Domestic Fuel

If you did a survey among the biofuels industry and asked if the funding programs for biofuels research and development were working, most would say no. Actually, many outside of the industry would say no. As the country continues forward on the federal goals set out in the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) things will need to change if we’re going to achieve them claims Advanced Biofuels USA. The organization recently passed a resolution to introduce new ideas to generate federal funding and investments in the development of sustainable biofuels.

The answer: the Highway Trust fund along with an increase in the transportation fuel user fee.

As part of this resolution, Advanced Biofuels USA provides a summary analysis of the “causes of the failure to surmount technical challenges, to obtain adequate financing, and to assure demand for biofuels consistent with the expectation expressed in the RFS.” It also provides suggestions to reverse these issues. In a nutshell the group states that for a successful future of biofuels, the oversight should belong in the US Department of Transportation (DOT) and removed from the Department of Energy (DOE) and Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The overarching idea is that a dedicated funding source to be used only for advanced biofuel (meeting RFS and beyond) commercial deployment should be established as part of the Transportation Trust Fund. It would be funded by a $.01/gallon user fee (between $850 million and $1billion/year) and a similar fee on electricity used for plug-in vehicles.

Should an idea like this take effect…
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The debate rages on regarding ethanol’s greenhouse gas emission reductions (GHGs) as compared to conventional gasoline. Today, Growth Energy came out against two Cornell University professors’ recent paper that criticizes the Environmental Protection Agency’s calculations that grain ethanol boasts a lower GHG than gas.

Harry de Gorter and David R. Just, professors of Applied Economics and Management, will have their findings published in the inaugural March issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Applied Economics Perspectives and Policy, Vol. 32, Issue 1, Oxford University Press. The article, “The Social Costs and Benefits of Biofuels: The Intersection of Environmental, Energy, and Agricultural Policy,” criticizes both corn-based ethanol’s GHG reductions as well as ethanol subsidies and mandates.

Tom Buis, Growth Energy’s CEO stated, “What it appears these two professors at Cornell would have us do is maintain the status quo – keep our addiction to oil, no matter what the cost to our economy in lost jobs and money we send overseas, no matter what the cost to our environment, no matter what the cost to our national security.”

“The Cornell paper is pretzel logic at its worst. The truth is that when we fuel up with domestic ethanol in the U.S., we need less gasoline refined from carbon-heavy oil. And the science on this is clear: a peer-reviewed study published by Yale University found that grain ethanol is 59 percent cleaner than gasoline – with cellulosic ethanol 86 percent cleaner than gasoline,” continued Buis.

Buis concluded, “Academic studies, government agencies and independent papers have concluded that innovation and new technology in the ethanol industry is bringing us ever closer to a high-tech domestic fuel that can contribute significantly to cleaning our skies, while creating jobs and strengthening our national security.”

Waste Management Inc. has inked yet another deal to produce biofuels from waste. Today, they announced an investment in Montreal-based Enerkem Inc., as part of their new financing round. A portion of the CDN $53.8 million raised will be used by Enerkem to support the construction of its second waste-to-biofuels plant in conjunction with the City of Edmonton and Alberta Innovates. The funds were raised in combination with current investors and new investors Waste Management and Cycle Capital.

Back in December 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Enerkem US $50 million for the plant planned in Mississippi. Also in 2009, the company’s commercial-scale demonstration plant in Westbury, Canada went online and reached 1,000 hours of production.

“This financing round validates Enerkem’s business and advances our path towards leadership in the waste and advanced fuels markets,” said Vincent Chornet, President and Chief Executive Officer of Enerkem. “The financial and strategic support of these world-class investors, bringing together our existing investors with Waste Management and Cycle Capital, will accelerate the transformation of the waste-to-biofuels industry that Enerkem is marshalling.”

Enerkem’s  proprietary thermo-chemical technology helps convert waste materials into biofuels such as ethanol. According to the company, its technology is able to process diverse carbon-based feedstocks, including sorted municipal solid waste, construction and demolition wood, as well as agricultural and forest residues.

