Cathay Dupont Award: Biofuels Digest's Advanced Bioeconomy Awards for 2015 |
Posted: July 7, 2017 |
Project of the Year, Deal of the Year, Partnership of the Year, Chemical of the Year, and Cap Raise of the Year — who are the big winners? Each year, the Digest recognizes projects, feedstocks, processing technology breakthroughs, novel or improved molecules, and bioeconomy pioneers in the Biofuels Digest Awards — selected by the Digest’s editoril board. Since many projects, especially early-stage ventrues en route to steady-state operations and commercial scale, are occasionally veiled behind a wall of unfiled patents, trade secrets and NDA agreements — we make awards at cathay dupont award of the basis of publicly available information at the time, and recognize technologies and organizations that have made the most impact on the marketplace at the time. Projects of the Year: Cellulosic Biofuels at scale (GranBio, Abengoa Bioenergy, POET-DSM, Raizen) Without a doubt, the advanced bioeconomy story of the year in the past 12 months has been the long-awaited commercial-scale debut of cellulosic biofuels — today, a half-dozen companies have reached commercial scale and more than 100 million gallons in renewable fuels capacity is in place. The four projects we have selected to honor this year were not the first out — Iogen and Beta Renewables took those honors; Enerkem (honored last year) is also now at commercial scale, Dupont’s first commercial is imminent, and and we expect several more technologies such as Inbicon, Fulcrum Clariant to reach scale before long — and there are others such as Mercurius, VIrent, RedRock, Mascoma technology and many others that we exoect before the end of the decade. The parade of plant grand openings was impressive all year: POET-DSM and GranBio in September, Abengoa in October, and Raizen (using Iogen technology) in December. And we expect that the momentum will continue with an opening by DuPont in the first half of the year. Deal of the Year: REG (Dynamic Fuels, Syntroleum) Renewable Energy Group announced in June that its wholly-owned subsidiary, REG Synthetic Fuels, LLC, has closed its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Syntroleum Corporation. Syntroleum pioneered renewable diesel fuel and Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquids technologies and built a large IP portfolio, including 186 patents issued or pending, which REG will now own. The assets acquired from Syntroleum include a 50% ownership interest in Dynamic Fuels, which owns a 75 million gallon per year nameplate capacity renewable diesel biorefinery located in Geismar, Louisiana. REG has a separate pending agreement with Tyson Foods to acquire the remaining interests in Dynamic Fuels. In May 2014, Renewable Energy Group reached an agreement with Tyson Foods, Inc. to acquire Tyson’s 50% ownership position in Dynamic Fuels. Completion of the transaction with Tyson Foods, which was contingent upon the closing of REG’s December 2013 announced agreement to acquire substantially all of the assets of Syntroleum Corporation , will give REG full ownership of Dynamic Fuels and its 75-million gallon per year nameplate capacity renewable diesel biorefinery in Geismar, Louisiana. Tyson and Syntroleum formed Dynamic Fuels in 2007 as a 50/50 joint venture. The Geismar facility, completed in 2010, was the first large scale renewable diesel biorefinery built in the U.S.Partnership of the Year: Navy, Fulcrum Bioenergy, Cathay Pacific The Navy Deal? the Department of Defense awarded $210 million under the Defense Production Act to Emerald Biofuels, Fulcrum BioEnergy and Red Rock Bio towards the construction of biorefineries that produce cost-competitive, drop-in military biofuels. Fulcrum is, among the three awardees, the best-known, and is proceeding toward closing $175 million in financing to fund construction of its first municipal solid waste to low-carbon fuels plant, the Sierra BioFuels Plant and to fund the development of future projects. The project is expected to be completed in 2015. $105 million of the $175 million is the USDA loan guarantee, which the company secured in a conditional commitment in August 2012 and was definitively awarded last week. Cathay? The company had already contracted with Cathay Pacific Airways to supply 375 million gallons of fuel over 10 years, accounting for about 2 percent of the airline’s fuel usage. The USDA expects the Nevada facility to produce 11 million gallons of renewable fuel each year. Plant construction is estimated to cost $266 million; the USDA’s loan will cover 40% of that. In spring 2013, Fulcrum successfully demonstrated the conversion of municipal solid waste (MSW) into jet and diesel fuels. Under the grants, the companies will build biorefineries to produce military spec fuel that is expected to cost the US military, on a weighted average, less than $3.50 per gallon — or cost competitive with petroleum-based fuels, with availability expected as soon as 2016, and have a 50 percent of greater reduction of emissions compared to conventional fuels. The biorefineries, once complete, will have a combined capacity for producing 100 million gallons of military-spec jet fuel and marine diesel. Process of the Year: Honeywell’s UOP Green Fuels Technology There are plenty of skeptics about the economics of green jet fuel for commercial aviation with the technology of today — but no one disagrees that this UOP technology works, and works great, reliably, repeatedly and at scale — and that’s what we are recognizing with this process award. read cathay dupont award articles here ...
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