Former Verenium CEO and Goldman exec ushers in new commercial era at Sapphire, as CJ Warner relinquishes CEO title, remaining as Chairman. In California, the Digest learned that James “Jamie” Levine has been appointed CEO of Sapphire Energym succeeding Cynthia J. “CJ” Warner, who will remain the company’s chairman. Levine, a former Goldman exec, took […]
7 years ago, Biofuels Digest debuted with two subscribers and a hunch. On July 27th, The Digest turned 7. We thought back in 2007 that the market needed a concise daily summary of “news you can use” in the bioeconomy. Some 1750 editions and 28,000 stories later, we’re glad to still be here to chronicle your […]
PhotoVoting expanded – special bonus votes for most original artwork. Who will be #1 – who will get your vote? In Florida, Biofuels Digest announced the official opening of nominations for the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy and 30 Hottest Companies in Biobased Chemicals and Materials, and the 40 Hottest Small Companies in the Bioeconomy. […]
About The Digest Dashboard. Biofuels Digest’s Dashboard is a convenient “news you can use” 5-Minute summary of current markets including key commodity prices, relevant futures, bioenergy-related stocks, and historical equities data. New data this month! D4 (biodiesel) RINs, and EU biodiesel prices. Latest prices – key commodities. Most recent commodity closing prices, and price changes, […]
In Uganda, Kakira Sugar Works plans to begin ethanol production in 2016 after completing $75 million in upgrades to cane expansion and co-generation capacity. The facility is expected to produce 20 million liters of ethanol per year from 85,000 metric tons of molasses. The ethanol will be blended locally between 8% and 15%.
In Brazil, the ANP has granted permission for the world’s largest poultry processor JBS to export biodiesel and fuel derivatives. The company is expanding and just announced it will buy the poultry businesses in Mexico and Brazil from Tyson Foods.
In Thailand, the director of a regional medical center is working with local authorities to set up small-scale biodiesel production in an attempt to deter used cooking oil from being bleached and re-sold back into the market. Apparently only about 20 million liters of cooking oil gets used for biodiesel production ever year, compared to […]
In Kansas, East Kansas Agri-Energy LLC has announced its intent to integrate renewable diesel production at its ethanol plant in Garnett, Kansas. Renewable diesel will be made from the corn distillers oil (CDO) already produced at the plant along with other feedstocks purchased on the market. Construction on the new facility will begin soon and […]
In Part 3 of 3 in our series on commercial-scale financing, we look at the real problems, the new paradigm, the nature of de-risking, the role of strategics. Plus, a 5-Minute Guide to the Major Players in biobased financing at scale. In Part I of our series, we looked at the slowdown in bioenergy financing, […]
The Complete List of Biofuels Digest’s 2014 5-Minute Guides, published to date: Abengoa Bioenergy Algenol Altranex American Process Amyris Applied Biorefinery Sciences Applied Research Associates (ARA) Avantium Avello Bioenergy BASF Beta Renewables BioAmber BP Biofuels Butamax Calysta Energy Cellana Ceres Clariant Cobalt Technologies Cool Planet Coskata Direvo Industrial Biotechnology DSM Bio-based Products & Services DuPont […]
Liquid Light develops electrocatalytic technology to make major chemicals from low-cost, globally abundant carbon dioxide (CO2). Licensees benefit from a lower cost of production and can reduce their carbon footprint. Liquid Light is funded by BP Ventures, Redpoint, Osage University, VantagePoint and Chrysalix, and now coming out of stealth after six years of developing a […]
Primus’ liquid fuel synthesis technology is a proprietary low cost process to convert syngas to gasoline, jet fuel and aromatic chemicals directly, without the need for further treatment. The result is a highly efficient process, producing approximately 5 gallons of drop-in transportation fuels per mmBTU of natural gas. The process produces drop-in fuels that are ready for […]
In Iowa, miscanthus would deliver even better yields than once thought in Iowa, according to research by agronomists at Iowa State University. The research indicates that miscanthus, a towering grass native to Asia, could have a major role to play in the future of Iowa agriculture, both as a source of biomass for energy and […]
In Missouri, a Danforth Plant Science Center project has been awarded $1.5 million from the Department of Energy and Department of Agriculture to understand physiologic responses of bioenergy grasses to environmental changes. The research team will use a model grass, Brachypodium distachyon, to analyze the gene regulatory networks underlying drought stress responses. Specifically, they will […]
In Indiana, Purdue University physicists are part of an international group using spinach to study the proteins involved in photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert the sun’s energy into carbohydrates used to power cellular processes.
