Ethanol Awards and Scholarships Presented

Cindy Zimmerman

FEW 2010Two current ethanol industry leaders and two potential leaders of the future received recognition at the 2010 Fuel Ethanol Workshop in St. Louis this week.

The High Octane Award for helping the ethanol industry mature and progress over the years was presented this year to Jeff Broin, CEO of Poet (pictured), while the research and technology Award of Excellence was given to Gunter Brodl, president of Vogelbusch USA. (The photo is courtesy of POET and you can see a video of Broin receiving his award on the POET blog, Rhapsody in Green.)

Two 2010 Kathy Bryan Memorial Scholarships were awarded this year to the children of ethanol plant employees, selected from more than 100 applicants representing 52 ethanol plants. The $2500 scholarships went to Mary Krull, the daughter of Peter Krull, a plant manager at Valero Renewables-Albert City, Iowa, and Nicholas Ballard, the son of Kim Ballard, a process operator at Big River Resources LLC, Galva, Ill.

Ethanol, Ethanol News, FEW, POET

SunBelt Biofuels is Now Repreve

Cindy Zimmerman

repreveSunBelt Biofuels and Unifi Inc. have formed a joint venture called REPREVE™ Renewables to develop and commercialize bioenergy crops, including Freedom™ Giant Miscanthus.

According to the companies, Freedom Giant Miscanthus is a heat and drought tolerant perennial that yields up to 25 tons per acre. It was developed at Mississippi State University and is the first and only University-released, licensed and branded variety of Giant Miscanthus available. The new venture plans to develop Freedom planting stock for sale to U.S. growers, who will in turn sell the energy crop as feedstock to the bioenergy and biofuel industries in the U.S. and E.U.

biomass

New Yeast Product for Ethanol Plants

Cindy Zimmerman

Nearly 400 exhibitors were on the floor of the 2010 Fuel Ethanol Workshop and Expo this week in St. Louis, many of them introducing new technologies and products for ethanol producers.

FEW 2010One of those was Lallemand Ethanol Technology, a global provider of fermentation ingredients to the fuel ethanol industry, which announced the introduction of Thermosacc® GOLD, a new yeast product for the fuel ethanol industry.

Thermosacc GOLD is a fresh-cake yeast of Saccharomyces cerevisiae specially selected to better withstand the rigors of fermentation. A crumble yeast that has not been dried, it produces a shorter lag phase. The increased budding rates and vitality of Thermosacc GOLD result in quicker starting fermentations compared to dry yeast.

Designed to utilize sugars more efficiently, Thermosacc GOLD leaves less sugar and glycerol at the end of the fermentation process. This translates into increased yield, while adding dollars to the bottom line.

“Lallemand Ethanol Technology is continually striving for product improvement,” says Bill Nankervis, General Manager. “Thermosacc GOLD is another example of understanding our customers’ needs and delivering on them. Thermosacc GOLD allows plants to achieve incremental steps toward more efficient and profitable operations.”

2010 Fuel Ethanol Workshop Photo Album

Ethanol, Ethanol News, FEW

NY

John Davis

With props to the old t-shirts that read “I <3 NY" (I Love New York), it appears the Big Apple <3 one of our favorite green fuels: biodiesel. It was back in 2005 that the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation piloted the city's first biodiesel program, and Biodiesel Magazine reports Gotham is continuing that commitment to this day:

The agency maintains more than 29,000 acres in New York City, including such well-known venues as Central Park, Battery Park, Flushing Meadows, Coney Island and much more. This enormous task requires a very large fleet—more than 2,300 vehicles, 850 of which are diesel-powered. The diesel fleet alone includes more than 40 different types of vehicles and equipment, everything from landscape and parks maintenance to road construction, snow removal and waste management.

Their experience has been extremely positive. In fact, things have gone so well that the department ran a B50 pilot program in 2007 in 45 vehicles.

“Our B50 trial was very successful and we hope to move to a B50 blend in all but the very coldest months in the near future,” said Keith Kerman, assistant commissioner for the parks and recreation department. “We view B20 as a stepping stone that will help move us toward New York City’s goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030.”

NY Parks and Rec is also using a B5 blend for its heating systems and boilers, with hopes of moving up to a 20 percent mixture one day. Plus, most of the department’s vehicles that don’t run on diesel use other alternatives, such as compressed natural gas, electric or solar power.

Biodiesel

Renewal of Biodiesel Tax Incentive Dealt Setback

John Davis

It’s getting to be an all-too-familiar refrain: renewal of the federal $1-a-gallon biodiesel tax credit has hit another roadblock.

