Biofuel News world over. Fuel Price will soar!

In Venezuela, a recent energy forum in Caracas discussed various oil price equilibrium scenarios. According to the presenters, Saudi Arabia has targeted $60-$70 per barrel, while Venezuela and Iran are targeting $70-$80. Presenters noted that investment bankers are calculating that the price will average $50-$60 through early 2011 and then begin to rise towards $100-$110.


In 3-5 years ,the % of biofuel in your car tank will have 5-7% biofuel blended with fossil fuel. Ten years from or less more than 15% blended is expected while beyond into the future will see modified vehicles who will run entirely on biofuels.
The whole world has come to a point in time when fossil fuel must need company to increase supply.Also more pressure is now on decreasing fossil fuel and lifting more biofuel with worldwide climate change.Some of our land and land will be given away for biofuel generation which is necessary.

In Canada, Enerkem announced that Enerkem GreenField Alberta Biofuels has been granted North America's first unconditional commercial permit ever awarded to produce 10 Mgy of advanced biofuels from sorted municipal solid waste.
In Illinois, Archer Daniels Midland said that it expects the US ethanol market to grow 14 percent, from 10.5 billion gallons to 12 billion, in 2010. ADM also said that while it would continue to look at ethanol acquisitions, any plant would have to be a "great fit at a great price" according to Reuters.


The Enerkem technology utilizes diverse feedstocks, including sorted municipal solid waste, construction and demolition wood, treated wood and forest residues. The technology is complementary to recycling and composting since it uses only the end-waste that would otherwise be land-filled, and it converts it to liquid fuel. Enerkem produces synthetic diesel, synthetic gasoline and dimethyl ether, as well as green chemicals.

Most importantly, Enerkem's gasification process requires minimal additional energy or water, and the water that is required is reused in a closed circuit. With certain feedstocks, the process is even a net producer of quality water. Materials are not burned during the process so there are no emissions of furans and dioxins.


In New York, Sunoco announced that its $8.5 million bid for the 100 Mgy Northeast Biofuels ethanol plant in Volney was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York. The announced acquisition, at 8.5 cents per gallon of fuel capacity, is the lowest price yet seen for ethanol capacity.

In Denmark, protein-separation specialist Upfront Chromatography announced the launch of Rhobust EBA, a protein isolation platform that enables mining for food grade proteins from biofuels. The new process enables the upgrade of proteins in biomass to food-grades of even higher value than the existing protein base, which typically is used for animal feed or other lower-value uses such as co-firing for power generation.

In China, Cathay Forest Products announced that it will acquire Guizhou-based biodiesel producer Eco-Energy China for $2.54 million. Cathay Forest manages 2.5 million acres of CHinese and Russian forest, and said that its expertise in forestry will assist in the management of Eco-Energy's 100,000 acre jatropha plantation. Eco-Energy also owns a biodiesel processing plant.
Among other countries, China has purchased 6.9 million acres in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for an oil palm plantation and is seeking 4.94 million acres in Zambia for a jatropha plantation. British and other European interests have also been actively acquiring freehold and leases in Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Nigeria and Tanzania.

The total is estimated by BusinessWeek at a total of as much as 50 million acres at a cost of up to $40 billion.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva arrived for a three-day state visit that will focus on cooperation in biofuel development. Lula said that he hoped to promote sugarcane ethanol exports, and technology sales; China is experiencing a shortage of cane, but high import taxes have been a barrier to equipment sales.While in Brazil, Braskem announced a $268 million loan commitment from the Brazilian state development bank (BNDES) to produce polyethylene from ethanol. The company will commit an investment of $380 million to the project, which will be located in Triunfo and commence operations in late 2010.


In South Africa, the US Chamber of Commerce and Baird's DMC released a survey of attitudes toward African investment. US investment in Africa has lagged significantly behind Europe and China in bioenergy. Primarily, execs pointed to a "difficult business case", while corruption and political uncertainty were also cited. One respondent saying "In Africa, it's like playing Russian roulette".

EU forms algae group, plans first conference
The European Algae Biomass Association is planning its first, organizational conference June 3 to 4 in Florence, Italy. Peter Vis, member of the Cabinet of European Commissioner for Energy Andris Piebalgs in charge of Renewable Energy Sources, will be the keynote speaker at EABA's inaugural conference. Panel sessions featuring European researchers and industry spokesmen will cover the current status and perspectives for algae development, technical and legal challenges, investment, greenhouse gas balance and sustainability implications.

