biofuels

Wood chips take acid bath en route to biochemicals

Startup Virdia is joining hundreds of biotech companies trying to make low-cost sugar to replace oil and food crops.

The company today announced new financing, including $30 million of venture capital from existing investors Khosla Ventures, Burrill & Company and Tamar Ventures. Mississippi also provided the company with $75 million in low-interest loans and tax incentives to build an operation in the state.

Founded in 2007, Virdia uses acid hydrolysis to separate the sugar from the cellulose in wood chips. Once it has done so, the company intends to sell the resulting sugar into the existing "commodity carbohydrate markets&… Read more

Renewables: The once and future energy source

In the old days, renewable energy was the best option available. Then it became a social statement. Now with fits and starts, it's creeping toward the mainstream.

To give CNET readers some perspective on renewable energy, we've assembled a slideshow on renewable energy through the ages, its present form, and some ideas as to where it's going.

The history of using the wind, sun, and water reaches back to antiquity. But what's remarkable about many renewable-energy technologies being pursued today--solar, wind, geothermal, and bioenergy--is that today's product ideas often have roots in research begun after … Read more

Tobacco farms--a vehicle for growing fuel?

What if tobacco could grow fuel in its leaves?

As far-fetched as that sounds, a group of scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab is testing the limits of genetic engineering to make the widely grown tobacco plant a carrier for hydrocarbons.

Scientists will be at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit this week to discuss the project, which received a $4.8 million grant over three years. The grant fits ARPA-E's mission of funding research that is high-risk but with a potential for a breakthrough.

Biofuels or biochemicals are typically made by growing plants and then converting that biomass into … Read more

Startup takes wood pellets in, turns out 'biogasoline'

For a new crop of biofuel companies, ethanol is out and "biogasoline" is in.

One of them is Primus Green Energy, which plans to open a demonstration plant by the end of the year that will convert wood pellets into high-octane gasoline. The Hillsborough, N.J.-based company intends to raise $50 million to $100 million this year for a commercial-scale plant that would start producing at higher volumes in 2015.

Many companies break down biomass into sugar through different methods and then ferment that to make ethanol or speciality chemicals. Primus Green Energy and others are seeking … Read more

Amyris hits production snags in biofuel operations

Startup Amyris has hit a speed bump producing chemicals and fuels from sugar cane, another sign of the technical difficulties biofuel companies have had.

In an earnings call last week, Amyris CEO John Melo said the company had trouble maintaining reliable production of its operations in Brazil. "We showed conclusively that our technology does work at scale, but also learned that it takes time to translate from peak yield levels in the lab to maintaining those yields over longer operational periods in the field," he said on a conference call with investors last Thursday.

As a result, Amyris … Read more

Scaling up: Joule funded for test-tube biofuel

Startup Joule has secured the money to take its potentially breakthrough biofuel technology to a larger scale.

The company today announced that undisclosed private and institutional investors led a $70 million funding to build a larger demonstration plant. The announcement was made at the Technology Leaders in Future Energy conference in Abu Dhabi. Founding investor Flagship Ventures also joined the round.

Founded in 2007, Joule took a clean-sheet approach to making biofuels which now are primarily made from corn or sugar cane. Its process uses a genetically engineered version of cyanobacteria to produce diesel or ethanol using only sunlight, water, … Read more

Alaska Airlines flies planes fueled by cooking oil

The Alaska Air Group is joining the commercial aviation biofuel movement.

The airline launched two flights yesterday running on a blend consisting of 20 percent biofuel and 80 percent petroleum-based fuel. The sustainable biofuel used for the blend was made from cooking oil.

One flight was via a Boeing 737-800 plane from Seattle to Washington, D.C., and the other a Bombardier Q400 plane headed from Seattle to Portland, Ore. Both planes were flown as part of a program to fly more than 75 flights on a cooking oil-based biofuel blend within the coming weeks on Alaska Air's Alaskan … Read more

Biofuel-powered commercial aviation finally takes off

The era of American commercial airliners flying on biofuels is here.

A Continental Airlines Boeing 737-800 from Houston yesterday became the first U.S. plane to fly passengers while using an algae-based biofuel. According to an article originally published in the Houston Chronicle, the Continental flight carried 154 customers while using the fuel blend, which was developed by South San Francisco, Calif.-based Solazyme.

"United Continental Holdings, the airline's parent company, estimated that the biofuel blend on the Chicago-bound flight reduced carbon dioxide emissions by an amount equal to what would come from the exhaust of a car … Read more

USDA awards $44.6 million for biofuel projects

The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced this week it has set aside $44.6 million to fund a variety of advanced biofuel production projects in over 38 states.

The 156 projects, it should be noted, are not aimed at achieving research breakthroughs. Instead, the money will help expand existing facilities using established technologies to produce fuel from renewable biomass.

The funding is coming via the USDA's Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels and includes projects of all types, producing things like ethanol and biodiesel, and even harnessing landfill and sewage waste treatment gas. The projects include biomass resources like … Read more