Domestic Fuel

Researchers have found a feasible way to turn wet algal biomass directly into biodiesel.

Biodiesel Magazine reports that University of Michigan scientists have published a paper on a two-step hydrolysis-solvolysis process that eliminates costly biomass drying, organic solvent extraction and catalysts:

In the first step, wet algal biomass contained 80 percent moisture and was reacted with subcritical water to hydrolyze intracellular lipids, conglomerate cells into an easily filterable solid that retained the lipids and produced a sterile, nutrient-rich aqueous phase. In the second step, the wet, fatty acid-rich solids underwent supercritical transesterification with ethanol to produce fatty acid ethyl esters (FAEEs). The team used Chlorella vulgaris algae, which contained 53.3 percent lipid content.

The research yielded promising results, Savage added, but the project is anticipated to be refined and optimized in order for to demonstrate greater economic and environmental feasibility of the process on a larger scale.

The researchers say more work will need to be done to improve the yields and cut down on inputs.

Make your plans now to attend the free Alternative Fuel Trade Alliance Workshop, Thursday, Sept. 9, at the Crowne Plaza in Denver, Colo.

Sponsored by our friends at the Renewable Fuels Association, the National Biodiesel Board, the Clean Vehicle Education Foundation and the Propane Education & Research Council, this one-day event promises to be a must-attend event for a wide range of alternative fuel users, producers and marketers:

This training seminar will cover alternative fuel quality, infrastructure, available vehicles, safety, and environmental impact of propane, ethanol, biodiesel, and compressed natural gas. Attendees will include fleet managers, petroleum marketers, policy makers, fuel station owners, and media.

To register and for more information, check the alliance’s website, www.altfuelsalliance.org, or contact Julie Puckett at julie@thesales.net or 703-675-0520.

A Florida company is trying to win a $250,000 grant from Pepsi to bring alternative fuels to the Gulf Coast region.

Pura-Vida-Ventures is an independent company based in Sarasota that has a proposal in to Pepsi for a share in $1.3 million they are offering to fund ideas that “refresh the Gulf.” Their concept is to convert a closed gas station into a community resource center, offer biodiesel and ethanol blends, then add electric, hydrogen, or CNG/LPG and offset energy consumption by using solar panels and wind.

We will create an Alternative (to petroleum) Oasis. It becomes a “community center” by offering information and access to a product mix that is unavailable in the marketplace. It will become the local resource for green/eco products and services. It will utilize solar panels to decrease energy consumption, harvest rainwater to diminish its use onsite, and be surrounded by lush native landscaping. The market will engage its customers by offering services such as local volunteer information, educational presentations, and encourage local buying habits.

You can vote for the Pura-Vida plan here and find out more on their Facebook page.

Chuck and Joanna have been giving you some great coverage of Farm Progress Show from Boone, Iowa here on Domestic Fuel and over at AgWired.com. It only seems fitting that the country’s premier farm show is being powered by Iowa-based biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group (REG). And in the same tradition of having a cold beer after a long day at Farm Progress (I understand that maybe one or two have been consumed during the time in Boone, Iowa), REG is playing a major role in a beer tour throughout the Midwest.

New Belgium Brewing of Ft. Collins, Colo. recently called on biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group of Ames, Iowa to provide sustainable, clean-burning B100 to power the Midwest portion of the brewing company’s renowned thirteen-city, national bicycle festival.

“New Belgium has made a commitment to using biodiesel made from sustainable sources like waste oils, fats and greases in order to help reduce our corporate carbon footprint by at least 25 percent. We are pleased that we can continue that commitment by burning Iowa-produced biodiesel produced from another industry’s waste stream,” stated tour impresario Matt Kowal, who works at the brewery year ‘round producing the festival and emceeing its 13 stops (this year) around the country.

Now that’s something you can truly raise a cold one to.

A California-based producer of renewable oil from algae production products is getting ready to ship a system that uses a single step to get the oil out of the green pond scum to one of its customers down under.

OriginOil, Inc. has notified Australian MBD Energy Limited that it is ready to ship a Single-Step Extraction™ System (seen in the video below), a cheaper method of algae-oil extraction that eliminates the use of petrochemicals or alcohol solvents and is the second product to be delivered in its multi-phase commercialization agreement:

OriginOil Extracts Oil from Algae Timelapse from OriginOil on Vimeo.

“We believe OriginOil’s concentration and extraction technology holds promise of reducing costs and energy requirements in the algae harvesting process,” said Andrew Lawson, Managing Director at MBD Energy Ltd. “We look forward to now using the equipment we’ve purchased from OriginOil to finalize preparations for our 1 hectare Bio CCS algal synthesizer test facility we’re about to construct at Tarong Power Station in Queensland. If performance tests go to plan we expect to later expand the 1 hectare synthesizer to 80 hectares at which point we hope to produce approximately 10,000 tonnes of oil per year.”

