Domestic Fuel

Biodiesel plant-building company SRS Engineering Corporation will put up a 10 million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant in Alberta, Canada for ReNvision Biofuels Inc.

This article from RenewableEnergyWorld.com says it will use a variety of local feedstocks, including animal fats, canola and camelina. In addition, the refinery will come just as Canada implements a biodiesel mandate:

The federal government of Canada recently mandated that the renewable fuel content for diesel and heating oil should be at least 2% by the year 2012 creating demand for 500 million liters/year (132 million gallons).

To promote mandates and to help with costs associated with technologies and market integration, the Alberta provincial government has set aside CAN $239 million [US $207.4 million] in funding. This funding has helped companies like ReNvision get started.

SRS Engineering will get a small stake in ReNvision for building the plant.

Following up on its promise of putting 15,000 alternative-fuel vehicles on the road in the next decade (see my post from March 16, 2009), communications mega-giant AT&T has announced today that it is converting 8,000 vehicles in the company’s fleet to compressed natural gas over the next five years.

This story from the Dallas Business Journal says the move is part of the bigger $565 million plan to run in greener vehicles:

The telecommunications carrier is joining forces with another Dallas company, BAF Technologies, to do the conversions to compressed natural gas. BAF will switch 600 AT&T vans this year, including 70 that will operate in the Metroplex, AT&T says in a news release.

AT&T officials say the balance of the planned 15,000 green vehicle fleet will be passenger cars with other models that use fuel more efficiently.

After a successful test earlier this year (see my post from February 4, 2009), Kinder Morgan today made the first commercial shipment of biodiesel through a pipeline in the U.S. through the Southeastern United States’ Plantation duct.

This Reuters story has details:

Kinder sent a 15,000-barrel batch of B5 — fuel that was 5 percent biodiesel and 95 percent diesel — from Collins, Mississippi, to Athens, Georgia, and Roanoke, Virginia. The product passed quality tests.

The volume of further shipments will be “driven by customers,” Kinder spokeswoman Emily Mir Thompson said by telephone.

Demand for the fuel has risen as federal mandates call for increasing levels of biofuels like biodiesel to be blended into petroleum fuels over time.

Kinder said it was optimistic it would be able to ship biodiesel on Plantation’s lateral Tennessee line serving both Chattanooga and Knoxville.

Company officials say they will be sending biodiesel only through the parts of the pipeline that move only gasoline and diesel while they work out issues of possible “trailback” of biodiesel into subsequent jet fuel batches.

A ethanol blender pump fuel promotion was held last week at 1201 6th Street in Manning, IA that sold the domestically made fuel at a substantial discount. E20 sold for 20 cents off regular pricing, E30 was sold for 30 cents off, E50 sold for 50 cents off, and E85 sold for 85 cents off or $1.05.

“I thought the event was very successful, it was fun to see the community get involved in an ethanol promotion event. I think it’s important to give consumers what they are looking for: more choices at the pump that will positively affect their pocket book but also support our local farmers,” said Sara Courter, Market Development Coordinator for Growth Energy.

“We were very happy to assist in making the Aspinwall Co-Op Pump Promotion and Grand Opening in Manning a huge success. Growth Energy is dedicated to expanding the market and educating consumers and this is another great example of that. By giving consumers more choices at the pump with clean, green homegrown ethanol, we’re not only helping decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but also boosting our local economy,” noted Nicole Oliver, Communications specialist for Growth Energy.

Sponsors of the event included IA Corn Growers Association, IA Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy, Aspinwall Cooperative, Manning Motors, CENEX and POET. The station also offered free bratt burgers, hamburgers, and t-shirts during the promotion.

Many are surprised by theUSDA’s planted acreage report out this morning that estimates the second largest corn crop since 1946 at 87.0 million acres, up 1 percent from last year.

USDA grains analyst Jerry Norton says the number was much higher than the trade was expecting. “It’s a big number,” Norton says, especially considering the planting delays in Illinois and Indiana due to wet weather. But, that caused higher prices through May and into early June, “So, even though it was getting late to plant corn it was a strong incentive to plant for producers who could still get it into the ground.”

The condition of the crop is also doing better than expected with 72% nationwide rated good to excellent, even though progress is running behind normal in some areas.

In another report from USDA, corn stocks as of June 1, 2009 totaled 4.27 billion bushels, up 6 percent from June 1, 2008. All this adds up to plenty of corn available this year for food, feed and fuel.

A story about one of the world’s biggest oil refiners turning to wind power to run some of its petroleum operations might seem like a bit of a contradiction, IF you don’t subscribe to the idea that we need to tap into ALL energy resources.

But I think Valero gets it, and this article from the 24/7 Wall St. Web site says the company’s installation of 33 wind turbines near a Texas refinery explains the thought process:

The rising cost of energy is creating strange bedfellows. The wind energy being used by Valero is relatively cheap compared with alternatives. At the same time, it offers proof of the efficacy of a critical counter to the use of fossil fuels and provides the government with more fodder for its argument that an investment in new forms of energy can produce inexpensive and plentiful options that do not involve the production of oil and gas and the pollution by-products that go with their use.

