Purdue to Test Biofuels for Aircraft

John Davis

U.S. Air Force planes could soon be flying on biofuels, and that fuel will be tested at one of the Midwest’s premier universities.

This press release from Purdue University says the school’s National Test Facility for Fuels and Propulsion is getting a $1.35 million grant from the U.S. Air Force. The facility at will be located at the Niswonger Aviation Technology Building at the Purdue Airport:

davidstanley“The aerospace industry now has an unprecedented interest in developing green aircraft using biofuels,” said David L. Stanley, an associate professor of aeronautical engineering technology at Purdue and principal investigator of the facility. “Testing will be conducted while fuels are being researched for development. This means input will be provided during the development phase, not after the fuel has been developed, which helps to ensure the best results possible.”

The facility, expected to open in late 2010 or early 2011, will test aerospace hardware in engines and aircraft and provide data related to fuel-sustainability and emissions goals and for economic assessments.

“This is a multidisciplinary research approach that begins with growing crops, developing fuels from those crops in the laboratory and then testing those fuels in engines,” said Denver Lopp, a professor of aviation technology and one of two co-principal investigators.

The release goes on to say that while the focus will be jet engines, some of the testing will also be on piston engines.

biofuels, Research

Renew Energy to Learn Fate Soon

renew_energyWisconsin based Renew Energy will either be finding a buyer or closing within just a few weeks. The Jefferson, Wisconsin plant currently produces about 210,000 of ethanol and employs 70. Renew noted that they are striving to sell the plant in hopes that a new buyer will keep the current employees.

According to the Wisconsin Ag Connection, Renew filed for Chapter 11 bankrupcy in February and at that time owned its creditors over $100 and was directly tied to the financial failures of Olsen’s Mill, which has since been forced into receivership. The grain handling company borrowed millions of dollars to help finance the construction and operation of the ethanol plant and wasn’t able to pay back its creditors because of the slowdown in the ethanol industry. Olsen’s also handled all the corn purchasing agreements for Renew Energy.

Renew Energy converted the former Cargill Malt in Jefferson, the largest malting plant in the world.

Ethanol, Ethanol News, News

GPS App Finds 85 Percent Ethanol Stations

Cindy Zimmerman

Want to know where you can buy E85? There’s an app for that now.

garminThe Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) today launched a new application for Garmin GPS units that that maps out the location of E85 (85% ethanol/15% gasoline) for users with flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs).

“The most frustrating thing for many FFV owners is not knowing where they can fill up with higher level ethanol blends, like E85,” said RFA Director of Market Development Robert White. “With this new feature, drivers going to the grocery store or to Grandma’s for Thanksgiving will know the exact location of the nearest E85 pump.”

Using the Garmin navigation system, FFV owners can download station locations and program their device to guide them to upcoming E85 stations. The Garmin application is available for download on ChooseEthanol.com. There, consumers can download individual state data, a combination of states, or national data directly to their computer and then to their Garmin devices. Directions for installing this point of interest (POI) data are now available.

While the program is currently only available for Garmin GPS units, RFA is working to bring this data to other navigation systems and will update station location data quarterly.

E85, Ethanol, Ethanol News, RFA, technology

Next By-product for Biodiesel Plants: Cosmetics

John Davis

elevanceThe next great by-product that could help biodiesel plants stay profitable could be put right on the tip of your shiny nose.

Elevance Renewable Sciences, with backing from Cargill, Dow Corning and the $45 billion Texas Pacific Group investment fund, is working with Iowa-based Renewable Energy Group to put technology in REG’s Newton, Iowa biodiesel plant to use biodiesel and soybean, corn and animal oils processed there to produce polymers, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. The Des Moines Register reports that Elevance has asked the Iowa Power Fund to help with the money for the $8.1 million demonstration project:

If successful, “this technology may be replicable in large-scale biodiesel facilities in Iowa,” according to the application by Elevance Renewable Sciences of Bolingbrook, Ill…

Negotiations have begun with the Iowa Power Fund for Elevance’s request of $3.8 million. The Iowa Department of Economic Development also will be asked for $800,000, according to a Elevance spokeswoman.

REGlogo2Spokeswoman Alicia Clancy of Renewable Energy Group of Ames said Friday that REG and Elevance “are in discussions” about working together at the Central Iowa Energy biodiesel plant in Newton that REG manages.

“This would be a way to make the biodiesel and biofuels plants more complete bioenergy systems,” Clancy said. She would not divulge more details.

