The European Commission must close customs loopholes which give heavily-subsidised ethanol producers carte blanche to import their product into the EU without paying customs duties, says the Industrial Ethanol Association (IEA). Speaking at the recent Platts ‘Ethanol in Europe’ conference in Berlin the trade body repeated its call for a shake up in the customs system which, it believes, undercuts the european ethanol industry.

The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has written a letter to the chairman of the G8 group of industrialised nations, Japanese PM Yasuo Fukuda, asking the organization to take action to deal with rising food prices. In his letter he says; "Rising food prices threaten to roll back progress we have made in recent years on development. For the first time in decades, the number of people facing hunger is growing. Food prices have risen sharply leading to food riots in several countries."

A one day conference looking at the future of biomass from an Anglo-German perspective has been announced by the German-British Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The one-day conference, “The Future of Biomass – British-German Perspectives”, aims, says the organizers, to bring together high level experts and companies from the UK and Germany to share experience and discuss potential developments in a British-German context. 

The event is scheduled to take place at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London on 20th May and the topics to be discussed include different aspects of using biomass as a renewable energy and range from a political perspective to legal matters.

A variety of genetically modified corn, specifically for use as a biofuel feedstock, has been developed by scientists at Michigan State University. The modified corn, called Spartan Corn III, has an enzyme included in its make-up, allowing the plant’s leaves and stalk to be processed into biofuels without the use of expensive synthetic chemicals.

“The fact that we can take a gene that makes an enzyme in the stomach of a cow and put it into a plant cell means that we can convert what was junk before into biofuel,” said Mariam Sticklen, MSU professor of crop and soil sciences.

China’s quest for renewable energy options has opened new avenues for its biofuel market, according to a report from Frost & Sullivan. The country has been intensifying efforts to find suitable solutions to address its energy concerns, and biofuels have emerged as an obvious solution, as they do not exhibit the detrimental climate changing effects associated with fossil fuels.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Strategic Analysis of the Chinese Biofuel Market, finds that the market earned revenues of $1.26 billion in 2007 and estimates this to reach $4.02 billion in 2014.

The future of the biofuel legislation currently before New Zealand's parliament, hangs in the balance following calls from the country's Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright, for the bill not to proceed in its current form. International concern about the sustainability of biofuels and their true environmental and economic impacts, says Dr Wright, has heated up considerably in recent months – which signals a need for caution.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have suggested that chemically manipulated algae could be used to produce the next generation of renewable fuels – hydrogen gas.

"We believe there is a fundamental advantage in looking at the production of hydrogen by photosynthesis as a renewable fuel," senior chemist David Tiede said. "Right now, ethanol is being produced from corn, but generating ethanol from corn is a thermodynamically much more inefficient process."

The merger between VeraSun Energy Corp and US BioEnergy Corp bacame effective today (1st April) following approval by shareholders of both companies. Under the merger agreement, each outstanding share of US BioEnergy common stock will be converted into 0.810 shares of VeraSun common stock, representing a premium of approximately 11 percent based on Nov. 23, 2007, closing prices. The existing VeraSun shares will remain outstanding and will represent approximately 59 percent of the shares outstanding after the merger.