Major Stories
Joules for Schools: Middlebury College leads trend towards renewable natural gas on the campus
In Vermont, representatives from Vanguard Renewables, Middlebury College, Vermont Gas, Goodrich Farm, and the State of Vermont were on hand the other day to celebrate the official groundbreaking for the largest anaerobic digester east of the Mississippi, with Middlebury will be the primary consumer of the RNG produced at the dairy farm. But the students […]
Red, blue or pink: Time to think about bioink- Is the pen mightier than the sword? If it’s the right kind of ink
Ink – it’s something we all use. Whether a pen to “ink a deal” or write a quick note, or ink for our printers, it’s something we rely on pretty much every day. Even tattoos use ink so it’s literally all around us and even on us. And nowadays the right ink can be even […]
Warding off armyworm, wiping without worry, banana fiber sanitary napkins, mango bioplastics, wearable fermentation-based protein jacket and more: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of September 13th
Not only is it Friday the 13th, it’s also a full moon tonight. But don’t worry, this week’s Top 10 innovations will scare all the boogies away, starting with Provivi’s new fall armyworm pheromone now produced at ton scale that will ward off those nasty armyworm pests that damage corn, rice, sorghum, cotton, sugarcane and […]
Klobuchar surges in Bioeconomy 2020 US Presidential Poll after oil refinery waiver pledge
US Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota surged into 3rd place in the second Digest Bioeconomy 2020 US Presidential Poll, more than doubling her bioeconomy sector support since declaring that she would halt oil refinery waivers in her first 100 days in office. 31 refineries received hardship waivers in recent weeks, excusing compliance with Renewable Fuel […]
Landfill, Skyfill and the opportunities, dangers within
Many have asked, why do we need mandates for renewable fuels, carbon prices, and all that. Isn’t that a government subsidy, a hand-out for politician-friendly technologies that can’t make it in the marketplace? Well, that depends, my friend, how you think about the community landfill. About landfills That gate fee at the landfill is not […]
8-Slide Guides
Use it or Lose it: The Digest’s 2019 Multi-Slide Guide to Waste Carbon Utilization
CO2 is one of those things you love to hate, but it’s there and it’s not going away, so if we don’t find a way to use it, isn’t it a missed opportunity? As part of the 2019 BETO Peer Review, Ian Rowe from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Bioenergy Technologies Office gave this illuminating […]
Pick up the PACE: The Digest’s 2019 Multi-Slide Guide to Algae for Coproducts and Energy
PACE – Producing Algae for Coproducts and Energy, has several project goals including increasing algal biomass productivity to >25 grams dry weight per meter squared per day using robust engineered algal strains to reduce costs. So how do we get these high value, high market algal coproducts? Matthew Posewitz from the Colorado School of Mines […]
Friday Fun with Fungus: The Digest’s 2019 Multi-Slide Guide to Fungal Biotech for Biofuels
Noone knows fungus like these guys. A PNNL team has been developing fungal genetic engineering tools for industrially relevant fungi (filamentous and yeasts) and applying them to development of biofuel and bioproduct bioprocesses in stirred tank reactors. Jon Magnuson from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory gave this illuminating overview of PNNL’s work to engineer a Lipomyces […]
Lube it up with Sugar: The Digest’s 2019 Multi-Slide Guide to Lubricants from Cellulosic Sugar
Petroleum based lubricants are everywhere, but Cargill is working on producing lubricants from cellulosic sugars instead. Utilizing a novel bioprocess that converts lignocellulosic hydrolysate sugars to caprylatemethyl ester, they are laying the foundation for this product to be used more extensively in current applications and open the market for new applications. Tom McMullin from Cargill […]
Come on, Camelina: The Digest’s 2019 Multi-Slide Guide to Camelina’s Potential Yield
Camelina is one of those fascinating feedstocks but often the yields aren’t high enough to be profitable for farmers. That’s a problem Kristi Snell from Yield10 Bioscience is tackling by developing a camelina feedstock with significantly increased seed yield and/or seed oil content to maximize oil yields per acre using a genome editing technology as […]
The Latest World News
