Alternative Energy Newswire » Biofuel

U.S. DOE Funds ‘Sunlight-to-Fuel’ Project

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:52:58 +0000

The U.S. Department of Energy Announced earlier this month that it would set aside more than $100 million to create an “Energy Innovation Hub” to encourage innovation around producing fuels directly from sunlight.

Fossil Fuel Subsidies Outpace Renewables

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:52:58 +0000

The research and consulting firm Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports that subsidies for fossil energies are far outweighing those for renewables. While many governments are putting support behind clean energy, the figures show that renewables are still far behind, reports BNEF.

More MN State Cars Use E85

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:52:54 +0000

More state vehicles in Minnesota are able to use up to 85 percent ethanol in their tanks, according to the American Lung Association in Minnesota.

So far this year, state agencies used 437,063 gallons of E85, a 25 percent increase over last year. Those figures come from the state’s SmartFleet Committee, a group tasked with helping agencies comply with Executive Order 04-10, issued by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The Faribault Academies, a campus of educational facilities serving deaf and blind Minnesotans, topped all others in the SmartFleet quarterly report, using E85 75 percent of the time they bought fuel. Another standout was the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, which reported 73 percent E85 use during the first half of the calendar year. In terms of sheer volume of E85 used, the state Department of Transportation used 170,617 gallons of cleaner-burning E85 in six months, compared to 376,312 gallons of gasoline and 690,798 gallons of B5 biodiesel blend fuel.

“This continued progress shows that the State of Minnesota is serious about its stated goal to reduce its petroleum consumption,” said Kelly Marczak, director for the American Lung Association in Minnesota’s clean fuel and vehicle technologies program and a member of the SmartFleet Committee. “In just six months, the state’s use of E85 in 2010 prevented more than 1,745 tons of lifecycle carbon dioxide emissions and harmful pollutants from entering our air.” In addition, the 5% biodiesel blend prevented 290 lbs of particulate matter, 400 lbs of hydrocarbons, 3,000 lbs of carbon monoxide and 700,000 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions.

The American Lung Association in Minnesota supports the use of E85 and biodiesel fuels in both public and private vehicles, as part of an overall strategy to reduce and prevent air pollution.

CORE BioFuel Engages RECAT Technologies to Pilot Biomass-to-Gasoline Production Reactors

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:51:25 +0000

CORE BioFuel Inc., a Canadian biofuel company that is commercializing an

advanced biomass-to-gasoline production process (earlier post), has engaged RECAT Technologies to complete a pilot of gasoline production reactors.

The MKS process is a thermochemical process combining gasification and catalysts to produce an essentially carbon-neutral 92 octane gasoline (Zero Fossil Input (ZFI) Gasoline), according to the company.

Upon completion of the planned pilot activities, CORE will have demonstrated the critical gasoline production steps in the MKS (Melnichuk-Kelly-Stanko) Gasoline Synthesis Process. The data from the pilot process will provide the specifications for the catalysts to be used in the gasoline production process as well as the design parameters required by the equipment fabricators to design and build the gasoline reactors needed for production facilities.

CORE intends to use woodwaste from Pine Beetle-damaged trees, forestry slash, and mill residues in british Columbia as feedstock.

Founded in 2003, RECAT Technologies Inc., is a University of Western Ontario [UWO] affiliated spin-off, specializing in the development and commercialization of innovative Reactor Engineering and Catalytic [RECAT]

Technologies.

CARB Proposes LCFS Soil Sustainability Provisions

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:56:35 +0000

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is far from over on discrediting biofuels as part of their mandated policy known as the Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS). For the past year, the ethanol industry has been embroiled in a fight for proper reflections of biofuel’s indirect greenhouse gas emissions, aka indirect land use. Now, CARB has created a working group to study soil sustainability provisions of biofuels. The specific crops under review at this time include corn ethanol, sugarcane ethanol, wood based fuels, palm oil, and soy biodiesel.

Today, CARB held a meeting to discuss this topic. In the proposed agenda, CARB offered several “loose” categories to be considered including carbon content, erosion, crop rotation, nutrition/chemical use, productivity, and crop expansion. I’ll kick myself for saying this, but I’m surprised they didn’t include water.

While I’m not sure what exactly has driven this new LCFS dimension of discussion, I can speculate that several recent events have in part led to this recent course of action. One is the Dead Zone/hypoxia issue which resurfaced when several scientists began calling the Dead Zone a bigger environmental catastrophe than the BP Oil spill. Corn and corn ethanol are being charged for creating the Dead Zone through its use of pesticides and fertilizers used in production.

Second, Friends of the Earth has been vocally opposed to how corn is produced and to corn ethanol (actually, to all current and future biofuels) and is currently engaged in a national campaign to end production of corn ethanol and reassess corn production methods.

While I do believe that soil sustainability is an area to be reviewed in general, I do not agree that you can regulate biofuels policy on this issue. Not only that, but like indirect land use, a theory not based in sound science, petroleum is not being held to the same standards. No where on the agenda is a discussion of the soil, or land implications of global petroleum production.

