biofuels posts, articles, and infographics

Ethanol Industry Permits Its Politicians to Allow the Expiration of Its Tax Credit and Tariff

January 4, 2012 by Michael Giberson
with 244 views

The Des Moines Register has one version of the story - the agribusiness industry decided it could do without the subsidy since the renewable fuels mandate seemed securely in place: So established is corn-fed ethanol that the industry allowed the expiration of the 45 cents-per-gallon tax credit for ethanol production, as well as the... [read more]

Biofuel Subsidies Need Reform

December 27, 2011 by Nathanael Greene
with 429 views

Americans want the U.S. to lead the world in renewable energy, but these are screwy times in our nation’s capital. Some people are trying to turn clean, renewable energy into something dirty. The fossil fuel industry and the radical right, including Grover Norquist and politicians looking to score cheap political points, are taking on... [read more]

Grading My Predictions for 2011

December 26, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 135 views

In my list of Top 10 Energy Related Stories of 2010, I made three predictions for 2011. Those predictions were: I believe high oil prices will continue to put a strain on the economies of oil-importing nations. I expect that we will see oil prices once again head above $100 per barrel, although I expect the annual average... [read more]

Range Fuels Bankruptcy Harms Biofuels Industry

December 19, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 648 views

Recently it was announced that Range Fuels has gone into foreclosure, thus marking the official end of their story. For all practical purposes, the company has been finished since early 2011, but the foreclosure puts an end to the notion that they will yet rise triumphant from the ashes. Last week, Heather Duncan — a reporter for The... [read more]

Why is Sustainable Biodiesel Illegal in the UK?

December 19, 2011 by David Thorpe
with 425 views

The Government is currently considering the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligations (Amendment) Order 2011. I have seen a copy, and I can tell you that there is plenty to be concerned about in terms of its inadequacy. But in this column I'm going to concentrate on one particular aspect: an appalling oversight which involves a... [read more]

Has the Navy Set Sail or Aborted the Mission to Use Green Fuels?

December 15, 2011 by A Siegel
with 190 views

In 2008, Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy, then Chief of Naval of Operations, established Task Force Energy and Task Force Climate (prior to the Obama Administration). Since then, Task Force Energy has provided a serious focal point for fostering changing Navy thinking and approaches to energy use and... [read more]

DOD Steps Up Innovation in Installation Energy, Recognizes Limits in Biofuels

November 24, 2011 by Matt Hourihan
with 296 views

It’s worth noting a pair of recent developments on the Defense Department energy front. One is a useful reminder of what DOD can achieve now with the proper support, and a cause for optimism; the other, more pessimistic, illustrates the pressing need for accelerated innovation in the alternative fuels industry more broadly... [read more]

Breaking Our Oil Addiction Takes More Than Killing Keystone XL

November 15, 2011 by Geoffrey Styles
with 723 views

In an article in today's Washington Post an official of the National Wildlife Federation was quoted linking rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline with breaking our addiction to oil. Even with the administration having delayed its decision on the project until 2013--quite possibly killing it--this point merits further exploration. Just... [read more]

How Not to Use EROEI

November 2, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 207 views

This week I will be at the 2011 ASPO-USA Conference. I will deliver one talk on technical due diligence and one on our new energy reality. I will also participate in a roundtable discussion on investing. On the talk on our new energy reality, I am going to have a slide on my general observations over the past few years. One of those observations is that the concept of Energy Return on Energy Invested — EROEI — is frequently misused. The most common example is when people simply dismiss a process because it has a low EROEI or a net negative energy return. So as I am finalizing my slides, I thought I would share my EROEI observations here. [read more]

Why Might Novozymes Oppose My Biofuel Incentive Proposal?

September 19, 2011 by Robert Rapier
with 292 views

Rewards for Performance, Not Over-Hyped Promises I recently wrote a post detailing some steps that I believe should be taken to improve the nature of how we provide incentives for biofuels: How to Fix the Broken Cellulosic Ethanol Incentive System. My proposal is like a feed-in-tariff for next generation biofuels. The highlights are that... [read more]

China Takes Recycled Fry-Oil Biofuels To Scale

August 30, 2011 by John Daly
with 367 views

According to a recent article in the People’s Daily, Beijing’s 19 million inhabitants are seeing the grease used to fry up their dim sum and other delicacies carted off by eight licensed collectors of used cooking oil, known as “hogwash,” for recycling into biofuel. [read more]

Obama Administration and Goldman Sachs Make Major Biofuels Investments

August 26, 2011 by John Daly
with 382 views

On 16 August President Obama announced that the U.S. Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Navy will invest up to $510 million by 2014 in partnership with the private sector to produce advanced “drop-in” aviation and maritime biofuels for military and commercial use. This builds on a directive Obama issued five months ago as part of his... [read more]

Biofuels' Potential to Transform the Global Economy

August 1, 2011 by John Daly
with 454 views

Slowly but surely, an extraordinarily important new industry is slowly taking shape, with the potential to transform the global economy.After years of existing largely as an environmentalist's fantasy, commercial production of biofuels for the world civil aviation industry is slowly becoming a fact, with production starting up across... [read more]

That's Fracked Up! Natural Gas Giant Chesapeake Energy Strips Startup Of Solar Business

July 15, 2011 by Tyler Hamilton
with 1,366 views

I first wrote about Sundrop Fuels back in March 2010 for MIT Technology Review. At the time, the company’s focus was a system, based on solar concentrating technology, that would use the sun’s intense heat (up to 1,300 degrees C) to instantly vaporize biomass feedstocks, creating a syngas that could be used to make ethanol, methanol or... [read more]

The Upcoming Brawl Over Energy Subsidies

June 29, 2011 by Alex Trembath
with 251 views

While Republicans hold the national debt increase hostage, Congress is deciding what to cut and what to gut (expansion or creation of new programs is largely off the table). Energy subsidies are already falling under the knife. Mark Muro at Brookings figures that if we're going to they're going after energy subsidies anyway, now is the... [read more]