Burning Bio News

Members of the Association of Irritated Residents, or AIR, have filed suit to stop a corn ethanol plant proposed near Famoso, CA. They said toxic air emissions from both the plant and trucks going to and from the plant weren’t properly analyzed in the environmental impact report.

Poet has canceled plans for an ethanol plant in Glenville, MN, after the process of obtaining the appropriate permits delayed the project for more than a year.

California-based investment firm Cilion Incorporated backed out of a $115 million agreement to fund an ethanol plant at the the former Seneca County Army Depot, just outside Romulus, NY. Local opposition to project was deciding factor.

Terrabon, LLC announced that it has broken ground on a biofuels conversion facility in Bryan, TX, that will test the scaled-up, commercial feasibility of its MixAlco(TM) technology, which converts readily-available, low-cost, non-food biomass into chemicals that can be processed into ethanol and renewable gasoline fuels.

The lender that financed construction of Gateway Ethanol LLC’s 55 million-gallon ethanol plant near Pratt, KS, has moved to foreclose on the facility.

Iogen Corp. said Wednesday it has suspended its operations in Idaho to build a cellulosic ethanol plant in Saskatchewan. For the last two years, Iogen had leaned toward building a cellulosic ethanol facility near the community of Shelley, near where farmers already are under contract to provide the wheat and barley straw, corn leaves and stalks, and switch grass used to produce ethanol.

Central Carolina Community CollegeÕs Biofuels program has received a $195,000 grant from the Biofuels Center of North Carolina. The funds will be used to purchase equipment for the college’s Biofuels Production Laboratory at its Chatham County Campus.

The U.S. Department of Energy last week awarded Trillium FiberFuels a $100,000 grant to test a new method for making cellulosic ethanol - a biofuel made from grass, wood and other fibrous plant material.

The Berkeley, Calif.-based Energy Biosciences Institute has started its first round of funding, announcing an initial set of 49 cellulosic biofuel research projects that will share a $20 million investment.

Prairie Fire Bioengery Cooperative will build a biomass processing plant at Healy, KS. The site will have its own waste-powered gasification Uniconfort boiler that will drive a turbine to generate electricity for the pellet manufacturing operation.

Houston-based Waste Management Inc. and the Linde Group, a global natural gas producer and distributor, will build a plant to purify and liquefy landfill gas at the waste disposal company’s Altamont site near Livermore. The plant is expected to open next year.

The California Energy Commission has granted nearly $500,000 for the development of a biomass power generation site at the Woodland Biomass Research Center.

Some elected officials in Missouri have been chastised for investing in biofuels projects that have tax breaks associated with them. The mingling of personal and political matters has caused a backlash against biofuels at the Missouri Capitol.

The Lovett School, Atlanta, GA, is using used vegetable oil to produce biodiesel. When Lovett buys standard diesel fuel, it costs them $3.48 a gallon. If they should buy biodiesel, it costs them about $5 a gallon. To make their own biodiesel, it costs them 98-cents a gallon.

In Colorado, 13 recipients were given funds from the second round of New Energy Economic Development grants using Clean Energy Funds to advance energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the state. Total funds distributed were $636,630.

General Motors Corp. has taken an undisclosed equity stake in a second cellulosic ethanol research firm, Boston-based Mascoma Corp., boosting the Detroit automaker’s plans to jump-start the production of renewable fuels.