Biofuels Digest Anniversary issue: The 10 Most Popular Stories of the Year for 2008-09
Today, Biofuels Digest celebrates its 2nd anniversary with a special look back at the “10 Most Popular Stories of the Year” for 2008-09
1. The Hottest 50 Companies in Bioenergy. Published right before Christmas last year, the Hottest 50 didn’t attract much attention at the time, but has become the Digest’s most popular annual feature. Not every one of the 2,000 companies in bioenergy were excited about their position in (or out) of the rankings, but it stimulated a lot of interesting email traffic. The criteria are simple: “visibility and credibility”, and the rankings will be updated at the beginning of December for 2009-10.
2. The Blunder Crop: a Biofuels Digest special report on jatropha biofuels development. This review from March of hits and misses in the development of jatropha attracted a lot of attention via the web. Although there were more positive developments related in other jatropha coverage during the year, this one received a huge boost via links from environmentalist websites. The bad news within seemed to please that audience.
3. “A vertically integrated, scaleable 5,000 gallon/acre algae fuel system”: a Biofuels Digest special report on PetroAlgae
This onsite report from PetroAlgae’s operation in Fellsmere, FL was on of the first signs that algae promise was turning into algae commercialization, and that the pace was picking up. This February report was originally scheduled to obtain some updated algae-related photography – I was as surprised as most at how far, how fast PetroAlgae was coming along. Algae skeptics would be well advised to walk the grounds at Fellsmere before penning.
4. Special Biofuels Digest Report on camelina, an advanced biodiesel “wonder crop”. This report from last August on camelina received a giant boost at the end of the year when UOP and Japan Air Lines successfully tested camelina oil as an aviation fuel feedstock. Camelina was later identified by Boeing and UOP along with algae, salicornia and jatropha as early favorites for commercialization of aviation biofuels.
5. Algae bloom. This report from last September was occasioned by the completion of algae pioneer’s Sapphire Energy’s $100 million capital raise, which caught a lot of observers by surprise (including yours truly). The amount, and support from Cascade Investments, the personal investment vehicle of Bill Gates; and Venrock Partners, an investment partnership for the Rockefeller family, confirmed that algae was going to the next level as a biofuels feedstock. This story chronicled developments to date as well as the rise of the National Algae Association and the Algal Biomass Organization.
6. Drop In, Tune Out, Turn On: new thinking for new days in bioenergy. This essay on the rising importance of drop-in biofuels that require no infrastructure change received more positive and negative attention than anything else published in the Digest all year. Ethanol producers were less than thrilled by the “drop-in fuels” message; unthrilled as well were readers who objected to the message of tuning out the old debate about corn ethanol and moving on. “For too long we have made the dialogue over a handful of renewable fuels more and more complex,” the essay urged. “If one thing is assuredly unsustainable in the debate over renewable fuels, it is the way we talk about them.”
7. The Weather Channel’s Natalie Allen, anchor of Forecast Earth: Fans of Forecast Earth’s Natalie Allen requested this interview, and presumably provided the clicks to bring it into the top 10. Here refreshing attitude: “Don’t continually show me the polar bear floating on the melting ice. Tell me what I can do,” also reflected the Digest readership’s interest in solutions over problems.
8. New global map and database of advanced biofuels plants. The International Energy Agency completed its mapping of global second-generation biofuels demo plants and projects and made the interactive map available via the Digest. Readers use it frequently to search by type of plant (biochemical, thermochemical or hybrid), scale (pilot, demo or commercial) and status (planned,on hold, under construction, under commissioning, or operational).
9. Who’s Your Daddy?: A Special Report on key biofuels investors and investments. This mid-July report just snuck into the top 10 with its scorecard on the investors behind 20 of the hottest companies in bioenergy. Overall, of the top 20 companies, two were privately held by individual private investors (POET and Aquaflow Bionomic), two are public (BlueFire Ethanol and Novozymes), five are subsidiaries or joint ventures of major industrial firms (DuPont Danisco, Iogen, UOP, Petrobras Biocombutives, and Abengoa Energy), and 11 are backed by venture capital.
10. Carbon Dioxide – Regions of Greatest Strategic Value. Biofuels Digest correspondent Sam A. Rushing’s survey of Ethanol Industry Sourcing for the Merchant CO2 Trade, plus Second Generation Ethanol Developments and Production and Purity Requirements struck a chord with Digest readers with its mountain of useful facts and perspective on CO2, which doubles as a key emission and a key feedstock in bioenergy.
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