Domestic Fuel

The IZOD IndyCar Series makes its debut this weekend in South America with the Sao Paulo Indy 300 powered by Brazilian ethanol.

The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) has renewed its fuel supply agreement with the Indy Racing League for the 2010 IZOD IndyCar Series season, which opens on Sunday, March 14, with a race in Brazil’s largest city, São Paulo. Under the new agreement, the IZOD IndyCar Series will continue to utilize sugarcane ethanol to fuel its race cars, including at its signature event, the Indianapolis 500.

At the inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300, to be run on a street circuit in São Paulo, Brazil, the ethanol will be supplied by one of UNICA’s member companies, Copersucar S.A., Brazil’s largest sugar, ethanol and bioenergy conglomerate, with 36 associated sugar and ethanol mills.

Everyone needs an excuse to go to Italy and now you have one – Solarexpo. Solarexpo in an international conference and expo on renewable energy and distributed generation. The event will be held on May 5-7, 2010 in Italy and as part of the event, is launching the R4R – Research for Renewables event.

R4R is a “research consortium” of sorts representing Italy’s entire range of renewable energy technologies. Organizations involved in research, technology developments, university spinoffs and innovative startups have the opportunity to be involved. The concept has been developed and managed in partnership with Galileia, a spinoff from the engineering faculty of the University of Padua that specializes in the energy sector.

“With the R4R project, Solarexpo is building on its innovative approach and continuing to create new spaces in which the vast worlds of renewable energy can come together. R4R is our way of engaging with parts of the renewables sector that would only be marginally interested in a traditional exhibition event: the world of research and new companies in the renewable energy field,” said Luca Zigale, scientific director of Solarexpo. “This is an environment that is evolving rapidly and is full of new talents, ideas and projects, but isn’t very visible for more established companies and public sector decision makers.”

Another interesting twist of the R4R is that is will have a dedicated hall in Solarexpo and 20 of the most promising startup companies will be selected to exhibit at no charge. In conjunction with the expo, a series of networking events, informational sessions and workshops will take place around two themes: “Research Day” and “Green Financing Day”.

But what may be the coolest thing about 4R4 is its support of young, innovative companies that have great ideas but not enough funding. This event will give these companies that audience they need to attract investments and bring these cutting-edge technologies to market.

You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

Dutch shipping giant Maersk Line is joining with Lloyd’s Register to test biodiesel in its marine engines for the next two years.

This story from the Journal of Commerce says the feasibility study on the container ship Maersk Kalmar will be funded in part by the Dutch government:

Using fatty acid methyl esters – a biodiesel product known as FAME — the tests will use a blend of between 5 percent and 7 percent biodiesel to examine a long list of potential problems.

“One of the aims of the tests is to establish the degree to which issues experienced by the automotive industry in the use FAME, will be duplicated on board ship, in particular the impact on storage stability, handling and its subsequent use in the engine. Where adverse effects are arising it is hoped to find solutions to overcome them,” said Kim Tanneberger, specialist of Lloyd’s Register’s Strategic Research Group.

In addition to testing the performance in its engines, Maersk will be looking at storage issues with the biodiesel.

The Global Renewable Fuels Alliance (GRFA) has come out today calling a recent OPEC report “self serving.” The report, co-written by the former Secretary General of the OPEC oil cartel, criticized biofuels while according to GRFA, ignoring the overwhelming evidence on the devastating impact of crude oil on the environment and on our economies. The report will be released during the International Energy Forum’s meeting in Cancun, Mexico this month.

“This report would be laughable if the risks associated with our dangerous reliance on oil were not so serious,” said Bliss Baker, spokesperson for the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance. “OPEC has dedicated its history to keeping oil prices artificially high and combating any threat to the shocking wealth of its members. It was only a matter of time until it attacked biofuels.”

GRFA notes that biofuels represent a competitive threat to crude oil but also acknowledge that the implementation of renewable fuels standards by governments around the world have the practical effect of lowering prices at the pump.  A trend, not surprisingly, that OPEC has no interest in seeing continue. For example, according to a report from Merrill Lynch commodity strategist, “retail gasoline prices would be $21/bbl higher, on average, without the incremental biofuel supply.”

Countries around the world are expanding their biofuels production to meet increased energy needs at the same time as addressing growing greenhouse gas emission concerns that lead to global climate change. In 2009, global biofuels production exceeded 80 billion litres.

