Domestic Fuel

A group of chemical engineers from the University of Missouri has received the 2006 Glycerine Innovation Award from The Soap and Detergent Association and the National Biodiesel Board, according to an NBB release.
Dr. Galen Suppes, an associate professor at the University’s College of Engineering in Columbia, and his research team were honored at the 97th Annual Meeting of the American Oil Chemists’ Society in St. Louis.
The award recognizes outstanding achievement for research into new applications for glycerine with particular emphasis on commercial viability.

No this vote isn’t for us, it’s for our sponsor, the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. Their website has been nominated for a Webby Award and you can also vote for their site to win a People’s Choice award.

EPIC’s Sr. Director of Marketing, Reece Nanfito explains: EPIC Webby Award Nomination (1 min MP3)

You’ve got until May 5th to cast your vote. I got mine in today.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (516.9KB)

The largest ethanol plant in the southeast is planned for Mississippi. According to a release from Bunge North America, they are teaming up with Mississippi-based Ergon Ethanol, Inc. to build an ethanol plant with an annual capacity of at least 60 million gallons. “The state-of-the-art facility will provide a key link between Bunge’s grain handling facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana, and Ergon’s petroleum refining assets.”

According to this website, there is another fuel that can be made from corn – butanol. These folks – Environmental Energy, Inc. – claim to have run cross country last year on 100 percent butanol, getting 24 miles to the gallon with no engine modifications.
Why have we never heard of it? According to the website, production of butanol from corn and other biomass has been stymied by the lack of technology to make it economically viable. The problem has been historically low yields and low concentrations of butanol compared to those of ethanol….EEI’s patent changes everything. We are now able to produce yields of 2.5 gallons of butanol per bushel of corn.
If this has real potential, these guys need a better PR engine to make it work and need to get support from the corn growers.
Thanks to Gary Dikkers for pointing me to the website.

The Clean Cities Congress & Expo is coming up starting this weekend in Phoenix, AZ. I’m looking forward to bringing you all the action and information I can. And guess what? I’ll have help! Guest bloggers. Guest student bloggers. They will bring a fresh and interesting perspective to our coverage of the event. I want to take this opportunity to introduce them to you.

First of all let’s meet Peter West. According to Peter’s bio he sent me: Peter West grew up in a log cabin at the top of a cliff in Colorado. Though the mountains were an amazing place to be, he left them for city life on the East Coast. Currently he is a marketing major at Emerson College in downtown Boston. Welcome to Domestic Fuel Peter. I’m really looking forward to meeting you and working with you.

And our next student blogger is Lauren Ciemniak. I am a straight A student with a 4.0 GPA. I received the outstanding citizen of the year award. I plan to major in journalism in college. I have been dancing for 13 years and I love to travel!Welcome to you too Lauren.

They’ll be writing on Domestic Fuel by the end of the week and start out providing their expectations for this experience. After we get together in Phoenix we’ll work out who will cover what and you can expect to hear and see more. So stay tuned.

Domestic Fuel coverage
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Illinois Corn Growers are a bit ticked about an editorial last week in the Chicago Tribune. Today’s Chicago Tribune has an editorial that contains just about every fallacy and piece of misinformation ever to see print about ethanol. This is nothing new and once again it raises the question; is it editorial ignorance or a hidden agenda driving this apparent vendetta?
IL Corn is probably not very happy with a follow-up editorial in the Trib on Sunday either. ILCG does note, however, that the news reporters at the Trib have been covering ethanol with increasing frequency and with a noticeable effort toward balance and objectivity. This phenomenon of increasingly positive coverage is happening nationwide as the media learns more about the fuel, as car manufacturers give E85 their stamp of approval, and as it becomes more readily available.

Talk about a big payoff for investing in ethanol! Central City, Nebraska hit the ethanol jackpot last week with a huge donation from the ethanol industry. Platte Valley Fuel Ethanol and its majority owner, Fagen, Inc., gave the town $1 million for economic development efforts. “It’s just our way of saying thanks,” said Doug Anderson, general manager of the plant. “We wanted to do something that would continue to enhance economic growth in the area.”
The 50 million gallon/year plant started operation on May 5th, 2004. The company is merging with US BioEnergy of Brookings, S.D. and recently announced expansion of the plant to 100 million gallons.

Articles about the gift are accessible only by registration from the Omaha World Herald and the Grand Island Independent.

Accelerated Genetics recently sponsored a bus tour to Green Bay, WI to visit ‘El Toro’, a Biomass Conversion Unit that converts animal waste into valuable and renewable energy products. A select group of Wisconsin dairy customers, Cashton Area Development Corporation (CADC) members and Accelerated Genetics management were given a demonstration of a working prototype of ‘El Toro’ – pictured here.

El Toro is, of course, Spanish for Bull – reason being, the project was started last year when Accelerated Genetics was approached by CADC about “managing the manure from our sire facilities in a different manner.” The corporation then embarked on a Biomass Conversion project through an Australian company Biomass Energy Service Technology (BEST). This project converts animal waste into valuable and renewable products. They recognized the raw product created by our bulls as desirable for use in this new energy recycling process. The opportunity would allow the manure from our bulls to be used in a process that would convert both the manure and bedding into a gas and a solid material, comprised mostly of charcoal.
After a successful test where Accelerated Genetics’ bull manure was converted into a gas that would be suitable for burning as a fuel and “char”, a dark charcoal based material that could have use as a fuel, filter or fertilizer, the Cashton group purchased a BEST biomass conversion plant in May.

Read more here.