Energy was part of the agenda when President Obama visited Brazil over the weekend. During his visit, Obama and Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff agreed to launch a Strategic Energy Dialogue, to focus on both oil and biofuels. “Now even as we focus on oil in the near term, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the only long-term solution …
SG Biofuels Opens Operations In Brazil
SG Biofuels, a bioenergy crop company focusing on Jatropha for biofuels, has officially opened operations in Brazil and has named Brazilian entrepreneur and genomics innovator Fernando Reinach as its senior advisor for the market. Reinach will provide strategic planning, business development and executive management support for SG Biofuels Brasil, LTD, the subsidiary that will be based in Sao Paulo. “We …
Cobalt, Lallemand Add to Executive Teams
Cobalt Technologies has added Andrew Meyer to its executive team. He will be serving as the company’s Senior Vice President of Business Development and he will be responsible for leading Cobalt’s effort to commercialize biobutanol. Most recently, he was with Amyris where he was director of Supply and Distribution where he developed the company’s fuel marketing program. He has also …
REG Biodiesel Named “Commercial-Scale Technology of the Year”
Iowa-based Renewable Energy Group (REG) has been named the biofuels industry’s “Commercial-Scale Technology of the Year” by Biofuels Digest. REG’s ability to acquire refineries and feedstocks helped the company garner the award: According to the announcement, “Renewable Energy Group was honored for its novel continuous-flow, multi-feedstock processing technology that has allowed the company to pioneer the acquisition of a wide …
Top 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy
Biofuels Digest has announced its “Top 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy” and this year’s top spot goes to Amyris, a renewable fuels and chemicals developer based in Florida. The rankings recognize innovation and achievement in bioenergy development and are determined by 50 percent of votes from a 75-member panel of international selectors, and 50 percent of votes from subscribers of …
Ag Secretary Vilsack to Keynote Cellulosic Biofuels Summit
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Cellulosic Biofuels Summit on November 16, 2010 in Washington DC. His topics will focus on several recent announcements from the USDA that established five regional Biomass Research Centers, the funding of five new biorefineries and the final rules for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), a $525 million …
OPXBIO Named GoingGreen Silicon Valley Top 100
GoingGreen Silicon Valley has named it’s Top 100 for 2010 and on the list includes renewable biofuel and biochemical company, OPX Biotechnologies (OPXBIO). The list honors the companies that are developing technologies that will ‘change the world’ and ‘disrupt existing markets and entrenched players’. The list is based on five major categories including innovation, market potential, commercialization, stakeholder value, and …
Who Are the Next Biofuels IPOs?
On the heels of their great story yesterday on the investment in algal-biodiesel players PetroAlgae and Solazyme (not to mention Joanna’s piece on Gevo preparing for a $150 million IPO), our friends over at Biofuels Digest have put together a list of the top 10 most likely next IPOs in the biofuels sector. The list includes many Domestic Fuel regulars, …
Investors Fuel Algae-Biofuel Maker Solazyme with $52M
Algae-biofuel maker Solazyme has garnered $52 million in venture capitol from the likes of Morgan Stanley and Chevron. This article from the New York Times says the San Francisco-based company is using the money to commercialize its green fuel: Solazyme is one of the most successful companies working on algae, along with generously-funded Sapphire Energy. While most of its competitors …
The Biofuels Investor Migration to Brazil
A colleague of mine, Will Thurmond, who is the CEO of markets research firm Emerging Markets Online, sent me this great article about why companies are spending billions of dollars investing in advanced biofuels in Brazil while companies are hesitant to invest in any biofuels projects here in the states. I thought that it was so insightful that I wanted …