Despite the lack of results, next-gen biofuel companies continue to receive a significant amount of both government and VC support. At what point will the funding transform into advanced biofuels being produced at scale? Read More »
Cleantech
The future of clean power and greener transportation is being carried by FarmVille and online coupons — at least in terms of venture capital portfolios. Read More »
Waste to fuel startup Enerkem already had trash king Waste Management on its side — now Enerkem has scored backing from oil refiner giant Valero. Enerkem announced it has raised $60 million from Valero, along with existing investors like Waste Management and Braemar Energy Ventures. Read More »
Biofuel production nationwide has been woefully behind schedule as would-be producers struggle to just get their first commercial plants rolling. The U.S. government wants to help and on Thursday announced loan guarantee commitments totaling $571 million for Coskata, Enerkem, and a JV from Valero. Read More »
For next-generation biofuels to make any type of dent in the fossil fuel industry, oil companies will have to get on board, and here comes one to the rescue for the struggling cellulosic ethanol sector. Oil giant Valero is backing cellulosic ethanol startup Mascoma. Read More »
Cellulosic ethanol startup Enerkem needs trash and money. Massive trash company Waste Management has lots of both. The two said Wednesday that they’ve gotten together, with Waste Management making a strategic investment in the Montreal-based company as part of a 53.8 million Canadian… Read More »
Amid the rubble of the first generation of biofuel projects focused on ethanol derived from corn, a new landscape of biofuel tech has taken shape. As Lux Research puts it in a report released today, the companies range “from backyard brewers to billion-dollar industrial giants,”… Read More »
Algenol Biofuels, with its just-announced plans to build an algae fuel demo plant in partnership with Dow Chemical, isn’t the only startup taking the demise of a well-funded algae fuel company — GreenFuel Technologies — in stride. Today 3-year-old Solix Biofuels, which has some… Read More »
Massive oil refiner Valero Energy has been taking stakes in biofuel startups over the last year, including algae fuel maker Solix Biofuels, and cellulosic ethanol maker ZeaChem. But now the company has a different sort of biofuel assets in mind — not next-gen technology,… Read More »
In an inauspicious building on a strip of offices in Menlo Park, Calif., I recently met with the team behind ZeaChem, a 25-person startup that’s using a common microbe found in termite guts and regular soil to breakdown trees and plants into the next-generation of… Read More »
Algae fuel startup Solix Biofuels is raising $15.5 million from the a variety of investors including the investment group for a Colorado Native American tribe and massive oil refinery operator Valero Energy. Read More »
