Honeywell Developing Biofuel Refinery For USAF.

The Dayton (OH) Business Journal (9/22, Cogliano) reported, "A division of Honeywell International Inc. is being tapped by the US Air Force to expand the domestic supply of biofuels." The division will "help create an economically viable refinery for what's known as advanced drop-in biofuels" that can be used by planes without any modifications. The article noted this comes as the Air Force also announced the Assured Aerospace Fuels Research Facility that "is being billed as a highly-versatile, cutting edge facility designed to help fill a much-needed gap in the fuel research effort, allowing government, industry and academia researchers to produce the optimum quantities of fuel needed to perform laboratory research without resorting to full-scale production efforts."

USDA announces sixth grant to develop advanced biofuels.

(H. Jessen, EthanolProducer, 10/18/12) Switchgrass is one of the three biomass crops that will be studied in the course of a $10 million, five-year research project in the Northeast. The USDA announced a five-year, $10 million grant has been awarded to research shrub willow, switchgrass and miscanthus grown on marginal and abandoned lands, such as reclaimed mine sites, in the Northeast. This is the sixth grant awarded through USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, which is working to develop regional renewable energy markets to create jobs and reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. Five other regional systems were previously formed in the Pacific Northwest, the Northwest, Northern states, Southern states, and the Southeast. “This will basically complete our efforts in every corner of the country as part of our overall effort to promote biofuel, both in terms of automobiles and truck transportation as well as aviation and marine fuel,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack during an Oct. 16 conference call...