By Helena Tavares Kennedy, Digest senior editor Have you ever seen a keynote speaker answer their cell phone in the middle of giving a speech? And seen it lead to a loud round of applause and a standing ovation? Yes, it really happened, only at today’s ABLC 2018. Find out who, why and what happened […]
Why characterize biomass? Lignocellulosic biomass is a complex biopolymer and its properties vary depending on its species, growth environments and conversion processes. Characteristics of biomass provide valuable insights for biomass utilization. Diverse characterization methods have been developed to elucidate physicochemical, thermal and morphological properties of biomass and its products. Art Ragauskas of The University of Tennessee‐Knoxville (and Oak Ridge) and Hugh Michael O’Neill and Timothy J. Tschaplinski of […]
There was high drama in Washington, DC as the Advanced Bioeconomy Leadership Conference got underway and President Trump readies to meet at the White House with a number of biofuels leaders about the RFS and bioeconomy policy in a session currently scheduled for 2pm ET today. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue reiterated the […]
Source Integration has developed a technology that creates a 12x surface area for a 12x algae harvest and expects expects an optimized production of 8 – 10 times plain algae raceway for same (water/land) surface area. Source — which aims at discussing licensing, joint ventures or other business arrangements for this technology — prepared this illuminating […]
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 […]
