Ordinance outlaws Styrofoam The Oakland City Council voted early Wednesday morning to ban restaurants and other food vendors from using polystyrene foam -- more commonly known as Styrofoam -- containers in the city by 2007. Full article Canada: Biobased polymer fiber outfits romp in fashion show Renowned designers Oscar de la Renta, Stephen Burrows, Elisa Jimenez and others created some unique outfits and demonstrated in a fashion show held in conjunction with a major Biomass conference. Natureworks, a subsidiary of US-based agribusiness giant Cargill Inc, is the first company to use biodegradable polymers produced from renewable resources for commercial products and has branded its PLA fiber as Ingeo. Full article EPRI Launches Research on Biomass Fuel Electricity Generation The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) launched a project to research biomass as a renewable fuel for electricity generation and identify its key research needs, focusing on economic assessment, biomass crop and carbon accounting, biomass combustion and gasification technology. Full article Plankton could be key source of biofuel A Spanish company claims it is on the verge of producing an inexhaustible source of biofuel by using phytoplankton as a raw material. Bio Fuel Systems, based in Alicante, has been researching the potential of breeding the tiny sea-borne plants, extracting oil from vat-grown plankton. Full article Biofuels looking more feasible IMPERIAL, Neb. - Just outside this town in the middle of the great American prairie, 37 miles from the nearest traffic light, stands a huge pile of cornstalks and leaves. It looks like a 35-foot mountain of yard trash, yet black cables snake into the pile, attached to sensors that monitor its vital statistics by the minute. Full article