by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Industrial biotech’s biggest and grandest show, the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology, opened today in Montreal and BIO itself was in the newsframe with a striking report debunking myths around RIN price surges.
10 Hot Newstories from the World Congress Floor
1. Going commercial. Verdezyne has started construction of its first commercial, in Malaysia completion expected in 2018. There’ll be an official ground breaking shortly, but shovels are in the ground.
2. Broin nabs Carver. Jeff Broin made a rare appearance on the BIO World Congress stage to accept the Carver Award for Lifetime Achievement, and made a deep impression with the origin story of POET from its days as a 1 million gallon family-owned ethanol plant bought out of bankruptcy to a $6 billion company today, and in his warm tribute to George Washington Carver as an inspiration to the bioeconomy today.
3. Australia calling. Mercurius is about to pick up a pilot project in Queensland, Australia — a worthy follow-on to their DOE pilot project in the US.
4. The bio-based Bottle. …
5. Butamax rising? …
6. zuChem lands Cummings as COO. …
7. A cool paper. Penned by BIO’s own Paul Winters and appearing in the peer-reviewed Biofuels, this new paper uses EPA’s data on RFS compliance to demonstrate that that the “so-called ethanol blendwall” has “never been a barrier to the program.” . …
The study shows that the changes EPA introduced to the program since 2014 have had no impact on the blendwall or the use of ethanol by obligated parties. Whether you look at the annual volume obligations for D6 and D5 ethanol, or the volumes of ethanol obligated parties actually used each year, both numbers are above 10 percent of obligated gasoline volumes every year since 2011. You can read all about it here.
8. Industrial Biotechnology: A Unique Potential for Pollution Prevention … Industrial Biotechnology: A Unique Potential for Pollution Prevention, just released and you can read it in full here.
9. Gord Surgeoner to Receive 2017 BIO Leadership and Legacy Award. BIO awarded its annual Leadership & Legacy Ward to Dr. Gord Surgeoner, former president of Ontario Agri-Food Technologies. …
10. Avantium takes next step and signs contract with AkzoNobel for pilot biorefinery in Delfzijl. READ MORE