Domestic Fuel

A Virginia ethanol plant that uses barley as a feedstock will be offering a unique co-product as livestock feed when it comes on line later this year.

Osage Bio Energy has contracted with Land O’Lakes Purina Feed to market its barley protein meal (BPM), a co-product of its ethanol bio-processing operation. Osage Bio Energy’s first plant, Appomattox Bio Energy, located in Hopewell, Va., is currently under construction and scheduled to come online in late spring 2010. When complete, it will be the first commercial scale barley-to-ethanol processing plant in the United States.

The company reports that BPM is a “new protein-rich animal feed ingredient.”

The innovative process design of Osage Bio Energy’s plant includes a specialized milling technique that removes the hulls from the barley — thus reducing the fiber and concentrating the protein and starch. The hulls will be pelletized on-site and sold as a renewable fuel source.

The nutritional profile of BPM has unique characteristics that differentiate it in the feeding world. It has a low fat profile and high protein and lysine content relative to other grain-based feeds. Additionally, because the product is derived from barley that has not been genetically modified, it represents a new source of non-GMO animal feed for global customers.

Appomattox Bio Energy has the capacity to produce up to 250,000 tons per year of barley protein meal annually.

As we’ve reported before, Biodiesel Analytical Solutions is teaming up with Mcgyan Biodiesel. I learned more about this at the recent National Biodiesel Conference when I spoke with David Wendorf, Mcgyan Director of Marketing. He’s seen here in their booth.

David says Mcgyan was formed about 6 months ago as the company to license their new biodiesel technology. It’s a process that uses a fixed bed catalyst using metal oxide to produce biodiesel. They can use all types of feedstock. That makes them flexible and able to choose the least expensive feedstock available. Feedstock is the most expensive component of the production process. He says they started out a couple years ago after discovering the process. Since then they’ve been scaling up to what is now a large size production facility. He says the plant is performing beyond their expectations.

You can listen to my interview with David here:

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The final general session of the National Biodiesel Conference featured a panel session titled, “Feeding the Biodiesel Machine: Understanding Feedstock Realities of Today and Tomorrow.”

Captivating new feedstocks for biodiesel have grabbed headlines around the world. But which hold the most promise for expanding the biodiesel industry’s immediate and long-term feedstock needs? What’s the secret behind playing the commodities market… and winning? In this panel we heard from industry experts with the inside track on feeding the feedstock machine. They included Dr. Dick Auld – Texas Tech University, Anne Frick – Prudential, Dallas Hanks – Utah State University, FreeWays to Fuel, Mary Rosenthal – Algal Biomass Organization and David Slade – Renewable Energy Group.

You can listen to the panel discussion below.

National Biodiesel Conference Photo Album

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I recently wrote about the potential of energy crops for biofuels, but there are many more opportunities including the biofuels value of planting winter crops or double crops. Last week during the AG CONNECT Expo, I spoke with Dr. Tom Richard, associate professor with Pennsylvania State University, who discussed the opportunities for biofuels and agriculture through the planting and harvesting of winter crops and double crops.

For many decades farmers have been encouraged to plant cover crops as an effort to reduce soil erosion, capture nutrients and improve soil quality. These cover crops are left on the ground and not marketed. The only difference with a double crop, explained Richard, is that it is marketed and becomes a second crop for the year.

“What we’re finding now with the biofuels industry is there’s potential to use what we’ve thought of as cover crops as double crops and actually market the material,” said Richard. “The above ground biomass could be a winter grain like winter rye, winter wheat or winter barley or could be an oil seed like winter canola or could be summer crop.”

Richard also explained that by going to a double crop or a winter crop, you will increase the net energy of the biofuel produced. The reason for this is that you are taking advantage of the sunlight and nutrients for a wider, longer growing season and a farmer can actually increase the productivity of that single piece of land by around 20 percent.

There are also advantages of planting winter or double crops from an environmental perspective. Most notably the roots are taking up nutrients and preventing erosion during the time of year that gets a lot of rain in many places throughout the country. The plants are also adding organic matter to the soil.

I asked Richard what the country needs to do to encourage farmers to begin growing these double or winter crops and he noted that subsidy programs are not enough. “We think a combination of some environmental subsidies plus a market for that second feedstock, that energy crop, will combine to make it a very attractive option.”

Listen to my interview with Tom below.

AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

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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.

On the Eve of the World Future Energy Summit, which began today in Abu Dhabi, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Honeywell UOP, Boeing and Ethiad Airways announced a project that would study how to combine fish farms and biofuel crops to lower CO2, reduce ocean waste and produce renewable jet fuel. The star feedstock? Salicornia.

Photo Credit: South Dakota State University

Salicornia, also known as glasswort, pickleweed and marsh samphire, is a salt tolerant plant that is high in oil and protein. It is native to North America, Europe, South Africa and South Asia. An edible plant, it is can potentially produce animal feed as well as biodiesel on coastal land where conventional crops are not suitable.

This is not the first project to study Salicornia as a way to reduce ocean pollution and create biofuels. Back in the late 90s early 2000s a group called the Seawater Foundation (now Global Seawater, Inc.)  did a pilot project in Eritrea and are currently doing a pilot project in Mexico.

According to Greentech Media, here is how it would work. Farmers would create ponds and streams for raising shrimp and/or tilapia interspersed with Salicornia and mangrove which would absorb the waste from the fish reducing the amount of pollution that would travel through the waterways. The fish would be harvested for food and the Salicornia would be harvested to make biofuels as well as fish food and the straw of the plant would be burned in a biomass reactor to produce electricity, explained Scott Kennedy, associate professor at the Masdar Institute working with MIT.

