Blogs written by Lee Enterprises Consulting Bioeconomy Expert(s)
Can you improve ethanol revenues by 50-75 CPG? Corn ethanol can be a highly profitable business when a plant can reduce its Carbon Intensity. Which CI reduction alternatives can provide the best return on capital? Negative C.I. Ethanol is coming! Business opportunities to increase CI revenue include: Crop waste-based energy supply, CHP for power and…
“Cell-based meat” refers to meat that is grown directly from cells instead of meat that is harvested from an animal body. There is a broad array of companies in the cell-based meat space. Commercially successful cell-based meat operations will require many readily available cell lines for the different consumed species of mammals, birds, and fish.…
How does one get from policy to project in the world of decarbonization? First, we must understand decarbonization. The term “decarbonization” literally means the reduction of carbon. In today’s world, it refers to the conversion to an economic system that sustainably reduces and compensates the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO₂) – the long-term goal being to…
Sustainable investing is here. According to Morgan Stanley’s 2019 biennial survey of financial institutions, insurers, and pension funds in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, 80% said that they actively integrated sustainable investing. The trend towards increased attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors has only strengthened over the past two years as the…
Bioplastics are moldable materials made up of chemical compounds synthesized by things like bacteria or genetically modified plants. Unlike traditional plastics that are made from petroleum, bioplastics are made from renewable resources, and normally contain fewer ingredients from fossil fuels (with some containing none). Some bioplastics are completely biodegradable and compostable. Their origin (renewable v.…
Biochar for wastewater treatment, both municipal and industrial, is a good alternative as such multistage process accommodates a constantly changing influent. One of the most critical steps in the process is the aeration basin in which microbes work in conjunction with an adsorptive media such as biochar. Biochar’s porosity makes it ideally suited to this…
As part of a technical due diligence effort, the team is often requested to perform a Technical Readiness Assessment. This will assign a score to the technology, known as the Technical Readiness Level (TRL). Originally developed by NASA in the 1970’s, it was adopted by the US DOD in the early 2000’s, followed by the…
When developing an industrial fermentation process, the choice of the production organism dictates much of the large-scale fermentation characteristics in addition to the nature of research and development and process development. Well characterized strains with a large genetic manipulation tool set, such as Escherichia coli, can rapidly deliver R&D goals, yet E. coli tends to…