There is more wheeling & dealing on ethanol measures going on in DC today. Sens. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) introduced a bill that would repeal the Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit (VEETC) also known as the blender’s credit. Policy makers have been attempting to end VEETC for many years and made an unsuccessful, but down to the …
POET’s Biorefineries Slash H20 Use
POET biorefineries have slashed water use through the utilization of the company’s Total Water Recovery technology. Across the board, the company’s plants have reduced water use by a total of 411 million gallons of water per year compared to 2009 levels. This savings means that on average, a POET ethanol plant uses 2.77 gallons of water per gallon of ethanol …
Kyocera Installs 2 Solar Systems at Phoenix Schools
Kyocera Solar has completed the installation of solar electric systems in two Phoenix, Arizona schools: Copper Ridge in Scottsdale and Cholla Elementary in Casa Grande. The solar arrays were installed in partnership with SolarCity and featured Kyocera solar modules. Combined, the two solar systems will produce 764 kilowatts (kW) of electricity. The Copper Ridge School’s solar system is comprised of …
Propel Fuels Hosts USDA’s Judith Canales
Propel Fuels hosted Judith Canales, Administrator for Rural Business and Cooperative Programs for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), yesterday at one of the fuel retailer’s stations in Oakland, California yesterday to promote the positive and economic and environmental impacts biofuels has on the US. Propel is the leading retailer in the US installing biofuel infrastructure for both ethanol and …
Novus Int’l Installs EV Charging Stations
Agri-business company Novus International has installed three electric vehicle (EV) charging stations at its St. Charles, Missouri headquarters. The ChargePoint Networked Charging Stations were developed by Coulomb Technologies. Novus installed the charging stations as part of its efforts to become a Platinum LEED Certified building, a green environmental building designation. It is the fourth building in Missouri and one of …
Monsanto & Sapphire to Colloborate on Algae
Agribusiness company Monsanto and algae company Sapphire Energy have announced a partnership to “discover” genes that could be applied to agriculture particularly in the areas of yield and stress. As Sapphire works to bring algal fuels to commercial scale, the company is searching for traits that make a particular strain of algae better suited for fuel or other biochemicals. In …
Researchers Develop Isobutanol From Cellulose
Using consolidated bioprocessing, researchers at the Department of Energy’s BioEnergy Science Center have discovered how to develop isobutanol directly from cellulose. The research was led by James Liao of the University of California at Los Angeles, and the results were published in the paper titled “Metabolic Engineering of Clostridium Cellulolyticum for Isobutanol Production from Cellulose,”online in Applied and Environmental Microbiology. …
Geothermal Capacity Could Double in 10 Years
According to a new report from Pike Research, “Geothermal Power,” geothermal capacity could double in 10 years. The report concludes that increasing investment in geothermal power could result in a 134 percent increase in total geothermal power between 2010-2020. In other words, an increase from 10.7 gigawatts (GW) to 25.1 GW worldwide when based on a high-growth scenario. Using a …
Maverick Biofuels Wins NSF Award
Maverick Biofuels has announced that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a reactor system for converting syngas into high-value products. The company is commercializing a technology to convert biomass to a mixed-alcohol biofuel that can be readily blended with gasoline as a drop-in fuel. The process utilizes …
New Videos Demonstrate Wind Farm Benefits
Two new videos produced by Seimans in conjunction with Cannon Power Group demonstrate how a wind farm can benefit the local community. The videos are based on its Windy Point/Windy Flats (WP/WF) wind farm project in Goldendale, Washington with the first video focusing on the economic benefits of wind energy and the second video focusing on how to finance a …