The Biomass Research and Development Board, an interagency collaboration composed of senior decision-makers from federal agencies and the White House, recently published a report, titled “Federal Activities Report on the Bioeconomy.�
It has been a slow late winter in the grains market. Corn has been slow to move due to slow flat price and no interest in selling at these values by the producer.
Six companies have now brought cellulosic ethanol facilities online, but with widely varying costs that indicate where innovation is still needed to make next-generation biofuels competitive, according to Lux Research.
Growth Energy recently kicked off its seventh annual Executive Leadership Conference at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando, Florida. One panel of the event focused on “The E15 Revolution."
Researchers have mixed different genetic varieties of switchgrass on production-size plots, hypothesizing this could increase yield, produce a fuller crop and potentially reducing the crop's vulnerability to weather fluctuations.
On Feb. 23, Growth Energy held a panel at its seventh annual Executive Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida, focused on the important actions the policy, legal and regulatory teams must take so the industry can overcome these hurdles.
To better understand exactly how lignin persists, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory created one of the largest biomolecular simulations to date, a 23.7-million atom system representing pretreated biomass in the presence of enzymes.
Reports published by the USDA Office of the Chief Economist and the University of Missouri's Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute demonstrate that ethanol production continues to become more energy efficient and benefit the economy.
Comet Biorefining Inc. has announced the location of its commercial-scale biomass-derived sugar facility in the TransAlta Energy Park in Sarnia, Ontario. The 60 million pounds per year plant will come online in 2018.
The National Ethanol Conference kicked off Feb. 15 in New Orleans with a welcome reception. On Feb. 16, the Renewable Fuels Association released a new study and launched a flex-fuel vehicle awareness program.
A new biorefinery process developed by scientists at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory has proven to be significantly more effective at producing ethanol from algae than previous research.
Speaking before more than 1,000 attendees at the National Ethanol Conference in New Orleans Feb. 16, Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Bob Dinneen declared that the domestic ethanol industry remains strong.
On Feb. 11, the House Committee on Agriculture held a hearing on U.S. EPA policies that impact the rural economy. The renewable fuel standard (RFS) and Clean Power Plan were among the programs discussed during the nearly three-hour event.
The European ERA-NET innovation project ChemBeet is developing a technology that explodes cell walls to create faster and cheaper fermentation. The process uses Betaprocess technology in which vacuum extrusion is used to explode cell walls.
The board of directors for MAIZALL, the international maize alliance, reaffirmed its commitment to strategic cooperation in addressing market access issues related to biotechnology and other agricultural technologies during a recent meeting.
A 25 million bushel increase in projected corn use for ethanol in USDA's February supply-demand report is partially offsetting a 50 million bushel lower export forecast. Corn imports are projected 10 million bushels higher.
On Feb. 3, Syngenta International AG released financial results for 2015, reporting it has signed commercial agreements for Enogen corn with 18 ethanol plants, up from 16 in October.
The U.S. Senate is currently considering the Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2015. To date, lawmakers have introduced more than 275 amendments to the bill, including several that would impact biofuels and bioenergy.
USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service has published the February edition of its Grain Crushing and Coproducts Production report, showing total corn consumed for fuel alcohol was 444.5 million bushels.
Trestle Energy LLC has received a favorable carbon intensity rating from the California Air Resources Board for a pathway approach that creates a new coproduct credit from using corn stover for electric generation.
The USDA's Farm Service Agency has published a notice in the Federal Register seeking comments on a revision of a currently approved information collection in support of the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP).
New research shows variations in the biomass supply chain could reduce potential for cellulosic biofuel production, but that feedstock diversification and portfolio strategies can effectively mitigate risk.
The USDA has released a report detailing the impacts investments made by its Rural Development team have had on rural America. Bioenergy investments are among those highlighted in the document.
Off to a slow start, 2015 margins improved, thanks to exports and strong driving demand. What will 2016 bring? This article appears in the February issue of EPM.
The anticipated USDA report released in January was friendly for the soy complex and that supported corn. However, overall world economics, growing global grain stocks and a decline in energy prices have limited upside movement in grains/oilseeds.
The 2015 survey provides snapshot of new crop quality for ethanol production. This story appears in the February issue of EPM.
Second-generation biofuel crops like the perennial grasses Miscanthus and switchgrass can efficiently meet emission reduction goals without significantly displacing cropland used for food production, according to a new study.
UNICA, the Brazilian sugarcane industry association, has announced that with the harvest season almost finished, the sugarcane crush in the south-central region reached approximately 594.08 million tons at the end of December.
The BioAg Alliance, Novozymes' and Monsanto's collaboration to improve crop harvests through naturally-occurring microbes, recently announced results from its 2015 field trial program. Those results included a corn inoculant product.
Soft corn markets should be strengthened some by USDA lowering its national average yield by 0.9 bushels to 168.4 bushels per acres. That brings the USDA estimates for 2015-'16 corn production down by 53 million bushels.
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