The Biofuels Technology Square Dance

April 18, 2011

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ...How’s an investor to parse out all these technologies. For many, it’s a case of “you’re making what, from what, using what?”
...Here at the Digest, we think of it as a kind of old fashioned hoedown, a square dance involving four basic types of technologies – competing yet cooperating, all involved in and benefiting from the other’s success, interrelated and yet distinct.
Think of a quadrant – box with four cells (or visualize the one we’ve constructed here with some companies as examples – but keep in mind that these are companies suggested as examples, and represent far from a comprehensive list.
On the vertical axis, you have “fermentation” and “catalytic conversion”, and on the horizontal axis you have “gas phase” and “liquid phase”.
...There are some hybrids, and a handful of technologies that fall outside of this Bioenergy Square Dance box or barely fit in. But that’s the basic drill.

Codexis
Amyris
Gevo
Solazyme
KiOR
ClearFuels/Rentech
Enerkem
Envergent
Annelotech
Dynamotive
Honeywell UOP
Virent
LS9
Cobalt
LanzaTech
INEOS Bio
Coskata
ZeaChem
Sapphire Energy

The Four Bewares

Need more hydrogen, baby...

Did we mention low-cost sugars? ...

Cobalt
Mascoma
Verenium
Qteros

Did we mention finance? ... That’s where “capital-light” comes in.

Gevo
Solazyme
Cobalt
Butamax

Did we mention geography? ...

The Digest’s Take – Dancing with SARA

In the end, it comes down to matching feedstocks with economically viable processes. Any viable process will have its day in the sun; any process that matches up well with a sustainable, affordable, reliable, available (SARA) source of biomass – that’s a winner. READ MORE