Heard on the Floor at ABLC 2021 – October 28
by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ABLC 2021 continues today with its theme of ““building a bridge to Net Zero” after a flurry of announcements buzzed around the floor yesterday, as the 560 delegates grappled with the immense opportunities and supply chain challenges posed by the world’s rapid turn towards charting a path toward a post-fossil society.
1. The BDOZone CONNECT webinar series.
First of all, an announcement from Ecostrat and the Digest itself. Fans of the Digest CONNECT weekly webinar series — and of the Bioeconomy Development Zone movement — will be delighted to hear the Ecostrat and The Digest are launching the BDOZone CONNECT webinar series.
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At BDO Zone webinars you will meet: BDO Zone Communities: community who have recently obtained BDO Zone Ratings and want to attract a bio-based plant. BDO Zone Developers Coalition: Developers looking for their next plant site. BDO Zone Coalition Investors: Capital markets and investors want to invest in projects located in BDO Zones. The BDO Zone Coalition recently announced $1B for investment in projects located in BDO Zones.
2..Breaking news on the main stage, first thing on Thursday as ABLC opened, a first commercial SAF project for Japan. Honeywell announced that JGC Holdings Corporation and Cosmo Oil Company will use Honeywell Ecofining technology for the first commercial scale sustainable aviation fuel project in Japan. The project will convert used cooking oil locally collected in Japan into renewable jet fuel meeting ASTM D7566 standards with start-up scheduled in 2025. More on the story here.
3. Congress is working through a hugely consequential budget and legislative session right now. Realistic assessment of a US federal role in supporting industry’s net zero’s goals is going to wait on decisions being made in Washington over the next weeks.
4. A 10 year extension of biodiesel and renewable diesel tax credits through 2031 is not pie-in-the-sky thinking, it has a realistic chance though is not a lock by any means, particularly the 2026-2031 period might transition toward a more technology-neutral approach rather than picking out individual energy types.
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6. We were intrigued by the amount of discussion of marine sectors in discussions on the floor as opposed to the main stage.
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7. A more fundamental discussion of feedstock and technology was apparent this year than perhaps at any time since the late 2000s — back then, discussions centered around “2G” cellulosic fuels. Today, a broad agreement that the industry must transition beyond grains, oilseeds and waste FOG in order to realize ambitions such as “3 billion gallons by 2030” for SAF and ambitious targets in heavy-duty trucking, marine.
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Also, a new generation of pyrolytic technologies that address the oxygen content and catalyst life challenges that are usually cited when the question is asked “where are pyrolysis-based fuels?”
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8. Jigar Shah’s keynote on the DOE Loan Programs Office is well worth a review, we’ll have that on the BioChannel.TV on-demand feed next week if you missed it. “Not your Dad’s DOE Loan Programs Office” is the takeaway. An example of the new thinking, Shah’s note that the LPO understands fully that the 20-year offtake agreements made with major utilities that are typical of power purchase agreements are not realistically possible in the far more combative and complex fuels space — the emphasis now is on working realistically with industry to de-risk technology commercialization without being rigid in approach, creativity is the rule not the exception.
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9. The shift in discussion from “Don’t mess with the RFS” to “Low-Carbon Fuel Standards, Everywhere” was readily apparent.
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10. Innovative technology always buzzing at ABLC, this year is no exception. We were particularly intrigued by a discussion of the role of liquid renewable fuels as an onboard liquid source for electricity generation — a different approach to a hybrid, which generally has a combination of electric drive based on on-board battery and combustion drive based on liquid fuels. For heavy-duty fleet use, why not use the liquids as the battery?
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12. On the subject of fuels, we were pretty intrigued by discussions on the floor about volatile fatty acids. Here’s something on that from NREL-led researchers:
To meet the growing demand for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), conversion pathways are needed that leverage wet waste carbon and meet jet fuel property specifications. Here, we demonstrate SAF production from food waste–derived volatile fatty acids (VFA) by targeting normal paraffins for a near-term path to market and branched isoparaffins to increase the renewable content long term.
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13: On the subject on SAF, SkyNRG and CHOOOSE are launching a new carbon emission reduction solution called “Fly on SAF” with partners such as Heathrow Airport, Rotterdam The Hague Airport and Stuttgart Airport already on board. The solution enables airlines and travel companies to seamlessly integrate the offering of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) and Carbon Offsets into their customer experience.
