In South Africa, Reuters reports that local social enterprise Fetola, WWF, and SkyNRG have teamed up to use $1.4 million in funding from the European Union’s SWITCH Africa Green Program to develop aviation fuel from waste biomass. Called the Waste to Wing program, it aims to find other alternative feedstocks for producing jet fuel in […]
In Germany, Technical University of Munich researchers developed an alternative to traditional insecticides that endanger bees, other beneficial insects, waterways, and soil. The new biodegradable agent keeps pests at bay without poisoning them by using cembratrienol, which is found in tobacco plant leaves. The molecule helps the plant protect itself from pests and acts as […]
Tobacco’s been re-thought, re-engineered and re-invented as a platform for sustainable, low-carbon fuels, and green chemicals – who’s doing what, where and how? From time to time, it’s been said in flowery moments of commercial rapture that such-and-such technology or such-and-such company or is a “pillar of our American democracy”. In the case of the […]
Tyton BioEnergy Systems is manipulating the DNA of standard tobacco to boost its sugar and oil content, allowing the plant to be used as feedstock for both ethanol as well as biodiesel. The company is collaborating with local farmers on test plots to monitor the various production and harvesting methods that will lead to improved use […]
In Virginia, Smithfield Foods’ Hog Production Division, Murphy-Brown, LLC, and Tyton BioEnergy Systems announced today a research partnership to develop new applications for Tyton’s dedicated, non-smoking tobacco crop and the resulting soil amendment, filtration, and feed products within Smithfield’s hog production processes. The two companies are establishing field trials with non-smoking tobacco using hog manure […]
In South Africa, Boeing and South African Airlines announced that South African farmers will soon harvest their first crop of energy-rich tobacco plants, an important step towards using the plants to make sustainable aviation biofuel. Boeing and SAA, along with partners SkyNRG and Sunchem SA, also officially launched Project Solaris, their collaborative effort to develop […]
In California, researchers at the University of California are engineering tobacco plants to produce oils for use as biofuel feedstock. The researchers hope that the results of the three-year, $4.8 million ARPA-E project known as PETRO, Plants Engineered to Replace Oil, will result in oils akin to those produced from algae.
Today on Twitter: jmschroeder: Check out my opinion piece on oil, #ethanol & the RFS. Have I gone to far or not far enough? castagra Clean technology investors shift focus to drilling – As profits from wind, solar, biofuels and other alternatives … anneWallin Tobacco rebranded??? UC researchers are engineering the tobacco plant to produce #biofuels
In North Carolina, researchers from are studying Pyrococcus furiosus, microorganisms that live n the scalding waters of ocean volcanic vents, in an attempt to develop traits that will allow plants to survive in harsher conditions, opening up non-traditional areas as potential land for biofuel feedstock production. Research, which was originally started to develop plants that […]
In California, Berkeley researchers may be able to turn tobacco into a viable biofuel feedstock. The project is looking to develop a strain of the crop which is highly efficient at harvesting sleight and converting carbon dioxide to hydrocarbon molecules. The enzyme involved with the process would be cyanobacteria, already used in many biofuels projects.