To me, that’s a true energy company… not just an oil company.

A new process is working on turning landfill gas into hydrogen AND nanofibers.

Catalyx Nanotech, Inc., says the pilot project has started at a closed southern California landfill.

“Our advantage is that we are able to produce nanofibers at greater than 99% purity, as well as 100% green hydrogen in a one-step process,” says Yinan Jin, Catalyx Nanotech Chief Research Scientist. “Purification of nanomaterials from typical carbon batches is an extremely expensive undertaking for commercial applications. Catalyx Nanotech is eliminating the extra work and, consequently, the expense of separating nanofibers from byproducts, such as amorphous carbon, soot, etc., that make nanomaterials so costly today. We expect to commoditize nano-scale graphite materials at prices comparable to high quality synthetic graphite used in electrodes and refractory applications. After some preliminary test runs, we will also integrate a small fuel cell to demonstrate how the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen can produce electrical energy, as opposed to the
direct combustion of hydrogen and oxygen to produce thermal energy. This in situ generation of green electricity with a zero-carbon footprint is just one possible use of the hydrogen.”

Company officials say one of the biggest assets of the process is that it will make hydrogen more affordable and available… key if the country wants to move forward in a hydrogen-based economy.

You can read more at the Catalyx Nanotech Web site.

A couple of issues might be coming to a head with one bill. As I told you back on May 22, biodiesel producers are none too pleased about an EPA proposal that would, in effect, exempt soy-based biodiesel from the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS)… putting biodiesel in danger of not being able to meet that standard, possibly undermining confidence in the green fuel.

But, as Biodiesel Magazine reports, with the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009… aka the Climate Bill… in the U.S. House, soy-based biodiesel might be back in:

Among the provisions of a deal struck among the House leadership, biodiesel gets grandfathered in to the1 billion carve-out for biomass-based diesel without a greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target, similar to the grandfather provision for ethanol. Biodiesel production from all plants in production or under construction in December, 2007, when the 2007 Energy Bill was enacted, is grandfathered into the RFS at 1 billion gallons or the EPA-set volume, whichever is higher.

The bill’s language also delays the use of international indirect land use change impacts in determining a fuel’s GHG emission profile for the RFS for several years while an independent scientific assessment is done. Six months after enactment, the bill says the USDA and EPA would jointly institute a three-year National Academy of Sciences study to determine whether or not it is scientifically valid to incorporate indirect international emissions. Upon completion, the Secretary of Agriculture and the EPA administrator would jointly determine whether to include indirect emissions in the GHG reduction targets for the RFS program, subject to public notice and comment. Congress would have one year to act on the joint USDA/EPA determination. The earliest an international indirect land use assessment for GHG emissions could be incorporated would be six years from enactment.

Now we’ll have to keep an eye on what happens in the Senate.

When it comes to biofuels, algae is usually mentioned as a means to make biodiesel, but a new project will be using it to make ethanol.

The Dow Chemical Company and Algenol Biofuels have announced plans for a algae-based biorefinery to convert CO2 into ethanol. The pilot facility will be located at Dow’s Freeport, Texas site.

Dow CEO Andrew Liveris says they are excited about the ground-breaking alternative energy project, which he calls “a good example of Dow’s holistic approach to CO2 capture and storage by adding value through chemistry.”

Algenol’s technology uses CO2, salt water, sunlight and non-arable land to produce ethanol. Algenol submitted a formal request last week for a Department of Energy grant to help fund the project.

Dow plans to develop the materials and specialty films for the plant’s photobioreactor system. The CO2 will be supplied to the algae in the photobioreactors and will serve as the carbon source for the ethanol produced. The result is a CO2 capture process which converts industrially derived CO2 into more sustainable fuels and chemicals.

Attendees of the recent Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo in Denver, Colorado heard something they most likely already knew: the past year was a rough one for the ethanol industry.

While some folks such as Mike Bryan, CEO of BBI International point out that much of the green fuel’s woes were a concerted effort by those outside of the industry to spread misinformation, Bryan and Bob Dinneen, President and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association insisted it’s time for ethanol to take back the message and spread the good news… like the fact that the industry has created 500,000 jobs and pumps $66 billion into the American economy.

Others focused on how new, alternative feedstocks, in particular, cellulosic, and advances in corn technology will make it possible to have the food, feed and fuel this country needs in the years to come.

It was a fascinating discussion, and we bring you a bit of the conversations from FEW in this latest edition of the Domestic Fuel cast. Listen to folks like Bryan; Dinneen; Dave Vander Griend, CEO of ICM Incorporated; Jeff Broin, CEO of ethanol producer POET; David Hiller, Executive Director of the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory; and Larry Johnson from the North American Business Development division of biomass ethanol producer Inbicon here: DFCast-6-28-09.mp3

You can also subscribe to the DomesticFuel Cast here.

Poor crop conditions and higher grain prices north of the border are causing an uptick in exports of the ethanol co-product dried distillers grains (DDGS) to Canada.

