Ethanol Conversion Kit Market Grows

Cindy Zimmerman

The business for flex-fuel conversion kits is booming, according to a company selling low-cost units worldwide.

curtis lacy FFIFuel Flex International (FFI) provides technology to allow any fuel-injected vehicle to run on ethanol or gasoline “without pushing a button or flipping a switch,” says FFI president for marketing and distribution Curtis Lacy, who was talking up his product with everyone at the recent Ethanol Conference and Trade Show in Omaha.

“Our system is very simple for the average user. It’s a simple plug and play device which you attach to your fuel injector connectors and ground to your battery and start using ethanol – anywhere from E100 to regular gasoline.” Lacy says the technology was developed in Brazil and is now being marketed in 34 countries, including most recently Thailand and the Philippines. “We currently manufacture our own unit now, so it’s an all-American made product,” he said. The units retail for between $289 and $459.

Fuel Flex InternationalOne of the most common questions from potential customers in the United States is whether installing the kit will affect their vehicle warranties, but Lacy claims they have had no problems with that. There is also the issue of EPA certification, which currently has only been granted to another company, Flex Fuel US. Lacy says they are working on getting that approval.

Lacy believes the demand for flex-fuel conversion kits will grow as higher ethanol blends become more available nationwide because even if car makers start selling only flex-fuel vehicles in the US there will continue to be a large segment of used vehicles for sale that are not flex-fuel capable.

Listen to an interview with Lacy from the ACE conference here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/ace/ace-fuel-flex.mp3]

ACE, Audio, Ethanol, Flex Fuel Vehicles

Analyst Calls Food Versus Fuel a “Sound Bite”

Cindy Zimmerman

Analysts with a major agricultural financial institution say alternative fuels are just one of the many factors causing higher food prices.

RabobankKarol Aure-Flynn, executive director of the Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory department, says “food versus fuel” is basically a misleading sound bite. “The fallacy of the headline is that there is a direct competition between the two; that it’s either or. The reality is that strong global economic growth has changed the demand equation for U.S. commodities,” he said in a recent Rabobank podcast. “The depreciation of the U.S. dollar, soaring energy costs and changing trade policies are also contributing to the cost of commodities, which in turn is raising the cost of food — it’s not just fuel, it’s a combination of all of these factors.”

Aure-Flynn also notes that while prices at the farm level have increased this year, they have been outpaced by production costs for farmers.

“Farmers’ profitability doesn’t change retail prices. And farmers’ profitability isn’t guaranteed by high grain prices. The same factors that are lifting grain prices are lifting production costs,” said Aure-Flynn. “So, yes, the farm price index is at 162 percent of what it was 1990-1992, but at the same time the price index measuring what farmers pay — for services, farm wages — is 189 percent of base.”

Rabobank is a global financial services leader providing institutional and retail banking and agricultural finance solutions in key markets around the world.

Agribusiness, Ethanol, Food prices, News

Florida Farm to Fuel Summit On-Line

Cindy Zimmerman

The third annual Florida Farm-to-Fuel Summit was a huge success with more than 460 participants, exceeding last year’s attendance according to organizers.

FL Farm to FuelPresentations are now available online at the conference website. The wide variety of presentations includes some very interesting information about alternative biofuels feedstocks, such as sweet sorghum, sugarcane, jatropha, perennial grasses and even sweet potatoes.

Organizers of the event say that due to the favorable response from attendees, they expect the conference to be returning to the Rosen Shingle Creek next year.

Biodiesel, Cellulosic, conferences, Ethanol

Future of Wind Energy Could be Offshore

John Davis

While Congress debates whether America should drill for more oil along the coasts of the country, a more valuable, greener source of energy could be offshore.

The idea of massive wind farms off the coasts of California, New England, the mid-Atlantic, Washington state, the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico could be appealing as winds are strong and more sustainable just a few miles out to sea. And this article from the Bellingham (WA) Herald says those potential wind farms could generate as much power as the country currently produces from all sources:

The winds blowing 15 miles or even farther off the U.S. coasts potentially could produce 900,000 megawatts of electricity, or roughly the same amount as nearly all the nation’s existing power sources combined, according to Department of Energy estimates.

Though the cost of these deepwater offshore wind farms isn’t firm, some estimate the electricity they would produce could be nearly comparable in price to that generated at today’s power plants. Norway, Denmark, Britain and other European nations are already developing such offshore wind projects.

“This is an energy frontier we are just starting to explore,” said Walter Musial, a senior engineer with the Energy Department’s Wind Technology Center in Colorado, adding that far offshore windmill projects in the United States could start appearing between 2012 and 2015.

The article goes on to say that while some windmills near the shore have caused controversy because they could “damage the view, (thanks Ted Kennedy!)” these platforms would be far from shore. And with today’s technology, having deepwater windmills is quite possible.

Wind

Nova CEO: Cheaper Biodiesel Feedstocks Key

John Davis

In a time when many biodiesel makers are having a tough time because of the high costs of their feedstocks, one is looking to expand its operations.

The CEO of Houston, Texas-based Nova Biosource Fuels, which has biodiesel refineries in Iowa, Mississippi and Illinois, Kenneth Hern say the key to his company’s success has been expanding its range of feedstocks to cheaper sources. In this article with the Houston Chronicle, Hern does some Q & A with reporter Brett Clanton, Hern says Nova is even looking to open another biodiesel refinery in the heart of petroleum country… right in Houston:

Q: We’re hearing a lot about how high crop and vegetable oil prices are pinching biofuels producers, even forcing some to close. What’s different about your business model?

