“What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar”, US Vice President Thomas Marshall once remarked to the United States Senate during a long speech by Kansas Senator Joe Bristow on the subject of “what this country needs.” Today, we could use a good five-cent renewable sugar, suitable for microorganisms that, from sucrose, make affordable […]
Where other companies are growing sugars via crop improvements, or extracting them, Proterro is making them via synthetic biology. Specifically, they have engineered a cyanobacteria to make sucrose (via a series of steps you can read all about here), ultimately from CO2, water, sunlight and nutrients – and secrete it into a sugarwater stream that […]
In today’s Digest, we’ve looked at: • New investors flock to Proterro as all the incumbents re-up • Why Affordable Renewable Sugars are a Monster Prize• Making sugars, not extracting them: Proterro’s Technology So, when will we know if Proterro is a company and not a science project? The timing is in months, not years, in terms of […]
In Washington, the D.C. Circuit Court nixed a suit by the American Petroleum Institute against the Environmental Protection Agency over the agency’s 2010 revision to the Renewable Fuel Standard. In addressing the API’s suit, over the EPA’s mandate that obligated parties pay fines for not blending cellulosic biofuels when no cellulosic biofuels to buy had […]
The Biofuels Digest Index™ (BDI), a basket of public biofuels stocks, edged up 0.19 percent to an eight-week high of 63.46 as large caps rallied. For the day, DuPont (DD) gained 1.22 percent to $44.63, while Gevo (GEVO) rallied another 3.95 percent to $1.58. Among other equities, Rentech (RTK) dove 2.72 percent to $2.84. Overall, […]
Biofuels Digest has released the next wave of its 5-Minute Guides – a “news you can use” digest on the leading companies in biofuels. Each 5-Minute Guide provides a company description, top development and commercialization, milestones for from 2010 through today, description of the business model; plus project info (location, feedstocks, product set, processing technology, […]
Altranex Address: 5200 Finch St. East, Suite 210, Toronto, ON M1S 4Z4 Canada Year Founded: 2010 Company description: Biodiesel, as it is produced today does not work in cold weather. Below 50F (10C), biodiesel begins to solidify rendering engines inoperable in cold weather. Small quantities of biodiesel (up to 5%) can be blended with petro-diesel […]
Address: 239 Magill Rd, Adelaide, Australia Year Founded: 2010 Company description: Algae biofuels technology development Major Investors Muradel Pty Ltd was incorporated in December 2010 as a joint venture between Murdoch University, Adelaide Research and Innovation Pty Ltd and SQC Pty Ltd. Muradel’s technology development is supported by Australia’s leading algae science from Murdoch University […]
Company description: (includes Oxford Catalysts Ltd, based near Oxford, UK and Velocys, Inc., based in Plain City, Ohio). The Oxford Catalyst Group Develops of catalysts and microchannel reactor technology for the generation of clean fuels from both conventional fossil fuels and biomass Address: 115e Milton Park, Oxford OX14 4RZ, UK Year founded: 2001: Velocys, Inc. […]
Address: 11260 El Camino Real, Suite O, San Diego, CA 92130 Company description: SG Biofuels is a bioenergy crop company using molecular breeding and biotechnology to develop elite, hybrid seeds of Jatropha. The company has sold more than 250,000 acres of its hybrid Jatropha seed, including orders from two of the top 20 largest energy […]
