Posts Tagged biofuel

Biofuels Slowly Take Flight with the Airline Industry

“I’ve heard a lot about biofuel for aviation tests, but they always sounded suspiciously like airline ‘greenwashing’ PR to me. Richard Branson’s $3 billion bet on an aviation biofuel company went bankrupt. Successful tests turned out to be only fractionally biofuel. Journalists joked about the smell of french fries filling the air. Is biofuel for aviation anything more than good promotion? I posed this question to Steve Verhes, Executive Director of Cascadia Carbon Institute, a Washington state biofuel expert and advocate. Steve’s answer: It’s complicated.

First, there is the food-to-fuel issue – a very real concern, especially with food price increases accelerating this year. But the aviation standards group in charge of the approval took care of that, mandating that aerospace biofuels be derived only from inedible plants.”

Biofuels Slowly Take Flight with the Airline Industry via Carol Pierson Holding – Triple Pundit

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U.S. Backs Project to Produce Fuel From Corn Waste

“WASHINGTON — The Energy Department plans to provide a $105 million loan guarantee for the expansion of an ethanol factory in Emmetsburg, Iowa, that intends to make motor fuel from corncobs, leaves and husks.

Experts say that the new factory, being built by POET, a major producer of ethanol derived from corn kernels, could be the first commercial-scale plant to make ethanol from a nonfood, or cellulosic, plant source. However, POET would first have to overcome technical hurdles in scaling up its production from the current pilot project, which processes one ton of plant matter per day, to a plant capable of processing 700 tons of biomass a day. High volume is necessary to make cellulosic ethanol competitive with the corn-based version.”

U.S. Backs Project to Produce Fuel From Corn Waste via Matthew Wald – NY Times Environment

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