Oil prices in the 60s — what does that mean for the global economy, energy markets, and alternative fuels in the short-term and long-term? As if tough financing conditions and policy instability weren’t worrying enough for many observers, along comes a crash in global oil prices. One of the US-based Digesterati writes: “Most of the […]
Butamax, KRL, Vivergo, sugarcane ethanol business not impacted by cuts; consolidation to Brazil; San Diego research center, Highland feedstock operation also up for sale. In the UK, news broke from BP headquarters that the company has determined to divest the cellulosic biofuels business amidst an overall corporate retrenchment, in the face of falling energy prices, […]
By Brent Erickson, Executive VP, BIO; Head, Industrial & Environmental Section The underlying legal constructs of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) remain in working order, despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to issue a final 2014 rule and its other regulatory missteps. Over the past five years, the program spurred billions of dollars of […]
Takes Series D (last pre-commercial) venture round to $120 million. Financial path to commercial-scale and beyond now set — all eyes now on scale-up of the technology, and expansion from carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide as a feedstock, as well. In New Zealand, the New Zealand Superannuation Fund has made a US$60 million equity investment […]
By Gregory T. Benz, President, Benz Technology International, Inc. Conventional biofuels, whether from starch, sugar or lignocellulosic materials, tend to be low energy density products such as ethanol or butanol. These are made using catabolic (anaerobic), thermodynamically “downhill” processes. Such processes have been proven feasible in rather large fermenter volumes, in excess of 1 million […]
The Digest’s Dashboard is a convenient “news you can use” 5-Minute summary of current markets including key commodity prices, relevant futures, bioenergy-related stocks, and historical equities data. Latest prices – key commodities. Most recent commodity closing prices, and price changes, for NYMEX’s crude oil, Brent Crude, Ultra-Low Sulphur Diesel, Natural Gas, RBOB gasoline, and Ethylene; ethanol […]
The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, edged up 0.28 percent to 64.81 as advanced biofuels gained. For the day,OriginOIl (OOIL) soared 19.24 percent to $.16, while Amyris (AMRS) was up 3.59 to $2.60. Among other equities, Solazyme (SZYM) soared 9.87 percent to $2.56. Overall, declines led advances 9 to 7 […]
By Sam A. Rushing – Advanced Cryogenics, Ltd. Special to The Digest Perhaps the newfound trend with respect to carbon dioxide (CO2) will be various forms of recycling of this greenhouse gas and gas commodity. There has been a great deal of press associated with new start up companies which propose using CO2 from virtually […]
Take CO2, add water and an energy source: voila, Fuels & Chemicals from Microbial Dairies. We revisit 3 top practitioners of the art and one outlier, and their progress. Elsewhere in the Digest today we have a Sam Rushing’s “CO2 recycling from biofuels and allied chemical and energy projects” — looking at CO2 sources ranging from […]
In Washington, the Congress has reconvened for its “lame-duck” post-election session, and high on the agenda has been the “tax extenders” — a series of 55 or so popular corporate tax breaks, some nearly universal such as corporate research deductions. Some that impact individual industries, and advanced biofuels amongst them. Primarily we hear this about […]
