Domestic Fuel

An Illinois company has received a $2.5 million federal grant to put in a demonstration project in an Iowa biodiesel plant that could allow the facility to produce the green fuel and cosmetics.

Last month, I told you how Elevance Renewable Sciences of Bolingbrook, Ill., was looking to get some government assistance to put in the $8.1 million project in Renewable Energy Group’s Central Iowa Energy biodiesel plant in Newton (see my post from Nov. 23, 2009). Now, the Des Moines (IA) Register reports the U.S. Department of Energy has come through with part of the money Elevance was looking for:

Elevance uses a proprietary technology that could produce fuels, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics from the same soybean oils and animal fats used at biodiesel plants. It has told state officials that the process could be bolted on to other biodiesel plants around the state.

Elevance is backed by the Texas Pacific Group investment fund of Fort Worth as well as Cargill and Materia Inc. of Pasadena, Calif., which owns the patents to the Olafin Metathesis process that won the 2005 Nobel Prize.

This grant is part of that $600 million the feds announced last week that went to 19 biorefinery projects in 15 states.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) night will be a magical time in Washington, D.C., as the Capitol Christmas Tree is officially lit.

The National Biodiesel Board points out that the 85-foot blue spruce made the 4,000-mile cross-country trip from Arizona to the nation’s capital on a truck fueled with biodiesel … a first for the tradition of the Capitol Christmas Tree that goes back to 1964:

Two diesel trucks running on B5 (a 5 percent biodiesel fuel mix) were part of a caravan carrying the approximately 125-year-old tree from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest.

“It is significant that the Capitol Christmas Tree was delivered with biodiesel because economic development, carbon reduction, and energy security continue to dominate national priorities,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board. “Biodiesel helps us achieve all of those things.”

The trucks carrying the tree and its accompanying 10,000 handmade ornaments and 80 companion trees that will be placed in offices throughout the Capitol Complex made their way across country, using the BioTrucker system going from biodiesel station to biodiesel station to pick up donated biodiesel along the way.

The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) will be holding their 4th Annual Renewable Fuels Summit on January 25, 2010 in Des Moines, Iowa. The one day event will cover several topics that will negate the misinformation leading to harmful renwable fuels policies.

Several of the topics covered during the summit include: Biofuels: Charting a New Course for Energy Independence; Life After RFS; Beating the Blend Wall; Driving Iowa’s Energy Future; and Unlimited Future for Biofuels.

“Whether a biofuels investor or just interested in the renewable fuels industry, the Iowa Renewable Fuels Summit will put the hot topics front and center,” said IRFA Managing Director Lucy Norton. “There are decisions being made in Des Moines and DC now that will shape the renewable fuels industry for years to come. This conference is our way of keeping everyone up-to-date on these issues – whether E15, alternative biofuels feedstocks or federal policies that will influence future demand.”

The summit is free and open to the public. It will begain at 8:30 a.m. and conclude at 4 p.m. The summit will be held at the Polk County Convention Complex. To register, click here.

This morning the Copenhagen Climate Conference kicked off. As I mentioned in earlier posts, the two big issues are the reduction of CO2 and the halting of deforestation. As I noted in other writings, there are Climate Alarmists and Climate Skeptics. Climate Alarmists, which Al Gore would be considered, believe that if we don’t curb global warming now, the earth will face unprecedented consequences. The climate skeptics, as Bjorn Lomborg would be considered, offer the view that the problem has been blown out of proportion or is focused on the wrong culprits. Actually there would be nothing more fun than a Lomborg/Gore debate.

On Friday, I presented a ‘skeptics’ view…today I will present an ‘alarmists’ view. For the third book review, I chose Al Gore’s, “Our Choice A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis.” Most people know that Gore helped to put the global warming debate on the map with his first book and movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” These efforts led to a shared Oscar and co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Gore will also be playing a major role in Copenhagen over the next two weeks.

Gore begins, “It is now abundantly clear that we have at our fingertips all of the tools we need to solve the climate crisis. The only missing ingredient is collective will.”

