Burning Bio News

The U.S. ethanol industry continues to see improved efficiency, according to a new report released by USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist. Nitrogen use measured on a per bushel basis has declined by about 20% since the mid-90s. Similarly, all direct energy components have declined by about 50% since the mid-90s. Together, the nitrogen and direct energy reductions result in a 30% decline in the energy required to produce a bushel of corn. Recent energy use estimates show that the ratio of energy in ethanol to the external energy used to produce ethanol is about 1.4, even without allowing for the processing component of the byproduct credit. After fully allowing for heat used to produce byproducts, the energy ratio is between 1.9 and 2.3. If biomass is used at the plant for some of the power, the energy balance ratio increases to 2.8, even using the lower byproduct credit from the regression results.

Daniel O’Brien, Kansas State Research and Robert Wisner, Iowa State University recently presented their study on Measuring Supply-Use of Distillers Grains in the United States. This report examines the projected supply and use of distillers grains in the United States during next decade and provides a preliminary examination of how expanding the proportion of ethanol allowed to be mixed in U.S. fuels from 10% (i.e., E-10), to 11% (E-11) and 15% (E-15). The authors presented extensive information including the finding that moving to E-15 will challenge the complete utilization of distillers grains locally because the local markets are already approaching saturation.

“In an effort to conserve water and provide even greater sustainability our company has achieved the status of zero liquid discharge (ZLD)”, says Patriot Renwable Fuel LLC’s President and CEO Gene Griffith (Annawan, IL). Rick Vondra, Patriot plant manager, went on to say, “the short definition for this process is that we fully utilize use all of the water that enters the plant, therefore using less overall, and the production wells are less impacted. More importantly, it means that no wastewater is discharged into the environment.”

The Fiberight plant in Blairstown, IA, is using waste fibers from International Paper’s nearby Cedar River mill to make cellulosic ethanol. The company plans to introduce organic pulps, the stuff made from residential trash, to the fuel-making process within weeks. The plant should be able to produce up to six-million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year when it reaches capacity in 2011.

A new University of Illinois at Chicago study of facilities that produce most of the nation’s ethanol found that the energy needed to make a gallon of the corn-based fuel decreased on average by about 30 percent within the past decade. Steffen Mueller, principal research economist at UIC’s Energy Resources Center, surveyed the nation’s 150 “dry mill” ethanol plants. He said his survey shows that adoption of new technologies reduces energy production needs.

According to the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Commerce and the Census Bureau indicate U.S. ethanol exports increased significantly in 2010. In March, the U.S. exported more than 45 million gallons of ethanol. For the first quarter of 2010, U.S. exports exceeded 83 million gallons. By country, Canada and the Netherlands were the top importers of U.S. ethanol. U.S. ethanol is also finding its way into Brazil and OPEC nations in the Middle East.

Doty Energy WindFuels (SC) will use wind power to produce electricity, transportation fuel and reduce CO2. Wind energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Some of the hydrogen is used in chemical process that convert CO2 and Hydrogen into Hydro-carbon fuels (ethanol, gasoline, jet fuel or diesel). The first pre-commercial WindFuels plant could be producing 50 million gallons of liquid fuels per year by 2014.

Archer Daniels Midland Co. reported that ADM’s corn processing operating profits increased by $55 million during the third quarter during the company’s quarterly earnings call. Thanks to improved ethanol margins, profit in bioproducts was up significantly from the previous year’s loss, the company reported. Stronger lysine sales volumes and margins were also reflected in the results. On the other hand, profit in sweeteners and starches dropped $101 million from the previous year, due to lower prices only partially offset by lower corn costs.

Fiberight has begun cellulosic ethanol production at the former first generation corn ethanol plant in Blairstown, Iowa. The primary feedstock is municipal solid waste (MSW). Following a total $24 million investment, the facility will be scaled to final commercial production capacity of approximately 6 million gallons of biofuel per year in 2011. At full production, the Blairstown plant will be processing over 350 tons of wastes per day into valuable biofuel, at a cost of less than $1.65 per gallon.

Florida-based Algenol Biofuels is partnering with a Valero Services, a subsidiary of Texan oil and gas firm Valero Energy. Valero is the oil company that bought 7 bankrupt ethanol plants. Algenol is developing a direct-to-ethanol process, which involves growing carbon dioxide-saturated, blue-green algae in bioreactors with saltwater. In June last year, Algenol also teamed up with Dow Chemical to build a demonstration plant at Dow’s site in Freeport, Texas. The facility will comprise 3,100 algae cultivating bioreactors, which are expected to produce 100,000 gallons per year of ethanol.

Revisions to a Purdue University economic analysis have cut about 10 percent of the total emissions expected from an increase in corn ethanol production. The findings, released in a report to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, show that ethanol could be a somewhat better option than previously thought for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Wally Tyner, a Purdue agricultural economist and the report’s lead author, said revisions to the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model better reflect market conditions and land productivity than a 2009 report that showed corn ethanol wouldn’t significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions over gasoline.

The Hoke County, NC, 60 million gallon per year, ethanol plant is expected to start producing its first batch of ethanol Saturday, May 1. Dave Walters, human resources manager at Clean Burn Fuels, said various construction and other delays pushed back the production start date by months.

North Dakota’s ethanol industry has established a promotional checkoff for ethanol. The state’s five ethanol manufacturers have volunteered to set aside three-hundredths of 1 cent for every gallon of fuel they produce. The assessment will go to the new North Dakota Ethanol Council for industry promotion and market development.

ZeaChem announced that they have successfully produced commercial grade ethyl acetate, thereby proving the immense value of its core technology platform. The ethyl acetate ZeaChem is capable of producing holds wide scale applications, from solvents in paints to pharmaceuticals but perhaps most importantly, ethyl acetate can be refined to produce ethanol, a potential alternative to standard petroleum fuel. ZeaChem’s production process will offer a cheaper alternative to current natural gas feedstock based processes.

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.

Powers Energy hopes to power its planned $250 million bioethanol plant in Schneider, IN, using a solar panel system, company President Earl Powers. The Evansville-based company has been in talks with Northern Indiana Public Service Co. regarding the energy producing system, which Powers said would be placed on the roof of the plant’s 23-acre processing building. Powers said the plant would use only 50 percent of the energy it creates, and would sell the rest back to NIPSCO. The plant will be one of the first in the world to use a patented anaerobic fermentation process to produce ethanol from garbage on a large scale.

Over the last two years, ethanol plants smaller than 60 MMgy were slightly more profitable than large plants, according to “Biofuels Benchmarking,” an annual report released by Christianson & Associates. That might be surprising news for an industry that has been, in recent years, constructing larger plants, reaching for lower capital cost per gallon and operating efficiencies. Christianson & Associates, a certified public accountants and consultant company, first released the annual report in 2003, with only eight ethanol plants participating. For this report, which looks at plant data from 2009, more than 50 ethanol plants of all sizes, locations and ages submitted information.

Powers Energy One of Indiana LLC has the land and support of the town of Schneider, IN to build its solid waste-to-ethanol plant. Now it needs the permits. The plant will gasify trash and feed the gas to bacteria, which would feed off the gas and produce ethanol as a byproduct. The facility needs to be permitted by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau before the plant’s construction can begin. Powers said the Lake County plant will produce 160 million gallons a year when running at full capacity.

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.

Construction crews began arriving on site in Aurora, NE this week with plans to complete construction of the 113-million gallon ethanol plant by Sept. 1. Aventine Renewable Energy emerged from bankruptcy in late February and recently announced plans to finish construction on plants in Aurora and Mt. Vernon, Ill., both of which stand at about 85 percent complete.