Tim Cesarek, managing director of Organic Growth at Waste Management said of the strategic investment, “We want to extract more value from the materials we manage than anyone else in our industry through new and emerging processing and conversion technologies. Combining Waste Management’s industry leadership and expertise in the collection and management of a wide range of segmented waste streams with Enerkem’s leading clean technology solutions, we are broadening our portfolio of conversion technologies in the waste-to-biofuels market which is key to developing new, higher value added end markets for materials.”

I read in interesting book this week called “Future Scenarios, How Communities Can Adapt to Peak Oil and Climate Change,” by David Holmgren. The book focuses on the inevitable “energy descent” that the world is facing and outlines four likely scenarios that include the cultural, political, agricultural and economic implications of peak oil and climate change. Holmgren is best known as the co-creator of permaculture. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, it is “the integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man.”

The book begins with a discussion of four possible broad energy scenarios that are likely to occur over the next century: techno-explosion, techno-stability, energy decent, and collapse. These scenarios range from continued growth to doom and gloom, and Holmgren writes, “There is a desperate need to recast energy descent as a positive process that can free people from the strictures and dysfunctions of growth economics and consumer culture.” He continues, “This is now apparent to many people around the world and is far more fundamental than a public relations campaign to paint a black sky blue.”

There are other factors that will affect our future in addition to climate change and peak oil and these include critical materials depletion, water depletion, food supply, population pressures, financial instability, psychosocial limits to affluence, and species extinction. Holmgren notes that all of these issues combined need to be considered when predicting possible future scenarios.

So what are the scenarios?
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American Process had a ribbon cutting ceremony today celebrating its first cellulosic ethanol production at its pilot plant in Thomaston, GA. The plant was designed to test its proprietary technology, AVAP, American Value Added Pulping. This process co-produces pulp and ethanol from wood in an integrated biorefinery application. The wood is also used to provide energy for the plant.

According to the company’s website, AVAP utilizes alcohol sulfite cooking liquor to fractionate softwood chips into three lignocellulosic components. The addition of alcohol speeds the pulping, but still preserves the cellulose strength. Volatile cooking chemicals are stripped and reused in the cooking process at a high recovery rate, and lignosulfonates are precipitated and burned to produce process energy. The remaining liquid fraction contains hydrolyzed hemicelluloses. The company estimates that this sugar rich solution, when fermented, will annually yield up to 22.6 million gallons of bioethanol from a mill producing 500 tpd of pulp. The company notes that the value of converted hemicelluloses is 4-5 times greater for society as ethanol than as presently burned.

According to Bob Belling, the VP of Business Development, the site will produce about 80k gals/yr of ethanol. At this time, it will not be blended or sold and the pilot plant is being used for research only. The project has also created about 20 jobs in Atlanta and Thomaston.

German-based Butalco has announced that it will begin producing biofuel from agricultural waste this summer using its proprietary new yeast technology. The pilot plant is located in Southern Germany and the company’s new microbial catalysts will enable up to a 30 percent increase in yields during cellulosic ethanol production.

As explained by the company, cellulosic biomass, like plant waste materials, contains different types of sugars like glucose (C6) and pentoses (C5). Traditionally, yeasts are used in bioethanol production as they can efficiently ferment glucose into ethanol, but they are unable to digest the C5 sugars. Companies such as Butalco are looking at enzymes to break the plant biomass into C5/C6 sugar mixtures.

Eckhard Boles, co-founder of Butalco, said in a press statement, “Our new technology now tells the yeast cells to also ferment the C5 waste sugars into ethanol which makes the production of cellulosic ethanol much more efficient and cheaper. Together with the new commercially viable enzymes launched last week by the enzyme companies Danisco and Novozymes, Butalco’s yeast technology will enable cellulosic ethanol as a competitive alternative to gasoline.”

The company will use Hohenheim University’s (Stuttgart, Germany) newly built pilot plant for the production of its first amounts of cellulosic ethanol. Last year, Butalco signed a research and development contract with the Institute of Fermentation Technology within the Department of Food Science and Biotechnology at Hohenheim University. The institute has been concerned with questions on the production of bioethanol for almost 30 years. The plant is able to convert both starch and lignocellulosic based raw materials into ethanol.