In Florida, PetroAlgae said that it believes it is now the closest company to commercialization of micro crops as a biofuel, will complete its microcrop demonstration farm in Florida this year and will commence booking revenues from technology licenses this year.
In Arizona, Desert Sweet Biofuels will conduct a conference in Phoenix this Friday to introduce what it describes as a breakthrough in the production of algae. Desert Sweet CEO Rick Thompson said "We are using a combination of gasification and pyrolysis in such a way as to produce biochar (when added to the soil sequesters CO2); another byproduct is electricity."


The company revealed that it is generating 40 grams per square meter per day production levels - equivalent to 4000 kilograms of biomass per hectare per day. Based on a 30 percent oil content, this would be the equivalent of 11,500 gallons of oil or biodiesel per acre per year, more than double its previous guidance.

However, the company also confirmed that it has reconfigured its biomass-to-fuel strategy. PetroAlgae is now using a curding process to separate the protein from the water, oils and carbohydrates, resulting in a highly concentrated animal feed that the company believes will have as high a value, per ton of overall biomass, as the oils and carbs that are converted to fuel. The high-protein content will be of particular interest to cattle ranchers feeding young animals to increase the animal growth rate.

The company said that it has developed and successfully tested the resulting gooey algae "mash", containing oils and carbs, that can be refined from the mash in a normal refinery that produces "a spectrum of distillates that is weighted towards the diesel side of the refinery," according to Scott. The result? A renewable, drop-in "green diesel".


In Australia, National Biodiesel announced its plan to construct a $243 million biodiesel at Port Kembla that will be able to supply most of the 5 percent biodiesel mandate imposed by the state of New South Wales commencing in 2011.An eight planned liquified natural gas projects worth $50 billion in investment in south eastern Queensland have prompted environmental concerns over massive quantities of toxic, salty water. Recycled water from the early stage of the project is feeding a trial biofuels crop.

In Zimbabwe, Science and Technology Development Minister Heneri Dzinotyiwei called for an increase in cotton and jatropha production for biodiesel. Current production is limited at the Mt. Hampden biodiesel facility to 1.9 Mgy, compared to a 6.7 Mgy capacity due to the feedstock shortage.

In Germany, Verbio said that its biodiesel production has fallen from 93,907 in the first quarter of 2009 to 78,866 tonnes in Q1 2009, compared to a production capacity of 112,000 tonnes per quarter. The company said that high feedstock prices and falling prices for fossil diesel have combined with rising German taxes on biodiesel to nearly kill off demand for biodiesel in Germany.

In India, state-owned Indian Oil Corporation has established a partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for a pilot project to produce cellulosic ethanol from agricultural and wood wastes. IOC will invest $4 million in the pilot effort, while NREL has also signed with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to develop second-generation biofuels and new technologies for first generation biofuels.

Research break through-Cellulosic bioethanol.
he breakthrough relates to consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) - a transformational concept which the DOE/USDA 2006 Roadmap called "the ultimate low-cost configuration for cellulose hydrolysis and fermentation," and which reduces or eliminates the need for added enzymes to process pretreated lignocellulose into ethanol.

The goal of CBP is to combine the enzyme production, cellulose hydrolysis, and fermentation of the C5 and C6 sugars in one consolidated process.

With this announcement, Mascoma has developed a proof of concept consolidated bioprocessor. It is thought to be the biggest R&D-driven advance yet achieved in the cellulosic biofuels field.

Martin Keller, Director of the BioEnergy Science Center at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, called it a "significant breakthrough" and added "proofing consolidated bioprocessing is a major achievement towards a sustainable biofuels industry. This major milestone of achievement brings us so much closer to show that we can develop technology to achieve this goal. This also demonstrate the potential next generation biological research has to our energy security and also justifies the increased research funding in this area."


In Belgium, the European Bioethanol Fuel Association is reporting that EU ethanol production in 2008 was an estimated 2.8 billion liters, up from 1.8 billion liters the previous year. This represents an increase of 56%. Most of the increase is due to the growth in French production, which almost doubled to 1 billion liters in 2008 (up from 539 million liters in 2007).