With increased feed costs, the ethanol and livestock industries have seemed to be at odds lately. But one company exhibiting at the 2008 Ethanol Conference and Trade Show supplies the needs of both sectors with key products and services.
PhibroChem is a specialty chemicals supplier featuring key products for a variety of industries, including ethanol. One of their main products is Lactrol, which is used during the process of alcoholic fermentation to prevent or reduce the potential yield loss caused by strains of lactic acid bacteria.
“Lactrol has been in the ethanol industry globally for 30 years,” said PilbroChem president Mike Giambalvo.
PhibroChem is a division of Phibro Animal Health Corporation, which is a global company focused on the manufacturing and marketing of animal health care products, agricultural and industrial chemicals and services. Giambalvo says they are therefore very interested in the health of both the livestock and ethanol industries.
“We believe there can be harmony and we have three businesses that address the needs of the ethanol industry and the animal health and nutrition industry,” Giambalvo said. “We see the whole picture, the value of not just the ethanol, but the co-products that come out of there and end up in the animal feed and nutrition business.”
Giambalvo believes they have a great story to tell and they just hired a person who has many years of experience in the agriculture and ethanol industries to help them do that. Tom Slunecka is former executive director of the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, and prior to that worked for the National Corn Growers Association and agribusiness companies such as Monsanto. “People in the ethanol industry know our product,” Giambalvo says. “Now they need to get to know the people and the company behind it and we think Tom will help us accomplish that.”
Mike and Tom are pictured at their ACE trade show booth.
Listen to an interview with Mike Giambalvo from the ACE conference:
Ethanol Producers and Consumers’ (EPAC) 18th Annual Ethanol Conference concluded in Kalispell, Montana yesterday. The conference featured more than twenty speakers within the one and a half day event. The focus of this year’s conference was to help dispel the myths of the food and fuel debate.
“We’ve been looking at nations outside the U.S. to see what ethanol influences there are around the world,” said Dave Vander Griend, president and CEO of ICM, Inc. (seen left). Vander Griend expressed that his plants are truly food AND fuel plants.
Other speakers and moderators at the recent EPAC conference included: Kelly Davis of Hawkeye Gold, Michelle Kautz of NEVC, Julie Ward of R.J. O’Brien, Steve Markham of CHS, Inc., Matt Hartwig of RFA (seen right), John Urbachuk of LECG, LLC, Robert White of EPIC, Gerson Santos-Leon of Abengoa Bioenergy, Joe Jobe of the National Biodiesel Board, and Al Weverstad of General Motors, among others.
“Thanks to the many speakers, moderators and vendors who have agreed to be part of the agenda,” noted Executive Director of EPAC, Shirley Ball.
The 19th Annual EPAC conference will be held in Bozeman, Montana June 29 and 30, 2009. For more information on EPAC, visit www.ethanolmt.org.
A team of Agriculture Department researchers may have found a new use for a by-product of ethanol production - controlling weeds in potted plants.
Rick Boydston and his team with USDA’s Agriculture Research Service recently completed a study on the use of dried distillers grains, or DDGS, as a weed deterrent in container-grown ornamentals. The study was published in the February 2008 issue of HortScience.
According to Dr. Boydston, they found that when applied to the soil surface, “Weed control was not perfect, but could reduce the amount of hand-weeding typically required.”
When mixed into the potting media, however, dried distillers grains were toxic to transplanted rose, coreopsis, and phlox plants. The researchers concluded that DDGS may be useful for reducing weed emergence and growth in container-grown ornamentals when applied to the soil surface at transplanting.
Dr. Boydston sees the results of this and similar ARS studies as a win/win for ethanol producers and the agriculture industry, noting, “identifying new uses for byproducts likes distillers grains could increase the profitability of ethanol production”.
Organizers say the theme reflects the continued growing importance of corn as a keystone to a carbohydrate-based economy. The conference has been expanded to include new topics in wet milling, dry grind technologies, value-added products from corn and new uses for distillers dry grains (DDGs) that will be of value to ethanol producers and livestock interests.
Among the speakers will be POET Chief Science Officer, Steve Lewis, who will discuss POET’s patent-pending biorefining technologies.
