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Volume 13, Issue 6
Vision for the future
Feature
As we near the end of 2019, the US biodiesel industry is heaving a sigh of relief. This was a brutal year, with challenge after challenge. Many of the biggest challenges were on policy fronts we believe we had already addressed, including tax, trade and the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
Promoting the benefits of ethanol
Feature
Over the past three years, we have seen a steady increase in the use of ethanol in North America as Canada, the US and Mexico look to biofuels to reach their economic and climate goals.
Focus on fuel quality
Feature
In the ever-intensifying debate on climate change and how the European Union (EU) should respond to it, some of the fine print often gets overlooked. Case in point: the EU’s Fuel Quality Directive, which requires a reduction of the greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity of transport fuels by at least 6% in 2020.
Cap and trade
Feature
The best climate policy – environmentally and economically – limits emissions and puts a price on them. Cap and trade is one way to do both. It’s a system designed to reduce pollution in our atmosphere.
A bleak outlook for biodiesel?
Feature
Politics continue to dominate the development of the biodiesel industry in North America, and not in a good way. You can’t have a year when at least 10 biodiesel producers decide to close their operations due to policy instability and reach any other conclusion than that the industry is in a mess.
Europe's HVO feedstock conundrum
Feature
Aided by rapidly increasing biofuel mandates and physical limits to FAME blending, demand for hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) in Europe is booming. Neste has long had a near-monopoly on its production, but new players are rapidly entering the market.
Counting the costs
Feature
The concept of blending product to create biofuels is not new. In the 1820s in the US, whale oil for fuel lamps was expensive, so a blend of camphene and alcohol was mixed and successfully used as a cheaper alternative.
New catalyst on the block
Feature
The potential of acid-catalysed biodiesel transesterification has long been underestimated. In 1999, an in-depth investigation of acid catalysis to produce biodiesel was published by J. Van Gerpen, in the journal Transactions of the ASAE.
Water, water everywhere
Feature
Water sustainability affects many production steps along the bioenergy supply chain. When evaluating the effects of bioenergy production on water supply, it is critical that we understand how much water might be consumed, as well as the potential impacts of that water consumption at a regional level.
Working with the universal solvent
Feature
Water, known as the universal solvent, is an amazing substance. Understanding water’s ability to dissolve, suspend and release both solids and gases can ensure favourable conditions in an ethanol plant.
Keeping the air cleaner with E10
Feature
On the way to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the European Union (EU-28) is on track to exceed its 2020 goal to reduce GHG emissions by 20%.
Carbon-14 for co-processed fuels.
Feature
Efforts to decrease greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions drive the growing production and use of biofuel blends. Often, the percentage of biocarbon that comprises a biofuel blend must be measured.
Breaking barriers with BRISK2
Feature
This year, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, more of Britain’s electricity production will come from zero carbon energy sources than fossil fuels, according to the National Grid.
From trash to treasure
Feature
As the need for energy security grows, scientists are investigating non-food biomass sources that can be used to create valuable biofuels and bioproducts.
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