The REmapping World Initiative that was launched in March of 2008 is finially complete, this according to 3TIER. The goal of the program was to address the biggest barrier to global renewable energy adoption, which is the lack of reliable information regarding resource potential. Today, the company released the global solar map and dataset and has already released a 5 km resolution global wind map and dataset, based upon proven techniques and the application of advanced numerical weather prediction models, which accurately and consistently diagram wind spatial and temporal variability.

“3TIER’s aim in developing these maps is to help accelerate the adoption of renewable energy around the world by providing a blueprint for development,” said Kenneth Westrick, founder and CEO of 3TIER, the global leader in renewable energy information services. “The creation of these maps is part of a larger effort to build a renewable energy information services platform which will provide customers with on-demand access to 3TIER’s massive datasets for wind and solar resources. Access to this critical data will enable global decision-makers and organizations to look at wind and solar potential on a regional scale and help maximize the value of renewable resources while mitigating the risks of their inherent variability.”

According the the company, the global solar map and dataset is based on 10 to 13 years of half-hourly, high-resolution visible satellite imagery collected from nine different satellites, dispersed across the globe and covering the entire surface of the earth. Satellite imagery was processed using a uniform methodology based upon a combination of in-house and peer-reviewed research documents supported by the global atmospheric science community.

Westrick concluded, “This dataset provides the in-depth solar irradiance information essential to developers, financiers, and governments for targeting the best regions in the world for development. Our solar resource technology provides the critical data to make renewable power a viable alternative and will be increasingly important in areas where solar data only exists at coarse resolution and inferior quality or is simply unavailable.”

CleanFUEL USA announced today during a propane education and ride and drive event its partnership with Ferrellgas Partners L.P. to install propane fueling stations across the U.S. Part of the Clean Start initiative, the Department of Energy (DOE) awarded CleanFUEL USA $12.9 million to construct the nation’s first and largest propane refueling network. Ferrellgas will support the station rollouts in 11 cities as the designated fuel partner.

The first station will be located in Dallas/Ft. Worth (DFW) and construction is expected to begin in the 3rd quarter of 2010. Following the first station in DFW, the companies have plans to build propane refueling stations in Austin, Baton Rouge, Chicago, Indianapolis, Lake Charles, New Orleans, Orlando, Phoenix, San Antonio and St. Louis. Ferrellgas will take the lead in identifying locations, securing permits, training employees, providing fuel and ongoing maintenance.

“DFW is the fourth largest metro area in the country, and includes many school districts, municipal entities and private businesses operating fleet vehicles with propane,” said Tony Dale, Ferrellgas National Director of Engine Fuels and Autogas.  “Propane is the most widely used fuel after gasoline and diesel.  Now CleanFUEL USA and Ferrellgas are making propane even more accessible to fleets and private users. This national fueling infrastructure project greatly enhances propane’s reputation as the ‘right now’ cleaner-burning and more economical alternative fuel.”

Today, propane is most commonly used for home heating but has become the third largest fuel used worldwide with its gaining marketshare for fleets. According to CleanFUEL USA, propane yields 87 percent less hydrocarbons and 50 percent fewer toxins than gasoline, and costs approximately 40-50 percent less per gallon than gasoline and diesel.

Pamela Burns, Dallas-Fort Worth Clean Cities Co-Coordinator said of the partnership, “As a Clean Start project partner, we’re excited to work with CleanFUEL USA and Ferrellgas in their efforts in reaching this goal by expanding the use of propane engine fuel.”

Wisconsin-based Valentin Technologies has revealed its 170 miles per gallon (mpg) concept car called the IngoCar. Currently under development, initial sketches indicate the car will be a mid-sized four door sportswagen passenger car. Styling for the car was provided by Davide Tonizzo, of designD.

Company founder, Ingo Valentin, said in a press release, “Finally outstanding performance and extremely high mileage are combined in a mid-size passenger car. We are proud to unveil our vision of an automobile that has the style, interior space, comfort and cost of a BMW 5 Series or Mercedes E-Class combined with unprecedented range and fuel economy.”

Based on a mix of city and rural driving, the car’s estimated mileage is 170 mpg but this feat is not achieved with a battery. Rather, the car uses a revolutionary hydraulic-fluid drive making the car a hybrid gasoline/hydraulic drive system. According to the company, here is how it works. Using a small engine, fluid is pumped into an accumulator. The fluid then drives hydraulic wheel motors for shiftless acceleration. During braking, motors are reversed and pump the entire recuperated braking energy back into the accumulator. This innovative technology and the car’s light weight give an estimated range of 1,000 miles for a full 6 gallon tank of fuel.

