Domestic Fuel

Iowa Governor Chet Culver was seeing green at the grand opening of the Green Plains Renewable Energy (GPRE) Algae Project Thursday in Shenandoah.

“This project here is an ideal of what this could mean not only to securing our energy future and helping fuel the world and lower emissions, but jobs in Iowa,” Culver said during the event held at the GPRE ethanol plant in Shenandoah. “It’s amazing what this could mean at a time when we really need economic development and job creation.”

“We are excited by the opportunities this technology offers to sequester the CO2 emitted at our ethanol plants,” said GPRE president and CEO Todd Becker. “Our plants have warm water, waste heat and C02 which provide a perfect environment for the BioProcessAlgae Grower Harvester technology to be deployed. The algae produced have the potential to be used for advanced bio-fuel production, high quality animal feed, or as biomass for energy production, but our focus is solely on efficiently growing algae and sequestering carbon dioxide at this point.”

The Algae Project has been working to develop breakthrough technology for the mass production of algae. The oil extracted from the algae will be used to create biodiesel. With their anticipated 200 tons per acre per year and an oil extraction rate of 30%, the goal is to produce 5.8 million gallons of biodiesel and 51,000 tons of high protein meal product per year. With the oil extraction, the protein meal product would be fed to poultry and swine. GPRE received $2 million from the Iowa Power Fund and has $2 million in matching funds for the project

The Minnesota Vikings along with the American Lung Association of Minnesota (ALAMN) are working together to promote E85. Drivers of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) can receive a free parking space in the Gold Lot at 401 4th Street South in downtown Minneapolis during Viking’s home games. The free parking is open to the drivers of the first 25 FFVs in the lot during the eight home games this season — those arriving after the 25 free parking passes are gone will have to pay the usual $40 charge for the premium parking spot near the Dome.

Volunteers from the ALAMN will be at the two Gold Lot entrances to identify FFVs and distribute the free passes. The ALAMN supports the use of cleaner-burning E85, and has partnered with the Minnesota Vikings to raise awareness and use of the ethanol-based fuel, sold at more than 350 stations in Minnesota. The first 25 FFV drvers in the Gold Lot will receive coupons for 10 cents off per gallon of E85 at the downtown station.

Also, a trip for two to Soldier Field in Chicago is being given away to watch the Vikings play the Bears on December 28th. Fans can register to win the “Vikings Road Trip, Fueled By E85″ contest by clicking here.

USDA Deputy Secretary Dr. Kathleen Merrigan will get some first hand knowledge of Iowa’s ethanol industry during a tour scheduled for October 20. During her visit, Dr. Merrigan will learn about ethanol production, utilization of co-products and biodiesel research.

Merrigan will first visit Lincolnway Energy, a 50-million gallon per year ethanol plant with a corn oil extraction process. Next, she will tour Couser Cattle Company’s 5,000 head operation which utilizes distillers grains as livestock feed. Finally, Deputy Secretary Merrigan will tour Renewable Energy Group’s Research Center which houses industry-leading biodiesel programs, including cutting-edge corn oil-to-biodiesel commercialization research.

The Renewable Fuels Association has announced the winners of its E85 Flex-Fuel Challenge Sturgis Photo Contest.

Tim Gillespie of Cameron Park, California was the Grand Prize winner of a $1,000 gift card to the motorcycle dealership of his choice after submitting his winning photo, “Sturgis Bikes 2009” pictured left. The photo contest was judged based on creativity as well as quality.

“End of the Ride” photographer Ron Storrm of Wausaukee, Wisconsin was awarded a $100 gift card to the motorcycle dealership of his choice after receiving the Most Voted Award from daily votes submitted to the www.e85challenge.com website. Note the glass of “ethanol” in that photo!

“This contest was about passion for motorcycles, that American pride, and how the combination of an American fuel like ethanol just makes sense,” said Robert White, RFA Director of Market Development. “It was also about education and teaching fellow riders that motorcycles and other small engines can use up to 10% ethanol safely and effectively.”

