In an agreement announced today (10th December) PRAJ and Novozymes have said they will collaborate to optimize the enzymatic hydrolysis processes and the use of enzymes in the production of advanced biofuel. The collaboration agreement was signed in Copenhagen by Pramod Chaudhari, Chairman of PRAJ, and Steen Riisgaard, President & CEO of Novozymes A/S, to mark the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen.

The alternative energy industry's equity compensation practices are behind those of historically high-growth technology and life sciences industries, according to a new analysis by Radford. Although investors believe that parallels can be drawn between the alternative energy industry to the early-stage Internet companies in the 1990s, equity granting practices of alternative energy companies lag measurably behind those firms in historical analysis. While Internet companies widely utilized stock options to motivate employees, the same cannot be said of alternative energy companies, despite their similarities in growth potential and the human capital of knowledge workers required to realize that growth.

Foster Wheeler AG's Global Engineering and Construction Group and PetroAlgae have signed a Memorandum of Understanding covering engineering services which, they say, will allow for the production of dry biomass at an unprecedented scale. The agreement will see the two companies work together to develop commercial solutions that will allow existing oil refineries to convert micro-crop biomass into fuels that are functionally compatible with petroleum-based fuels in the current market.

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.