IngoCar has some speed too. It can go from 0-60 in 4 seconds. The company has not indicated when the IngoCar will be available and the price.  Click here to see images of the car and to learn more.

GreenShift Corporation has simultaneously announced that it has filed for its third patent on its corn-oil extraction technologies while at the same time, commencing legal action against Big River Resources Galva, Big River Resources West Burlington and Cardinal Ethanol for infringing on GreenShift’s U.S. patent covering its corn oil extraction technology.

GreenShift's Corn Oil Extraction Technology

The complaint against Big River alleges that they infringed upon GreenShift’s U.S. Patent No. 7,601,858, titled “Method of Processing Ethanol Byproducts and Related Subsystems” (the “858 Patent”). The patent covers processes for recovering corn oil by evaporating and mechanically processing thin stillage, a precursor to the distillers grain co-product of corn ethanol production (“DGS”). Greenshift is claiming that Big River has caused a loss of income and irreparable harm.

Kevin Kreisler, chairman and CEO of GreenShift said in a company statement regarding the lawsuits, “There was no market for corn oil extraction from dry mill ethanol plants before we invented our now-patented technology in 2004. We estimate that more than about 20 percent of the ethanol industry has begun to use our technology without a license. While we are eager to earn the business of each last producer, we expect to have the opportunity to do so by helping each to realize additional value.”

Kreisler continued, “We innovated corn oil extraction technology, created the corn oil extraction market, and subsidized disruptive value creation for the U.S. corn ethanol industry; we have earned our patents and we deserve the full measure of the first mover competitive advantage. This, and any other, continued infringement is causing GreenShift irreparable and immediate harm and it must stop.”

However, ICM has come to the defense of Cardinal Ethanol, as the suit is against ICM equipment. ICM built the ethanol plant that went online in November of 2008.

“ICM will defend its customers as a companion matter to ICM’s own litigation against GS CleanTech and its affiliate, GreenShift Corporation, which we filed in Kansas in October 2009,” said Chris Mitchell, ICM’s vice president of marketing. “ICM believes that GS CleanTech’s alleged patent claims will be proved to be invalid. In the Kansas litigation, we have asserted that GS CleanTech/GreenShift misrepresented the liability of ICM’s customers for operating the ICM system, and that various actions of GS CleanTech/GreenShift constitute unfair competition and wrongful interference with ICM’s existing and prospective business and contractual relationships. Our customers continue to operate their oil recovery systems acquired from ICM, and we continue to see strong interest from prospective customers for further orders for ICM’s equipment.”

And patents they seek.
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American Le Mans Series (ALMS) is known globally for its environmental initiatives, and today is taking another green step with its partnership with American Forests to support its “dollar-a-tree” Global ReLeaf program. Nonprofit American Forests, has a goal of planting 100 million trees by 2020. ALMS has pledged to plant at least 5,000 trees during the 2010 race season with the focus on areas that have been damaged by natural disasters such as fires and floods and areas that have been overdeveloped.

“Since its inception, the ALMS has been at the forefront of developing green initiatives and solutions in motorsports,” said American Le Man Series President and CEO Scott Atherton.”We are very proud of our efforts with the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Energy as they relate to our on-track efforts. Our involvement with American Forests enables us to contribute to similar solutions away from the race track and is another way the American Le Mans Series can advocate for a greener tomorrow.”

With the implementation of the Green ReLeaf campaign, the Series will begin every race weekend by displaying a Survivor tree in the paddock. The Survivor Elm – donated by the Series and its teams through American Forests’ Historic Tree program – will encourage fans to do their part for the planet. For every three trees planted, roughly one ton of carbon will be sequestered, allowing for over 1,666 tons of CO2 to be taken out of the atmosphere overall, and every acre of trees planted (approx. 340-490 trees) by the Series will offset about the amount of CO2 produced by driving a car 26,000 miles, or about twice the amount the average driver drives per year.

