Author Archive: Mackinnon Lawrence
5 Biofuels Trends for 2013
Tweet Oil Majors, capacity building shortfalls, green diesel, waste to energy, and sustainability on the radar for 2013 By Mackinnon Lawrence Despite a relatively down year with respect to investment and production capacity expansion, the biofuels industry grew modestly in 2012, continuing a shift from first generation facilities to next generation, advanced biorefineries. Although it [...]
Despite Urban Migration, Scale Elusive for MSW-to-Fuels
Tweet By Mackinnon Lawrence There are few topics that get the clean technology sector excited less than trash. Meanwhile, the news is littered with stories discussing municipal areas from Zimbabwe to Los Angeles and Mumbai to Moscow struggling to implement long-term strategies for dealing with municipal solid waste (MSW). Even as intellectual capital is thrown [...]
Election Day: Amidst Shifting Geopolitical Realities, U.S. Biofuels Industry Seeks Policy Clarity
Tweet By Mackinnon Lawrence As Americans head to the polls today, what appears to be a closely contested election is likely to turn on economic issues and competing visions for jumpstarting a tepid recovery since the 2008 economic crisis. With gasoline prices playing the role of bogeyman in the recovery, energy security continues to feature [...]
Industrial CHP in the U.S. Gets Bump from Executive Order and Biorefinery Expansion
Tweet By Mackinnon Lawrence During the lull between the Republican and Democratic conventions, President Obama issued an Executive Order designed to spur investment in energy efficiency at industrial facilities. Seeking to expand the use of industrial combined heat and power (CHP) technologies at food processing, pulp and paper, chemicals, metals, and oil refining operations to [...]
Renewable biogas: Next RFS darling or marginal fuel?
Tweet Biogas is on the comeback – just as the Toto launches a poop-powered motorbike and draws new attention to the question of what to do with all that sludge. Pike Research biofuels guru and noted Digesterati Mackinnon Lawrence marches us (gingerly) across the wastescape. Last month, Japanese toilet company Toto Ltd., debuted a first-of-kind poop-powered, [...]
The Republic of Biofuels and the Age of Plenty
Tweet What is the role and scope of biofuels in a world potentially awash in newfound oil & gas? Since its inception, the bio-based economy — a multifaceted effort aimed at supplanting fossil fuels with biomass resources as the engine of the global economy — has been squarely focused on the issue of Peak Oil. [...]
The Fog of Biofuels in the United States
Tweet After a nine-fold production increase in the 2000s, global annual investment in biofuels declined 20% between 2010 and 2011, and capacity expansion has slowed. What’s the mid-term growth outlook? By Mackinnon Lawrence In the world of finance, a market gray zone is a hazy realm of disillusioned bulls and restless bears. The market neither [...]
