Category: Top Stories

Flotta Verde! The Italian Navy’s Green Fleet underway: The story, in pictures

Flotta Verde! The Italian Navy’s Green Fleet underway: The story, in pictures

March 16, 2014 |

Italy’s Navy joins the global green fleet movement with its first sea trials and certifications.  Including a dramatic at-sea rescue, powered by alternative fuel blends. The complete story, in pictures. By Commander Pasquale Tripodi, Italian Navy “The ship performed smoothly and we didn’t notice any difference in switching from conventional F76 to green F76,” said […]

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A Tax Boost for Advanced Biofuels

A Tax Boost for Advanced Biofuels

March 16, 2014 |

By Brent Erickson EVP; Head, Industrial & Environmental Section, The Biotechnology Industry Organization Advanced biofuels companies are in the process of constructing first of a kind cellulosic biofuel facilities this year. Fortunately, the Administration’s budget for 2014 contains a proposal for a nearly 10-year extension of the advanced biofuel tax credit, which was first adopted […]

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The Hydrogen Spring

The Hydrogen Spring

March 13, 2014 |

Reminiscent of 2009’s Summer of Algae, when those technologies were coming out of the woodwork, we appear to be in the Hydrogen Spring. Every time we write about them, more pop up, like a Prairie Dog town. Over the past couple of months we have written several times about the hunt for hydrogen and effective […]

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The Gretsky Imperative for biofuels and chemicals

The Gretsky Imperative for biofuels and chemicals

March 12, 2014 |

What about this speed-up in biobased chemicals,  this slow-down in biofuels, and the frenzy in natgas? Real, imagined, over-sold, under-cooked? We know where the puck is – but where actually is the puck going? We look at two reports and three project announcements for the skinny. Over the past few weeks, Lux Reseach released a […]

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CARB proposes (small or teencey, take your pick) reductions in biofuels land-use change factors

CARB proposes (small or teencey, take your pick) reductions in biofuels land-use change factors

March 12, 2014 |

In California, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) hosted a workshop yesterday to discuss potential changes to indirect land use change (iLUC) penalties under the Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). Based on a review of materials made available by CARB prior to the workshop, Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Bob Dinneen offered the following […]

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How Algae Find Totally Awesome Homes

How Algae Find Totally Awesome Homes

March 11, 2014 |

Have a wonderful strain of algae, but struggle to find a project location that optimizes climate, inputs and infrastructure? With Zillow not yet providing real estate services for choosy microbes, PNNL and Sapphire Energy come to the rescue. The Digest has often criticized synthetic biologists, in genetically enhancing microbes, for failing to endow them with […]

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BRICS and mortar: the fast-growing BRIC economies take aim at aviation biofuels

BRICS and mortar: the fast-growing BRIC economies take aim at aviation biofuels

March 10, 2014 |

Brazil, Russia, India and China — and throw in South Africa for a complete BRICSA set. The vaunted new economic engines for the 21st century — and, lately, home to a beehive of activity around drop-in, sustainable, aviation biofuels. What’s up, with whom, where, when and why? In the motion picture Casablanca, most of the […]

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Biofuels Digest’s Transformative Technologies 2014 nominees, and voting page links

Biofuels Digest’s Transformative Technologies 2014 nominees, and voting page links

March 9, 2014 |

Which are the most transformative bioeconomy technologies? In the Transformative Technologies awards for 2014, you decide. In Florida, The Digest announced nominations for Transformative Technologies 2014, in which organizations are recognized for their impact in transforming a feedstock, a process step, a processing technology, a molecule — and in which plants, towns or industrial complexes, […]

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The Hunt for hydrogen and hydro-riches

The Hunt for hydrogen and hydro-riches

March 6, 2014 |

OK, you have a carbon strategy, and that’s good. But how’s your hydrogen strategy coming along? In our “100 Fortune Cookies,” we put it as plainly as we could: “You will never have enough affordable hydrogen.” Perhaps that is the attractor in the news from little-known Solarvest Bioenergy, when they announced  third party confirmation of […]

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Benjamins for Biofuels in the 2015 Obama Budget: The Digest’s 7-Minute Guide

Benjamins for Biofuels in the 2015 Obama Budget: The Digest’s 7-Minute Guide

March 5, 2014 |

Vitally interested in President Obama’s proposed 2015 budget and the 411 on grants, incentives, tax credits, loan guarantees and R&D support — but haven’t got the time to read all 1653 glorious pages? Try the Digest’s 7-Minute Guide. In Washington, President Obama outlined his $3.9 trillion budget proposal for 2015, with a focus on tax […]

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