POET–DSM Advanced Biofuels will be celebrating the start of construction Tuesday on Project LIBERTY, the planned commercial-scale ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. The joint venture between Dutch life sciences firm Royal DSM and ethanol giant POET announced the groundbreaking when the partnership was made public in January. “The joint venture anticipates that we’ll complete construction of Project LIBERTY and start …
Amendment Would Extend Domestic Energy Tax Credits
Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) introduced an amendment to the Transportation Bill (S.1813) Thursday that would extend tax incentives for domestically produced energy sources, including biodiesel, ethanol, cellulosic biofuels, electric vehicles, wind energy and solar. The measure would re-instate and extend the $1 per gallon biodiesel tax incentive, which expired at the end of last year, and the Advanced Energy Manufacturing …
New Holland Stresses Support for Ethanol
New Holland Agriculture announced a major new national “blue is back” advertising campaign at the 2012 Commodity Classic last week and stressed the blue tractor company’s support for homegrown fuel. New Holland North American VP Abe Hughes says they believe that more acreage will be planted this year than anytime in recent history and part of the reason is ethanol. …
HCL CleanTech Changes Name, Announces Financing
HCL CleanTech has changed its name to Virdia and announced new funding for the development of cellulosic sugars for biofuels and other uses. Virdia today officially announced the closing of $30 million in private financing and a $75 million loan package from the Mississippi Development Authority to build manufacturing plants in the state. Founded in 2007 as HCL CleanTech, Virdia …
ZeaChem to Develop “Drop-In” Advanced Biofuels
ZeaChem, a developer of biorefineries for the conversion of renewable biomass into sustainable fuels and chemicals, will receive a portion of a $40m grant from USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Regional Coordinated Agricultural Project (CAP). The USDA project will establish regional systems for the sustainable production of bioenergy and …
State of the Advanced Ethanol Industry
A panel of advanced ethanol company executives at the National Ethanol Conference was at the same time optimistic and sobering about the future of next generation biofuel production. “We openly acknowledged the ‘elephant in the room’ and that is that some of the numbers that people were talking about are bigger than we can expect in the immediate term,” said …
Novozymes Introduces Latest Enzyme Technology
Novozymes has introduced its next-generation of enzyme technology for cellulosic biofuels, Cellic CTec3, an advanced cellulase and hemicellulase complex. The enzyme enables more cost-efficient conversion of biomass to ethanol and performs 1.5 times better than its predecessor, Cellic CTec2. Using Cellic CTec3, biofuel producers need only one-fifth of the enzyme dose compared to competing enzymes. Cellic CTec3 allows the cost …
AEC Asks EPA Not to Grant Waiver to Oil Industry
The Advanced Ethanol Council (AEC) is asking the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) not to grant a retroactive waiver to the oil industry for the cellulosic requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) in 2011. Under the 2011 RFS, the EPA required petroleum refiners and importers to blend 6.6 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels in 2011 or buy waiver credits …
Pioneer Studies Residue Removal for Cellulosic Ethanol
DuPont businesses Pioneer Hi-Bred and DuPont Industrial Biosciences are collaborating with Iowa State University in performing studies on residue to establish best practices in harvesting, storage and transportation, with an eye toward its use in cellulosic ethanol production in the near future. Agronomic benefits of residue removal include preventing stand establishment concerns in the following crop and avoiding nitrogen tie-up …
USDA Approves Support for Oregon Cellulosic Plant
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved a conditional commitment of $232.5 million to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Boardman, Oregon. The commitment was made to ZeaChem Boardman Biorefinery, LLC (ZBB) through the Biorefinery Assistance Program. ZBB plans to operate a 25 million gallon per year biorefinery to be constructed on an industrial site in northeast Oregon, along the …