Burning Bio News

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized new requirements for the nation’s biggest sources of greenhouse gases to publicly disclose their annual emissions, providing the necessary foundation for federal policy to reduce global warming pollution. Reporting requirements will apply to about 10,000 large emitters that account for the vast majority–about 80% to 85%–of the nation’s overall inventory of heat-trapping gases. Data collection will begin January 1, 2010, with disclosure required in the first quarter of 2011. –mj: I think EPA is really dropping to ball here. If the reporting requirements looked like the product label of the USDA BioPreferred Program, the market would pull many of the emissions back into the economy. By isolating these emissions as ‘toxic’ they make it all the more difficult to return them to economic growth. I apologize for the late posting.

m Power, a Skagit County, WA, renewable energy company, and Puget Sound Energy, Washington’s oldest local utility, announced the entry into service of a 0.75 MW generator powered from the methane produced in an anaerobic dairy manure digester. The dairy manure is generated on two neighboring farms in the Rexville, WA area.

Five weeks after an explosion rocked the newly-opened Geneva Wood Fuels LLC pellet mill, the owners learned they would receive a $500,000 economic-recovery loan from the Finance Authority of Maine (FAME). The 140,000-ton-per-year wood pellet mill in Strong became operational in March 2009. The early-morning explosion on Aug. 8 damaged the dryer portion of the manufacturing facility. FAME’s assistance will allow the company to get a jump-start on rebuilding the mill until insurance proceeds are received.

Morbark, Inc. announced the commercial release of the new Morbark® Quick Switch grinder-to-chipper conversion kit. The Quick Switch makes it possible for current grinder owners to produce a marketable chip by simply modifying the hammermill of their horizontal grinder.

Iowa entrepreneur, Cindy Williams, owns Pellet Pros, a home-use pellet mill. There are several sizes of personal-use machines that have a production range from 65 pounds per hour to 600 pounds per hour with starting prices of around $2,600. Hammer mills are used to reduce the size of biomass, or organic material, before it is put through the pellet mill that actually makes the pellets. Hammer mills will grind straw, switch grass, wood chips and corn stalks and other biomass to size for all pellet mills. Williams will work with clients to develop the proper ‘recipe’ for making good fuel pellets.

This article in a recent Wall Street Journal highlights the land use issue of dedicated energy production (or energy spraw). Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity. He’s also talking about generating 20% of our electricity from wind. This would require building about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size of West Virginia—not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines. – mj: The premise is based on a Nature Conservancy report on “Energy Sprawl or Energy Effiiciency.” The EISA legislation does not want use to expand the shrinking farmland acres. Maybe new uses for land for solar collectors and wind turbines is acceptable? Using land, however, is not an evil.

Two technologies offer the promise that corn growers could turn their corn cobs into cash. The first one mentioned is the 25 million gallon per year, Poet cellulosic ethanol being built in Emmetsburg, IA, that will rely on corn cobs. A second project, San Francisco-based SynGest, Inc., plans to build an $80 million facility in Menlo, about 40 miles west of Des Moines, that will be the first to make ammonia fertilizer from corn cobs. –mj: Although not in Iowa, another corn cob-based project is the biomass gasifier located in Benson, MN, at Chippewa Valley Ethanol Company.

United Ethanol’s 2005 conditional use permit was declared null and void by a court of law two years ago because there was concern that the siting procedures were not transparent enough. No further action was taken. Now there are new concerns about emissions and the facility appears to be operating legally without a permit.

Empire State Ethanol & Energy LLC filed for the preliminary injunction on Sept. 18. In a separate lawsuit filed in federal court in 2008, the company accuses Colorado-based BBI International and BioPro Resources of North Carolina of antitrust violations and securities fraud for allegedly conspiring to create a new company, Albany Renewable Energy, after BBI researched several potential plant sites for Empire State Ethanol. Empire State Ethanol says it was working with BBI to build ethanol plants in Oneonta and Cobleskill, and had also identified the Albany port as a potential site. BBI then took that information, created Albany Renewable Energy and submitted a proposal to build a plant at the port, the suit states.

Good Housekeeping, known as a benchmark in product testing, announced the first products to earn the “Green Good Housekeeping” seal this past week. The first round of testing included seven beauty and household cleaning products.

