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Midwest Senators Sponsor Ethanol Amendments

Cindy Zimmerman

Iowa’s two senators and others from the Midwest are co-sponsoring amendments to legislation that funds the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which would address two important issues facing the ethanol industry.

Iowa Senators Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), along with Ben Nelson (D-NE) introduced an amendment to the Senate Interior-Environment Appropriations bill that would prevent the EPA from going ahead with regulations that would limit the production and use of biofuels required by Congress’ 2007 energy bill. The proposed amendment would prohibit the EPA, for one year, from spending funds to include international indirect land use change emissions in the implementation of the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS).

In addition, Grassley is working with Senator Nelson on an amendment that would require EPA to approve an increase in ethanol blend levels from 10 percent to 15 percent. “I still believe that the best way for this matter to be resolved is for the EPA to review the science and approve the higher blend,” said Grassley. “But the EPA needs to know that we’re watching the all-too-lengthy deliberating process that they seem to be going through, and of course their lack of action in this area. And it’s time for them, I think, to move forward.”‘

Debate on the appropriations bill began today on the Senate floor but neither amendment was brought to a vote.

Ethanol, Ethanol News, Government

IRFA Announce Ethanol Drawing Winners

irfaThe Iowa Renewable Fuels Association (IRFA) has announced the winners of its drawing during IRFA’s participation in the Iowa Corn Fed GameDay promotion prior to the Iowa vs. Iowa State football game on September 12, 2009, in Ames, IA. The winners of $50 of free ethanol ar Becky Jordan of Collins, IA, Lynn Hardin of Jefferson, IA, and Paul Scott of Coon Rapids, IA.

The Iowa Corn Fed GameDay is part of a GameDay partnership that includes the Iowa and Iowa State football, basketball, and wrestling seasons. Consumers can enter the drawing once each month from July 10 through November 21 online at www.iacornfed.com.

This particular event was sponsored by the Iowa Corn Growers Association and held just outside the north entrance of Jack Trice Stadium, was a pregame showcase of the many uses of corn and its importance to Iowa. IRFA was invited to participate in this event to highlight the many benefits of corn-based ethanol and other renewable fuels. IRFA’s display, in addition to including an educational exhibit on the uses and benefits of ethanol and biodiesel, encouraged fans to enter the drawing for $50 of free ethanol gift certificates which may be used for the purchase of ethanol-blended fuel.

IRFA Biofuels Manager Grant Menke stated: “IRFA congratulates the three winners and encourages all Iowans to follow their lead by choosing Iowa-produced renewable fuels at the pump. Together we can boost Iowa’s economy and do our part to reduce dependence on foreign oil.”

corn, E85, Ethanol, Ethanol News, News

PSEG Solar Source and juwi solar Announce Projects

Joanna Schroeder

imgSolarFarmsToday, PSEG Solar Source announced that it has completed an acquisition from juwi solar inc. of two utility-scale solar projects to be located in Florida and Ohio. PSEG also announced it is developing a solar project in New Jersey. Combined, these three solar projects will have a total capacity of nearly 30 megawatts and are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010.

juwi solar will provide the engineering, procurement, construction, and initial operation and maintenance for the projects in Florida and Ohio. Specifically, the projects include a 15.0 MW DC (direct current) solar farm on 100 acres in Jacksonville, Florida, and a 12.0 MW DC solar farm on 80 acres in Wyandot, Ohio. In addition, a third project is underway in the Mars Solar Garden, a 2.2 MW DC facility located on 18 acres adjacent to Mars Snackfood’s U.S. headquarters in Western New Jersey.

All three projects utilize thin film panels provided by First Solar and will be ground-mounted. The projects together will include 380,000 solar panels and represent approximately a $100 million investment by PSEG Solar Source.

“PSEG Solar Source is pleased to have established a relationship with juwi solar on these projects,” said Diana Drysdale, who heads PSEG Global’s solar business. “PSEG Solar Source will continue to seek opportunities throughout the U.S. to help address climate change and help states meet their solar and renewable targets.”

Another project of interest is PSEG’s regulated gas and electric utility in New Jersey called PSE&G. This project consists of an 80 MW Solar4All program that involves attaching solar panels to 200,000 utility poles.

