Burning Bio News

Biomass Rules, LLC (www.biomassrules.com) has signed on with the California Biomass Collaborative (biomass.ucdavis.edu) to discover the cost of production of purpose grown energy crops. It is a grand new biomass economic frontier. The transition to this new adventure (most of December) has been pushing our website maintenance to its limits. We are nearing the end of making the transition to this new project. Please be patient with our intermittent posts just a little bit longer.

Raven Biofuels will locate its proposed cellulosic biorefinery in the Red Hills EcoPlex in Ackerman, Mississippi. Planned output is 21 million gallons a year of fuel grade ethanol and 12 million of specialty organic chemicals, plus lignin cake. Feedstock for the biorefinery will be locally sourced wood chips and wood waste.

The renewable energy site, Earth2tech.com, recently published the top 10 articles they produced in 2009. To follow-up on these articles, click on this hyperlinked text.

10). 11 Solar Thermal Companies Powering Up: A list of companies that are building massive solar plants in the deserts that use mirrors and lenses to concentrate the sun’s heat to power a steam turbine.
9). Earth2Tech’s Top 15 Smart Grid Influencers: One of my favorites of the year: a list of who I think are the most influential execs in the smart grid world.
8). 25 Who Ditched Infotech for Cleantech: A bunch of folks that made the successful transition from infotech to greentech.
7). Google Jumps Into Organizing Smart Meter Energy Data: Google’s PowerMeter shook up the utility and energy landscapes in 2009 — now we’ll see if they can gain traction with the tool in 2010.
6). Bloom Energy: “Close” to Unveiling Its Fuel Cell: Ah, Bloom. Everyone wants to know what’s going on with you.
5). 11 Companies Racing to Build U.S. Cellulosic Plants: Most of these companies that were rushing to build cellulosic ethanol plants in 2008, are still toiling over them in 2009 — and will continue in 2010.
4). FAQ: Thin-Film Solar: It’s thin, it’s commonly not made of silicon, and it’s the future of the solar photovoltaic industry.
3). FAQ: Smart Grid: 2009 was the year of the smart grid, and here’s a primer on what you need to know.
2). 10 Monitoring Tools Bringing Smart Energy Home: Given this market is so new, here’s a handy-dandy list of the tools already out there.
1). 15 Algae Startups Bringing Pond Scum To Fuel Tanks: Thanks algae fuel — you’re the list that keeps on giving.

Growth Energy, a pro-ethanol group whose board of directors includes former Gen. Wesley Clark and POET CEO Jeff Broin, and the Renewable Fuels Association filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of California’s low-carbon fuel standard. The low-carbon fuel standard violates both the supremacy clause and commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, according to a joint statement from the two industry groups.

Chippewa Valley Ethanol Co. (CVEC) in Benson (MN) is using about 70 tons of corn cobs, wood and glycerin per day in its gasifier. The company burns it to create steam, which is used as a heat source to make ethanol.CVEC hopes to eventually reach 300 tons of biomass per day, which would replace 90 percent of the natural gas they use with renewable sources. Currently, they’re replacing 20 percent. So far, selling corn cobs is profitable for farmers. The co-op can pay $90 to $100 per ton while CVEC estimates it costs a farmer $66 per ton, or $33 per acre, to harvest and deliver them. CVEC’s cob price is supported by a USDA Farm Service Agency initiative to help biomass markets get established.

A Pennsylvania-based company that has made claims of being the largest producer of biochar in the world is being charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud. The SEC alleges that since about September 2007, Mantria Corp. principals Troy Wragg and Amanda Knorr raised approximately $30 million from more than 300 investors in approximately 12 fraudulent and unregistered securities offerings to investors, totaling at least $122 million.

Natchez, Miss.-based Rentech, Inc. has reached an agreement to provide about 250 million gallons of jet fuel to 13 domestic and international airlines, according to a news release from the company. The non-binding agreement is with Air Canada, AirTran Airways, American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, FedEx Express, JetBlue Airways, Lufthansa German Airlines, Mexicana Airlines, Polar Air Cargo, United Airlines, UPS Airlines and US Airways.

Keyes, Calif.-based Cilion Inc.’s idled 55-million-gallon corn ethanol plant will be getting a new start. Cupertino, Calif.-based AE Biofuels Inc. and Cilion reached an agreement that will allow AE to retrofit the plant for cellulosic ethanol production, according to a Dec. 2 filing with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.

