SAO PAULO(MarketWatch) — Brazilian state run energy company Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR, PETR4.BR), or Petrobras, said late Friday that it acquired a 50% stake in the local biodiesel company Bioleo Industrial e Comercial, for 15.5 million Brazilian reals ($8.8 million). Leer más »

Santo Domingo. – The company Globasol signed an agreement on Monday with TSK-Ingemas, of the Spanish group Globalia, to build Dominican Republic’s first biodiesel  plant, at a cost of 40 million dollars.

The agreement includes the construction of a plant within 14 months in the province Azua (south) to use oil from native varieties of brush such as jatrofa and higuereta, which haven’t any use so far since the oil they produce is toxic. Leer más »

The world’s first commercial-scale seawater-based biofuels project boosts Egypt’s aquaculture profile. (Photo: Global Seawater).

EGYPT, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 00:40 (GMT + 9)

Houston-based energy projects development company Energy Allied International and the Seawater Foundation and Global Seawater, Inc, pioneers in the development of Integrated Seawater Agriculture Systems (ISAS), have signed an MOU to develop the world’s first commercial-scale seawater-based biofuels project in Egypt: “New Nile Co.” Leer más »

One of the most heated environmental debates concerns biofuels. Using biofuels is nothing new and, in fact, diesel cars were originally designed to run off of peanut oil, but diesel fuel ended up being cheaper than peanut oil.

Now with pollution and the very real threat of drying oil wells, car manufacturers and scientists are once again turning to biodiesel fuels in order to solve this problem.

Biodiesel fuel is generally made from vegetable oils (soy being the most popular) or animal fat, either way it is biodegradeable. Leer más »

Fruits of J. curcas. Fruits are produced terminally in the branches, and each fruit contains three seeds. Image credit: Dr. Wagner A Vendrame, University of Florida at Homestead.

 What if space held the key to producing alternative energy crops on Earth? That’s what researchers are hoping to find in a new experiment on the International Space Station.

The experiment, National Lab Pathfinder-Cells 3, is aimed at learning whether microgravity can help jatropha curcas plant cells grow faster to produce biofuel, or renewable fuel derived from biological matter. Jatropha is known to produce high quality oil that can be converted into an alternative energy fuel, or biofuel(biodiesel). Leer más »

A research project will make jet fuel without wasting fresh water or farmland.

A project in the Middle East aims to make jet fuel from saltwater-tolerant crops grown in the desert. Researchers at the Masdar Institute in the United Arab Emirates are starting a two-square-kilometer demonstration farm that will combine fish and shrimp farming with the cultivation of mangrove trees and salicornia, a plant with oil-rich seeds that can be converted into fuel. Leer más »

Bernd Waltermann and Henning Streubel ,  Jakarta.

As Indonesia is today the world’s largest producer of crude palm oil (CPO) — a desirable feedstock for biodiesel production — it has the potential to grow into a world biodiesel leader and a model for plantation sustainability.

Biodiesel has the potential to become a significant industry sector in Indonesia, supported by two of its most valuable assets: its oil palm plantations, and more importantly, its people. Indonesia currently produces approximately 20 million tons of CPO per year from 7 million hectares of oil palm plantation, of which approximately 80 percent  is exported.  Leer más »

The European Biodiesel Board has called on the Argentinean authorities to step in and take a positive stance in balancing the trade in biodiesel between Argentina and Europe. In a statement issued last week the EBB explained that it had been growing increasingly concerned by the sharp increase in biodiesel exports from Argentina that the EU has been facing since January. It went on to say that it stood ready to take any appropriate step to restore, what it saw, as balanced market conditions. Leer más »

Growing imports of cheap Argentine biodiesel into Europe are replacing U.S. imports hit by European Union anti-dumping duties in March, Swiss-German biodiesel producer Biopetrol said on Thursday.

“Increasing amounts of indirectly-subsidized biodiesel have been coming to Europe from Argentina since the second quarter,” Biopetrol said in a statement in a statement on its first half 2009 results. Leer más »

The president of the National Agency of Investment Developments, Beatriz Nofal and Jorge Piwko, director of Biodiesel del Plata, announced this morning the inauguration of a biodiesel plant using used vegetables oils. Leer más »