Lewis’s presentation on “Cutting Edge Research in Dry Mill Ethanol Production” will focus on POET’s two innovative technologies, BPX™ and BFRAC™.
BPX is a patent-pending raw starch hydrolysis process converts starch to sugar, which then ferments to ethanol without heat. It reduces energy and water usage by up to 15 percent in comparison to conventional processes.
BFRAC separates the corn into three fractions including fiber, germ and endosperm. The endosperm is then fermented to create ethanol while the remaining fractions are converted into value-added co-products, including POET’s Dakota Gold HP™ (a high protein distillers grain feed product), Dakota Bran™ cake, corn germ meal and corn oil.
The Corn Utilization and Technology Conference hosted by the National Corn Growers Association will be held June 2-4 at the Kansas City Marriott Downtown in Kansas City, Mo.
LifeLine Foods sells ethanol, but ethanol is just one of many products the company produces. The St. Joseph, MO-based corn milling plant started off as a manufacturer of snack foods in 2001. Today, LifeLine’s identity is continually evolving. The 51 percent farmer-owned company is committed to innovation and is now partnered with ICM, Inc, a world leader in ethanol facility design and engineering, in the production of ethanol.
In this DomesticFuel Cast, we hear from LifeFine Foods CEO Bill Becker about the company’s current innovations with corn, food and fuel and what’s in store for the future.
Here is the Domestic Fuel Cast #4:
You can also subscribe to the Domestic Fuel Cast using the following url/feed link: http://www.zimmcomm.biz/domesticfuel/domestic-fuel-cast.xml.
The ethanol industry in Brazil has been developing some major traction. Marcos Jank, President of UNICA, says the demand for ethanol in Brazil is now matching that of the demand for gasoline. He says ethanol is gaining ground and Brazil “won’t move back to gas.”
Marcos was one of seven speakers at today’s Ethanol Summit held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today. General Motors sponsored the event. The object of the Summit was to explore Brazil’s strong and sustained success with ethanol while also taking a look at where and how the U.S. ethanol industry has room to grow.
Marcos and Indy racing legend Emerson Fittipaldi - a Brazilian ethanol producer - highlighted a number of milestones the Brazilian ethanol industry has already attained:
All fuel sold in Brazil contains a 20 to 25 percent blend of ethanol
The unsubsidized ethanol industry offers a fuel that is on average one dollar below the price of gasoline
Virtually all 33,000 gas pumps offer E100
Just one percent of the 40 percent of arable land in Brazil is being used to produce sugarcane ethanol
Forty-five percent of fuel for cars is from sugarcane
Sugarcane ethanol production is 100 percent self-sufficient
The food industry is growing faster than the ethanol industry
Ninety percent of all new automobiles sold are flex-fuel automobiles
One-hundred percent of GM vehicles produced in Brazil are flex-fuel
Twenty percent of all cars are flex-fuel vehicles today
Fifty percent of all cars will be flex-fuel vehicles by 2012
Three percent of electricity is from sugarcane
Honda and Yamaha are introducing flex-fuel motorcycles this year
The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture forecast calls for enough corn and soybeans to meet both food and fuel needs.
The May supply and demand report released on Friday based predictions for the 2008-09 marketing year on an expected corn crop of 12.1 billion bushels, down 7 percent from last year’s record crop.
USDA is expecting total U.S. corn use in 2008-09 to be 2 percent lower than the current marketing year, which ends in August. The report calls for reductions in feed and residual use and exports to more than offset a continued expansion in ethanol production.
Feed and residual use is projected down 14 percent as corn feeding declines with increased production of distillers grains, higher corn prices, and reduced red meat production. Corn exports are projected down 16 percent as U.S. supplies face increased world competition with increased foreign production and a sharp drop in EU-27 imports. Ethanol use is projected at 4 billion bushels, up 33 percent from 2007/08. The slowing pace of plant construction and expansion, and lower capacity utilization are expected to modestly dampen growth in ethanol corn use. With total corn use expected to exceed production by 635 million bushels, ending stocks are projected down 45 percent. At 763 million bushels, ending stocks would be the lowest since 1995/96.
