biofuel News
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Transport & Environment - comments on the European commission transport 2050 strategy
Brussels - The European Commission has today published its 2050 strategy for transport, including a headline target to cut transport emissions by 60% by 2050. Jos Dings, director of Transport & Environment, a network of sustainable transport campaign groups across Europe made the following comments: On the 2030 and 2050 targets: “The Commission plans to cut emissions by just 1% a year ...
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MEPs add weight to land-use concerns
A group of MEPs has written to leading commissioners, expressing ‘serious concern’ about the issue of indirect land-use change (Iluc) caused by biofuels production. Their letter follows the publication last month of a report commissioned by nine NGOs showing the additional emissions of greenhouse gases likely to be caused by an increase in use of biofuels if EU biofuels policy ...
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Developing countries increasingly threatened by climate change – UN official
Climate change is among a host of new challenges that is making it increasingly difficult for the world’s poorest people to escape from poverty and hunger, the head of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) said today. Most of the world’s poor live in rural areas of developing countries and depend on agriculture to survive. In addition, millions of small-scale ...
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When it comes to long-term transport decarbonisation, Commission has a short attention span
Proposed vision largely ignores sustainable crop-based biofuels’ contribution to reducing emissions – not long after European Parliament and EU governments confirmed their importance BRUSSELS, 28 November 2018 – The long-term decarbonisation strategy unveiled today by the European Commission offers an ambitious vision of a low-emission future for the EU and says almost all the ...
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IDB Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative announced operation to support biofuels in Guatemala
Program will reduce dependence on fuel imports, boost demand for agricultural products and increase rural employment The Inter-American Development Bank today announced approval of a US$400,000 grant from its Sustainable Energy and Climate Change Initiative (SECCI) for technical studies that will help implement a program to produce and promote biofuels in Guatemala. The grant will be used by ...
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Climate change commitments must not compromise the well-being of populations and workers in the developing countries
Appearing before the European Parliament Temporary Committee on Climate Change, the General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), John Monks, called for biofuels and industrial emissions measures to give more weight to international social and environmental rights and food security. 'The climate package proposed by the Commission for 2020, and in particular its measures on ...
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MEP bids to green EU fuel carbon reduction plan
The European parliament's rapporteur on EU proposals to make oil firms cut lifecycle carbon emissions from fuels is insisting that the plans include biofuel sustainability criteria to prevent deforestation and water shortages. Dutch socialist MEP Dorette Corbey says the criteria must be added to the law even though similar sustainability rules are already being developed by the commission as ...
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Leaked ‘Iluc’ studies make it hard for EU not to act
Commission studies that have been leaked to the Reuters news agency show that the indirect land-use change caused by biofuels production is significant and feedstock-specific, and that biodiesel is likely to be worse for the climate than fossil fuels. The Commission is currently evaluating indirect land-use change (Iluc), and has postponed a proposal on how to cope with this issue to ...
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White House Publishes Mid-Century Strategy For Deep Decarbonization
On November 16, 2016, the White House filed the Mid-Century Strategy for Deep Decarbonization with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change under the Paris climate deal. The strategy highlights the role that U.S. government-funded research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) had on the technological advances of the last century, and the potential to increase the pace and ...
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Science article on GHG accounting misses the mark on biofuels
Biofuels produced from biomass feedstocks (i.e. plant matter) are, by definition, carbon neutral because carbon dioxide tailpipe emissions from the combustion of biofuels are readily absorbed by growing plants. As such, the tailpipe emissions resulting from the use of a gallon of ethanol produced from corn grown on U.S. farmland are negated by the growing of the corn itself. Yet, in a newly ...
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Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Says Products, Strategy Will Lead Industry
Boeing (NYSE: BA) Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Jim Albaugh said the company is poised for future growth as it prepares to deliver the 787 Dreamliner and 747-8, increases production rates to respond to strong customer demand and develops the market-leading technology and products of the future. "Airlines today worry about their environmental footprint, fuel efficiency and sustained ...
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A new certified reference material for cold filter plugging point in biodiesel
Scientists of the JRC have developed and produced a new biodiesel reference material (CRM) certified for the cold filter plugging point (CFPP) and cloud point (CP). This material helps laboratories to accurately establish the lowest temperature down to which a biodiesel can be used, thus supporting the implementation of the EU policy on the use of biofuels for transport. In an effort to reduce ...
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EU Energy Union: good intentions, short on specifics, backtracking on trucks
The European Commission’s Energy Union strategy for cleaner cars and electrification of transport is welcome but the removal of CO2 standards for trucks and buses is a disappointing concession to special interests, sustainable transport group Transport & Environment has said. The inclusion of aviation and shipping in the 2030 reduction commitment – which covers all sectors and ...
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Consultation on prolonging state aid rules, with specific reference to the Guidelines for environmental protection and energy
Svebio represents 250 companies active in the whole bioenergy supply chain in Sweden. Among our members are some 60 companies working with biofuels for transport: producers and users of biofuels as well as producers of vehicles. Sweden has an ambitious target to reduce emissions from the transport sector with 70% between 2010 and 2030. Both first and second generation biofuels are essential to ...
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Study: Fuels from corn waste not better than gas
Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration's conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change. A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change ...
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Cleaner energy, warmer climate?
The growing global demand for energy, combined with a need to reduce emissions and lessen the effects of climate change, has increased focus on cleaner energy sources. But what unintended consequences could these cleaner sources have on the changing climate? Researchers at MIT now have some answers to that question, using biofuels as a test case. Their study, recently released in Geophysical ...
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ABB control system helps turn food waste into fuel
2009-08-18 - Small bioethanol plants in Finland are using local food waste to make a low-carbon gasoline and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. ABB’s Extended Automation System 800xA is making it possible. St1 Biofuels Oy is the only bioethanol producer in the world making biofuel from food waste. The originators of the process say the fuel can reduce carbon dioxide ...
By ABB
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Berkeley Lab Science at the Theater: Hope or Hype? What’s next for biofuels?
From the sun to your gas tank: A new breed of biofuels may help solve the global energy challenge and reduce the impact of fossil fuels on global warming. KTVU Channel 2 health and science editor John Fowler will moderate a panel of three Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists who are developing ways to convert the solar energy stored in plants into liquid fuels. http://www.lbl.gov/LBL ...
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European Commission biofuels proposal threatens wetlands and climate goals
The European Commission announced yesterday that it will not consider indirect land use change (ILUC) in sustainability requirements for biofuels. Wetlands International is deeply disappointed. This proposal undermines the objective of EU biofuels policy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While the additional decision to limit the use of food crops as fuel is welcome, the omission of ILUC ...
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Gore says `changing light bulbs` not enough
Climate campaigner Al Gore urged world policymakers on Thursday to change laws 'not just light bulbs' in tackling global warming, and a UN official said world market turmoil must not be allowed to delay action. An annual meeting of world political and business leaders in Davos, Switzerland, this year has scheduled a record number of sessions and workshops on global warming. But a sharp downturn ...
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