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.

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.

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.

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 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.

An early-stage company spun out of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, plans to commercialize a catalytic process for converting cellulosic biomass into five of the chemicals found in gasoline. Anellotech’s reactors perform a process called “catalytic pyrolysis,” which converts three of the structural molecules found in plants–two forms of cellulose and the woody molecule lignin–into fuels. Ground-up biomass is fed into a high-temperature reactor and blended with a catalyst.

Virent Energy Systems, Inc. and Shell today announced the successful start of production at their demonstration plant that converts plant sugars into gasoline and gasoline blend components, rather than ethanol. The demonstration plant, located at Virent’s facilities in Madison, Wisconsin USA, is the latest step in a joint biogasoline research and development effort, announced by both companies in March 2008. The demonstration plant has the capacity to produce up to 38,000 litres (10,000 U.S. gallons) per year, which will be used for engine and fleet testing.

Great River Energy unveiled plans Wednesday in Jamestown for a first-of-its-kind $300 million biorefinery near its power plant, Spiritwood Station, ND, 10 miles east of the city. The biorefinery is expected to go online with the production of cellulosic ethanol, primarily using wheat straw, by 2015. Project development and feasibility studies are under way now. Broekema said a 20-million-gallon biorefinery would need 480,000 tons of crop residue, mostly wheat straw and/or corn stover a year from a 70-mile radius. Huge bales would need to be trucked in seven days a week.

A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have figured out a chemical process for getting the sugar molecules out of inedible plant biomass. Most front running commercial technologies rely on biological or thermal conversion technologies. The researchers were able to get about as much sugar out of biomass as the more-expensive enzymes usually used. This could significantly cut the cost of cellulosic ethanol, helping move that industry forward.

Shell announced that the 2010 season Formula One fuel supplied for Scuderia Ferrari contains an advanced biofuels component derived from cellulosic ethanol made from straw. This will be the first time an advanced biofuel has been used in the Shell V-Power race fuel used by technical partner Ferrari, in Formula One.

The University of York and University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom announced that a crustacean called the “Gribble worm” is a source of cellulose-transforming enzymes. The Gribble worm is more known as a pest that eats the hulls of ships. It turns out the bacteria in its stomach produces the requisite enzymes that can break cellulose into simple sugars.

A large number of advanced biofuel industry members are urging Congress to grant an investment tax credit to advanced biofuel producers in order to help overcome financial barriers associated with the timely development of commercial-scale projects. Advanced biofuel producers are currently eligible for a federal production tax credit of 30 percent, but the incentive is unused because there are no operating commercial-scale facilities.

Range Fuels, Inc., announced that it had received a loan note guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and closed its related $80 million bond issuance. The proceeds from the $80 million bond will be used to partially finance the first two phases of construction of Range Fuels’ first commercial cellulosic biofuels plant using renewable and sustainable supplies of non-food biomass near Soperton, Georgia.

James Dumesic, a chemical engineer at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has found catalysts that will convert gamma-valerolactone (GVL) extremely efficiently to liquid hydrocarbons. The hydrocarbons can be used directly in petrol (gasoline) or jet fuel – no ethanol-style ‘blending’ required. GVL itself is created from two acids which are formed when other acids are used to break down cellulose into sugars.

Two of the world’s leading companies in the enzyme business, Novozymes and Danisco of Denmark, announced this week that they had found a way to produce enzymes that could reliably and affordably convert agricultural waste into cellulosic ethanol. The developments at Novozymes and Danisco are being touted by the companies as a way to avoid using food feedstocks like corn in the creation of biofuels. According to Novozymes, advances in the enzyme development have reduced costs by 80 percent over the past couple of years, bringing the cost of a gallon of cellulosic ethanol within striking distance of $2 a gallon.

University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a technology to produce ethanol from organic waste products. Daniell’s technique — developed with U.S. Department of Agriculture funding — uses plant-derived enzyme cocktails to break down orange peels and other waste materials into sugar, which is then fermented into ethanol.

American Process Inc. is ready to begin small-scale production of ethanol at its new Thomaston, GA plant. The American Process technology ferments sugar byproducts from the paper production industry into ethanol. With this technology, a medium-sized pulp mill could produce about 14 million gallons of ethanol.

A 55 MW power plant has been proposed to be built in Shelton, WA. Construction of the biomass plant is a joint venture between equipment manufacturer John Deere, and Adage LLC. Once completes, the plant will provide approximately 125 direct and 150 indirect jobs.

ZeaChem Inc., a developer of biorefineries for the conversion of renewable biomass into fuels and chemicals, announced it has produced bio-based acetic acid at the purity concentration level of a salable product. Acetic acid is a commercial product and is also ZeaChem’s intermediate building block for the production of cellulosic ethanol and bio-based chemicals. “ZeaChem’s biggest fermentation hurdles are now behind us and we have significantly de-risked future integrated operations”.