Bioeconomy Ireland Week to include free tour to three sites
In Ireland, on October 16, as part of Bioeconomy Ireland Week 2019, the Institute of Technology Tralee and the Irish Bioeconomy Foundation will be hosting a Knowledge Transfer Demonstration Day where companies with novel ICT, IoT and Industry 4.0 solutions for the bio-based sector will demonstrate their technologies in a real operating environment. The day […]
EIA launches new biodiesel production capacity report
In Washington, on September 13, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its first annual U.S. Biodiesel Plant Production Capacity Report. The report includes the total biodiesel production capacity for all operating plants in both million gallons per year (gal/y) and barrels per day (b/d) as of January 1, 2019. The names of the reporting […]
Japan’s Biodiesel Okayama gets building permission for MSW biomass power facility
In Japan, Biodiesel Okayama Co., which is a subsidiary of Dowa Holdings Co. has obtained permission to construct a municipal waste treatment facility dated September 10, 2019 and will begin constructing a biomass power plant that will use food waste as the material. Biodiesel Okayama Co. will begin biomass power generation using food waste as […]
Gevo invests $1.5 million in wind power provider to secure 5MW of power for Luverne facility
In Colorado, Gevo announced it secured the supply of 5.0 MW of fully renewable electricity for its Agri-Energy production plant located in Luverne, MN from an affiliate of Juhl Energy. The electricity generated from wind will be wired directly to Agri-Energy, enabling it to claim the renewable benefit of lower carbon intensity score under the […]
UPM Biofuels helps to bring renewable labeling materials to the market
In Finland, UPM Raflatac and UPM Biofuels have joined forces to innovate for a future beyond fossils. As a concrete result of this collaboration, UPM Raflatac brings two wood-based renewable labeling materials into the market: UPM Raflatac Forest Film™ and UPM Raflatac Fossil-Free Adhesive. These innovative labeling materials will answer brand owners’ needs to replace […]
R&D News
ORNL researchers closer to creating custom microbes to facilitate cellulosic bioenergy
In Tennessee, scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have demonstrated a method to insert genes into a variety of microorganisms that previously would not accept foreign DNA, with the goal of creating custom microbes to break down plants for bioenergy. Researchers at the DOE Center for Bioenergy Innovation (CBI) at […]
Oil-accumulating fungi research could help biofuels production
In Germany, mushroom genetics research, conducted by Ruhr-Universität Bochum researchers and others, could help biofuel production. Some species of trichosporonales fungi can store large amounts of lipids in their cells, and are so-called oil-accumulating fungi, which have therefore been increasingly analyzed in recent years as potential producers of biofuels. Trichosporonales fungi are widespread in the […]
Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center researcher looking closer at the phyllosphere
In Michigan, a new study in Nature Communications, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center scientists at Michigan State University have focused on understanding more about the plant regions above the soil where these microbes can live, called the “phyllosphere.” Researchers classified core members of this community in two bioenergy cropping systems: switchgrass and miscanthus. In so […]
UC Santa Barbara researchers get $2.25 million DOE grant to research cellulosomes
In California, with a $2.25 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy, a research group at the University of California Santa Barbara, along with collaborators at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), are poised to advance the knowledge of and technology for advanced biofuels. “Cellulosomes are multi-protein complexes of enzymes that work together to […]
Indonesia’s Red and White Catalyst making progress for improved biofuel production from palm oil
In Indonesia, the Antara news agency reports that the government is supporting the development of what’s being called the Red and White Catalyst, named after the country’s flag, that is meant to boost the efficiency of biodiesel production from palm oil as it works towards 30% biodiesel blending next year. The Pertamina Research and Technology […]
Policy & Policymakers
Trump OKs 10% biofuel blending increase for 2020
