Ceres Expands Product Development Activities in Mexico

PRNewswire
SOURCE Ceres, Inc.
May 5, 2014


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Ceres issues Q3 financial results, Brazilian update

Biomass Magazine

By Erin Voegele | July 18, 2013

 

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Study successfully integrates sweet sorghum juice in corn mash

Ethanol Producer Magazine

By Sorghum Checkoff | May 09, 2013

 

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Ceres reports loss for Q2, headed for harvests

Biofuels Digest

Isabel Lane | April 15, 2013

 

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Biofuels Digest

Delta BioRenewables proves viable corn supplement in sweet sorghum


Meghan Sapp
December 31, 2012   Read more

Companies advance sweet sorghum as ethanol feedstock in Brazil

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Holly Jessen
November 28, 2012

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Sweet Sorghum Leading Southern Bioenergy Crop

DomesticFuel.com
Posted by Joanna Schroeder – September 24th, 2012

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Ceres releases Q3 results, provides project updates

Ethanol Producer Magazine
By Erin Voegele
July 19, 2012

California-based Ceres Inc. recently announced financial results for the third quarter 2012, which ended on May 31. As part of the release, the company also provided an update on its operations, including its business in Brazil.

According to Ceres, ethanol mills in Brazil have now completed their second season of commercial-scale evaluations of its sweet sorghum hybrids. Ceres states that the crops were successfully grown, harvested and processed into ethanol despite severe drought conditions during the growing season.

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Purdue University Researchers and Partners Say Sorghum Should Be in The Mix as Biofuel Crop

Biofuels Journal
Date Posted: June 20, 2012

West Lafayette, IN—Sweet and biomass sorghum would meet the need for next-generation biofuels to be environmentally sustainable, easily adopted by producers and take advantage of existing agricultural infrastructure, a group of researchers led by Purdue University scientists believes.

The scientists from Purdue, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Illinois and Cornell University believe sorghum, a grain crop similar to corn, could benefit from the rail system, grain elevators and corn ethanol processing facilities already in place.

Their perspective article is published early online in the journal Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining.

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Ceres Sweet Sorghum Hybrids Processed by Amyris

The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch
May 3, 2012, 8:30 a.m. EDT

Pilot project validates U.S.-produced sweet sorghum as a potential feedstock for advanced biofuels and bio-products.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., May 03, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- --Conversion efficiency of sweet sorghum sugars were similar to sugarcane.

Energy crop company Ceres, Inc. /quotes/zigman/8673708/quotes/nls/cere CERE -4.80% today announced its improved sweet sorghum hybrids were successfully processed into renewable diesel by Amyris, Inc. /quotes/zigman/117914/quotes/nls/amrs AMRS -6.36% under a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) grant. Amyris is expected to present a summary of the results this afternoon at the 34th Symposium on Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The pilot-scale project evaluated both sugars and biomass from Ceres' sweet sorghum hybrids grown in Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana and Tennessee. To process the sugars that accumulate in the plants, known as free or soluble sugars, the sorghum juice was first extracted from the stems and concentrated into sugar syrup by Ceres. The syrup was then processed by Amyris at its California pilot facility using its proprietary yeast fermentation system that converts plant sugars into its trademarked product, Biofene, a renewable hydrocarbon commonly known as farnesene, which can be readily processed into renewable fuels and chemicals.

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UF-led research team selected for $125 million joint U.S.-India energy project

University of Florida News Release
Friday, April 20, 2012

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A University of Florida-led research team has been selected to participate in a five-year, $125 million energy project involving the United States and India, U.S. Department of Energy officials have announced.

Known as the Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center, or JCERDC, the project is aimed at reducing energy consumption, cutting dependence on petroleum products and increasing use of renewable fuels.

The UF-led team will develop biofuels derived from inedible plant material. Two other research teams, led by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will focus on solar energy and energy efficiency of buildings, respectively.

Total funding for the biofuels project is about $21 million, including about $2.7 million in federal funding destined for UF.

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Monsanto Sorghum Seeds to Yield Brazil Ethanol During Cane Break

Bloomberg BusinessWeek
October 14, 2011, 4:25 PM EDT
By Stephan Nielsen


Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company, will sell enough sweet sorghum for 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of plantations in Brazil this year as sugar cane mills struggle to meet demand for ethanol and are seeking an alternative source of the renewable fuel.

The plantations may generate enough sorghum to produce 80 million liters (21.1 million gallons) of ethanol, said Jose Carramate, St. Louis-based Monsanto’s sugar cane leader.

Sweet sorghum, an 8-foot (2.4-meter) plant that resembles sugar cane and may yield 80 percent as much fuel, may become an alternative feedstock for Brazilian mills after a poor cane harvest forced some plants to close this month, more than a month early, for the annual inter-harvest break during the rainy season.

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Dedini Developing Machinery to Convert Sweet Sorghum to Ethanol

Bloomberg
By Stephan Nielsen - May 6, 2011 5:00 AM CT

Dedini SA Industrias de Base, a Brazilian maker of ethanol-production machinery, is developing systems that will process sweet sorghum into renewable fuel, as an alternative to the widely used used sugar cane.