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14. Our theme of “building a bridge to net zero” was not lost on Aemetis, which announced a major milestone for its Carbon Zero 1 plant. READ MORE
BioChannelTV recordings of presentations:
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131091700
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131092074
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131092463
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131094767
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131095675
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131096094
https://video.ibm.com/recorded/131096372
THURSDAY OCTOBER 28 – ALL TIMES US PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
8:00am Industry Policy Horizons
Michael McAdams, President, Advanced Biofuels Association
Kurt Kovarik, VP, National Biodiesel Board
Graham Noyes, Executive Director, Low Carbon Fuels Coalition
Tim Zenk, President, Molecule
Moderator: Jim Lane, The Daily Digest
9:00am Net Zero Futures
Sean Simpson, co-Founder and CTO, LanzaTech
Brian Foody, CEO, Iogen
Chris Cooper, President, Renewable Aviation Fuels, Neste USA
Patrick Gruber, CEO, Gevo
Eric McAfee, CEO, Aemetis
Moderator: Jim Lane, The Daily Digest
10:45am ABLC KEYNOTES
Karel Kapoun, GM, Renewable Natural Gas, Shell Energy
Dr. Pramod Chaudhari, Executive Chairman, Praj
Jigar Shah, Director, US Department of Energy Loan Programs Office
Moderator: Jim Lane, The Daily Digest
11:45am The Finance & Investment Summit
Mark Riedy, Partner, Kilpatrick Townsend Stockton
John Kirkwood, Partner, FaegreDrinker
Mark Glotfelty, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Brentan Alexander, CCO, New Energy Risk
Justin Goldstein, VP, Goldman Sachs
Bryan Sherbacow, CEO, Alder Fuels
Andrew Chang, MD, Corporate Development, United Airlines Ventures
1:45pm The Sustainable Aviation Fuels Summit presented by CAAFI
Nancy Young, VP, Sustainability, Airlines 4 America
Dale Smith, Regional Director, Environmental Strategy, Boeing
Syed Ali, BD Manager, Americas, Honeywell UOP
Jeff McDaniel, VP, New Projects, Velocys
Moderator: Chris Tindal, Assistant Director, CAAFI
3:15pm The Advanced Biofuels Summit
Henrik W. Rasmussen, MD, Americas, Haldor Topsoe
Claudio Bertelli, VP, Business Development, LanzaTech
Marcos Filgueiras, VP, Business Development & Marketing, Thermal Kinetics
Jim Spaeth, BETO Program Manager, Systems Development & Integration, US Department of Energy
Moderator: Michele Rubino, industry consultant
4:30pm Announcement of Consider Corn Challenge III Winners presented by the National Corn Growers Association
Sarah McKay, Director of Market Development, National Corn Growers Association
FRIDAY OCTOBER – ALL TIMES US PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
8:00am Industry Horizons
Sunil Chandran, SVP, Head of R&D, Amyris
Matt Lipscomb, CEO, DMC Bio
Alexandre Zanghellini, CEO, Arzeda
Charles Dimmler, CEO, Checkerspot
9:00am Sustainable Futures
Natalie Merrill, SVP, Business Development, Renewable Energy Group
Jordan Solomon, CEO, Ecostrat
Paul Bloom, Chief Carbon Officer and Chief Innovation Officer, Gevo
Gino Vansteenhuyse, CEO, Pinnacle Propane
Moderator: Tim Zenk, President, Molecule
10:45am ABLC KEYNOTES
Hon. Tom Vilsack, US Secretary of Agriculture
Kelly Speakes-Backman, Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy
11:30am Hot Technologies
Steve Slome, Director, Nexant ECA
Murali Prahalad, CEO, Iridia
Andreas Reindl, Head of Business Industrial Enzymes & Technologies, Clariant
Michael Darcy, CEO, DG Fuels
1:30pm The Advanced Biofuels, Renewable Chemicals and Biomaterials Summit
Perry Toms, CEO, Steeper Energy
Tom Quinn, CEO, EFUELS 100
Jeff Robert, Process Consultant, MetGen
Jay Potter, CEO, ECOR
Moderator: Danielle Uchimura Pascoli, CABLE Delegate, University of Washington
3:15pm Biogas, RNG and Rural Opportunity Summit
Rashi Akki, CEO, Ag-Grid Energy
Marina Kalyuzhnaya, VP, C1PRO
John Hanselman, Chairman, Vanguard
Bill Orts, Bioproducts Research Leader, USDA-ARS
Moderator: Jeff Robert, Process Consultant, MetGen
4:30pm ABLC Due Diligence Wolfpack
ABLC Trends of the Week, Under the Microscope
David Dodds, Dodds & Associates
Michele Rubino, industry consultant
Steve Slome, Director, Nexant ECA
Joel Stone, President, ConVergince, and EVP, LEC
Steve Weiss, President, Grey Heron Consulting
