Grimsby Biofuel Plant Plans Back Up And Running?
A report on Reuters suggests that plans to construct another large-scale biofuels plant on the east coast of England are back up and running.
Investment firm Future Capital are looking to raise GBP236 million to help fund the project in partnership with UK firm Vireol.
Deals have been done to sell all the ethanol produced over a 10 year period to an unnamed banking group and a "global animal feeds business" has "made a commitment" to buy all the feed byproduct, the article says.
Full story here.
Vireol's company website isn't exactly awash with information on the deal, or anything else for that matter, simply giving their address and telephone number.
British Biofuel Firm's Future Uncertain
D1 Oils faces an uncertain future after announcing losses of £33.6m for the year ended Dec 31st 2008, and saying it does not expect to make a profit in the next two trading years.
The company closed two refining sites in Bromborough and Middlesbrough last year, to concentrate on a joint venture with BP to develop jatropha into a replacement for food crops as a source of biodiesel.
D1 now says that it is as in talks with BP to dissolve the joint venture, and that “developing the business beyond the end of 2010 will require a capital injection, which constitutes a material uncertainty. If the fundraising is not successful then there would be significant doubt about the group's capability, in its current form, to continue as a going concern.”
The firm is still trying to sell it's Bromborough refinery, which was only operational for less than eighteen months.
UK Latest Biofuel Usage Figures
The Renewable Fuels Agency reports 1087 million litres of biofuel have been were used between 15 April 2008 and 14 February 2009 under the RTFO. This is approximately 2.7% of total road transport fuel. More biodiesel (84% or 914,000 million litres) has been supplied than bioethanol (16% or 173,000m litres).
Around a third, or 370,000m litres, of the biodiesel was produced from soybean oil, 269,000m litres from rapeseed oil, 138,000m litres from sugar cane, 109,000m litres from palmoil, and 94,000m litres from tallow.
In the case of ethanol production, 138,000m litres was based on sugarcane, 33,000m litres on sugarbeet and 1,000m litres on molasses.
The most widely reported source of biodiesel was American soy (26% of biodiesel supplied). The most widely reported source of bioethanol was Brazilian sugarcane (79% of bioethanol supplied).
Biofuels: You Say You Want A Revolution?
A potentially "revolutionary" technology could soon be deployed to trap waste CO2 from large buildings and use it to help produce biofuel on site.
Origo Industries has this week announced that it has signed a deal to trial its Ecobox technology at Liverpool John Lennon airport with work on the project to begin from next month.
The trial will see CO2 from air handling units on the terminal building filtered through a photo-bioreactor containing algae. The CO2 will be absorbed by the algae, accelerating its development to a point where it can be refined to produce a biofuel.
The airport plans to use the resulting biofuel to run its ground-based vehicles, while the waste biomass produced by the refining process will be passed through a drying process and fed into a burner which will supply some of the airport's heating and hot water.
Origo said that it hoped to be produce up to 250 litres of biofuel a day using the system when it starts operating next summer, and added that should the trial prove successful it had plans for a larger version of the Ecobox capable of producing up to 3,000 litres a day.
It also said that it had ambitions to work with John Lennon airport to use the system to produce aviation-grade biofuel – something of a Holy Grail for the aviation sector which is currently investing heavily in a raft of projects designed to produce plant-based jet fuel.
Ian Houston, chief executive of Origo Industries, said that the technology had the potential to work in any large building.
"The project at John Lennon Airport is an early trial of a system which we believe could have a significant impact on the way companies today can obtain fuel and manage carbon emissions," he said. "If it works there, then why not anywhere?"
The full cost of the trial was not disclosed, but Origo insisted the project would deliver a return on investment within a year.
Grangemouth Biofuel Plans Shelved
Plans to build a huge biofuel plant at Scotland's oil refinery have been shelved. Ineos, which operates the refinery at Grangemouth, has blamed the economic climate for the decision to scrap the £65 million plans. It would have seen about 1.2 million tonnes of biodiesel created at the plant by 2010.
Ineos announced its plans two years ago and said it wanted the site to become a world leader in the production of biofuels made from food crops. It was to build a new plant at the massive refinery site to handle the new production – and had attracted £9 million from the Scottish Government's Regional Collective Assistance fund.
The Ineos site manager, Gordon Grant, said: "Earlier this month we indicated to the Scottish Government that we would not be progressing with the biodiesel plant in Grangemouth.
"Biodiesel produced from food sources is very uncertain at the moment and this, coupled with the economic climate, makes it difficult in terms of being able to fund the project. We are just not in a position to go forward, as we simply don't have the money to put the investment in."
UK Biofuels Policies 'A Shambles'
Farmer's Guardian --The UK biofuel industry is dominated by imports that that fall short of basic environmental standards, the Renewable Fuel Agency (RFA) has revealed.
In its first monthly report since the UK introduced the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation in April, the RFA said that biofuels accounted for 2.14 per cent of UK road fuel against a target for the year of 2.5 per cent.
But it admitted that only 19 per cent of the biofuels met its environmental standards compared to a target of 30 per cent.
Just 7 per cent of the biofuel used on British forecourts came from UK sources.
On a positive note the RFA said that 42 per cent greenhouse gas savings were achieved, although that the figure excluded the emissions from indirect changes in land-use considered in the recent ‘Gallagher Review’.
Dr Sue Armstrong Brown, the RSPB’s head of countryside and species conservation, said: “This report is even worse than we feared and shows what a shambles the UK’s biofuels’ policies have become.
“Here is yet more proof, direct from a UK government body, that voluntary environmental and social standards just aren’t working. These standards must be strengthened and made compulsory before targets are raised any further.”
The RFA said that it was working with the Government to bring in compulsory sustainability criteria that would include the indirect effects of biofuel production.
It said that the current monthly reporting process was vital to draw up a picture of the UK biofuel industry before it could develop its sustainability framework.
Undercut and under fire: UK biofuel feels heat from all sides
It was barely 18 months ago that the British biofuels industry was surfing on a wave of euphoria. There were almost weekly announcements from companies big and small that they were going to invest heavily in a sector that promised to play an important role in the battle against global warming.
On April 15, the sector is to be given an even bigger boost when the government introduces its Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) that requires the station forecourt to supply at least 2.5% a first, later 5%, of its petrol and diesel from plant-based materials at a time when oil prices have soared.
But instead of widespread glee, the domestic green fuels sector is in gloom, amid a flood of cheap imports from America. Subsidised US biofuels are threatening to wipe out UK capacity. Meanwhile, opposition grows from environmentalists and independent scientists who fear that biofuels could make climate change worse, not better.
Full story: here
