At its Dakar debut in January 2022, the Audi RS Q e-tron (earlier post) series hybrid set standards in efficiency and competitiveness of e-mobility in motorsport. In the next step, the three desert prototypes with electric drive and energy converter will run in the 2023 Dakar Rally with an innovative... Read more →

Rio Tinto has shown the effectiveness of a low-carbon iron-making process using ores from its mines in Australia in a small-scale pilot plant in Germany, and is now planning the development of a larger-scale pilot plant to further assess its potential to help decarbonize the steel value chain. The process,... Read more →

Neste, the world's leading producer of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel produced from waste and residue raw materials, will acquire the used cooking oil (UCO) collection and aggregation business and related assets in the United States from Crimson Renewable Energy Holdings, LLC. The transaction includes shares in SeQuential Environmental... Read more →

DG Fuels (DGF), a provider of cellulosic drop-in sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), signed a multi-year SAF offtake agreement with Air France KLM for up to 60,408 metric tons (21 million gallons) per year from DGF’s initial plant to be located in Louisiana. The contract is expected to make Air France... Read more →

Rolls-Royce has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Alder Fuels, a process technology and project development company in the low-carbon transportation fuels industry (earlier post), to test Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) produced based on Alder Fuels’ proprietary greencrude technology (AGC). The testing, which will include flight tests on a... Read more →

Raven SR, a renewable fuels company, and Emerging Fuels Technology (EFT) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to integrate their respective technologies into an advanced system for producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel. The resulting production platform will include Raven SR’s patented Steam/CO2 Reformer process (earlier post) and... Read more →

Researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Washington State University have developed a a process by which lignin can be selectively converted to jet-range aromatics at unprecedented carbon yields, providing a path toward a 100% drop-in sustainable aviation... Read more →

Neste Corporation and Marathon Petroleum Corporation (Marathon) announced an agreement to establish a 50/50 joint venture to produce renewable diesel following a conversion project of Marathon’s refinery in Martinez, California (the Martinez Renewable Fuels project). (Earlier post.) All required closing conditions have been met, including the receipt of the necessary... Read more →

Aemetis, Inc., a renewable fuels company focused on negative carbon intensity products, announced that $7 billion of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and renewable diesel (RD) supply agreements have been signed with 10 airlines for a total of 916 million gallons of blended SAF. Previously, Aemetis announced a contract with a... Read more →

Enviva, the leading producer of sustainably sourced woody biomass, and Alder Fuels, a clean tech developer and greencrude producer, signed a contract for the long-term, large-scale supply of woody biomass from Enviva, which sources low-value fiber, such as forest byproducts such as tree tops, limbs, and commercial thinnings, to commercialize... Read more →

NYK Line has invested in Japan-based Sustainable Energy Co. Ltd. which has developed its own integrated subcritical-water organic-waste power-generation system (ISOP) system, which decomposes organic substances using subcritical-water-treating technology and ultimately produces green energy products such as biofuels. By investing in Sustainable Energy, NYK will support the commercialization of this... Read more →

Blue Biofuels reports a significant milestone in the scaling of its proprietary Cellulose-to-Sugar (CTS) reactor system. Testing results on a custom modified reactor system demonstrate the ability to convert cellulosic material into sugars with high conversion at a throughput processing rate of 2.5 tons a day. This processing rate represents... Read more →

Researchers from Zhejiang University in China have developed a photo-chemo-enzymatic multi-step combination pathway for the highly efficient and environmentally friendly preparation of biogasoline from cheap and sustainable triolein using solar energy and atmospheric O2 under mild conditions. An open-access paper on the work is published in the RSC journal Green... Read more →

Stora Enso and Northvolt have entered into a Joint Development Agreement to create a sustainable battery featuring anode produced using lignin-based hard carbon produced from Nordic forest wood. The aim is to develop the world’s first industrialized battery featuring anode sourced entirely from European raw materials, lowering both the carbon... Read more →

Neste, the world’s leading producer of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel produced from waste and residue raw materials, has agreed to acquire 100% of Walco Foods, an Irish trader of animal fats. The transaction is subject to the fulfillment of customary closing conditions and regulatory approval. This is another... Read more →

ENEOS Corporation, Suzuki Motor Corporation, Subaru Corporation, Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd., Toyota Motor Corporation , and Toyota Tsusho Corporation established the Research Association of Biomass Innovation for Next Generation Automobile Fuels (Research Association) to study ways to optimize the process of producing fuel. It is crucial to provide diverse energy... Read more →

Honeywell announced that Turkish refiner Tüpraş will license Honeywell UOP Ecofining technology to produce biofuels from feedstocks such as used cooking oil and waste animal fat at their refinery in Izmir, Türkiye. The new Ecofining plant is being designed to convert approximately 8,300 barrels per day of waste feeds/feedstocks to... Read more →

DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight specialist of Deutsche Post DHL Group, has signed an agreement with Hapag-Lloyd, a leading worldwide liner shipping company, for the use of advanced biofuels. As an initial step, Hapag-Lloyd will ship 18,000 TEU of DHL’s volume using advanced biofuels—equivalent to a reduction... Read more →

DSM Engineering Materials has launched of a new, more sustainable version of its flagship product Stanyl: Stanyl B-MB (Bio-based Mass Balanced), with up to 100% bio-based content. Using the maximum possible levels of biomass-waste feedstock, it enables DSM Engineering Materials to halve the carbon footprint of this product line and,... Read more →

Neste Corporation has made the final investment decision to invest into new renewable products production capacity in Rotterdam. The decision is based on demand for renewable products growing substantially with customers’ higher climate ambitions. Rotterdam NExBTL plant Neste’s current 1.4 million ton capacity for renewable products in Rotterdam is the... Read more →

Finnish shipping company ESL Shipping will become the world’s first shipping company to start utilizing new low-emission Neste Marine 0.1 co-processed marine fuel (earlier post) in its vessels in Finland and Sweden. The ISCC PLUS certified marine fuel enables up to 80% reduced greenhouse gas emissions over the life cycle... Read more →

Avfuel Corporation is making a multimillion-dollar investment in Alder Fuels—a company that is developing technologies for producing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) at scale by converting abundant biomass into sustainable low-carbon, drop-in replacement crude oil that can be used in existing refineries to produce aviation fuel. In September 2021, United and... Read more →

Arbor Renewable Gas LLC, a Houston-based company formed in 2019 that produces renewable gasoline and green hydrogen from wood waste and forest residue (earlier post), is evaluating West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana for a planned $800-million manufacturing and distribution facility employing carbon capture and sequestration emissions-reduction technology. Operating as Magnolia... Read more →

Chevron Corporation completed its previously announced acquisition of Renewable Energy Group (REG) following approval by REG stockholders. (Earlier post.) The new Chevron segment will be called Chevron Renewable Energy Group. We have brought together companies with complementary capabilities, assets, and customer relationships to make Chevron one of the leading renewable... Read more →

A team at Chalmers University in Sweden has analyzed the results of the integration of a chemical looping gasification (CLG) process with a Fischer-Tropsch synthesis (FTS) process and found that this biomass-to-liquids process can produce FT crude with net-negative CO2 emissions. An open-access paper on the study appears in the... Read more →

Researchers from Peking University and SINOPEC have developed a one-post method for the synthesis of C6+ branched compounds from isopropanol condenstation on Ni/MoC catalysts. The branched-chain selectivity in C6+ and nonnecessity of H2 give this route advantage in high-octane gasoline blendstock production. Isopropanol can be derived from lignocellulose, making it... Read more →

Gevo has entered into a partner agreement with Google Cloud to measure and verify the efficacy of next-generation biofuels across the supply chain via full lifecycle sustainability data tracking. Utilizing technology developed by Verity Tracking , a division of Gevo, the collaboration is expected to enable users to track and... Read more →

A team at the University of Madison-Wisconsin studied critical sooting equivalence ratios and subsequent particulate formation during spark-ignition combustion for blends of ethanol, isobutanol (2-methyl-1-propanol), and methylbutenol (2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol) with gasoline using premixed prevaporized (PMPV) fueling. Broadly, they found that increases in alcohol content consistently decreased the chemical sooting tendency and... Read more →

The US Department of Energy (DOE) announced $59 million to accelerate the production of biofuels and bioproducts to reduce emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors. (DE-FOA-0002638) Marine and aviation sectors require higher energy densities to avoid frequent stops to refuel for long flights, international shipping routes, and cross-country rail routes, making these... Read more →

Researchers from Washington State University (WSU) and the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have devised an artificial enzyme that digests lignin, which has stubbornly resisted previous attempts to develop it into an economically useful energy source. An open-access paper on their work is published in Nature Communications.... Read more →

Cresta Funds Management (Cresta) has chosen Topsoe’s HydroFlex solution for revamping the Braya Renewable Fuels refinery (Braya) in Newfoundland, Canada. The refinery will produce up to 18,000 barrels per day of Renewable Diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) initially; the capacity will increase further in various stages of expansion. The... Read more →

Together with its partner Nordic Marine Oil, Neste is piloting a new Neste Marine 0.1 Co-processed marine fuel in Scandinavia, a solution helping the maritime sector to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The ISCC PLUS-certified marine fuel enables up to 80% GHG emission reduction over the lifecycle compared to... Read more →

The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company announced a new formulation of its popular Endurance WHA waste haul tire made with a renewable soybean oil compound. The Endurance WHA is now made with soybean oil, which replaces a portion of the petroleum-based materials used in its production. The soybean oil in... Read more →

VERBIO recently officially launched the first cellulosic RNG plant in the US. The VERBIO Nevada (Iowa) Biorefinery began producing renewable natural gas (RNG) on an industrial scale in December 2021. The facility is on track to achieve full-scale production of 7 million ethanol gallons equivalent (EGE) of RNG annually by... Read more →

