The renewable energy industry was saddened on March 3 by the news of the death of Guido Ghisolfi, Vice Chairman of the Mossi & Ghisolfi group and CEO of Beta Renewables. Mossi & Ghisolfi is a worldwide leader in the bottle-grade PET industry, owner of the world’s first commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant, located in Crescentino, […]
By Brent Erickson and Brooke Coleman Last week, ABFA made headlines by calling the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) an “obstacle” to the commercial deployment of advanced biofuels and publicly supporting opening up the program in Congress. While the Biotechnology Industry Organization and the Advanced Ethanol Council certainly agree that the RFS is off track, […]
By Brent Erickson, Executive Vice President, Industrial and Environmental, Biotechnology Industry Organization Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced funding for the Biomass Research and Development Initiative (BRDI) as well as published the final rule for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP). BIO and the industrial biotech sector worked hard to ensure that these and other […]
Thought Leadership: The Digest speaks with Sebastian Soederberg, Novozymes’ VP for Biomass Conversion on the cellulosic ethanol industry. Sebastian, you are fond of saying that the cellulosic ethanol production is a technology that is evolving beyond market hype to commercialization. Why? If you look at charts of installed capacity since the 1990s for a variety of clean-tech […]
By Brent Erickson, executive vice-president, the Biotechnology Industry Organization; head, Industrial & Environmental Section The World Resources Institute (WRI) recently issued a new working paper, authored by Tim Searchinger and Ralph Heimlich, resurrecting a previously discredited attack on the carbon neutrality of biomass feedstocks. Ironically the working paper makes plain the fallacies behind this attack […]
Tell us about your role at Novozymes. I’m responsible for Novozymes’ biomass activities on the commercial side; I’ve been doing this for close to three years. My background is as an economist and investment banker. Novozymes began its efforts in this area in 2001 with more than 100 scientists and a lot of public affairs […]
By Brent Erickson, Executive VP, BIO; Head, Industrial & Environmental Section The underlying legal constructs of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) remain in working order, despite the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) failure to issue a final 2014 rule and its other regulatory missteps. Over the past five years, the program spurred billions of dollars of […]
By Brent Erickson, Executive VP, BIO; Head, Industrial & Environmental Section EPA’s November surprise is as big a shock to the system as this year’s early arrival of cold weather. The decision not to finalize a 2014 rule for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) merely compounds the damage done to the advanced biofuel industry by […]
By Brooke Coleman, Executive Director, Advanced Ethanol Council As the renewable fuels industry awaits U.S. EPA’s final decision on the 2014 Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO), it is extraordinary to think that President Obama still appears committed to adopting a methodological change to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) pioneered by the biofuel industry’s most ardent foes. […]
By Jim Stewart, Chairman, BioEnergy Producers Association The momentum leading to the introduction of new technologies for alternative energy production has become increasingly evident during 2014. The year has brought a steady stream of announcements from the industry regarding equity infusions, strategic alliances and commercial demonstration projects. However, as far as the use of conversion […]
