Biomass

Fuelcell Energy Inc (FCEL) announced that one of its 250-kilowatt Direct FuelCell® (DFC®) power plants, sold by its Asian distributor Marubeni Corporation (TSE:8002 - News), will supply power as part of the electric grid servicing a school, a hospital, apartment buildings and city hall in a planned, renewable energy community on the western coast of Japan. In keeping with the Kyoto Eco-Energy organization's desire to balance intermittent power generated by sources such as wind and solar, a 250 kilowatt DFC plant will efficiently convert waste from a food processing plant into high quality electricity. Heat energy produced by...

by Debra Fiakas CFA Solid waste has been one of the business types that has a natural hedge against macroeconomic distress.  No matter how bad things get, as long as our neighbors draw breath there will be trash to handle.  Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (CWST:  Nasdaq) sits in the shadow of larger waste handlers such as Waste Management (WM:  NYSE) and Republic Services (RSG:  NYSE).  Consequently, it is often passed over by investors despite a significantly better profit margin. One of the reasons investors might not take Casella seriously is its history of net losses.  However, the...

Jim Lane Year founded: 2003 Annual Revenues: $38 billion (DuPont overall for 2011) $1.2 billon (Industrial Biosciences unit for 2011) Company description: Solazyme, Inc. is a renewable oil and bioproducts company that transforms a range of low-cost plant-based sugars into high-value oils. Headquartered in South San Francisco, Solazyme’s renewable products can replace or enhance oils derived from the world’s three existing sources – petroleum, plants and animal fats. Initially, Solazyme is focused on commercializing its products into three target markets: (1) fuels and chemicals, (2) nutrition and (3) skin and personal...

AutoWeek has an article about one man's quest to travel the entire United States using anything but gasoline to power his variety of alternative fuel vehicles. Featured are bio-diesel Hummers and RVs, a solar-powered canoe, and an poop-powered scooter

An Eastern Iowan made his own fuel to save money, but now the state says not so fast. The state wants to make sure it doesn't miss out on its tax money... ...The tax would be 22 and a half cents a gallon. The same as diesel. He makes anywhere from five to twenty gallons of biodiesel a month. At the most, it would mean an additional four dollars to the state each month. Toal-Rossi says, "I'm not opposed to paying the tax, it's really the paperwork that's more of a hassle for me." Never...

Green Energy Resources, Inc. (GRGR) announced plans for expansion. The company plans to sell upwards of 50 million tons of wood biomass to the utility industry for cofiring. Cofiring is an environmentally friendly application of mixing wood biomass with coal to reduce harmful green house gases. Coal powered generation accounts for 51 % of American electric power. The potential market is in excess of 250 million tons annually and valued over $12 billion dollars. The Federal EPA Air rules effective last month,favor cofiring as the most viable and cost effective option for the utility industry. The company plans to...

Jim Lane Can PetroAlgae find a market for its feed among the aficionados of alfalfa and fishmeal, with fuels on the side? In its recent IPO revision, it says “sure can”. In Florida, PetroAlgae (PALG.PK) has filed a massive revision to its S-1 registration for a proposed initial public offering. The company is currently ranked #55th in the world among the Hottest Companies in Bioenergy. The rankings recognize innovation and achievement in fuels and are based on votes from a panel of invited international selectors, and votes from Digest subscribers. PetroAlgae, which in the year...

Environmental Power Corp (EPG) is formally commissioning the first of its electricity generating anaerobic digester systems. This facility has been designed and constructed by Microgy, Inc., Environmental Power's principal operating subsidiary. The facility is believed by Microgy to produce substantially more electricity from a given quantity of animal and organic wastes than any other anaerobic digester system built for commercial purposes in the United States.

Environmental Power Corp (EPG) announced that Chaffee Farms in New York has signed a Development Agreement to deploy an anaerobic digestion ("AD") system from the Company's primary operating subsidiary, Microgy Cogeneration Systems ("Microgy"). Chaffee Farms, located in Niagara County, is the third farm in the state of New York to sign a Development Agreement with Microgy. This proposed, on-farm facility would use manure from Chaffee Farm's approximately 800 dairy cows, and other organic waste, to generate methane-rich biogas.

Jim Lane In grains, the big news has been the USDA prospective plantings report, which has corn up to 93 million acres in 2016, up 5 million over last year, and it was an unexpected gain given that stock levels of grain are high now. Big stocks plus a big planting equals even bigger ending stocks and prices have declined substantially for corn as a result, down 15 cents per bushel on the report. The USDA report? Officially, here’s what USDA had to say: Corn planted area for all purposes in 2016 is estimated at 93.6 million...

Jim Lane In California, Ceres (CERE) announced the a realignment of its business to focus on food and forage opportunities and biotechnology traits for sugarcane and other crops. As part of the realignment, the company will restructure its Brazilian seed operations and is exploring discussions with additional local partners and collaborators to support the continued development and commercialization of its technology in Brazil. Earlier, the Company announced that due to the economic challenges faced by the Brazilian ethanol industry as well as changes in the global energy market, it had expanded the number of market opportunities available for...

Jim Lane Address: 1535 Rancho Conejo Blvd., Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 Founded: 1996 Annual Revenues: $6.6 million (Fiscal Year ended Aug. 31, 2011) Type of technology: Plant biotechnology, gene marker-assisted breeding and other genomics Fuel Type: Biomass is the common denominator to advanced biofuels, biopower and bioproducts and is independent of the end-fuel molecule. Major investors: Ceres is a public company. Its common stock trades on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol CERE. Pre-IPO investors include Warburg Pincus, Soros Private Equity Partners, GIMV and Oppenheimer. Past milestones: Completed IPO...

NanoLogix Inc. (NNLX.PK) announced today that the Company has completed the construction of its first commercial hydrogen bioreactor facility at a Welch's Food plant in North East, Pennsylvania. The company also announced that the facility will begin hydrogen generation from Welch's waste organic matter on or about the first of April 2006. The technology behind the hydrogen bioreactor, developed and patented by NanoLogix in coordination with the Gannon University Department of Environmental Science & Engineering, allows for the limitless production of hydrogen from organic containing waste waters and any waste organic materials, such as sewer water, ground up...

Environmental Power Corp (EPG) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Microgy Cogeneration Systems, Inc. ("Microgy"), has entered into a Project Development Agreement with South-Tex Treaters, Inc. of Odessa, Texas ("South-Tex"), which for almost 20 years has been a leader in the gas processing industry. The agreement provides that Microgy and South-Tex will cooperate to identify, evaluate and develop projects in the United States that combine Microgy's anaerobic digestion technology, which extracts methane-rich biogas from animal waste, and South-Tex's cleaning and compression technologies that can be used to refine biogas to a pipeline-grade methane.

Jim Lane Making good, affordable syngas from municipal solid waste to unlock 9 billion gallons of low-cost fuel? Covanta’s (CVA) hot new gasification technology makes a big dent in the big challenge. Just after mealtimes, in the hours after mail delivery, and occasionally when the world’s youth resolve certain unhygienic conditions prevalent in the science experiments known as teenage rooms, we as a species make that materials-or-waste decision known as tossing the garbage. The MSW opportunity Here in the US, “Americans generate about 4.3 pounds of municipal solid waste per person per day, or 260 million tons...