Virent, Virdia debut super-performing drop-in aviation biofuels made from drop-in cellulosic pine tree sugars; “passed under conditions where conventional jet fuels would fail,” says Air Force. In Wisconsin, Virent and Virdia (formerly HCL CleanTech), announced the successful conversion of cellulosic pine tree sugars to drop-in hydrocarbon fuels within the BIRD Energy project, a joint program […]
In California, Cobalt Technologies announced that it has successfully demonstrated its dilute acid hydrolysis pretreatment process, the first step of Cobalt’s process for converting sugars into n-butanol for use as a renewable chemical or fuel. Cobalt’s dilute acid hydrolysis pretreatment process, which extracts sugars from ligno-cellulosic biomass, was validated on woody biomass, bagasse and agricultural […]
Low-cost cellulosic sugar maker announces $100 million in financing; name change from HCL CleanTech, support from Mississippi. The race for leadership in low-cost sugars heats up. In California, Virdia, formerly HCL CleanTech, a leading developer of cellulosic sugars, today announced major company milestones, including a new brand and CEO, its latest funding round, and a […]
Novozymes releases a new, high-performance enzyme for advanced cellulosic biofuels: Cellic CTec3. Will Novozymes win the enzyme wars? Will enzymes defeat gasification? When will renewables defeat fossil fuels on cost? In Denmark, Novozymes announced their latest enzyme product, Cellic CTec3. Novozymes reports this enzyme enables cost-efficient conversion of biomass to ethanol and performs 1.5 times […]
BlueFire Renewables’ low-cost sugars subsidiary, SucreSource, announces a major project in Korea backed by oil refiner GS Caltex. Who else is gaining traction in the race to provide low-cost sugars? A generation of magic bugs — who turn sugars into renewable fuels, chemicals, flavors, fragrances and more — await them. In California, SucreSource, a wholly […]
Advanced biofuels industry focuses on 10 priorities, as Advanced Biofuels Markets gets underway in San Francisco In California, more than 350 delegates gathered at Advanced Biofuesl Markets to set industry priorities for the next six months, seal partnerships, and exchange outlooks on 2012. It didn’t take long for the Top 10 priorities to become clear. […]
As the new Hot 50 looms, we look at how much hotter, colder the current Hot 50 have been this year. Who will stay on the island, who is waiting in the wings? Readers: Subscriber and selector voting in the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy for 2011-12 winds up shortly, and we will announce the […]
What this country really needs is a good, five-cent sugar. Got one? Riches await. One of the most interesting developments in recent months has been the emergence, out of stealth, of a number of companies focused on providing low-cost cellulosic sugars. As Phycal CEO Kevin Berner said, “if you can make low-cost sugar, you can […]
Voting is now well underway in the second round of Transformative Technologies, and voters have given us a fairly clear view of how the Sweet 16 will shape up. 60 hours remain in this week’s Transformative Technology balloting — bringing us from 32 to the Sweet 16 technologies that will advance. Nine of the 16 […]
Background: This is a first round, International Regional match-up between #7 seed SG Biofuels and #10 seed TMO Renewables in the 2011 Transformative Technologies tourney, from Biofuels Digest. Voting: Open to all Biofuels Digest subscribers. Voting links are in the Biofuels Digest daily newsletter. To subscribe (free), visit here. The winner gets: Most votes advances […]
