The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia have declared the 2013 renewable fuel standard (RFS) requirements valid. 

The NBB announced the statement after a petroleum industry challenge to the 2013 renewable fuel standard requirements was denied. The case was brought by oil refiner Monroe Energy LLC, arguing that the 2013 renewable fuel standard were invalid. NBB together with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defended the enforcement of the statutory RFS volumes in the advanced biofuel category.

"The court's decision today is only the latest in a long series of cases in which the courts have found that the RFS is a fair and reasonable program for achieving our national energy objectives, including promoting more advanced biofuel such as biodiesel," said Anne Steckel, National Biodiesel Board's vice president of federal affairs.

"The bottom line is that there was more than enough EPA-designated advanced biofuel available last year to meet the standards. The RFS is working, and we strongly encourage the petroleum industry to get on board. There is plenty of room for fossil fuels and renewable fuels in the United States, and consumers will be better off with a choice" added Steckel.

OriginOil Inc. announced its recent agreement to a collaborative exchange of equipment and information with the Catalina Sea Ranch, the first offshore shellfish ranch in U.S. federal waters. OriginOil shall provide Catalina Sea Ranch its Electro Water Separation Algae Model 12 system, a high-speed, chemical-free process to clean up large quantities of water. The Catalina Sea Ranch will use it to treat incoming seawater and harvest algae to feed its shellfish nursery and selective breeding program. In return, it will provide data on the efficiency and use of the machine, and will allow OriginOil access to its nursery for field research.

The operations will be monitored by several institutions specializing in marine ecology and spatial planning which will provide science-based data for evaluating any environmental and social impacts from the 100-acre shellfish ranch.

In January, the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved Catalina Sea Ranch's application for a 100-acre shellfish farm. This was one of the few supportive policy measures for aquaculture enacted by the U.S. state government in recent years.

Biotechnology experts have started to build a one-hectare pilot unit for the production of microalgae in Portugal. The pilot site will include fermentation units, tubular photobioreactors and raceways. This demonstration pilot unit is one of the milestones expected from the Integrated Sustainable Algae (InteSusAl) project, which aims to optimize production of algae by both heterotrophic and phototrophic routes. It will be located in the municipality of Olhão, in southern Portugal.

"InteSusAl's demonstration unit comes in a time of extreme importance to ensure Europe's energy supply security. We are glad that the European Commission is making it possible to demonstrate this new approach to produce microalgae biomass. We hope that our results will attract attention from investors interested in financing a 10-hectare site to produce microalgae in a sustainable manner on an industrial scale" said Neil Hindle, the InteSusAl project coordinator.

The project will be assessed for its sustainability through a life-cycle analysis that will consider both economic and environmental implications. Demonstration trials are expected to begin October.

Soybean leaf-roller (Archips micaceanus), a member of the tortrix moths, has recently been found to cause damage to Jatropha curcas, one of the lead plants in the field of biofuels. Chemical pesticides are effective against the moths and larvae but also affect non-target, beneficial insects. Previously, Bt-derived biological insecticides were proven capable of controlling other totrix moths on other crops. The effectiveness of Bt on the other tortrix moths suggests cry gene may be used to control A. micaceanus on Jatropha plants.

Transgenic Jatropha curcas expressing Cry1Ab/1Ac were generated. The gene was highly expressed in leaves of transgenic Jatropha. Insecticidal bioassays using leaf explants of the transgenes resulted in 80-100% mortality of A. micaceanus larvae, 4 days after infestation. These results reveal the effectiveness of the Cry1Ab/1Ac protein expressed in Jatropha curcas in controlling the activity to A. micaceanus. The generated transgenic J. curcas line can now be used for breeding of insect resistance to totrix moths.

Wood-based bio-oil holds great promise as a source of low-carbon biofuel with less sulfur and nitrogen oxides. However, converting these bio-oils into more highly refined products is faced with many challenges. In-depth knowledge and research on the chemical composition of bio-oils are imperative to address these challenges. High-resolution mass spectrometry is an advanced analytical technique that could very well be the tool for chemical composition analysis for these bio-oils, as revealed in a recent research funded by the Academy of Finland.

Bio-oil is produced through a process known as pyrolysis, which involves heating biomass in the absence of oxygen at a high temperature. The research team has already studied bio-oils from biomass sources such as pine, birch and willow. A high-resolution mass spectrometry technique, the Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) was found to be very effective in identifying wood extracts, such as fatty and resin acids as well as degradation products of sugars and lignin. It also captures how the bio-oils from biomass sources transform throughout the refining process.

Professor Janne Jänishe of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Eastern Finland explained that knowledge of the chemical composition of these bio-oils would make it easier to upgrade them in the future.

Cellulose, the most abundant biomass, is valuable to the production of biofuels. However, the plant cell walls, which contain the cellulose, are physically strong and biochemically stable. Previous studies have tried to solve this problem including the utilization of rice gene EXG1, which encodes exo-glucanase. The gene was overexpressed resulting in enhanced saccharification ability of the rice straws. However, there were also various developmental defects present due to the modified cell wall.

For the study, the same EXG1 gene was expressed in transgenic plants but was under the control of the STAY GREEN (SGR), a senescence-inducible promoter. The transgenic plants showed enhanced saccharification efficiencies after senescence. Meanwhile, no significant difference was observed on saccharification efficiencies before senescence. Neither morphological abnormality nor sterility were present in the EXG1-expressing transgenic plants.

These results indicate that expression of cell wall degrading enzymes such as cellulase through a senescence-inducible promoter is capable of enhancing the saccharification ability of biomass without affecting plant growth.