This initiative is part of the Series’ Michelin Green X Challenge, a season-long green competition.

Lux Research has recently released a new report, “Ranking Biofuel Startups on the Lux Innovation Grid, which analyzes a number of key criteria to indicate which companies are more likey to succeed as the market matures. One of the companies given top honors is Mascoma Corporation.

“We are proud to be considered a top biofuels company by Lux,” said William J. Brady, CEO of Mascoma. “This distinction validates our efforts to be a leader in the growing cellulosic ethanol industry. Coupled with this award, our strong financial backing and proven technology breakthroughs in Consolidated Bioprocessing emphasize that we are ahead of the pack on the road to commercialization.”

This is not the first award that Mascoma has received in the past few months. The company was ranked #10 in the Biofuels Digest’s “Hottest Companies in Bioenergy.”

The Lux Innovation Grid is used to predict which segments of the biofuels markets are poised to succeed based on selective criteria including revenue per employee, patents, performance metrics, production capacity, and other data.

Click here to get more information about the report.

The next time you are looking to buy a car, considering reserving a fuel-efficient car by texting. The Ford Fiesta, a popular car in Europe for its good gas mileage, is soon to make its way to the US. Ford is taking reservations for the car, which is estimated to get 40 miles per gallon (mpg) on the highway and 30 mph in the city. To get on the waiting list, simply text “reserve” to 4Ford.

According to the company, they already have 6,000, 2011 Fiesta’s on hold, with half coming from non-Ford owners. You can also order your car “old-school” by going online and customizing your car. Once it is virtually built, the site will tell you the price.

The cost for the Fiesta begins around $14,000 and will be available Summer of 2010.

Bionol Clearfield, LLC, a 110 MMgy ethanol plant based in Clearfield, Pa is officially in production according to general manager Roger Schmidt. Performance testing began on February 8th and today, the plant is running at 100 percent. This is the first ethanol plant in the state and will use corn to produce the ethanol. According to Schmidt, the plant’s advantage is that it is located close to several New York blending terminals which will help ethanol to break into that marketplace.

Ethanol Producer Magazine also announced that North Carolina’s first ethanol plant, Clean Burn Fuels, is nearing completion. The biorefinery will will produce 60 MMgy of corn-based ethanol and 175,000 tons of dried distillers grains per year. In the article, Doug Archer the general manager, anticipates that the plant’s first grind is less than eight weeks away.

Both of these plants will come online at a time when the market is turning more favorable for ethanol. On February 3, 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced is expanded rules for the Renewable Fuels Standard. Of special note, is that corn-based ethanol, when compared to conventional gasoline, lowers greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 20 percent. In addition, all new corn-based ethanol plants are now considered compliant with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that states that all conventional biofuels much reduce GHG emissions by at least 20 percent.

My Week of Oil is coming to a close (but will never end) and California has made another interesting move. The California Energy Commission has a new Commissioner – Anthony Eggert. Two highlights of his career include his time serving as the Science and Technology Adviser to Mary Nichols at the California Air Resources Board. Prior to that, he did his Ph.D under Daniel Sperling at the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies. Sperling is a huge proponent of hydrogen and opponent of ethanol.

Wowzers. Things could get even uglier in California.

While we wait for the fall-out of yet another Big Oil enthusiast securing a high-level energy position, I want to reiterate my disgust over the state’s earlier move in turning down the $11 million in stimulus funds for 55 E85 pumps in Southern California. The reason according to an article in The San Diego Union Tribune, “But the regional agency in Los Angeles that would have received the money for the project voted last week to reject it, in part because its members don’t believe that ethanol is a worthy alternative to gasoline.”

Really? Then why did you bother wasting your time in passing and enacting the Low Carbon Fuels Standard? The only options to reduce carbon dioxide are propane, natural gas and biofuels and natural gas is fossil-fuel based and propane is virtually only available for fleets. Biofuels are the only immediate option today to reduce CO2 emissions.

The state of California is like a person cheating on his diet – they are advocating a clean energy diet, but eating copious amounts ‘fossil fuels’ mainly sugar and carbs. With this type of thinking, and other states unfortunately looking up to California, our country will never achieve a sustainable and secure energy program, and this my friends, is a very scary position in which to be.