Burning Bio News

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a report outlining both the current state of renewable transportation fuels efforts in America and a plan to develop regional strategies to increase the production, marketing and distribution of biofuels to 36 billion gallons of biofuel per year by 2022. USDA’s report identifies numerous biomass feedstocks to be utilized in developing biofuels and calls for the funding of further investments in research and development of: feedstock; sustainable production and management systems; efficient conversion technologies and high-value bioproducts, and decision support and policy analysis tools.

Commercial flower growers want to tap into the growing market of consumers looking for sustainable products, but those growers aren’t willing to go through a difficult and costly certification to do it at this time. Purdue University faculty Roberto Lopez, Jennifer Dennis, and Maria Marshall, found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. growers aren’t interested in spending the time and money to become certified as sustainable. One-third hadn’t even heard of certification organizations such as Veriflora and MPS, which can charge thousands of dollars for certifications.

In 2009, energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States saw their largest absolute and percentage decline (405 million metric tons or 7.0 percent) since the Energy Information Administration began keeping records in 1949. The slow economy played a large role, but there were also shift from high carbon fuels (coal) to lower carbon fuels (natural gas, biomass, and nuclear). The US shifted away from dirtier, primary manufacturing to cleaner, high tech industries. This latter kind of indicates that the US is just farming out the more carbon-intensive industries. Still, it looks like all the lost jobs and closures of the last two years have at least taken our US emissions levels back to about 1995 levels.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., POET CEO Jeff Broin said they have made enough progress on technology and feedstock development to break ground on their first cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa later this year. “By 2022, POET plans to be responsible for 3.5 billion gallons of cellulosic ethanol production by adding the technology to our existing facilities, licensing our technology to other producers and finally, transferring our technology to other forms of biomass such as wheat straw, switchgrass and municipal waste,” Broin said.

The USDA’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program proposed rule comment period expired April 9 and the USDA is sorting through the 24,000-plus comment submissions to formulate a fair and consensus-driven rule. The proposed rule was released Feb. 8, and a 60-day time frame was allowed for individuals or groups to weigh in on BCAP by submitting feedback on numerous program elements. Some key provisions in the proposed rule included eliminating the dry tonnage measure and adapting to industry norms, scaling back matching collection, harvest, storage and transport (CHST) payments of certain qualifiers, and seemingly the most debated provision, a prohibition on wood materials that might otherwise be used for higher-value purposes.

On March 26, 2010, the U.S. EPA published the Renewable Fuel Standard Program (RFS2) Final Rule. The ‘rule’ has been circulating for several months, but it was only published in the Federal Register last week. RFS2 builds on the first RFS program, included in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. That required 7.5 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be blended into gasoline by 2012. For more information about the rule, visit http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/renewablefuels/index.htm.

Under the expanded Renewable Fuels Standard, or RFS2, all producers of ethanol regardless of feedstock will be required to register with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In an effort to help ethanol producers understand what they need to do, the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has created two documents intended to provide producers with information they need to comply: 1) a comprehensive 29-page summary that includes detailed explanations of the steps necessary to help guide both grain ethanol and cellulosic ethanol producers through the process, and 2), a shorter registration checklist that includes all the key steps and deadlines for ethanol producers to register and begin generating Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) necessary to track the required use of ethanol.

The American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association filed a lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s Renewable Fuels Standard 2 (RFS2) rule. The RFS2 rule was finalized and published in the Federal Register March 26. The groups are challenging the legality of EPA’s actions because the agency made the rule effective on July 1, 2010, but combines the 2009 and 2010 biomass-based diesel volumes and makes the rule retroactive to January 1, 2010.

The American Le Mans Series (ALMS) and its technical operations affiliate, International Motorsports Association (IMSA), has formally approved a butanol blend as the fifth energy source for race cars in the series. ALMS entrants are already running on E10 (10 percent ethanol), cellulosic E85, diesel and hybrid-electric power. The first team expected to use butanol on a full-time basis will be Dyson Racing with its Mazda-powered Lola prototypes.

