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    Spanish company Ferry Group is to invest €42/US$55.2 million in a project for the production of biomass fuel pellets in Bulgaria. The 3-year project consists of establishing plantations of paulownia trees near the city of Tran. Paulownia is a fast-growing tree used for the commercial production of fuel pellets. Dnevnik - Feb. 20, 2007.

    Hungary's BHD Hõerõmû Zrt. is to build a 35 billion Forint (€138/US$182 million) commercial biomass-fired power plant with a maximum output of 49.9 MW in Szerencs (northeast Hungary). Portfolio.hu - Feb. 20, 2007.

    Tonight at 9pm, BBC Two will be showing a program on geo-engineering techniques to 'save' the planet from global warming. Five of the world's top scientists propose five radical scientific inventions which could stop climate change dead in its tracks. The ideas include: a giant sunshade in space to filter out the sun's rays and help cool us down; forests of artificial trees that would breath in carbon dioxide and stop the green house effect and a fleet futuristic yachts that will shoot salt water into the clouds thickening them and cooling the planet. BBC News - Feb. 19, 2007.

    Archer Daniels Midland, the largest U.S. ethanol producer, is planning to open a biodiesel plant in Indonesia with Wilmar International Ltd. this year and a wholly owned biodiesel plant in Brazil before July, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The Brazil plant is expected to be the nation's largest, the paper said. Worldwide, the company projects a fourfold rise in biodiesel production over the next five years. ADM was not immediately available to comment. Reuters - Feb. 16, 2007.

    Finnish engineering firm Pöyry Oyj has been awarded contracts by San Carlos Bioenergy Inc. to provide services for the first bioethanol plant in the Philippines. The aggregate contract value is EUR 10 million. The plant is to be build in the Province of San Carlos on the north-eastern tip of Negros Island. The plant is expected to deliver 120,000 liters/day of bioethanol and 4 MW of excess power to the grid. Kauppalehti Online - Feb. 15, 2007.

    In order to reduce fuel costs, a Mukono-based flower farm which exports to Europe, is building its own biodiesel plant, based on using Jatropha curcas seeds. It estimates the fuel will cut production costs by up to 20%. New Vision (Kampala, Uganda) - Feb. 12, 2007.

    The Tokyo Metropolitan Government has decided to use 10% biodiesel in its fleet of public buses. The world's largest city is served by the Toei Bus System, which is used by some 570,000 people daily. Digital World Tokyo - Feb. 12, 2007.

    Fearing lack of electricity supply in South Africa and a price tag on CO2, WSP Group SA is investing in a biomass power plant that will replace coal in the Letaba Citrus juicing plant which is located in Tzaneen. Mining Weekly - Feb. 8, 2007.

    In what it calls an important addition to its global R&D capabilities, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is to build a new bioenergy research center in Hamburg, Germany. World Grain - Feb. 5, 2007.

    EthaBlog's Henrique Oliveira interviews leading Brazilian biofuels consultant Marcelo Coelho who offers insights into the (foreign) investment dynamics in the sector, the history of Brazilian ethanol and the relationship between oil price trends and biofuels. EthaBlog - Feb. 2, 2007.

    The government of Taiwan has announced its renewable energy target: 12% of all energy should come from renewables by 2020. The plan is expected to revitalise Taiwan's agricultural sector and to boost its nascent biomass industry. China Post - Feb. 2, 2007.

    Production at Cantarell, the world's second biggest oil field, declined by 500,000 barrels or 25% last year. This virtual collapse is unfolding much faster than projections from Mexico's state-run oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos. Wall Street Journal - Jan. 30, 2007.

    Dubai-based and AIM listed Teejori Ltd. has entered into an agreement to invest €6 million to acquire a 16.7% interest in Bekon, which developed two proprietary technologies enabling dry-fermentation of biomass. Both technologies allow it to design, establish and operate biogas plants in a highly efficient way. Dry-Fermentation offers significant advantages to the existing widely used wet fermentation process of converting biomass to biogas. Ame Info - Jan. 22, 2007.

    Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited is to build a biofuel production plant in the tribal belt of Banswara, Rajasthan, India. The petroleum company has acquired 20,000 hectares of low value land in the district, which it plans to commit to growing jatropha and other biofuel crops. The company's chairman said HPCL was also looking for similar wasteland in the state of Chhattisgarh. Zee News - Jan. 15, 2007.

