Helsinki is the European capital of bioeconomy. A Bioeconomy Conference is being organised to contribute to achieving an inclusive and sustainable bioeconomy for Europe. Finland’s Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and the European Commission are jointly organising the conference, and it is one of the events to be held in Helsinki under Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Anellotech’s MinFree™ technology, an innovative, patent pending biomass pretreatment process has been demonstrated to significantly reduce the mineral (ash) content of loblolly pine at a 20 metric ton/day scale. Month-long trials converting this MinFree™-treated, low-mineral pine into aromatics (BTX) at Anellotech’s Bio-TCat™ process TCat-8® pilot plant showed extended, economic catalyst life.
BP Ventures has made an investment of $30 million in Calysta, Inc., an alternative protein producer, that will use BP’s natural gas to produce protein for fish, livestock and pet feeds.
The investment supports BP’s strategy of creating new markets in which gas can play a material role in delivering a more sustainable future and establishing a strategic relationship between BP and California-based start-up Calysta around gas and power supply.
Calysta’s proprietary gas fermentation technology produces FeedKind® protein, a sustainable feedstock that can be used for fish, livestock and pet nutritional products. The innovative process has the potential to help meet the growing demand for feed in the aquaculture and wider agriculture markets without some of the environmental impacts of current sourcing methods. Continue reading
Investors from around the globe are urging world government leaders to step up ambition on climate change and enact strong policies by 2020 to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, including phasing out thermal coal power and pricing carbon. 477 investors with $34 trillion (USD) in assets, a record number of signatories, are behind the urgent call-to-action to limit average global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Finnish bioeconomy takes a step forward. KaiCell Fibers Ltd is led to the stage that preparation for construction can get started. Environment permit is in the authority evaluation, mill site is contracted, and coding is getting ready, big share of the wood supply is pre-contracted, technical preparations are well advanced and industrial partners have readiness to join in.
The Italian Renewable Energy Consortium for Research and Demonstration (RE-CORD) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory for coordination on thermochemical conversion of biomass for the production of biofuels and chemicals.
LyondellBasell, one of the largest plastics, chemicals and refining companies in the world, and Neste, the world’s largest producer of renewable diesel from waste and residues, jointly started the first parallel production of bio-based polypropylene and bio-based low-density polyethylene at a commercial scale.
Novozymes inaugurated its new Innovation Campus in Lyngby, 13 kilometers north of Copenhagen and seven kilometers from its headquarters in Bagsværd. With the location near the Technical University of Denmark, it is Novozymes’ ambition to create a global hub for biotech research.
All Nippon Airways (ANA), Japan’s largest and 5-Star airline for seven consecutive years, signed an offtake agreement with Illinois-based LanzaTech that will allow the company to purchase sustainable aviation fuel, a significant step in ANA’s efforts to minimize its environmental impact and meet Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is not the first time that ANA has utilized sustainable aviation fuel, and the current agreement targets 2021 for the delivery of the sustainable aviation fuel making ANA a leader in putting its green principles into practice.
Sweden is aiming to become climate neutral by 2045. However, it has been estimated by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that we may have as little as twelve years to tackle climate change. To examine what it takes to reduce CO2 emissions as fast as possible, Neste and its partners set to turn the island of Lidö in the Swedish archipelago into a climate neutral Zero Island in just twelve months. As a result of the project, the island’s emissions were brought down by an impressive 78 percent from their previous levels.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 