In today’s Digest, let’s look at trends driving the industry’s results at scale — and while money is not the measure of all progress, it is the ultimate yardstick and especially for companies that have reached industrial scale. So, let’s look at Q2 earnings statements now just coming out from four of the sector’s signature […]
Hydrogen, hydrogen, hydrogen — the most abundant element in the universe, but the advanced bioeconomy can never seem to get enough of it, and finding ways to produce renewable, affordable hydrogen — well, that’s real gold. A team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Abhijeet Borole and including a number of ORNL colleagues and also […]
Hydrothermal liquefaction has a huge fan base in the biorefinery R&D sector. There’s lots to like. It’s robust tech and can be applied to attractive, low-cost wet feedstocks (ag resid, sludge, manure) that exploit HTL attributes and minimize deployment challenges associated with pumping. It’s conceptually simple (feed preparation, pump, heated pipe, gravity separate biocrude). HTL […]
This week, the U.S. Department of Energy revealed that it will award a fourth project—up to $1.8 million—under the MEGA-BIO: Bioproducts to Enable Biofuels Funding Opportunity. That is, they call it MEGA-BIO, like a vitamin. We call it Make Energy Great Again, via BIOmass. The Side by Side theory In it’s essence, it’s the Side-by-Side Theory. Long […]
The DOE is funding a fascinating project to develop a continuous electrochemical process to convert biorefinery waste lignin to substituted aromatic compounds for resins and resin binders. The goal? Integration into biorefinery with revenue generated, to reduce cost of biofuel by 25% The problem? Lignocellulosic biofuels are not yet cost-competitive without the protection of schemes […]
Investing in the BioEconomy is a complicated endeavor, but can offer significant opportunities for the informed investor. The industry drivers are numerous and presents a puzzle that demands quality information flow, insight and analytics to succeed. Three storylines this week offer us evidence of a growing information gap, with fewer channels for insight and information to […]
How much biomass is there? What types, prices, when will they be available, and produced by whom, and how? These are questions that the US Department of Energy undertook to answer, to address a program-wide need for information on feedstock supplies (quantity, cost, quality). At the DOE’s Project Peer Review 2017, science team leader Matt Langholtz […]
By Gregory T. Benz Special to The Digest Fermentation processes, both aerobic and anaerobic, have been successful on an industrial scale for quite a long time, producing a wide variety of products. In most of these processes, if any gas has been added, it has been either air or oxygen-enriched air. In the advanced bioeconomy, […]
The value of cellulosic fuels has reached $4.06 per gallon in the California market. That’s real-world, today, including the energy and the low-carbon attributes, and not based on speculation. The value has risen 15.1 percent in the past 56 days. The soaring fuel values are prompting several companies to substantively expand or re-evaluate plans for cellulosic […]
The US Department of Energy has a goal of developing industrially-relevant strains to meet titer, rate, and yield targets for fuel precursors for the 2022 BC Platform cost target goals of $3/GGE. A project led by PI Gregg Beckham at the National renewable Energy Laboratory focuses on aerobic fatty acids and anaerobic, secreted C2-C6 carboxylic […]