The company is in talks with eight developers about buying a sorghum-processing mill it plans to build by 2013. It also expects to sign by April a contract to add equipment to handle the alternative feedstock at an existing cane mill, Jose Luiz Oliverio, vice president of technology and development at Piracicaba-based Dedini, said in a telephone interview yesterday.

Sorghum can be harvested in the first three months of the year, the rainy season when sugar-cane harvesting typically shuts down, ethanol supplies wane and prices surge.

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UNL researchers optimize sweet sorghum for bioenergy feedstock

Biomass Power & Thermal By Erin Voegele April 08, 2011

Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln have made impressive strides in their work to optimize sweet sorghum for use as a bioenergy feedstock. According to UNL associate professor Ismail Dweikat, at least two hybrid strains of the crop developed by his team will be entering the market next year. In addition, work is continuing to develop cold-tolerant and nitrogen-efficient strains of sweet sorghum.

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Chromatin’s Sorghum Hybrids Top in Biomass Yield, Energy and Sugar Content

Business Wire
February 15, 2011 11:17 AM Eastern Time

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today Chromatin, Inc., announced that its sorghum hybrids showed top performance in its 2010 biomass and sugar testing programs when compared to other materials from public, private, and commercial sorghum collections.

In the first trial, 50 biomass sorghum entries were planted in 4 replicate plots and tested for total yield, moisture, energy, and ash content. In a similar, second trial, Chromatin tested 50 types of sweet sorghum, measuring total biomass yield and fermentable carbohydrate in harvested juice.

The results from these studies indicate that Chromatin’s entries provided the 3 top-yielding biomass sorghum hybrids, and among this group are hybrids with very high BTU (British Thermal Units, or energy) content, low ash content and low moisture retention. In addition, a number of Chromatin’s sorghum materials generated more fermentable sugar per acre than most of the competitors.

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Clean Energy Capital to develop first commercial-scale sugarcane ethanol plant in US

FavStocks.com
By Green Car Congress on 11/06/2010 – 5:10 am PDT

Clean Energy Capital LLC, a US private equity firm specializing solely in investments in ethanol, is developing the first major sugarcane ethanol refinery in the continental United States, in the Imperial Valley of California.

The ethanol produced there will meet California’s low carbon fuel standard. The project will cost $575 million and produce 66 million gallons of ethanol annually, enough electricity to meet the needs of 35,000 homes, and enough biomethane to heat 10,000 homes per year. Sweet sorghum, which has similar characteristics to sugarcane, will also be used.

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Researchers test sweet sorghums for best ethanol production

Media Newswire

(Media-Newswire.com) - AMARILLO - The continued demand for cleaner-burning fuels has Texas AgriLife Extension Service and Texas AgriLife Research specialists working to determine which varieties of sweet sorghum will produce the most ethanol.

Dr. Brent Bean, an agronomist with AgriLife Extension and AgriLife Research, recently harvested sweet sorghum plots grown at the AgriLife Research farm near Bushland. Bean's plots are a part of a federal Sun Grant project examining the production of biofuels.

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Zero Discharge Sweet Sorghum Ethanol Process Development

PRNewswire.com

CINCINNATI, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- AdvanceBio LLC, a Cincinnati-based advanced biofuel technology company, today announced the development of its next generation, sugar-based fuel ethanol process.

The process is capable of utilizing sugars derived from sugar cane, sweet sorghum, sugar beet and other similar crops as feedstock for the production of fuel ethanol and green power while generating zero liquid waste.

When built in conjunction with the sugar milling operation, plants employing AdvanceBio's sugar-based ethanol process will have the same, low-greenhouse gas footprint found in Brazil's existing cane-based fuel ethanol industry. "The facilities will be extremely self-sufficient. In addition to eliminating costs associated with outside sources of fossil fuels, power and process water, our technology eliminates the need for extensive waste treatment processes and the cost of transporting large volumes of liquid vinasse back to the cane fields. These ethanol production facilities will also meet stringent U.S. pollution and occupational safety regulations," said Dale Monceaux, Principal.

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Ceres Opens Brazil Subsidiary To Develop Sweet Sorghum Crop Business

favStocks.com
By Green Car Congress on 08/22/2010 – 4:35 am PDT

Ceres, Inc. earlier this month established a subsidiary in Brasil focused on developing sweet sorghum as a feedstock for the ethanol industry. The company’s goal is to be the first supplier of new hybrids with high levels of sugar.

Ceres Chief Financial Officer Paul Kuc has been appointed as the interim leader of the subsidiary, which will be based in São Paulo under the name Ceres Sementes do Brasil Ltda. Earlier in his career, Kuc spent several years leading the Brazilian financial unit of a large multinational seed company.

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Palm Oil is the Most Sustainable Crop: Wageningen University Report

SolomonStarNews.com
Monday, 29 March 2010 13:41

Wageningen University in the Netherlands publishes research which shows that “palm oil is the most efficient energy crop.”

The report which was published in Biomass and Bioenergy, found that palm oil, sugar cane from Brazil and sweet sorghum from China are currently the most sustainable energy crops.

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