A joint company for upgrading biogas to a liquefied biogas (LBG) will be established by Terracastus Technologies, a Volvo Technology Transfer’s subsidiary, and Nordvästra Skånes Renhållningsbolag following the signing of a letter of intent today (7th December). The upgrading venture will, says the company, enable NSR’s plant in Helsingborg to reduce its annual carbon emissions by 40,000 tons, compared with using diesel fuel.

Grant awards totalling $564 million, to 19 biorefinery projects across the USA, were unveilled late on Friday (4th December) afternoon by US Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. The grant aid came from he American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and is intended to accelerate the construction and operation of pilot, demonstration, and commercial scale facilities.

See full list of grants here

A contract covering the foresighting and economic modelling work for Scottish Enterprise's recently integrated ITI Energy Seaweed Anaerobic Digestion (SAD) programme has been awarded to AEA, it was announced today (3rd December). The £3.7 million R&D programme aims to exploit the potential of algal biofuels with the development of key enabling technologies, that will scale-up the SAD process and optimise seaweed harvesting to generate renewable, sustainable and secure energy, as well jobs for coastal and island communities in Scotland.

In a new study of the European Union’s biofuels policy, economist Fredrik Erixon shows how biofuels policy, once motivated by environmental concerns and the desire to shift away from fossil fuels, has become an industrial policy using various measures to protect domestic producers from foreign competition. If the Renewable Energy Directive is implemented in the way the legislation has proposed, the EU is likely to run afoul of its obligations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today (1st December) put off the decision on the 15% ethanol waiver requested by Growth Energy in March this year. In making the announcement the EPS confirmed that it expects to make a final determination on the waiver in mid-2010.

Endicott Biofuels and TransAlgae, Ltd today (30th November) signed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of algae as a potential transportation fuel and renewable chemical feedstock source. Endicott sees the potential link with TransAlgae as an natural extesion of its previous work on biodiesel. The company has, it says, already and believes the same technology can be used to yield high-quality, algae-based biodiesel with no modification to its technology platform.

A multi-party Memo of Understanding to pursue the licensing, development, and construction of a biomass refinery in North Dakota was signed today by Danish company Inbicon and Otoka Energy, a U.S. developer of renewable energy projects, and Great River Energy, a Minnesota electric generation and transmission cooperative. Explaining the agreement Inbicon CEO Niels Henriksen said, the biomass refinery, "will use Inbicon's proprietary technology to convert over 400,000 tons of wheat straw into fractions of liquid fuels, solid-fuel lignin pellets, and other co-products."

A demonstration cellulosic bioethanol plant based at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries's Kobe Shipyard is about to go into continuous operation, the company said at an official launch today (30th November). The plant, jointly built by MHI, the Hakutsuru Sake Brewing Co, and the Kansai Chemical Engineering Co, will produce ethanol for automobile fuel from soft cellulose vegetating in Hyogo, such as, rice straw and wheat straw.