Biofuels 1.0 focused on using traditional techniques to derive ethanol from food crops. While many companies saw initial success, increases in the cost of food combined with falling oil prices sent ripples through the entire biofuels industry. A new generation of startups, Biofuels 2.0, is once again tackling the opportunity in liquid fuels. Some innovative technologies also offer alternatives to the use of fossil fuels for plastics, fertilizers, and commercial chemicals — creating additional ways to leverage investments and diversify markets.Armed with lessons learned, new business models, advancements in biotechnology, and an evolved understanding of how to minimize and control social and environmental impacts—all eyes are set on claiming a substantial portion of the global $3 trillion+ petroleum-based fuels market.
A panel of industry leaders, including early-stage biofuel CEOs, will discuss whether biofuels 2.0 can really provide sustainably better solutions, and how a new generation of companies are going from Garage to Gargantuan.
* Sustainability of business models, scaleability, and environmental impacts
* Opportunities for small, bootstrap startups in the biofuels value chain
* How failures in biofuels 1.0 are creating new opportunities in 2.0
* Counterpoint: The dark side of the revolution
* How to know if a company is sustainable
* Exit strategies and cheap oil: What models are most viable? What do VCs think about Biofuels 2.0?
* Industry partnerships: How best to use them to scale
* Informatics and genomics: Exponential drivers for development
This event is co-sponsored by BayBIO.org, the voice of the Bay Area biotechnology community, and CleanTech.org, the preeminent local investment community focused on game-changing technologies.
Moderator:
Jim Lane, Editor/Publisher of the BioFuels Digest
Jim Lane is Editor & Publisher of Biofuels Digest, the world’s most widely-read biofuels daily. He also publishes Biomass Digest, Biofuels Digest Asia, Geothermal Digest, and World Biofuels Markets. Biotech Digest launches later this year. He is author of nine books – most recently Citizen Cane: Essays for New Days in Bioenergy; his tenth, The National Energy Solution, is being published serially in the Digest this year. Jim was formerly a Senior Principal Consultant in clean energy at KEMA; prior to that, a group publisher at Reed Elsevier. He started his career at Harper’s. Lane has a BA from the University of Washington.
Presenter:
Jack Oswald, CEO of SynGest
Jack Oswald is CEO of SynGest Inc. and a nationally-recognized entrepreneur focused on commercializing and deploying clean energy solutions. His current focus is at the intersection of energy and agriculture a.k.a. “The Three F’s: Food, Fertilizer and Fuel”. SynGest is committed to the commercialization of a novel process to convert non-food biomass (e.g. corn cobs, wood chips, etc.) into highly valuable nitrogen fertilizer (NH3). Jack has been developing a National Clean Energy Strategy and to that end was a contributing member during the campaign to President Obama’s Energy and Environment Policy Advisory Group and was on the steering committee for Clean Tech For Obama (CT4O). He was also a member of the steering committee and has been elected to the board of the Clean Economy Network Foundation (CENF) (www.cleaneconomy.net). He is also serving as a Special Delegate to the U.S.-China Clean Energy Forum, an organization focused on large scale clean energy collaboration between the U.S. and China. Jack is also a member of Environmental Entrepreneurs’ (E2) (www.e2.org) DC Advocacy Strike Team. As a member of the Full Circle Fund (www.fullcirclefund.org, hands-on philanthropy) Jack co-led with Josh Becker a team to create the Green Cities California (www.greencitiescalifornia.org) web repository for sharing municipal best practices in sustainability. Jack is also an avid pilot holding Commercial, Multi-engine and Instrument Ratings/Certificates.
Panelists:
Eric McAfee, CEO AE Biofuels
Eric McAfee is an entrepreneur and venture capitalist with a lifelong commitment to agriculture and renewable energy. After growing up on a farm near Fresno, California, he co-founded Organic Pastures Dairy Company, a raw milk dairy and distribution company that is now the largest in the United States, and McAfee Farms, a producer of organic almonds. Mr. McAfee is a founding shareholder of Pacific Ethanol (Nasdaq: PEIX), a leading ethanol producer in the Western United States, and also a founding shareholder of several publicly-held energy companies: Evolution Petroleum (Amex: NGSY), Pacific Asia Petroleum (symbol: PFAP), Particle Drilling Technologies (Nasdaq: PDRT), and World Waste Technologies (symbol: WDWT). During his career, Mr. McAfee has funded more than twenty-five companies as a principal investor, and has founded six public companies with a combined high market value of $4 billion. In 2007, Mr. McAfee was awarded the Opportunity International Founder’s Award for his work related to third world development through biofuels. OI is one of the world’s largest micro-finance companies, with more than 1 million clients annually in 35 countries. Mr. McAfee graduated as the Dean’s Medalist from the Fresno State University business school, and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School Private Equity and Venture Capital program and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program.
David Berry is a Partner at Flagship Ventures, having joined Flagship in 2005 while completing his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. David was previously awarded a Ph.D. through the MIT Biological Engineering Division, where he studied the biological effects of complex sugars with advisors Professor Ram Sasisekharan and Professor Robert Langer. David also did his undergraduate work at MIT, graduating in 2000 Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, with a degree in brain and cognitive sciences. He was named as a member of the MIT Corporation – its Board of Trustees – in 2006. David’s work has led to 11 peer-reviewed publications, over 20 patents and applications, as well as over twenty-five awards and honors including the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize in 2005 for invention and innovation. David was also named as the Innovator of the Year by Technology Review in its 2007 TR35 list of world’s top 35 innovators under the age of 35.
At Flagship, David focuses on investing in and founding early stage life science and cleantech ventures. In 2005, he co-founded and helped launch LS9, and more recently co-founded Joule Biotechnologies where he previously served as the founding CEO. In addition, David serves on the Board of Directors of CGI Pharmaceuticals and works closely with several other portfolio companies.
Paul Bryan, PhD, Biofuels VP-Technology, Chevron Energy Technology Co.
During 12 years with Chevron, Bryan has been an R&D engineer, an R&D team leader, and most recently, manager of Chevron’s R&D Alliance in Perth, Australia. Previously he worked for Cargill and Union Carbide, and he held academic positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Colorado School of Mines. Bryan’s educational background includes a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and postdoctoral work in applied thermodynamics at the Ecole des Mines, Paris. He has been active in a variety of industry and professional organizations, including the Separations Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the North American Membrane Society, the Gas Processors Association, and the Gordon Research Conferences.
Leandro Vetcher, Co-founder & VP Business Development, Green Pacific Biologicals
Leandro Vetcher combines biotechnical expertise and a deep understanding of early-stage growth strategies in cleantech and life sciences. He is a biotechnologist with years of experience in plant biotechnology and drug development. He has had important roles in biotech business development and pharma M&A, and has also consulted with biofuel companies developing strategies for the commercialization of high-margin alternative products. He has an MA in Biotechnology from Columbia University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan.
As co-founder at Green Pacific Biologicals, he developed the business and strategic plan of the company. As responsible for business development, he led the licensing of key technologies, the efforts for a seed-round of financing and is focused in establishing strategic partnerships for biofuels and renewable consumer chemicals.
