Biodiesel is the people’s advanced biofuel, but it is not always the Establishment’s darling. Whether it is cleaner air, more lubricity, more advanced domestic manufacturing and jobs, higher property values driving higher revenues for states and schools, or a secondary market for growers to prevent another Farm Aid era of commodity busts — biodiesel delivers […]
The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to develop a catalyst cost estimation tool that would enable rapid and informed cost-based decisions in research and commercialization of catalysts. As the research team notes, “Nearly all biomass conversion processes rely on catalysis as do many biochemical processes. Catalytic technology development is leveraged by a major portion […]
By Wayne Lee, CEO Lee Enterprises Consulting Special to The Digest While oil prices remain relatively low, and the status of U.S. government incentives remains uncertain, the predictable downturn in biofuel and biochemical related industries brings with it increased participant discomfort. Those that have been in these “bioeconomy” industries for some time have seen their […]
California is for many the “home of innovation” but almost everyone thinks of Silicon Valley in this respect, or perhaps the Bay Area as a whole. And there are innovative companies in huge numbers, for sure— but you’d be surprised how broad the innovation story is across the entire Golden State. The sexy PR is […]
The US Department of Energy is supporting a NREL-led project to establish a novel gas fermentation bioprocess for secretion of an array of fuel and chemical intermediates. The project also aims to develop a novel methanotrophic biocatalyst and fermentation configuration for the production of muconic acid from renewable biogas. The research team ultimately demonstrated an […]
Eddyville, Fort Dodge, Clinton, Newton, Cedar Rapids. Communities like these have been mainstays of the Iowa bioeconomy for years, even decades — home to corn and soy processing on the largest world scale, and much much more — integrated complexes of advanced refining where companies share infrastructure and often where the residues of the one […]
The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to demonstrate solvent liquefaction as viable path to stable intermediates for subsequent upgrading to fuel blendstocks. This is based on a technology originally developed in large part via Catchlight Energy and we profiled its revival at Iowa State right here, in “Chevron’s forgotten biofuels wonder-tech gets […]
When it comes to project action, Go North, young man. Canada’s hot and the technology’s cool. The colder weather might be just around the corner for Canada, but when it comes to the advanced bioeconomy, think Hot Spots. The country is replete with ’em. From projects to process for new fuels, chemicals, materials and wealth creation […]
The US Department of Energy initiated a project to advance a hybrid conversion technology for catalytic upgrading of biomass-derived syngas to produce Alcohol-to-Jet fuel and chemicals while meeting the cost, quality and environmental requirements of the aviation industry. Ultimately the goal is to demonstrate that ethanol from gas fermentation is suitable for catalytic conversion to […]
The DOE established and funded a project to develop a novel Multistage Hydrothermal Liquefaction (HTL) of biomass and integrate with Virent’s Catalytic BioForming Process to efficiently produce cost effective “drop‐in” fuels from woody biomass and corn stover, with particular focus in maximizing jet fuel and diesel yields. Virent CTO Randy Cortright gave this illuminating presentation […]
