News has arrived from Washington that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is investing up to $2.8 billion in 70 projects under the first pool of the Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities funding opportunity. It’s become the US Department of Action, as it turns out, the grand ol’ USDA. Big wins for industrials include: $5M for Scaling Up the […]
In Denmark, the Carlsberg Group has announced the launch its new environmental, social and governance (ESG) program, which includes a roadmap to achieve net zero carbon emissions across its entire value chain by 2040. The new program, dubbed TTZAB is an evolution of the Group’s previous ESG program Together Towards ZERO (TTZ), which ha achieved […]
The U.S. Navy is up to something fishy – hagfish that is. Researchers are evaluating the use of hagfish slime – a unique goo that can swell to 10,000 times its original size – to clog the propellors of enemy ships. And in London, a materials innovation partnership developed a technique to turn the shells […]
In Ohio, a team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Ohio State University (OSU) scientists has devised a procedure for making bio-butanol from sweet sorghum bagasse. Bio-butanol derived from cellulosic sugars in agricultural wastes is appealing because of its potential to lessen the reliance on gasoline and other nonrenewable fuels. Bio-butanol, along with ethanol, is […]
In the United Kingdom, Britain’s cow-dung, left-over food and household sewage will produce enough green gas to heat over three-quarters of a million homes this winter, according to data released by Energy Networks Association as part of its first ever annual Britain’s Green Gas Scoreboard. Britain’s Green Gas Scoreboard also shows that a total of […]
In Iowa, the U.S. Grains Council is holding its annual meeting in person in Des Moines, Iowa, and online, for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic and was joined by U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary in the Biden Administration, Tom Vilsack, who addressed meeting attendees about the future of U.S. agricultural trade. […]
In Washington, D.C., the U.S. Grains Council’s new and improved, free grains and ethanol conversion calculator app helps customers and members quickly and conveniently convert grain data between English and metric units. The app – called the “USGC Conversion Calculator” – provides conversions for U.S. barley, corn, sorghum and related products, including distiller’s dried grains […]
In Mexico, summer beer mainstay Corona is testing a six-pack holder made of recycled wood fibers and barley straw. The popular beer, whose tagline “Find your beach” invokes its branding as summertime suds, says barley straw on its own was too fragile to hold the beers. A “unique” pulping process and the addition of wood […]
Under development down under is lab-cultured yak, kangaroo meat, lion and tortoise, which apparently people eat, but now can do so without feeling guilty with the new cell-based meat replacements. Also saving the animals are material chemists that developed vegan leather made from fungal biomass. And a Swiss firm that launched biobased barrier coatings (made […]
In Germany, Trebodur has developed a biodegradable packaging material from brewery waste. Specifically, creators Niko and Tillmann found that brewers’ spent grains—the residue left over from barley malt during the lautering step of beer-making—contain self-binding fiber, which they dubbed “mabeerial.” Mabeerial can replace paper and plastic packaging in single-use items such as plates and cutlery. […]