“It is a much more commercial ready process” than some forms of algae cultivation, Kennedy said.

The next step in the process will see if Salicornia can be grown in large quantities and if so, what the environmental effects will be on the surrounding ecosystems. Ultimately, the discovery of these answers will help determine the viability of the feedstock for biofuels production.

Corn may have competition for ethanol use from less expensive sorghum.

According to a survey by the United Sorghum Checkoff Program (USCP), 29 percent of the grain sorghum grown in the United States this year will be used to produce ethanol – a total of nearly 137 million bushels.

“In the past year, the price differential has greatly benefited the bottom line of ethanol plants using sorghum as a feedstock,” said USCP Board Chairman, Bill Greving. “This means that the use of sorghum by ethanol plants has influenced the increased demand for sorghum in these areas where ethanol plants are co-located with sorghum production.”

According to the survey, ethanol plants in areas where sorghum is grown prefer to use sorghum because of its availability and favorable price differential. It also suggests if grain prices jump like they did during 2007, 2008 and early 2009, demand for sorghum will increase dramatically, which will mean even more sorghum could be used in ethanol blends. Better yet, sorghum for grain-based ethanol production qualifies as an advanced biofuel feedstock.

Leading industries in the race to commercialize next generation biofuels told a House agriculture subcommittee hearing on Thursday that more funding and stable government policy are needed to do the job.

“The current financial crisis has prevented venture capitalists and bankers from investing in many worthwhile investments,” BP Biofuels North America president Susan Ellerbusch testified. “The industry and investors must see a secure market,” which she said, includes addressing the current 10 percent ethanol blend wall.

In addition to addressing the blend wall, Coskata president William Roe, whose company is pioneering low-cost production of ethanol from a variety of feedstocks, stressed the need for a consistent and inclusive biomass definition, as well as new or extended tax incentives. “Extend the cellulosic producer tax credit,” he suggested. “This expires in January of 2012 and consequently would provide little or no impact to even the earliest industry movers.” He also recommended flexibility in the monetization of biofuels tax credits.

Bruce Jamerson with Mascoma talked about shortcomings in the USDA loan guarantee program that should be addressed. “For example, as the project size increases, the loan guarantee amount reduces which discourages larger projects,” Jamerson said. His company found that the vast majority of commercial lenders are unwilling to work with the loan guarantee program because of its requirements.

The president of Osage Bio Energy, Craig Shealy, told the panel that existing federal loan guarantee programs are “either too restrictive or too structured around specifically technologies, excluding commercial scale biorefineries from eligibility.” He recommended revising those programs, as well as taking other policy steps, such as increasing the ethanol blend level to 15 percent and simplifying the RFS2.

Also testifying on the panel was Mary Rosenthal with the Algal Biomass Association, who called for greater recognition of the potential for algae-based fuels. “Algae should receive the same tax incentives, subsidies and other financial benefits allowed to other renewable fuels such as cellulosic ethanol,” she said.

Opening statements from all panelists are available on the House Agriculture Committee website.

Global Biodiesel Producer Lake Erie Biofuels today announced a name change to HERO BX and a new technology pathway for the future of biofuels.

CEO Leonard Kosar says America needs a hero in the biofuels business. “HERO BX stands for high-quality biodiesel and that is what we produce everyday using multiple feedstocks,” said Kosar. “In the future, we will utilize our proprietary blending technology to determine what the most efficient and cost competitive second and third generation feedstocks are and add them to our feedstock portfolio. We are not only a biodiesel company, we are a fuel technology company.”

Kosar says their biodiesel production strategy involves using multiple feedstocks primarily from vegetable oils and waste oils. “What most second and third generation biofuels are not doing today is actually producing biodiesel,” said Kosar. “HERO BX is producing superior biodiesel today using first generation feedstocks from waste oil to catfish oil, to vegetable oil, and tomorrow we will add to our feedstock portfolio the most efficient and cost competitive second and third generation feedstocks such as camelina and algae.” He stressed the need to control the feedstock supply, rather than have it control them.

HERO BX is supporting the new award winning documentary “FUEL” starring and directed by Josh Tickell. The film is launching nationwide this month. “We are a major supporter of the film,” Kosar said. “We don’t support everything in it, certainly in its position with oil companies, but we do support the full story that it gives on what biodiesel is and how it fits into energy policy over the next decade and what it means to America.”

HERO BX, formerly Lake Erie Biofuels, LLC, started operations in 2007 and is Pennsylvania’s first large-scale biodiesel production facility. A fully accredited BQ-9000 producer and marketer of biodiesel, HERO BX is the leading producer of biodiesel in the United States and distributes its fuel around the world.

Audio from the HERO BX announcement is posted here:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (3.7MB)

The “World’s Largest Urban Farm and Research Test Facility” is studying a wide variety of new feedstocks that hold promise for future sources of both ethanol and biodiesel.

Agricenter International recently offered a closer look at the new crops being grown there by the Memphis Bioworks Foundation AgBioworks program and BioDimensions, Inc. Among the crops that were planted this season were sweet sorghum (pictured), switchgrass, castor, pearl millet and sunflowers.

“Our intent with hosting this new crops field day was to educate people on the opportunities for these crops in the region by inviting a range of speakers to talk about crops from the field to the factory and also showcase these crops in the field, “ says Hillary Spain, AgBioworks 25Farmer Network Coordinator.

Spain says about 50 farmers and other interested individuals from throughout the region attended the field day on August 15 to learn about each crop, ask questions and see the crop under actual growing conditions in the field.