Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell has signed into law measures that will provide incentives to biodiesel producers while mandating a rising scale of biodiesel percentages in all diesel sold in the state.
This story from FoxBusiness.com has details:
“Pennsylvanians are struggling with higher fuels costs,” said Governor Rendell, who signed House Bill 1202 and Special Session Senate Bill 22 into law at the National Armory in Montgomery County. “Record-high fuel prices are straining family budgets and pinching the bottom lines of our businesses. We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil and keep our energy dollars in Pennsylvania, to invest in our economy and create jobs.”
Here are the requirements for biodiesel percentages and what is believed to be the first cellulosic ethanol mandate in the country:
All diesel fuel sold at retail must contain:
— 2 percent biodiesel, once in-state production reaches 40 million gallons;
— 5 percent biodiesel, once in-state production reaches 100 million gallons;
— 10 percent biodiesel, once in-state production reaches 200 million gallons; and
— 20 percent biodiesel, once in-state production reaches 400 million gallons.
All gasoline sold at retail must contain:
— 10 percent ethanol, once in-state cellulosic ethanol production reaches 350 million gallons.
Pennsylvania is also investing $5.3 million for in-state biodiesel producers each year through 2011. Those producers will also be able to cash in on a 75 cents-a-gallon subsidy. The bills are expected to add a billion gallons of biofuels a year to the state.



Originally created to replace over 100 separate newsletters POET distributed every year, Vital is putting a face to the ethanol industry. Throughout 2008, Vital will base its editorial on four main themes: the future of ethanol, community profiles, industry information and environmental advancements. 
Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary Steven Chalk told the Senate Environment and Public Works clean air subcommittee that keeping the current RFS policy in place is “critical to ensuring growth in all parts of the biofuels supply chain, from feedstocks, to biorefineries, to infrastructure, including pipelines.”
DuPont vice president for technology John Pierce told the committee that the expanded RFS is an attainable goal, both in terms of corn ethanol and cellulosic. “In fact, there are multiple technology developers intending to produce cellulosic ethanol in pilot or demonstration quantities from a range of feedstocks over the next 24 months. The economics and carbon performance of grain ethanol continues to improve as well, as does agricultural productivity and sustainability in the US. These trends suggest that while the RFS targets are aggressive, as they should be, they are not out of reach.”
Scientists with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are using nearly 10 years of satellite information to figure out where is the best place on the oceans to put up wind energy turbines.
QuikSCAT, launched in 1999, continuously tracks the speed, direction and power of winds near the ocean surface to predict storms and enhance weather forecast accuracy.
The Center of Excellence for Hazardous Materials Management recently harvested commercial-scale quantities of algae from its test salt water ponds located at New Mexico State University Agriculture Science Center in north Eddy County, according to Wren Prather-Stroud, spokeswoman for the nonprofit organization based in Carlsbad.
The heads of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. said they will work to develop science-based benchmarks and indicators for biofuel production and use. The leaders also said they are committed to “continuing research and development of second generation biofuels made from non-food plant materials and inedible biomass.”