Throughout the book, Gore uses a combination of words, graphics and pictures to demonstrate the climate change debate, detail many of the solutions and offer policy recommendations. There is one area where I think Gore did a great job, and that is explaining what the six categories of global warming pollution are: carbon dioxide, methane, black carbon, sulfur hexaflouride, tetrafluoroethane, carbon monoxide, butane and nitrous oxide. To date, the biggest focus has been on carbon dioxide and Gore’s focus throughout the book is no different.

Along those same lines, Gore advocates that the most effective way to curb CO2 is through putting a price on carbon. He writes, “An effective plan for solving the climate crisis must include aggressive remedies for our erroneous reliance on deceptive market signals in carbon-based energy.”
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Tanking of the Volvo VIP Fleet with Biomass Made from Waste

VIPS traveling around Copenhagen during the Climate Conference are not only traveling in style, their limos are fueled with biofuel produced from straw. According to Novozymes, the largest enzyme producer in the world, this is the first time ever a fleet of limos has been fueled with this type of biofuel.

The advanced fuel is made from waste biomass, namely straw, by Inbicon, at its new USD-60 million gallon demonstration plant in Denmark. The fuel boasts an 85 percent reduction in CO2, as compared to cars running on gasoline. The reduction of CO2 is a hot topic during the conference.

Another hot topic is developing more effective enzymes to convert starch to sugar during the biofuel production process. Novozymes developed the enzyme that is being used in Inbicon’s ethanol production process.

The fleet of Volvo limousines is sponsored by Partnership for Biofuel, which is a cooperation between Inbicon, Statoil, Danisco, and Novozymes, as well as Volvo.

Roadsides and median strips may turn out to be the perfect place to grow crops for biodiesel.

“It’s a very non-traditional approach to utilizing some public lands that are not being utilized as well as they could be,” says Utah State University researcher Dallas Hanks. It is estimated that there are some 10 million available acres of land in roadsides, airports, military bases, railroad areas and more that currently require significant maintenance cost that could be used for producing biofuel crops such as safflower and canola which could be harvested a couple times a year. The benefits include a new source for biofuel feedstocks, as well as improved aesthetics and reduced roadside maintenance costs.

“We’ve been lucky enough to get a national coalition with an executive committee and land grant universities all around the country involved in this,” Hanks said during a recent interview at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting annual meeting. “We are excited about their interest and we are excited to put some seeds in the ground.”

Other partners in the project include the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) and New Holland Ag. “New Holland has been wonderful from the get-go on this,” said Hanks. “They were very gracious in giving us some equipment to help us with our research costs and further this project.” NBB has been the main source of funding for the project, for which Hanks says they are very grateful.

Some of the states already moving on the project include Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina and Washington.

Find out more about this initiative from biodieselsustainability.com and freewaystofuel.org. Listen to or download my interview with Dallas Hanks below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.4MB)

Several ethanol plants have been changing hands and one of the more recent was the purchase of Xethanol LLC, based in Blairstown, Iowa, by Fiberight LLC, based in Virgina. Fiberight purchased the plant with the intent of converting it into a cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant. The fuel will be produced through the conversion of municipal sold waste (MSW) to ethanol. The company acquired Xethanol for $1.65 million and the conversion is estimated to be around $20 million.

The technology is not new to Fiberight which for three years has been operating a pilot-scale plant in Virgina. In an article published by Biomass Magazine, Fiberight CEO Craig Stuart-Paul said of their technology, “We’ve been operating in stealth mode because we don’t want to make claims until we can prove them.” They plan on doing just that in Blairstown.

While there are several MSW technologies, Fiberight says that its process is unique for several reasons. One is that their technology, “has the ability to fractionate the waste stream into various forms and then create a homogenous feedstock.” Stuart-Paul notes that this is the biggest hang-up for MSW technologies to date.

