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ERB Plans $109 Million Brazil Sugar-Cane Biomass Plant With Dow
By Stephan Nielsen – Oct 15, 2013 Energias Renovaveis do Brasil Ltda., a Brazilian biomass-power developer, agreed to build a 237 million-real ($109 million) plant at a Dow Chemical Co. (DOW) ethanol project in Minas Gerais State fueled by sugar-cane residue. The plant will have 46 megawatts of capacity and generate 230 tons of steam an hour, ERB, as the Sao Paulo-based company is known, said today in an e-mailed statement. It’s expected to go into operation next year. The contract is ERB’s second in Brazil with Dow, which is building the Santa Vitoria ethanol mill with Mitsui & Co. (8031) , an ERB press official, who asked not to be identified because of company policy, said today in an e-mail. ERB agreed in December 2010 to build a 265 million-real wood-fired plant to produce steam for a Dow factory in the northeastern city of Aratu, according to ERB’s website . To contact the reporter on this story: Stephan Nielsen in Sao Paulo at snielsen8@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reed Landberg at landberg@bloomberg.net Continue reading
Making Use Of Biofuel Waste
10/10/2013 Making use of biofuel waste Yeast engineered to eat acetic acid Richard Jansen US RESEARCHERS have engineered a strain of yeast that will consume unwanted by-products made when plant stems and leaves are converted into biofuels. The team, based at the University of Illinois, says that discovery could improve the ethanol yield from lignocellulosic sources by as much as 10%. The yeast used to produce ethanol from lignocellulosic sources, Saccharomyces cerevisiae , is good at fermenting simple sugars – such as those found in corn kernels and sugarcane – to produce ethanol. However, coaxing the yeast into eating the stems and leaves is not so easy. Doing it on an industrial scale requires a number of costly steps, one of which involves breaking down hemicellulose, a key component of lignocellulose “If we decompose hemicellulose, we obtain xylose and acetic acid,” says Illinois food science and human nutrition professor Yong-Su Jin, who helped lead the research. “Xylose is a sugar; we can engineer yeast to ferment xylose,” he continues. “However, acetic acid is a toxic compound that kills yeast. That is one of the biggest problems in cellulosic ethanol production.” The researchers came up with a plan to deal with the waste after finding another organism – a bacterium – that consumed acetic acid. They isolated the genes responsible for the process, and began inserting them into the yeast. “One challenge with yeast is it has evolved to do one thing really well,” says Jamie Cate, from the University of California at Berkeley, who also helped direct the research. “When you start adding these new modules into what it’s already doing, it’s not obvious that it’s going to work up front.” “We sort of rebuilt how yeast uses carbon,” he adds. As well as those carrying out the conversion process, Jin claims that the breakthrough will also help those who focus on other steps in biofuels production. Plant geneticists and those involved in pretreatment can stop worrying about finding ways to eliminate acetic acid from lignocelluloses, for example. “Many people are curious about why we don’t have cellulosic biofuel right now,” he continues. “But it’s not because of one limiting step. We have many limiting steps in growing the biomass, storing, moving, harvesting, decomposing the biomass to the sugar, fermentation and then separation. “The advance that we are reporting involves one of those steps – fermentation. But it also will make other steps in the process a little easier.” Continue reading
M’sia Eyes Bigger Slice Of Growing Biomass Pellets Market
Published on: Thursday, October 10, 2013 Putra Jaya: Malaysia aims to capture a bigger slice of the growing demand for biomass pellets in Asia driven by renewable energy policies in South Korea, Japan and China. Chief Executive Officer of Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, Mark Rozario, said the country has an advantage in terms of logistics and cost of transportation, which were usually dominated by pellet producers from US and Europe. “We want to grab this opportunity and with the establishment of the Pellet Association of Malaysia (PAM) earlier, we have united the manufacturers on issues such as quality, pricing and volumes,” he told reporters after the briefing on the progress of the National Biomass Strategy 2020 here Wednesday. Rozario said demand for biomass pellets in Asia by 2020 was estimated to be around 10 million tonnes per year, mainly driven by renewable energy policies in certain countries. “Right now, Malaysia produces about 100,000 tonnes per year and there is room for us to increase our capacity following the plan to collaborate with more plantation owners to supply the feedstocks,” he said. He said Malaysia could produce about five-seven million tonnes per year of pellets in the next five years. Rozario said PAM now has 10 members and five of them had started production of the biomass pellets. He said the agency was ready to attract more players to invest in this industry. Earlier, Malaysia biomass pellet manufacturers inked deals with companies from China and South Korea to supply biomass pellets to help meet their countries’ renewable energy targets. Detik Aturan Sdn Bhd signed the memorandum of understanding with South Korea’s BC21 Co Ltd and Global Green Synergy Sdn Bhd with Chinalight (GuangZhou) – Bernama Continue reading
