The 10 Most Popular Biofuel Stories: a Biofuels Digest anniversary special report
#1. Algae has been big all year in the Digest - usually pro-algae stories on new developments in research and production. Along with biocrude, it’s been the story of the year, with jatropha coming a close third along with energy legislation and the Farm Bill. The top story of the year was, however, a cautionary tale on algae from Sandia National Labs that yields, costs, and scale up issues are still very problematic in the algae biofuels story.
#2. A surprising entry into the top 10 was this story of large land acquisitions in Tanzania by Sun Biofuels. The re-entry of western capital into large-scale African plantation investments has more than few observers troubled about the specter of colonialism and perhaps some government corruption in Africa, but on the whole there is widespread agreement that investment in African agriculture is urgently needed to boost incomes and yields. It set a Digest record when over 10,000 people read the story in a single day.
#3. The FAO has been back and forth on fuel versus food all year, but they are adamant in opposing widespread use of wood fuel as a substitute for fossil fuels. The deforestation and erosion in Haiti would be enough to convince anyone, but in the face of skyrocketing oil prices and the fact that Africa’s staple crop, cassava, requires intensive cooking to be safe to eat, has put forests at risk.
#4. One of the most stunning algae biofuel stories of the year was the $50 million poured by investors into start-up Sapphire Energy. The hook? An algae-to-gasoline conversion path that could provide a simpler route to scaling up the distribution of their fuel.
#5. Another algae story, this one a cautionary red flag from Bionavitas over the “shade wall” – where algae blooms create so much shade that it chokes off sunlight needed to keep the bloom growing. Bionavitas has a solution, but says that it will be several years, not months, before they are at a commercial stage.
#6. The Mcgyan process does not consume its biodiesel catalyst, is less water intensive, and doesn’t require large quantities of strong acids or bases to make fuel. That’s the secret behind this story’s popularity, which details plans by Ever Cat Fuels to deploy the McGyan process in Minnesota.
#7. The Energy Independence and Security Act was passed last December, and appears to have been the subject of repeal efforts since the moment the ink dried on the bill. In this story, however, industry leaders such as ADM CEO Patricia Woertz, Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reflected on what they believed to be an historic achievement in energy efficiency and support for renewable energy. It was the story of the year, but took so long to happen that no single story except this one managed to crack the top 10.
#8. A long-term off-take contract worth $2.5 billion with an associate company of the Libyan national oil company was the centerpiece of this otherwise routine 68 Mgy biodiesel plant opening in Malaysia. The fact that the plant opened at all, given the collapse of the Malaysian biodiesel industry in the face of rising palm oil prices, added interest to a surprising entry into the top 10.
#9. Biocrude — a crude oil equivalent made from biomass — has been getting big readership all year, and the most popular story was about an algae-to-biocrude demonstration by Sustainable Power in Texas. CEO John Rivera has been a lightning rod for both criticism from “bashers” and fervent support from an army of small shareholders, and algae remains a feedstock of interest even as they have commenced shipping biocrude made from soybean hulls.
#10. Increasingly, wood waste as been seen as a key cellulosic ethanol feedstock, and this 60 Mgy Australian plant was one of the largest projects ever announced.
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