Domestic Fuel

California’s efforts to reduce the carbon intensity of the state’s transportation fuels are admirable, but the state’s goals, as outlined in the proposed Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS), are unlikely to be achieved because of the policy’s inherent bias against low-carbon biofuels, says the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA).

In written comments to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) in advance of its April 23 hearing, the RFA outlined concerns about the LCFS that are particularly troubling to conventional and next generation ethanol producers.

Among RFA’s concerns are insufficient land use change analysis. According to RFA, the model CARB relies upon, known as GTAP, is not a mature model for estimating land use change because it does not sufficiently account for increased crop yields in the U.S. as a result of new technologies and includes insufficient feed co-product land use credits. RFA charges that the model also results in an overestimation of forest land being converted.

Read RFA’s entire comments here.

The 25th anniversary of the Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW) is fast approaching – June 15-18, 2009 in Denver, Colorado. Two awards will be presented this year to outstanding industry professionals: The High Octane Award and the Award of Excellence.

The High Octane Award is chosen by the industry and honors a person who has helped the ethanol industry mature and progress over the years. In general, the award is presented to an individual who has made a big impact on the ethanol industry. BBI will then announce the nominees and the industry will vote to determine the winner.

People can also submit nominees for The Award of Excellence. A qualified nominee is an individual who has published papers and/or made significant research, technical advisory and development contributions in the ethanol industry. The award winner will ultimately be chosen by committee, led by Dr. Kevin Hicks.

Deadlines for submitting nominations is May 1, 2009, and awards will be presented during the general session. For more information visit www.fuelethanolworkshop.com.

2009 marks the silver anniversary of the Fuel Ethanol Workshop, the industry's largest and most widely attended expo and educational event.

With the economy in mind, the 2009 International Fuel Ethanol Workshop & Expo has joined with the 2009 International Distillers Grains Conference & Trade Show and the Advanced Biofuels Workshop, to give industry professionals the ability to attend all three shows in one trip. In addition, FEW is offering a special deal for all existing and under construction ethanol plants to send two members of their team for free.

All three events will be held at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, with the Distillers Grains Conference kicking it off on June 14-15. The Advance Biofuels Workshop will be held on June 15 and the 2009 FEW on June 15-18.

Registration information and details for all three events, which are all organized by BBI International, can be found on-line here.

An Illinois-based technology services company recently unveiled a new set of “2nd Generation” technologies aimed at increasing the sustainability and profitability of corn-based ethanol plants.

According to MOR Technology, the MOR-Frac Plus+ Milling System in combination with their supercritical CO2 corn oil extraction technology can help plants “increase and diversify revenues by producing premium, value-added food-grade products, while also decreasing operating costs and environmental footprint.”

The company says its MOR-Frac™ Plus+ Milling System combines both dry and wet milling technology to offer the product purity and product yields achieved in wet milling, but with the energy efficiency, environmental impact, and capital/operating costs much closer to those of dry milling.

MOR is currently working with a number of customers, design-build firms and financing institutions to install the technology in corn-based ethanol plants around the country.

In addition, MOR Supercritical – an affiliate of MOR Technology based in Allentown, Pennsylvania – has started construction on a state-of-the-art plant that will showcase the company’s breakthrough supercritical fluid extraction technology for low-cost, high-volume commodity products. The 15 tonne-per-day plant will be located in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, and officials expect to complete construction in the third quarter of 2009.

MOR Supercritical has developed a corn oil and commodity oilseeds extraction system that uses proprietary breakthroughs in supercritical CO2 technology allowing for operating costs and energy use below that of hexane or mechanical extraction while also producing an all-natural, hexane-free corn oil for human consumption.

Exports of the primary by-product of ethanol production are continuing to skyrocket.

According to USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service, exports of distillers grains from the United States nearly doubled last year, up more than 90% from 2007 to total 4.51 million metric tons. Distillers grains are an ethanol co-product used as livestock feed.

About one-third of every bushel of corn used to produce ethanol becomes distillers grains, which Renewable Fuels Association Vice President of Research and Analysis Geoff Cooper says have become a very valuable co-product for ethanol producers. “This increasing production and use of distillers grains is providing livestock feeders across the globe with a high protein source of feed that can partially displace the need for whole corn and soybean meal in feed rations,” said Cooper. “As a result, distillers grains are an important and often overlooked component of both the fictitious debate about food versus fuel and the ongoing discourse surrounding the science of land use change.”

The largest markets for exports of distillers grains from the United States in 2008 were Mexico, Canada and Turkey.

Global demand is growing for the ethanol by-product distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), which is used for livestock feed – and the US Grains Council is helping to move that product.

