Hain’t We Growed Up Yet? The Digest Turns 18: Reflections on the bioeconomy journey

By Huckleberry Finn (mostly)
Special to The Digest

You don’t know about me, Huck Finn, without you have read The Digest or Mr. Mark Twain before, but that ain’t no matter. Mr. Jim started the Digest 18 years ago today with not much more’n two readers and a notion about that folks could use a Digest to make sense of all this turnin’ cornstalks, garbage, and mad science into fuels and plastics and laws an’ such, and where do you send fer the money?

Now, we’re all growed up. Eighteen. This here Digest’s old enough to vote, to join the Army, to marry for love or money, or to light out toward some better place no map can quite show.  Along the way, we’ve had all these imaginary folks to he’p us understand what’s real, and all these real folks to he’p us understand what’s imaginary. The real folks sure were smarter, Wolfpack and all them CEOs and CTOs. But the readers liked the imaginary folks even more, I s’pose more entertainin’ an’ all.

So, today, we put our raft in the water, loaded the barrels, and set off down the Missouri and Mississippi, see what we kin see, meet up with our best pals, see how they are lookin’ at what we need to fuss o’er next. If’n we’re lucky, we might git to that mythical place that ol’ Joao swears exists out there — Diarkis, the land where the bioeconomy finally works the way it’s supposed to.

Because Mr. Jim said this isn’t just a party trip. He said the bioeconomy’s got big problems it has to solve before we reach them big opportunities. And our pals will jump on the barrel and tell it like it is. Let’s go down a piece to Nebraska City, which is I reckon just a few furlongs down from Shenandoah, where the ethanol tanks line up like a row of tin generals, and we kin find Dr. Brian Westlake, philosopher‑chemist of the Australian outback, who first appeared in the book Wipe Me Daddy, I’m Dirty, who thinks most of us are full of it, but just loves everythin’ ’bout Iowa. 

Problem #1: Gasification Must Work at Scale

“You want Diarkis, the dazzler, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the bioeconomy as big as the Never Never?” Westlake spits on the ground. “You got it all wrong, matey. Start with the basics: gasification that works, day in and day out, with catalysts that don’t die on you like houseflies. That’s the ridgy-didge. Every year someone comes waltzing in with a shiny new way of getting enough waste grease to power the planet Earth, and every year youse come up short. You think you need a little ripper, but what you need is boring: robust gasifiers, cheap feedstocks, catalysts that refuse to give up. I love this industry. But it’s like droving sheep: you don’t win by naming them fancy names. You win by keeping them alive through drought. Same for biorefineries. Quit chasing shiny objects and get the damn gasifiers working.”

“Huck here again. Well, I’m blowed. Doc Westlake, he’s ornery as a hoot-owl in the morning. Let’s drift down river towards St. Joe, Missouri, where the soybeans roll in by the truckload and the smell of the crush plants hits you like a frying pan, and see if we can find Mike Robe, the world’s smallest post‑doc and celebrity bacterium, who’s showed up in the Digest a score of times or more, I reckon. There he is, perched on a grain scale, signing autographs for grad students.”

Problem #2: The Cost of Biobased Hydrocarbons Has to Drop

Mike Robe: “Look, I get it. You want refinery‑ready hydrocarbons that cost less than crude. You think that’s a moonshot. But my friends and I — the designer bugs — we’re peeing out butadiene, diesel, you name it. We’re metabolizing like our lives depend on it, because they do. The trouble ain’t the science. We can do it. The trouble’s scaling: steel, energy, capital. Getting the product out of the fermenter and into your tank without costing a king’s ransom. That’s the work. And if you don’t get those costs down? You can forget competing with crude. You’ll be a science fair project with a very pretty poster.”

So, Mike comes along, and we move onto the Mississippi proper and make it to Natchez, Mississippi, where the river bends like a question mark and the bluffs look down on the Big Muddy, we found Peter Giles, scientist and industrial philosopher of Bruges, and Joao, the sea‑faring wanderer with a gold‑plated cylinder and a thousand‑yard stare toward some better place. We met them in the novel Diarkis as they described the Happy Isles.

