The Morning Briefing: The Biofuels Boom

"The Morning Briefing" is SmartPlanet's daily roundup of must-reads from the web. This morning we're reading about the expansion of the biofuels industry.

1.) What’s the Buzz? Inside the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference. 560 advanced biofuels delegates, including 120 C-level executives, meet and discuss their perspectives.

2.) Intensive 3-crop rotation may boost biofuel economics. According to trials led by Dan Chellemi, a research plant pathologist with the Agricultural Research Service in Ft. Pierce, adding in a legume cover crop and another short-season oilseed crop to a rotation improves quality and may make financial sense.

3.) First commercial biofuels flight in Australia begin. The Qantas flight from Sydney has been partly run on refined cooking oil imported from the United States. The fuel cost of the flight is at least four times higher than it would normally be, but Qantas says it isn't passing it on to passengers.

4.) Brazil's Biofuel Boom. Mark McHugh, president and CEO of consultancy firm CenAm Energy Partners SA, assesses the current biofuel industry from his base in Brazil, the seat of the growing industry. He explains why specialized energy feedstocks are the solution to current technological and political growth constraints, predicting that biofuel investment returns may rival historic fossil fuel profit ratios.

5.) Genes from undersea creature may help crops prosper. Single-celled Pyrococcus furiosus is part of a study to determine whether plants can be modified to survive in space, or produce hardier crops and better biofuels in stressful environments here on Earth.

Image credit: Flickr

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com