The announcement, which opens a 45-day feedback period, sets standards under the country’s landmark Renewable Fuel Standard programme. That 1997 legislation established long-term goals for alternative fuel use – 36 billion gallons a year by 2022 – for which the EPA is mandated to set yearly requirements for the country’s petroleum importers and refiners.

By 2013, the 1997 bill states, the U.S. was to be using a billion gallons of cellulosic biofuel. The EPA’s announcement of just 14 million gallons would thus leave a massive shortfall – and even this lower figure could be a stretch.

[…]

Still, the EPA’s new moves have been strongly backed by the biofuels industry.

"The cellulosic biofuels industry is just breaking through at commercial scale," Brooke Coleman, executive director of the Advanced Ethanol Council, a trade group, said in a statement, noting that the EPA had gotten the related standards "just right". "The volume standards proposed … will continue to provide advanced biofuel investors and innovators with a predictable and durable path forward in that effort."

It appears that Biofuel stocks are prepared for a rebound and run up after the EPA proposal was revealed by Congress, read more here… DT

Here are eight reasons you should never put all your social networking eggs in one basket:

1. Content Ownership

Most social network users think that they own the content they post on sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but that isn’t really the case. […]

3. Copyright Violations

If copyright issues are a concern for you, you’re not alone, as most people are in violation of some social network policy they could get theoretically banned […]

4. Constantly Changing Algorithms

Social networks like Facebook use algorithms to help determine what content users see. The evolution of Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm is a great example of fundamental changes to a social network that can upset and confuse a user base. […]

7. Acquisitions

Acquisitions are another great reason to be wary of spending too much time and effort on any social network, especially smaller ones. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google are known to make auqui-hires which are acquisitions of smaller startups for their products and team. […]

The State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) is running the smart-grid project using passive optical networking (PON) technology—a high-bandwidth data wiring that can be run inside electric power cables without interference. Around 86,000 premises in China have so far been connected to the grid; if the project goes nationwide, it would cost around $2 billion to deploy.

China’s nascent smart grid could help spur development of the underlying technology. “This is the largest utility company in the world, covering most of China, so it could potentially have a huge influence on the opportunities for equipment and component vendors,” says Julie Kunstler. […]

Some academics have also voiced skepticism that the approach could work in the United States. Michael Caramanis, a professor in Boston University’s College of Engineering, says the synergy between fiber and smart grids is debatable. […]

UCLA’s Gadh is more optimistic, however. Despite the different market conditions in the U.S., he believes utilities there may benefit from observing the SGCC pilot—although it would be down to each individual company to decide whether to follow suit. […]