According to Baker, the report ignores the horrific impact on economies due to high crude oil prices, especially those in developing nations as well as fails to address the positive impact biofuels production has on fuel supplies and prices. “In an era of ever increasing oil prices, biofuels production is more important than ever,” added Baker. “Our industry is calling on the OPEC oil cartel to embrace biofuels and the competition that it brings to the global fuels markets instead of stifling competition and keeping prices high.”

Baker concluded, “I can only conclude that this self-serving piece of research is an attempt to slow down biofuels production. Perhaps OPEC finally sees biofuels as competition. If that’s the case I suspect we can see similar future so-called reports on biofuels from OPEC.”

A new market research report says that the biodiesel market will be worth $12.6 billion by the year 2014.

This press release says the MarketsandMakets report, entitled ‘Global Biodiesel Market (2009 – 2014)’, says the markets in Europe and the Americas will make up nearly 85 percent of that total, with 55.6 percent and 28.6 percent respectively:

Increasing environmental concerns and the need for energy independence have led to the biodiesel market. Despite the economic recession, global biodiesel production totaled 5.1 billion gallons in 2009, representing a 17.9% increase over 2008 levels. The biodiesel market is expected to grow from $8.6 billion in 2009 to $12.6 billion in 2014. Market growth is primarily dependent on the availability, quality, and yield of feedstock, as it accounts for 65% to 70% of the cost of biodiesel production.

While growth may be affected by feedstock availability issues and the food v/s fuel debate, the market is expected to witness a paradigm shift with the increasing conversion efficiency of existing feedstock, and the development of newer feedstock sources such as algae.

You can read more of the report here.

There is no shortage of potential feedstocks for biofuels and yesterday, Evogene Ltd based in Rehovot, Israel announced that it will be conducting field trials in Texas and Brazil of its proprietary castor bean lines. The trials will be conducted in conjunction with Texas AgriLife Research in Texas, which is part of the Texas A&M System, and South Cone Agriculture in Brazil. This is the first round of trials outside of Isreal and the castor beans have been designed for higher yield and growth on semi-arid land making it a candidate for second generation biofuel production.

According to Evogene, the purpose of the field trials in Texas and Brazil is to evaluate the lines when grown in the two main target locations for future commercial growth, and further develop them to local conditions. The semi-arid land potentially available for castor commercial growth in these areas is estimated at over 10 million hectares and the climate conditions are suitable for this purpose.

In a company statement, Ofer Haviv, Evogene’s President and CEO said, “During the past few years, in addition to our well-established and rapidly growing agbio trait activities, our biofuel activity has grown with the castor project being a key component. Both the U.S.A. and Brazil have strong potential in terms of land availability, commitment to biofuels and ability to develop large scale agriculture industries. We look forward to working with the professional teams at Texas AgriLife Research and South Cone Agriculture to test our castor lines and further develop them towards commercialization.”

Evogene selected castor beans in part due to the growing demand of biodiesel in Brazil and America, although the biodiesel industry in the U.S is currently undergoing some challenges with the expiration of its tax credit. The biodiesel industry is working furiously to get this, other other safe guards that will continue to move the industry forward, into place.

“There is an immediate need for a sustainable, widely available and cost efficient second-generation plant feedstock for biofuels. We believe that the castor bean varieties Evogene is developing can provide a solution for the industry,” concluded Haviv.

Another major oil company has entered the Brazilian ethanol market – Shell. According to Brazilian newspaper Valor Econômico, Shell and Cosan S.A., Brazil’s largest producer of ethanol, signed a Memorandum of Understanding. Moving forward, the two companies hope to create several new joint ventures to the tune of $12 billion that will produce sugar-based ethanol as well as electricity and focus on retail distribution.

According to Green Car Congress, Cosan is the third largest sugar producer in the world, fifth largest ethanol producer in the world and the largest ethanol exporter in the world. Cosan owns and operates 23 ethanol plants.

In an article in the Financial Times, Mark Williams, Shell’s Director of downstream operations said, “Cosan represents the best entry to sustainable biofuels in the market – the best entry of scale…we will take the lowest-carbon, least-impact form of ethanol and leverage that into a worldwide opportunity.”

