Burning Bio News

The prospect of federal loan guarantees isn’t turning out to be enough to get banks to lend money for development of next-generation biofuels. The Obama administration has issued just two conditional commitments for such guarantees, one for $80 million and another for $25 million. “Very few credit providers even with loan guarantees are willing to take much risk at all,” said Dallas Tonsager, the Agriculture Department’s under secretary for rural development.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is amending its Guidelines for Designating Biobased Products for Federal Procurement, to add nine sections to designate items within which biobased products will be afforded Federal procurement preference, as provided for under section 9002 of the Farm Security and Rural Investment Act of 2002, as amended by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (FCEA) (referred to in this document as “section 9002”). USDA also is establishing a minimum biobased content for each of these items. –mj: These BioPreferred Rules come as close to ideal between commercial product regulations and waste remediation regulations. They should become the foundation of all US carbon policy.

As the ethanol industry expanded from about 2.8 billion gallons of production in 2003 to about 9 billion gallons in 2008, rural America excitedly expected increased economic activity and jobs. But by fall 2009, many of these expectations evaporated, dried up by bankruptcies and tight margins. One-hundred-eighty-five ethanol plants currently are in operation and 15 are under construction. Another 311 planned projects never materialized. They were canceled or were put on hold. –mj: This is a critical reflection on ethanol claims and reality from DTN, a pillar of the agriculture community. Things didn’t work out like we thought, but I believe the ethanol-rush was necessary and beneficial.

Cellulosic ethanol to end paper recycling. – mj: This is a link to an article written about the threat of biofuels to the recycled paper industry. Things will change. It is too early to tell how much, but the really great news is that we are moving toward an economy where we can not afford to waste biomass/organics anymore. Biomass and waste organics will migrate to the highest value. It may very well be in recycled paper. It might also include energy.

The Algal Biomass Organization`s (ABO) Executive Director Mary Rosenthal testified before Congress today on the economic and environmental benefits of algae-based fuels, as well as on steps legislators can take to ensure algae receives benefits and financial incentives similar to those afforded to other biofuel feedstocks. The ABO testified to the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Conservation, Credit, Energy, and Research, which has jurisdiction over energy and bio-based energy production, on the status of 2nd and 3rd generation biofuel feedstocks.

Obama Administration officials today released a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by nine Federal Departments and Agencies to make it faster and simpler to build transmission lines on Federal lands. The goal of the agreement is to speed approval of new transmission lines, reduce expense and uncertainty in the process, generate cost savings, increase accessibility to renewable energy and jumpstart job creation.

Dynamotive Energy Systems Corporation announced that it successfully applied the BINGO BioOil upgrading process to BioOils produced from a variety of feedstocks. It has demonstrated that biooil made from different feedstocks can still meet industry standards for fuel. Dynamotive`s pyrolysis process converts roughly 85% of the total biomass feed into useful solid (char) and liquid (BioOil) fuels. The balance is utilized to provide energy to the process.

A plan to move away from oil-fired burners by the US Coast Guard in Southeast Alaska could provide a spark for the region’s foundering timber industry. The projects in Ketchikan and Sitka would convert building heating systems to biomass boilers that burn wood chips, providing a local market for processed wood. Southeast Alaska is the first place the Coast Guard has considered using biomass energy, said Robert Deering, environmental and energy branch chief for the Coast Guard Civil Engineering Unit Juneau.

The utility donated $350,000 to Clarkson University for the college to establish an endowment for its brightest students to study sustainability. “This gives students the opportunity to work on problems that don’t have any answers,” said Kenneth D. Visser, director of Clarkson’s Center for Sustainable Energy Systems.

Middlebury College burns wood for heat and recently planted a nine-acre patch of willow shrubs, the first step in an attempt to convert the trees into biomass energy. The College has begun looking at producing its own wood fuel so that it will not draw down existing forest stocks. The college currently buys 20,000 tons of wood chips a year, which are then put into a “gasifier” that converts the wood into gases that can be burned in a boiler. –mj: While the Middlebury willow experiment is just getting started, it illustrates that we have land that is currently not in fuel production that can be expanded as the demand for biomass fuels grow.

