Burning Bio News

From the World Headquarters of Biomass Rules, LLC in Central Illinois, USA, 2008 is nearly over. It has been a fascinating year by anyone’s standards. I am grateful for the global interest in my work. 2009 looms even larger before us. Many readers may only be aware of these news links and Burning Bio News. I have linked this post to my main website if you are not aware it. Biomass Rules is growing like the biomass energy industries. I would love to be involved in your project if 1) you need me and 2) I can make a significant contribution. All the best for your work in 2009. In the word and intense spirit of the amazing Dan Noble, “Onward!”

The Agriculture Department’s World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) places corn used for ethanol production at 3.7 billion bushels, down 300 million bushels from the November estimate.

The California Air Resources Board unanimously approved their proposed carbon cap and trade program despite warnings it will put costly new burdens on businesses at a time when the economy is in extreme crisis, with California forecasting a staggering budget gap of $41.8 billion through mid-2010. This is a few weeks old, but certainly noteworthy. First, it will codify the value of carbon reduction and second this specific article highlights the very real trade-off between environmental policy and economic growth. They also support each other, but building a new infrastructure is always costly.

A trial jatropha plantation funded by Chevron will see the transplanting of jatropha seeds this spring into an acre parcel at the University of California Desert Research and Extension Center (DREC) in Holtville, Calif. Jatropha needs a frost-free environment, but very little water to produced significant vegetable oil for biodiesel in the nut of the plant.

Ethanol production opened the door to the renewable fuels industry. The industry now must get past an imposing wall of federal regulations and market conditions if it hopes to grow. “The ethanol industry is now faced with what is called a ‘blending wall,’” said Wally Tyner, a Purdue University agricultural economistan energy policy specialist. “The ethanol industry will not and cannot grow with the blending wall in place. That means we won’t have cellulosic ethanol and the demand for corn for ethanol will be limited unless the blending wall is somehow changed or we find a way around it.”

Under the bill signed by MI Gov. Jennifer Granholm, livestock carcasses can be disposed of in digester systems in limited use in Michigan for processing manure, animal bedding and food waste. – mj On livestock farms very few animals die. When they do die it is not always easy to dispose of their dead bodies. The ability to add dead animal carcasses to digesters legally is a great policy innovation. The current regulatory structure likes to keep every waste in its proper place. This new law/policy eases the ridged boundaries and allows the energy and nutrients remaining in the carcasses to be recycled into energy and fertilizer. Well Done, MI!

The State of NH has rated outdoor wood boilers to identify various degrees of environmental friendliness based on reduced emissions. New regulations won’t apply to existing outdoor wood boilers, only to new installations.

Outdoor wood boilers are reportedly illegal in MD currently. New regulations would legalize outdoor wood boilers that met emission standards of fewer than 0.6 lbs of particulates per million btu of heat. Enforcement of rogue wood boilers is currently based on registered complaints.

Verinium is considering a $150 million, 30 million gallon cellulosic ethanol plant in Matagorda County, TX. The plant would need about 20,000 acres of energy cane or forage sorghum for its ethanol production.

Powers Energy of America - a company that produces bioethanol and electricity from trash and crop residue among other things – plans to start building a $210 million plant in Henderson County Kentucky in 2009.

Construction of a commercial cellulose-to-ethanol plant planned for Lancaster has been delayed by lengthy permitting processes, a legal challenge and now the global economic crisis, says its developer, BlueFire Ethanol Fuels Inc.

The Federal Railroad Administration has announced that Cedar Rapids, Iowa-based Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd., will receive a $31 million loan. The loan will help finance the railroad’s recent purchase of 12 new 4,400-horsepower General Electric ES44AC Evolution Series locomotives. The new locomotives are 18 percent more fuel efficient than alternatives and comply with all of the latest U.S. EPA requirements.

The Iowa Power Fund Board, run through the Office of Energy Independence, has approved funding for six contracts totaling $5.87 million. The projects are hoped to leverage $6.27 million in private sector investments to the state.
- Iowa State University in Ames was awarded $2.37 million to utilizing clean biomass gasificiation in ethanol production
- ISU was also awarded $1.69 million to develop more efficient, cost-effective thin film solar cells
- RENEW Energy Systems of Osage was awarded $250,000 to build a mobile biomass briquetter
- University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls was awarded $78,681 to develop dye sensitized solar cells
- UNI was also awarded $400,000 to create an economically competitive hydrogen fuel cell
- Amana Farms, Inc. in Amana was awarded $1.08 million to generate renewable energy through anaerobic digestion

It a few months, but I have posted a new issue of Burning Bio News on my website. In this issue I post my working list of algae projects and the primary and secondary markets they have reported to be seeking. I also am launching a series on land use policies. The momentum regarding indirect land use policies in California and at EPA is concerns me. If you are not familiar with the rest of my website, check it out at www.biomassrules.com.

The National Corn Growers Association has put together briefing papers to provide producers with information concerning pending contracts with VeraSun. Earlier this year VeraSun declared bankruptcy and announced it would not honor all corn contracts. These briefing papers, which are posted on the NCGA Web site, update on a plant-by-plant basis how VeraSun is handling contracts and offers alternatives for producers if the ethanol company ends up selling some or all of its plants. NCGA’s VeraSun Bankruptcy Resource Page is at: www.ncga.com/verasun-bankruptcy.

POET Biorefining - Laddonia, Mo. is undergoing a $2 million expansion that will increase the plant’s capacity and provide a larger market for locally produced corn. The installed capacity of 45 million gallons per year is already producing at 52 million gallons per year. The expansion will add an additional 5 million gallons per year.

Pittsburgh-based Sunnyside Ethanol LLC has canceled its proposed ethanol plant and waste coal electrical facility on about 80 acres in Aliquippa, PA.

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP) Professors Don Guay of paper science and engineering, and Eric Singsaas of biology and forestry, received a $200,000 grant as part of a collaborative research project between UWSP, UW-Superior, and the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. Their research may give the state’s aging paper mills a renewed mission in energy generation while keeping many paper mill employees on the job. Much of the $200,000 grant will be used to purchase laboratory equipment as well as for hiring student researchers, according to Singsaas.

Mark Z. Jacobson, Stanford University, CA, had a renewable energy/carbon efficiency study published in the Journal of Energy Environmental Science. Curiously biofuels ranked the lowest (worst) at impacting global climate change. This is a very comprehensive study, but it is ultimately based (and biased) on the assumptions that are made. Part of the challenge is that most of the technologies that were examined are still being developed. In these cases, a lot of data blanks are filled with best available estimates (guesses). There is no historical industry data yet from which to forecast. Another challenge is that the top 3 vehicle energy sources described by Jacobson are: 1) wind-powered battery-electric vehicles, 2) wind-powered hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and 3) concentrated solar battery-electric vehicles. It is difficult to imagine a national vehicle fleet powered by wind and concentrated solar.

Purdue University, botany and plant pathology professor Nicholas Carpita and his research team learned that small-interfering RNA are a key element in a plant’s development of cellulose. Naturally, these mechanisms terminate cellulose production in plants by shutting down genes associated with primary cell wall development to allow for the secondary cell walls to form. They can also activate gene expression, and are known as an antiviral mechanism.