Biofuels Digest’s 7th Birthday Special Issue: The Glass

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 journeys from idea to lab to venture to pilot to demo to commercial success and beyond.

This week, we’ll have special content for you, in celebration of our special week. Starting today with the launch of nominations for the Hottest Companies rankings — the Hot 50, the Hot 40 and the Hot 30.

For sure, the story of the advanced bioeconomy has changed so much over these seven years. Then, we talked about a handful of molecules, now there are hundreds. There were a handful of feedstocks, now so many. A number of advanced technologies have reached scale — but some fell down along the way.

When it comes to assessing the progress so far — well, like the old saw, the Pessimist says the glass is half Empty, while the Optimist sees a glass half full.

The process engineer says, the glass isn’t half-empty or half-full, the design was incorrect for the throughput.

The scientist says, I’m hoping for a grant to study this question.

The financier says, how much can you do with a quarter glass of water?

The environmentalist says, there used to be a lot more water in the glass before the corn industry got going.

The policymaker says, it was supposed to be a full glass, but we couldn’t get the House to go along.

The feedstock developer says, we don’t say half-empty, we say drought-tolerant.

Optimists, pessimists, process engineers, scientists, financier, environmentalists, policymakers, feedstock developer — we’re pleased to call so many of you our readers — and others who go by other titles or simply labeled as “The Digesterati”. We thank you for staying with us, and staying with the story — through the years that passed, and through the years to come.