Problem #3: Build the Hub‑and‑Spoke

Peter Giles: “The unit economics of Diarkis don’t come from a dream. They come from a system. The hub‑and‑spoke. Small processing centers close to feedstock, stripping biomass to intermediates, then sending them downriver to the big refineries. That’s how you win. Not by trying to turn every village into Houston.”

Joao: “I’ve seen it. Out past the known maps. Small ports feeding great ones. A network alive with trade. Cheap to build, easy to scale. On Diarkis, the system works. That’s how you create resilience: distributed processing, centralized upgrading. It’s not utopia. It’s just sense. Why not do it here?”

Huck here ag’in. We sure got problems, I figure. But maybe if we drift down between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Just when the river starts smellin’ like salt and trouble, we picked up Ernest Hemingway. He was sittin’ on a busted‑up crate under them dragon‑eyed refinery flares, bottle in hand, lookin’ like he’d been fishin’ for a marlin that got the better of him. I swear I seen that face before in a book somewhere, but I couldn’t tell you which one.”

Problem #4: Plastics Must Be Brilliant — and Then Disappear

Hemingway: “You want plastics that hold like armor when you need them. You want them to vanish like smoke when you don’t. It’s a hard thing. That’s why it’s good. You’ll spend your life on it. You’ll chase it like a fish that’s bigger than your boat. You’ll lose more than you land. But you go back out. Always. That’s the work.”

A Data‑Driven Interlude

I take the tiller from Huck to give him a spell, after all, that’s a lot of problems and a lot of solutions to consider. But of course, that’s not what a lot of readers tell me. They say we need more subsidies, mandates, grants, higher blends. No one is speaking up for them. So, I dial up Sherpa Chat, the intrepid AI Assistant who appears in the book Everything in Motion.

Mr. Jim: “I’ve had enough of this. Sherpa Chat! You’re the one with the numbers and the hard truths. Back me up here — readers are saying subsidies and mandates have to be the basis of the answer!”

Sherpa Chat: “Actually, Jim, Dr. Westlake is correct on this point. Without robust gasification, reliable catalysts, and cost discipline, no level of subsidies will create a sustainable pathway.”

Westlake: “Ha! You see? Even the lady with the silicon brain agrees with me. Finally, some advanced technology worth having.”

Mike Robe: “Wait — she gets a compliment? What about me? I’m a post‑doc celebrity. I was in P. furiousus: A Mad Max Microbe Saga!”

Westlake: “Might be because I didn’t realize a chat assistant could be so easy on the eyes.”

Mike Robe: “Excuse me? I’m a Clooney!”

Huck: “Did he just say he’s a looney?”

Out to Sea — The Gulf of Diarkis

Huck takes the tiller from me, again. “And that’s when it hit us — like when the steamboat wheel throws a log and you remember the river’s got more muscle than you ever will. It’s all mixed up — absurd and kind of pretty, wonder and blunder in the same barrel. You got big bosses givin’ speeches, and quiet lab folks messin’ with their beakers, and some ol’ spreadsheet givin’ us hope while some fancy amendment takes it right back. 

First we was all about ethanol, ‘til we weren’t, then it was cellulosics, then chemicals, then algae, then plastics, then SAF, then RNG, then renewable diesel, then net zero, then ‘energy dominance,’ whatever that means — and now we’re back to ethanol plus the whole kitchen sink. It’s all jumbled, everyone elbowin’ for a piece of the pie, and for five whole minutes we just sat there quiet, lettin’ the water talk, tryin’ to figure how this raft ain’t sunk yet.”

But you can’t keep this crew quiet long. And once the sherpa with all the answers packs up her scrolls, and the sun dips low, the talk turns back to the only thing we’re good at — fussin’ and arguin’ about which way is up, which way is downriver, and whether Diarkis is a place you can even find on a map.

Westlake (refilling his billy can with river water, swishing it like he’s cleaning the truth out of it): “Lost. That’s what we are. Lost in shiny objects instead of building what works.”