Second, Stuart-Paul said that their proprietary process allows the recycling and re-use of enzymes. This lowers costs and speeds up commercial competitiveness in that their fuel will be more cost-competitive with alternative fuels already in the marketplace.

According to the company, they are in negotiations to secure the waste from nearby Cedar Rapids, Iowa a community of 150,000 people that is less than 30 miles from Blairstown. These are the ideal communities for the company’s mini-mills and once the Blairstown plant is successfully running, Fiberight plants on siting additional plants in similar communities.

There is another biofuel feedstock entering the mix next spring. SunBelt Biofuels LLC, based in Georgia, has announced that it will sell registered and certified rhizomes of its Freedom Giant Miscanthus to several hundred Southest U.S. licensed growers. This will mark an unusual relationship in that SunBelt has an exclusive licensing agreement with Mississippi State University.

According to a company news statement, the crop was selected after 12 years of research conducted by the university. This non genetically modified feedstock grows well in the Southeast, takes less land, costs less to grow and will provide solid revenue for growers. Studies have shown that the feedstock will produce over 3,000 gallons of ethanol per acre. On average, one acre of corn produces around 450 gallons of ethanol.

SunBelt Biofuels heralds the crops ability to stimulate rural economies citing that farms that grow Freedom Giant Miscanthus will see income rise more than $2 billion above crops that are currently grown. The company also touts the crops ability to gain energy independence for the state of Georgia.

According to SunBelt Biofuels’ CEO Phillip Jennings, Georgia needs to plant 2.4 million acres of Freedom Giant Miscanthus to become energy independent.  “In Georgia, we can take 10 percent of our commercial timber land or 24 percent of our crop land, and we would be where we need to be to sustain just this one state.”

Jennings continued, “With 10 million acres of Freedom Giant Miscanthus, Georgia would become the number 7 OPEC fuel producer in the world.”

The E85 Flex-Fuel Challenge, a contest by the Renewable Fuels Association, is offering a lucky winner a pretty nice holiday present. The cutest kid photo will win a year’s supply of fuel.

Here’s how it works.

• Take the most adorable or funny snapshot of your child.
• Submit the photo by midnight on January 5th.
• Vote for your child – or the cutest photo if you didn’t submit a photo.
• Win a free year of fuel.

The grand prize is free fuel for a year and the photo that gets the most votes will win a $500 fuel card. The first 1,000 people to register will receive a reusable grocery bag.

Click here to learn more about the contest and to submit your photo.

An Ohio biodiesel plant is among those 19 projects that Michelle told you about yesterday that will share in $564 million in federal Recovery Act monies.

This press release from Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), whose district includes a biorefinery pilot project on the Health Science Campus at the University of Toledo, says that biorefinery will get nearly $20 million:

Federal funding for the project will total $19.9 million and will be derived from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, popularly known as the economic stimulus plan. “Our goal is to put our people to work in an industry that can help America break its dependence on imported petroleum,” Kaptur said.

The Toledo pilot plant will refine biodiesel—which Secretary Chu noted will be an end project that requires no additional processing in order to be used in diesel engines—out of agricultural and forest product residue.

The project is expected to create at least 100 jobs in the building of the biorefinery with the potential for more after that.

This coming Friday, Dec. 11 is the deadline for Iowa schools to get in their application for two, $2,500 grants from the Iowa Renewable Fuels Association’s (IRFA) Biodiesel Backer Award Program.

This IRFA press release says schools eligible for the grants must educate their communities about biodiesel, incorporate biodiesel and renewable fuels into their school programming, as well as getting the application in on time:

IRFA has created the Biodiesel Backer Toolkit to help schools in this endeavor. The toolkit includes a variety of informational materials as well as communication tools that will assist schools in teaching their communities about biodiesel. These resources include fact sheets, brochures, curriculum, PowerPoint presentations, and a public service announcement. The Biodiesel Backer Award Application is also located in the Biodiesel Backer Toolkit, which can be found online at www.iowarfa.org/educators.php.

