View Issue Contents

← Go Back

Issue cover
Date Published:
27 March 2009

Volume 3, Issue 2


‘Drop in’ fuels: the next generation

Feature
Until recently, most biofuels companies have focused on producing first generation biofuels from terrestrial crops (corn, soya, rapeseed, palm oil, sugarcane) for biodiesel and ethanol. A more recent generation of biofuels from non-food crops such as jatropha, algae, and cellulosic ethanol from sorghum and energy cane have seen massive investment from 2006-2009 as sources of biomass production... [read more]

Cause for celebration

Feature
The European Biodiesel Board is celebrating this month after robust measures against unfairly traded US biodiesel were officially published, and the associations’ claims were recognised. Following member state approval on March 12 2009 the European Commission published in the Official Journal of the EU, Regulation 193/2009 and Regulation 194/2009 imposing respectively a provisional anti-dumping... [read more]

Renewable energy aspects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

Feature
On 17 February 2009 President Obama signed into law the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a $787 billion (€562 billion) economic stimulus package that contains numerous tax provisions related to biomass and other renewable energy projects. These provisions present significant new opportunities for developers and investors in biomass projects, but also present new challenges to be... [read more]

Bosnian biodiesel

Feature
System Ecologica is the Bosnian-based subsidiary of Better Energy Solutions Today (BEST), a US biofuels company with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Nairobi, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The biodiesel refinery is the first of its kind in Bosnia, and is located in the Republic of Srpska, near the city of Banja Luka. Although only just completed in February, the company has high hopes for success.... [read more]

Eastern bloc gridlock

Feature
A year ago the outlook for soft commodities was anything but positive. Severe droughts were leading to poor harvests, causing prices to soar. Not only was the biofuels industry partly blamed for these price rises, damaging the industry’s reputation, projects were also adversely affected. In mid-2007, for example, several Hungarian bioethanol projects, requiring hundreds of thousands of tonnes of... [read more]

Decreasing diesel demand pressures US market

Feature
Fundamentals remain dreadful for the industry owing to the deepening recession gripping the nation while federal policy uncertainty shakes investor confidence. The rallying call, it would seem, is to stay afloat in an ugly 2009 and hope US law-makers will extend the $1 gallon (€0.77) blender’s tax credit beyond 31 December and that the Environmental Protection Agency will not again delay the... [read more]

Green, green grass

Feature
Traditionally a food for fuelling animals, one particular kind of grass, the most abundant plant on earth, is attracting interest in biofuels circles. Switchgrass has caught the attention of big name producers such as DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DDCE), Mascoma, Qteros (formerly SunEthanol), Abengoa Bioenergy and ethanol plant construction company ICM. Due to its particular growing habits,... [read more]

Biomass to energy via anaerobic digestion

Feature
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is not new, bacteria have been doing it for millions of years, and as an industrial process it has been used in sewage treatment for decades. AD takes place naturally in sealed landfill sites once the oxygen has been consumed by aerobic bacteria. Until recently the slow production of landfill gas was mostly ignored, notable only as a bad smell and an occasional fire risk.... [read more]

Effective bioethanol dehydration

Feature
Sharp separation of ethanol/water mixtures during bioethanol production is simply not possible by multi-stage distillation. A point is reached during multistage distillation where the vapour boiled from the liquid has the same concentration as the liquid from which the vapour has been generated. At the azeotropic point of distillation of ethanol, the mixture reaches a constant boiling point... [read more]

Heterogeneous catalysts

Feature
Despite well-known disadvantages, the majority of biodiesel is still produced using base catalysts such as sodium and potassium hydroxides dissolved in methyl alcohol. This is partly due to a long historic usage, and partly because they are inexpensive to obtain and prepare. But this mood is changing with the increased use of more effective base catalysts such as the methylates or methoxides; and... [read more]

The hard sell

Feature
Low prices in recent years for crude glycerol have made it more of a liability than an asset. In January the US spot price was $728-992/tonne, (€563-€776) according to global chemical market intelligence service ICIS. That compares with $2,028- 2,116/tonne for vegetable and $1,676-1,874/tonne for tallow derived glycerol in June 2008. ICIS is predicting a slight rebound in 2009 based on increased... [read more]

Back to nature

Feature
TThe ethanol industry, particularly in the US, has been marked by numerous plant cut backs and closures over the past six months, led by the widely-publicised bankruptcy and auction of several VeraSun plants. The recent low oil prices and rising costs have also colluded to cripple companies trying to advance next generation ethanol projects. Lignol Energy and Suncor Energy, for example, cancelled... [read more]

Down but not out

Feature
Everyone knows the crash of the economy has injured markets the world over. This year’s World Biofuels Markets two-day conference and exhibition in Europe’s economic heart of Brussels addressed the ways in which the industry can work together towards recovery. Crude oil at $45 (€33) a barrel, the economic crisis and the push for socioenvironmental biofuels were all topics under discussion. The... [read more]