Mike Robe (adjusting his Ray‑Bans, catching his own reflection in the brass of a grain scoop): “Lost? Speak for yourself. I found a metabolic pathway that makes butadiene in half the time!”

Peter (consulting a small astrolabe, aligning it to a star as if this river’s just another canal in Bruges): “Lost in quarterly returns. Found in principles. That is what Diarkis is about.”

Joao (leaning against the rail, fingering the gold‑plated cylinder like it’s a relic): “Lost? No. The star is there. Diarkis is there. I have found it.”

Hemingway (taking a swig from his bottle, staring past the horizon): “You lose. You find. You lose again. And you go out again.”

Mr. Jim (thumbing through a sheaf of notes like they hold a map to salvation): “Lost our patience, found our purpose. Lost grants, found markets. That’s the story of this industry.”

Westlake (tossing a glance toward Jim, muttering): “If you lot spent half as much time fixing gasifiers as you do chasing shiny objects, we’d already be there!”

Mike Robe (bristling, puffing up like a two‑inch movie star): “Gasifiers? Please. You’d still be fermenting with 1980s yeast if it weren’t for me and my microbial kin. The future is bugs, Brian. Designer bugs. Sexy bugs.”

Peter (snapping the astrolabe shut, voice rising): “Principle, my friends. You are bickering about tools when what we need is a system — hub‑and‑spoke, decentralized, efficient—”

Joao (pointing dramatically at a lone star): “Principles are nothing without vision! The star is there. Diarkis is there. But none of you will sail toward it.”

Mr. Jim (slapping the notes against his palm): “The answer is simple: more subsidies. Bigger mandates. Grants. You want the industry to grow? Feed it.”

Mike Robe: “Hand‑outs? You need hand‑ups. You want to live on mandates forever or sell to customers? Costs down, barriers down, markets up. At all costs.”

Peter: “Not at all costs.”

Mike Robe: “At affordable costs. You know what I mean. Don’t listen to what I’m saying, look where I’m pointing.”

Mr. Jim: No, Mike, it’s over here.

Joao: “You’re pointing the wrong way, Jim. Don’t you know which way Diarkis is?”

Mr. Jim (pausing, looking around at the crew with a grin): “Nope, I guess I don’t. Not yet, anyway. But I know we’ve got the crew to get there. And I’d rather sail for the Happy Isles and Diarkis with this arguing lot, this bioeconomy legion, than any other crew on Earth.

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
our coalition hath not that power which in old days
Moved Brussels and Washington, that which they are, they are;
Use one large measure of unwanted waste,
Made weak by solvents but recalcitrant still
You’ll grow, you’ll crush, if you not fail to improve yield.”

Westlake (sipping his tea with a grunt): “Typical. A rosy future and some poetic allusion no one can understand, when what the world really needs is just a good, robust gasifier.”

And then the raft erupted, voices crashing like the river against the pilings, as we sailed our way into the Gulf:

Mike Robe: “We’re lost!”
Peter: “We’re found!”
Joao: “We’re lost!”
Hemingway: “Found!”
Westlake: “Lost!”
Mike Robe: “Found!”
Mr. Jim: “Mike, you’re having it both ways!”
Mike Robe: “Too much time in D.C.”

…and so it went, “Lost!” “Found!” “Lost!” “Found!” echoing over the water, the Good Ship Digest drifting farther out until it was just a speck in the Gulf — or is that the Gulf of Mexico? Or the Gulf of America? Maybe it’s the Gulf of Diarkis, pathway to golden days ahead. If only. Huck says, “Eighteen and all growed up. Might be the only raft on this river where gettin’ lost feels exactly like the point.”

What can I say about what is lost and what is found? You can be lost and found, as long as your lostness has purpose — especially if what you found is valuable, and the market for the found thing is not lost, and your losses are offset by your findings, and the purpose of what you founded is never lost — even if you lose yourself, from time to time, in the foundry. Add some found to your lost and eventually you’ll be less lost, and more found. If you know what I mean. In other words: to get to Diarkis, what you need is a little more wandering. Hopefully, I’ve cleared that up.

Happy Birthday to the Digest, and from the Digest, and thank you for reading all these years.