New technologies essential to make conversion of biomass to biofuels more cost-effective

October 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at Louisiana Tech University in the US have come out with nanotechnology processes that can make the development of biofuels cost-effective and also easy on the environment. Biofuels will play an important part in sustainable fuel and energy production solutions for the future.

October 1st, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has suggested that careful planning, together with the use of feedstocks from perennial-dominated prairie, could minimize the adverse effects of expanding bioenergy use on wildlife. The study, described in the October issue of BioScience identifies diverse native prairie as holding promise for yielding bioenergy feedstocks while minimizing harm to wildlife.

September 16th, 2009 New program pays biomass plant suppliersTRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Suppliers of wood fuel for a biomass electric plant in Michigan's Upper Peninsula will get a federal subsidy under an agreement signed Wednesday.

September 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Americans used more solar, nuclear, biomass and wind energy in 2008 than they did the year before, according to latest energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL). The US used less coal and oil during the same time frame and only slightly increased its natural gas consumption.

July 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new technique developed by scientists is able to fast-track better ionic liquids for biomass pre-treatments. The technique has been developed by researchers at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI), a US Department of Energy Bioenergy Research Center, led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

July 9th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Forestry researchers at Oregon State University (OSU) have said in a new report that widely sought efforts to reduce fuels that increase catastrophic fire in Pacific Northwest forests will be counterproductive to another important societal goal of sequestering carbon to help offset global warming. The study showed that even if the biofuels were used in an optimal manner to produce electricity or make cellulosic ethanol, there would still be a net loss of carbon sequestration in forests of the Coast Range and the west side of the Cascade Mountains for at least 100 years - and probably much longer.

June 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have said that they are forging ahead in developing replacements for petrochemical fuels that will be cost-competitive and renewable while having a minimal impact on the environment. A consensus is emerging that no one technology will reign supreme and that a range of current and novel methodologies will contribute to meeting biofuel needs, according to a report in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN).

June 17th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have discovered a mild and relatively inexpensive procedure for removing oxygen from biomass. This procedure, if it can be effectively industrialized, could allow many of today's petrochemical products, including plastics, to instead be made from biomass.

May 20th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Soon, scientists are literally going to produce plastic that grows on trees, starting from a one-stop process that derives raw material for fuels and plastic from plants rather than crude oil. In a new research, chemists have successfully converted cellulose, which is the most common plant carbohydrate, directly into the building block called HMF in one step.

May 11th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists in California, US, are reporting the use of a new bioprocess that could help pave the way for producing biofuels from agricultural waste, easing concerns about stress on the global food supply from using corn and other food crops. The bioprocess involves a first-of-its-kind approach to craft genetically engineered microbes with the much-sought ability to transform switchgrass, corn cobs, and other organic materials into methyl halides - the raw material for making gasoline and a host of other commercially important products.

May 8th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study by scientists has suggested that biomass converted into electricity could be more efficient than ethanol. The study was conducted by University of California, Merced, Assistant Professor Elliott Campbell and two other researchers.

April 23rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, US, have discovered a potential chink in the armor of fibers that make the cell walls of certain inedible plant materials so tough, a find that could lead to a cost-effective and energy-efficient strategy for turning biomass into alternative fuels. The researchers identified potential weaknesses among sheets of cellulose molecules comprising lignocellulosic biomass, the inedible fibrous material derived from plant cell walls.

April 15th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new study has found that biofuels can hasten climate change, and it will take more than 75 years for the carbon emissions saved through the use of biofuels to compensate for the carbon lost when biofuel plantations are established on forestlands. If the original habitat was peatland, carbon balance would take more than 600 years.

March 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A new research has indicated that with adequate financial and political support, renewable energy technologies like wind and photovoltaics could supply 40 percent of the world's electricity by 2050. This research was presented at a press conference by Peter Lund of the Helsinki University of Technology's Advanced Energy Systems in Espoo, Finland, ahead of the scheduled congress session titled, "Renewable Energies: How Far Can They Take Us?" "Our findings demonstrate that with global political support and financial investment, previous notions that the potential for renewables was in some way limited to a negligible fraction of world demand were wrong," said Lund.

February 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have completely sequenced and analysed the genome of sorghum, a major food and fodder plant with huge potential as a bio-energy crop. The genome data will help scientists in optimising sorghum and other crops not only for food and fodder use, but also for biofuels production.