A new fleet fuel economy and fuel usage study has found that the median fleet-wide fuel economy of 6.5 miles per gallon is being achieved through a number of technologies including biodiesel. The survey was released by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) and the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) and was sponsored by ExxonMobil. For truck-tractors, aluminum …
Congress Urged to Extend Biofuel Tax Incentives
It’s time once again for the annual push to Congress to extend tax incentives before the end of the year, a plea which is usually ignored. Renewable energy organizations sent letters to Congressional leadership this week calling for a multi-year extension of the Second Generation Biofuel Producer Tax Credit, the Special Depreciation Allowance for Second Generation Biofuel Plant Property, the …
Super Yeast Yields Better #Ethanol Economics
A new innovative “super yeast” could very well improve the economics of ethanol production. A collaborative research team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) have engineered a yeast strain that nearly doubles the efficiency of plant sugar to biofuel conversion. The team focused on the baker’s and brewer’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a microbe …
Crimson Renewable Energy Expands Biodiesel Plant
Crimson Renewable Energy has completed an expansion of its biodiesel plant located in Kern County, California more than tripling annual production. The company says that their plant is a model for the benefits of biodiesel including job creation, local economic support, greenhouse gas emission reductions and air quality improvement. The company held an unveiling event to showcase its updated facility. Several …
REG Gray’s Harbor Set for Improvements
REG Grays Harbor, LLC is set for several improvements with compliments of an additional $5 million credit facility from Umpqua Bank. The bioefinery is the largest of all of Renewable Energy Group’s (REG) biodiesel plants with a nameplate capacity of $100 million gallons of biodiesel per year. This is just one major plant upgrade investment REG has recently made. Last …
REG Completes $34M Danville Biorefinery Upgrade
The biodiesel biorefinery located in Danville, Illinois is showing off its new upgrades and enhancements. REG, the owner of the 45 million gallon per year biodiesel plant that has expanded from 8 acres to nearly 30 acres, invested $34.5 million into the facility. REG hosted a public celebration to showcase the completed project that included a ribbon cutting. On hand …
Lee Enterprises Celebrates 21st Anniversary
Lee Enterprises Consulting is celebrating its 21st anniversary. The organization began as a small biodiesel consulting practice in 1955 and today has grown to a consultancy with over 100 international experts. Lee Enterprises now has seven divisions with emphases on biodiesel, ethanol, emerging technologies, biomass power, renewable chemicals, biogas/AD and business/finance. “This has been a pretty amazing journey,” said Founder …
NEW PBS Documentary: The Ethanol Effect
Detroit Public Television (DPTV) is debuting a new ethanol documentary this Sunday, October 9, 2016 at 9:00 pm ET called, “The Ethanol Effect“. The film, produced by DPTV, takes a look at the controversy surrounding the challenges of the best use for America’s corn production: food or biofuel. The worldwide premier of the documentary is on PBS’ World Channel. (Click …
Chemoil Settles RIN Dispute
The largest mis-use of Renewable Identification Numbers (RINS) since the inception of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has been settled this week. The U.S. EPA and the U.S. Department of Justice have ordered Chemoil Corporation to retire 65 million fuel credits to resolve violations. When factoring in the current market value of the credits, combined with an additional 7.7 million …
Supercomputer Paving Way for Biomass to Biofuel
Supercomputing is being used to discover ways to make turning biomass into biofuel. The University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) project is led by Jeremy Smith, UT Governor’s Chair for Molecular Biophysics based in the Department of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology. He also is director of the UT-ORNL Center for Molecular Biophysics. One of the …