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 […]
We hear so much about the ethanol blend wall, that we can be excused for thinking it is the primary wall, or threshold, out there. The Growth Energy publicity juggernaut ceaselessly reminds us that, at 10 percent blends of ethanol, the US can absorb only about 13 billion gallons of ethanol before it has nowhere […]
In California, BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, voted the 19th Hottest Company in Bioenergy for 2009-2010 by Digest readers and a panel of international selectors, announced that the company has changed its name to BlueFire Renewables to more clearly illustrate the company’s capabilities in renewable energy. BlueFire Renewables will continue to trade as BFRE.OB. Its not the […]
After several years in which no biofuels IPOs were launched (or were withdrawn), suddenly there were four. The $78 million IPO for Codexis, which was completed this spring. The $100 million IPO for Amyris which was announced early in the summer, Now a $200 million offering from PetroAlgae and a $150 million registration for Gevo. […]
