Author Archive: Jim Lane

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Protein, Protein: The bioeconomy’s latest technology fad is, actually, a pivot back to an ancient and enduring concern

Protein, Protein: The bioeconomy’s latest technology fad is, actually, a pivot back to an ancient and enduring concern

July 5, 2018 |

In the bioeconomy, the grass is always greener on the other side of a corporate repositioning, and we’ve seen the product and feedstocks fads roll onto the shoreline with numbing regularity. We had ethanol until there was biodiesel, and algae until there was jet fuel. Then, chemicals until there was Brazil, and drop-in fuels until […]

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Seeking a Friend for the End of Unreliability: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to the Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium

Seeking a Friend for the End of Unreliability: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to the Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium

July 5, 2018 |

What is the Feedstock Conversion Interface Consortium and why does it exist? The Why is simple. #1 issue plaguing High and Low Temperature IBR projects is consistent operability of preprocessing and primary deconstruction. In response, researchers have joined together from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, DOE, Oak Ridge National Lab, Argonne National Lab, Los Alamos […]

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The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of July 5th

The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of July 5th

July 4, 2018 |

The pace of invention and change is just too strong, we’ve realized, to highlight annual or even quarterly or monthly rankings and summaries of significant product and service advances. For now, we’re going to be tracking these on a weekly basis to keep pace with the changes. Here are the top innovations for the week […]

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Nanocellulose on the march: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to American Process

Nanocellulose on the march: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to American Process

July 4, 2018 |

A few years back, Research & Markets startled the bio world when they projected that the “Nanocellulose Market by Type (Cellulose nanocrystals, Cellulose nanofibrils, cellulose nanocomposites, and others) would reach $250 Million by 2019, signifying annualized CAGR of 19% between 2014 and 2019. Heft growth indeed, and a survey of the patent apps showed sharp activity levels that […]

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On Energy Independence Day, India, China surge as leaders in clean fuels

On Energy Independence Day, India, China surge as leaders in clean fuels

July 3, 2018 |

In the United States, Independence Day that is upon us, but around the world if “Energy Independence Day” is your preferred flavor, look at India and China. Because if you want it, here it is, come and get it, biofuels that is, and especially of the advanced type. If you like it from waste, even […]

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Q.E.D.: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit

Q.E.D.: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to the Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit

July 3, 2018 |

It’s known by the ungainly acronym ABPDU, which might as well decode as “All Bioeconomy Processes Developed Upstairs,” but actually stands for the far more modest “Advanced Biofuels Process Demonstration Unit.” It’s run out of the Berkeley Lab, and is the technology center behind the technology centers, if you will, of companies such as Kiverdi, Sylvatex, […]

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The Big Picture: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to the role of Biofuels in Decarbonization

The Big Picture: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to the role of Biofuels in Decarbonization

July 2, 2018 |

With oil prices continued to rise, this deck on biofuels role in decarbonizing transit, presented by Raymond James senior vice-president Pavel Molchanov at the 2018 ABLC meeting, is both instructive and timely.

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Letter from Byzantium: Answers to Your Questions about Byzantine Biofuels Budgets and Policy Moves

Letter from Byzantium: Answers to Your Questions about Byzantine Biofuels Budgets and Policy Moves

July 2, 2018 |

Those who take heed that ancient Byzantium (and today’s Istanbul) is not far from the ruins of Troy and the setting of Homeric tales, will remember as we turn our gaze to biofuels politics that Homer wrote “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart […]

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Synthetic Methylotrophy: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Engineering Platform Organisms for Methane & Methanol Conversion to Fuels & Chemicals

Synthetic Methylotrophy: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Engineering Platform Organisms for Methane & Methanol Conversion to Fuels & Chemicals

July 2, 2018 |

Harnessing Methane & Methanol as Feedstocks, that’s the subject of this overview of the uses of methanol when used by engineered platform organisms for fuel and chemical production. The background is the abundant CH4supply of recoverable natural gas (US and worldwide), and the CH4 and/or syngas (from various renewable sources) that is readily converted to […]

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Leveling the Playing Field: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Renewable Reserves Accounting

Leveling the Playing Field: The Digest’s 2018 Multi-Slide Guide to Renewable Reserves Accounting

July 1, 2018 |

In November 2011, the Digest ran a story on a remarkable proposition — advanced by Richard Hamilton, then CEO of Ceres — that biofuels companies – on the “level playing field” theory advanced by opponents of government mandates and subsidies, should  have a mechanism to book their reserves of crude renewable fuel production, in a […]

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