In New York, NASDAQ shares in Abengoa SA plunged 49% in Wednesday trading after the embattled renewable energy developer said it would seek bankruptcy protection as it seeks to reorganize nearly $9.4 billion in debt. The protective filing was announced after an expected infusion of nearly $300 million from Spanish steelmaker Gonvarri did not materialize. […]
From Georgia, we received the news that U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a 25th patent to American Process — this one is a doozy. It covers API’s process for producing a nanocellulose material, as well as many downstream applications using the nanocellulose. The process includes fractionating a biomass feedstock with an acid, a solvent […]
In Switzerland, 11 leading low carbon fuel companies present a comprehensive guide that identifies a variety of available and accessible low carbon fuel solutions. The guide can be downloaded here. Today, only 3% of transportation fuels are low carbon. According to the International Energy Agency, 10% of fuels must be low carbon by 2030 if […]
Butadiene is beginning to emerge from the Braskem Genomatica collaboration. But could it be that the real significance lies not in progress with butadiene, but in Big Data itself, the harnessing of complex mathematics to make products that are possible, but not currently produced, in Nature. News has arrived from California and Brazil that Braskem and Genomatica […]
Will fund 25M high unit, Operational in 2016, to confirm viability of confirm viability Bio-TCat process for scale-up In New York, Anellotech revealed that it had raised $7M of its current $10M investment round from a single investor, described as a “new, multinational corporate strategic investor” but not otherwise identified. The remaining $3 million in […]
Bolt-ons, retrofits, aviation first commercials, cellulosic second commercials, protein & advanced feed, C4 chemicals and organic acids in focus this year. Bioeconomy leadership heads to Washington DC to consider commodity prices, financing, low-carbon policy and deployment-stage technologies. The Digest has announced that ABLC 2016 – the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference — will take place in […]
Who’s building what, where, now. 29 projects in construction or in commissioning in Africa, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia, and the Americas Despite low oil prices, first-gen biofuels and advanced biofuels continue to develop, and especially in the developing world. In this report, we track 29 projects in construction or commissioning, or where firm […]
A reader asks a fundamental question worth investigating. The Digest looks at how it all shakes out, value-wise. A question from the Digesterati: “Since biomass is ~40% oxygen and the principle of green chemistry is atom conservation, how will we achieve $3/gge biofuel as drop-in hydrocarbon without using all of the oxygen? Yield from biomass to […]
Avoid your enemy’s strength, and attack his weakness, said Sun Tzu. Thereby, we consider the problem of the RIN. The US Environmental Protection Agency has discovered the following way of interpreting Energy Independence and Security Act. To wit, if the transportation fuels supply chain — controlled by guess whom — does not build renewable fuel infrastructure, which […]
In Florida, The Digest made made available for free, global streaming its LanzaTech coverage from ABLC NEXT 2015. The LanzaTech presentation can be accessed here, and is enhanced with commentary from the BioChannel.TV commentary team, including Digest editor Jim Lane and former DOE Biomass Program manager Dr. Paul Bryan. The coverage also includes clips from […]
