Category: Top Stories

Singing a song in Singapore: GoodFuels Marine, BHP, and MPA collaborate on biofuels during closed-door roundtable

Singing a song in Singapore: GoodFuels Marine, BHP, and MPA collaborate on biofuels during closed-door roundtable

September 24, 2017 |

In Singapore, a closed-door biofuel roundtable organized by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, BHP and GoodFuels Marine, brought some excitement to the maritime biofuels world – almost as much excitement as when we first saw Monty Python’s the Knights of the Roundtable song and dance. While we didn’t hear about any dancing or […]

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The wild green yonder: British Airways aims to fly on trash, again

The wild green yonder: British Airways aims to fly on trash, again

September 21, 2017 |

GreenSky London arrived on the scene a few years ago — an ambitious project to produce renewable aviation jet fuel from East London’s trash. The project fell down a rabbit hole of delays. Now, a group of four companies including both British Airways and Velocys are back with a partnership to prepare the business case […]

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Yelp! 18 kelp wheps get $22M in ARPA-E help

Yelp! 18 kelp wheps get $22M in ARPA-E help

September 20, 2017 |

Yes, ARPA-E has unveiled its latest moonshot and is investing $22M in Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources — also known as MARINER. The projects that comprise ARPA-E’s Macroalgae Research Inspiring Novel Energy Resources (MARINER) program seek to develop the critical tools to allow the United States to grow into a world leader in the […]

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Catalytic Fuel Precursors with High Yields: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to THF Co-Solvent Biomass Fractionation

Catalytic Fuel Precursors with High Yields: The Digest’s 2017 Multi-Slide Guide to THF Co-Solvent Biomass Fractionation

September 19, 2017 |

The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to advance transformative Co-Solvent Enhanced Lignocellulosic Fractionation to achieve high yield production of “drop-in” oxygenated liquid fuels from poplar wood. The project also aims at high yield co-conversion of C5 and C6 sugars directly to MF and DMF fuels in only two reaction steps directly from biomass. […]

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Enviral licenses Clariant’s sunliquid technology for commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol project in Slovakia

Enviral licenses Clariant’s sunliquid technology for commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol project in Slovakia

September 19, 2017 |

In Slovakia, Enviral has acquired a license to use Clariant’s sunliquid technology as part of its goal to realize a full scale commercial cellulosic ethanol plant for the commercial production of cellulosic ethanol from agricultural residues. The new plant will be owned and operated by Enviral and is planned to be integrated into the existing […]

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Geneva Aéroport: We’re going with aviation biofuels, so there.

Geneva Aéroport: We’re going with aviation biofuels, so there.

September 18, 2017 |

In Switzerland, Geneva Airport has partnered with Neste to introduce sustainable and renewable jet fuel for aircraft operations, with a target of at least one percent of the annual jet fuel consumption starting late 2018. This collaboration marks Geneva’s transition into the implementation phase of the Carbon War Room/SkyNRG-initiated project. CWR and SkyNRG first brought […]

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Deere and Cargill say “Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto” –  Artificial intelligence infiltrating agriculture and farming

Deere and Cargill say “Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto” – Artificial intelligence infiltrating agriculture and farming

September 16, 2017 |

While the 1983 Styx song “Mr. Roboto” led us to imagine robots roaming the planet at some far-off time in the future, that time might be here. Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere nowadays and not just in high tech labs, science centers, or nerdy dark basements. They are now in our agriculture industry and […]

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Psst! The latest bioeconomy flashes from Bayer, Gingko, BioAmber, Joule, TerraVia, Corbion, Phytelligence, DNA Script

Psst! The latest bioeconomy flashes from Bayer, Gingko, BioAmber, Joule, TerraVia, Corbion, Phytelligence, DNA Script

September 14, 2017 |

While we’ve been busy fleeing Hurricane Irma, it’s been a busy week for the techies running the Digest’s Very Large Gossip Array —  the airwaves have been crackling as some familiar faces re-surface. Let’s review. Bayer, Ginkgo’s $100 Million  Baby News just arrived from Germany that Bayer and Ginkgo Bioworks will create a new company […]

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Are high ethanol blends going to be essential, and mandatory, for super high fuel-efficient engines?

Are high ethanol blends going to be essential, and mandatory, for super high fuel-efficient engines?

September 13, 2017 |

For every ethanol blend everywhere these days, there seems to be a war on. A war in India over 22% blends. A war in Brazil over exactly what baseline blend ratio (somewhere int he 20s) is ideal. A war on in Europe to roll back first-gen ethanol to around 2% blending. A war in New […]

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7 Days from Seed to Harvest: Cellana, and the rise of algae in a world seeking more, faster, better

7 Days from Seed to Harvest: Cellana, and the rise of algae in a world seeking more, faster, better

September 12, 2017 |

It’s been around for millions of years, algae. Why now? A combination of pressing human need, and scientific advancement — these two drivers are working not always on the same timeline, but roughly so. Algae’s arriving because a 9 billion global population is arriving by 2050, and the developing world is shifting to more protein […]

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