The IRFA also points out that school buses have been found to be the safest way for kids to get to school. The group wants to encourage districts to switch to the cleaner-burning biodiesel in those buses so those same kids will also be able to breathe easier, since a 20 percent biodiesel blend reduces hydrocarbon emissions by 20 percent, carbon monoxide emissions by 11 percent and smog by up to 10 percent.

The Hawkeye State is the biggest biodiesel producer, having 15 plants able to produce 325 million gallons a year.

Big emitters of carbon dioxide are faced with a big problem. Industries and utilities will soon have to capture that CO2 and store it … somewhere. That’s where Carbon Sciences comes in. The California-based company has come up with a way that takes the captured greenhouse gas and turns it into gasoline and diesel … the exact same fuels that we put into our tanks today.

In this edition of the Domestic Fuel Cast, we talk to Carbon Sciences President and CEO Byron Elton, who explains how this process works. Basically, it’s the exact same process that changed carbon dioxide into hydrocarbons all those eons ago far beneath the surface of the Earth. But this is much more efficient and faster and could be the solution for those CO2 emitters looking for something to do with their newly sequestered product and a planet hungry for energy.

It’s really a fascinating process, and you can here more about it here: DFCast-12-04-09.mp3

You can also subscribe to the DomesticFuel Cast here.

According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), DOE Secretary Steven Chu and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the selection of 19 integrated biorefinery projects to receive up to $564 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to accelerate the construction and operation of pilot, demonstration, and commercial scale facilities. Fifteen states will house these projects and help lay the foundation for full commercial-scale development of a biomass industry in the United States.

“Advanced biofuels are critical to building a cleaner, more sustainable transportation system in the U.S.” said Secretary Chu. “These projects will help establish a domestic industry that will create jobs here at home and open new markets across rural America.”

Joining Secretary Chu, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack noted that USDA Rural Development has selected San Diego, California based Sapphire Energy to receive a loan guarantee for up to $54.5 million through the Biorefinery Assistance Program to demonstrate an integrated algal biorefinery process that will cultivate algae in ponds, and will use dewatering and oil extraction technology to produce an intermediate that will then be processed into drop-in green fuels such as jet fuel and diesel. The actual project will be constructed in Columbus, New Mexico.

“The development of renewable energy is a critical component of our efforts to rebuild and revitalize rural America,” said Secretary Vilsack.

For a complete listing of projects awarded, click here.

What is the greatest crisis in the history of civilization? Global warming. Well, at least according to the media’s portrayal. However, according to Bjorn Lomborg, the author of “Cool It“, and the second review in my Copenhagen Climate Conference three views in seven days series, while global warming is an concern, it is not the most pressing worldwide issue.

Lomborg writes, “That humanity has caused a substantial rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past centuries, thereby contributing to global warming, is beyond debate. What is debatable, however, is whether hysteria and headlong spending on extravagant CO2-cutting programs at an unprecedented price is the only possible response.”

He continues, “Such a course is especially debatable in a world where billions of people live in poverty, where millions die of curable diseases, and where these lives could be saved, societies strengthened, and environments improved at a fraction of the cost.”

Has the worldwide frenzy surrounding global warming caused us to lose our common sense?
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Some workers are back on the job after a large explosion at a Seattle, Washington-area biodiesel plant.

The Grays Harbor (WA) Daily World reports that Imperium Renewable’s employees were back at the company’s bioiesel plant after an explosion that sent at least one piece of a tank through a chain link fence 100 feet away:

The blast hit the plant, which is in Hoquiam near the city’s border with Aberdeen, at about 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, rattling windows in the area and sending out a boom that could be heard for miles.

He said glycerin is not an explosive substance, and in the mixing tank it is neutralized further by the addition of acid. He added that there was no fire at any point. Black streaks on nearby tanks looked like charring in news footage and photos, but Williams said that was the glycerin, which he described as similar in color and texture to molasses.

Officials say the explosion ruptured one tank containing sulphuric acid, but the acid was contained. The state Department of Ecology later said that the air quality in nearby neighborhoods was safe.