Burning Bio News

After four years of construction, the first-of-its kind biodegradable plastics plant located in Clinton, IA, is now operational and could begin shipping commercial goods next month. At full capacity, the plant will produce 50,000 tons per year of a natural plastic, called Mirel, using starch from ADM’s wet corn mill as raw materials.

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.

A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have figured out a chemical process for getting the sugar molecules out of inedible plant biomass. Most front running commercial technologies rely on biological or thermal conversion technologies. The researchers were able to get about as much sugar out of biomass as the more-expensive enzymes usually used. This could significantly cut the cost of cellulosic ethanol, helping move that industry forward.

Shell announced that the 2010 season Formula One fuel supplied for Scuderia Ferrari contains an advanced biofuels component derived from cellulosic ethanol made from straw. This will be the first time an advanced biofuel has been used in the Shell V-Power race fuel used by technical partner Ferrari, in Formula One.

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.

New York-based Summerhill Biomass Systems unveils its technology for converting plant waste into biomass powder in King Ferry, NY. Summerhill has patents pending on its system, which produces a burnable fine powder fuel, similar in texture to baking powder. The company initially received a $75,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority for feasibility studies and is looking for additional investors.

Pharmaceutical companies could substantially reduce the expense of costly treatments for cancer and other diseases produced from mammalian or bacterial cells by growing these human therapeutic proteins in algae. “What surprised us was that of the seven genes chosen, four expressed proteins at levels sufficient for commercial production,” said Stephen Mayfield, a professor of biology at the University of California, San Diego.

Available land and amenable farmers make Central New York a prime location for biomass fuel production, says a study released Wednesday. But the renewable energy source would likely need the help of government subsidies to compete with fossil fuels in the short run, research by Cato Analytics suggests. And although the land is available and farmers are willing, the market is not ready for the crop, according to the study, funded in part by the New York Farm Viability Institute.

The city of Radford, VA, recently received a $23,400 federal grant to fund a site evaluation at the former D.E. Hammond & Co. a former recycling company that closed in the 1990s and the site of tens of thousands of abandoned railroad ties. The evaluation will use Microgasification to convert railroad ties to synthetic gas by exposing it to high heat in a down-draft gasifier, said Mary Ann Sigurdson, spokeswoman for American Cogeneration LLC.

The University of York and University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom announced that a crustacean called the “Gribble worm” is a source of cellulose-transforming enzymes. The Gribble worm is more known as a pest that eats the hulls of ships. It turns out the bacteria in its stomach produces the requisite enzymes that can break cellulose into simple sugars.

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.

The Chesapeake Bay Commission’s three-year research effort into biofuels and the Bay found that the Chesapeake Bay region could lead the nation in developing a biofuels industry. The commission recommended a regional production goal of 500 million gallons of biofuels a year. The fuels would be produced from a mix of agricultural and forest-based feedstock. A regional biofuels industry would help wean Americans from dependence on foreign oil and keep farmers in business while also improving water quality. But to succeed, the states and the federal government must create markets and encourage the needed investments.

Imperium Renewables said it has resumed production of biodiesel at its Grays Harbor County facility, three months after an explosion idled the plant. The Seattle-based company said it received this week the first of 40 railcars carrying Northwest-grown canola oil that will be converted into biodiesel. The regional market has been strengthened by recent mandates in British Columbia and Oregon for use of biodiesel, Imperium said in a statement.

Fred Below of the University of Illinois Department of Crop Sciences recently discussed some of what it takes to consistently grow 300 bushels per acre corn in Illinois. He said, the prerequisites to grow crops are drainage, weed control and healthy soil with proper pH and adequate levels of phosphorus and potassium. Below has ranked seven factors that influence corn yield. Each factor is given an average bushel per acre value.

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.

University of Florida officials held a groundbreaking Monday for the pilot plant at the site of the Buckeye Technologies pulp mill in Taylor County. The plant will test a process that uses genetically engineered E. coli bacteria to convert wood and crops into ethanol.

New renewable fuel standards could lead to more than $13 billion increase in net farm income, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International and Texas A & M University. The study, “RFS2 Final Rule Life Cycle Analysis Supplemental Materials,” funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, analyzed the economic impacts of new EPA renewable fuels standards (RFS). – mj: The press release also mentioned and increase in food prices by about $10 per person annually by 2022. Inflation will increase food prices more than that in the next 12 years. Looks more like a news ‘grabber’ than a useful finding.

S4 Energy Solutions LLC, a joint venture of Waste Management and InEnTec, has announced plans to develop a plasma gasification facility at the Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, OR. Waste Management owns the landfill. The facility will convert waste materials into a synthetic gas that can then be converted into transportation fuels such as ethanol and diesel. The gas also can be used as a substitute for natural gas in heating or electricity generation.

A large number of advanced biofuel industry members are urging Congress to grant an investment tax credit to advanced biofuel producers in order to help overcome financial barriers associated with the timely development of commercial-scale projects. Advanced biofuel producers are currently eligible for a federal production tax credit of 30 percent, but the incentive is unused because there are no operating commercial-scale facilities.

The Board of Trustees for Southern Illinois University approved a request for a $4.7 million contribution to upgrade the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center located near Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. The money will be used for a corn fractionation system.