by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In the advanced bioeconomy, the question for some time has been “how do you fund it?” or “how do you make it?”. But now, feedstock is becoming the key variable, it’s a case of “where do you find it?”
“Feedstock is Key,” says Verdezyne CEO Bill Radany. Dr. Harry Baumes, Director of the USDA’s Office of Energy Policy and New Uses agrees. “Now that I have been involved with bioenergy/bioeconomy for almost a decade I have come to believe that feedstock supply is going to make or break the bioeconomy,” he told the Advanced Bioeconomy Feedsocks Conference delegates in an opening day address.
Is it affordable? Available? Reliable? Have the developers and operators mastered agricultural risk? Do they have the know-how to effectively procure from those resources, and buy at the best combination of price and quality? Do they know how to aggregate at the lowest cost? Transport it, store it, crush it, prep it, chop it, time it?
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Finally, a challenge from Advanced Biofuels USA to the EPA to revise its specifications for RINs to ensure that intermediates (such as industrial sugars) fits into the RIN structure. READ MORE