OriginOil’s unit is the second product to be shipped in the test phase of a multi-phase commercialization program under which OriginOil has agreed to supply MBD Energy with progressively larger installations of its algae-to-oil technology as the scale of MBD’s algal synthesizer projects grows. The two products are supplied under a 1 year lease-to-own program. Subject to achieving success in the initial test phase, MBD will purchase significantly larger systems to serve its power station projects in Australia, beginning with the 1 hectare algal synthesizer test plant at Tarong Power Station in South Eastern Queensland, and potentially expanding to full production at all three of MBD’s power station project sites in Australia.

MBD Energy officials say that each of its power station projects can grow 80 hectare commercial pilot plants for algae, each capable of producing about 3 million gallons of oil that can be used for renewable energy and plastics, as well as producing 25,000 tonnes of animal feed each year. Furthermore, the plants could eventually be expanded to 1,500 hectares each, feeding the the algae with the power station’s flue-gas emissions.

Propel Fuels is opening more pumps with 85 percent ethanol for California flex fuel vehicle (FFV) drivers.

The company held a grand opening event in Oakland this week to formally launch a network of renewable fuel stations for the Bay Area, which will include more than 20 stations across the Bay, with up to half opening by the end of this year. The event also announced a $10.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and California Energy Commission (CEC) to build and operate 75 retail renewable fuel stations throughout California over the next two years.

At the grand opening, California Energy Commissioner Anthony Eggert (pictured) said the station development project, known as the Low Carbon Fuel Infrastructure Investment Initiative (LCFI3), will help the state with the development and deployment of low carbon fuels and clean vehicles. “The Energy Commission is proud to team up with Propel Fuels and the partner agencies to bring next generation low carbon biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol, to the nearly half a million flex fuel vehicle customers in California, while creating hundreds of green jobs, and continuing to lead the way in our nation’s battle against climate change,” said Eggert.

Propel will work with community partners CALSTART and East Bay Clean Cities to educate consumers and fleets on the wide spread benefits of low carbon, alternative fuels available today and those next generation fuels coming in the future.

“Presently in California more than one million diesel and Flex Fuel passenger cars are capable of running on renewable fuels, but there hasn’t been a sufficient number of renewable fuel stations,” said John Boesel, President and CEO of CALSTART. “This program takes a major step forward by creating 75 new renewable stations which will give consumers the choice to say ‘no’ to oil dependence, ‘yes’ to the American economy and ‘yes’ to the environment.”

Propel has already begun construction of the station locations in major markets across California, with the network of 75 stations funded by this project to be complete by the end of 2011. Currently there are three locations open in the Bay Area (Fremont, Oakland, South San Jose) with additional sites planned for Downtown San Jose, North San Jose, Berkeley, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Livermore, and Concord in the coming months.

Thanks to Jamie Quick with Propel and Paul Wikoff for the photos from the event.

The Florida Biofuels Association, together with several other organizations and state universities, are holding a meeting this month focused on growing energy feedstocks in the Sunshine State.

“Feedstocks for Florida Biofuels – A Florida Biofuels Association Town Hall Meeting” is scheduled for Friday September 17 at Florida Farm Bureau headquarters in Gainesville. The event will include an open forum to hear from Florida farmers regarding concerns and questions pertaining to energy crops, the ABCs of profitable feedstock farming, and incentives available for the feedstock farmers. Speakers include representatives from the Florida and U.S. Departments of Agriculture and the University of Florida.

The potential for energy crops in the state was one of the topics at the recent Florida Farm to Fuel Summit. One of the presenters was Bill Vasden Jr., Chairman of the Florida Feedstock Growers Association. Vasden was interviewed by Gary Cooper with Southeast Agnet at the summit about the production and distribution of renewable energy from Florida-grown crops. “We’ve been growing feedstock crops like camelina and kenaf here in Florida for four years,” he says. As a cattle and citrus farmer, he started growing energy crops to help cut his on-farm diesel costs. “Later it became apparent that a lot of these crops can be grown here in Florida, with additional revenue streams.” They now have 2500 acres in kenaf, which is a spring biomass crop, then in the fall they rotate into camelina, which is an oilseed crop. “Camelina grown in Florida produces the highest yields in the country and can be grown in fall and winter and is very drought tolerant and cold tolerant,” said Vasden. As a bonus, it is also approved for as a by-product for animal feed.