Energy, News, Solar

#FuelChat Twitter Session Today

Cindy Zimmerman

fuel chatThis is a reminder that today at 2:00pm Eastern time the Renewable Fuels Association will be hosting another 1 hour online Twitter chat session. It’s FuelChat and you will have the chance to ask questions and interact with others on the subject of ethanol.

There are a number of mechanisms you can use to follow along and participate. We recommend TweetChat. Just go to TweetChat.com, log in with your Twitter account login and then enter the search term, #fuelchat. TweetChat will display a live list of Twitter posts that use the #fuelchat “hashtag” and you can read them, reply to them or enter your own. Another useful mechanism is Twitterfall.

If you’ve never used Twitter and don’t have a free account, you can still go to Search.Twitter.com and search for #fuelchat to see the results. You will need to manually refresh the page to see new ones as they are posted. It’s also a good way to go back and review the session afterward.

Post Update: Today’s FuelChat session has concluded and as a reminder you can see the questions/answers/comments by reviewing all the posts using this link.

Uncategorized

Ethanol Plant on the Auction Block

Cindy Zimmerman

A partially completed 110 million gallon per year ethanol plant in Nebraska will go up for auction next month.

AltraAltra Nebraska, LLC began construction of this facility in 2006 and work halted in November of 2007 when additional financing could not be obtained due to economic challenges. The plant was expected to be one of Nebraska’s largest ethanol plants employing over 50 persons and utilizing over 36 million bushels of corn for feedstock. The liquidation of the assets comes as part of the Chapter 11 filing last month.

MaasMaas Companies of Rochester, MN will auction the plant on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 10 AM on the site in Carleton, Nebraska. The auction process will offer the plant as an entirety for buyers up to two weeks prior to auction day. Potential buyers are encouraged to explore this option in a timely manner and submit their bids prior to October 13 at 5:00 pm. After this date, the property will be sold at auction in a piecemeal manner. The auction manner of sale will include offering all real estate as one tract and the equipment or equipment lots individually. The auction will offer buyers the option of bidding on-site or live via the internet.

Open houses of the plant for auction are scheduled for September 28 and 29, October 26 and 27, from 10 am to 5 pm. Details of the sale are available at the auction website, maascompanies.com or by contacting the auction company directly at 507-285-1444.

Ethanol, Ethanol News

Oregon Pipeline Starts Moving Biodiesel

John Davis

KinderMorganBiodiesel has started moving through the 115-mile Oregon Pipeline.

The Houston (TX) Business Journal reports that Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has shipped the first 100,000 barrels of B2 from Portland to Eugene:

“This new biodiesel shipment capability will help diesel fuel suppliers throughout Oregon meet a state biodiesel mandate that goes into effect on Oct. 1,” said KMP Products Pipeline President Tom Bannigan.

The pipeline is one of only a few in the United States that can regularly transport blended biodiesel — in this case, blended 2 percent (B2) — because it does not transport jet fuel. Though tested, biodiesel has not been approved for commercial aircraft, so Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMP) and other pipeline companies can’t risk contaminating jet fuel shipments with biodiesel.

The pipeline joins the Southeastern United States’ Plantation Pipeline, which started commercially shipping biodiesel this past June.

Biodiesel

Don’t Penalize Biofuels

Joanna Schroeder

corn-field-schuyler-nebraska-neb168The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a rule based on Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) that would penalize biofuel production such as corn-ethanol. The ethanol industry has banned together to fight this potential ruling, and today Growth Energy urged Congressional support of an amendment authored by Senator Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

Specifically, the Harkin amendment to the Interior-Environment Appropriations bill, would prohibit the use of funds by the EPA to include international ILUC theories in the implementation of the renewable fuel program. This in hopes to spur a full debate in the Congress on ILUC theory. EPA is forging ahead with the rules even though sound science on the topic is lacking, nor an agreed upon way to even measure ILUC impacts.

“If the EPA goes ahead with this lopsided rule, it will penalize domestic production of biofuels like ethanol. And U.S.-made ethanol is the only existing alternative we have to foreign oil. It creates jobs, enhances our national and economic security, and cuts greenhouses gases. Senator Harkin’s amendment deserves to be passed by the Congress. Senator Harkin’s legislation is rooted in logic and fact – two things that are lacking from the EPA’s proposed rule,” said Tom Buis, Chief Executive Officer of Growth Energy.

