One of the U.S Cargill’s Plants
Cargill, U.S. agribusiness giant, expands its corn-based ethanol business by opening a plant in Fort Dodge, Iowa, with the capacity to grind 150,000 bushels of corn daily.
BASF grows in biotechnology field and closes the gap on market leaders DuPont and Novozymes in the $3 billion industrial enzyme industry. The German world’s leading chemical company yesterday announced that it has successfully completed the previously announced tender offer to purchase all outstanding shares of common stock of Verenium Corporation, San Diego, California, for US$4.00 per share in cash. The tender offer expired at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (USA) on October 31, 2013. As of the expiration of the tender offer, 11,337,044 Verenium shares were validly tendered and not withdrawn in the tender offer, representing approximately 71% of Verenium’s outstanding shares, according to the depositary for the tender offer. Based on all outstanding shares and including all net financial liabilities, the enterprise value would be approximately US$62 million (approximately €48 million).
Be optimistic. There is no alternative for the Italians if they want to continue to maintain the highest standards of living accrued after World War II. Being optimistic, despite the picture painted by Frank Bruni in his article in the New York Times last Saturday is so bleak as it is real.
Be optimistic to build a new country, open, inclusive, equitable, meritocratic and not gerontocratic. Be optimistic and roll up the sleeves. Perhaps it is true that only in the difficulties Italians know how to give the best of themselves. And that this is a difficult time there is no doubt.
The US Center for Automotive Research (CAR) announced Thursday that it will be the lead agency in a $1.47 million grant under the federal “Make It In America Challenge” to boost the use of bio-based materials in cars. Partners in the effort include the Michigan Manufacturing Technology Center, the Macomb-St. Clair Workforce Development Board and the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences.
“Our project, ‘Building Capacity and Capability in the Bio-Based Materials Manufacturing Sector,’ will build and expand on this distinctive combination of assets to support job creation and attraction of domestic and foreign direct investment in the agricultural manufacturing sector, as well as greater development of a supply chain for bio-material products to support the U.S. automotive industry,” said Kim Hill, director of the Sustainability and Economic Development Strategies group and project lead at CAR.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced the availability of 181 million US dollars to develop commercial-scale biorefineries or retrofit existing facilities with appropriate technology to develop advanced biofuels. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) remains focused on carrying out its mission, despite a time of significant budget uncertainty. Vilsack’s announcement is one part of the Department’s efforts to strengthen the rural economy.
Approximately 250 delegates from EU, Tunisia, Russia, Turkey and Canada, 40 scientific presentations, 30 scientific posters and a round table on “The role of clusters in fostering the bioeconomy”. These are the numbers of IFIB, the Italian Forum on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioeconomy, which opens today to the world in Naples at Castel dell’Ovo (Egg Castle). Continue reading
Novamont’s bio-based butanediol (BDO) plant, established as a joint venture (Mater Biotech) with San Diego-based Genomatica, will come on stream next year. To say it was yesterday Alberto Castellanza, sales manager of the Italian company, at K 2013, the Trade Fair for Plastic materials and rubber, in Düsseldorf (Germany).
Solvay Specialty Polymers has announced a major extension of its Kalix high-performance polyamide (HPPA) product line, launching a new portfolio of bio-based high-performance polyamides offered for use in smart mobile devices such as smart phones, tablets, laptops, and other smart mobile electronics. The introduction includes the Kalix HPPA 3000 series, the first bio-based amorphous polyphthalamides (PPAs), and the Kalix 2000 series, a family of bio-sourced semi-crystalline polyamide grades that provide outstanding impact performance. Solvay unveiled the new materials at K 2013 (Hall 6 Stand C61), the 19th International Trade Fair for Plastics and Rubber Worldwide, which runs October 16-23, in Düsseldorf, Germany.
A Spanish researcher has demonstrated, for the first time, the viability of using specific tobacco proteins (known as thioredoxins) as biotechnological tools in plants.
In her PhD thesis Ruth Sanz-Barrio, an agricultural engineer of the NUP/UPNA-Public University of Navarre and researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology (mixed centre of the CSIC-Spanish National Research Council, Public University of Navarre and the Government of Navarre), has managed to increase the amount of starch produced in the tobacco leaves by 700% and fermentable sugars by 500%. “We believe that these genetically modified plants” – she explained – “could be a good alternative to food crops for producing biofuels, and could provide an outlet for the tobacco-producing areas in our country that see their future in jeopardy owing to the discontinuing of European grants for this crop.”
Naples will be the Euro-mediterranean capital of the bioeconomy for a couple of days. The Italian Forum on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioeconomy (IFIB) goes to the wonderful city of Southern Italy from 22 to 23 October 2013 at Castel dell’Ovo (Egg Castle), a seaside castle located on the former island of Megaride, now a peninsula, on the gulf of Naples .
With around 250 delegates in attendance from approximately twenty different countries from all around the world, the conference truly succeeds in its ambitious aim to transform from an Italian event to a Euro-mediterranean congress for the vibrant and dynamic sector of the bioeconomy.
IL BIOECONOMISTA 