Burning Bio News

MI State regulators have issued an air quality permit for a proposed 116 million gallon ethanol production plant in Flint, MI.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) announced the launch of the Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System (WREGIS), a renewable energy registry and tracking system for electricity generation.

Consumers can calculate how individual energy use contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution on an EPA web site.

Michigan Biodiesel plant is idled. The plant in Bangor, MI, is still operating, but at just 1/6 of its capacity. The costs for the fuel’s raw ingredients, like the feed stock that goes in the towers, keep going up.

Dakota Skies Biodiesel LLC proposed canola-based biodiesel plant has been shelved after an economic development group withdrew its offer to provide land. The decision comes after more than two years of planning and millions of dollars in design and engineering work.

West Lafayette, IN, is the first community in Indiana and one of only 30 in the United States to receive a national award for its wastewater program. They will work by capturing methane gas produced during the digesting process and using it as a substitute for natural gas to generate electricity.

California nets $2.9 million in state and federal Conservation Innovation Grant projects.  Some of these focus on increasing the management of manure.

Waste Management, Inc. announces a plan to build 60, landfill gas power plants.

One hundred percent of distiller’s dried grains with solubles (DDGS) can be pelletized without adding a binding agent or anything else, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in SD.

California Ethanol & Power LLC to produce 50 million gallons of ethanol from sugarcane in addition to 30 MW of electricity in California’s Imperial Valley.

A 50 million gallon ethanol plant planned on the site of a former sugar-beet processing factory in Fremont, OH. A big chunk of the plant will be a cooperative of sugar-beet growers who are, in effect, financing a facility that will benefit corn farmers.

DuPont and FOSS North America announced an agreement to help farmers and ethanol producers better understand ethanol yield potential of grain corn being delivered to ethanol plants. The technology allows ethanol producers to use real-time data ethanol production quality of the grain.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car establishes E85/FlexFuel branch in Washington, D.C. and demonstrates their commitment to alternative fuels and technologies. Their flexfuel fleet has 41,000 vehicles.

EPA will award Macon Municipal Utilities, Missouri, and Adkins Energy LLC, Illinois, for reducing energy use at ethanol plants by 25% and 15%, respectively. Natural gas Combined Heat and Power ( CHP ) turbines were installed to reduce their energy use.

The Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, OH, approved June 28 the construction of a 108 million gallon ethanol plant on the Maumee River.

Poet has announced the company has produced small quantities of cellulosic fuel from corn stover at its “Project Liberty” prototype plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. “Certainly, today it’s probably a stretch for it to be profitable, however we’re confident in our partnerships and our track record at being able to lower the costs of production such that this will be a profitable process by the time it’s operational,” said Poet CEO Jeff Broin.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation to decrease pollution from energy production by encouraging an increase in the use of renewable energy from sources such as wind, hydroelectricity, solar power, hydrogen, and biomass.

Engineers at the USDA-ARS Center, Albany, CA, have developed a technology to increase the efficiency of ethanol production. The invention is called a spiral-wound liquid membrane module, and could replace the widely-used process of distilling ethanol from fermentation broths.

Alliant Energy Corp. has created a new management position responsible for developing fuel supplies made from biomass for power plants in Marshalltown, IA and Cassville, WI.

PetroSun Inc. plans to build the world’s first biodiesel production facility to extract oil from algae in Alabama and it should be running within 10 months.