In 2008, we reported on the price-distorting entry of speculators into the ethanol and grain markets, a rising disconnect between ethanol and gasoline prices, and the rapid expansion of energy and food demand in China. In late 2010, we see again the predatory entry of speculators into the grain markets, and a growing disconnect between […]
Biofuels Digest is inaugurating a new section today: Top Tweets. If you haven’t been following the growth of Twitter, its a short messaging service limited to 140-character “tweets”, which will amuse, inform, and in some cases drive you completely crazy. But Twitter has become big. Last month, according to Royal Pingdom, Twitter processed 2.64 billion […]
In Florida, Biofuels Digest released its Fall 2010 Bioenergy Business Outlook survey, available here. Respondents to the survey will receive a detailed summary of the survey’s findings and commentary on trends from the Biofuels Digest editorial team. The survey examines growth expectations and opportunities from a company, national and organizational point of view. Overall survey […]
The first thing you notice when you arrive at the Mascoma demonstration plant in Rome, NY is the machine gun emplacement guarding the entrance to the parking lot. It gets you attention, but what the emplacement actually guarding is the Eastern Air Command, the NORAD unit that handles aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and defense for […]
In New Hampshire, Mascoma reported yesterday that it had acquired SunOpta BioProcess, a division of SunOpta Inc. (STKL) This combination brings together the fiber preparation and pretreatment technologies of SBI and the consolidated bioprocessing technology of Mascoma, to create a company with comprehensive capabilities for converting non-food cellulose (wood chips, energy crops and organic solid […]
In Canada, Enerkem broke ground on its 9.5 Mgy (36 million liter), $75M municipal waste-to-biofuels facility with its partners, the City of Edmonton and the Government of Alberta. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel and Enerkem Chief Executive Officer Vincent Chornet participated in the event. Enerkem’s advanced biofuels plant, which will be located […]
The advocates of renewable energy have long chanted a mantra of “green jobs, energy security and lower emissions”, but in country after country we continue to see a fork in the road emerging whereby individual nations are forced to make choices between lowering (global) emissions or developing (local) green jobs. In Indonesia, the crisis has […]
In Mississippi, the state legislature approved Governor Haley Barbour’s special session request for a $75 million loan to KiOR for a proposed development of five biofuel plants in Mississippi by the Houston-based pyrolysis group. The state approved $51 million in new bonds to support a total of $81 million in incentives supporting the project, even […]
In recent weeks we have tracked the significant number of migrations among early stage biofuels producers from a “fuel centric” strategy to an emphasis of renewable chemicals, organic acids, food oils, and nutraceuticals. We sometimes think this publication ought to be renamed “Bio-High-Value-Co-Products-or-anything-please-God-that-makes-money-quickly Digest”. Case in point: Didn’t there used to be a Blue Marble […]
In California, Solazyme announced that Bunge has joined its Series D round as a strategic investor. The announcement comes on the heels of Solazyme’s Navy jet fuel delivery announcement and the recent announcement of $52 million in new capital from the Series D round, which included the announcement of strategic investors Chevron, and San-Ei Gen. […]
