Domestic Fuel

Ethanol pump at a Petrobras station in Sao Paulo

With a shortfall of sugarcane due to excessive rain, Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes announced that they are considering reducing the amount of mandatory ethanol blended with gasoline. Today, all stations are required to sell gasoline mixed with a minimum of 20-25 percent ethanol. If enacted, the change could take effect as soon as this week but Stephanes has not disclosed what the new percentage will be.

Above average rainfall plagued Brazil over the past few months, slowing down the harvest, and ultimately, some sugarcane was left in the field. Consequently, the region of Sao Paulo, the number one producing state of both sugarcane and ethanol, saw its ethanol production numbers down by 8.3 percent compared to last year. According to UNICA, (Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association) the region will product 5.86 billions gallons from this harvest.

The rain has also caused ethanol prices to rise at the pump leading to a reduction in hydrated ethanol sales, a trend that began surfacing in June 2009. According to UNICA, this reduction, “is a consequence of higher hydrous ethanol prices at the pump resulting from a combination of weather-related difficulties during the harvest and the approaching inter-harvest period which normally lasts from December to April the following year.”  In addition to Brazil being “energy independent,” the country also boasts the largest fleet of flex-fuel vehicles in the world.

Novozymes has received a $28.4 million tax credit to aid in the construction of the company’s new enzyme manufacturing facility in Blair, Nebraska. Specifically, Novozymes has received an Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit from the Obama administration. Once complete, the plant will produce enzymes used during the production of advanced biofuels and create more than 100 ‘green’ jobs. The tax credit will become available in 2012 and could save the company nearly $18 million per year in tax savings.

“We believe our selection for this tax credit is a reflection of the tremendous potential of advanced biofuels to create green jobs and contribute to meaningful reduction of greenhouse gases in the near-term,” said Adam Monroe, President of Novozymes North America. “Novozymes applauds the continued support of the Obama Administration to further the development of clean energy technologies like advanced biofuels.”

As part of the administration’s support for the development of clean technologies, monies were allocated as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to foster investment and employment for companies who are working to bring clean technologies to the marketplace.To date, a total of $2.3 billion has been awarded to 183 manufacturing facilities across 43 states.

Currently the blending facility went online in November 2009 and is currently shipping product throughout the world. Full production should begin mid-2012. Once the project is complete, Novozymes will have invested between $160-$200 million.

As the EPA gets closer to implementing the new Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS-2), those attending this year’s National Biodiesel Conference and Expo, Feb. 7-10 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas will have the chance to talk about and prepare for RFS-2:

This year’s implementation of the RFS-2 will be the single largest factor in biodiesel production and use.

The RFS-2 will drive demand to never before levels. Are you positioned to take advantage of this new, legislated demand? What about RINS and how those will be handled and administered?

NBB points out that administrators from the EPA will be there to provide insight and answer questions and is an opportunity you just can’t miss. You can register for the event here.

While 2009 is a year that most of the biodiesel market would most likely want to forget, at least one consultant is saying this year is the one for builders to build and buyers to buy biodiesel.

Wayne Lee, the CEO of the biodiesel consulting group, Lee Enterprises, says his advice is build or buy now:

“Because oil is a limited commodity and it is my feeling that big oil sees the ‘handwriting on the wall’” says Lee. “They know that alternative fuels are here to stay” adds Mike Shook, partner in Agri Process Innovations. Shook adds that “just as government inaction made the smaller producers nervous, I look back at 2009 and note the massive investments that big oil has made in this industry”. Both Lee and Shook agree that the biodiesel industry is headed up in a big way. “This industry will continue to adjust to problems, and it will continue to grow” says Lee, “and just like many industries before it, the inefficient players will shake out and the efficient players will make money”.

Lee, who also owns altenative fuels brokerage company, National Business Brokerage, does not think the events are all by chance. “It seems just a bit odd to me that while the industry had several obstacles in 2009, big oil appears to have taken the downturn as an opportunity to enter a depressed industry very cost effectively”, said Lee. “It almost makes one wonder if there was some design to the way things happened.”

You can read more about Lee Enterprises here.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have created a new enzyme that has the potential to create plants that are easier to convert into cellulosic ethanol.

“Increasing the ‘digestibility’ of plant matter is one main approach to making plants a viable alternative energy source,” said Brookhaven biochemist Chang-Jun Liu. Plants with less lignin in their cell walls are easier to break down and convert to fuel products.

The next step will be to see if it works in plants. The scientists will engineer plants with the gene for the new enzyme to see if it reduces the amount of lignin in the plant cell walls.

“Since we know less lignin makes cell walls easier to digest, this may be an effective biochemical approach to engineering plants for more efficient biofuel production,” Liu said.

Read more here.

