By Daniel A. Lane, Ph.D., Member, Lee Enterprises Consulting, Inc. Special to The Digest At its most basic level, technoeconomic analysis or assessment (TEA) is a cost-benefit comparison tool used to evaluate the commercial viability of a process. While many companies are quite familiar with this tool, a number of startups often forgo TEAs of […]
By Dave Humbird, Ph.D., Member, Lee Enterprises Consulting, Inc. Special to The Digest For new technologies in the bioeconomy (and in the chemical process industry more broadly), the putative path to commercialization is some form of: lab, pilot, demonstration, commercial. The Technology Readiness Level (TRL) scale is often proposed to track this progression, effectively ranking […]
By Wayne Lee, CEO, Lee Enterprises Consulting, Inc. and Martin Wahl, Director of Marketing, Lee Enterprise Consulting, Inc. Special to The Digest Last fall, the experts at Lee Enterprises Consulting published a series of articles entitled Financing Bioeconomy Ventures[1]. At a high level, this previous series covered pro formas, business plans, strategic analysis, market assessment, engineering design, […]
By Bryan Sherbacow, Chief Commercial Officer, World Energy Special to The Digest As 2018 has made all too clear, climate change is real and it’s impacting all of our lives. July 2018 was the hottest month ever recorded in California. We have dealt with the state’s largest wildfire this summer, just one year after the […]
Recently, Neste, the world’s leading producer of renewable diesel, UK-based chemical recycling company ReNew ELP, and Australian technology developer Licella (Cat-HTR™ process) joined forces in a development project to explore the potential of using mixed waste plastic as a raw material for fuels, chemicals, and new plastics. This brings me to the topic at hand […]
by Antoine Schellinger Special to The Digest In what has now become the final RFS2 issued policy under Scott Pruitt, there is no change from the policy established in the proposed and final 2018 Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO). The use of cellulosic waiver authority still dominates the rationale. EPA still back calculating (“implied volume requirement”) […]
By Jeremy Martin, Senior Scientist, Clean Vehicles, Union of Concerned Scientists Republished by permission, the original is here. Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is gone, but the messes he created will be with us for a long time. His approach to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) took an already complicated policy and turned it upside […]
By Sam Nejame, Special to The Digest Here in Cambridge it’s humid and the spritely Liz Warren will soon be seen power walking in a straw hat through my neighborhood again. Amidst the brimstone of the ongoing blue/red culture war, it is useful to consider that even the less than conscientious former EPA chief Scott Pruitt […]
By Craig (CJ) Evans, Managing Director, American Diversified Energy Consulting Services, Accredited Member, Lee Enterprises Consulting Special to The Digest More than almost any other industry, financing for the bioeconomy is heavily influenced by and, in many cases, reliant on favorable public policies. Everyone involved in the bioeconomy – companies, entrepreneurs, visionaries, vendors, employees, and […]
By Don Scott, director of sustainability, National Biodiesel Board Special to The Digest EPA’s recently published Second Triennial Report to Congress on Biofuels and the Environment provides no meaningful conclusion on the net environmental benefits of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). What EPA’s report unfortunately does provide, however, is fodder for political pundits wishing to […]
