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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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Saturday, February 10, 2007

E.ON creates company to feed biogas into the natural gas grid

Quicknote biogas
German energy giant E.ON AG, one of the major public utility companies in Europe and the world’s largest investor-owned energy service provider, has announced [*German] it has created E.ON Bioerdgas GmbH, a company dedicated to feeding biogas into Europe's natural gas network.

The new company will have its headquarters in Essen and will unite all of E.ON's biogas activities, in particular the purification process. Biogas is obtained by the anaerobic fermentation of biomass. Typical methane yields are 60-70%, with the rest being mainly CO2. Scrubbing out the carbon-monoxide allows producers to obtain a gas with a methane content similar to that of natural gas.

The green gas is experiencing a real boom in Europe. In Germany alone, €1 billion was invested in the sector in 2006, making it the fastest growing segment of all renewables. Some 10,000 people have found employment in this sector in Germany in 2006 (planning, construction, manufacture and operation of biogas plants; producing feedstocks), with some 3,500 medium-scale plants online, which produce approximately five billion KWh of electricity. The German Biogas Association projects the amount to double once again in the first half of this year (earlier post).

The Association concludes that at this pace and with current technologies, the industry will tap a potential that can replace half of all Russian gas imports 'in the near future'. Earlier, Ulrich Schmack, an energy advisor to the German government, who also heads the world's leading biogas plant manufacturer, projected that the biofuel can replace all natural gas imports from Russia by 2030 (earlier post).

E.ON's initiative is based on successful trials in Sweden, where the company experimented with feeding biogas into the grid for several years. In Germany, a number of biogas purification plants, owned by E.ON, are now under construction (earlier post). Meanwhile, the company is also building 150 biogas motorway filling stations to serve cars (earlier post).

Jürgen Lenz, technical director of E.ON Ruhrgas, says that "until now, 'normal biogas' was mainly used for the production of on-site electricity and heat. By feeding the gas into the natural gas grid, we can give it a much wider reach and make it available for the same applications as natural gas. The pipeline network becomes the bridge between the production site and the end-user."

Because the biofuel will be fed into the main gas grid, natural gas capable cars (CNG) will utilize it without noticing it. E.ON says that of all current and future biofuels (including cellulosic ethanol), biogas is the most efficient when it comes to the total well-to-wheel energy balance: per hectare of biogas crops (such as dedicated maize), an average CNG passenger car can travel 100,000 kilometers. This unparalleled efficiency explains Europe's growing interest in the fuel. The gas also has the lowest CO2 footprint of all biofuels (earlier post) [entry ends here.]
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