Meanwhile, on the soybean side, production is expected to be up by 520 million bushels this year, but biodiesel production is expected to be only slightly higher in the coming marketing year. USDA is projecting biodiesel will use 15 percent of total soybean oil production in 2008-09, compared with 14 percent this year.
VeraSun Energy broke ground on a new facility last week that will tap into ethanol for oil.
VeraSun’s patent-pending Oil Extraction process is designed to yield 7-8 million gallons of corn oil annually from 390,000 tons of distillers grains currently produced at VeraSun’s ethanol production facility in Aurora, S.D. The corn oil will then be made available for sale into the biodiesel market, thus increasing the renewable fuel supply without an additional feedstock supply. The result of the process also includes enhanced distillers grains through the concentration of protein and the reduction of fat. One gallon of corn oil yields roughly a gallon of biodiesel.
According to VeraSun’s Don Endres, “With fuel prices where they’re at, with diesel prices where they’re at, we need more fuel, and this will go right into the biodiesel market, fit right into that fuel stream so it’s a much more highly-valued in the fuel stream then, what it is as oil in the fuel.”
VeraSun expects to start producing the corn oil later this year. The company also plans to use the process at two of its plants in Iowa next year.
Among those giving a hand at the groundbreaking were South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds, Reid Jensen with the South Dakota Corn Utilization Council and Matt Hartwig of the Renewable Fuels Association.
The first-ever International Distillers Grains Conference in Illinois earlier this week attracted nearly 600 participants, including 144 international importers and leaders in agriculture.
The conference, sponsored by theU.S. Grains Council, offered participants the opportunity to acquire information pertaining to U.S. distiller’s dried grains (DDG), including inclusion rates, quality assurance, transportation issues and an introduction to U.S. DDG exporters. At the same time, U.S. DDG exporters and interested parties heard from global DDG buyers regarding personal experiences with the ethanol co-products as well concerns.
“This unique conference was an outstanding opportunity for sellers and buyers to talk face-to-face about feeding and purchasing U.S. distiller’s grains,” said Ken Hobbie, USGC president and CEO. “Questions were answered, concerns were addressed, and export potential was strengthened. The ‘rock star’ sponsors of this event were the Iowa Corn Promotion Board, South Dakota Corn Utilization Council and with additional support from the Nebraska Corn Board. These top ethanol producing states reinforced to farmers there commitment to increasing demand for U.S. feed grains, both domestically and across our borders.”
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PhibroChem is a specialty chemicals supplier featuring key products for a variety of industries, including ethanol. One of their main products is Lactrol, which is used during the process of alcoholic fermentation to prevent or reduce the potential yield loss caused by strains of lactic acid bacteria.
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Rick Boydston and his team with USDA’s Agriculture Research Service recently completed a study on the use of dried distillers grains, or DDGS, as a weed deterrent in container-grown ornamentals. The study was published in the 
Organizers say the theme reflects the continued growing importance of corn as a keystone to a carbohydrate-based economy. The conference has been expanded to include new topics in wet milling, dry grind technologies, value-added products from corn and new uses for distillers dry grains (DDGs) that will be of value to ethanol producers and livestock interests.
Among the speakers will be 
LifeLine Foods sells ethanol, but ethanol is just one of many products the company produces. The St. Joseph, MO-based corn milling plant started off as a manufacturer of snack foods in 2001. Today, LifeLine’s identity is continually evolving. The 51 percent farmer-owned company is committed to innovation and is now partnered with ICM, Inc, a world leader in ethanol facility design and engineering, in the production of ethanol.
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The ethanol industry in Brazil has been developing some major traction. Marcos Jank, President of 
USDA is expecting total U.S. corn use in 2008-09 to be 2 percent lower than the current marketing year, which ends in August. The report calls for reductions in feed and residual use and exports to more than offset a continued expansion in ethanol production. 
According to VeraSun’s Don Endres, “With fuel prices where they’re at, with diesel prices where they’re at, we need more fuel, and this will go right into the biodiesel market, fit right into that fuel stream so it’s a much more highly-valued in the fuel stream then, what it is as oil in the fuel.” 
The first-ever International Distillers Grains Conference in Illinois earlier this week attracted nearly 600 participants, including 144 international importers and leaders in agriculture.