According to the U.S. Grains Council, 350 cars containing approximately 31,500 metric tons of DDGS were purchased last week by Canada’s largest distiller’s grains importer, Rycom Trading Ltd. Ryan Slozka, senior trader at Rycom says that poor weather has caused inadequate pasture conditions in Canada this year. “Western Canadian feeders rely heavily on U.S. DDGS and now possibly whole corn, which we are watching closely. We will wait and see if crop conditions improve here in western Canada, but as long as cattle feeders continue to see good results with feeding U.S. corn DDGS, we anticipate this upward trend in demand to continue,” said Slozka.

In 2008, Canada imported 772,000 tons of U.S. DDGS, up 453,000 tons from 2007, making Canada the second largest market for U.S. DDGS. This year’s imports are already running ahead of last year.

An interactive seminar focused on increasing
ethanol plant process efficiency and profitability.


Domestic Fuel is sponsoring a special seminar being held by Phibro Ethanol Performance Group, Fremont Industries, Fermentis and Novozymes.

With today’s challenging ethanol market, there is nothing more important than maximizing every dollar spent in your operation. The decisions made in your lab on process aids and systems like Enzymes, Yeast, Antimicrobials and Water Treatment are vital to your plant’s short and long term success. A strong bottom line starts with decisions made over very small increments. Employees simply can not receive too much training or exposure to available technology and methods that can strengthen your bottom line. To assist in this effort, four of the industries most trusted suppliers have designed a course focused on maximizing many of the inputs and process techniques you are currently using. Technical staffs from Fremont, Fermentis, Novozymes and Phibro Ethanol Performance Group are offering a limited training course July 29 – 30, 2009 in Minneapolis, MN. Please direct your questions to processoptimization@hotmail.com.

Course Registration Fee
Early Registration $150.00 through June 30, 2009
Registrations July 1 or later, based on availability $200.00
Registration includes all sessions, meals and entertainment! Sample testing and analysis included.

Download registration form (Word doc).
Download Seminar Schedule ((pdf).

For the first time, the federal government has issued offshore wind leases to explore the potential of the energy source.

The New York Times reports the five leases will be for areas 6 to 18 miles off the New Jersey and Delaware coasts:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who has made offshore wind energy a priority, acknowledged that the United States was playing catch-up to European countries, like Denmark or the Netherlands, which have long focused on alternative energy.

A variety of local and political hurdles have so far prevented wind farms from being built off American coasts.

“Other nations have been using offshore wind energy for more than a decade,” Mr. Salazar said in a statement. “The technology is proven, effective and available and can create new jobs for Americans while reducing our expensive and dangerous dependence on foreign oil.”

The leases were granted to Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy; Fishermen’s Energy of New Jersey; Deepwater Wind, and Bluewater Wind Delaware.

Some estimates say that the wind could provide 20 percent of the country’s energy needs by 2030, and offshore wind power generation could play a significant role in that number.

Hybrid vehicles are great for the environment, but like any car, they do break down. A training program at the West Virginia University is teaching mechanics how to keep those green vehicles on the road.

WBOY-TV has this story about how 14 automotive instructors have come to Morgantown from schools all over the country to learn at the National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium:

They’re here for the first “train-the-trainer” session, taking part in what many are calling the best course on hybrid cars in the country.

Knowing how to repair electric vehicles is becoming more important than ever before.

“I think what you’ll find,” said course instructor Mark Quarto, “is many of the companies through their portfolio have said anywhere by 2018 to 2010 that the majority if not all of their vehicles will be either hybrid propulsion or electric propulsion or fuel cell.”

This is why this train-the-trainer program at The National Alternative Fuels Training Consortium is vital.

“We know that these hybrid vehicles are going to be the wave of the future,” Quarto explained, “so these instructors are here to train the next generation of technicians to train the next generation of cars.”

Another seminar is scheduled in a few weeks in Wisconsin and another later this year out west. The 40-hour training courses wil help not only the mechanics who will be working on those future cars, but of course, it will be invaluable for those drivers trying to save the Earth one mile at a time.

Earlier this month, I told you about how the airlines have been more and more accepting of biofuels (see my posts from June 1 and June 19). Now, it looks like the organization that sets standards for fuels, including jet fuels, is also approving of biofuels for the friendly skies.

This press release from the Air Transport Association of America (ATA), the industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, is praising the ASTM International Aviation Fuels Subcommittee for approving a new specification that allows synthetic fuels to be used in aviation and possibly the approval of blended biofuels for the airlines this fall:

“The action of the ASTM subcommittee is a landmark step for all consumers of jet fuel,” said ATA President and CEO James C. May. “It signals the beginning of a new era for widespread production and use of cleaner, alternative fuels that not only will help the airline industry meet its environmental goals but also will provide airlines with more competitive options for purchasing jet fuel while simultaneously enhancing U.S. energy security.”

The ASTM subcommittee action had two key components: it approved a process for various classes of alternative fuels to be added to the jet fuel specification, while specifically supporting synthetic fuels derived from the Fischer-Tropsch process to be the first alternative included under the specification. Once approved by ASTM, this synthetic fuel can be blended up to 50 percent with conventional, petroleum-derived jet fuel and used by commercial air carriers and private aviation operators, as well as in U.S. military applications.

More testing will need to be done before full ASTM approval.