    The Zimbabwean national police begins planting jatropha for a pilot project that must result in a daily production of 1000 liters of biodiesel. The Herald (Harare), Via AllAfrica - Jan. 12, 2007.

    In order to meet its Kyoto obligations and to cut dependence on oil, Japan has started importing biofuels from Brazil and elsewhere. And even though the country has limited local bioenergy potential, its Agriculture Ministry will begin a search for natural resources, including farm products and their residues, that can be used to make biofuels in Japan. To this end, studies will be conducted at 900 locations nationwide over a three-year period. The Japan Times - Jan. 12, 2007.

    Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched an arrogant attack on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their attitudes to global warming, calling the Stern Review 'dubious'. The remarks illustrate the yawning gap between opinions on climate change among Europeans and Americans, but they also strengthen the view that announcements by US car makers and legislators about the development of green vehicles are nothing more than window dressing. Today, the EU announced its comprehensive energy policy for the 21st century, with climate change at the center of it. BBC News - Jan. 10, 2007.

    The new Canadian government is investing $840,000 into BioMatera Inc. a biotech company that develops industrial biopolymers (such as PHA) that have wide-scale applications in the plastics, farmaceutical and cosmetics industries. Plant-based biopolymers such as PHA are biodegradable and renewable. Government of Canada - Jan. 9, 2007.


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Friday, July 28, 2006

African nations form "Green OPEC"

This is a special day. What we have been predicting and pushing for all along has finally materialised: African nations have formed what we called a "Green OPEC" - an organization of biofuels producing and exporting countries. Our first goal has thus been achieved, and we are now pushing for the finalization of our "BioPact": linking this "Green OPEC" to our EU policies on North-South development.

But let us first look at what happened: some of Africa's poorest nations are clubbing together to try to position themselves as global suppliers of biofuel, hoping to use everything from shrubs to sugar to offset the economic impact of rising crude prices. Inspired by Brazil, where three quarters of new cars run on a mix of biofuel and gasoline, 13 nations met in Senegal on Thursday to form the Pan-African Non-Petroleum Producers Association (PANPP), aimed at developing alternative energy sources, especially biofuels.

"Our continent should have as its vocation to become the primary world supplier of biofuels," Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade told delegates meeting in the capital, Dakar. "This step to develop clean energy is all the more pertinent because it calls for immense areas of cultivable land, where Africa benefits from a clear advantage," he said.

Investment in biofuels, including ethanol derived from sugar cane and biodiesel from oils, is booming on the back of high oil prices, energy security fears, limited spare refinery capacity and concerns about greenhouse gas emissions. Africa produces a range of crops that could be used to make biofuel, including sugar cane, sugar beet, maize, sorghum and cassava -- all of which can be used to make ethanol -- and peanuts, jatropha and palm oil, whose oil can be used to power diesel engines.

Alassane Niane, a technical advisor at Senegal's Energy Ministry, said that while biofuels were a relatively new concept in much of Africa, progress was being made. Jatropha, a wild shrub, was being used in neighbouring Mali, a mostly desert nation frequently hit by drought, to make biodiesel to run generators and water pumps while Senegal's state sugar company was working on a project to produce ethanol. "It is the first time here that people are consciously saying there is a need for biofuel," Niane told Reuters.

"The raw materials exist here, the technical know-how exists here, we just need the politicians to get behind it," he said.

Do read on:
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

AFRICAN SOLIDARITY

The International Energy Agency forecast this month that global biofuel production would nearly double by 2011 -- though it would remain a marginal energy source compared to gasoline and diesel -- driven partly by high global oil prices.

Soaring oil prices are hammering economies in Africa, the world's poorest continent, particularly those without crude reserves, threatening to undermine development efforts and in some cases sparking unrest over the rising cost of basic goods.

"If measures are not taken, non-oil producing African nations ... will inevitably head towards economic regression. The promotion of education and access to health services and clean water will be no more than a pipe-dream," Wade said.

Pump prices are beyond the reach of many consumers in West Africa, who often resort to buying smuggled fuel in old liquor bottles. Niger and Guinea have seen riots over fuel prices this year, while in Nigeria and Benin scores have been killed trying to tap fuel illegally from pipelines or oil tankers.

Wade called for a more even distribution of oil wealth among countries in Africa, saying the borders which separated one nation from crude reserves in a neighbouring country were the arbitrary product of colonisation.

"The frontiers that (African unity) makes increasingly absurd should disappear underground and make oil a common wealth," Wade said. "A solution can be found based on African solidarity."

See Reuters.

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