Construction is slated for next summer with the facility ready to process the new by-products in October.

Now keep in mind that REG itself has 12 biodiesel plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Kansas and Canada. If it works at the Newton plant, you can bet they’ll add the idea to their other plants, where feasible. And if it works for them, imagine the others that will want to get on that bandwagon.

Biodiesel

Growth Energy Urges Action in California and Congress

Cindy Zimmerman

Ethanol advocacy group Growth Energy sent letters to the California Air Resources Board and members of Congress today to address issues that could impact the expansion of ethanol.

Growth EnergyIn California, Growth Energy is calling on the Air Resources Board (ARB) to reopen comments on the low-carbon fuel standard (LCFS) in light of undisclosed documents recently uncovered related to the rulemaking process.

Through a public records request, Growth Energy uncovered numerous previously undisclosed documents and comments from ARB consultants that cast doubt on ARB conclusions and others that appeared to influence ARB’s assumptions. Following the discovery, Growth Energy issued a letter to ARB, calling on them to reopen the public comment period and allow comment on all documents received by ARB in connection with the LCFS as mandated by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). These include documents commenting on detailed environmental analyses of the LCFS developed by other corn ethanol stakeholders, including the Renewable Fuels Association and the New Fuels Alliance.

Meanwhile, on the national level, Growth Energy is asking Congress to fix a tax glitch in the program intended to promote the installation of pumps that dispense higher level ethanol blends. Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis says the Alternative Fuel Vehicle Refueling Property Credit should allow fuel vendors to recapture up to $50,000, or 50 percent, of the total cost of installing alternative fuel dispensing systems but an IRS interpretation is only allowing retailers to take credit for a portion of the new pump, instead of the entire pump.

Legislation was introduced by Reps. Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, D-S.D., and John Shimkus, R-Ill., to correct the IRS interpretation, but Growth Energy suggests making the technical correction in the 2009 tax extenders package.

Ethanol, Growth Energy

New Report Analyzes Biodiesel Feedstocks & Fuel

John Davis

REGlogo2Iowa-based biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group has released a report that looks at a wide variety of biodiesel feedstocks and the characteristics of both that feedstock and the fuel produced from it.

In the “Feedstock and Biodiesel Characteristics Report,” a first-of-its-kind of publication, REG, in cooperation with the Iowa Power Fund Board and the Iowa Office of Energy Independence, evaluated 36 biodiesel feedstocks and produced fuel from 34 of them:

These feedstocks varied from traditional fats and oils to novel feedstocks from around the world…

Each feedstock was tested for the following characteristics: moisture, free fatty acid, kinematic viscosity, FAC color, saponification value, moisture and volatile matter, insoluble impurities, unsaponifiable matter, MIU, oxidation stability, sulfur, phosphorous, calcium, and magnesium. If a feedstock exceeded 10 ppm phosphorous, 5 ppm calcium and magnesium, it was pretreated using the phosphoric acid procedure and dried. Feedstocks having free fatty acid in excess of 0.5 wt % were esterified using Amberlyst BD 20. The feedstocks were transesterified using identical reaction conditions and production protocols. Each biodiesel was characterized according to the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D6751 and other properties. These characteristics were: cloud point, cold filter plugging point, cold soak filtration, fatty acid profile, relative density, kinematic viscosity, sulfated ash, carbon residue, water and sediment, visual inspection, free and total glycerin, flash point, copper corrosion, phosphorous, calcium, magnesium, total acid number, moisture, sulfur, oxidation stability, and FTIR.

What makes the project so unique is that all of the wide range of feedstocks were pretreated, esterified, and transesterified using the same procedures and conditions to allow for uniform comparisons of critical fuel properties.

You can read the report for yourself here.

Biodiesel

DF Cast: Crunching the Renewable Identification Numbers

John Davis

df-logoA big issue in the current Renewable Fuels Standard … as well as the new RFS2 under consideration by the EPA … is the Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs).

In this edition of the Domestic Fuel Cast, we listen in on the conversation from the recent 2nd Annual RINWorld Summit held in Dallas, TX where the EPA’s John Wienrauch, Office of Transportation and Air Quality (OTAC) and Erv Pickell, Office of Enforcement Compliance Insurance briefed attendees on some issues with RINs and the current RFS and what we could see with the new RFS2.

