Category: Top Stories

Boskalis, Wärtsilä, GoodFuels Marine launch sustainable marine biofuels program

October 7, 2015 | Jim Lane

In The Netherlands, Boskalis, Wärtsilä, and GoodFuels Marine revealed a partnership to pioneer the development of sustainable “drop in” marine biofuels for the shipping industry. Netherlands-based GoodFuels Marine and its partners will spearhead a two-year pilot programme to accelerate the development of truly sustainable, scalable and affordable marine biofuels. The program’s focus will be on delivering and analysing a […]

Breaking news: The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015

October 7, 2015 | Jim Lane

In Sweden, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2015 to Tomas Lindahl, Francis Crick Institute and Clare Hall Laboratory, Hertfordshire, UK Paul Modrich, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA Aziz Sancar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA […]

Renewable Energy Group acquires KiOR hydrotreater, distillation column, tankers for $1.5M

October 6, 2015 | Jim Lane

Remainder of the production plant goes to auction next week In Iowa, a subsidiary of Renewable Energy Group has received approval from a Mississippi court to purchase certain equipment at the KiOR Columbus, LLC production facility. Under the approved asset purchase agreement, REG Synthetic Fuels, LLC paid $1.5M, plus certain expenses related to equipment preparation, […]

The biggest trade agreement you’ve never heard of

October 6, 2015 | Jim Lane

Negotiators for the Trans-Pacific Partnership reach a draft agreement; countries head home to what, for many, will be a tough sell. What is the TPP, why the controversy over a treade deal, how big, who’s impacted, and what’s the deal for the advanced bioeconomy. The Digest investigates. The biggest expansion of free trade in a […]

BioAmber: “operating at commercial scale” in Sarnia, “shipping to customers”

October 5, 2015 | Jim Lane

Ultra-secret yeast tech also exceeding expectations in yield, productivity and quality, BioAmber reports. Baby Sarnia checks in at 60 million pounds, no ounces, doing fine. In Canada, BioAmber’s Sarnia joint venture with Mitsui & Co. Ltd. has begun shipping bio-succinic acid to customers and is operating its manufacturing process at commercial scale, meeting a significant company […]

A secret password for advanced biofuels at scale? Forget “open sesame”, try “Velocys Inside”

October 4, 2015 | Jim Lane

Four new technologies approach scaled operations, all with one element in common – Velocys technology on the back-end. Why Velocys, why now? The Digest investigates. In Oklahoma, Southeast Oregon, Eastern Ohio, and a site near London we’re about to see the commercial-scale debut of Velocys technology, a smaller scale gas-to-liquids processing technology that converts natural gas […]

The Business of Algae and the Dream of Algae

October 1, 2015 | Jim Lane

Sapphire’s Jamie Levine, Matrix Genetics’ Margaret McCormick, Algal Scientific’s Geoff Horst, Heliae’s Len Smith and USCD’s Steve Mayfield reflect on the commercial progress of algae. There is the dream of algae. All that photosynthetic productivity, all those products that algae can make, all those crushing needs that our society has for more, more, more — […]

Remarks by US Under-Secretary of Energy, Franklin Orr, at the Algae Biomass Summit

October 1, 2015 | Jim Lane

Algae is an important example of the breadth of work at the Department of Energy, starting with genetics and proceeding all the way to commercial-sized systems and integrations. It’s fundamental science all the way to applied. Biofuels are an important component of our work, and though there are some who say that oil prices have […]

$20 million XPRIZE launches: technologies to convert the most CO2 into the highest net value

September 30, 2015 | Jim Lane

In Texas, XPRIZE Chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis announced the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a competition to address CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. With registration opening today, teams are challenged to develop breakthrough technologies that convert the most CO2 into one or more products with the highest net value. Co-sponsored by NRG and COSIA, the […]

The Birth of SuperDuper gasoline via earth-friendly renewable hydrocarbons

September 29, 2015 | Jim Lane

Move over Super, here comes SuperDuper. All the high octane and performance, and the renewability too, at a price you can afford. Biofuels are adding options for drop-in, low-carbon, super-perfornance gasoline via isooctane and isooctene, as Gevo announces sales of isooctene to BCD Chemie, a subsidiary of Brenntag. In Colorado, Gevo said that it has […]

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