A recent report found the land resources in the U.S. are capable of producing a sustainable supply of 1.3 billion tons per year of biomass, and that 1 billion tons of biomass would be sufficient to displace 30 percent or more of the country's present petroleum consumption.

Currently, Iogen Corporation in Ottawa, Canada produces just over a million gallons annually of cellulose ethanol from wheat, oat and barley straw in their demonstration facility.

For More

Those high costs have thus far limited expansion of cellulosic technology beyond the demonstration phase, but an injection of government funding has sped the process in recent months.

The U.S. Department of Energy rolled out about $1.1 billion in funds to research bioenergy and build six commercial-scale biorefineries to help achieve the goal of increasing renewable fuels use to 36 billion gallons over the next 15 years.

Some or all of those six plants should be up and running in about two years.

For More

The partnership represents a rare foray by a major automaker into the production side of non-fossil fuels as GM and its rivals, under pressure from tougher U.S. fuel-efficiency standards, pursue a mix of fuel-efficient vehicles and technologies.

If all the flex-fuel vehicles produced by GM, Ford and Chrysler, plus those the companies have committed to producing by 2010, were to run on ethanol, they would displace 29 billion gallons of gasoline annually, or 18 percent of the projected petroleum usage at that time, Wagoner said.

For More

Ferrari said Monday it developed an engine for an F430 Spider to run on E85, an 85% ethanol blend. The automaker said it produces 5 percent less carbon dioxide emissions and boosts horsepower by 10 percent.

It didn't say how fuel consumption changed. Ferrari's goal is to cut emissions by 40% by 2012.

For More

Car engines have also shown they tolerate more butanol in the gasoline mix than ethanol, Connelly said.

For More

The “flex-fuel” vehicles work on any mixture or combination of ethanol and gasoline, so that a motorist can literally put some gasoline in the tank, and later add any quantity of ethanol to the same tank.

In 2006, 80% of light vehicle sales in Brazil were “flex-fuel”. For this basic reason, Brazil has now become self sufficient for its energy needs, with sugar-based ethanol providing 40% of its automotive fuel needs, or 20% of its total energy needs.

For More

And made it our mission to become inventors on behalf of the most important client ever: our planet.

What we discovered was this: energy alternatives to fossil fuels are right under our feet. By looking deeper into nature's abundance, we discovered that plants, grasses, corn stalks, wood chips, and more can be turned into clean fuel. Even more encouraging, waste products – material left to decay and be buried in our land today – can be recycled into fuel tomorrow. Our new fuel is innovative. Eco-friendly. Sustainable.

For More

The US first celluosic plant