The U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Energy today released the National Biofuels Action Plan (NBAP), an interagency plan detailing the collaborative efforts of Federal agencies to accelerate the development of a sustainable biofuels industry. The departments jointly chair the Biomass Research and Development Board. The plan was developed in response to President Bush’s call to change the way America fuels …
Mascoma Announces Funding for Cellulosic Ethanol Plant
Mascoma Corporation will receive a total of $26.0 million in funding from the Department of Energy and an overall contribution of $23.5 million from the State of Michigan for the development of a cellulosic fuel production facility that uses non-food biomass to convert woodchips into fuel. Mascoma executives made the announcement Tuesday with officials from the DOE, Michigan Governor Jennifer …
DOE Finalizes Funding for Cellulosic Ethanol Plant
The U.S. Department of Energy will award more than $76 million to POET for the commercialization of cellulosic ethanol production technology. In February 2007, POET was selected by the DOE for a total award of up to $80 million in federal funding for the construction of a commercial cellulosic ethanol production facility. The first phase of the agreement was signed …
New President for Missouri Ethanol Group
The Missouri Renewable Fuels Association, an organization comprised of Missouri’s six farmer-owned ethanol plants and the Missouri Corn Growers Association, have elected Gene Millard of St. Joseph, as the organization’s 2008-09 president. Millard, chairman of Golden Triangle Energy in Craig, Mo., assumed the new leadership responsibilities October 1. He succeeds John Eggleston, president of POET Biorefining-Macon and founding MoRFA president. …
Corvette Powered by Cellulosic Ethanol Wins Green Challenge
The Corvette Racing team of Johnny O’Connell, Jan Magnussen and Ron Fellows went down in history as the inaugural winners of the Green Racing Challenge. The 1,000-mile Petit Le Mans win also cinched the American Le Man Series GT1 championship for O’Connell and Magnussen. The No. 3 Corvette C6.R also had the best score in the Green Challenge, securing the …
California Ethanol Lawsuit Blasted
Both the California-based New Fuels Alliance and the LA Times have taken fuel refiner Tesoro to task for suing the state over a regulation that would boost ethanol consumption in the state by 2010. The company, which operates refineries in Los Angeles and the city of Martinez, says “the new fuel specifications could conflict with the state’s push to cut …
Transition to a Bioeconomy: Part III
In just about a week and a half, government officials, bioenergy experts and leaders in the private industry will gather in St. Louis, Mo., for the third in a series of conferences sponsored by the Farm Foundation addressing the issues facing rural areas as they move to a bioeconomy. Michael Popp, professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Arkansas, …
Sweet Sorghum for Ethanol in the Southeast
The land around Lake Okeechobee has long been one of the largest sugarcane producing regions in the nation. One company now wants to use a tract of land along the lake to produce sweet sorghum for ethanol. Southeast Renewable Fuels plans to build a 20 million gallon per year ethanol production plant on a 60 acre site in Hendry County …
Making Ethanol at Night
Ethanol plants are cool in a lot of ways. They’re producing a domestic fuel solution to our energy problems and that lessens our dependency on foreign oil for example. But they can also make a pretty picture too. I was driving south through Missouri last night and passed through Laddonia and the POET plant there. This was a handheld snapshot …