International investment and advisory firm Babcock & Brown (ASX: BNB) and Babcock & Brown Environmental Investments Limited (ASX: BEI) have announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in relation to the proposed development of an ethanol production facility near Leeton and Narrandera, in rural NSW, Australia.

Babcock & Brown has entered into the exclusive MOU with Rockdale Beef Pty Limited (on behalf of Rockdale Beef Partnership) for the proposed development of an ethanol facility which will manufacture 150 million litres per annum of ethanol. The ethanol, produced by the plant, will be sold into the Australian transport fuels market. BNB has agreed to give BEI the first right of refusal to buy the plant at an appropriate time and at an independently verified market price.

Britain´s farmers have the capacity to seize the new opportunities presented by the rapidly growing biofuels market without any adverse implications for food production, according to the NFU (UK´s National Farmers´s Union).
 
In an analysis of the land that will be required to meet the Government´s target of a 5 per cent inclusion of bioethanol and biodiesel in road transport fuel by 2010, the NFU has calculated around 900,000 hectares of land will be needed.

In the rush to develop and promote corn-derived bioethanol, the USA is ignoring a potentially better biofuel, warns a chemistry professor. Milton Orchin is distinguished service professor of chemistry and director of Hoke K. Green Laboratory of Catalysis at the University of Cincinnati. In a column in the Cincinnati Enquirer newspaper, he says that biobutanol (in its 1-butanol isomer), produced from corn starch or possibly other biomass, makes a better automotive fuel. 

"1-Butanol is chemically more like conventional gasoline than ethanol is, he writes. "It packs 1.5 times more energy per gallon, is less volatile, is not sensitive to water, is less hazardous to handle, is less flammable, has a slightly higher octane number, can be mixed with gasoline in any proportion and - very importantly - can be used in automobiles without engine modification."

Less than two months since it took issue with a piece on the Motley Fool site (see original posting http://www.biofuelreview.com/content/view/171/2/), the Xethanol Corporation has once again found itself responding to a negative on line posting . This time, the Corporation responded to comments about the Company and its Chief Executive Officer that were published on the ShareSleuth.com website on August 7 (see Share Sleuth article). Christopher d'Arnaud-Taylor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Xethanol stated that "while it is generally our policy not to comment on articles or publications about our Company, the misinformation and disinformation contained in the ShareSleuth.com posting were so egregious that we felt we had no alternative but to respond."

Gulf Ethanol Corporation has announced the addition of three executives to the company's management roster.