In the UK, researchers at the Institute of Food Research are looking at how to turn straw from oilseed rape into biofuel. Preliminary findings are pointing at ways the process could be made more efficient, as well as how the straw itself could be improved. Straw from crops such as wheat, barley, oats and oilseed […]
In Washington, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, is looking to introduce legislation that would reform the RFS from 2015, apparently hoping for a consensus approach once people come to the table following the EPA’s long-overdue blending mandates for 2014. Preparatory work is being done so that when […]
In Washington, the White House has indicated the administration plans to raise the amount of ethanol and other biofuels that must be blended into the nation’s fuel supply. White House Advisor John Podesta met with a group of senators last week, indicating that the adviser mentioned that the final blending mandates would likely be higher […]
In Washington, the ethanol industry is hitting back at the DOT’s proposal to require tighter regulations on transporting ethanol and oil by railcar, saying that the two are completely different fuels with very different levels of volatility. The RFA and the IRFA say treating the two fuels the same is a mistake and rules specifically […]
In Washington, the U.S. Department of Transportation released the details of its comprehensive rulemaking proposal to improve the safe transportation of large quantities of flammable materials by rail – particularly crude oil and ethanol – in the form of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and a companion Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPRM).
The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, edged down 0.79 percent to 80.32 as advanced biofuels fell. For the day, OriginOil dumped 11.33 percent to $0.18, while Aemetis (AMTX) plunged 15.03 percent to $10.01. Among other equities, Biox (BX.T) soared 29.63 percent to $0.70. Overall, declines led advances 2 to 1 […]
The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, slipped 0.30 percent to 80.96 as chemicals declined. For the day, OriginOil soared 12.78 percent to $0.20, while Aemetis (AMTX) plunged 7.54 percent to $11.78. Among other equities, BioAmber (BIOA) dumped 5.57 percent to $12.72. Overall, declines led advances 12 to 5 for the […]
The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, slipped 0.66 percent to 81.20 as chemicals slid. For the day, Amyris (AMRS) fell 2.98 percent to $3.58, while BioAmber (BIOA) retreated 6/09 percent to $12.65. Among other equities, Sacom (SAM.MI) rebounded 5.60 percent to $3.17. Overall, declines led advances 9 to 8 for […]
The Biofuels Digest Index, an index of publicly traded biofuels stocks, dipped 0.18 percent to 81.74 as advanced biofuels fell. For the day, Gevo plunged 15.07 percent to $0.59, while BioAmber (BIOA) jumped 7.07 percent to $13.47. Among other equities, Sacom (SAM.MI) tumbled 4.15 percent to $3.00. Overall, advances led declines 9 to 8 for […]
In Paraguay, discussions are underway to boost the ethanol mandate to 27.5% to match what Brazil is potentially doing. Currently the local blend is at 25%, mirroring its neighbor market. On the biodiesel side, the government has convened a working group to study how to promote the fuel’s use. At the moment, oil companies aren’t […]
In Illinois, three men were arrested in a barn in the southwest part of the state where 10,000 gallons of stolen used cooking oil was stored. The men allegedly stole the cooking oil from outside restaurants and then later sold it to biodiesel producers.
In Georgia, Meredian Inc., the world’s largest producer off PHA, has merged with DaniMer Scientific, an international corporation focusing on the development of sustainability produced, renewable, and biodegradable resources, under a wholly-owned subsidiary Meredian Holdings Group Inc. “This merger took months of planning, approvals and precise execution. We have been able to consolidate and get […]
In Brazil, Syngenta has announced plans to broaden and scale up its PLENE® platform of integrated sugar cane solutions. Through an exclusive licensing agreement with New Energy Farms, Syngenta will access an innovative planting system for sugar cane in Brazil: CEEDS™ (Crop Expansion Encapsulation and Drilling System). The CEEDS™ technology enables the realization of PLENE […]
In the US, ethanol production averaged 959,000 barrels per day, 40.28 million gallons daily. That is up 16,000 b/d from the week before and the second-highest rate of output this year. Notably, ethanol production has averaged 14.4 billion gallons annualized over the past 12 weeks. This is equivalent to the 2014 RFS volume intended by […]
In Canada, Altranex Corp. has been selected as a finalist in the 2014 Defense Energy Technology Challenge program as a part of the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit, to be held at the Hawai’i Convention Center in Honolulu, Hawai’i, September 15-17, 2014. As one of only eighteen DETC Finalists, Altranex will be presenting its bio-lubricants, […]
