ICIS Blogs : agriculture

Greenpeace protests against Neste's palm biofuel plans

The Big Biofuels Blog — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:20:20 GMT

Greenpeace is objecting to Neste's plans to become the world's largest consumer of plam oil as it ramps up biofuels production, according to a report on ICIS news. Disclosure (I work for ICIS. About ICIS ) Neste disputes the pressure group's...(read more)

12000 gals water make 1 gal ethanol

The Big Biofuels Blog — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:02:26 GMT

Wholly irrigated corn can take up to 1200 gal of water to produce 1gal ethano l, according to a report on the MinPost today. That's a lot of water and touches again on my obsession with aquifers . Read More......(read more)

Novozymes in China biofuel project.

The Big Biofuels Blog — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 11:34:39 GMT

Novozymes and China National Cereals, China Oil & Foodstuff Corp (COFCO) and Asian refiner China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) in February to develop an industry chain to collect agricultural waste, process it into bioethanol and distribute...(read more)

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:10:38 GMT

The Scientifc Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) has produced a report looking at the enviromental impacts of biofuels ,. The group makes a number of recomendations for second generation feedstocks, and favours woody or grassy plants. As...(read more)

Antibiotics at heart of corn ethanol

The Big Biofuels Blog — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 09:09:34 GMT

Some US corn ethanol producers are using penicillin and three other antibiotics in corn fermentation process says Minnesota Public Radio . /* Why? To ensure that the yeast they use in fermentation does not have to compete with naturally-occurring bacteria...(read more)

Arkansas: promised land for biofuel

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:41:15 GMT

Could Arkansas be a promised land for biofuel. This article from Delta Farm Press seems to think so. Of course it doesn't explain how all the biofuel that could be producecd in the state could be got to the markets that need it? I Wonder how long...(read more)

Verenium and Aventine in difficulties: Reuters

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:16:48 GMT

Verenium could have difficulty continuing as a company, its auditors say in a report from Reuters yesterday and carried in the UK's Guardian Business Feed .The same report says Aventine may need to take Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Key points...(read more)

The right cellulosic biofuels might help protect the environment

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:00:31 GMT

Biofuels from cellulosic feedstock could help to protect the environment by reducing the amount of nitrogen that runs off into rivers and by providing coverage that helps protect the land against wind and rain erosion. That is one of the central assertions...(read more)

More on Michigan State's big cellulosic ethanol drive

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:31:44 GMT

I wrote a couple of days ago about a company called Frontier Renewable Resources, a joint venture between JM Longyear and Mascoma that is planning to convert trees in Michigan into ethanol for biofuel. There has been a follow up story in the Michigan...(read more)

UK has enough land for non-food biofuels -- study

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:33:11 GMT

A study in the Journal of Applied Ecology says that there is enough land in the UK for non-food biofuels. The abstract, which is copied on envirolation.org says that there is 3.1m Ha of acceptable land in the UK, that's land that isn't of great...(read more)

Not farming is better for carbon emissions than corn-ethanol

The Big Biofuels Blog — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 15:00:27 GMT

Tree Hugger has one of those articles which show that doing nothing produces fewer carbon emissions than growing corn for ethanol. Well Duh. Let's turn this on its head. If we stopped using oil-powered vehicles then we would not need to use any gasoline...(read more)

FAO's case studies on small-scale bioenergy initiatives

The Big Biofuels Blog — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 12:12:53 GMT

The FAO has pdf on the impacts that small scale biofuels initiative s have had on the lives of participants in the developing world. It is downloadable as a PDF. The report is interesting because it approaches the users and producers of biofuels as being...(read more)

The Malaysian Minster of Plantation Industires on sustainability

The Big Biofuels Blog — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:23:14 GMT

The Malaysian Minister of Plantation Industries spoke exclusively to the World Refinning Association ahead of the Asian Biofuels Roundtable to be held in Malaysia at 23-25 March. It is interesting that there is no discussion of prior informed consent...(read more)

Sugar cane ethanol and Brazil

The Big Biofuels Blog — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:37:20 GMT

There's a piece entitled Why the Promise of Biofuels is a lie by Robert Bryce . It is pretty anti biofuels, mainly ethanol, it doesn't talk about biodiesel. It is worth looking at for the way it pulls together a couple of sources on the plight...(read more)

Belgium and Netherlands may grow GM poplars for biofuels

The Big Biofuels Blog — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:22:45 GMT

Belgium and the Netherlands may find themselves in a race to grow the first GM poplars for biofuels. According to a story in Nature Biotechnology and quoted by Biofuel Watch in an email, the Dutch Government may approve the planting of poplars for biofuel...(read more)