Author Archive: Jim Lane

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Pipeline Access for Biofuels

September 20, 2026 | Jim Lane

Biofuels are excluded from common-carrier pipelines not through explicit refusal letters, but via published product specifications applied uniformly to all shippers. Because non-discrimination rules are legally satisfied, these technical exclusions never generate regulatory complaints before FERC. Dedicated ethanol pipelines account for merely twenty-two miles nationwide, forcing the industry to construct a permanent, parallel rail logistics […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to SAF Last-Mile Infrastructure

September 16, 2026 | Jim Lane

Sustainable aviation fuel recertified to ASTM standards is chemically identical to conventional jet fuel, requiring zero modifications to airport hydrant systems, storage tanks, or aircraft engines. The true last-mile bottleneck sits upstream at bulk fuel terminals that lack available tankage for blending and recertification. Furthermore, commercial gates constrain distribution, as fifty-nine percent of surveyed airports […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Shared Infrastructure Governance in Bioeconomy

September 13, 2026 | Jim Lane

Shared infrastructure is defined by governance rules, not physical connections. Without clear rules to allocate capacity and price exit, shared assets remain unstable multi-user facilities vulnerable to oversubscription and anchor defection. For example, bilateral agreements often fail to reconcile total booked volumes, and unpriced departures can collapse terminal economics, requiring costly state bailouts. Mitigating this […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Workforce Strategy for Regional Bioeconomy Hubs

September 5, 2026 | Jim Lane

The primary constraint in scaling regional bioeconomy hubs is the clock mismatch between fast corporate siting decisions and slow institutional talent formation. Siting takes months, but training takes years, putting workforce development on the critical path before operations begin. North Carolina’s state-wide system is the deepest U.S. build, yet its $230 million funding represents only […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Talent Migration and Incumbent Reservoirs

September 1, 2026 | Jim Lane

The bioeconomy’s most realistic talent source is the adjacent, incumbent process industry, which acts as a static reservoir rather than an active supply. Transitioning this workforce requires a defined, employer-funded conversion curriculum to bridge the technical gap to bioprocess operations. This reservoir is hollow in the middle, and standard recruitment suffers from high replacement demand […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Accumulated Experience and Retention

August 30, 2026 | Jim Lane

Operating experience is accumulated deployment capital that is written off during turnover without an accounting entry. While replacing a departed worker’s headcount takes six weeks, rebuilding their six years of tacit knowledge and specific plant judgment takes years. On thin, resource limited teams, turnover damages projects three times more, causing over sixteen percent schedule slippage […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Industrial AI Procurement Strategy

August 23, 2026 | Jim Lane

Most industrial AI pilots fail to reach production because operators mistakenly treat AI procurement as a software purchase rather than an architecture investment. AI cannot repair broken, fragmented data layers by inference alone; models require contextualized operating histories—including batch boundaries, lot genealogy, and equipment states—to generate value. To successfully deploy AI, companies must establish robust […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to Lab-to-Plant Tech Transfer in Industrial Biology

August 16, 2026 | Jim Lane

Technology transfer is where industrial biology projects frequently lose money during the commercial ramp due to preventable operating failures. While written recipes transfer easily, critical “invisible cargo”—such as tacit operator knowledge, scale-dependent variables, and complex equipment interactions—is often left behind. To de-risk scale-up, developers must look past misleading calendar milestones. Instead, they should deploy joint […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to RIN Market Dynamics

August 9, 2026 | Jim Lane

Producer economics are dictated by volatile RIN market prices rather than headline Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) targets. Driven by feedstock costs, EV penetration, and surging biogas supplies, RIN price swings contribute more variance to producer P&L than any other policy variable. Because uncontracted merchant RINs are highly unbankable, volume growth cannot offset a price collapse. […]

The Digest’s 2026 Multi-Slide Guide to 45Z Tax Equity Structuring

August 2, 2026 | Jim Lane

While 45Z transferability offers new direct-sale routes, the credit still faces steep market discounts due to complex carbon-intensity diligence, evolving feedstock rules, and recapture risks. A transferable credit is fundamentally not cash, creating a monetization lag that threatens debt service if not properly bridged. Sponsors can avoid an 8 to 15 percent value loss by […]

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