Bio-based materials are projected to be used for P&G consumer hygiene products with a lower carbon footprint in the next few years.

Today’s headlines:

🔬 CORPORATE R&D: Procter & Gamble and Cargill announced an innovation that could help incorporate more renewable raw materials into consumer products. Their corporate labs developed a way to convert lactic acid into bio-based acrylic acid. The partners are looking to use the method to manufacture everyday products from renewable crops, lowering their carbon footprints in the process. P&G recently received an award for the technology from the American Chemical Society. It will take several more years of development before it might turn up in consumer products such as super-absorbent hygiene products. (news release)

🏦 FINANCING: Norfolk, Nebraska’s city council approved a program that lets developers apply for Property Assessment Clean Energy Act (PACE) loans. The funding is intended to build and install systems for a plethora of energy-related applications including increasing energy efficiency, conserving water, or using renewable energy. (Norfolk Daily News)

⛓ BLOCKCHAIN: Chicago-based EZ Blockchain reorganized into two companies to separate the blockchain mining part of the business from the energy generation projects. The reorganization created a new company, EZ Energy Technologies, focused on diversifying the applications of renewable energy technologies. One of EZ Blockchain’s big energy initiatives has been harnessing wasted energy by reducing gas flaring. (news release)

🌱 BIOENERGY: The U.S. Department of Energy has renewed an $11.25 million grant for Michigan State University to continue research on photosynthetic organisms that could be used to develop new innovations such as bioenergy. (Michigan State University)

💻 CYBERSECURITY: The National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a paper presenting the design and use cases for its Cyber-Energy Emulation (CEE) Platform. CEE allows for the system visualization and development in the study of cybersecurity for distributed energy systems. (NREL)

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