These are the top ten renewable energy contenders as determined by renewablejetfuels.org.

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Indirect land use change, or ILUC, dictates that the conversion of land into farms for biofuel crops must account for its carbon emissions-and the policy is dividing the EU.

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Biomass energy has been around since long before anyone spoke of renewables or alternative energy sources. There was a time when wood was the primary fuel for heating and cooking, and it is still used that way today, though in much fewer locations in countries like ours. While biomass seems compelling at first blush, given that it is renewable and can be domestically produced, there are a number of drawbacks that make it far from a perfect solution.

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Last week, President Obama laid out an ambitious plan to channel scientific innovation into economic growth, called the National Bioeconomy Blueprint. The Blueprint is heavily focused on “green” chemistry, and that’s good news for companies, investors, and workers that are involved in biofuels, bioplastics and other products based on sustainable alternatives to petroleum. However, that [...]

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Two companies may have found a solution, creating drop-in jet fuel from biomass. Not only have the companies created the jet fuel, but the fuel has also passed rigorous military testing.

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Bill Gates is dedicating an increasing amount of time and resources in pursuit of clean energy solutions. His goal is to get the world’s emissions to zero within 75 years.

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The high demand for cotton might actually be a contributing factor to food shortages and might be a threat to future food security.

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Emerging markets for environmental financial investment and trading continue to attract significant global investment interest from untraditional investment sources. The clean energy market is large, growing and global with higher rates of market acceptance than anyone anticipated.

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News out of Washington at year-end included an announcement from the Department of Energy (DOE) concerning a breakthrough at the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in which scientists have developed a methodology for creating “RNA machines” which can be used to enhance or express certain characteristics in a living organism. This new capability is initially being [...]

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The United States Navy will use a biofuel blend to fuel both aircraft and warship during a Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, the globe’s largest naval war games, next year near Hawaii.

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Hawai’i’s agricultural system makes an interesting case study in the debate of food versus fuel in agricultural lands. Hawai’i has a tropical climate suited for growing in all seasons, and multiple crops in one year can be rotated in and out of arable land. The challenge, and it’s sort of a microcosm of what’s happening [...]

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The Healthy Food, Healthy Planet summit, hosted by The National Journal and the Barilla Center for Food and Nutrition, brought together speakers and panelists to discuss healthy eating, lack of access to healthy food, obesity, biofuels, and the agricultural industry. Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Tom Vilsack was the keynote speaker and [...]

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Early so-called 1st generation biofuels are made by fermenting food products (e.g. grains, seeds, sugars) into short-chain alcohols (e.g. ethanol, butanol) or transesterifying plant oils into biodiesel.  Production of these fuels competes with food crops for land, reduces biodiversity, and, in the case of natural plant oils, feedstock is increasingly scarce.

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The Blue Angels wowed visitors Labor Day weekend with their pilots’ stunts at the Patuxent Naval Air Station in southern Maryland over the weekend-in part thanks to biofuels

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Last week a groundbreaking ceremony was held for what the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) describes as the nation’s first large scale CCS facility plant.

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President Obama made a group of announcements related to biofuel policy on his bus tour through the Midwest this summer, with the aim of boosting the nation’s biofuel production while helping rural communities create new jobs and build a sustainable economy.  Now another piece of the rural sustainability puzzle is falling into place, with the [...]

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REN21′s “Renewables 2011″ Global Status Report is a remarkable one, particularly in light of the lasting effects of the “Great Recession” and all that took place in 2010. The REN21 report shows that renewable energy growth was strong last year. Renewable resources wound up supplying 16% of global final energy consumption and showed strong growth [...]

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Airlines won final approval from a U.S.-based technical-standards group to power their planes with a blend made from traditional kerosene and biofuels derived from inedible plants and organic waste.

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Florida’s Eco Ventures Group is building a family of businesses management says is grounded in Triple Bottom Line principles, including recovering of precious, rare earth and industry metals; producing advanced biofuels from recovered and virgin oils and animals fats; and growing tropical oilseeds using sustainable methods that protect the environment.

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An unlikely marriage of algae and coal-plants could become a reality through a company called OriginOil. The company helps algae growers with the incredibly difficult process of extracting oil from their product for commercial use. It is bringing together dirty coal and green algae as part of a carbon capture project at a coal plant in Australia [...]

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The Montreal-based company, Enerkem bills itself as a “leading waste to biofuels and chemicals company” that “manufactures, owns and operates community-based advanced biorefineries.” Big talk from a company I’ve never heard of until today. However, Enerkem lives up to the hype. The company, founded in 2000, converts waste like non-recyclable municipal solid waste (MSW) into [...]

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Mercurius Biofuels is a start-up based in Ferndale, WA, north of Seattle and close to the British Columbia border. The company uses two fuel processing techniques that can convert wood and other plant-based materials into biodiesel.

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Biofuels got off to a rocky start in the U.S. several years ago with an unfortunate emphasis on corn ethanol and other food crops. Now attention has shifted to more sustainable, non-food biofuel feedstocks including weeds, grasses and trees.  Non-food biofuel croplands could be sited in relatively remote or underused areas, and some could double [...]

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Working with landscape architect Ken Smith, Planters will build urban parks, or Planters Groves, in four American cities this year with more in the pipeline for 2012 in beyond.

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By Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT In previous posts, I have written about climate capitalists generating carbon offsets, and climate capitalists pursuing opportunities across three generations of biofuels.  There was significant interest in both topics that I thought I should write about the potential for integrating carbon offsets with biofuels.  This Wednesday, from 4-5 Pacific Time, [...]

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By: Boyd Cohen, CO2 IMPACT Our “addiction” to highly polluting and emitting fossil fuels presents serious challenges to achieving meaningful reductions in greenhouse gases (GHGs) in North America. Beyond that, the BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China continue to grow and contribute to our unsustainable path. China even recently surpassed the U.S. as [...]

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by Jennifer Chin Most of us don’t think twice about air travel. We hop on flights that take us to the next state, across the country, and around the world because our jobs and vacation plans demand it. The FAA estimates that air passengers traveled 771,100,000,000 miles last year alone. But all this air travel [...]

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The Bio-Bug for now is a flex-fuel 2-liter Volkswagen Beetle convertible that the GENeco’s engineers, based in the UK, modified to run on conventional gasoline.

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Freedom Environmental Services of Orlando, Florida, has agreed to deliver as much as 12,000 gallons of yellow grease to Pristine BioDiesel, a new startup firm. Under the agreement, Pristine will pay Freedom $1.75 per gallon of grease, which in turn Pristine will refine into biodiesel.

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Late last week BP Biofuels agreed to buy Verenium Corporation, a producer of high-performance enzymes for use in industrial processes, including cellulosic biofuel production. The transaction, valued at US$98.3 million, gives BP control of Verenium’s biofuels facilities in southwest Louisiana and San Diego, and in turn provides Verenium with cash to grow its commercial enzyme business. According to BP Biofuel’s CEO, the Verenium transaction bolsters BP’s position as a leader in the biofuels market with an integrated end-to-end capability, from the initial research and development to distribution and blending.

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