In Washington, Reuters reports that President Trump has greenlighted a deal that will increase biofuel blending by 10% in 2020 following a series of meetings last week with biofuels and oil companies as well as legislators from key corn and oil states. The deal is likely to upset the oil industry who has pushed back […]
Indonesian palm oil industry haunted by EU and looks to biofuel as a solution
In Indonesia, at a palm oil conference held by the Indonesian Journalists Association, palm oil and biodiesel leaders spoke about how palm oil is facing a price fluctuation issue, especially in the last few months because of policies and regulations from several export destination countries like the United Kingdom and the European Union, but that […]
White House wants a biofuel deal by week’s end
In Washington, Reuters reports that the White House told biofuel companies at a meeting on Wednesday that it wants them to accept the proposed 5% increase to biofuel blending next year, far below what the industry was looking for to make up for demand destruction resulting from Environmental Protection Agency policies, and that they want […]
White House brings together oil and biofuel companies—separately—to nail down deal
In Washington, Bloomberg reports that the White House is hosting two separate meetings on Wednesday to try to break the oil-biofuel deadlock, with Valero Energy Corp., PBF Energy Inc., Monroe Energy, HollyFrontier Corp., Marathon Petroleum Corp. and Phillips 66 meeting on one side and Archer Daniel Midland, Louis Dreyfus Co., Renewable Biofuels Inc., Ag Processing […]
NBB and 33 members ask Trump to stop harming small biodiesel producers with hardship waivers
In Washington, the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) and 33 of its members sent a letter to President Trump asking that he save small biodiesel producers harmed by his administration’s small refinery exemptions. The letter indicates that more than 200 million gallons of U.S. biodiesel production capacity has been idled as a result of policy instability. […]
Other Recent Articles
FGV teams with Malaysian Palm Oil Board on B20 truck trial
In Malaysia, the Daily Express newspaper reports that FGV has teamed with the national palm oil board to trial B20 in the company’s transport arm’s tanker trucks, running 30,000 km over a six-month period. Extensive data collection will monitor the fuel quality as well as impacts on engines to show the use of B20 doesn’t […]
Small EU harvest drives rapeseed prices
In Germany, UFOP reports that whereas the small harvests in the EU and buoyant RME demand from the biodiesel industry sent rapeseed prices in Paris rising, US soybean prices were guided by mixed stimuli. Paris rapeseed prices have been on a steady rise since the beginning of March 2019. Reaching EUR 351.50 per tonne – […]
MBP Solutions launches new corporate identity
In Switzerland, MBP Solutions, which handles collection, handling, processing, production and application of biological by-products and converts waste to biofuels, biogas, biomethane and other products, celebrated its 20th anniversary and revealed its new, updated corporate identity – developed to support the continuing growth of the business based on turning one industry’s by-product into another industry’s […]
Clean fuel and electric vehicle use in Canada can reduce GHGs by over 50 million tons by 2030
In Canada, several national clean fuels associations forecast greenhouse gas emissions reductions of over 50 million tonnes (Mt) per year by 2030 through greater production and use of renewable energy in Canada. One of the associations, Advanced Biofuels Canada, estimates that 15 Mt of reductions per year are achievable by 2030 by incorporating modest levels […]
VTT says materials and chemicals the first commodities to be commercialized by carbon reuse
In Finland, VTT published a new report called “The Carbon Reuse Economy – Transforming CO2 from a pollutant into a resource” and presents its view on how carbon can be turned from a pollutant into a resource with a favorable impact on climate change. It is already possible to make food protein from CO2 and […]
Impossible Foods to launch products in U.S. grocery stores
In California, Impossible Foods announced that starting this month, their products will be available at U.S. grocery stores. While they haven’t said at which grocery stores their products will be available, and which products specifically will be available, they added a countdown on their website until September 20th when they will announce where Impossible products […]