This week, the Growth Energy Market Development Team introduced the first edition of a new bi-monthly electronic newsletter. This newsletter will focus on issues associated with E85, flexible fuel vehicles and blender pumps. The E85 FYI Newsletter was first introduced by the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition (NEVC) over ten years ago, and has been recently adopted by Growth Energy as the Market Development FYI Newsletter.

The first issue of the Market Development FYI Newsletter includes the following articles: Big Oil Letting Go of Retail Outlets; MSDS Sheets for Ethanol Blends; Missouri Opens First Blender Pump; Blender Pump Tax Fix Sought; States Offer Additional Infrastructure Tax Credits; E85 Makes Inroads on Cost and Availability; Dresser Wayne Promotes Blender Pumps; Member Spotlight and much more.

To sign up for the newsletter, click here.

ZimmComm New Media is the social media sponsor of AG CONNECT Expo. This is the new show being produced by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. I’ll be there all next week covering the activities mostly on our AgWired website. Cindy will be joining me mid week and we’ll post information of interest to the renewable fuels industry right here. I know there are several presentations on the subject on the agenda. In the meantime, here’s a preview interview I did this morning with the show director. I used the interview in my weekly podcast, the ZimmCast.

The floor of the upcoming AG CONNECT Expo is very busy right now. This morning I spoke with Show Director, Sara Mooney, who was on-location. In this week’s ZimmCast she provides a last preview and let’s us know how the final preparations are going. I’ll be there by the end of the weekend for the pre-show activities that take place on Monday and Tuesday.

Sara says ACE is meeting or exceeding its goals because of things like the co-located industry events and many educational opportunities in addition to a great trade show. She says they’ve seen a major push in registration in the last couple weeks and the average number of acres farmer registrants have is currently at 3,400. There are registrants from 46 states in the U.S. and from 45 countries.

The 2010 show will feature more than 30 education sessions with top industry experts. More than a dozen events are co-located with AG CONNECT Expo 2010, including Agrievolution, the Second World Summit on Agricultural Machinery. AG CONNECT Expo 2010 has the support of more than 40 leading industry groups worldwide, including as strategic partners Agritechnica, the world’s largest agriculture machinery show, and its organizer, DLG (the German Agricultural Society).

Sara is going wild with her new Flip camera too. Here’s one her latest YouTube videos with one of the exhibitors (Krone).

You can listen to my interview with Sara below:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.9MB)

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is calling the new policy paper by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy released this week a continuation of “the orchestrated campaign to limit, and ultimately eliminate, the use of biofuels to displace foreign oil.”

The report, which was funded by Chevron Technology Ventures, concludes that “the current U.S. biofuels program that promotes corn-based ethanol is far from environmental sustainability and should be dramatically revamped.” Policy recommendations made by the institute are to revise the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to make it “more achievable,” eliminate the tariff on imported ethanol, get rid of the blender’s tax credit and “avoid defining corn-based ethanol as a ‘low-carbon fuel,’ a move that would be based only on political expediency and not on scientific analysis.”

RFA contends that the Baker Institute researchers used “out-of-date information and questionable assumptions to denigrate Congress, farmers, and ethanol producers for their support of domestically-based renewable fuels.”

“Not surprisingly, this oil industry-sponsored analysis relies on myths, generalities, half-truths to dismiss ethanol while providing no comparison to our increasingly dangerous and costly addiction to oil,” said Renewable Fuels Association Director of Public Affairs Matt Hartwig. “A debate about the appropriate role of biofuels is valid and should occur, but not without proper context and based upon last century’s assumptions.”

Read RFA’s critique of the policy paper here.

Effectively immediately, William J. Brady has taken over the helm as the new CEO for Mascoma Corporation. In addition, Brady will also join the Boards of Directors of Mascoma and Frontier Renewable Resources. He brings to the organization 23 years of experience at Cabot Corporation in various positions including Executive Vice President and General Manager of several operating divisions.

Brady will work with the Mascoma team to help achieve technical and commercial milestones, including continuing to reduce costs for ethanol produced from cellulosic feedstocks, developing additional partnerships for Mascoma’s commercial-scale ethanol project in Kinross Township, Michigan and creating strategic joint ventures to commercialize Mascoma’s proprietary Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) technology for production of advanced biofuels and chemicals.

In a press statement, Bruce Jamerson, Chairman of Mascoma and Frontier Renewable Resources stated, “I am delighted to introduce Bill Brady as the new CEO of Mascoma and to work closely with him on achieving our goal of full scale commercial production of cellulosic ethanol. Bill has extensive experience running large commercial divisions for a major chemical company, which is exactly the skill set we need as Mascoma transitions into a commercial enterprise.”

A new wind turbine coming out of Denmark will be able to “see” the wind and make adjustments that optimize power production.

