Burning Bio News

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.

Expansion of 28 locally-grown fruits and vegetables examined by Dave Swensen, Iowa State University. The states studied were Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The study showed that a significant amount of produce could be grown locally, but success depends on the development of new infrastructures in Midwest communities to advance the use of local food, locally.

Morbark, Inc. now offers a second Quick Switch conversion kit, allowing grinder owners to further diversify their product offerings by simply modifying the hammermill of their Morbark horizontal grinder. This gives Morbark grinder owners the capability to produce mulch, high quality chips or sawdust – with just one machine. Markets for sawdust include animal bedding, wood fuel pellet production, cellulosic ethanol and co-firing with coal.

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.

On February 1, Columbia, MO, passes an ordinance decriminalizing backyard chickens. This ordinance repeals a 1964 city ordinance, which required a half acre for every chicken. Mary Stilwell, one of the forces behind changing the ordinance to allow backyard chickens, estimates there are currently only 50 or so chickens within the city limits. and predicts the chicken population to increase to 100 by the end of the year. – mj: Part of the localization of food and energy production. Local food and fuel independence may be small but it will be significant. It will also fall through the cracks of current data collection.

For now and into the foreseeable future, a portion of the road leading to Six Flags St. Louis (Eureka, MO) will be paved with a lot more than good intentions. It will also be covered as well with recycled hog manure. Hog farmers and retired aerospace engineers combined hog manure odor control and an industrial bio-oil process from the University of Illinois, to create a product suitable for use in asphalt. Much remains in the commercial development of this technology, but they have taken a resource of hidden value (manure), successfully converted it into something of value (bio-oil) and identified a market (asphalt).

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.

A decline in sales caused by expiration of a crucial tax credit has forced Renewable Energy Group to shut down its Iowa biodiesel plants at Ralston and Newton. REG officials attributed the closures — which they announced this morning and described as temporary — to Congress failing to renew the $1-per-gallon biodiesel blenders tax credit that expired Dec. 31. Nine employees at the seven-y ear-old Ralston biodiesel plant, which has production capacity of 12 million gallons per year, and 13 employees at Newton, a 30-million-gallon plant opened in May 2007, have been laid off. Biodiesel plants REG manages at Washington and Farley laid off 21 employees in January, and REG says nearly half its production staff has been idled since Jan. 1.

BioTown, USA aka Reynolds, IN is the Indiana Governor’s project to take a small rural community off the grid using biomass. The initial excitement in 2005/2006 consumed everything. The economy and reality of doing things that had never been done before interfered with most of the planned bioenergy projects. But like the little engine that could, BioTown just keeps plugging along. Algaewheel Technologies installed a $2.7 million, 6,500 square foot greenhouse as a wastewater treatment technology in January. – mj: I was involved in the first few years of BioTown, USA. They are all good folks and I am thrilled to see them moving a long at a pace and scale that fits the community. Well done!

Federal limits on water that can be pumped out of a major river delta for California farmers are scientifically justified, a much-anticipated report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), a finding hailed by environmentalists in the state’s epic water wars. Paul Wenger, President of the California Farm Bureau Federation said the report showed the need for “better justification of water restrictions” and that there were flaws in the Endangered Species Act. Wenger also singled out the study’s conclusion that a number of factors, including sewage treatment plants and non-native fish, represented a threat to the protected species. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said irrigation districts south of the delta, which represent farmers on the west side of the state’s fertile Central Valley, will get 25 percent of their contracted water allotment from the Bureau of Reclamation, up from just 5 percent in February.

POET and Tulsa pipeline-builder Magellan Midstream Partners are planning to build a $4 billion ethanol pipeline. The proposed pipeline would link ethanol production in the Midwest to ethanol consumers on the East Coast. The pipeline would extend 1,800 miles, crossing seven state lines, carrying 240,000 barrels a day. Transportation/carbon footprint efficiency would be boosted 30% by pipeline compared with rail and 90% compared with trucks.

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.

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a tax-extenders bill that includes a tax credit for biodiesel after months of delay, with the bill’s passage cheered by biodiesel producers across the country. The measure provides a $1 gallon incentive to blend biodiesel into diesel fuel, with the initial subsidy, the Biodiesel Mixture Excise Tax credit, originally passed in 2004 and subject to regular congressional renewal. The Senate bill will now need to be reconciled with a similar bill passed by the House of Representatives last year before a final vote by both congressional bodies. The legislation will then be sent to President Barack Obama for his signature.

A recent USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) analysis shows that energy use in the food production and processing industries increased. Using the two most recent U.S. benchmark input-output accounts and a national energy data system the report shows that in the US, use of energy along the food chain for food purchases by or for U.S. households increased between 1997 and 2002 at more than six times the rate of increase in total domestic energy use. –mj: This is certainly interesting from an analytical view of the challenge of modeling economic and technical change. It takes years to get complete data sets (1997,2002) and then before the analysis is completed, life-altering economic shocks like we had in 2007/2008 occur that change our habits.

GreenShift Corporation has simultaneously announced that it has filed for its third patent on its corn-oil extraction technologies while at the same time, commencing legal action against Big River Resources Galva, Big River Resources West Burlington and Cardinal Ethanol for infringing on GreenShift’s U.S. patent covering its corn oil extraction technology.

Electricity customers will have to cough up 1 percent more to pay for a new plant that is designed to help lessen Hawaii’s dependency on imported fuel. The state Public Utilities Commission approved the increase Saturday, and it became effective that day, Hawaiian Electric Co. said. With the increase, a typical customer using 600 kilowatt-hours a month will see a $1.34 increase on a total bill of $149.57. – mj: This rate is 24.9 cents/kWh. The average for the US is 10 cents/kWh.

The chairman of the Iowa Corn Promotion Board is expressing concern about the USDA’s shift in emphasis toward locally grown and organic foods. Tim Burrack of Arlington, Iowa is attending USDA’s annual outlook conference in Washington this week. He says modern agriculture has come under attack from many conference speakers and attendees. “I’ve farmed for 37 years and what I’m hearing out here is radically different than what has taken place in the first 36 years of my career,” Burrack says.

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 Biomass Crop Assistance Program proposed rule is finally out, and seems to have revived some interest and enthusiasm in the program. At the same time, however, many are anxious for the proposed changes to be finalized, for further clarifications and for the current freeze on the program to cease. Without warning, as of Feb. 8, the USDA terminated collection, harvest, storage and transport (CHST) payments and indicated new applications for the payments would not be accepted until the final rule is in place.