. As a result, this contamination has disrupted production. The…
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Irish renewable energy group Gaelectric has acquired Imperative Energy, a biomass energy provider. Brendan McGrath, CEO, Gaelectric Group, says: 'Just 2% of the 60 million TOE (tonnes of oil equivalent) UK heat market, with 28 million TOE in commercial and industrial buildings, is currently provided by biomass. The continuing focus on sustainability, energy security and costs, and the supportive…
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Energy company E.ON’s £120 million biomass power station in Blackburn Meadows, Sheffield nears completion. The 30MW facility in the Blackburn Meadows area is now in the final stages of construction and is due to be fully commissioned later this year. It will burn locally-sourced waste wood to create electricity. Once fully operational, it will utilise an additional 25MW of heat…
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Swedish Taurus Energy has partnered with France-based CIMV, and sent a proposal to the EU Commission detailing the construction of a demonstration plant for the production of ethanol from biomass. The plan is for the demonstration plant will be built in France. Taurus Energy will be responsible for the yeast-based fermentation step in the process and the demonstration plant will be built in…
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The Lufthansa Group is operating its LH 190 flight from Frankfurt to Berlin Tegel using a 10% blend of the new biofuel component farnesane. This is the first scheduled flight in Europe to run on this sugar-based bio-kerosene fuel mix. A rig test at Lufthansa Technik's facility in Hamburg last year, as part of the EU's 'Blending Study' project preceded Lufthansa's flight. Lufthansa has also…
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Biomass provider Enviva plans to build two new facilities in the US. The plants, which will be located in Richmond and Sampson, North Carolina, will receive an investment of over $214.2 million (€166 million). Enviva has manufacturing facilities in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Virginia, and so has an annual total production capacity of approximately 1.6 million metric tonnes. 'Governor…
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JFE Holding's Engineering unit will build a 50MW biomass plant for Erex in Oita prefecture, southwestern Japan. The plant will use palm kernel shells and coal as fuel. Production at the facility is expected to begin late 2016.
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Russian-based sawmill company Asia-Les will start production of wood pellets at the facility in the Khabarovsk region, Russia. The wood pellets will be delivered by Spanish firm Prodese. The Austrian company Springer is preparing the sawing line, while Swedish Valutec will handle the drying chambers and the management and measurement will be looked after by Italian company MicroTec. The plant…
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New Zealand biogas company, Greenlane Biogas Technologies, is commissioning the world's biggest biomethane production plant in Montreal, Canada. The project's estimated value stands at NZ $50 million (€32 million) and will produce up to 16,000 m3 per hour of biomethane. This facility follows the commissioning of a smaller plant in the city of São Pedro da Aldei, in Brazil, which was…
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Glencane Bioenergia, a local sugar and ethanol producer, has gained permission to operate a 40-MW biomass plant in Junqueiropolis municipality as an independent power producer (IPP). Brazil's electricity regulator Aneel has authorised Glencane's Rio Vermelho 2 plant, which will use sugarcane bagasse and straw as fuel, to begin production later this year. The facility has one sole unit with a…
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Kuala Lumpur-based Fitters Diversified is investing RM 14 million (€3.4 million) in three biomass-gas generators to be opened early 2015 in Sabah and Negeri Sembilan. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Future NRG, the company has teamed up with German-based AHT Services to update AHT's existing biomass gasification technology. As part of the agreement, AHT will outsource its re-designed…
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SGB, an agricultural biotechnology and seed company, has successfully created a hybrid jatropha which has both high yield and rapid time to maturity. In conjunction with these results, the company has closed an $11 million (€8.5 million) Series C financing to drive commercial rollout. With its latest generation of jatropha hybrids, SGB has reduced the time to maturity from five years to one…
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