Some of the current problems include unregistered users generating invalid numbers, duplicates RINs and even some fraud out there. And once a bad RIN is out there, it affects everyone down the line. But for the most part, those issues seem to be honest mistakes. Pickell says the EPA has been more forgiving with those who have self-reported their problems, but tighter controls will have to rein these issues in the future, especially with the new RFS2.

Weihrach says it comes down to the three Rs: registration, record-keeping and reporting.

It’s an important conversation, and you can here more of it here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/domesticfuel/DFCast-11-20-09.mp3]

You can also subscribe to the DomesticFuel Cast here.

Audio, Biodiesel, Domestic Fuel Cast, E85, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Government

New North Releases Cellulosic Feasibility Study

Joanna Schroeder

woodwasteNew North, Inc. has recently released Phase 2 of a study on the feasibility of cellulosic ethanol plant in Niagara, an area in Northeast Wisconsin. Phase 2 demonstrates the availability of feedstocks to the plant, primarily wood resources, should the plant be able to produce ethanol using a diversity of feedstocks. The news is positive as many local community members and companies have expressed interest in providing feedstocks to the plant.

Phase 1, which was released this past July, studied the surrounding biomass resources in order to determine if a cellulosic plant could be sited in the region. Both parts of the report were conducted by Resource Analytics. The study also notes the possibility of creating switchgrass supplier cooperatives in conjunction with the establishment of an ethanol plant over the coming years.

“As second generation biofuels emerge as a fuel source, the New North is well positioned to take advantage with the resources and infrastructure necessary to create them,” said Jerry Murphy, Executive Director of the New North, Inc. “This study has demonstrated that a cellulosic ethanol facility at the former Niagara paper mill site has a great deal of promise for potential investors.”

Cellulosic, Ethanol, Research

Advanta Believes in Sorghum for Ethanol

advantaAdvanta US believes sorghum will become the most versatile feedstock for ethanol production. As a global seed company that has a direction toward research, they have seen a stream of similarities and advantages verses other readily known ethanol production methods such corn, sugar and switchgrass.

According to a press release from Advanta US, “As the world leader in sorghum, including bioenergy sorghums, Advanta is intimately involved in developing the biofuels industry worldwide,” says John Oppelt, Advanta US Manager of Business Development.

“Although the starch-to-ethanol method of ethanol production using corn or grain sorghum has gained the lion’s share of agriculture’s attention to date, the sugar-to-ethanol and cellulosic ethanol methods hold the greatest advantage in conversion and green footprint. Advanta is building upon the advantages of sorghum and currently is marketing hybrids we’ve developed for biofuel and bioenergy conversion around the world. Sorghum is the only crop offering multiple pathways to ethanol.”

Advanta is a global seed company headquartered in India with offices in Argentina, Australia, India, Thailand and the U.S.

Cellulosic, corn, Ethanol, Ethanol News, News

Solar, Wind Latest Additions to Green Education

John Davis

mortarboardThere’s an old saying that goes, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.” While it might be true that college does cost, there are some cheaper options out there. And more of those options are including solar and wind degrees from the less expensive community college route.

This article from CNN Money says that more of the more-affordable two-year schools are offering degrees in the ever-growing renewable energy sector:

In part the increase in demand at junior colleges is due to the recession: Many students can no longer afford pricey four-year colleges and are opting to attend two-year programs instead.

And the schools are about to receive a surge of funding thanks to the Obama administration, which has placed the country’s 1,200 two-year institutions at the heart of its recovery strategy, allocating $12 billion over the next decade to help modernize the system.

Already green partnerships between big industry and junior colleges are popping up around the country:

MesalandsCCGE has donated a small wind turbine to Mesalands Community College in Tucumcari, N.M., and has plans to hire graduates of the school’s new wind energy technician program. And at Milwaukee Area Technical College, local industrial giant Johnson Controls (JCI, Fortune 500) is building a 2,500-panel solar education farm where students can learn to become photovoltaic installers and designers.

In helping put together the programs, companies are also building a pipeline of potential employees. “Johnson Controls’ headquarters is nearby, and it’s looking for thousands of people,” says Joseph Jacobsen, Milwaukee Area Technical’s associate dean of environmental studies. “The baby boomers are retiring, and it’s going to need new employees.”

The article goes on to say that the increase in people getting the green technical degrees is also building a demand for instructors with practical experience who can teach what this next generation of workers needs to know.

Of course, these programs join some of the biodiesel and ethanol degrees already out there (see my post about the masters degree in bioenergy at the University of Illinois from March 23, 2009).

Solar, Wind