energy.agwired.com

Ethanol industry veteran Rick Serie has joined The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) as its Director of Market Development. Brian Jennings, the organization’s executive vice president, said Serie’s talents make him a perfect fit for ACE and will help the advocacy fulfill its mission to make U.S. ethanol the consumer fuel of choice.

Ron Lamberty, ACE senior vice president said its members are becoming increasingly interested in supplying E85 and midlevel blends at the plant level. “Plants are becoming impatient with ‘kinks’ in the supply chain, and Rick’s experience as a supplier of E85 and midlevel blends at the ethanol plant level will be a great resource for producers considering their options,” said Lamberty. “The addition of Rick as Director of Market Development gives ACE unmatched real-world expertise in getting ethanol from the plant to the pump.”

Serie said he is excited to be part of such a dedicated team. “I am passionate about ethanol and rural America and I am thrilled with this opportunity to work with ACE members in helping expand and develop new markets for the ethanol industry,” said Serie.

Four ethanol plants have committed to installing ICM’s new patent-pending Advanced Oil System (AOS) corn oil extraction technology. According to ICM, AOS uses an emulsion-breaking approach to deliver a higher oil recovery rate than other technologies. The system can be added to plants without any current corn oil technology via separate skid mounted units or a modified version can be added to plants that currently have ICM’s first generation corn oil extraction technology.

Chris Mitchell, executive vice president of ICM said, “We’re thrilled to announce the deployment of our Advanced Oil System™ technology, and we’re eager to demonstrate how we’ve focused our efforts on creating solutions that deliver rapid payback and continuous value-added co-product streams for the renewable energy industry. We believe our competitive advantage comes from equipping our customers with the highest yielding and most efficient oil separation technology available.”

A new yeast product for the ethanol industry was introduced this week by Lallemand Ethanol Technology. While the patent-pending product as of yet has no name, it is being commercialized through the partnership between Lallemand and Xylogenics, Inc. The new yeast is engineered to demonstrate characteristics that significantly change sugar uptake kinetics. The result is increased yields of up to 4 percent, increased capacity, reduced fermentation time and reduced ingredient costs. The yeast is being marketed as a replacement for existing yeast in first generation ethanol biorefineries.

“Our success is defined by our customer’s success, whether it be efficiencies attained, increased volume output or greater profitability,” said Bill Nankervis, Lallemand Ethanol Technology General Manager. “Because of the introduction of this technology, we expect our customers to realize real benefits that help them remain in the black in today’s challenging market environment.”