Otter Tail Ag Enterprises ethanol plant in Fergus Falls has run into financial difficulties with a recent Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. But Otter Tail Ag CEO Anthony Hicks said that the filing should help the plant emerge with a good chance to succeed.

A group of researchers at Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences are poised to solve one of the biomass industry’s most pressing issues—developing efficient solutions to transport and store large quantities of biomass. Jude Liu and three other researchers recently received a $100,000 grant from the Sun Grant Initiative, a component of the 2002 Farm Bill, to establish a national network of land-grant universities and federally funded laboratories to create a biobased economy.

Researchers with the National Institutes of Health find a strong relationship between Americans’ growing waistlnes and the growing waste of food and the energy to produce that unused food. Americans throw away over 40 percent of all available food each year. Production of that wasted food accounts for more than one-quarter of the U.S.’s total annual freshwater consumption and equates to 300 million barrels of oil, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). –mj: This is a great article to mess with our minds. If unused food is used for energy production, or livestock feed, is it still waste? If we throw away food before it goes bad, is that worse than getting sick from bad food? Food is bioenergy. If we overeat, we are not very carbon efficient. We can become much more efficient in the US, but food waste is not necessarily a bad thing.

A report from the Energy Information Administration said total greenhouse gas emissions fell 2.2 percent in 2008. The slow-down of the US economy cut down on energy use and carbon emissions. –mj: This does not mean that a floundering economy is the solution to greenhouse gases. We can only get to green jobs and the bioeconomy if it is growing.

Researchers report that in 2004, the state’s natural ecosystems absorbed as much carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as fossil fuel carbons emitted into the atmosphere. They also discovered that during periods of above normal rainfall, ecosystems trapped significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in forests and soils. – mj: I had to read this twice, but in an article that is supporting the need to control carbon emissions, the NASA findings show that the carbon emissions are basically in balance.

A CleanTechnica article has been reprinted by Scientific American, both reputable publications, entitled, “Biogas from Cows Could Help Save New York City Water Supply.” Digesters are fascinating technologies, but they do not - as a stand alone technology - enhance water quality. The principle products of digesters are methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2). The principle water quality issues with manure are surplus nitrogen and phosphorus. Adding a digester to a livestock facility can be a wonderful thing, but it does not improve water quality.

The (San Francisco, CA) Bay Area Air Quality Management District has issued the season’s second winter “Spare the Air” alert (last week). The alert means burning wood, manufactured fire logs or any other solid fuel, both indoors and outdoors, is banned. It will be illegal for Bay Area residents and businesses to use their fireplaces, woodstoves and inserts, pellet stoves, outdoor fire pits or any other wood-burning devices.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy held a Dairy Power Summit in Syracuse, New York at the end of October. One of the outcomes was to set a goal of 40 percent anaerobic digester use by 2020. Attendees of the summit collaborated to develop an action plan made up of more than a dozen projects. Some of the projects are listed in the article that can be reached by clicking on the first sentence of this post.

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) a new farm bill program originally projected to cost $70 million over five years will cost taxpayers $514 million by the end of March. The program pays landowners, farmers or waste haulers up to $45 per dry ton delivered to help offset costs to those approved facilities for conversion, storage or transportation. For wet or “green” wood the payment amounts to $22.50 a ton. Interest has been far greater than expected, but USDA officials do not seem concerned.

This recent Biofuel Digest article does an excellent job of explaining the process surrounding the recent DOE award of the integrated bioenergy grant process that was recently announced. Although this money will jumpstart the 19 project that were announced as recipients, the funds are quite a ways from distribution.

11 Good Energy, based in Canton, Ohio Inc. announced on Dec. 8 that they have opened their G2 Diesel plant in Magnolia, Ohio. The plant has a capacity of 16,500,000 gallons per year.

Inbicon A/S recently announced the development and construction of a biomass refinery that will produce 20 million gallons per year of cellulosic ethanol at the Spiritwood development park in Jamestown, ND. The biomass refinery will utilize Inbicon’s proprietary technology to convert more than 400,000 tons of wheat straw into ethanol, lignin and other co-products. Steam from the Great River Energy power plant will be used to power the entire biomass refinery. In exchange, the refinery will send lignin created as a byproduct of its ethanol production to the power plant to be used to offset some of the plant’s operational needs for fossil fuels.