The Energy Independence and Security Act is sixteen years old this year, going on seventeen, and when I think the industry that has sprung up to deliver the advanced fuels contemplated by the Bush Administration, I think of the old lyric from The Sound of Music: You are sixteen going on seventeen Baby, it’s time […]
What a year 2019! Butene, bio-isobutene, farnesene – it was a year of biochemicals and innovations, of changing policies and uncertainty of advanced biofuels, increased efficiencies in the world of enzymes, catalysts and more, fascinating developments with meat alternatives, leather without the cow, plastic without the plastic, a huge variety of joint ventures and partnerships, and […]
We call it the materials superhighway to suggest an awesome speed of innovation, a connection back to the genetics revolution and the information superhighway, and a focus on the new materials, chemicals, substances, and energies of the advanced bioeconomy. That superhighway may have just found its Porsche 911 — fast as lightning, stunning design and […]
The bunting is down, the bands have retreated and ABLC Global is now in the rear-view mirror — all the bustle of 625 delegates raising a din of deal-making so loud in the anterooms that delegates had to routinely flee to other floors to be heard. It was, at times, not unlike the old trading […]
In Idaho, researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have have cut the modeled cost of harvesting, storing, transporting, and preprocessing biomass from $149.58/dry ton to $82.86/dry ton. As INL’s Kevin Kenney explained, “when applying least-cost formulation and blending strategies in an analysis of data from DOE’s 2016 Billion-Ton Report, INL researchers achieved a 46% reduction […]
News arrived from Finland that Neste, UK-based chemical recycling company ReNew ELP, and Australian technology developer Licella have partnered to explore the potential of using mixed waste plastic as a raw material for fuels, chemicals, and new plastics. The Wonder from Down Under, Licella, joined up with the Flying Finns of Neste? Powerful potential that. […]
by Antoine Schellinger Special to The Digest In what has now become the final RFS2 issued policy under Scott Pruitt, there is no change from the policy established in the proposed and final 2018 Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO). The use of cellulosic waiver authority still dominates the rationale. EPA still back calculating (“implied volume requirement”) […]
The pace of invention and change is just too strong, we’ve realized, to highlight annual or even quarterly or monthly rankings and summaries of significant product and service advances. For now, we’re going to be tracking these on a weekly basis to keep pace with the changes. Here are the top innovations for the week […]
From Southern California the report has arrived that Verdezyne is winding down as a company, and today is the last day of operations. The low oil price environment has claimed another victim among the renewable chemical pure-plays. Why oil prices have doomed more chemical players than fuels In a nutshell, there’s no Renewable Chemicals Standard […]
Tie-ins for Zymergen, Radiant Genomics, DMC, Capricorn Venture Partners, Syngenta and CHS demonstrate the firepower and scope of digital biology. Today, products made via traditional biological tools tap into easy-to-grow-in-a-lab organisms, and mostly nothin’ else. Sort of like making all the wines in the world from Merlot grapes, because the underlying manufacturing is just too easy […]