There are currently trade barriers in the form of a 54 cent tariff on Brazilian ethanol entering the U.S. marketplace, and another current barrier to “worldwide exports” was created when the country reduced is mandatory ethanol blend to 20 percent, down from 25 percent. The temporary mandate was put in place in response to a smaller sugarcane harvest than expected due to excessive rain.

This action, in conjunction with the public call for “Brazilian ethanol” from many politicians and citizens alike spurred Growth Energy’s CEO Tom Buis to respond, “This is the perfect illustration of why it makes no sense to become dependent on any foreign source of energy – whether it’s Middle East oil or Brazilian sugarcane ethanol. Between high sugar prices and a sugarcane crop shortage, Brazil can’t meet its own ethanol needs – let alone the ethanol needs of the United States.”

“Yet time and time again we hear from critics of American ethanol that Brazilian ethanol is the solution…We can produce more than enough ethanol in this country using domestic feedstock, and we should. It makes no sense to replace our dependence on foreign oil with a dependence on foreign ethanol, especially if it forces job losses and would drive up prices if Brazil has another sugarcane crop shortage,” concluded Buis.

An energy source made from biomass that’s touted as “magic coal from the steam cooker” will make its debut at the Energy from Biomass and Waste conference January 26-27, 2010 at the Royal Horticultural Halls & Conference Centre in London, England.

This press release says “Green Coal,” invented the German company the G+R Technology Group, will be produced at the first industrial production plant for biocoal:

It took nature millions of years – by means of simple chemical processings mankind is in the meantime capable to solve the issue within just a few hours: biowastes, crop residues and organic wastes result in highly efficient combustibles, at the same time offering a profitable benefit to the environment. Compared to brown or black coal, the “Green Coal” Gco(c) is completely CO2-neutral and will contribute to a considerable reduction of CO2 emissions.

Fossile energy sources such as gas, oil and coal are finite, expensive, make us dependent and strongly impact the environment. Renewable energies therefore presently face a boom, also in the UK. The green active coal might be a genuine alternative to solar cells, wind turbines and others. The Green Coal Gco(c) production process was for the first time described in 1913 by the German chemist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Berguis. Recently it was rediscovered by the Max-Planck-Institute and is currently considered as alternative hope for the future when it comes to climate. The production process – the so-called Hydrothermal Carbonisation (HTC) in technical terms – is simple in principle and reminds you of cooking: all kinds of organic biomass are put into a kind of steam cooker, water is added as kind of converter and finally the mixture is heated. After a couple of hours the Green Coal Gco(c) emerges.

G+R Tech also says the Green Coal method could be applied to all organic residues and biowastes, even animal wastes and sewage sludges.

If anyone has a chance to see this technology next week in England, let me know if this is what it seems to be on the surface.

This morning Novozymes held is annual 2009 4th quarter sales call and earning report and overall it was favorable. While 2009 began with a rocky start for Novozymes and the majority of the ethanol industry, with effective management the company was able to finish off the year on a positive note.

Steen Riisgaard, President and CEO, noted, “After a shaky start to 2009, I’m very pleased with the way we managed our business throughout the year. We were able to deliver on our earnings guidance communicated at the beginning of the year by responding rapidly to the challenging market conditions. Looking at 2010, we expect a positive development but with continued low visibility. And even with the current market conditions, we see very favorable long-term trends for Novozymes and remain confident of our ability to deliver on our long-term targets.”

Overall, in 2009 the company’s sales were up by 4 percent with an increase in 7 percent just during the 4th quarter as compared to 2008. Some of this can be attributed the company’s commitment to developing more effective enzymes for biofuels production, with enzyme sales to the biofuel industry up 7 percent and Novozymes maintained a market share of more than 60 percent throughout 2009. In addition, its partnership with leading technology companies who are currently producing first generation biofuels and are developing second and third generation biofuels have had a positive impact.

For 2010, Novozymes expects both of its enzyme business and biobusiness to grow between 2-6 percent.

To access the full earnings report, click here.

Iogen Corporation is moving cellulosic ethanol closer to commercial reality.

The Canadian company produced over 581,000 liters (153,484 gallons) of cellulosic ethanol in 2009, more than double its 2008 production. That brings the company’s total cumulative production to more than one million liters since 2004, heading cellulosic ethanol into the realm of viable commercial production.

“Advanced renewable fuels such as cellulosic ethanol will play a critical role in meeting future energy demands, and Iogen is playing a vitally important role in the commercialization of this technology,” says Gordon Quaiattini, President of the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association.