This article from Reuters says the measure, contained in a $126 billion tax bill, failed a procedural vote today in the U.S. Senate. But the measure’s sponsor has introduced a new version:

Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus was expected to offer a less-costly substitute to the bill that would reduce Medicare spending. A Baucus aide did not respond to questions about the possible survival of the biodiesel credit, a popular cause in many farm states…

A spokesman for the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group, said it appeared the biodiesel credit would be retained. “There’s been no objection to it,” said the spokesman.

Biodiesel production may drop to 15 percent of capacity because of loss of the credit, said the trade group.

USDA estimates that just more than 10 percent of all U.S.-grown soybean oil this year will be made into biodiesel … that’s if the biodiesel industry can survive all these delays.

Biodiesel, Legislation

Ethanol Industry Wants to Answer President’s Call

Cindy Zimmerman

In his remarks to the nation Tuesday night about the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, President Obama noted that “oil is a finite resource” and “the need to end America’s century-long addiction to fossil fuels.”

However, while he talked about wind turbines, solar panels and energy efficiency, the president made no mention of domestic transportation fuel alternatives such as ethanol and biodiesel. In an open letter to President Obama, the Renewable Fuels Association has offered to answer his call for a clean energy future.

“There is no other renewable fuel technology that can match the domestic ethanol industry’s ability to replace oil in American gas tanks,” reads the letter. “Wind, solar, and other renewable energies all must play a critical role. But theirs is to replace those fossil fuels from which we generate power and electricity. America uses precious little oil to generate electricity. Rather, oil is primarily used to create liquid transportation fuels. As such, America’s producers of renewable fuel are uniquely equipped to reduce and ultimately eliminate America’s need for oil in the tank.”

RFA asks the president to give ethanol the ability to answer the call by urging Congress to extend the tax incentives for ethanol, having EPA increase the amount of ethanol allowed in a gallon of gasoline to 15 percent, and expand the infrastructure needed to use higher ethanol blends.

“Throughout its brief history, American ethanol production has always risen to answer the call. Together with American farmers who provide the feedstocks from which we make ethanol, we stand at the ready yet again,” the RFA letter concludes. “Mr. President, when the phone rings American farmers and ethanol producers will be there to answer.”

Ethanol, Ethanol News, RFA

Brazil Refutes Claims of Ethanol Sales to Iran

Cindy Zimmerman

FEW 2010The Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA) is refuting a claim made by Growth Energy co-chairman Gen. Wesley Clark that they have agreed to sell ethanol to Iran. Clark made that statement in an address at the 2010 Fuel Ethanol Workshop this week and in an interview with Domestic Fuel.

In that interview Clark said, “Brazilian ethanol comes with a lot of, let’s call them, external costs – like child labor and environmental problems down there and we don’t need to be contributing to those. But beyond that, I think Brazil just kind of stepped over the line when they agreed to sell to Iran.”

UNICA“Brazilian producers have no interest in exporting ethanol to Iran. Gen. Clark’s suggestion to the contrary is far from reality and rather surprising,” said UNICA’s Joel Velasco in a comment on the post about Clark’s address. “Brazil has never sent a drop of ethanol to Iran and there is nothing to indicate that any Brazilian ethanol will be sent to Iran in the future. History here is a good indicator, as confirmed by government trade statistics.”

Velasco says that UNICA recognizes “the promise of building a global market for renewable fuels. We’ve chosen to focus our efforts on the largest transportation markets like the United States and Europe, which together consume about two-thirds of the world’s gasoline output.”

UNICA is a private, non-governmental group, representing about two-thirds of all ethanol produced in Brazil.

Ethanol, Growth Energy, International

Iowa Ag Secretary Promotes Ethanol and Corn Indy

Cindy Zimmerman

Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey got a taste of life in the fast lane yesterday as he was driven through morning rush hour traffic in an Indy Car to promote the 4th annual Iowa Corn Indy 250, sponsored by Pioneer, coming up this weekend.

Northey was given a ride to his office in the two-seater Indy Car after breakfast with representatives from Iowa Speedway and the Iowa Corn Promotion Board. “I definitely got some looks,” Northey said. “It’s a fun chance to tell folks a little about the Iowa Corn Indy 250.”

The Iowa Corn Indy 250 is the only IndyCar race that is run on domestically-produced corn ethanol. The rest of the races in the series are fueled with Brazilian sugarcane ethanol. “Certainly ethanol is huge for the state of Iowa,” said Northey. “Three billion gallons of fuel of ethanol are produced in the state. It helps our corn markets as well as 40 plants out there producing jobs across the state so it’s huge. And so the visibility the Indy 250 gives to ethanol, not only here but around the world by the coverage it gets, encourages people to use ethanol as well.”