This post from TreeHugger.com says Denmark’s Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy has successfully tested the world’s first wind turbine that uses a built-in anemometer to adjust itself to the oncoming wind:

The system works by using a laser (“wind LIDAR”) to essentially see the wind before it reaches the turbine blades and adjust to what the conditions are going to be a moment later. By doing so electricity production can be increased by 5%, translating into increased revenue of DKr 200,000 ($39,000) per year for a 4 MW turbine.

The article goes on to say that the LIDAR system makes turbine blades more reliable by better coping with the wind’s irregularities.

A new report indicates there will be enough corn and soybeans for ethanol and biodiesel production, as well as the feed, food and export uses those crops are tasked with.

But the evaluation from the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center‘s Robert Wisner, Professor of Economics and Energy Economist, says things could get tight if next year’s crop is hit with bad weather or a natural disaster:

For 2009-10, the current corn crop estimate points to adequate corn supplies for feed, food, fuel, and export uses. Carryover stocks on August 31 of next year are expected to be about 1 and one-half weeks above minimum working stocks levels. Our early and very tentative normal-yield projections for 2010-11 show corn carryover stocks declining slightly by August 31, 2011 but still remaining marginally above minimum working stocks levels.

Wisner does note that there’s not a lot of margin for error in case the Corn Belt gets hit with drought or flooding. He says that will keep corn prices volatile should any inclement weather show up.

As far as soybeans and biodiesel, they should be OK, if, once again, the crops turn out as expected:

[T]he availability of soybeans and soybean oil for 2009-10 and 2010-11 is not indicated to be a major constraint on biodiesel production in U.S. if South American crops are near normal. Supplies for the current marketing year are a little tighter than indicated at this time last year because of extreme weather problems in South America last winter and early spring. However, U.S. and EU government policy actions that limit biodiesel demand and create uncertainty about future policies are a constraint on U.S. biodiesel production. That, in turn, makes 2010-11 soybean availability for biofuels and other uses look a little more adequate than anticipated a year ago.

You can read all of Wisner’s report in the January 2010 edition of the Ag MRC’s Renewable Energy Newsletter.

According to Opis, two former VeraSun ethanol plants and one Renew Energy plant were approved by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to be purchased by Valero. This will bring the total production of Valero ethanol to 1.1 billion gallons per year.

“The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act requires under certain circumstances that prospective acquirers of voting securities or assets apply for clearance from regulators,” the FTC explained. “Requests for early termination or clearance are granted when the Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust division of the Department of Justice have determined that they won’t take action during the waiting period.”

“We expect these transactions to close in the early part of this year,” said Valero spokesman Bill Day.

The purchase of the Renew Energy plant is still in question because of a challenge from another group who states they were the highest bidder of the plant at a recent auction. More information on this can be found on a previous post.

Car makers put more stock in hybrid systems than biodiesel.

This post from CNET News says a survey conducted by KPMG asked 200 senior auto executives to rate the most important alternative fuel technologies to their industry over the next five years:

When asked to rate which were the most important alternative fuel technologies to the auto industry over the next five years, hybrid systems were ranked first followed by battery electric power, fuel cell electric power, and biodiesel, respectively.

“Automotive manufacturers are in the challenging position of being asked to compete on both technology and cost. With global consumers still feeling the pinch of the recession, those OEMs who can deliver on this equation will be in the driver’s seat,” Gary Silberg, national automotive industry leader for KPMG, said in a statement.

An interesting twist to the survey says that the execs believe that fuel efficiency and environmental friendliness are the top two biggest impacts on customers’ buying decisions … which are two of the biggest attributes of biodiesel. Go figure.

The keynote speaker for next month’s 15th Annual National Ethanol Conference will address the issue of using mid-level ethanol blends from the automobile industry perspective.

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has announced that Thomas G. Stephens, General Motors Vice President for Global Product Operations, will keynote the conference in Orlando on February 15-17.

“The importance of a cooperative and constructive relationship with the auto industry to America’s ethanol producers and marketers cannot be overstated,” said RFA President Bob Dinneen. “Whether it is working on technical issues surrounding mid-level blends or expanding the infrastructure for blender pumps and higher level ethanol blends, having auto companies at the table is critical.”

Registration for the 2010 National Ethanol Conference is available on line.

DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol (DDCE) and University of Tennessee/Genera Energy will hold a grand opening celebration later this month for one of the nation’s first cellulosic ethanol demo plants, located in Vonore, Tenn.

Among the featured speakers at the grand opening on January 29 will be Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who helped with the groundbreaking for the plant in October 2008.

The facility is expected to begin producing fuel ethanol from both agricultural residue and bioenergy crops prior to the grand opening. The 74,000-square-foot facility has the capacity to produce 250,000 gallons of ethanol from corncobs and switchgrass and is preparing for commercial production by 2012.