Just as President Obama was preparing to sign the Agricultural Act of 2014 into law today, the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) held a media conference to highlight how expansion of the new farm bill’s energy programs to include renewable chemical technologies can help advanced biofuel producers. “Renewable chemicals are now defined in the farm bill, an important and long overdue …
Elevance Moves Forward with Natchez Biorefinery
Elevance Renewable Sciences is moving forward with the development of its biorefinery in Natchez, Mississippi and has selected URS Corporation to provide engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services. The company says it is on track to meet customer forecasts for its Inherent renewable building blocks in 2016. “URS is a natural partner for us, and we’re looking forward to working …
Amyris Increases Biodiesel Buses in Brazil
Amyris, Inc. has announced that the city of São Paulo is now operating 400 city buses using Amyris Renewable Diesel, which is branded locally as Diesel de Cana. In other news, Amyris announced it has successfully produced its first fragrance oil for its partner Firmenich SA. “From fuels to consumer care products, we continue to make progress on our commercialization …
New Facility to Turn Ethanol Byproduct into Bio-Resin
A Nebraska-based company has expanded its operation to turn an ethanol byproduct into a bio-based resin additive. Composites World reports Laurel BioComposite LLC held an open house and ribbon cutting ceremony for its new 20,000-square-foot manufacturing facility, which will crank out 7 million pounds annually of its trademarked Bio-Res PE. Tim Bearnes, CEO of Laurel BioComposite, was on hand to …
Fungus & Bacteria Join Forces for Better Biofuels
Several University of Michigan researchers have joined together a fungus and E. coli bacteria to turn tough, waste plant material into isobutanol – a product that can be converted into biochemicals and biofuels. A paper based on this research, “Design and characterization of synthetic fungal-bacterial consortia for direct production of isobutanol from cellulosic biomass,” was published in The Proceedings of …
Senator Michael Bennet Visits Gevo
Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) recently toured and met with Colorado-based Gevo to discuss renewable fuels and chemicals for Colorado and the U.S. economy. Senator Bennet met with Gevo executives including chief executive officer Patrick Gruber, Ph.D. to discuss energy policy and see first-hand the research and development Gevo has done on creating isobutanol to be converted to biochemicals and renewable …
Amyris Signs $60M Funding Agreement
Amyris, Inc. has announced they have entered into an agreement for the sale of convertible notes in a private placement for up to $60 million in cash proceeds. Under the terms of the agreement, one of Amyris’s largest stockholders, Temasek, agreed to purchase $35 million of the notes in an initial tranche and, at Amyris’s election, up to $25 million …
Abengoa Inaugurates First Waste-to-Biofuels Plant
Abengoa has inaugurated its demonstration plant that uses Waste-to-Biofuels (W2B) technology. The plant has a capacity to treat 25,000 tons of municipal solid waste (MSW) from which it will obtain up to 1.5 million liters of bioethanol for use as fuel. The demonstration plant located in Babilafuente (Salamanca, Spain) and uses W2B technology developed by Abengoa to produce second-generation biofuels …
Renmatix, UPM Ink Biochemicals Deal
Provider of sugars for biofuels Renmatix teams up with European pulp and paper giant UPM in an agreement to develop biochemicals. This Renmatix news release says the companies will use Renmatix’s water-based Plantrose™ process to convert woody biomass into low-cost sugar intermediates for subsequent downstream processing into biochemicals. “We are very excited about this truly collaborative endeavor. It combines UPM’s …
LS9 Expands Demonstration Facility
LS9 has announced plans to expand its operations at their Okeechobee, Florida demonstration facility with a successful customer trial. The Florida facility was initially designed, and has been used, to scale-up LS9’s fermentation technology and generate large commercial samples for testing and product qualification by key partners and prospective customers. Since the company’s initial run at 135,000 liter scale in …