Gloucester County Virginia recently unveiled the states first propane school bus fleet during an event attended by the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, Congressman Robert Wittman and Delegate Harvey Morgan. Five diesel school buses were replaced with propane power during an event at Page Middle School in Gloucester County designed to celebrates the school district’s commitment to environmental sustainability, energy …
BlueFire Ethanol Awaits Feds $56 Mil Loan Decision
Cellulosic ethanol producer BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, Inc. has cleared the first hurdle in its quest to get a $56 million government loan guarantee for its Lancaster, California ethanol plant. As you might remember from my Domestic Fuel Cast earlier this month, BlueFire uses a process called Concentrated Acid Hydrolysis Technology that can turn many feedstocks into ethanol, including garbage. I …
DOE Official: Algae and Biomass Future of Biofuels
Oil from algae and the biomass from the green microbes could be the future for advanced biofuels… that word from a top U.S. Department of Energy official. Biomass Magazine reports that Valerie Reed of the U.S. DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy said at the Pacific Rim Summit on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioenergy held this week in Honolulu, …
Canadian Biofuelers to Ask for Bigger Mandates
Ethanol and biodiesel producers in Canada will ask their government early next year to increase the amount of the green fuels produced and added to fossil fuels… even as there are doubts the industry can meet current mandates and production incentives. Reuters reports that the industry has not decided what those levels should be: Canada has given annual incentives for …
New Venture to Finance Sorghum-to-Ethanol Projects
A new venture could provide up to $376 million for projects that will turn sweet sorghum into ethanol. DPG Investments, LLC (DPG) has announced its partnership with EPEC Biofuels Holdings, Inc. (EPEC) to put together a new platform finance company called EPEC Finance, LLC that will fund the manufacture and deployment of EPEC’s proprietary Ethanol Production Units (EPU’s) on select …
DF Cast: Turning Garbage into Ethanol
It’s like the scene in Back to the Future II, where the crazy old professor stuffs garbage into his flux capacitor in the back of the DeLorean and flies off to the future (or is that the past?). California-based BlueFire Ethanol Fuels has developed a process called Concentrated Acid Hydrolysis Technology that expands the amount of feedstocks that can be …