Blogs

The International Energy Agency (IEA) released the third annual Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report. The report provides forecasts for global biofuel and renewable energy growth. Within the report, the authors predict that the expansion of renewable energy will slow over the next five years unless policy certainty is diminished. For more information, see online.

On August 26, 2014, Honeywell announced the commercial launch of the XCeed™ bioreactor system. The system is based on immobilized cell bioreactor technology and is more efficient and cost-effective than many other systems currently available. For more information, see online.  

Energy Trends Insider posted a column analyzing the current status of global biofuels. Information for the analysis was derived from the Renewables 2014 Global Status Report, which was issued in June 2014. According to the column author, "the GSR is the most comprehensive report available when it comes to the global renewable energy picture." To view the analysis, go online. Global Biofuels Demand Slows Down According to an article posted at Biofuels International, biofuels growth in...

Stakeholders agree that the chances of legislative reform to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) are small -- and getting smaller as the days progress. Both Hill staff and industry trade representatives acknowledge that focus on mid-term elections and partisan divide, coupled with the limited days on the legislative calendar, make TSCA reform this year unlikely. Thus, while some forward momentum may have occurred over the last years with the Senate bill introduced by Senators David Vitter...

As previously reported, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent the final 2014 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on August 22, 2014. Some sides speculate that OMB will need considerable time to review the final action, especially given the 340,000+ comments submitted to EPA in response to the proposal. Others, however, suggest that OMB will forego its allotted 90-day review period and issue the rule in late September or early October....

On September 3, 2014, POET-DSM's Project LIBERTY in Emmetsburg, Iowa, celebrated its grand opening. This will be the first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant to use corn waste as a feedstock, using biochemical conversion technologies (yeast and enzymes) to convert cellulosic biomass into transportation fuels. Project LIBERTY is the second of two DOE-funded cellulosic ethanol biorefineries to come on line within the past year. More information is available on the DOE Bioenergy...

DOE recently released a notice of intent to issue a funding opportunity announcement (FOA), "Targeted Algal Biofuels and Bioproducts." The FOA will seek to reduce algal biofuels' projected cost by up to 50% through the creation of valuable bioproducts alongside fuels, thus achieving increased biomass productivity. See online.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has developed a computational platform known as Systems Biology Knowledgebase, or KBase, designed to help the biological community analyze, store, and share data. The project is led by scientists at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley, Argonne, Brookhaven, and Oak Ridge national laboratories. KBase compiles information on plants and microbes, and the interactions among them with the objective of improving the environment and energy production. KBase can be accessed at...

The European Commission (EC) has posted responses received to its public consultation on transparency measures for nanomaterials on the market. The EC states that it received 202 responses — 100 respondents submitted the questionnaire for industry stakeholders, and 102 respondents submitted the questionnaire for other stakeholders.  Fourteen respondents requested that their contributions would not be published.  All other contributions are available on the EC’s website.  The EC notes...

On September 2, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated final significant new use rules (SNUR) under Section 5(a)(2) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) for 36 chemical substances that were the subject of premanufacture notices (PMN). The substances include multi-walled carbon nanotube (generic) (P-08-0392), multi-wall carbon nanotubes (generic) (P-09-257), multi-walled carbon nanofibers (generic) (PMNs P-10-115, P-10-116, P-10-117, P-10-118, P-10-119,...