New renewable fuel standards could lead to more than $13 billion increase in net farm income, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International and Texas A & M University. The study, “RFS2 Final Rule Life Cycle Analysis Supplemental Materials,” funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, analyzed the economic impacts of new EPA renewable fuels standards (RFS). – mj: The press release also mentioned and increase in food prices by about $10 per person annually by 2022. Inflation will increase food prices more than that in the next 12 years. Looks more like a news ‘grabber’ than a useful finding.

On Feb. 2, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized its regulations for the national Renewable Fuel Standard. The bottom line is that the EPA determined that corn grain ethanol reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 20 percent and qualifies it as a conventional biofuel. The ethanol industry hailed this finding as a significant victory and a new market opportunity, while the livestock sectors stated that not much was new. Cole Gustafson, Biofuels Economist from NDSU cautions that as long as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) is backing a more restrictive use of ethanol policy ethanol use will be constrained.

The Obama administration announced that it has drafted rules that would require federal government to take climate change into consideration for the first time when judging actions under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). According to the statement, any proposed activity would have to emit the equivalent of 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide “to trigger a quantitative analysis.” The Statement can be viewed at: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/documents/post-carbon/NEPA-Guidance-FINAL-02182010.pdf

The U.S. EPA has come up with a new system for renewable identification number (RINs) that should be easier to use as well as cut down on the possibility of human error. A new, web-based reporting system, the EPA Moderated Transaction System (EMTS), has been developed to replace the cumbersome 38-digit RIN reporting system.

The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) collects farm data for the USDA. They recently released a study on the changes in farm numbers for 2009. They reported the number of farms in the United States in 2009 is estimated at 2.2 million, virtually unchanged from 2008. Total land in farms, at 919.8 million acres, decreased 110 thousand acres from 2008. The average farm size is 418 acres, unchanged from the previous year. –mj: The real finding was at the end of the report where NASS ran research on there two predominant methodologies for assessing farm numbers and found that the Census methodology produced more real farms than their standard survey method. Just as impressive is that NASS works very hard to always do a better job. They set their standards of quality higher than most agencies. Well done, NASS!

During the 2010 National Biodiesel Conference, held in Grapevine, Texas, during February, General Motors (GM) announced that a new lineup of their heavy-duty diesel pickups will have B20 biodiesel capability. GM has substantially revised their Duramax 6.6L turbo diesel engine to include B20 capability, as well as meet strict new emissions standards effective this year.

In response to the technical and financial problems that cellulosic ethanol producers have been facing, the Environmental Protection Agency revised its 2010 mandate for next generation fuels from 100 million gallons to 6.5 million gallons – a 93.5% decrease in production requirements.

The “Jobs Impact of a National Renewable Electricity Standard” study, conducted by Navigant Consulting, Inc., found that a 25% by 2025 national RES would result in 274,000 more renewable energy jobs over no-national RES policy. This additional employment is equivalent to 2.36 million additional job-years by 2025.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will no longer consider corn-based ethanol as damaging to the atmosphere as gasoline in their revised Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) rules. EPA said new data showed that, even after taking into account increased fertilizer and land use, corn-based ethanol can yield significant climate benefits by displacing conventional gasoline or diesel fuel. –mj: While I am not directly part of the corn ethanol industry, EPAs earlier position on ethanol made no sense.

Minnesota has relaxed its biofuels mandate by temporarily suspending a requirement for No. 1 diesel fuel to be blended with 5 percent of biodiesel for the remaining duration of the winter, state officials said Wednesday. The decision, which takes effect Friday, Jan. 15, was arrived at after filtering system problems were discovered in trucks in extremely cold parts of the state, said Phil Smith, a spokesman at the state Department of Commerce, which enforces the biofuels mandate.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission plans to hold a meeting on Jan. 14 to consider whether to propose a rule on energy position limits.