According to Growth Energy, ILUC theory has never been debated in the Congress, and it’s not accepted as a consensus of the scientific community. “If we’re going to theorize the indirect land use changes of fuel, the EPA should not single out biofuels – but should include the sources of all transportation fuels, including emissions from coal-fired power plants for plug-in cars, Persian Gulf oil tankers and tar-sand extraction,” said Buis.

Ethanol, Indirect Land Use, News

Biodiesel Industry Split Over End of B99 Bill

John Davis

USCapitolWhile the biodiesel industry’s biggest advocacy group is praising a bill that could make B99 a thing of the past, not all biodiesel makers are glad to see the change.

This article from Biodiesel Magazine says the Biodiesel Tax Incentive Reform and Extension Act, introduced last month by U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA), is being hailed by the National Biodiesel Board as a “common sense” proposal that will bring stability and reliability to the marketplace by extending the tax incentive for five years and will change the excise tax for biodiesel from a blender to a producer credit. But some sources aren’t so happy or optimistic about its effects:

“I don’t understand their wanting to change that,” said one NBB member, who asked not to be named. “I don’t see the sense or the advantage in it.”

The source indicated that producers who sell B100 are able to keep their books clean because they don’t file any claims with the Internal Revenue Service. This allows them to bill the $1 per gallon credit into their sale price and let distributors, who blend the fuel, deal with the paperwork. “It usually takes about 10 days for us to get paid by our customers,” said the source. “When you’re dealing with the federal government, 45 days is good.”

The longer a producer has to wait to get paid, the more of its own capital it has to invest to maintain its inventory and procure feedstocks, which could be a problem imposed by a conversion of the credit. “I understand that it’s a cash flow issue,” said Bobby Heiser of Bulldog Biodiesel. “But most of the time we’re the blender of record anyway, so we’re already dealing with the IRS. The way that this change will make it easier for us will be by eliminating B99.”

Management at Lake Erie Biofuels, a plant with a 45 MMgy capacity in Erie, Pa., agreed. “We sell maybe a couple of truckloads of B100 while B99 makes up almost 90 percent of our total sales,” said Michael Noble, director of operations at LEB. “Changing the excise tax will be better for our customers, but it doesn’t change our position.”

Still, others say converting the credit gets rid of the paperwork for blenders and will encourage sales.

And you thought all the debate in DC was just about health care!

Biodiesel, Government, Legislation

Purdue Study Proves Biodiesel Burns Well in Furnaces

John Davis

Yesterday, I told you how oilheat industry officials have set out a plan to make more use of biodiesel blended to burn in home furnaces. For those who might be worried about the performance of the green fuel in your home heater, a new study indicates it will do just fine.

This story from Purdue University says researchers have been testing degummed soybean oil and No. 2 fuel oil as an alternative to heating fuel:

ileleji-soybeanKlein Ileleji, an assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering, tested blends of 20 percent, 50 percent and 100 percent degummed soybean oil – an unrefined and cheaper product to produce than soy methyl esters, commonly known as biodiesel – and found that the 20 percent blend didn’t degrade a home furnace’s parts or heat output. The only issue found with the 20 percent blend was a slight early degradation of the furnace’s seals and gaskets, which manufacturers could fix by switching to a higher quality product. Ileleji’s findings were reported in the recent early online version of the journal Fuel.

“You are going to reduce the sulfur emissions with degummed soybean oil. The things you should be worried about with a biofuel, such as the pour point temperature and heating ability, were not affected,” Ileleji said. “You want to keep the properties of your No. 2 fuel oil, and at 20 percent degummed soybean oil, you would minimally affect those properties.”

Ileleji found that a 20 percent blend worked well in furnaces without any modification to the heater’s design.

The Indiana Soybean Alliance and the Indiana United Soybean Board funded the research.

Biodiesel, Research

Pacific Ethanol Facing Stock Delisting

Cindy Zimmerman

Pacific EthanolPacific Ethanol will be booted from the NASDAQ unless its stock goes up soon.

NASDAQ sent a letter last week notifying Pacific Ethanol that “it does not comply with the $1.00 minimum bid price requirement for continued listing on The NASDAQ Global Market set forth in NASDAQ Listing Rule 5450(a)(1).” The company has been given 180 calendar days, or until March 14, 2010, to regain compliance. The last time the company’s stock was above $1 was November 7, 2008. In the last year, the high for the stock was $2.08, with the low at 20 cents. Shares of Pacific Ethanol closed at 59 cents today, up two cents.

Ethanol, Ethanol News