Domestic Fuel

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that Fiscal Year 2009 funding is once again available again for three USDA Farm Bill programs to promote increased production of biomass and bioenergy.

Applications for the Biorefinery Assistance Program, which uses loan guarantees to develop, construct, and retrofit commercial-scale biorefineries, must be received by June 1, 2010. Applications are also being accepted for remaining FY 2009 funding under the Repowering Assistance Program, which provides for payments to biorefineries in existence when the Farm Bill was passed to replace the use of fossil fuels in their operations with renewable energy from biomass. Biorefineries interested in obtaining funding must apply by June 15, 2010.

Finally, those biomass producers eligible under the Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels may also apply to receive payment from remaining FY 2009 funds. Applications must be received by May 30, 2010. Under this program, payments are made to eligible producers in rural areas to support and ensure an expanding production of advanced biofuels. Payments are based on the amount of biofuels a recipient produces from renewable biomass, other than corn kernel starch. Eligible examples include biofuels derived from cellulose, crop residue, animal, food and yard waste material, biogas (landfill and sewage waste treatment gas), vegetable oil and animal fat.

At the recent Commodity Classic, Secretary Vilsack noted that the administration is focused on expanding the biofuels industry. “We’re going to make sure that it is a national industry, not just focused in one particular area, one particular region, or one particular feed stock. There are enormous opportunities here in all parts of the country. Enormous opportunities for farmers and ranchers, enormous opportunities for rural America. And, there needs to be a concerted effort in growing and expanding this industry,” Vilsack told the crowd of more than 4,000 meeting in Anaheim, Calif. “That’s part of the strategy of USDA. So, we’re putting resources behind this, and we’re using our rural development resources to help build these refineries. We’re using our energy title of the farm bill to promote payments to farmers for feed stocks, to help build refineries, to retrofit existing refineries, to put people to work in rural communities.”

Listen to or download Vilsack’s speech from Commodity Classic here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (13.5MB)

Waste Management continues to build its reputation in the development of alternative energy with the announcement that they have partnered with Harvest Power to expand next generation organics recycling facilities across the United States and Canada. Waste Management now joins founding investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Munich Venture Partners, as investors in the project.

The largest food and yard waste composting facility in North America, located in Richmond, British Columbia, is owned and operated by Harvest Power. In addition to building and operating large-scale organics recycling facilities, the company is also developing several high-solids aerobic and anaerobic digestion and composting technologies which will accelerate the decomposition of organic materials to produce renewable energy or biogas. Once the biogas is formed, it can be converted into electricity, liquefied natural gas (LNG) and into high quality, nutrient-rich compost products.

In a release today, Tim Cesarek, Managing Director of Organic Growth at Waste Management said, “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 Harvest’s leading technologies and industry knowledge will be key to developing new, higher value added end markets for organic materials and accelerating the growth of organics recycling across North America.”

North America generates over 180 million tons of organic waste each year and is a valuable resource for the production of renewable energy.

“Through partnerships with leaders like Waste Management, and by designing, building, owning and operating our own facilities, we will be turning more organic waste into renewable energy and high quality compost,” added Paul Sellew, Co-Founder and CEO of Harvest Power. “Our goal is to harvest the power in organic materials to create more sustainable communities, and we look forward to expanding our business with our new partner.”

While researchers continue work on miscanthus’s viability to produce cellulosic ethanol, and growers now have a way to plant and harvest the feedstock more efficiently. After years of collaboration and research, a miscanthus rhizome regeneration harvester and planter system has been developed. The unveiling took place during the Bioenergy Feedstocks Symposium held at the University of Illinois (U of I). Typically, miscanthus is a labor-intensive crop requiring multiple machines, and costly manual selection and grading – but not any longer.

The new machine is the result of a three-year collaboration between U of I, Tomax Ltd and Bermuda King USA. According to a news release from U of I, this machinery can lower the cost of miscanthus rhizome production by up to 40 percent and create opportunities for miscanthus to be used more widely as a high-yield bioenergy crop.