The RFA Market Development team conducted promotional and advertising events throughout the Legendary Buffalo Chip Campground and town of Sturgis by handing out 10,000 take home palm cards to the rally-goers with information about ethanol, RFA’s consumer website ChooseEthanol.com and the E85 Challenge contest.

Coskata Inc., has finally unveiled it’s “semi-commercial flex ethanol facility” to the world today with the New York Times taking the lead. In the article author Matthew Wald writes, “The facility, built by a company called Coskata, is not quite proof that a new era is at hand for American transportation fuels. But with the company claiming it will be able to convert wood waste into biofuel for about $1 a gallon, the plant suggests that day may be drawing nearer.”

Project Lighthouse (the name for the plant) will be able to reduce greenhouse gasses by as much as 96% over gasoline while using half of the water per gallon as compared to producing a gallon of gas. The company also claims that its process is as much as 7 times as energy positive as the fossil fuel used in the process.

In a press statement, Bill Roe, Coskata’s President and CEO said, “We are proud that we have successfully scaled our technology to this significant level. This facility is demonstrating that our efficient, affordable and flexible conversion technology is ready for commercialization. The next step is to build full-scale facilities and begin licensing our technology to project developers, project financiers and strategic partners.” Long-term, Coskata will commercialize their plants between 50-100 million gallons per year.

The difference in Coskata’s flex ethanol facility is that it will be producing ethanol from numerous feedstocks, including wood biomass, agricultural waste, sustainable energy crops, and construction waste. The feedstock flexible nature of this approach, says the company, is that it allows for true geographic flexibility, meaning facilities can be built anywhere a feedstock can be sourced or delivered.

Multiple feedstock use has proven to be financially rewarding as last month, HERO BX’s CEO Leonard Kosar noted in a media call that their company will be using 15 different feedstocks to profitably produce biodiesel this year.

Roe concluded by saying, “Coskata leverages proprietary microorganisms and efficient bioreactor designs in a unique three-step conversion process that can turn virtually any carbon-based feedstock into ethanol, from anywhere in the world. Coskata’s biological fermentation technology is ethanol-specific and enzyme independent, contributing to high energy conversion rates and ethanol yields.”

You can’t burn ethanol in a diesel engine. Nope. Just not done. Like mixing oil and water.

But what if you added more water to the ethanol? And came up with a way to mix the hydrated-ethanol blend with the diesel… or better yet, biodiesel… right at the point of ignition? Ahhh… then you’d have something that National Corn Growers Association chairman and Nebraska corn farmer Bob Dickey calls the CleanFlex Power System… a new venture he has formed with Ron Preston, president of CleanFlex. Together, they hope to get the 60 million diesel engines in the U.S. to burn some ethanol as well.

They don’t have a Web site, yet, but you can contact CleanFlex at 402-480-0346.

In this edition of the Domestic Fuel Cast, listen to Bob and Ron as they discuss how this process works and how it will help renewable fuels meet the next round of emission requirements set to kick in in 2011.

Listen to the podcast here: DFCast-10-16-09.mp3

You can also subscribe to the DomesticFuel Cast here.

The Biofuels Digest has reported that a new study found that cars running on corn-based E85 have 30 percent lower CO2 emissions over the car’s lifetime than the Tesla Roadster, an all electric vehicle running on coal-based electricity. These results are based on the new CAFE standards that were passed this summer. But maybe more interesting, the study found that the Tesla will actually create 21 percent more C02 emissions than a car running on conventional gas.

The full study, based on the GREET model for corn ethanol emissions, can be downloaded here. Additional criteria used included the e85 fuel economy figures as established in the most recent University of Nebraska study; Tesla’s reports on miles per KWh, Department of Transportation figures on auto lifespan, EIA data on electricity prices, E85 price data from e85prices.com, and EPA figures on emissions from coal-fired power generation.

