In case you haven’t heard, we have an abundance of wood fiber in Maine, specifically softwood. Depending on who you talk to, there is 3 or 4 MILLION tons of wood fiber just lying around. This is the BAD news. The GOOD news is that there is viable technology coming on-line to convert low-quality forest residuals into valuable sugars.…

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  7/29/16 – “Today’s announcement by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration is a milestone for the ‘plants to products’ strategy that can breathe new life into Maine’s forest economy. “This substantial federal grant award will help advance biobased manufacturing – a strategy that uses new technology to convert renewable resources from forest,…

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The 2016 Plants to Products Forum was a great success! Thanks to everyone who attended. We listened to speakers from national technology companies, networked, took tours of Maine Standard Biofuels innovative technology, and visited exhibits. Check out these photos from the event.

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Q-Team Tree Service’s Biomass Torrefaction Facility project was recently awarded a $5,000 Tech Start grant from the Maine Technology Institute. Q-Team Tree Service, a member of Biobased Maine, will convert wood waste from its tree service operations to higher-value biocarbon products through gasification and torrefaction. This process involves roasting biomass at a high temperature without…

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Iowa recently published a road map to biobased chemicals, which is a useful resource to inform Maine’s efforts to advance biobased manufacturing. The report, “Biobased Chemicals: The Iowa Opportunity” echoes a vision similar to our own, that “alternative value-added bioproducts are important for further growth of the biomanufacturing industry…” Conclusions reached by the Iowa report that are…

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A new report published by the World Economic Forum, “The New Plastics Economy: Rethinking the future of plastics” highlights the true cost of our reliance on petrochemical plastics. According to the report, after just one use, 95% of the value of plastic packaging is lost to the economy. And much of it ends up in the…

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