Other News

Biomass heat and power company Imperative Energy, has received an investment from North West Fund (NWF4EE), which will now take a minority stake in the company to continue to help with future development. Imperative Energy has plans to deploy more than £200 million (€239 million) into building biomass heat and CHP plants and has also recently received funds from the Environmental…
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Forth Energy, a joint venture between Forth Ports and energy company SSE, has withdrawn its plans to build a combined heat and power (CHP) plant in Leith, Scotland, following the announcement of new proposals to develop the Port of Leith as an offshore renewable energy hub. Forth Energy wrote to the Scottish government’s energy consents unit, cancelling its planning application because it…
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New woodchip boilers will be installed in Herefordshire, UK, after a local company won a £60,000 (€72,000) government funding grant to develop sustainable schemes. Woolhope Woodheat will be in charge of the project which will see the boilers installed in schools, organisations and businesses around the area. The clean burning woodchip boilers should help to reduce heating bills and…
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VTT, a company working at developing Vietnam’s solid biomass fuel resources on an industrial level as part of the Energy and Environment Partnership Programme run by the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, is to create multi-fuel delivery chains for power plants and industrial boilers. The programme will make sure biomass fuels are available all year round through the use of storage…
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A new technology has been developed at the University of Sheffield in the UK which uses microbubbles to harvest and remove water from algae for biofuel production. Algae produces oils which can be used to create biodiesel but water needs to be removed from the algae first in order to do so. Using the microbubble system is an inexpensive way to do this. The process works by floating algae…
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Over last year, more than one billion gallons of biodiesel was produced in the US, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says. A total of 1.1 billion gallons was more than the predicted production estimates of 800 million gallons, which was the target set by the EPA’s Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). Previously, the most biodiesel the US had produced was in 2008, when 690 million gallons…
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Tampere Energy is building a pellet heating plant following the signing of an agreement with MW of Power. As the largest pellet plant in Finland, the facility will produce 33MW of thermal power and an old boiler at the existing site will be replaced by a new boiler provided by Metso. The project is expected to cost in excess of €8.2 million and the ministry of employment is investing 1.42…
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Yorkshire Water in the UK is working with Esholt sewage works to build a biothelys sludge treatment plant that will create energy from human waste. The multi-million pound project will take effluent from the Yorkshire Water 750 acre sewage works, which currently collects waste from about 700,000 people, as well as about 300 litres of wastewater which it treats before dumping it into the River…
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Finnish paper producer UPM is to build a biorefinery that will produce biofuels from crude tall oil derived from pulp in Lappeenranta, Finland. The facility will be commercial size and produce about 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel a year to be used as vehicle fuel. The biodiesel is called BioVerno and produces 80% less greenhouse gases than traditional fossil fuels. Construction on the biorefinery is…
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Helius Energy has released its results for the 2010-2011 financial year and says its profit before tax was just £7,200 (€8,664) although it had a cash balance of £500,000, raising £6.3 million in a secondary placing of shares. The company, which produces energy from biomass as well as other sources, says despite these figures it managed to secure third party equity of…
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Novozymes has formed a joint venture with Sea6 Energy, an Indian company, to develop a method of turning seaweed into biofuels. Through the research, enzymes will be used to convert the seaweed-based carbohydrates into sugar, which can then be turned into ethanol through fermentation. Sea6 Energy will contribute its offshore seaweed cultivation technology to the partnership, whilst Novozymes will…
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The Green Investment Bank (GIB), a world first initiative to encourage private investment into green energy projects, has received 32 bids from cities in the UK willing to host the bank. The city that wins the bid would need to be able to recruit and retain the staff, work closely with other parties involved in order to further develop investment projects, and ensure that the bank is cost…
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Algae producer Aquaviridis has joined forces with OriginOil to develop a new technology that extracts oil from the algae and will develop this multi-phase production at its Mexicali site in Mexico. Through the North American Free Trade Agreement, a region in the country has been put aside for such developments and OriginOil will help by harvesting and developing its algae cultivation…
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Biomass company Enviva is to supply wood pellets to utility owner E.ON under a 240,000 tonne per year agreement which will operate for a number of years. The contract, of which the value has been undisclosed, will begin early next year and the pellets will come from Enviva’s facilities in the south east of the US, where there is a large amount of wood to be harvested. Speaking to Bioenergy…
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