Although the operating costs of driving a car vary from state to state, the Digest also found that, “based on current ethanol prices, the total increase in cost of ownership for running an E85 vehicle in the US is $19 per year, compared to a non-flex fuel vehicle running conventional gasoline (with up to 10 percent ethanol content). E85 saves an average of 6 tons of CO2 emissions over the average life of a vehicle, when utilizing corn ethanol, and up to 36 tons of CO2 when running on cellulosic ethanol derived from waste biomass.”

Clemson University will be partnering with ArborGen LLC, a company who researches tree genetics, to form a cooperative focused on the growth of biomass for the biofuels industry. The two will develop woody biomass as feedstock for biofuel development.

According to Charleston Regional Business Journal, the research will focus on development and conversion of cellulose, such as switchgrass, wood chips and other fibrous plant matter, into ethanol.

“This relationship marks a big move for the collaborative into trees as a feedstock,” said Karl Kelly, director of corporate operations at the Clemson University Restoration Institute in North Charleston. “ArborGen is a key industry leader — based in South Carolina — that can develop our existing switchgrass-to-ethanol program into other forms of biomass.”

This edition of “The Ethanol Report” features comments from Geoff Cooper with the Renewable Fuels Association on his remarks to the annual meeting of the Society of Environmental Journalists on the issue of international indirect land use change and new reports about the environmental impacts of petroleum.

You can subscribe to this twice monthly podcast by following this link.

Listen to or download the podcast here:

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A new ethanol co-product could replace more petroleum products such plastics, film and coatings.

POET has announced the new product, called “Inviz,” which the company says could be used to make a variety of petroleum-based ingredients in household products ranging from pill coatings to plastic packaging.

Inviz is POET’s brand of zein, a biodegradable, low-nutrient protein found in corn. It can be used as a gum base or in films, packaging, adhesives, coatings and glazes. Inviz zein is extracted using a patent-pending process developed by POET.

“Inviz can be used to make biodegradable plastics, time-release capsules for pills and other substances, varnish, there are just so many possibilities,” Lawton said. “It has been the focus of much of my research throughout my career, and I’m excited to see this product brought to market.”

Read more from POET here.

Renewed World Energies Corp. is working on turning a 5 acre site into an algae biomass farm that will make biodiesel as well as producing electricity at Georgetown, South Carolina with hopes of being in production by late next year.

Biodiesel Magazine reports that 3 to 4 acres of photo-bioreactors are planned to produce algae-based fuels to generate electrical energy:

[Rick Armstrong and Tim Tompkins, co-founders of Renewed World Energies Corp.] applied their experience in automation and process control to develop what they believe will be a cost-effective photo-bioreactor. Armstrong said their projections show a 12.8 percent return on investment for a 1.6 megawatt (MW) unit, while a larger 5 MW system should provide a return on investment closer to 15 percent. An individual photo-bioreactor panel measures 4 feet wide by 6 feet high by 3 inches thick, with 550 panels contained in one cell and five to six cells covering an acre of land. The process utilizes automated harvesting, reducing the moisture content in a prescreening process to about 20 percent, before being pumped to a final screen and dried further if necessary prior to processing. The estimated yield per acre is between 95 and 125 tons of dried biomass per year, according to Armstrong.

Renewed World Energies plans to use the algae produced at its Georgetown facility to fuel a green diesel biomass refinery under order from Unified Fuels. The catalyzed gasification unit has four products— the greatest proportion being a liquid green diesel, a smaller proportion of green gasoline, non-condensable gases dominated by methane and ash. RWE’s facility will include two 800 kilowatt generators, one a natural gas generator modified to burn the methane and the other a reciprocating engine to burn the green diesel. The generator exhaust will be recycled through the system. Negotiations for a purchase power agreement are nearing completion with the regional utility, Santee-Cooper Electric, Armstrong added.

One of the hopes of the development of the system is that it can be adjusted to get the most out of any type of algae. Company officials say there had not been a lot of work done on automation and process control side of photo-bioreactors.

A new study shows that the ultimate form of solar power could be biodiesel.

