Other News

Boeing and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have joined forces to examine the potential for aviation biofuels’ feedstock growth in the north of the country. The partnership comes following the release of the Flight Path to Sustainable Aviation roadmap, which recommends research into the area. ‘The roadmap made a compelling case for…
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The demand for woody biomass in the US over the past three year has decreased because fossil fuel prices have stayed ‘relatively low’, say a report from Wood Resources International. In particular, the pacific northwest of the US has the lowest biomass prices, a little lower than the south, although the northeast of the country has the highest prices. Over the past three years, prices…
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Verso Paper has finished the construction of a $45 million (€35.5 million) renewable energy upgrade at its pulp and paper mill in Michigan, US. The company has upgraded the existing combination boiler which burns woody biomass, and built a new biomass handling system and a turbine generator. The energy generated will be used within the mill, and is the equivalent to powering about 18,000…
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PDM says it wants to invest a further £40 million (€48 million) into increasing its network of anaerobic digestion (AD) plants throughout 2012. Part of these funds will go towards building two new plants in Widnes and East London, UK. These will follow the company’s existing AD plant, which is based in Doncaster, UK. However, the new plants will have twice the recycling capacity…
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UK-based Malaby Biogas has received a loan from an anaerobic digestion (AD) fund, Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), which will go towards building a new plant. The facility will be based in Wiltshire, and as Bioenergy Insight reported last month, will be built on a former 12 acre smallholding site. The £800,000 (€960,000) loan will be used for the construction of the plant,…
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The Indian government says last year it intensified its bioenergy power generation across the country and now 30 villages in total have had biomass gasifiers installed. The government says it also has plans to add a further 30,000MW capacity of renewable energy, adding to the 22,000MW capacity that has now been installed within the grid across India, which is about 11% of all energy generated in…
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Dutch electricity company Eneco has begun construction of a 49.9MW bioenergy plant at Delfzijl port in the Netherlands. The plant is due to come online in 2013 and will see 300,000 tonnes of woodchips turned into power, which will provide electricity to around 120,000 homes. The woodchips will arrive by ship, train and truck from the Netherlands and other nearby countries, with about 150 ship…
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German chemical company BASF has participated in a $50 million (€38 million) funding round with an investment of $30 million into biofuel producer Renmatix. The process Renmatix uses to produce biofuels includes creating industrial sugar from lignocellulosic biomass such as wood, cane waste or straw. Using supercritical water—a state in which water acts as a…
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World Health Energy Holdings (WHEH), a public holding company that works on forming joint ventures with algae companies for the production of biodiesel and fish food, says it has signed a deal with Indian company Prime to build a biodiesel facility. The production site will sit on 250 acres and cost up to $100 million (€77 million) to build. So far two sites are being considered for the…
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The Nigerian government has signed a deal with Global Biofuels, a local biofuel producer, to build 15 biofuel plants in the country, costing about N414 billion (€2.02 billion) in total. The project will create about 120,000 jobs and will power 15 states with 30MW each. A pilot plant will be built in Ekiti, with construction beginning within the next few months and finishing in a year’s…
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Florida-based company BioTork has converted papayas into fatty acids which it says can be refined into biofuels. Under a research development programme working with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center (PBARC) and Rivertop Solutions, BioTork says this discovery is a positive breakthrough for the local agriculture and military markets. The…
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The German biofuels association UFOP has dismissed claims in a new report carried out by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) into the predicted emissions to be created by indirect land use change policy. The UFOP says it opposes the adoption of ILUC factors specific for biofuels outlined in the report and says more investment protection needs to be given for existing…
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The body representing biofuels in the US is calling for the cellulosic biofuel tax credits to be extended so that companies can raise the funds they need to build biorefineries. The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) says the industry is at a turning point where it is rapidly growing because biotechnology companies have had private investment to help commercialise the…
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Xergi has signed a deal with the Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (MMPA)to build a new biogas plant in the US which will feature gas-fired CHP engines that will output 8MW of electrical power. Hometown BioEnergy, the name of the plant, will be built in Le Sueur, Minnesota and will produce biogas from waste such as agriculture and food, including sweet corn, potato waste and chicken…
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