Asahi Kasei has developed a system to calculate the carbon footprint of products (CFP) for the synthetic rubber and elastomers products Asadene, Tufdene, Asaprene, Tufprene, Asaflex, Tuftec, and S.O.E. with CFP data provision to customers scheduled to begin in June 2022. CFP visualization is achieved utilizing the DEEP (Data Exploration... Read more →

Yokohama Tire Corporation (YTC), a subsidiary of Yokohama Rubber, will be supplying YOKOHAMA tires to about 18 cars competing in the 100th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb to be held on 26 June. The supplied tires will include the first provision of YOKOHAMA’s ADVAN A052 street sports tires made from... Read more →

The BMW Group is using innovative technologies in its efforts to improve sustainability and taking advantage of new options to conserve resources and reduce emissions from painting bodywork. The BMW Group is the first automotive manufacturer worldwide to use matt paints made from biomass instead of crude oil at its... Read more →

Parkland, an independent supplier and marketer of fuel and petroleum products and a leading convenience store operator, plans to increase renewable fuel production at its Burnaby Refinery in British Columbia. The company said it will expanding existing co-processing volumes to approximately 5,500 barrels per day, and build a stand-alone renewable... Read more →

Phillips 66 made a final investment decision Wednesday to move forward with Rodeo Renewed, the project to convert its San Francisco Refinery in Rodeo, California, into one of the world’s largest renewable fuels facilities. The project, which recently received approval from Contra Costa County (earlier post), is expected to cost... Read more →

Researchers at the University of Michigan, with colleagues from Michigan State University and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Germany, report that high surface area silicon carbide (SiC) w/wo 13 wt. % hard carbon (SiC/HC, SiC/O), derived from the carbothermal reduction of silica-depleted rice hull ash (SDRHA), can function as... Read more →

Methanol—a bio-based platform molecule that can be used directly as a fuel or fuel additive, and can also be used to produce bulk chemicals and drop-in fuels—is currently mainly produced from methane and coal via an indirect syngas route. Now, a team of researchers in China reports a novel approach... Read more →

Researchers from the University of Dayton, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Natural Resources Canada have generated a lignin-based jet fuel (LJF) blend component composed of mostly C6–C18 mono-, di-, and tri-cycloalkanes. The product could complement five existing sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) pathways (ASTM D7566 annexes) to enable a 100%... Read more →

A team at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a new computational model of a two-stroke scaled marine engine, with reduced chemical mechanisms for diesel, biodiesel, bio-oil, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). In a new open-access study published in the journal Fuel, the ORNL researchers used their model to... Read more →

The Biden Administration announced several steps to spur the development and adoption of homegrown biofuels. $700 million for biofuels producers: As part of the Pandemic Assistance for Producers initiative, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will provide up to $700 million in funding through a new Biofuel Producer Program. The... Read more →

Metsä Fibre, part of Metsä Group, and Veolia recently signed a long-term partnership agreement on the refining of crude methanol generated in pulp production at the Äänekoski bioproduct mill into commercial biomethanol. As part of this cooperation, Veolia will build a crude methanol refinery in connection with Metsä Fibre’s Äänekoski... Read more →

Raven SR, a US-based renewable fuels company (earlier post), plans to build a waste-to-hydrogen production facility in Aragón, Spain, following the opening of its subsidiary Raven SR Iberia in Zaragoza, announced earlier this month. The Raven SR project in Aragón will produce 1,600 metric tons per year of renewable hydrogen... Read more →

Toyota Motor is entering three differently fueled vehicles in the ENEOS Super Taikyu Series 2022 Powered by Hankook Round 1 Suzuka 5-Hour Endurance Race (Suzuka 5-Hour Race), which takes place from 19 to 20 March 2022: a hydrogen engine-equipped Corolla, a new GR86-based vehicle that uses a biomass-derived carbon-neutral fuel... Read more →

Sustainable materials leader Genomatica and Japan-based diversified global manufacturer Asahi Kasei announced a strategic partnership to commercialize renewably-sourced nylon 6,61 made from Genomatica’s bio-based HMD (hexamethylenediamine, also abbreviated as HMDA) building block. Asahi Kasei looks to this partnership to support its goal to be first-to-market with a more sustainable nylon... Read more →

Raven SR, a renewable fuels company (earlier post), announced the closing of a strategic investment from Samsung Ventures, expanding Raven SR’s reach into the global market, especially in Asia-Pacific region. Samsung Ventures’ strategic investment illustrates heightened demand for scalable renewable fuel production to respond to climate change concerns, Raven SR... Read more →

Researchers in China report the synthesis of jet-fuel range C10 and C15 polycyclic alkanes and aromatics with furfuryl alcohol and isoprene, two platform compounds which can be derived from lignocellulose. An open-access paper on their work appears in the RSC journal Green Chemistry. Cycloalkanes (especially polycycloalkanes) and aromatics—with their higher... Read more →