As drought, recession, and capital starvation form a perfect storm, will advanced biofuels be thrown under the bus? Industry leaders say that dropping biofuels production targets will not reverse impacts of the 2012 drought. Instead, it may extend a devastating drought in project capital markets. It’s been a tough, tough year for farmers and ranchers, […]
In recent years, the two-carbon (ethanol, ethyl acetate, acetic acid) and four-carbon (butanol, butadiene, butanediol) platforms have been the most highly-chased in the industry. The three-carbon platform has excellent prices and market potential, but development in proproylene, propane, and propanol (among other 3-carbon molecules) has lagged. That may change, following action on proposed grants from […]
Biofuels Digest has released the first wave of its 5-Minute Guides – a “news you can use” digest on the leading companies in biofuels. Each 5-Minute Guide provides a company description, 3 top milestones for 2010-12 and projected for 2012-14, description of the business model; plus project info (location, feedstocks, product set, processing technology, capacity, […]
28 big balance sheets deploying capital into commercial-scale advanced biofuels. Who’s writing the checks, and for what, and when? It’s become an article of faith among the unenlightened that advanced biofuels are always five years away, and the chief investors are the US Department of Energy and a gaggle of key Obama campaign donors. The […]
$100 billion in stranded gas, flared each year – bad for economics, bad for climate. Now, along comes Siluria with biotechnology that changes the economics, and opens new opportunities to make high-value ethylene from all that low-cost natural gas. If you were watching the second Obama-Romney presidential debate last night, or heard about it, it […]
World’s largest producer of sugarcane ethanol commits investment to cellulosic ethanol development with Iogen. In Brazil, Raízen Group and Iogen Energy announced that Raízen has committed an initial investment to develop a commercial cellulosic ethanol project in Brazil with Iogen. The investment, the first step toward the commercialization of cellulosic biofuels technology in Brazil, will cover development and […]
Waste CO2 from Petronas operations will be captured by LanzaTech’s process to create economic routes to acetic acid, and other downstream products. In Malaysia, LanzaTech and the Malaysian national oil company, Petronas, announced they will work together to accelerate the development and commercialization of technologies to produce sustainable chemicals from carbon dioxide (CO2) and natural […]
You’ve heard about it, no doubt, the red light district. Filled with today’s temptations and allure, tomorrow’s regrets and OMGs. Biofuels has its own district, too – but Roxanne, you don’t have to put out the red light. In biofuels, feedstocks come in many shapes, phases, and sizes — but only three colors – red, […]
In Florida, with just four days of voting left in the Hot 50 and Hot 30 rankings, OriginOil took the lead in Hot 50 Twitter voting, while Genomatica took the lead for the Hot 30. This year, 10 percent of the overall rankings will be apportioned to Twitter votes – and dozens of companies have […]
In Florida, Biofuels Digest subscribers have put Gevo into the lead in 2012-13 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy subscriber balloting. Last year’s winner, Solazyme, dipped to second. Novozymes continues to show a lot of strength in reader voting and placed #3 in votes so far. Meanwhile, LanzaTech has made it all the way to #4, […]