At the U.S. Grains Council’s International Distillers Grains Conference in Indianapolis earlier this week, attendees heard that Mexico currently holds the title as the number one purchaser of U.S. DDGS, importing 708,000 metric tons in the 2007 calendar year. Canada follows in second place importing 317,580 tons last year. But other countries hold promise for increased imports, including Thailand and Russia.

Grains Council president and CEO Ken Hobbie said at the conference, “DDGS and its value in all types of animal rations shows that US grain producers have the capacity and the capability to produce for both food and fuel.” Hobbie said that if the four million tons of DDGS exported from the US this year were divided equally between all the major livestock food sectors it would produce 331,000 metric tons of chicken, nearly five billion eggs, almost 86,000 metric tons of beef, 1.8 million metric tons of milk and 205,000 metric tons of pork.

Listen to Hobbie’s remarks here, provided to DomesticFuel by Hoosier Ag Today:
usg-hobbie.mp3

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Export opportunities for the livestock feed co-product of ethanol production are increasing as the industry continues to grow. That was the main message to more than 500 who attended the second the U.S. Grains Council’s International Distillers Grains Conference this week in Indianapolis.

“The reason we’re holding this conference is that we are confident the U.S. ethanol industry will continue to grow due to efforts undertaken by the National Corn Growers Association and state producer organizations over the last several years,” said USGC president and CEO Ken Hobbie. “Due to the efforts of U.S. growers to establish the ethanol industry, we made DDGS our top priority in 2006 and since then have seen DDGS exports exceed 2 million metric tons annually.”

Senior Vice President of Informa Economics Scott Richman told the conference that as a result of the growth in the U.S. ethanol industry this year, 22.8 million tons of DDGS were available for global use in 2007/2008 marketing year, nearly a 50 percent increase from the 2006/2007 marketing year. He said the 2008/2009 marketing year, which just began on Oct. 1, will likely experience an additional 50 percent increase in the availability of DDGS, reaching 31.3 million tons.

“There will be a substantial amount of DDGS available for global livestock industries,” said Richman. “The U.S. Grains Council’s efforts promoting U.S. DDGS and opening several new markets across the globe is helping the U.S. ethanol industry in a big way.”

According to Informa, ethanol production this year is expected to total 9.3 billion gallons and projected to reach 11.9 billion gallons in 2009.

A major by-product of ethanol production will be the focus of an international conference next week in Indianapolis.

The U.S. Grains Council and USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service are co-sponsoring the International Distillers Grains Conference with approximately 140 major foreign buyers, nutritionists, and feed ingredient importers expected to attend. The meeting will be held October 19-21 at the Indianapolis Marriott Downtown.

Exports of DDGs expected to hit 3 million metric tons valued at an estimated $600 million this marketing year and next year they are projected to reach at least 4 million metric tons at $800 million, making this a major value-added commodity for the United States.

Registration for the conference is still open on-line at distillersgrainsconference.com.

America’s ethanol plants produced enough livestock feed last year to provide for all the cattle in the nation’s four largest feedlot states.

That is one of the findings in a new report from the Renewable Fuels Association on the role of the U.S. ethanol industry in food and feed production. According to their analysis, America’s ethanol producers delivered 23 million metric tons of livestock and poultry feed to the world last year, or nearly three times the amount of wheat, sorghum, barley and oats fed to U.S. livestock in the 2007/08 marketing year. That is roughly equivalent to the combined total amount of feed consumed by cattle on feed last year in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Colorado – the nation’s four largest feedlot states.

Only two-thirds of every bushel of grain processed by an ethanol plant is actually used for fuel production. The remaining one-third of the bushel is enhanced and returned to the animal feed market, most often in the form of distillers grains, corn gluten feed and corn gluten meal.

“The livestock feed co-products of ethanol production are the best kept secret of this industry,” said RFA President Bob Dinneen. “The focus of the public has been on the industry’s production of fuel ethanol as a renewable alternative to imported oil. But the production of a high quality livestock feed is equally important. Our industry is truly in the business of producing both feed and fuel.”

The report backs up RFA’s new television spots that highlight ethanol production in Hereford, Texas – the beef capital of the world.

Read the report here.

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:
ace-phibro.mp3

See the ACE 2008 Photo Album here

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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”.

The theme for the 6th Corn Utilization and Technology Conference (CUTC) is “Corn – New Horizons,” and ethanol is definitely a big part of that landscape.

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:
df-podcast-4.mp3

You can also subscribe to the Domestic Fuel Cast using the following url/feed link: http://www.zimmcomm.biz/domesticfuel/domestic-fuel-cast.xml.

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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

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