Biofuel producers are always looking for low carbon intensity feedstocks. Corn stover (the waste from harvested corn) is typical, but harvesting is seasonal. Jeffrey Wolf at NREL explains how research has led to the development of XanoGrass. It is a perennial, so can be harvested all year round. It can be grown on marginal or even “unfarmable” lands, so existing food crops won’t be displaced. No special farming equipment is needed, so existing … [Read more...]
UCO (Used Cooking Oil) for biofuels: how much is fraudulently imported virgin vegetable oil?
UCO (Used Cooking Oil) is a feedstock for biofuels. In 2023, European countries consumed close to seven million tonnes of UCO for biofuels. This is four times the continent’s maximum potential for supplying it domestically, so the rest comes from imports, mostly from China, Malaysia and Indonesia. The vast majority is blended for biodiesel to use in cars and trucks. UCO accounted for one third of conventional biodiesel feedstocks and a quarter of … [Read more...]
Biofuel is approaching a feedstock crunch. How bad? And what must be done?
The IEA is warning that biodiesel, renewable diesel and biojet fuel producers are heading for a feedstock supply crunch over the next five years. Rising prices are the signal to seek out new supplies and solutions, which should – and are - driving the development of government programmes and industry innovation. Here, the IEA lays out their projections for 2022-2027, covering all the main feedstocks: sugars, maize, soy oil, rapeseed oil, palm … [Read more...]
Who will be the Hydrogen superpower? The EU or China
Implicit in the EU’s plans, announced in July, to be the world’s Hydrogen leader is that this technology will have others competing for the top spot too. When EU nations ramped up their solar PV sector in the 2000s they couldn’t survive the arrival and rapid expansion of Chinese production. Will EU Hydrogen meet the same fate? Sören Amelang at CLEW speaks to a wide range of experts to try to answer this vital question from all the relevant … [Read more...]
An EU Hydrogen strategy: from industry feedstock to energy vector
The bravest recovery strategies will invest robustly in new yet-to-take-off clean energy technologies. If you are going to have to spend hundreds of billions to revive your economy isn’t it better to replace the old with the new rather than prop up what you’ll have to abandon soon anyway? In anticipation of that happening, new technologies are lining up. Here, CĂ©dric Philibert at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate summarises their detailed … [Read more...]
![](https://energypost.eu/wp-content/themes/dynamik-gen/images/content-filler.png)