It looks like there will be plenty of soybeans for food and fuel use, especially since the non-renewal of the biodiesel tax incentive seems to have put a lot of refineries’ operations on hold. The latest World Agriculture Supply and Demand Estimate report from the USDA pushes up the 2009 U.S. soybean crop now to an estimated record 3.36 billion …
Danforth Center Receives $44 Mil for Biofuels Research
The St. Louis-area Donald Danforth Plant Science Center will receive $44 million in stimulus bucks to conduct advanced biofuels research. This press release from the center says the money from the U.S. Department of Energy will go to helping the center to serve as the lead organization in a consortium: The National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts (NAABB) led …
GE Inks Wind Turbine Deals at Home & Abroad
American manufacturing giant General Electric is striking some big deals in the alternative energy field, especially wind power. TransWorldNews.com reports deals in China and Oregon … with potentially more deals to come … are bolstering the company’s green energy sector: General Electric announced they will provide 88 turbines for three projected wind projects in the Hebei and Shanxi Provinces of …
Ford Hybrid Wins Car of the Year
Yesterday, I told you how electric vehicles were all the rage at this year’s North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Michigan going on now through January 24th. Well, Ford’s Fusion hybrid is the toast of the town (and, really, the toast of the entire automotive world) as it has picked up the coveted Car of the Year award. …
Cold Puts Minnesota Biodiesel Mandate on Hold
As a guy who is from the Upper Midwest, I can tell you that the kind of cold that the Dakotas, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota have experienced the last couple of weeks was a “special” kind of cold. Forty or 50 below zero is Jack-London-Call-of-the-Wild-spit-freezin’-in-mid-air kind of cold. So, it’s no wonder that the cold has put Minnesota’s 5 percent …
Electric Vehicles to Dominate Detroit Auto Show
Electric vehicles will be the big talk of this year’s North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit, Michigan. Design News says the event, which takes place over the next two weeks, will give more than 500,000 visitors the chance to see the latest and greatest in auto technology, including the green-powered ones. One key for the giant exhibition, traditionally …
Investigators Find Cause of Biodiesel Plant Explosion
Company investigators say they have found the cause of the explosion last month at the Imperium Renewables biodiesel plant near Grays Harbor, Washington state. The DailyWorld.com reports a 10,000-gallon glycerin neutralization tank became over-pressurized to the point of an explosion when sulfuric acid caused an unexpected exothermic reaction: “Personnel were unaware of the potential for such a reaction,” spokesman John …
Biodiesel Conference Place to Discuss RFS-2
As the EPA gets closer to implementing the new Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS-2), those attending this year’s National Biodiesel Conference and Expo, Feb. 7-10 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas will have the chance to talk about and prepare for RFS-2: This year’s implementation of the RFS-2 will be the single largest factor in biodiesel …
Lee: Time to Build, Buy Biodiesel
While 2009 is a year that most of the biodiesel market would most likely want to forget, at least one consultant is saying this year is the one for builders to build and buyers to buy biodiesel. Wayne Lee, the CEO of the biodiesel consulting group, Lee Enterprises, says his advice is build or buy now: “Because oil is a …
New Smart Wind Turbine Sees Breeze and Adjusts
A new wind turbine coming out of Denmark will be able to “see” the wind and make adjustments that optimize power production. This post from TreeHugger.com says Denmark’s Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy has successfully tested the world’s first wind turbine that uses a built-in anemometer to adjust itself to the oncoming wind: The system works by using a …