By Douglas L. Faulkner, “The Cleantech Conservative”, special to The Digest Most liberals don’t hate biofuels. But most don’t love them either, mainly because of their underlying environmental concerns about first-generation biofuels, corn starch ethanol and soy biodiesel. The left’s deep ambivalence toward biofuels is thus a mirror image of conservative views, amplifying that political […]
By Fran Flynn, special to The Digest On the putting green, the golfer who putts last has the advantage of watching his predecessor ‘show him the line. There is valuable information to be gleaned if his attention is focused on the details. For example, he can determine many uncontrollable factors such as speed, slope, and […]
By Doug Williams, special to The Digest The mid 2000’s saw a tremendous surge in interest in biofuels technologies. I got caught up in it myself. I’ve worked with biofuels and bio-based chemicals technology start-ups for the last decade. It’s certainly been worthwhile. The industry has since suffered its first dot-com bubble-like crash. It’s perhaps […]
By Sam Nejame & James Evangelow, Special to The Digest Two weeks ago the International Olympic Committee pulled Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Olympics. If you lived here, you couldn’t avoid the controversy over how much it might cost and the nagging questions about how the gargantuan facilities would be used afterward. The lost […]
By Corinne Young, Chief Advocate and Michele Jalbert, Chief Operating Officer of the Renewable Chemicals and Advanced Materials Alliance (re:chem) Special to The Digest While naysayers contend changing the US tax code is implausible, we at the Renewable Chemical and Advanced Materials Alliance (re:chem), see possibility – in fact, necessity – to ensure US global […]
Can Cooperation Survive Within a Non-cooperative Economic System? by Bill Brandon, special to The Digest I say yes it can, but we should not assume it is only a voluntary cooperation. Forty-five years ago we made a major transition in our fuel composition. Under the Clean Air Act and the clean fuel program, we stopped […]
By Mark Warner, P.E, Founder, Warner Advisors Special to The Digest In part one of the three-part series of Top Ten Lessons Learned, we reviewed process development topics. In part two, we reviewed process design and deployment topics. In this final segment, we will explore financing, start-up and operations. PART 3 – FINANCING, STARTUP AND OPERATIONS Financing – […]
By Mark Warner, P.E, Founder, Warner Advisors Special to The Digest In part one of the three-part series of Top Ten Lessons Learned, we reviewed process development topics. In this second segment, we will explore process design and deployment. PART 2 – PROCESS DESIGN AND DEPLOYMENT Facility Design – Understanding fit for purpose Without a doubt, […]
By Mark Warner, P.E, Founder, Warner Advisors Special to The Digest Spending half a billion dollars placing steel in the ground to commercialize advanced biotechnologies for fuels, chemicals and food applications, is the easy part. Doing it successfully is the hard part – but I have been fortunate to lead many successful projects over the last […]
By Sam Nejame & James Evangelow, special to The Digest Sad to say Cobalt Technologies is dead – no really they’re dead – it’s not just double secret probation anymore. Although you’d almost not even know it given how quiet the company’s been over the last few years. And after the venture guys cleared out […]
