“We’re out of time”. Everyone’s heard the phrase, perhaps most recently in the third act of the motion picture Passengers. But I hadn’t heard it from Charlie Wyman, the legendary NREL researchers, AAAS Fellow, co-founder of Mascoma, and one of the fathers of consolidated bioprocessing, until ABLC. The subject was deployment vs development, whether we […]
In Wisconsin, Lallemand Biofuels & Distilled Spirits has announced a next generation advanced yeast and enzyme platform called Convergence, which combines a new yeast that generates virtually all the glucoamylase (GA) required for fermentation combined with a small amount of complementary exogenous enzyme. The bottom line impact for a corn starch ethanol producer would be […]
As frustrated as you may get with your pet sometimes, we aren’t talking about upcycling dogs and cats here, but PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic that is typically landfilled. One group at NREL and ORNL are working on developing cost-effective biological methods to better breakdown and upcycle PET. At the recent DOE BETO 2019 Project Peer […]
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 […]
Organisms are interesting creatures and genetic tools and biochemical pathway knowledge is changing the way we look at them. Brian Davison, Chief Scientist for Biotechnology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, gave this knowledge-filled presentation on how to leverage organisms for biofuels and bioproducts, consolidated bioprocessing, barriers and solutions to enabling transformation, improved tools for gene […]
Four simple questions and such a variety of response as you might expect from the unusual collection of engineers, biologists, marketeers, customers, financiers, policy leaders, advanced R&D specialists, mathematicians, advocates and watchful critics that make up the advanced bioeconomy. Where were you on July 27, 2007? Where are you now? What inspires you? What do […]
In Washington state, PNNL Scientist Alex Beliaev will receive a joint appointment to the Queensland University of Technology, the institutions advise. The Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia, have collaborated on bioenergy and microbial biotechnology in the past. Now they are formalizing their relationship to […]
Not long ago, KiOR quietly re-named itself Inaeris Technologies and launched a modest website which discussed the technology and management in little detail, but focused to an extraordinary extent on a declaration of values. Empowerment, honesty, fairness, “lessons learned from our collective experience” and so on. Warm, kindly Hallmark Card sentiments, universally popular, admired and […]
Scientists from the University of Maryland will report in the Journal of Theoretical Biology that they have isolated several different strains of bacteria that make high concentrations of biofuels from cellulosic biomass or from carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas. The authors isolated bacteria that make high concentrations of alcohols including ethanol and 1-butanol, and other […]
Fuels, chemicals, pathways, and microbes that could shake it all up This week, we’ll be visiting with the Lords of Biofuels Creation at the annual retreat of the Joint BioEnergy Institute in California, which have issued an NDA the length of a Bible as a condition of admission. So we are skeptical we will be […]
