Officials from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and Ameresco, Inc., a leading energy efficiency and renewable energy company, came together to mark the first year of successful operation of its new renewable energy fueled cogeneration facility at the Savannah River Site (SRS). Under the Department’s single largest renewable Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC), the [...]
Penn State University Awarded $10 Million To Develop Next-Generation Biofuels
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently awarded Pennsylvania State University a five-year research grant valued at roughly $10 million to develop biomass supply chains for the production of liquid transportation and aviation biofuels in the Northeast. This is the sixth such award made through USDA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), aimed at developing regional, renewable [...]
Taylor Biomass Energy Receives Approval For Waste-To-Energy Plant
Taylor Biomass Energy, based in Montgomery, N.Y., has received the final, local “green light” by the town board of Montgomery, N.Y., to move ahead with plans to build a waste-to-energy facility in the city. The project will be built on Taylor Recycling’s existing 90-acre site. According to Taylor Biomass Energy (TBE), the vote to approve [...]
New Biomass Heating System For Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Smoldering wood chips in oxygen-starved chambers will be used to generate steam heat for most of the buildings at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The new energy-efficient process also provides a market for low-grade wood that loggers would otherwise leave on the forest floor, officials said. The cutting-edge biomass gasification plant replaces four worn-out boilers that [...]
U.S. Teams With India On Massive New Biofuel Project
The U.S. has just launched a five-year, $125 million alternative energy research project with India, aimed partly at developing biofuels from non-food crops. The biofuel project, funded by the Department of Energy and led by the University of Florida, has the goal of managing climate change and reducing U.S. dependence on petroleum products, and that [...]
DOE To Fund $15 Million To Research Biomass-Based Fuel Supplements
As part of President Obama’s blueprint for an economy fueled by homegrown and alternative energy sources, the Energy Department announced last week up to $15 million available to demonstrate biomass-based oil supplements that can be blended with petroleum, helping the U.S. to reduce foreign oil use, diversify the nation’s energy portfolio, and create jobs for [...]
Obama Administration Announces New Funding For Biomass Research
As President Obama recently visited Ohio State University to discuss the Administration’s all-out, all-of-the-above strategy for American energy, the White House announced up to $35 million over three years to support research and development in advanced biofuels, bioenergy and high-value biobased products. The projects funded through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI), a joint [...]
Federal Agencies Implement Hundreds Of Renewable Energy Initiatives
Governmentwide, 23 agencies and their 130 sub-agencies reviewed by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) implemented nearly 700 renewable energy initiatives in fiscal year 2010. The Departments of Defense (DOD), Agriculture (USDA), Energy (DOE), and the Interior were collectively responsible for almost 60% of all initiatives. The initiatives supported a range of renewable energy sources, [...]
Range Fuels Plant Sold For $5.1 Million
Officials of LanzaTech NZ Ltd., a closely held biofuels company based in Auckland, New Zealand and backed by billionaire Vinod Khosla, say it will convert a U.S. cellulosic ethanol plant it bought from Range Fuels Inc. to produce chemicals from biomass. LanzaTech is developing a process that uses proprietary microorganisms to convert carbon monoxide-containing gases [...]
Feds Plan To Liquidate Range Fuels Ethanol Plant
Federal officials who backed Range Fuels Inc., a Broomfield-based biofuel company, plan to liquidate its $100 million plant in Georgia, according to news reports. The Bloomberg news service reports that the Soperton, Ga. factory is to be liquidated after Range defaulted on a federal loan and failed to produce cellulosic ethanol, a fuel made from [...]