By Doug Sombke, South Dakota Farmers Union Special to The Digest This time of year many of us wrestle with New Years Resolutions–what can we do that we did not do last year? What can we do better? How can we improve ourselves and maybe in the process make the world a better place? Well, for […]
You might be wondering what the heck this map signifies — enthroned as it is on the website of the National Insitute of Food & Agriculture, the USDA’s primary intersection with the academic community — and also visible in an updated form at ABLC Next when USDA Energy Policy director Harry Baumes took the floor. […]
A newer technology Synova Power has arrived with the promise of clean, green, lean stream of pipeline-quality natural gas from biomass. There have been so many claims of “lean and green” over the years, we had better make some quick distinctions to highlight why this is a technology to watch. Lean, green or clean? Lean […]
ENGAGE THE HYPER-DRIVE. Is everyone’s organism for making fuels, chemicals, materials, foods, flavors, fragrances and therapeutics — beautifully and slowly — heading for rapid obsolescence? “Everyone wants to make it faster,” notes Kytopen co-founder Cullen Buie. “Over the past 18 months, we discovered there’s a huge market for speed.” That’s one of the reasons why, […]
By Lorenz Bauer, Gerald Kutney and Bob Kodrzycki, Lee Enterprises Consulting Special to The Digest (Note: This is Part 4 of an 11-part series. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.) Investors focused on renewable chemicals and fuels are looking for projects with the greatest commercial potential. However, within the plethora […]
It’s been around for millions of years, algae. Why now? A combination of pressing human need, and scientific advancement — these two drivers are working not always on the same timeline, but roughly so. Algae’s arriving because a 9 billion global population is arriving by 2050, and the developing world is shifting to more protein […]
The Plant Bottle has generated so much goodwill and publicity for its 30% renewable, sustainable content (and that biobased MEG) that it’s easy to forget that there are several paths being chased to 100% renewable clear plastic bottles by numerous partners, and there are a wide swath of plastics where renewables can play a role. […]
California is for many the “home of innovation” but almost everyone thinks of Silicon Valley in this respect, or perhaps the Bay Area as a whole. And there are innovative companies in huge numbers, for sure— but you’d be surprised how broad the innovation story is across the entire Golden State. The sexy PR is […]
By Lorenz Bauer, Ph.D., Lee Enterprises Consulting Special to The Digest Methanol Sources and Uses Methanol and bioeconomies are two of the buzz words of the last decade. They had their origin in the “peak oil” scare and the predicted sky rocketing oil prices. They were further boosted by environmental concerns about pollution and climate change. […]
By Dr. Anju D. Krivov, Lee Enterprises Consulting, Inc. Special to The Digest Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s vision of an algae oil machine fed with a bucketful of algae soup from a pond at one end spits out oil at the other – that must have amused the NOVA Science television viewers back in 2009 – […]
