Newscripts
Sep 2nd, 2010Fragrance Overload?
[caption id="attachment_7452" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Credit: Pascal Blachier via Wiki commons"][/caption] When humanity’s predilection for perfume meddles with the sense of smell of insects and animals, it can sometimes be fortuitous. Case in point: the discovery that Calvin Klein's Obsession perfume lures jaguars, tigers, and other big cats to expectant nature photographers and videographers. But meddling with odor receptors of other creatures can prove problematic. For example, the cosmetic and food fragrance 1-methylbutyl 3-methylbutanoate elicits aggressive defense behaviour in Continue reading →
By Sarah Everts • no commentsThe Haystack
Sep 2nd, 2010Orexigen Partners With Takeda for Potential Obesity Drug Contrave
This morning Orexigen Therapeutics became the second of the three leaders in the obesity drug race to partner with a larger company. They've successfully courted Takeda, which now gets exclusive marketing rights to obesity drug Contrave in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, if the drug gets regulatory approval. Orexigen's shares soared on the news, first released in the pre-dawn hours this morning. In the deal, Orexigen gets $50 million upfront from Takeda and could nab Continue reading →
By Carmen Drahl • 3 commentsThe Chemical Notebook
Sep 2nd, 2010Industrial Gas Companies Face Brazilian Fine Muito Grande
The Brazilian antitrust authority, Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica (CADE), is levying fines totaling about $1.7 billion against Air Liquide, Air Products, Linde, Praxair’s Brazilian subsidiary White Martins. It has also implicated seven managers of those companies. CADE says it found evidence, through wire taps and searches, of an elaborate arrangement to divvy up the market by assigning customers to particular industrial gas companies. “CADE understands the actions of those companies that were investigated resulted Continue reading →
By Alex Tullo • 5 commentsCleantech Chemistry
Sep 2nd, 2010An Early Harvest of Biofuels News
Here it is, the second day of September, and I've got a small pile of releases here about goings-on in the biofuels industry. Venture Capital maven and biofuels booster Vinod Khosla's Khosla Ventures is backing the first three companies in this roundup. [caption id="attachment_240" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="Renewable Crude by KiOR, Credit: KiOR"][/caption] First I need to go back in time a little bit (to Aug. 17) and commend Range Fuels on getting its commerical cellulosic Continue reading →
By Melody Voith • 3 commentsTerra Sigillata
Sep 1st, 2010Physical exhaustion and scientific creativity
I've just received the print version of The Chronicle of Higher Education and just have to share this with those of you who read our weekend post about being tormented by lab directors who aren't keen on non-science activities. In this front page article, "Running Jogs the Academic Mind," by Don Troop, several academicians hold forth on the value of physical activity, running in particular, as a means to trigger thinking about research problems. Religious Continue reading →
By David Kroll • 10 commentsThe Safety Zone
Sep 1st, 2010Lab horror stories
Care to share your favorite lab accident? There's a call out over at the chemistry reddit for your lab horror stories. An example: Two postdocs were working in the glovebox next to me. They spilled some MeLi and were mopping it up with kimwipes. They knew it would be dangerous when they pulled it out of the antechamber, so they prepared an EtOH bath (which, to be fair would safely neutralize a small amount of Continue reading →
By Jyllian Kemsley • one commentJust Another Electron Pusher
Aug 30th, 2010Profile: …cartoonist?
The guy that I’m profiling for the blog today isn’t a chemist. At all. But he’s Jorge Cham, so does it matter? In case you’ve been living under something inorganic and heavy (or not a grad student), Cham is the creator of Piled Higher & Deeper, a comic strip about the...uniqueness... of graduate student life. He gave his “Power of Procrastination” talk at ACS last week, and I managed to drag him into a quiet Continue reading →
By Leigh Krietsch Boerner • no comments
Cleantech Chemistry
» About This BlogAn Early Harvest of Biofuels News
Here it is, the second day of September, and I’ve got a small pile of releases here about goings-on in the biofuels industry. Venture Capital maven and biofuels booster Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures is backing the first three companies in this roundup.
Renewable Crude by KiOR, Credit: KiOR
First I need to go back in time a little bit (to Aug. 17) and commend Range Fuels on getting its commerical cellulosic biofuels plant up and running near Soperton, GA. Range Fuels uses thermochemical processes (heat, pressure and steam) to convert woody biomass to synthesis gas (often called syngas). The gas is passed over a catalyst to produce mixed alcohols. The current product of the Soperton plant is methanol, which will be used to produce biodiesel. The plant will also have ethanol output beginning in the third quarter, according to the company.
