A series of recent policy-related developments within the biofuels industry may have set the stage for what could prove to be a significant shift in biofuel geopolitics over the next decade. To recap: the European Court of Justice (ECJ) affirmed an earlier ruling that held the imposition of carbon taxes on flights touching down or taking off on EU soil did not infringe international law or the Open Skies Agreement; a U.S. District Court ruled that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) violates the U.S. Constitution; and the long-standing U.S. ethanol producer credit (aka “VEETC”) slipped quietly into the history books. Where do these developments leave the industry? While the inclusion of airline emissions in the EU’s ETS indicates that the buzz around aviation biofuels won’t fade anytime soon, the threat of costly trade wars by the ...

April 3, 2012 8:00 am

to

April 4, 2012 6:00 pm

We are pleased to announce that the Ontario Feed-In Tariff Forum will take place on
April 3rd and 4th, 2012 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

Following sold-out conferences in 2010 and 2011, the third Forum will bring together FIT contract holders, developers, manufacturers, suppliers, service providers and government representatives to provide critical and timely insight into the impacts of the FIT review and the new landscape for renewable energy in Ontario.

 

This focal point for the Ontario FIT industry will provide:

• Networking with all the key industry players, policymakers and infrastructure experts involved in FIT

• In-depth analysis on the outcomes of the FIT review and new market dynamics in Ontario

• 120+ speakers with dedicated streams on solar, wind, hydro and bioenergy sectors

• Critical updates on key topics including: grid connection, REA, contract rules, pricing, …

Facing an uncertain future with biofuels policy under scrutiny, the advanced biofuels industry convened for a three day conference in San Francisco earlier this month. Jointly organized by Green Power Conferences and Biofuels Digest, the Advanced Biofuels Markets conference is one of the few industry events bringing together industry leaders from all shades of advanced biofuel interests – algae, cellulosic biofuels, advanced biodiesel, aviation biofuels, and others – as well as key public-sector stakeholders. Coming off several years of steady industry growth but facing a difficult 2012, Advanced Biofuels Markets 2011 was tinged with exigency. With deficit reduction at the forefront of policy objectives for Congress, a reexamination of cornerstone policies supporting biofuels growth is expected. At risk of being scrapped altogether, the checkerboard foundation of biofuels policy initiatives spanning EPA, USDA, the Department of Energy ...

Already languishing in the current deficit/debt landscape and facing mounting criticism in the wake of the Solyndra bankruptcy, the much-maligned DOE Section 1705 loan guarantee program came to a close last week with a flurry of activity. Despite frustration with the program in the biofuels industry, centering on delays and process uncertainty, two advanced biofuels awards – $105 million to cellulosic ethanol giant POET’s Project LIBERTY in Iowa and $133.9 million for Abengoa Bioenergy for an advanced biofuels plant in Kansas –were among the 11th-hour clean energy qualifiers. What do the awards mean for the U.S. biofuels industry and what impact will the end of Section 1705 have on the industry’s chances of reaching a mandated 36 billion gallons per year (BGPY) of total biofuels by 2022? The answer to both questions requires a look at the ...

Enerkem is a Montreal, Canada-based company that designs, manufactures, owns and operates waste-to-biofuels plants. Enerkem takes municipal waste and, through gasification and catalytic synthesis, converts it into advanced biofuels. The company calls its process “carbon recycling” to signal that it takes carbon that would otherwise stay trapped in the waste and converts it to useful fuels and chemicals. Enerkem owns at least three international patent applications relating to its gasification technology, including Publication No. WO 2009/132449 (’449 Application), entitled “Production and conditioning of synthesis gas obtained from biomass.” The ’449 Application is directed to methods of producing and treating synthesis gas, or syngas, in which a biomass-rich feedstock is passed from a conveyor belt (1) through rotary valves (2a, 2b) into a feed screw (3). (The ’449 Application contains only one figure, which is huge ...

Biofuel producer KiOR has priced its initial public offering at $15 per share, down from $19 to $21 that the company originally announced on Wednesday. A lot of media and Web 2.0 companies filing to go public, such as LinkedIn and Pandora, have ramped up their IPO price ahead of their trading debuts this year. KiOR’s latest move could be a signal that there is some concern regarding clean technology IPOs that have not reached profitability yet. KiOR filed to go public in April and is looking to close out a $1 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. The company, like many other high-profile companies filing for initial public offerings this year, has not been profitable in the past 3 years. It lost $46 million last year. The company is selling around ...

Biofuels have been heavily promoted in the hydrocarbon-poor third world as both a fuel source and a valuable earner of foreign currency. Now however, The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is seeking to sell is 50 percent holding of Transload (Pvt) Limited, a biodiesel fuel manufacturing joint venture between Zimbabwe and South Korea’s Yuon Woo Investments. In 2007 Transload (Pvt) Limited was established with massive publicity heralding the project as both a partial solution to the country’s chronic energy shortages as well as a valuable potential foreign revenue source, the Standard reported. Given the plant’s intermittent operations many investment and economic analysts passed harsh judgment on the joint venture, with one commenting that no local investor would want to put money in such “a white elephant.” Labor and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe economist Nyasha Muchichwa starkly commented, “Chances are very minimal ...

The Mexican government is funding an initiative to demonstrate industrial algae production to find out how viable it is for use in large-scale jet fuels production. “Manhattan Project”, as the initiative has been dubbed, has recruited OriginOil, a California-based company that works to make algae competitive with petroleum. “We are excited to support Mexico’s ‘Manhattan Project’ to produce 1% of the nation’s jet fuel from algae in less than five years,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. The project will be operated by Ensenada-based Genesis Ventures with funding from The National Council for Science and Technology for the first site, which will be used as a model for other projects to be co-located with large CO2 sources. Ensenada’s Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education will be involved with the project because of its “team of world-class researchers, sophisticated laboratory equipment, and ...

We’ve seen a number of polls showing that people like solar and wind energy, but here’s one more, which includes a few other interesting findings. A new poll by Pike Research has found that solar and wind were the most favorably-viewed concepts of a list of various energy and environment technologies, systems, and programs. They were even considerably more popular than hybrid and electric vehicles. 79% of respondents “favorably” or “very favorably” viewed solar energy and 75% had such impressions of wind energy. The results for “clean coal” and nuclear were 47% and 42%, respectively. Here are the percentages for the full list of concepts Pike Research polled people on: Solar Energy:  79% Wind Energy:  75% Hybrid Vehicles:  64% Electric Cars:  57% Biofuels:  47% Clean Coal:  47% Nuclear Power:  42% Smart Meters:  37% Smart Grid:  37% Carbon Offsets/Credits:  24% LEED Certification:  19% Cap and Trade:  15% Beyond how favorable respondents considered these ...

Florida-based LED maker Lighting Science Group (LSG) announced today it has filed for a $150 million IPO.

The news follows this week’s successful IPO of Gevo, a biofuels and biochemicals company (that has never turned a profit) that raised $107 million on public markets and was able to command share prices at the high end of its offering range.

So, could this finally be the year cleantech IPOs gain traction?

LSG is something of a unique case. It makes LED products for commercial and retail establishments (pictured) and has had its products used in installations for Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s and Bryant Park. The company’s stocks are already traded on the OTC Bulletin Board ($4.27 per share at the time of this writing), and the IPO plans would be  trade its stocks on the Nasdaq.  While LSG isn’t venture-backed, the majority ...