Author Archive: Jim Lane

The Digest’s 2025 Multi-Slide Guide to Reinvigorating Forest Economies through Biofuel Production

May 13, 2025 | Jim Lane

Daniel S. LeFevers of SunGas Renewables highlighted their S1000 technology for advanced biofuels production. Key takeaways included utilizing abundant, sustainably managed forest and sawmill residues as feedstock. This approach, combined with carbon capture and storage, offers a low-cost method for CO2 removal and supports carbon-negative fuels. SunGas is developing the large-scale Beaver Lake green methanol […]

The Digest’s 2025 Multi-Slide Guide to Feedstocks and the Future of the Bioeconomy

May 12, 2025 | Jim Lane

Alexander A. Koukoulas, Ph.D. from AFRY emphasized key factors for a successful bioeconomy, including feedstocks, technology, market knowledge/off-takes, and policy support. Strong market knowledge and off-take agreements are crucial for project bankability. The rapid expansion of advanced biorefineries presents immense scale opportunity. Advancing processing technologies, strengthening market signals, ensuring regulatory stability, and driving cross-sector collaboration […]

10 Top Takeaways for Renewable Chemicals and Biomaterials in 2025

May 12, 2025 | Jim Lane

The spring conference season is starting to draw to a close, what are the takeaways from the major presentations of the season? Here are our top 10 Takeaways for renewable chemicals and biomaterials project development and product deployment in 2025: 1. Offtake Agreements are Crucial for Bankability: Securing firm offtake agreements from reliable buyers is […]

The High Art of Performance: Taking strain engineering to the next level

May 11, 2025 | Jim Lane

The battle lines are drawn and the ethanol industry’s equivalent of the Met Gala is about to begin. When June rolls around, the titans of the enzyme and yeast industries roll out their latest offerings. The strain engineers unleash their latest offerings on the runways, and we all sit back and marvel at the audacity, […]

The Digest’s 2025 Multi-Slide Guide to Feeding into High Pressure Reactors Made Easy by Jen-Zero

May 8, 2025 | Jim Lane

This presentation features Dr. Jayant Khambekar from Jenike & Johanson. It highlights challenges feeding waste feedstocks into high-pressure reactors for thermochemical conversion, citing issues like arching and pressure blow-back with existing technology. The presentation introduces Jen-Zero, a patent-pending system for reliable, continuous feeding without requiring extensive pre-treatment, overcoming common flow problems.

Who’s Tackling the Challenges in biobased chemicals and biomaterials? Looking at EUBCE 2025

May 8, 2025 | Jim Lane

By Jim Spaeth Special to The Digest Renewable chemicals and biomaterials are no longer niche—they are the future of carbon. Europe stands at the threshold of massive opportunity, from decarbonized manufacturing to circular materials innovation. But crossing that threshold? That’s another story. The technology exists. The markets are interested. The policies are warming. And yet, […]

The Digest’s 2025 Multi-Slide Guide to Establishing Biofuel Pathways for the Ocean-going and Inland Marine Sectors

May 7, 2025 | Jim Lane

This presentation features Mike Kass from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It addresses decarbonizing marine shipping to meet IMO GHG reduction targets. Highlights include research by a 4-lab partnership assessing bio-intermediate potential via TEA and LCA, showing promise. Low carbon fuel testing with biofuels (neat and blends), including HTL bio-crude and fast pyrolysis bio-oil, is underway […]

The Digest’s 2025 Multi-Slide Guide to Renewable Raw Materials & Chemicals

May 6, 2025 | Jim Lane

This presentation features Lauren Junker from BASF. The presentation details BASF’s journey to net zero by 2050 and shaping a circular economy. Key highlights include the focus on biobased carbon sources like starch, sucrose, oil crops, and various residues. It explores transformation pathways from biomass to chemicals, acknowledging the energy challenges compared to fossil sources […]

5 Bioeconomy Persisters: why are these technologies and companies advancing strong in times of uncertainty?

May 6, 2025 | Jim Lane

Keep on keeping on. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Uncertainty is another way of spelling opportunity. These are so easy to say and write, so hard to do. At a time of great economic and policy uncertainty — the world may not be going to blazes, as some of our friends […]

The Digest’s 2025 Multi-Slide Guide to Policies and Practices for Climate Smart Agriculture

May 5, 2025 | Jim Lane

This presentation features Gregory Jaffe of Jaffe Policy Consulting. Highlights include details on the USDA Climate Smart Agriculture Interim Rule, covering biofuel feedstock crops, carbon intensity, and supply chain standards. It outlines covered crops like field corn, soybean, and sorghum, and practices like no-till and cover crops. Possible future additions and the Partnership for Climate […]

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