Gavin Maxwell, Tomax Ltd Senior Bioenergy Consultant, said, “Bioenergy feedstock processors require security for supply and unless we dealt with regeneration and planting issues for miscanthus, we simply couldn’t make progress. The collaboration team had a very clear objective when beginning the design process of the harvester and planter. Our goal was to remove manual labor, integrate the digging and grading process, increase soil separation and improve both quality and volume to substantially reduce the cost of vegetative rootstock propagation.”

In recent U.S. trials, the machine has demonstrated a 200 percent increase in rhizome collection over manual systems. this allows, says the research team, the opportunity for regional nurseries to more efficiently expand to meet the demand for both solid and liquid fuel conversion. The harvester and planter package will be available beginning this year and will be available for expanded grower crops in time for the 2011 season.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized Waste Management, Inc. for its innovation and creativity in the development of the Altamont Landfill Gas to Liquefied Natural Gas Facility that went online in Livermore, CA in late 2009. The award was presented during the EPA’s 13th annual Landfill Methane Outreach Program Conference and Project Expo.

The project is a joint venture with Linde North America, which is part of The Linde Group. According to Waste Management, the Altamont facility is the largest landfill gas (LFG) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in operation in the world and produces 13,000 gallons of LNG per day. This is enough renewable fuel for Waste Management to operate 300 out of its 485 LNG waste and recycling collection vehicles in 20 communities in California.

“The Altamont LFG-to-LNG facility enables us to recover and utilize a valuable source of clean energy in another practical way, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. Conventional LNG is already a clean-burning and economically viable alternative fuel for our collection trucks,” said Paul Pabor, vice president for Waste Management’s Renewable Energy Group. “The ability to use recovered landfill gas to fuel our hauling fleet offers significant environmental benefits to the communities we serve in California and is a great example of how we are committed to recovering resources in waste.”

The EPA also recognized another Waste Management project – University of New Hampshire’s EcoLine Project which converts landfill gas into enough energy to meet 85 percent of the five million square-foot campus’ and heating needs.

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.

CE-CERT development engineers Junior Castillo (left) and Eddie O’Neil (right) display the results of the steam hydrogasification process that converts urban waste feedstock (rear container) into clean synthetic diesel fuel (foreground container). The fuel was produced in the lab-scale reactor behind them.

University of California, Riverside’s College of Engineering-Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) has been awarded a $1 million grant from the California Energy Commission to build a demonstration plant to convert biosolids to clean synthetic diesel fuel. As evaluated by the National Energy Technology Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, this process is 12 percent more efficient and 18 percent lower in capital costs than all other mainstream gasification technologies.

The plant will use a steam hydrogasification process coined the “CE-CERT Process,” to convert biosolids from the the city of Riverside’s wastewater treatment facility, along with other ‘waste’  feedstocks, to produce energy. The state of California has committed to reducing its petroleum use by 2.4 billion gallons per year, and the intent for the fuel produced using this process is to be integrated into the transportation mix as a clean alternative to fossil fuels.

According to a UC Riverside news statement, California produces an estimated 83 million dry tons of biomass wastes per year, including agricultural and forestry wastes and wastewater treatment biomass that must be disposed of. Virtually 32 million dry tons of this biowaste are estimated available for fuel production.

According to researchers, the advantages of this process are many including access to a diversity of feedstocks that typically go to landfills, lower capital investment required to build a plant, and smaller plants can be located near the feedstock sources for an economic and environmental advantage.

Proof of technology of the pilot plant is the last step before full scale commercial production.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, and Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle will tour Crave Brothers Farm and Dairy Operation in Waterloo, Wisconsin Friday to see bioenergy in action.

Crave Brothers is an example of a successful modern dairy, using green energy sources to power the farm, cheese factory and 120 area homes. Crave Brothers Dairy Farm and its cheesemaking enterprise, Crave Brothers Farmstead Cheese, have a sophisticated, computer-controlled anaerobic digestion system that generates electricity that runs on organic waste from their 750 pampered and productive Holsteins.

The Administration and State officials will discuss the opportunities for rural America to embrace science and lead efforts to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, mitigate climate change, and transition to a clean energy economy.