Last week, the University of Nebraska finally acknowledged that there are in fact, “indirect land use” effects of petroleum. Mainly transportation and war and released a study that examined these possible effects. More studies need to be conducted on this topic and I think they will.

As California moves to create more LCFS provisions on biofuels, consumers must call for CARB to consider the environmental implications of petroleum production. For the past three months, we have seen, first hand, some of the implications of oil with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill compliments of BP.

But we don’t need a spill to have land impacts of petroleum. Drilling, chemicals and water are all elements of production. What about the emissions spewing from our refineries? CARB has created a list of hazardous chemicals that can’t be used in biofuels production, but where is the list of chemicals that can’t be used in petroleum production as part of these provisions?

I realize that I sound like a broken record when I say this, but you cannot hold biofuels up to a standard that can’t be achieved, and not hold petroleum up to the same standard. If our goal is to produce more environmentally and sustainable fuels, then let’s do just that.

Butter Could be Biodiesel Feedstock

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:56:34 +0000

USDA researchers are studying the use of butter as a feedstock for biodiesel.

According to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists with USDA’s Ag Research Service looked into the concept of making butter that would otherwise go to waste into biodiesel.

Michael Haas and colleagues cite rising global demand for biodiesel, and the desire to expand the feedstock base, as motivating factors for their research. The United States alone has committed to producing 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, a major increase from the current annual production level of about 11 billion gallons. Most of that was ethanol. Biodiesel production, now approaching 1 billion gallons annually in the U.S., is also slated to increase. As researchers seek additional and affordable feedstocks for biodiesel production, these scientists turned to butter, one billion pounds of which are produced annually. Could surplus, spoiled, or nonfood-grade butter be used to make biodiesel at competitive prices?

In an effort to find out, the scientists recovered the fat from a quarter-ton of butter and converted it into the fatty acid esters that constitute biodiesel. They found that the resulting material met all but one of the official test standards for biodiesel. The study concluded that with further purification or by blending with biodiesel from other feedstocks butter biodiesel could add to the supply of biobased fuel for diesel engines.

Two Views on Impact of Ethanol Tax Credit Expiration

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:56:34 +0000

One agricultural economist is disputing the findings of another when it comes to the impact on the domestic ethanol industry of removing the existing blenders tax credit and the associated tariff on imported ethanol.

In dueling commentaries posted Tuesday on “The Hill’s Congress Blog,” Iowa State University’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) director and professor of economist Dr. Bruce Babcock, and ENTRIX technical director and agricultural economist John Urbanchuk share differing opinions about the impact of allowing allowing the current 45-cent-per-gallon ethanol blender’s tax credit (Volumetric Ethanol Excise Tax Credit, or VEETC) and 54-cent-per-gallon ethanol tariff to expire at the end of this year.

Babcock did a study, funded by the Brazilian sugarcane industry, that found there would be only a “modest” impact on the industry if the VEETC and tariff went away. Urbanchuk, who has done numerous economic studies for the U.S. ethanol industry, disagrees. “That’s true only if you take a “Field of Dreams” view of the ethanol industry: If we mandate that Americans use more ethanol, then someone, somewhere will produce that ethanol,” Urbanchuk writes. He says that “removing the tax credit would encourage the export of another U.S. industry.”

Meanwhile, Growth Energy notes in a blog post that the Babcock study assumes that the U.S. market will be able to utilize intermediate ethanol blends, such as E15, that will increase demand. According to the Babcock paper (top pg 12), “The key assumption here is not EPA approval, but rather, that EPA approves implementation of intermediate blends in a manner that increases the market demand for ethanol enough to sell 15 (billion gallons) at 75% of the price of gasoline.” Growth Energy says, “That is the essential contribution of the paper: if the ethanol industry gets access to a bigger share of the market, the government supports aren’t as important.” So, in other words, both views could be right, depending on whether or not the market is increased to 15 percent.

How to make biodiesel

admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:56:04 +0000

bioaxel asked:

´The whole chain from seed to diesel

Solar power

Energy Tags: alternative, biodiesel

No RES in Senate Energy Bill

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:19:35 +0000

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid released details of a newly drafted energy bill yesterday. The bill is more notable for what’s not in it, than what is in it.

The Award Winning Ethanol Report

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:19:33 +0000

The Ethanol Report podcast received a Golden ARC award this week from the Ag Relations Council in the newly revived competition that includes new social media categories. Chuck Zimmerman, president of Domestic Fuel’s parent company ZimmComm New Media received the award Tuesday, presented by ARC President Deron Johnson, during the Ag Media Summit (AMS) in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Matt Hartwig of the Renewable Fuels Association attended the summit of agricultural journalists this week and exhibited at their Info Expo for the first time. In this edition of the Ethanol Report, he talks about how RFA has been successfully using social media tools like Twitter and Facebook to communicate, and also about a new blog they recently launched called the E-xchange. Matt also discusses the Export Exchange event they are hosting with U.S. Grains Council in October to promote exports of the ethanol co-product DDGs for livestock feed.

Listen to or download the Ethanol Report podcast here. AMS Ethanol Report

Subscribe to this twice monthly podcast in iTunes by following this link.