On Monday, we reported in Where is Your Money Going? The Mess at USASpending.Gov that according to the US government’s transparency in government spending website, bioeconomy pioneer Genomatica has received more than $280 million in federal grants and contracts since 2008. We added: Surprising we would imagine to the staff at Genomatica, too, since it’s hogwash of the […]
In Massachusetts, the expected wave of 2017 methane-to-protein advances got a kick-start with news that KnipBio closed a $2M Series B investment round led by Launchpad Venture Group and Cherrystone Angel Group. KnipBio intends to use the investment of up to $2M to advance new product development, continue the aggressive move towards commercial-scale manufacturing of […]
A mere “The Year in Rewind” as we sail into 2017? Not the good ship Digest! Instead, we dust off our crystal ball and offer our predictions for the year ahead. As the sunset of 2016 gives way to the dawn of 2017, here at the Digest we resist the holiday temptation to look back over the […]
As the old Irving Berlin song put it, Let’s Start the New Year Right. By looking into something gone wrong. USASpending.gov launched with a certain amount of brouhaha back in 2007, after the enabling legislation sailed through Congress in the fall of 2006. The bill’s Senate sponsors included the unlikely grouping of Senators Tom Coburn […]
In Washington, the Energy Department announced the selection of six projects for up to $12.9 million in federal funding, entitled, “Project Definition for Pilot- and Demonstration-Scale Manufacturing of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biopower.” These projects, required to share the cost at a minimum of 50%, will develop and execute plans for the manufacturing of advanced or […]
In Florida, the Digest today releases its annual review of biofuels mandates and targets around the world, looking at the state of biofuels mandates in 64 countries. The bulk of mandates continue to come from the EU-27, where the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) specified a 10 percent renewable content by 2020 but has been scaled […]
If you find yourself among the 79 percent of people who “agree that they consider themselves an environmentally conscious person,” you’ve probably stayed up nights in recent years wondering what the heck to do with the swamp of dubious chemicals in your hair known benignly as shampoo. But if you are among the 75 percent […]
Any way you look at the US 2016 presidential elections or the turmoil within the European Union (e.g Brexit, or Italy’s referendum on membership), you can conclude that we are entering into in anti-federal cycle, and the most innovative public-private policies are likely for some time to proceed out of regions, provinces and states. In […]
On any list of 10 Colossal Failures of the Finance sector in this century, we’d put the failure of bankers and commercial-scale investors to get behind the advanced bioeconomy in a more timely fashion. “It seems as if we’re paying for the sins of others,” sighed CEO Martin Sabarsky. One CEO observed to us not […]
In France, Global Bioenergies agreed to acquire Netherlands-based gas fermentation company Syngip for €1.02M, with a milestone-based bonus that could boost the acquisition price up to €1.775M. The acquisition price includes assumption of €150K of Syngip’s debt. The deal is subject to shareholder approval. The ultimate goal Syngip talked here about the possibility of producing […]