Vasden says the market demand for these energy crops exceeds demand, so it has been very profitable for his operation. “We look to 2500 acres, without any government subsidy, to gross $2.8 million when farmed with two crops of camelina and one crop of kenaf, and those are pretty impressive figures,” he explained.

Here is a link to Vasden’s powerpoint presentation at Florida Farm to Fuel.

A Colorado-based wind turbine company believes it has the solution when winds are not enough to generate electricty: team the turbine up with clean-burning biodiesel.

Smartplanet.com says Hybrid Turbines Inc.’s SmartGen system will use biogas, biodiesel and natural gas to run a back-up power generation system fuel the back-up power system that will operate during the 70 percent of time when the winds don’t get the job done:

This would of course depend on the patent-pending design working and being installed throughout the country’s wind farms. According to Hybrid Turbines, the SmartGen system can be retrofitted for existing turbines, scaled between 3 and 100 kilowatts (possibly higher), and integrated into new turbine designs.

Estimates are that wind power generation capacity would increase by 25 GW, the equivalent of 25 1,000 MW nuclear power plants

Propel Fuels, a west coast retailer of ethanol and biodiesel, has received $11 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Energy Commission to build and operate 75 self-serve alternative fuel stations across the state over the next two years.

This article in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal says the effort will reduce the amount of non-renewable oil used and greenhouse gases given off, while putting more people to work:

The statewide station project, or the Low Carbon Fuel Infrastructure Investment Initiative, has the potential to create more than 450 jobs, while displacing 39 million gallons of petroleum and 187,500 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, according to Propel.

“This grant brings a new choice to Californians looking to do their part to reduce our nation’s dependency on imported oil and help meet the state’s emission reduction goals,” Propels chief executive officer Matt Horton added in the release. “As advanced biofuel production facilities prepare to break ground in the state, this fueling infrastructure is a critical link between California’s citizens and the next generation of low carbon fuels.”

California Energy Commission officials say this will help bring the needed next generation of biofuels to nearly half a million flex fuel vehicle owners in the Golden State.

An Ohio utility is looking to buy biodiesel to help it produce power and meet that state’s alternative energy requirement.

This story from Biodiesel Magazine says American Electric Power Co. has opened up bids to supply biodiesel for one or more of its coal-fired plants in the state:

According to AEP spokeswoman Melissa McHenry, the company is investigating the use of biodiesel-blended fuel oil as a possible compliance strategy to meet Ohio’s alternative energy requirements. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio adopted rules to implement its alternative energy portfolio in April 2009, which requires 25 percent of electricity sold within the state to be generated from alternative energy. In addition, at least half that amount must come from renewable energy resources, including wind, biomass, hydro or fuel cell. Electric utilities and service companies are able to use renewable energy credits to satisfy all or part of their renewable energy requirements. According to McHenry, the standard allows renewable energy credits to be generated through the use of biodiesel-blended fuel oil.

The biodiesel-blended fuel oil would replace petroleum fuel oil used for flame start-up and flame stabilization. Pulverized coal plants have large boilers, which McHenry said are essentially large boxes with flame in them that are lined with tubes containing water. The water is flashed to steam, which then fuels the generator. “If a plant shuts down and you need to restart it, you have to start that process flame with fuel oil,” McHenry said. “Then you blow in pulverized coal to keep the flame burning. They also sometimes use fuel oil in the process to maintain the flame to ensure that you are getting the most efficient flame, so you are getting the most efficient transfer of water into steam.”

The utility is looking to acquire three different blends of biodiesel, depending on the time of year it is used: B99.9 for use between April 15 to Oct. 14, B50 for Oct. 15 through Dec. 14, and B30 from Dec. 15 to April 14. AEP officials believe 1.4 million gallons of fuel oil could be replaced. Quotes are due to AEP by 5 pm on September 23.

A group of college students who will be the next generation of scientists have joined together to support biodiesel.

This press release from the National Biodiesel Board, which is leading the effort with support from the United Soybean Board and soybean checkoff, says 28 students scientists from across the country have signed on to the new Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel initiative:

Lucas Ellis of Dartmouth, pursuing his Master of Science in Biochemical Engineering, is one of four co-chairs of the effort. “In college there is an eagerness to become an advocate or have a cause, and mine was the environment, science and educating others about sustainability,” Ellis said. “Biodiesel combined all of those and became my passion.”

“We’re bringing the next generation of scientists together with biodiesel, the only advancedbiofuel commercially available in the U.S.,” said Joe Jobe, NBB CEO. “Cementing supportamong future energy thought leaders is important to biodiesel’s future.”