Nebraska has lost the last commercial operation of its infant biodiesel industry, at least temporarily. Northeast Nebraska Biodiesel LLC has stopped making biodiesel fuel from soybeans at its plant in Scribner, NE. The high price of soybeans has damaged the industry, just as the high price of corn caused havoc in the ethanol industry. The biodiesel plant had the capability to produce five million gallons of biodiesel per year. There are still a half dozen or so of small farm-based biodiesel plants left in Nebraska.

Global Alternative Fuels (GAF) will expand its biodiesel plant in El Paso, Texas, US, from 5 to 20 million gallons a year. The expansion also includes installing equipment to process grease thrown out by restaurants without having to blend the grease with refined soyabean oil. This and the higher processing capacity reduces production costs significantly.

Although biomass is typically associated with power, fuel and chemical applications, it also has a natural ability to sop up oil spills on highways, antifreeze on driveways and spilled paint. Nature’s Broom, a company based in Hollandale, MS, uses waste agricultural and forestry materials to produce a 97 percent biobased liquid spill absorbent that meets the USDA’s BioPreferred program product qualifications.

The executive order President Barack Obama signed Oct. 5 requires agencies to begin measuring greenhouse gas emissions and set targets for reducing them. One way to get there will be to curb energy consumption in data centers — facilities that house computer servers and related systems. Data centers account for about 2 percent of all electricity consumed in the U.S. — roughly equivalent to the entire airline industry — and can consume up to 100 times more energy than the standard office building. –mj: This is not necessarily the best place to start. One of the economic assets that the US has over other countries is access to great data. The benefit is the knowledge-gained/btu rather than the cost/btu.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released a new report that shows the international Methane to Markets (M2M) Partnership has significantly reduced methane emissions. In 2008, U.S.-supported M2M projects delivered methane emissions reductions of more than 26 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent, roughly the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from 4.7 million passenger vehicles. The EPA report is available at: http://www.epa.gov/methanetomarkets/accompreport.htm

Columbus, Ohio-based FDC Enterprises was one of five winners of a shared $21 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop supply systems to handle and deliver feedstocks for cellulosic biofuels production, according to a news release from the company. The FDC team includes: Abengoa Bioenergy, ANTARES Group, Kelderman Manufacturing, Allied Freeman, MacDon, Rotochopper, Noble Foundation, Kansas Bioscience Authority, Prairie Lands Bio-Products Inc., TR Miles Consulting, Star Seed, Mendel Bioenergy, Kansas State University, Idaho National Laboratory University, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, Greenhouse Gas Services LLC, Show Me Energy and Alliant Energy.

Upper Midwest/Northwest power utility NorthWestern Energy, the Montana Community Development Corp, and eight saw mills across Montana will play key roles in developing a community-based biomass power program. The project is being funded with a $125,000 grant from Montana Department of Commerce and a $50,000 grant from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities. The partnership will entail feasibility studies to include analyses of the biomass supplies available on private and public land, potential biomass generation facilities, operational requirements and preliminary impacts of the biomass production on local economies and the environment.

A study by Mark Adams, the dean of agriculture at the University of Sydney, looked into greenhouse emissions from bushfires and grazing in the high country. It found that while cows might emit 54kg of methane per head per year, oxidising bacteria in high country soils can oxidize methane at the rate of 8760kg for every hectare each year. In other words, high country grazing is easily methane-neutral and may even offset cow-methane from other parts of the landscape.

Magnolia BioPower LLC announced plans for a $130 million factory in Brantley County, FL, that will turn waste forest products into fuel pellets and electricity. When all phases are operating, the plant will turn out a million tons of wood pellets a year and generate 30 megawatts of electricity, officials said. Half of the power generated (15 MW) will be used on site.

Four Indiana prisons will be powered partially by biomass by the end of the year, as part of an Indiana Department of Correction green initiative. The conversion to biomass power at the four locations will save the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) about $36 million over the next 10 years, plus minor operational savings associated with the boilers, according to the IDOC.