Biomass Advisory Committee Members

Cindy Zimmerman

USDAEPAU.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Acting Secretary Chuck Conner and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Samuel Bodman today announced the appointment of six new members and the reappointment of seven members to serve on its Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee for a term of three years. The Committee was established by the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000 to assist USDA and DOE in meeting important national goals for a healthier rural economy and improved national energy security.

Newly appointed members include:

Gil Gutknecht, Co-Chair, Consultant, Rochester, Minn.; Richard Hamilton, CEO, Ceres, Inc.; Jay Levenstein, Deputy Commissioner, Florida Department of Agriculture; Shirley J. Neff, Association of Oil Pipe Lines; Tom Simpson, Railway Supply Institute; Richard Timmons, American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association.

Reappointed members include:

Bob Dinneen, President, Renewable Fuels Association; Douglas Hawkins, Rohm and Haas Company; Charles Kinoshita, University of Hawaii at Manoa; Eric Larson, Princeton University; James Martin, Omni Tech International; Scott Mason, Director, ConocoPhillips Petroleum Company; Edwin White, State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Biodiesel, Ethanol, Government, News

Auto Show Highlights Ethanol Powered Concept Cars

Cindy Zimmerman

FerrariIt is easy being green this year at the 2008 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit.

Reece Nanfito, Marketing Director for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, is there and he reports that “the whole place is buzzing about alternative fuels.”

Ferrari is showing a Biofuel Ferrari for North America that is all about being green. The Associated Press picked up on the story that Ferrari is experimenting with ethanol to help its luxury sports cars produce lower emissions and improve fuel economy.

Ferrari said Monday it developed an engine for an F430 Spider to run on E85, an 85% ethanol blend. The automaker said it produces 5 percent less carbon dioxide emissions and boosts horsepower by 10 percent.

MazdaNanfito was especially impressed with the Mazda Furai, which he says is an amazingly futuristic car. “Apparently E98 is the fuel of the future, because that is how they designed the car,” said Nanfito. “Our logo is on it, along with BP, and it is getting a lot of attention.”

CNN Money headlined the “E100 Powered Furai Concept” reporting that “the Furai looks as if it’s straight off the race track and features an “air fin” on top to help keep the engine cool.”

Check out the NAIAS show cam for more photos.

Car Makers, E85, EPIC, Ethanol, News

American Le Mans to Offer E85

Cindy Zimmerman

LeMansE85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, will make its appearance in 2008 as a fuel alternative in the American Le Mans Series.

EPIC E85According to the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council, two automotive manufactures will run E85 during the 2008 season, Corvette Racing and Aston Martin Racing.

“This is the first time a racing series has made a commitment to E85, the highest performing fuel available to consumers with flex-fuel vehicles,” said Reece Nanfito, senior director of marketing for EPIC. “In addition to the Series making E85 available, EPIC will have a direct sponsorship of the two E85-fueled Corvette Racing entries. Having such an American icon racing on E85 will go a long way to demonstrate and promote E85 use nationwide.”

Team Chevy“By showcasing the capabilities of E85 ethanol before an audience of knowledgeable and technically astute race fans, we can demonstrate the benefits of a renewable fuel that helps to reduce dependence on petroleum, helps to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, and helps to create greater diversity in energy supplies,” Chevrolet General Manager Ed Peper said. “Of course, performance is what counts in racing, so E85 ethanol’s higher octane rating than gasoline wasn’t overlooked by the Corvette Racing engineers.”

E85, EPIC, Ethanol, News

Reuters Biofuels Summit Focus on Cellulosic

Cindy Zimmerman

Cellulosic was all the buzz at the Reuters Global Agriculture and Biofuels Summit this week and prognosticators are now saying it is much closer to reality than ever before.

ReutersOne speaker at the summit said that biomass ethanol is just 2-3 years away. “We should see the first commercial-scale plants coming on line in late-2009, early-2010,” said Richard Hamilton, President and CEO of California-based Ceres.

Ceres develops high biomass yielding crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus for future use as dedicated energy crops.

A US Department of Energy official speaking at the summit said that researchers are on track to make cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with conventional gasoline supplies by 2012.

“We are on our way to meeting that,” said Katharine Fredriksen, principal deputy assistant secretary at the Energy Department’s Office of Policy and International Affairs.

And the head of the nation’s largest ethanol producer POET told the summit they are focusing on making next-generation ethanol by 2011 from corn-cob waste.

“Our facilities are surrounded by a significant supply of cellulose … we’ve chosen to focus on corn cobs,” said POET CEO Jeff Broin.

Cellulosic, Ethanol, News

Ethanol Price Rebound

Cindy Zimmerman

Ethanol prices are up.

This story in the Wichita Eagle reports that ethanol prices have gone up 35 cents a gallon since mid-November.

ICM“It’s a little bit of a surprise to see how much the market has rebounded,” said Dave VanderGriend, president of ICM at Colwich, one of the nation’s largest designers and builders of ethanol plants.

“There’s still an oversupply to work through, but certainly this price rebound is helping stabilize the industry.”

VanderGriend pointed to a marked slowdown in the pace of plant construction and expansion as a factor in helping the market recover.

“New startups are about three to four months behind schedule,” he said. “That’s partly a result of a slowdown in financing and partly a backlog in being able to get parts for new plants.”

Ethanol, News

One Million Gallon Milestone

Cindy Zimmerman

Flex-fuel vehicle owners in Oshkosh, Wis. have purchased over one million gallons of E85 at the Renew fuel station located at Highway 76 and 41. Consumers took 830 days to purchase one million gallons of E85 and are well on their way to purchasing more. This marks the first time a Wisconsin gas station has sold more than a million gallons of E85.

Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) Interim Executive Director Robert White congratulated the station and the ethanol industry for reaching that historic mark. “The industry reached a milestone when the Renew station sold its millionth gallon of E85. Consumers are sending the message that the demand for E85 is rising and more E85 stations and flex-fuel vehicles are needed,” said White.

RenewRenew, an independent brand of fuel stations based in Oshkosh, has offered E85 since the station opened on September 26, 2005. The company expects Oshkosh station customers helped save approximately 43,500 barrels of oil by choosing E85 over straight gasoline. Jay Stoflet, Director of Retail Marketing for Renew explains, “While there is no perfect solution for immediately reducing our country’s dependency on oil, E85 is a great first step that is helping make a change. These customers are really making a difference, one gallon at a time.”

E85, EPIC, Ethanol, News

ND Gov Disputes National Geographic with Renewable Energy Successes

John Davis

hoeven.jpgNorth Dakota Governor John Hoeven is strongly disputing the contents of a National Geographic article that paints the Northern Plains state in a less-than-flattering light.

The article entitled “The Emptied Prairie” talks about how so many towns have been abandoned because of tough times. But in a letter to the editor of the National Geographic, Hoeven points to how biofuels and wind energy are helping North Dakota’s future:

January 14, 2008

Mr. Chris Johns
Editor-in-Chief
National Geographic Magazine
PO Box 98199
Washington, D.C. 20090-98199

Dear Mr. Johns:

The recent article about North Dakota in the January 2008 issue of National Geographic was way off the mark. To give the magazine’s readers a more accurate picture of our state, I’ve asked our Commerce Commissioner and Tourism Director to contact your editors and invite you back to cover what you left out – the fact that North Dakota is a growing 21st Century state with a bright future….

…new ethanol and biodiesel facilities are transforming rural communities like Richardton, Underwood, Hankinson, Casselton, and Velva. Just a few years ago, North Dakota produced less than 40 million gallons of ethanol a year. With these new facilities, we will produce half a billion gallons. Your article also makes mention of the “moan of the wind” on the prairie, but that same wind is on its way to producing nearly 1000 megawatts of clean renewable energy on commercial wind farms across North Dakota.

Hoeven suggests National Geographic editors need to look at the whole picture… a picture in North Dakota that definitely includes renewable fuels.

Biodiesel, Ethanol, News, Wind

GM Makes Cellulosic Investment

Cindy Zimmerman

GMAn announcement by General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner at the opening of the North American International Auto Show in Detroit yesterday made for big alternative energy news nationwide.

CoskataWagoner announced GM’s partnership with Coskata, an Illinois company that has a process for for turning wood chips, grasses, or municipal waste into ethanol.

Coskata uses a proprietary process that leverages patented microorganisms and bioreactor designs to produce ethanol for less than $1 a gallon, about half of today’s cost of producing gasoline.

“We are very excited about what this breakthrough will mean to the viability of biofuels and, more importantly, to our ability to reduce dependence on petroleum,” GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner said.

GM will receive the first ethanol from Coskata’s pilot plant in the fourth quarter of 2008. The fuel will be used in testing vehicles at GM’s Milford Proving Grounds.

Car Makers, Cellulosic, Ethanol, News

Thar Receives $1.9 Mil Grant for Biodiesel Production

John Davis

tharlogo.jpgA Pittsburgh-based maker of supercritical fluids… replacements for solvent-based technologies in the pharmaceutical, food, chemical, and electronics industries… is getting some money to help improve the efficiency of biodiesel production.

This story from the Pittsburgh (PA) Tribune-Review says Thar Technologies, Inc. has received a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Science and Technologies:

Unlike most biodiesel-producing techniques, the new Thar process doesn’t use the hazardous air pollutant hexane to extract oil from oilseeds. Instead, the Thar process will use liquified carbon dioxide.

“We use carbon dioxide that we compress into a liquid and use that as a solvent in the process,” said Lalit Chordia, Thar’s CEO, during a news conference at the company’s operations center at Harmar to announce the federal grant. “Our process can use any source of oil, even oil shale and low (grades) of coal as a n oil source and convert it to biodiesel.”

The company says the process is profitable at $2.30 a gallon… and doesn’t even need the federal dollar-a-gallon subsidy to make money. Thar hopes to put up a 40-million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant in Western Pennsylvania by 2010.

Biodiesel

Jobe: Biodiesel Growth Faces Challenges

John Davis

nbb-logo.jpgHigh input costs could put the damper on biodiesel growth in 2008, despite the fact that demand for the green fuel will grow. But the long-term outlook still looks pretty positive.

This story from Reuters says that assessment comes from the head of the industry’s largest trade group:

joe-jobethumbnail.jpg“The economics overall for the biodiesel industry are extremely challenging right now. There’s no question about it there’s been a cooling off what has been some irrational exuberance that has gone on in the investment in biodiesel production capacity over the last two years,” Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board, told the Reuters Global Agricultural and Biofuels Summit in a telephone interview.

The biggest culprit behind the sliding profit margins has been soaring input costs, Jobe said. The price of soybean oil, the primary feedstock to produce U.S. biodiesel, has reached levels never seen before in history — making it difficult for many plants to make a profit.

Domestic biodiesel margins are running about 10 cents per gallon to a minus 30 cents per gallon, industry analysts said.

The article goes on to point out that biodiesel production in the U.S. went from 25 million gallons a year in 2004 to 450 million gallons in 2007… pretty impressive growth. This year, biodiesel production is expected to hold steady at current levels. But with the passage of the new energy bill, biodiesel production could jump by five times over the next 15 years from what it currently is. Jobe says by 2015, his industry wants to replace 5 percent of the U.S. diesel pool with biodiesel… upping production to 1.85 billion gallons.

Biodiesel