Category: Top Stories

The US Navy’s biofueled Green Fleet to highlight this year’s RIMPAC War Games

The US Navy’s biofueled Green Fleet to highlight this year’s RIMPAC War Games

June 29, 2012 |

The United States Navy may be laboring under a congressional ban on biofuel purchases that cost more than bargain basement fossil fuels, but no one said the Navy can’t burn the biofuel it’s already got. And that’s important because if you look at history, Congress generally loosens its military purse strings only when it fears […]

Read More

Death Valley Days: The Biofuels Financing Saga

Death Valley Days: The Biofuels Financing Saga

June 28, 2012 |

As bio-based companies race across the Valley of Death, in the dash for scale, who’s getting financing now, and how? The path to financing success in bio-based project development used to be a little less complicated. Raise seed money from friends and family.  Series A and B with your friendly local VC, to prove the […]

Read More

30 Fortune Cookies: more aphorisms, diversions, caveats collected along Biofuels Road

30 Fortune Cookies: more aphorisms, diversions, caveats collected along Biofuels Road

June 27, 2012 |

Time for more Fortune Cookies – aphorisms and entertainments that came to mind, here in Digestville, as we reported on the fast-growing biofuels industry. Early last year, we published a collection of 100 “Fortune Cookies”. It is the zeitgeist of the times, we suppose, that short and peppy sayings that can meet the 140-character Twitter […]

Read More

New Kids on the Block: 12 hot bio-based technologies worth watching (Part 2)

New Kids on the Block: 12 hot bio-based technologies worth watching (Part 2)

June 26, 2012 |

Part 2: As the biobased revolution moves into the commercialization stage, new products and enabling technologies continue to surface that offer tantalyzing opportunities. In yesterday’s Part I, we looked at 6 innovation-stage companies worth keeping a close eye on – some practically brand-spanking new – others have been flying under the radar for several years. […]

Read More

New Kids on the Block: 12 hot bio-based technologies worth watching (Part I)

New Kids on the Block: 12 hot bio-based technologies worth watching (Part I)

June 25, 2012 |

As the biobased revolution moves into the commercialization stage, new products and enabling technologies continue to surface that offer tantalizing opportunities. In recent months, there has been so much emphasis on companies moving from the development to commercialization stages — not least companies like Solazyme, Gevo, Amyris, KiOR and Ceres going through the IPO process […]

Read More

Who Shall Dare: Biobutanol and the intrepid ethanol producer

Who Shall Dare: Biobutanol and the intrepid ethanol producer

June 22, 2012 |

Declining ethanol margins and plant idlings; ethanol price gloom; controversy over RFS2 targets. Despair? Bah! It all spells “opportunity” for the intrepid ethanolista. This week in biofuels, two storylines that have been gaining a lot of attention have been the declining margins and plant slowdowns and shutdowns in the US corn ethanol sector, and the […]

Read More

Boom times for Argentina and biofuels, but can it last?

Boom times for Argentina and biofuels, but can it last?

June 21, 2012 |

As Argentina’s monetary policies run into big trouble, inflation mounts and the peso sinks, can the biofuels boom keep going? BUENOS AIRES — Most nights now, you can hear the pots and pans banging along one section or another of Avenida del Libertador, the main boulevard leading north out of the city center, and it […]

Read More

Gevo marching: GEVOgraphy expands to Malaysia; advantaGEVOus ruling in Butamax case

Gevo marching: GEVOgraphy expands to Malaysia; advantaGEVOus ruling in Butamax case

June 20, 2012 |

Gevo signs agreement for cellulosic biomass development in Malaysia, as the company secures a crucial win in preliminary injunction battle with Butamax over IP. In Colorado, Gevo signed a collaborative agreement with the intent to site a cellulosic biomass isobutanol facility in Southeast Asia, with the Malaysian government’s East Coast Economic Region Development Council (ECERDC), […]

Read More

At Rio+20, the biofuels industry takes a turn in the spotlight

At Rio+20, the biofuels industry takes a turn in the spotlight

June 20, 2012 |

Azul, Embraer, GE, Amyris, KLM, Honeywell’s UOP, Aeromexico, GOL, WWF, GBEP and Novozymes showcase new advanced biofuels technologies, perspectives. In Brazil, the Rio+20 sustainable development conference is now well underway, with side events also drawing in the crowds as NGOs, governments and industrial voices all struggle to be heard. Biofuels take flight One of the […]

Read More

New $40 million funding announcement for military, aviation biofuels from DOE

New $40 million funding announcement for military, aviation biofuels from DOE

June 19, 2012 |

DOE releases its latest $40 million funding opportunity, for aviation and military biofuels; lignocellulosic and algal feedstock components. In Washington, the DOE released details of a long-awaited funding opportunity announcement for advanced biofuels for aviation and military applications, titled “Innovative Pilot and demonstration-scale production of advanced biofuels.” According to the DOE, “the intent of this […]

Read More