Author Archive: Jim Lane

rss feed

Oil’s relentless price climb brings advanced biofuels back in vogue

Oil’s relentless price climb brings advanced biofuels back in vogue

August 9, 2018 |

For several years now we have seen a significant number of players pivoting from biofuels towards smaller but higher-value markets in chemicals, nutrition,  nutraceuticals, pharma, materials, flavorings, fragrances, cosmetics and more. We’ve reported on the proliferation of applications both in the Digest and in What’s Nuu? and indeed there’s been so much that’s Nuu, it’s […]

Read More

On the rise: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Biogas, its markets and production and treatment technologies

On the rise: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Biogas, its markets and production and treatment technologies

August 8, 2018 |

What’s up with biogas? The U.S. market has lagged in the development of biogas facilities because of the low cost of electricity, natural gas and vehicle fuels derived from petroleum. The passing of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 as well as the need for an MTBE […]

Read More

100% carbon to products: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to White Dog Labs

100% carbon to products: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to White Dog Labs

August 7, 2018 |

US-based White Dog Labs have developed a new process that eliminates the production of CO2, a potent greenhouse gas, during fermentation and instead shifts the carbon to added ethanol production, boosting fermentation yields by around 50 percent. The by-products are distillers grains, corn oil (if extracted from the grains) and water. The process can boost […]

Read More

Cannabis, canola, solids, hog fuel, wheat: what’s new with food and feedstocks?

Cannabis, canola, solids, hog fuel, wheat: what’s new with food and feedstocks?

August 7, 2018 |

We eat it, we wear it, we burn it, we glue it, we live in it and more. Feedstock that is — crops and residues of the municipal, industrial, agricultural and forest type. We’ve been reporting all the innovations in making new stuff from this old stuff. But who’s doing what to make old stuff […]

Read More

Lessons on the Road to GoBig: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to POET-DSM cellulosic ethanol

Lessons on the Road to GoBig: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to POET-DSM cellulosic ethanol

August 6, 2018 |

In November we reported that POET-DSM Advanced Biofuels achieved a major breakthrough in cellulosic biofuels production at its Project LIBERTY plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. The company has solved the critical challenge in pretreatment, overcoming what has been the No. 1 hurdle to commercialization for producers around the world, according to their news release. Project LIBERTY is […]

Read More

Building Commercialization Partnerships: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Green Biologics

Building Commercialization Partnerships: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Green Biologics

August 6, 2018 |

Green Biologics is focused on the production of renewable n-butanol and other C4 chemicals from various renewable feedstocks, including sugar (cane, molasses, beets), starch (corn) and cellulosic biomass (corn residues, sugar cane bagasse, forest materials and grasses). GBL works with feedstock partners to deliver capital efficient production models, and works with downstream partners to deliver […]

Read More

A factory no bigger than a molecule, now producing fuels, chemicals and materials

A factory no bigger than a molecule, now producing fuels, chemicals and materials

August 6, 2018 |

A team from Switzerland has come up with a black box the size of a molecule, and inside that box they can generate the precursors for fuels, pesticides and face creams with astonishing yields and simplicity. Specifically, they are making compounds that within the 50,000-molecule group known as terpenes — and if you’ve smelled a […]

Read More

Montana’s (bio) Materials Maestros: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Blue Marble Biomaterials

Montana’s (bio) Materials Maestros: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Blue Marble Biomaterials

August 5, 2018 |

When it comes to Blue Marble’s coordinates in the bioeconomy star-field, think advanced flavorings made from seemingly impossible materials. Most recently we reported that Missoula’s Masters of Metamorphosis this past summer released a highly sought after U.S. and E.U. Natural version of bacon dithiazine (bacon flavor ingredient) for use in food and beverage applications. Made from […]

Read More

The Top 10 advances in renewable butanol: what’s speeding up, where are the slow-downs?

The Top 10 advances in renewable butanol: what’s speeding up, where are the slow-downs?

August 2, 2018 |

From Portugal comes the news that SilicoLife was awarded with a SME instrument phase 1 grant for the commercial evaluation of its BUTANOVA technology, a new biological process to produce n-butanol. BUTANOVA technology consists on a novel and proprietary metabolic pathway designed computationally by SilicoLife and implemented and experimentally validated in collaboration with University of […]

Read More

The Digest’s Multi-Slide Guide to the US Department of Energy’s Demonstration and Market Transformation programs

The Digest’s Multi-Slide Guide to the US Department of Energy’s Demonstration and Market Transformation programs

August 2, 2018 |

The goal of the US Department of Energy’s Demonstration and Market Transformation focus at the BioEnergy Technologies Office is to de-risk bioenergy production technologies through validated proof of performance at the pilot, demonstration, and pioneer scales and to conduct activities that will transform the biofuels market by reducing or removing commercialization barriers. This is achieved […]

Read More