NBB has created a forum where students who support biodiesel can collaborate and share ideas. Any student scientist can sign up at www.biodieselsustainability.org.

This idea is modeled after the NBB’s Scientists for Biodiesel campaign, which has 125 scientist members of its own and is also supported by the United Soybean Board and soybean checkoff.

It seems only fitting that the nation’s greatest agricultural showcase will be featuring the world’s greenest fuel.

Renewable Energy Group says this year’s Farm Progress Show, slated for August 31 – September 2 in Boone, Iowa, will be demonstrating a B20 blend of biodiesel in all demonstration vehicles and agriculture equipment:

The B20 blend is provided through STAR Energy, the FS companies of Iowa and Renewable Energy Group, Ames, Iowa. The FS System is the official fuel sponsor of the show through its donation of the FS premium diesel fuel, Dieselex Gold. Dieselex Gold contains multi-functional additive chemistry that makes it the perfect partner for biodiesel blends. It is comprised of 8 components that contribute to engine performance, efficiency and protection.

“Continuing the use of the B20 blend at the Farm Progress Show demonstrates the commitment of the agriculture industry to renewable, sustainable fuels. B20 use at the Farm Progress show reinforces that it can be used on Iowa farms in diesel equipment,” said Jason Stauffer, Energy Management Specialist/ Area Sales Manager for Star Energy.

REG officials also point out that biodiesel adds value to American farm products, $9 to market cattle, $0.25 to every bushel of soybeans and adding additional value to ethanol through inedible corn oil use.

A Volkswagen Beetle burning a 5 percent blend of biodiesel and SynDiesel, often referred to as synthetic or GTL diesel, looks to set a mileage record at Hot Rod Magazine’s Drag Week in September.

The company says the SynDiesel Project X Volkswagen Beetle is the favorite to capture the mileage record for the five day event that has competitors race at five different drag strips and have to drive, unassisted to all events during the week:

Last year, Mike Wood’s “DuraMax GT,” a 1994 Mustang GT was the winner of the Diesel Class competition, burning an average of 38.5 miles per gallon, including race time. “My miles per gallon were 3.5 mpg better than last year using a number two diesel. The SynDiesel provided a lot less smoke, more power and cleaner launches. I attribute my win, in part, to the SynDiesel fuel.”

Greg Hogue, owner, Motor Sports Supply, and driver of the “Project X” Beetle in Drag Week 2010, said, “This is the second year that SynDiesel has fueled the Project X Beetle at Drag Week. We have rebuilt our engine to accommodate the higher cetane and power that the fuel has to offer. We learned a lot from Mike Woods’ Nitrous Express Duramax Mustang that busted the 200 MPH barrier using SynDiesel racing fuel and we are ready to set a record with what could be the world’s fastest VW Beetle.”

The biodiesel blended with Syndiesel is made from soybean and canola oil.

The United Soybean Board (USB) and the National Tractor Pullers Association (NTPA) have teamed up for a tractor pull this Friday and Saturday, Aug. 27 & 28, at the Jaycee’s Cole County Fairgrounds. Some of the tractors involved in the pull will be using biodiesel, as will much of the support equipment. The video below is from last year’s event in Jeff City.

Todd Gibson, the director of the USB and a soybean farmer from Western Missouri’s Carroll County, says this will be his first professional tractor pull he’s attended, and he’s satisfied to leave his own equipment back home. “I’ll let the big boys take care of it.”

The pullers, many of whom are associated with agriculture, will be available for the public to meet and talk to about the performance of soy biodiesel.

NOTE: This updated version of this story changes the part about the tractors in the competition using biodiesel. While some of the tractors MAY use biodiesel, they’re not REQUIRED to do so. Much of the support equipment will still use soybean-based biodiesel in their operations.

A California-based biodiesel company has won a nearly $900 thousand grant from that state’s Energy Commission.

Biodiesel Industries “ARIES© Bioenergy Project” is a multi-year project using algae to produce biodiesel in an integrated energy system monitored by the ARIES platform. ARIES, which stands for Automated Real-time, Remote, Integrated Energy System, was developed with Aerojet to incorporate advanced automation control capabilities:

ARIES© is a highly automated, transportable biodiesel production unit with the capability to be controlled from a remote location. These features ensure reliable process control and optimal production yields in a sustainable system that can be readily and widely deployed. Under this grant, the system will be adapted to fully integrate algaculture, anaerobic digestion of waste products and self-generated combined heat and power. This unique approach will enable the production of biodiesel to be self-sustainable, produce excess renewable energy and substantially reduce greenhouse gases.

The work will be done at Naval Base Ventura County at Port Hueneme, California.