A: Nova has a patented, proprietary process that lets us use any material that’s got a triglyceride or a fairly high amount of free fatty acids in it. If you take soy, it has almost no free fatty acid in it. It’s a pure triglyceride. Anyone can make biodiesel from it. It’s a very simple reaction. But when you want to use the feedstocks that are cheaper, almost every time those cheap feedstocks have some amount of free fatty acids.Read More

Biodiesel

Suzuki to Develop FFVs Running on 100% Ethanol

According to the Nikkei Business Daily, Japan’s Suzuki Motor Company will begin selling flexible fuel vehicles running on 100 percent ethanol by the year 2010. The FFVs will be offered for sale in both the U.S. and Brazil.

Suzuki will first begin offering vehicles that can run on 25 percent ethanol in Brazil in March. Currently in the U.S., the highest ethanol blend of fuel which can be sold is 85 percent. Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and Nissan currently sell these vehicles and there are about seven million on America’s roads. Suzuki’s move would mark a huge development in ethanol-powered vehicles, and a huge shift for Suzuki, which hasn’t had any alternative fuel-specific offerings in its lineup to this point.

The Brazilian ethanol industry is experiencing amazing growth right now. The industry is based on the conversion of sugarcane to ethanol and, according to reports, it is a completely self-sustaining industry. The United States main source of ethanol is corn.

Car Makers, corn, E85, Ethanol, News

Georgia Ethanol Plant Progress

Cindy Zimmerman

Bill SchaferConstruction on what is expected to be the nation’s first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in southeast Georgia is making good progress, according to plant officials.

Range Fuels senior vice president of business development Bill Schafer gave an update on the project at last week’s Ethanol Conference and Trade Show in Omaha.

“We expect to be producing ethanol next year,” Schafer said of the plant that will use woody biomass as a primary feedstock.

Schafer says they have been experiencing many of the usual construction-related delays with the project. “Everything costs more and takes longer than you thought it would,” he said. “It’s nothing exceptional, it’s the things you would expect. But anything that constitutes a delay is a real disappointment for us because we really want to get this up and going as quickly as we can.” Range Fuels received a grant from the Department of Energy for the project, as well as private financing.

Range FuelsIn addition to using woody biomass as a feedstock, they are experimenting with energy crops that can be grown in the region. “We have test plots we have established with Ceres on our Soperton site,” he said. “We intend for the site to be a showcase for some of the technologies we see in the future feeding this industry.”

Schafer noted that the restrictions on woody biomass that can be harvested from federal lands that are included in the energy bill passed by Congress last year concern them when it comes to the development of cellulosic ethanol. They support legislation proposed by Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) that would broaden the definition of cellulosic ethanol within the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) to include more biomass gathered from federal lands.

Listen to an interview with Schafer from the ACE conference here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/ace/ace-schafer.mp3]

Audio, Cellulosic, Ethanol, News

Citizens for Energy Freedom Conference

Cindy Zimmerman

A group dedicated to energy independence and fuel choice is holding a conference to bring other like-minded Americans together to “organize and win the battle against the oil cartel.”

citizens for energy freedomThe Founding Conference of the Citizens for Energy Freedom in Des Moines, Iowa on September 13-14.

The group is pushing for congress to pass a law requiring that all new cars sold in the United States be flex-fuel vehicles. The Open Fuel Standard Act, has already been introduced in the Senate (S3303) and the House of Representatives (H6559).

By making flex fuel the American standard, we can open the fuel market worldwide, as all foreign car makers would be impelled to convert their lines over as well. Around the globe, gasoline would be forced to compete at the pump against alcohol fuels made from any number of sources, including not only corn and sugar, but cellulosic ethanol made from crop residues and weeds, as well as methanol, which can be made from any kind of biomass, as well as coal, natural gas, and recycled urban trash.

Conference information and registration are available on-line at energyfreedomconference.com.

conferences, Ethanol, Flex Fuel Vehicles, News

Continuation of RFS Good for Consumers

Cindy Zimmerman

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month to deny a request that would have cut the Renewable Fuels Standard in half was obviously good news for corn growers and ethanol producers. But it was also good news for consumers, according to the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council.

e-podcastIn this edition of “Fill Up, Feel Good,” EPIC executive director Toni Nuernberg talks about how the RFS is helping to keep gasoline prices lower than they would be otherwise and ethanol production continues to help America become more energy independent. The EPA’s decision also allows EPIC to continue with its mission of consumer education about ethanol.

The podcast is available to download by subscription (see our sidebar link) or you can listen to it by clicking here (4:30 MP3 File):
[audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3?http://www.zimmcomm.biz/epic/epic-podcast-08-08.mp3]

The Fill Up, Feel Good theme music is “Tribute to Joe Satriani” by Alan Renkl, thanks to the Podsafe Music Network.

“Fill up, Feel Good” is sponsored by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council.

Audio, EPIC, Ethanol, Fill Up Feel Good, News

Florida Researcher Wins Award for Work Including Biodiesel

John Davis

A University of Florida professor has been recognized with the highest honor the Florida State Horticultural Society bestows for his work that includes research to get more oil from plants to produce biodiesel.

This article from the school’s newspaper, InsideUF, says Wagner Vendrame, an associate professor of environmental horticulture at the University of Florida’s Tropical Research and Education Center, Homestead, picked up the society’s Presidential Gold Medal Award:

Presented to Vendrame at the society’s annual meeting this summer, the award is the most prestigious honor from the FSHS, given to the individual whose work published in the previous five years of the Proceedings of the Florida State Horticultural Society has contributed the most to the Sunshine State’s horticulture sciences.

Vendrame joined UF in 2001 and has more than 16 years of experience in plant micropropagation and biotechnology. His research program involves production and conservation of plants using tissue culture, molecular biology and cryopreservation techniques.

Vendrame is well known for his work propagating selected hybrids of the jatropha nut, which has some great potential in the biodiesel business.

Biodiesel