After reviewing and discussing these proposed rules for most of the last nine months, we have submitted our comments to EPA. Basically it came down to a choice that EPA made to focus on setting Renewable Fuel Standards for the four categories set forth in the EISA statute in the manner in which the statute prescribed, or honoring the objective of creating an energy independence by building a market for renewable fuels — which EPA did not choose. I hope now that it is clear that the two can not co-exist as the ESIA and EPA currently stand, that we can move toward two renewable fuel categories (starch & other) with transparent and efficient standards that allow economically driven, energy independence to happen.

Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agronomist Jeremy Singer, of the National Soil Tilth Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, is looking at cover-crops grown before corn, as a way to replace the carbon removed when the entire corn stalk is removed for cellulosic fuel production. Cover crops also provide habitat for beneficial insects, facilitate water infiltration, help hold nitrogen in the soil, suppress weeds and reduce the runoff of agricultural chemicals. Results from Singer’s first season in the field indicated that white clover or Kentucky bluegrass were promising cover crop candidates worthy of additional study.

Utah State University began harvesting test plots of safflower grown along highway right of ways in Utah. The safflower will eventually be used as a source of oil for biodiesel production. The state of Utah is looking at replacing the annual $1.6 million of highway mowing costs with energy crop production. It’s part of a program called Freeways to Fuel sponsored by UDOT and the National Biodiesel Board.

Lincoln County, Montana, is exploring the feasibility of setting up a biomass power plant. The region has ample waste wood in area forests, but may not be economically accessible. The feasibility study would be looking at innovative ways to access what is available in the forest and elsewhere in the county. Part of the challenge is working with public agencies to develop a Forest Plan that facilitates the removal.

Nevada-based W2 Energy Inc. (www.w2energy.com), a green energy equipment developer, expected to have its patented algae bioreactor up and running in Guelph, Ontario, soon. The Sunfilter bioreactor will grow algae to produce bio-oil for biofuels and will be used to sequester carbon dioxide from the company’s waste-to-energy processes. It also can be sold separately to algae producers, biodiesel producers, labs, aquaculture companies, and coal and petroleum plants, according to W2.

AGCO Corporation, a manufacturer and distributor of agricultural equipment, was recently awarded a five million dollars grant by the U.S. Department of Energy. AGCO’s Research and Development team will seek to demonstrate the viability of a hay product as a least-cost, near-term means for supplying high tonnage biomass feedstocks to cellulosic bio-fuel processors. The project is focused on the efficient collection and transportation of biomass to production plants for processing.

A study commissioned by the National Corn Growers Association tallies the high cost of proposed regulations by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard. The study found that the up-front cost to the ethanol industry for compliance with the new regulations could reach $30 million, with annually recurring compliance costs reaching up to $420 million. Higher costs for ethanol producers mean increased costs for corn growers, said Steve Ruh, chairman of NCGA’s Ethanol Committee. The report is at http://ncga.com/files/pdf/RFS2RegulatoryComplianceCostReport9-21-09.pdf

Sweden’s Chemrec AB broke ground in September on a dimethyl ether (DME) demonstration plant in Pitea, Sweden, with completion expected by mid-2010. The project will demonstrate the production of the advanced diesel fuel, DME, from forest biomass using pulp mill black liquor. The project also includes demonstration of the fuel used in heavy commercial vehicles. –mj: dimethyl ester (DME) continues to make the news. This is an early demonstration project.

North American papermaker Domtar Corp.’s paper mill in Rothschild, WI, may be the future site of a $250 million We Energies cogeneration biomass power plant. The 50-megawatt biomass power plant would share the mill’s current location and use recycled mill waste (bark and sludge residues) from the papermaking process, and waste wood from area forest operations and saw mills.

Teresa Heinz and the Heinz Family Foundation announced the recipients of the 15th annual Heinz Awards, which this year, focuses singularly on the environment. Created to honor U.S. Sen. John Heinz, the 2009 Heinz Awards commemorate his long-standing commitment to the environment by bestowing $100,000 awards to 10 individuals whose achievements have helped bring about a cleaner, greener and more sustainable planet.