In part one of “The Name is Bond” we looked at the crisis in biofuels financing, its causes and included an overview of possible solutions. Today, we look in more depth at a particular bond-market solution developed by a team at Stern Brothers, Mintz Levin and Kreig DeVault, which has the potential to clear the […]
Last October, the Digest ran a five-part series, Benjamins for Biofuels, outlining the causes of the financing halt in advanced biofuels, its impacts, and proposed remedies. The Digest further reported (in “Over There: The Yanks are Coming” ) that US-based advanced biofuels developers were increasingly targeting Asian deployments in order to secure capital. Part five […]
In Washington, the USDA wrapped up its anniversary meeting on clean energy with Agriculture Secretary Vilsack noting that the default rate on its rural development business loans, at one percent, indicates that the Department needs “to be willing to take a chance” and commence funding larger, riskier projects that can address the long-term economic decline […]
In Texas, Valero announced a joint development deal with Florida-based Algenol Biofuels, describing a “relatively small investment” but not offering details on the deal. Algenol said in media reports that the development deal calls for the two companies to place algae farms next to refineries, and using the carbon dioxide as a feedback for the […]
The following article is adapted and expanded from remarks given at the Philippine Embassy, Washington DC, on April 29th, by Biofuels Digest editor Jim Lane. It recaps themes and highlights from the Advanced Biofuels Leadership Conference as well as touching on concepts such as food vs fuel, sustainable biofuels, and why biofuels matter. Your Excellency, […]
In Washington, POET outlined its plans to produce up to 3.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022 in a presentation at the National Press Club. CEO Jeff Broin confirmed that the POET will break ground on its 25 Mgy cellulosic ethanol facility in Emmetsburg, Iowa, by year end. The POET’s plan divides into three […]
In California, Amyris Biotechnologies filed its S-1 IPO registration statement with the SEC on Friday – becoming the second major biofuels-oriented firm to file for an IPO in the past six months, after Codexis. Amyris, which hopes to raise up to $100 million in the offering, said in its S-1 statement that “We plan to […]
Perhaps the only thing under heaven that moves slower and more unpredictably than evolution is the evolution of carbon policy. Biofuels investors have long since written off carbon as a factor, saying that the uncertainty of policy has led them to fund only those projects that can survive without a price on carbon. But with […]
A visitor to Eastern Europe after the fall of communism would have been awestruck by the massive posters touting Winston cigarettes as “the taste of freedom” that often plastered locations where posters of Chairman Stalin and his ilk has once fluttered. It looked as if Christo had wrapped the Iron Curtain in a project sponsored […]
It has been nearly a year now since a $600 million investment by ExxonMobil in a project with Synthetic Genomics jolted the biofuels community and sparked what became known as the “summer of algae”. Though summer has long faded, the astonishing pace of algal fuel development has not lost pace, and in fact March was […]
