What’s the latest with carbon fiber? The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to develop and demonstrate an acrylonitrile (bio-ACN) production process from biomass-derived sugars at ≤ $1/lb. Additionally, the team led by NREL’s Adam Bratis aims to demonstrate suitability of bio-ACN for the production of carbon fiber relative to conventional practices . […]
In Washington, ABLC 2018 opens amidst a flutter of government rollbacks of deployment support but the hope of regulatory relief, breakthroughs in financial structuring, a decisive shift in early-stage projects to nutrition & health, and an increasing number of deployments in advanced biofuels and a surge in exports and overseas expansion for corn ethanol. On […]
In Washington, President Trump has requested a face-to-face meeting on Thursday with leaders of the US biofuels industry after talks between Big Oil and pro-biofuels forces over the Renewable Fuel Standard concluded today with what Senator Charles Grassley described as “No deal on RFS reform and no assurances or commitments” either to petroleum or biofuels […]
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the first demo flight on biofuel which was done by Virgin Atlantic. LanzaTech CEO Jennifer Holmgren shared the factoid that, since that day, more than 100,000 commercial flights have used low carbon fuels. “This is especially amazing since in 2006 I was told over and over that biofuel flight […]
The US Department of Energy is supporting a project led by Novozymes that proposes to deliver a screening platform which can be used to reduce discovery time required for tailoring enzymes to process specific contexts. It’s called SynTec — Synthetic Biology for Tailored Enzyme Cocktails — and its one of the signature synbio developments with immediate applications to the […]
By Brent Erickson, executive vice-president; Head, Industrial & Environmental Section, Biotechnology Innovation Organization Special to The Digest This week, I’ll be addressing the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference. I’d like to thank Jim Lane for giving me that opportunity again this year. I appreciate it, because BIO is the only trade association that advocates for the […]
The objective? To create an economically viable process for the production of butanol from the underutilized natural resources domestically available economically sustainable biofuel at or below DOE target selling price. And, suitable for roll-out in multiple regions containing agricultural residues and underutilized forest residuals. Not to mention, able to compete in the butanol market without subsidy. The Department […]
Chloroplasts are in the news this week because St. Louis-based TechAccel made a science advancement investment with Plastomics, a biotechnology startup making better crops through chloroplast engineering. Here’s the key Chloroplast engineering is a fast, efficient, and more predictable way to introduce multiple traits into important crops that can also reduce time to market. New […]
You know what they say, “you can make anything you want from lignin except money.” It’s the most challenging issues in biofuel production: upgrading the lignin-containing biorefineryresidues to fungible bioproducts, in an affordable, effective, scalable way. The US Department of Energy is supporting a project to develop a viable bioprocess to convert biorefinerywaste to bioplastics […]
In the UK, Ricardo has unveiled its CryoPower engine technology and points towards a potential saving of approximately 30 percent in CO2 emissions and 20 percent in operating fuel costs for heavy-duty trucks and in stationary distributed power generation systems. That translates into potential operator savings of approximately $12,500 per year for each vehicle, or […]
