Category: Top Stories

Ensyn: Biofuels’ Big, Fast Cracker, in pictures

Ensyn: Biofuels’ Big, Fast Cracker, in pictures

November 19, 2012 |

Ensyn – moving rapidly towards scale as a transport fuel technology after decades in smaller, high-value markets. What does Ensyn’s signature RTP technology, that’s making such a splash, look like? There’s a jeu d’esprit that Canadians repeat amongst themselves about how much better Canada is at basic research than applications development. At some point, someone […]

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EPA denies appeal to waive US Renewable Fuels Standard

EPA denies appeal to waive US Renewable Fuels Standard

November 16, 2012 |

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that the agency has not found evidence to support a finding of severe “economic harm” that would warrant granting a waiver of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS). The decision is based on economic analyses and modeling done in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and U.S. […]

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The Solyndra Effect, or why alcohol-to-jet fuel is a tough sell

The Solyndra Effect, or why alcohol-to-jet fuel is a tough sell

November 16, 2012 |

Why is ATJ experiencing NSF, possibly DOA, and certainly not yet RFTO (AFAIK), as skeptics are (FYI) ROFL? It’s NLACM. By now it must be universally understood that it’s tough to run a business that processes $10 bills into $5 bills, no matter what economies of scale you reach – and no matter what the […]

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Carbon dioxide: key to boosting revenues and limiting emissions from biofuels and allied ventures

Carbon dioxide: key to boosting revenues and limiting emissions from biofuels and allied ventures

November 16, 2012 |

By Sam A. Rushing, President, Advanced Cryogenics, Ltd.  Background Perhaps the most logical approach to boosting revenues from biofuels projects, that being those which yield a CO2 by-product, such as fermentation, is the recovery, and subsequent refinement, and properly assessing the best suited market for the commodity. The same is applicable to the other so-called […]

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Solazyme and its hybrid vigor

Solazyme and its hybrid vigor

November 15, 2012 |

Solazyme lands monster capacity expansion agreements with ADM and Bunge – what’s the sector’s hottest company up to now? Yesterday, Solazyme announced two landmark capacity expansion agreements with Bunge and ADM, respectively. The Bunge agreement will expand joint venture-owned oil production capacity at Solazyme Bunge Renewable Oils from the current 100,000 metric tons under construction […]

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$500 million and no one to dance with? Canada and advanced biofuels

$500 million and no one to dance with? Canada and advanced biofuels

November 14, 2012 |

Canada’s $500 million NextGen Biofuels Fund, five years after formation, gets close to making its first investments just as Canada’s leaders consider pulling the plug It was the most amazing sovereign commitment to biofuels of its time, the $500 million NextGen Biofuels Fund that Canada established in 2007. As a percentage of GDP, it was […]

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Gas-to-Liquids: a Risky Investment?

Gas-to-Liquids: a Risky Investment?

November 14, 2012 |

By: Robert Rapier, Energy Trends Insider A recent news story proclaimed the benefits of gas-to-liquids technology: A Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK) backed company and Oxford Catalysts Group (OCG:London) are planning U.S. factories to make diesel, gasoline and jet fuel from gas, which fell to a decade-low price this year. Their goal is to make motor fuels […]

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Merry Bio-Christmas. Solazyme’s parity-cost, algae-based biodiesel now available at Propel Fuels stations

Merry Bio-Christmas. Solazyme’s parity-cost, algae-based biodiesel now available at Propel Fuels stations

November 13, 2012 |

$27 per gallon? $15 per gallon? Fooey! Try algae-based fuels at “the same cost as regular diesel.” Month-long pilot program kicks off in the San Francisco Bay Area. In California, Propel Fuels and Solazyme are bringing algae-derived fuel to retail pumps for what we believe to be the first time in history. The two leading […]

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Renewable Diesel on the March

Renewable Diesel on the March

November 13, 2012 |

UOP, Eni update on the complete conversion of Eni’s Venice refinery to renewable diesel. Why is renewable diesel getting traction – and where, and when? Most of the action and controversy on biofuels, advanced or otherwise, occurs on the gasoline side of the equation. Food vs fuel, blend walls, the “where are the gallons?” problems […]

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Everyday low (fuel) prices: Drop-in advanced biofuels for under $100 per barrel

Everyday low (fuel) prices: Drop-in advanced biofuels for under $100 per barrel

November 12, 2012 |

Brent Crude trades this past week at a transorbital $109 per barrel (West Texas Intermediate at a suborbital, if high, $85). It puts the conventional wisdom that biofuels are too infrastructure incompatible and too costly to the test. Are they? Let’s look today at progress in developing infrastructure-compatible, drop-in advanced biofuels that cost less than […]

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