Sayings and Images from 12 Years Traveling on the Bioeconomy Road

July 29, 2019

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Today, the Digest turns 12. Since the Digest was launched in July 2007, we’ve had the privilege of telling the amazing success story of the bioeconomy— new applications, companies, and platform technologies have been pouring out of research labs and many of them are deploying rapidly at commercial scale.

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Along the way, we formed a few few observations that we’ve tucked away in the back of our journalist’s notebook — we hope some will amuse and provide some insight. They’re short, and in alphabetical order, and we would like to celebrate our 12th birthday by sharing them with you.

Thank you to each one of our 3,829,576 readers – you’ve made this an awesome ride.

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Able was I ere I saw lignin.

Ah, the clear thinking and pain tolerance that flows from the use of Someone’s Else’s Money.

Absolutely, as Rogers and Hammerstein said, Climb Ev’ry Mountain, except the Thermodynamic one

A friend in DC is a friend indeed.

A person who makes their living selling research will usually try and sell you some more.

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As Jennifer Holmgren says, never fall in love with a feedstock.

As Napoleon said: Never make decisions based on assumptions about what the other guy is thinking

Ask any poppy farmer – distributors rule the earth unless interrupted by cartels.

Ask not what the oil majors can do for you, ask what you can do for the oil majors.

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Bacteria are using you, not the other way around.

Before embarking on a biofuels venture, chew and digest a car, just for practice.

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Confuse the enemy and plant seeds of doubt

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Do not begin an algal biofuels adventure until you have found an affordable way to get the algae out of the water, or the water out of the algae.

Don’t expect a government hand-out, or a hand-up, but if you expect a hand-slap, you might be pleasantly surprised.

Don’t think gallons per acre, think dollars per acre.

Don’t’ think megatonne, think negatonne

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Every feedstock will eventually cost too much.

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Everything tracks oil prices.

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First comes the cash flow, then the world domination.

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Half of your cost will be the pipes.

High oil prices make investors want to fund fossil fuel projects, not alternatives.

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How Green Was My Valley of Death

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If you are making CO2, you are losing carbon.

If you are thinking long-term, think about it in Mandarin.

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It is not what you know, or who you know, but what you do with who you know.

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If you think 100 Years of Solitude was bad, try pitching biofuels in Silicon Valley

If your technology is uncool, put “nano” on the front of it.

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More important than land use change is land use intensification

More important than peak oil is peak investor patience.

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Network like crazy. No one can do it alone.

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Never move water, no matter what they tell you.

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No one will give you infrastructure for Christmas.

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One amazing success will drive a thousand admirers on to your Band Wagon

Opponents don’t really want biofuels to exist without subsidies, they want biofuels to go away.

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Partner early and often. Things go better with Koch.

People are interested in their opportunity, not your opportunity.

People never exaggerate so much as after a pilot, during a conference, or prior to a cap raise

Petrochemical companies are filled with very smart, often very frustrated people.

Plants have had 500 million years to learn how to protect their sugars.

Prepare for the worst. It’s coming.

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Sell a problem, deliver a solution, not the other way around

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Somebody didn’t tell you something important.

Someone else is doing it too.

Someone in the oil industry is laughing right now at your concept of scale.

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That fourth law of Thermodynamics, also known as the Law of the Conservation of Experts, states that everything will be described as impossible until you pay me enough to state otherwise.

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The genome is the mother of all opportunity.

The only limitation on the power of propaganda is the rate at which people fall for it.

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The winner is the one who mastered the value chain, not the use case

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The world will only be changed by ideas that make money for someone

There are lies, damned lies, and scale-up projections.

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There is not a food shortage, there is an income distribution problem.

There isn’t enough fresh water for anything, much less everything.

There’s too much oxygen in your bio-oil

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Thou that first reacheth oil price parity and hath unlimited affordable feedstock shall inheriteth the earth.

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Too many companies are joined at the hype.

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Values drive habits, habits drive actions, actions change the world. So if you want to change the world, start with values.

Value, like Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, is found upstream

Vocês serão mais felizes se você compreender o que isto diz

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Whup me, beat me, sadly mistreat me, I will never reveal my catalyst

What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar, and a good 5-cent sugar, and is going to get neither.

What’s a renewable chemical? It’s a biofuel trying to raise a Series C venture round.

Write nothing to anyone that you would not feel comfortable seeing on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

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You are attacking someone else’s business model and livelihood. Don’t complain when they try and send you to the devil.

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You better figure out where the phosphorus is coming from.

You cannot think too small.

You never know until you know, and then unfortunately you know.

You think you are developing a technology, but you really are building a company

Your microorganism has no idea what you are doing.

You can think win-win, but did Genghis Khan? READ MORE

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