Tuesday’s Indy car ride along was just one of a series of events leading up the Iowa Corn Indy 250 at Iowa Speedway on Sunday. On Thursday, the Iowa corn growers and Pioneer will be sponsoring a pump promotion in Des Moines, offering E85 for just 85 cents a gallon and regular E10 for 10 cents off. Several drivers will be signing autographs and pumping ethanol for customers and fans at the event to be held at the Guthrie Street Kum & Go from 5:30-7:30 pm – including now Ryan Hunter-Reay, who will be driving the Team Ethanol car once again, for the first time since 2008. Ryan drove the Team Ethanol car to its one and only victory July 6, 2008 in Watkins Glen, NY so ethanol supporters are hopeful he will do it again in Iowa and make the race even sweeter for the corn ethanol industry.

corn, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Indy Racing

Ethanol Industry Takes Environmental Group to Task

Joanna Schroeder

The ethanol industry has come together to take the Environmental Working Group (EWG) to task over their claims that American ethanol is not a sound strategy. The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), Growth Energy, the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) have called EWG out on the table for what they claim is their misleading information about the ethanol tax incentive. A recent International Energy Agency report found that the world spent more than $550 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels in 2008. During the same time frame, the domestic ethanol industry only received $4.5 billion, which the ethanol groups are calling “a bargain by comparison.”

This attack is just one of several that various environmental groups have launched against the industry.

Also misleading, say the ethanol groups, is the discussion of tax incentives without properly attributing increases in economic activity resulting from these incentives. In 2009, U.S. ethanol production employed close to 400,000 people directly or indirectly and added more than $15 billion to federal, state and local government tax revenues while at the same time displacing more than 350 million barrels of imported oil.

“It is disappointing that some in the environmental community continue to have an irrational and unsophisticated notion of how to reduce fossil fuel use,” said Brian Jennings, Executive Vice President of the American Coalition for Ethanol. “Some say the solution is to get rid of corn-based ethanol today, in hopes that some other potentially promising, but not yet commercialized fuel will be available tomorrow. The result would be more pain at the pump and more pollution for the planet. Ethanol is the only commercially available alternative to gasoline today, and removing it from our nation’s fuel supply would mean more oil use – and we ought to learn from the painful and ongoing lesson in the Gulf of Mexico that more oil is simply not a sustainable path.”

Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy continued, “It is unfortunate that groups purporting to represent the environment are still criticizing the only alternative fuel — domestic ethanol — that reduces our dependence on foreign oil.”Read More

ACE, Environment, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Growth Energy, NCGA, RFA

Growth Energy and Thorntons Partner on E85 Pumps

Cindy Zimmerman

Growth EnergyGrowth Energy has joined forces with retailer Thorntons Inc. to establish 20 new E85 stations throughout five states. Growth Energy will provide funds to support the installation of new equipment to dispense high level blends of ethanol.

Thorntons has become a part of Growth Energy’s 2010 E85 and Blender Pump Program, where funds are provided to retailers to establish mid and high level blend infrastructure throughout the country. Over 60 new mid and high level blend sites have been provided financial support in 2010.

“It’s exciting to know that Thorntons, one of the largest gasoline retailers, is working to establish such a large network of E85 fueling stations,” said CEO of Growth Energy, Tom Buis. “We are delighted to collaborate with them and commend Thorntons on their leadership of promoting this clean burning, alternative fuel.”

“We are very excited about the expansion of E85 fuel in our stores,” said Matt Thornton, Chief Executive Officer of Thorntons. “We support the use of ethanol, wherever it is economically available.”

E85 pumps are expected to be opened within the next few months at Thorntons Convenience Stores in the following areas – Island Lake, Volo, Lakemoor, Third Lake, and Woodale in Illinois; Terre Haute, Evansville, and Greenwood in Indiana; Lexington, and two in Louisville, KY; Galloway, two in Columbus, Canal Winchester, Hamilton, Cincinnati, and Fairfield, Ohio; and Lebanon, TN.

“We are pleased to partner with Growth Energy on the expansion and promotion, and appreciate their financial support of the expansion of our E85 fuel offerings,” noted Thornton.

Growth Energy continues to encourage fuel retailers which have an interest in establishing mid and high level blend ethanol dispensing facilities to contact our offices to determine eligibility for support.

E85, Ethanol, Growth Energy