Researchers at the University of Idaho and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have released a study that shows that for every unit of fossil energy needed to produce biodiesel, the return is 4.5 units of energy. And the National Biodiesel Board points out that soybean-based biodiesel has a high ratio of energy-in to energy-out… a high “energy balance”…. because the main source of energy to grow soybeans is the sun:

“This gives Americans even more reason to put their faith in the environmental and societal benefits of biodiesel,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board. “The Environmental Protection Agency should take this into account when considering biodiesel’s greenhouse gas reductions,” he said.

* New seed varieties and management practices are upping soybean yields.
* Farmers have minimized cultivation of the soil. These reduced tillage practices have cut how much fuel they need to grow soybeans.
* Modern soybean varieties have reduced the need for pesticides.
* Today’s soybean processing and biodiesel plants are more energy efficient.

The study goes on to say that farmers, soybean processors and biodiesel producers are getting better at using renewable energy resources, as well as more efficient energy practices.

The state known for its oil wells may be in for a fuel evolution.

Dallas-based Evolution Fuels, Inc. is planning to start its new brand of renewable fuel stations in the heart of the Dallas metropolis.

The company has signed a letter of intent to lease a location for their first fuel station under the brand “Evolution Fuels” that will offer renewable fuel blends at the pump. The plan is to offer a variety of ethanol-gasoline blend levels, including E10, E20, E30, and E85, as well as 20 percent biodiesel blends (B20).

The fuel dispensers, to be provided by Dresser Wayne, are uniquely designed to blend petroleum fuels with renewable fuels from the underground storage tanks within the dispenser as the fuel is delivered into the vehicle.

The Company plans to uniquely image the station and offer specialty foods, beverages, and other products in order to help create a recognizable brand as it rolls out more stations according to its business plan.

Earlier this week, National Wind CEO Leon Steinberg, challenged President Obama to take a stand by insisting that legislators pass an energy bill establishing a federal oversight committee to implement an interstate transmission highway. Steinberg likens the challenge as similar to President “Ike” Eisenhower’s initiative of creating a federal interstate system. The only difference is that while the nation’s interstate system is for cars, the transmission highway is for electricity.

The Midwest is prime real estate for wind energy, especially Nebraska, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa enabling the states to produce more energy than the people need. However, today, it is nearly impossible to capture and transfer the excess energy from wind turbines for use in overpopulated areas like California. The next logical step is to design a way to do just this all while providing lower cost energy to consumers.

Just like the biofuels industry is struggling to increase the blend wall (if not the country can’t meet the 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022), the electrical industry cannot meet President Obama’s goal of 25 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025 if the grid is not overhauled and upgraded.

Steinberg writes in an op-ed piece, “President Obama’s goal of securing 25 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2025 is restricted by state regulators who act only in the interests of their state and disregard the potential benefits of new, high capacity, interstate transmission line.” If the country is serious about energy security, he continues, then the President should emulate Eisenhower’s approach and, “demand action by Congress to bring our energy infrastructure into the 21st century.”

As many have said and will continue to say, including Steinberg, our government needs to get out of its own way in order to usher in new environmental and economic security for generations now and to come.

One of the big knocks against solar and wind energy is the lack of infrastructure to connect the power generated in remote areas of the American West with the large population centers back east. But a project in New Mexico could change that.

GreenBeat reports that state’s governor has unveiled a plan to build a massive electric transmission station in Clovis, New Mexico. The Tres Amigas Super Station is designed to connect the U.S.’s three main power grids and better channel solar and wind energy:

The proposed project, which would take about five years to build beginning in 2011 or 2012, would be the largest power converter in the world, covering 22 square miles and fundamentally changing how electricity flows across the country. New Mexico, which would benefit tremendously from the jobs and revenue created by the facility, was chosen because it is located nearest to where the three power grids — referred to as the East, West and Texas interconnections — meet up. On top of that, conditions in the state would allow it to geenrate up to 27 gigawatts of solar and wind energy.

The $600 million project will have a capacity of 5 gigawatts to begin with and could be scaled up to 30 gigawatts. It’s expected to put $4 billion back into the local economy.