Biobased and Renewal Products Update

Biobased and Renewable Products Update

July 19, 2018

Federal

Biofuel Groups Testify At RFS Public Hearing

On July 18, 2018, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a Public Hearing for Proposed Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) for 2019 and Biomass-Based Diesel Volume for 2020.  The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) testified at this meeting that EPA should set the 2020 Biomass-based Diesel volume at 2.8 billion gallons, stating that it aligns with the goals that Congress set for the RFS program, the volume is achievable in 2020, and that it will better fulfill the promise of the RFS program.  These statements come on the heels of a July 12, 2018, request by the Trump administration that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit throw out a lawsuit over previous small refiner hardship exemption waivers that EPA had granted.  Government lawyers argued that the lawsuit did not challenge a “final” agency action, so individual exemptions must be challenged in local courts.  EPA’s small refinery hardship exemptions have doubled in 2016 and 2017 when compared with previous years, with NBB estimating a decreased demand of 300 million gallons for biodiesel.  NBB argued that increasing the RFS for 2019 and 2020 is needed to reduce the uncertainty that has been caused by issuing the small refinery hardship exemptions.

Industry

Anellotech And Suntory Reach New Milestone In Development Of Biobased Plastic Bottle

On July 16, 2018, Anellotech and Suntory announced that a new milestone had been reached in developing a 100 percent biobased plastic bottle. Anellotech is using a thermal catalytic process called Bio-TCatTM to confirm non-food based feedstocks into BTX aromatics, renewable chemicals that are structurally identical to traditional plastic components.  The BTX is now undergoing purification studies to make bio-paraxylene, a key chemical for the renewable bottles. David Sudolsky, President & CEO of Anellotech, stated “[f]ollowing our announcements earlier this year on process development and continuous operation, we are glad that significant progress continues at our TCat-8^® pilot plant. We continue to move the technology towards commercialization, and shipping the pilot plant’s product for downstream evaluation is another major milestone.  Having collaborated with Suntory since 2012 to advance development of cost-competitive bio-aromatics, we hope bio-based plastics made from our Bio-TCatTM process and a 100% bio-based bottle soon become a reality.” 

Research

NSF Announces Investment In Biobased Semiconductor Research

On July 16, 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) announced a $12 million investment in the Semiconductor Synthetic Biology for Information Processing and Storage Technologies (SemiSynBio) program, a partnership between NSF and Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC).  Researches expect that integrating biological structures with semiconductor technology could increase current data storage capabilities by 1,000 times, while using less energy than current technology.  “While today’s data storage devices are smaller and more powerful than ever before, we have the potential to catalyze a new wave of innovation that will push the boundaries for the future,” stated Erwin Gianchandani, acting NSF assistant director for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE).  Further, “[t]his research will pave the way for devices with much greater storage capacity and much lower power usage. Imagine, for example, having the entire contents of the Library of Congress on a device the size of your fingernail.”   The funded projects include:

■	DNA-based electrically readable memories:  Joshua Hihath, University of California-Davis; Manjeri Anantram, University of Washington; Yonggang Ke, Emory University.
■	An on-chip nanoscale storage system using chimeric DNA:  Olgica Milenkovic, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
■	Highly scalable random access DNA data storage with nanopore-based reading:  Hanlee Ji, Stanford University.
■	Nucleic Acid Memory: William Hughes, Boise State University.
■	Very large-scale genetic circuit design automation:  Christopher Voigt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Kate Adamala, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; Eduardo Sontag, Northeastern University.
■	Redox-enabled Bio-Electronics for Molecular Communication and Memory (RE-BIONICS):  William Bentley, University of Maryland College Park.
■	YeastOns:  Neural Networks Implemented in Communicating Yeast Cells: Rebecca Schulman, Johns Hopkins University; Eric Klavins, University of Washington; Andrew Ellington, University of Texas at Austin.
■	Cardiac Muscle-Cell-Based Coupled Oscillator Networks for Collective Computing:  Pinar Zorlutuna, University of Notre Dame.

 

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