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The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee published a notice in the April 30, 2015, Federal Register announcing an open meeting that will provide advice and guidance on promoting research and development leading to the production of biobased fuels and biobased products. The meeting will include updates on U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and DOE biomass activities, updates on the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, an...

On April 29, 2015, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB) released a draft standard titled "Low iLUC Risk Biomass Criteria and Compliance Indicators" that will allow producers to show that they generate biofuels crops with a low-risk of indirect land use change (ILUC). The standards take into account yield increase, unused or degraded land, use of waste or residues, and integrated sugarcane and cattle production. The RSB standard is intended to be used in conjunction...

EPA announced that renewable fuels produced from sorghum biomass could qualify as cellulosic fuel under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). This is a result of a preliminary analysis of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions resulting from the growth and transport of biomass sorghum feedstocks that are used to make biofuels. The analysis, which was conducted in response to a petition from the National Sorghum Producers, assumes that the emissions from production of biofuels from biomass...

On December 4, 2014, the S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it will provide up to $7 million for two bioenergy projects that aim to reduce the cost of delivering biomass feedstocks to biorefineries. The College of Environmental Science and Forestry at the State University of New York administers one of the projects and focuses on reducing the cost of woody crops while improving harvest and preprocessing operations to meet biorefinery specifications. The second project,...

BRAG member Micromidas, along with the Michigan Molecular Institute and Michigan Sugar Company, is working on a $150,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from DOE with the goal of developing a process to convert sugar beet waste into useful chemicals. After sugar has been extracted from sugar beets, the remaining residue still contains a significant amount of sugars that can be converted into biobased PET. The development of biobased packaging materials, such as those...

Winery waste is composed of the skins, pulp, stalks, and seeds that are left over after grapes have been pressed. This waste cannot be used for animal feed or composted, so it typically ends up as toxic landfill. Researchers at Swinburne University of Technology have been investigating how to break down the grape waste and Ph.D. student Avinash Karpe has discovered four fungi, that when combined with a heat activated pre-treatment, successfully broke down grape...

Researchers from the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products at the University of York worked with colleagues in France to discover variant straw plants whose cell walls are more easily broken down to make biofuels. Straw is an ideal plant to be used as biomass as it does not have food uses and contains a high number of polysaccharides that can be fermented into ethanol. Previously, straw has not been commercially viable as a biofuel feedstock...

Chemistry World reports that ionic liquids could potentially be made more cheaply by recycling by-products from biofuel production processes. These ionic liquids derived from biofuel waste could then actually be turned to extracting sugars from biomass to be made into fuels. See online....

On July 30, 2014, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it will provide a total of $11.3 million in funding to support DOE's Clean Energy Manufacturing Initiative. The money will go to two projects designed to help facilitate and promote the production of "cost-competitive, high-performance carbon fiber material from renewable, non-food-based feedstocks, such as agricultural residues and woody biomass." Under the projects, the Southern Research Institute of Birmingham,...

This week, DOE hosted its seventh annual biomass conference. This year's conference focused on "Growing the Future Bioeconomy." Over 500 attendees from throughout the country and around the world gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss challenges and opportunities facing the industry. Keynote speakers included U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), David Danielson, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy from DOE, and Kate Brandt from the Federal Environmental...