The world biofuels industry today (16th July) issued a sharp rebuke to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its president, Chakib Khelil, in the pages of the Financial Times. In a full page advertisement, the biofuel industries of Brazil, Canada, Europe and the United States took the oil cartel to task for what they say are outrageous, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims about the role of ethanol in world oil markets.

An aerospace industry-university research project to investigate the potential use of biofuels for small and medium size engine applications was announced at the biennial Farnborough Airshow this week (13th July) by Pratt & Whitney Canada.

The OECD has released (16th July) a scathing report on biofuel policies in member countries. According to the report, Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies (read full report), government support of  biofuel production in OECD countries is costly, has a limited impact on reducing greenhouse gases and improving energy security, and has a significant impact on world crop prices.

An extended commercial alliance to accelerate development and deployment of cellulosic ethanol was announced by Royal Dutch Shell and the Iogen Corporation yesterday (15th July).  As part of the deal Shell will make significant investment in technology development with Iogen, a jointly owned development company dedicated to advancing cellulosic ethanol.  The arrangement will also see Shell increasing its shareholding in Iogen Energy Corporation from 26.3% to 50%.  Shell first took an equity stake in 2002.

Rolls Royce and British Airways hav announced the start of a scientific test programme to investigate the viability of alternative fuels for the aviation industry. The move seems to be a u-turn by British Airways, whoes CEO Willie Walsh derided Virgin's biofuels experiments in March of this year as "a bit of a PR stunt".

US company Amelot is forming a subsidiary in Barbado, to bring together the assets of Native Sun NRG, which it is about to acquire. The new entity will, says Amelot,  begin production in 60 days, and should ramp up to 6,000 gallons per month very quickly. Amelot has already shipped new equipment to the island, and Native Sun NRG is also upgrading the current plant's facilities in order to increase capacity.

"There are several Parishes located throughout the island," stated Aziz Hirji, President of Amelot. "We plan to introduce yellow oil collection in every Parish. Amelot is dedicated to providing Barbados with the necessary technology in order to convert all the used yellow oil into useful, clean biodiesel fuel. We are realistically looking at having our first production facility set up and ready to produce biodiesel by September."

The first commercial offering of a new generation of biofuel crops, cuttings of Salix, a variety of willow, was launched on Monday (7thJuly) by the New Zealand company Pure Power. The company says it will have cuttings ready for foresters and farmers to commence commercial energy farming of Salix in 2009. The idea behind the launch is that the new crops will provide a secure supply of lignocellulosic feedstock from which Pure Power will produce biofuels and a range of bioproducts for use in the manufacture of paints, resins, adhesives and bioplastics.

An outline plan to create a woody biomass commodity exchange, the Biomass Commodity Exchange (BCEX), were announced today (9th July) by CleanTech Partners.

According to the company, the objective of BCEX is to increase the efficiency of the supply chain providing biomass to the existing forest products industry and the emerging forest biorefinery sector. The plan will examine facilitation of trading existing woody biomass markets, such as pulpwood, emerging open-loop biomass markets such as forest residue and the future trade of closed-loop energy crops, such as willow, poplar and switch grass.