Its been a long road for Range. (Though the commerical-scale biofuel road will be even longer for most other firms, as commercial facilities are as rare as ice in the Sahara [or you can insert your own lame metaphor]) Continue reading →
Solutions Sought For Obtaining Rare Earths
Cleantech Chemistry readers should check out my colleague Mitch Jacoby’s fascinating look at the market for rare earth metals and oxides. The rare earths, he points out, are not necessarily rare, but they are difficult to economically mine and process.
And yet they are extraordinarily important in the making of technologies in the computer, electronics, transportation, energy, and defense industries. Many cleantech advances like windmills, hybrid cars, and compact fluorescent lights depend on the rare earths.
Though not technically “rare,” the rare earths are getting harder to source in countries outside of China, as China has the lion’s share of deposits and has a lock the on economic production of pure materials. In addition, China has been lowering export quotas to keep more of the rare earths at home.
Recently, W.R. Grace said it would add a rare earth surcharge to fluid catalytic cracking catalysts and additives for the petroleum refining industry, which shows that rare earths are also used in some older industries.
Some Carbon Credit Projects Looking Shaky
Late last week, the UN body that issues carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol said that it would take a closer look at the worthiness of several projects that have been cashing in by destroying the potent greenhouse gas HFC 23.
Back in 2008 I wrote about a Chinese project that Arkema is part of that is similar to the projects under review. To my knowledge, however, the Arkema effort has not been singled out.
Basically, HFC 23 is a waste gas made during the production of a refrigerant, HCFC 22. With the help of investors and technology experts in the developing world, factories in places like China, India, and South Korea can destroy this waste gas in exchange for carbon credits, which are worth real money, and are traded on a European exchange.
While no one disagrees that without some sort of financial reward, the waste gas would be released into the atmosphere (because the developing nations do not regulate HFC23 emissions), critics allege that companies are manufacturing the HCFC 22 in the maximum quantities allowed – more than the marketplace needs – in order to earn the valuable carbon credits.
Oil Firms are Sweet on Cane-waste Ethanol
While biofuels promoters in the U.S. are wondering what the heck happened to the promise of cellulosic ethanol here, two big oil companies are taking their cellulosic show on the road to Brazil. The feedstock of interest there is what’s left of sugar cane after the sugar is squeezed out.
Sugar cane, minus the sugar, may still yield ethanol. Credit Shutterstock
Royal Dutch Shell has advanced its plans for a $12 billion joint venture with Brazilian sugar cane processor and ethanol producer Cosan. The main thrust will be making ethanol from sugar in the time-tested way (which Brazil began producing for transportation since the 70s and now uses for about half of its liquid fuel needs). But in among a raft of other assets, Shell will kick in its 16% share of recently IPO’d cellulosic ethanol firm Codexis.
Mushroom-as-polymer Powers Packaging Business
Ecovative Design's filimentous fungi packaging material
The era of renewable packaging is upon us, but a few details remain to be worked out. For example, Frito-Lay has been making noise (while irritating snackers) with its very loud – but compostable – plant-based polylactic acid bag for Sun Chips. Meanwhile, a quieter innovation is growing near the campus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York.
Ecovative Design grows its EcoCradle packaging material by adding filamentous fungi to buckwheat hulls inside a plastic form. The result is a composite material that the company markets as a competitor to expanded polystyrene. If you’re having trouble picturing this, take a moment to view the video linked at the end of this post.
Raising money for algae
Credit: Solazyme
This week two algae-to-fuels firms took different pathways to raise new capital while they work out how to commericialize their technologies. The hundreds of start-ups looking to cash in on the little green organisms are likely watching closely.
San Francisco-based Solazyme has raised an impressive $52 million in its fourth round of venture capital funding. Unfortunately for the algae industry, the round does not signify that new investors are flocking to this corner of cleantech – there was only one new investor, Morgan Stanley, participating. Oil company Chevron has stayed on as a strategic investor through its venture capital arm.
Flow Batteries: Coming to a wind farm near you?
A year ago while I was refreshing my knowledge of lithium-ion batteries, I started to hear chatter about other, newer types of batteries that were attracting attention and funding. One was a rather yoga-sounding technology: flow batteries.
