In New Hampshire, Mascoma reported yesterday that it had acquired SunOpta BioProcess, a division of SunOpta Inc. (STKL) This combination brings together the fiber preparation and pretreatment technologies of SBI and the consolidated bioprocessing technology of Mascoma, to create a company with comprehensive capabilities for converting non-food cellulose (wood chips, energy crops and organic solid […]
In Canada, Enerkem broke ground on its 9.5 Mgy (36 million liter), $75M municipal waste-to-biofuels facility with its partners, the City of Edmonton and the Government of Alberta. Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, Edmonton Mayor Stephen Mandel and Enerkem Chief Executive Officer Vincent Chornet participated in the event. Enerkem’s advanced biofuels plant, which will be located […]
The advocates of renewable energy have long chanted a mantra of “green jobs, energy security and lower emissions”, but in country after country we continue to see a fork in the road emerging whereby individual nations are forced to make choices between lowering (global) emissions or developing (local) green jobs. In Indonesia, the crisis has […]
In Mississippi, the state legislature approved Governor Haley Barbour’s special session request for a $75 million loan to KiOR for a proposed development of five biofuel plants in Mississippi by the Houston-based pyrolysis group. The state approved $51 million in new bonds to support a total of $81 million in incentives supporting the project, even […]
In recent weeks we have tracked the significant number of migrations among early stage biofuels producers from a “fuel centric” strategy to an emphasis of renewable chemicals, organic acids, food oils, and nutraceuticals. We sometimes think this publication ought to be renamed “Bio-High-Value-Co-Products-or-anything-please-God-that-makes-money-quickly Digest”. Case in point: Didn’t there used to be a Blue Marble […]
In California, Solazyme announced that Bunge has joined its Series D round as a strategic investor. The announcement comes on the heels of Solazyme’s Navy jet fuel delivery announcement and the recent announcement of $52 million in new capital from the Series D round, which included the announcement of strategic investors Chevron, and San-Ei Gen. […]
Researchers publishing last year in AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment proposed that energy production systems be measured not only in terms of energy return on energy investment (EROEI), but energy return on water invested (EROWI). The researchers noted in “Burning Water”: “Water withdrawals are ubiquitous in most energy production technologies…several assessments suggest that […]
In New Zealand, LanzaTech announced that it has produced 2,3-Butanediol (2,3-BD), a key building block used to make polymers, plastics and hydrocarbon fuels, using the company’s gas fermentation technology. Digest readers will recall that LanzaTech, voted the #41 Hottest Company in Bioenergy last year by Digest readers and expected to make a strong run in […]
In Massachusetts, the secretive Joule Unlimited (then known as Joule Biotechnologies) emerged late last year from “stealth mode” with the startling announcement that their technology could produce up to 15,000 gallons per acre (per year) of drop-in hydrocarbon fuels, using only sunlight, CO2 and (fresh, brackish or saline) water as inputs. The Solar Converter – […]
In the lexicon of renewables, solar and biomass-based energy are usually separated out into two distinct categories: there are different researchers, different grants, different media, different supporters. Generally, people think of solar as a source for electric power, and biofuels as a source for liquid transportation fuels. But it isn’t always so. Aside from the […]
