• Jet Biofuel Ready for Takeoff. At the Paris Airshow, SkyNRG declared that it's poised to supply airlines with green biofuel. The first commercial flights using the fuel are expected this summer, according to SkyNRG, which didn't say when exactly, list the clients that have signed on for the fuel, or identify its feedstocks.

But in a separate announcement, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines said it's planning more than 200 flights between Amsterdam and Paris starting in September and using eco-friendly jet fuel that is supplied by SkyNRG and made from recycled cooking oil.

• A New Flavor of Texas Tea? KiOR, the advanced biofuel firm in Texas backed by cleantech investor Vinod Khosla, raised $150 million in an initial public offering yesterday. That's 30 percent less than expected for the company, which announced this week that former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice will be joining its board of directors. However, KiOR now has a $1.49 billion valuation as a pre-revenue company. "Giddy times, or is the IPO window closing?"  asks JIm Lane in his news analysis that posted today in Biofuels Digest.

• Throwing Down a Green Gauntlet to Gucci. On the occasion of Gucci's 90th birthday, Solitaire Townsend, cofounder of Futerra Sustainability Communications, called on the Milan fashion house to make sustainability the new must-have status symbol. Townsend's latest letter to a brand leader, which imagines Gucci transforming consumerism by "selling" sustainability, can be found in the Guardian.

• Do the Crime, Serve the Time. The former owner and operator of the Equitable Building in Iowa was sentenced 41 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $12,700 in fines and fees for conspiring to violate the U.S. Clean Air Act and violating the act's work practice standards for asbestos. Bobby Joe Knapp pleaded guilty to the charges that stemmed from improper removal and disposal of asbestos in the building. After serving his sentence, Knapp is to remain on supervised release for two years and perform 300 hours of community service work. More details on the case are available from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

• Save the Liver! The EPA awarded almost $3 million to four academic institutions to improve the understanding of how the liver responds to toxics in the environment. The EPA met with the recipient schools -- the Hamner Institute in North Carolina, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Indiana University, and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University  (Virginia Tech) -- this week.

• EPEAT Logo Gets a Facelift. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, better known as EPEAT, has a new slim profile and a brighter green look -- and its website got an overhaul, too.

The new logo is pictured left. The old one, which looks like part of a light socket, is here:

• Taiwan Toxics Scare, Take 2. The plasticizer contamination of food, drinks and pharmaceuticals that's fueled the removal of more than 900 products from store shelves in Taiwan could poison the upcoming presidential election for the incumbent, according to the Economist. Public perception of President Ma Ying-jeou's competence has taken a hit because of "his government’s slow and muddled response" to the crisis, the magazine said.

Plasticizers, which are typically used to make non-edible products flexible, were used as fixative agents in food. One of the plasticizer chemicals that's suspected of being used, DEHP, is a possible carcinogen. Forty-thousand shops in the country have pulled items from shelves as a result of contamination fears, and businesses in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and the Philippines have done the same.

Top image by Capital Photos for KLM. Insets CC licensed by Flickr user Krysten Newby and via www.epeat.net.