Cracking Biomass Back when I worked in a refinery, I used to spend a lot of time thinking about how biomass would behave in certain refining processes. A fluidized catalytic cracker (FCC), for instance, takes oil and subjects it to heat and a catalyst to fracture larger hydrocarbons into smaller ...

That title appears to be reserved for me, even though I did not set out to earn it. It all started with the first story I wrote on Range Fuels in which I pointed out that their progress does not remotely align with their early promises. Since that initial ...

Update 8-18-10: For those linking in from the earth2tech article on Range Fuels, that inaccurately reflects my comments on Range. My criticism was not that they added methanol to the mix. To the contrary, I think biomass to methanol is a promising, long-term route to biofuels. My criticisms of ...

Coskata will produce ethanol for under US $1.00 a gallon anywhere in the world, from almost any input material. - Coskata Vision StatementA bit more than a year ago, I read a number of claims from ethanol start-up Coskata stating that they would be able to produce ...

The reason I spend time debunking wild claims is that I think they damage the entire bioenergy sector in the long run. People who issue press releases claiming they can produce fuel for $1/gallon - and by the way we can do it next year if you give ...

I consider the level of dependence of the U.S. on imported petroleum to be a very large financial risk endangering the country's future. There are certainly other import-related risks as well, but here I want to talk about the financial risk.I consider it similar to having a mortgage ...

Thanks to a reader for bringing this story to my attention:Segetis: Making a Brand New BiochemicalThe Minnesota-based startup turns cellulosic biomass into something called levulinic ketal, a brand-new molecule that can be made into a host of industrial chemicals.Segetis wants to make ...

In this installment, I continue to work my way through the list of questions recently submitted by readers. This post picks up where Part 1 left off, and covers coal-to-liquids, technology hype, green gasoline, refining improvements, allocation of money toward renewables, electricity consumption, the Automotive X Prize, Big ...

People sometimes ask me how - if they don't have any particular technical expertise - one determines whether companies are making fraudulent claims. I tell them that the simple test of "If it looks too good to be true..." will work in the vast majority of cases. In the case ...

In a recent post - It's Always Something - I argued that for seemingly every renewable option, there is a trade-off. In that particular essay I was discussing a recent report that suggested that jatropha curcas - which I have written about as an intriguing option for renewable, ...