Category: Top Stories

The Advanced Bioeconomy Dashboard for 1/19/15: equities, fuels, chemicals, and feedstock prices and data

January 18, 2015 | Jim Lane

The Digest’s Dashboard is a convenient “news you can use” 5-Minute summary of current markets including key commodity prices, relevant futures, bioenergy-related stocks, and historical equities data. Latest prices – key commodities. Most recent commodity closing prices, and price changes, for NYMEX’s crude oil, Brent Crude, Ultra-Low Sulphur Diesel, Natural Gas, RBOB gasoline, and Ethylene; ethanol […]

Er, about that stunning 14X improvement in biofuels enzyme performance…

January 15, 2015 | Jim Lane

The press has been buzzing, the microbe’s real, and the results have been near-to-stunning. All true. But, with the news circulating about regarding the remarkable abilities of an enzyme found inside a thermophile, there’s less than meets the eye. There’s been a tremendous buzz in the neo-scientific press in recent days over reports of an […]

Making Indirect Land Use Change Go Away

January 14, 2015 | Jim Lane

As the specter of falling oil prices spooks the sector, here’s good news from the Land of ILUC — a shocker study pointing a way towards mitigating or eliminating that infamous scourge of carbon-scoring for biofuels. There are two types of stories in the world of biofuels. There are the fascinating stories we can’t wait […]

Algenol’s algae fuel wins EPA approval as advanced biofuels

January 14, 2015 | Jim Lane

EPA certifies its fuels reduce GHG’s by 69% In Florida, Algenol announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved fuels made from Algenol’s process as an advanced biofuel, meeting the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction requirements under the Renewable Fuels Standard. Fuels produced from Algenol are now eligible for a Renewable Identification Number under the […]

Shale vs OPEC: What’s going on with oil prices? Will the bleeding stop, and when?

January 13, 2015 | Jim Lane

Will oil prices ever stop falling, and who’ll be left standing when they do? How long can the war of attrition gone on between North American shale producers and OPEC? Oil prices are falling — fast. Nothing seems to stop the slide. Increasingly, it can be seen as a battle over market share as a […]

“Faces” to debut week of 1/19, a Digest original series on BioChannel.TV

January 13, 2015 | Jim Lane

Next week, a new Digest chapter begins with the debut of “Faces”, our first original series, one of three we expect to debut this year as part of the all-new BioChannel.TV. Faces Faces is just as it sounds – short, to the point, face-to-face, one-on-one interviews with policy leaders, project developers, financiers, analysts, scientists, and […]

Eight under $70: which biofuels ventures can beat out cheap oil?

January 12, 2015 | Jim Lane

Oil prices continue to show incredible volatility. $106 in June, $50 today. Which biofuels ventures have the pro-formas to make money in a tough market? The Digest investigates. We have written it elsewhere that “good companies make money in good markets, but great companies make money in tough markets,” and by most accounts, the $50 oil […]

The 5 most maddening myths about corn and ethanol

January 11, 2015 | Jim Lane

Food vs Fuel, emissions, cost competitiveness, and RINsanity. Some of the most unfair bricks hurled at corn starch-based ethanol — and here’s why. If you were, like me, employed in the late 1980s in the eight-block radius around New York’s Washington Square Park, you knew to keep a sharp eye out for bicycle-mounted messengers that hurtled […]

The Advanced Bioeconomy Dashboard for 1/12/15: equities, fuels, chemicals, and feedstock prices and data

January 11, 2015 | Jim Lane

VC surprise: Spruce Capital, Xeraya Capital announce first close of new $150M Biogreentech Venture Fund

January 8, 2015 | Jim Lane

As a newly-closed venture fund opens for business with a distinctly Malaysian flavor, we look at the state of venture capital and the new role of integrated sovereign investment. From California and Malaysia comes the news that Spruce Capital Partners and Xeraya Capital have announced the first close of MLS Capital Fund II, L.P. at […]

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