I was reminded about flow batteries when I read that the last set of Recovery Act funding from DOE’s ARPA-E program would go to energy storage technologies. Three of the projects will be working on flow batteries, one of which will be led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
But what is a flow battery? Basically, it’s a battery where the voltage differential is stored outside the cell in two separate tanks of electrolytes. Pumps circulate the two fluids into a cell chamber where they come together separated by a membrane that prevents them from mixing, but does allow select ions to pass through. Electrodes in the cell convert the chemical energy to electric current.
Breaking News! Gulf Oil Spill: New ACS Symposium Announced
The BP oil spill saga in the Gulf has occupied scientists, policy-makers and citizens since April 20th, making this the summer of Deepwater Horizon. It seems only fitting then, that ACS will convene a line-up of speakers and panel to discuss what we know about the science of oil spills.
On Tuesday, August 24 at the ACS Boston National Meeting there will be a full-day symposium titled “Gulf Oil Spill: Tackling the chemistry and food science implications.”
Scientists from government, academia, and non-profits will review what is already known about the impacts of past spills on marine ecosystems and economically important seafood industries. The afternoon sessions will look deeply at the science of characterizing the components of crude oil as it breaks down in the gulf. After the talks there will be plenty of time for discussion.
The symposium is being cosponsored by the ACS Committee on Science, Multidisciplinary Planning Group, and the Green Chemistry Institute. A schedule has been posted to the ACS Community Network website: https://communities.acs.org/docs/DOC-3106
Too Many Batteries?
The Chevy Volt's electric drive train will be powered by LG Chem batteries produced in Holland, MI
The U.S. will soon be awash in lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. But how many are too many?
The other day I observed a rush-hour traffic jam of Toyota Prius’ on a major artery that leads into Washington, DC. The particular stretch of road is restricted to high-occupancy vehicles and hybrids. So Prius-driving commuters have an edge getting to work in the mornings. Seeing hybrid after hybrid, I mused on the likely demand for the first generation of mainstream electric vehicles like GM’s Volt and the Nissan Leaf. Federal and local government incentives and restrictions, like the rush-hour one, really muddy the waters when experts try to forecast how many of these cars will be sold.
One whopping market-muddier is the Federal government’s support of U.S. electric-car battery manufacturers.
Yesterday afternoon, President Obama visited the site of what will be an LG Chem manufacturing facility for lithium-ion car batteries in Holland, MI. The plant has received a $151.4 million Department of Energy grant as part of the Recovery Act of 2009.
Verenium Goes Back to the Future
Today the cleantech firm Verenium announced that it was not, after all, going to be in the cellulosic ethanol production business. Instead, the publicly-traded firm has agreed to sell its cellulosic biofuels business to partner BP, giving the oil giant a much-needed non-oil-spill press mention.
At first this news seemed a bit odd as Verenium was formed to make cellulosic ethanol. But it’s not really that surprising.
In a conference call with analysts this morning, the company outlined its plans to move forward as a specialty enzymes company. This means it will not need to put up the hundreds of millions of dollars in capital that would be required to set up and run a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility. Verenium has been generating revenue selling enzymes for a few years now.
In fact, cleantech followers would not need too long of a memory to note that Verenium, prior to its 2007 merger with Vinod Khosla-backed cellulosic ethanol firm Celunol, was called Diversa. And Diversa was… a specialty enzymes company.
Before this announcement, Verenium’s big claims to fame compared to its renewable fuels rivals was its valuable (in more ways than money) partnership with BP, the fact that Verenium is a public company, and perhaps most important, its plans (with BP) to open a commercial-scale plant in 2012 (a 36 million-gal-per-year ethanol facility in Highlands County, Fla.)
Rather than stick around for the plant opening, Verenium will cash a check worth $98.3 million for two facilities; the pilot and demonstration scale plant in Jennings, LA and the R&D facilities in San Diego. It also sold intellectual property relating to cellulosic biofuels generally and cellulosic enzymes in specific.
Verenium’s change of heart could be seen to illustrate two themes I’ve been seeing in industrial biotechnology (both fuels and chemicals). Firms that have leading-edge technology as their competitive advantage are not eager to be in capital intensive businesses. And, as the bio-based fuels and materials industry grows, many will find there is more upside (i.e., higher margins and less effort) to being a supplier to the industry, rather than as a manufacturer of the end product (in this case, ethanol).
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