Category: Top Stories

Algae sneakers, biodegradable sunglasses, astaxanthin fermentation tech, and more: The Digest’s Top 8 Innovations for the week of June 18th

June 17, 2021 | admin

It’s a star-studded week for the Top 8 Innovations with singer Kanye West’s Yeezy Runner sneakers made with algae-foam, famous quarterback Tom Brady’s biodegradable sunglasses support, and professional surfer Dane Gudauskas’s Eco Theory biobased Vans footwear. Not to be left out, Adidas invested $3.65 million in the IPO of Spinnova which uses wood and agricultural […]

Avoiding the Coming Apocalypse: NREL’s Vision for Strategic Piloting and Enabling the Deployment of Bioenergy Technologies

June 16, 2021 | Jim Lane

By David J. Robichaud, Robert M. Baldwin, and Thomas D. Foust, National Renewable Energy Laboratory Special to The Digest A recent article in Biofuels Digest by Guske and Warner titled, “The Coming Apocalypse: Will Industrial Biotech Flourish or Flounder”, put forward a compelling argument about the diminishing capacity of contract research and manufacturing organizations (CRO/CMO) […]

Circular: the Debut Issue is Here!

June 15, 2021 | Jim Lane

CIRCULAR debuts, a journal of sciences, ideas and technologies with major personalities, in-depth journalism, and inviting design. Today, a new magazine of science, ideas and sustainable brands appears from the creators of The Daily Digest, the world’s most widely-read bioeconomy daily: CIRCULAR. From Nobel Prize-winning scientists to Hollywood celebs, everyone is talking ‘circular economy’ and […]

Striking Footprint: Cargill, Helm take a giant leap for biobased BDO

June 14, 2021 | Jim Lane

News arrived late last week that Cargill and HELM have formed a JV known as Qore to help leading brands replace fossil-based chemistries with bio-based intermediates, and are investing a combined $300 million to build the first commercial-scale, renewable BDO (1,4-butanediol) facility in the U.S. Today, let’s look behind the headlines. Despite all the “California, […]

Carbios acquires entire stake of Carbiolice for polymer biodegradation tech

June 13, 2021 | admin

News came from Carbios, the French biotech company pioneering new enzymatic solutions to reinvent the lifecycle of plastic and textile polymers, that they acquired shares of a joint venture, Carbiolice – which strengthens its capacity to develop its activities on polymers biodegradation beyond PLA (polylactic acid). You may recall that in May, Carbios raised about […]

Competitive Edge: Can Sweet Gazoil’s surface flash cracking technology help solve plastics pollution?

June 10, 2021 | Jim Lane

Q: What was the reason for founding your organization – what was the open niche you saw that could be addressed with a new product or service? What was the problem, or gap, or opportunity? Sweet Gazoil was founded to solve water pollution from waste and used oil. EPA states that 60% of water pollution […]

Bioprinted cultured meat, 3D printed algae, biobased coffee capsules, cell-cultured human breast milk, and more: The Digest’s Top 8 Innovations for the week of June 10th

June 9, 2021 | admin

This week’s Top 8 Innovations are feeding our appetite. With cultured meat innovator MeaTech filing a provisional U.S. patent application for its bioprinting method for printing up some juicy steaks, 3D printed algae that could help future Mars colonies, Swiss coffee capsules now made from bioplastic, and the world’s first cell-cultured human breast milk for […]

What Color is Your Hydrogen?

June 8, 2021 | Jim Lane

For an invisible gas, hydrogen seems to come in more colors than boy of crayons. And, you have to learn to weed out the greenwash and the cleanwash. And some of the hogwash. Take for example the news from North Dakota, where Bakken Energy and Mitsubishi Power Americas, inked a strategic partnership agreement to create […]

A Two for One – Biofuels Reduce Carbon for Both Climate and Health

June 7, 2021 | Jim Lane

By Dave VanderGriend, President, Urban Air Initiative Special to The Digest For the last decade, efforts to reduce carbon were simmering on back burners in various pockets of government but have now reached a full boil with legislative proposals and regulatory directives going all in on carbon reductions. The buzzwords we hear in Washington and […]

Lignin leads the way – World’s first lignin bio-asphalt road, lignin’s array of applications and more

June 6, 2021 | admin

“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by.” Robert Frost Let’s say there are 2 roads – one a traditional fossil-fuel based asphalt road and the other a biobased lignin asphalt road. Which one would you take? We know you can make almost anything out of lignin, […]

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