Drive Smarter Video Challenge: Win $5,000

Joanna Schroeder

Lights, camera, action! It’s time to produce a cinematic masterpiece that will be seen by millions. The topic: driving smarter. Contestants have the opportunity to submit a two-minute video to the Drive Smarter Challenge video contest, that demonstrates one or more of the Driver Smarter Challenge campaign’s gas-and money-saving tips. The winner will receive $5,000.

promo-contestSecond/Third Prize is a choice between a VIP NASCAR Race package or one VIP Indy Racing League Package and fourth prize is a Transportation Efficiency Package. In addition the first 80 entrants whose videos meet the contest criteria will receive a $25 ExxonMobil Gift Card and a Car Care Council Car Care Guide. The contest runs from August 17 through September 20, 2009.

“Even though gasoline costs are down from their high levels of last summer, there is no need for consumers to spend more than necessary to fuel their vehicles in today’s tough economy,” said Alliance President Kateri Callahan.  “So we urge drivers to use the fuel-efficiency tips provided by the Drive Smarter Challenge campaign to ‘drive down’ those expenses.”

All eligible videos will be posted on the Drive Smarter Challenge website. Once the contest judges select the finalists, the public will vote for the winners of these prizes. For more information about the contest rules and to enter, visit www.drivesmarterchallenge.org.

Education, Energy, Miscellaneous, News

Indirect Land Use Science Lacking & World Knows it

Joanna Schroeder

cornfieldsYet another study has found that Searchinger et al.’s paper on Indirect Land Use was not based on ‘sound science’. According to researchers Professor John Matthews and Dr. Hao Tan, from Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the Searchinger paper is more ideology than science and is seeking to put biofuels in the worst possible light. In addition, they say, alternative approaches are more likely to be fruitful in genuinely evaluating effects of biofuels grown around the world. This from the new report, “Biofuels and indirect land use change effects: the debate continues”.

Their efforts revealed that the framework used started with assumptions as to the diversion of grain to ethanol production in the U.S. but then extrapolated these parts of the world, such as sugarcane growing in Brazil, which are actually much more bio-efficient. Professors Mathews and Tan’s analysis concluded that Searchinger et al. failed sound scientific standards on many fronts and that government agencies relying on Searchinger et al. findings for evaluating biofuels would be better served by utilizing other controls.

“Indirect land use change effects are too diffuse and subject to too many arbitrary assumptions to be useful for rule-making,” stated Professor Mathews. “The use of direct and controllable measures such as building statements of origin or biofuels into the contracts that regulate the sale of such commodities would secure better results.”

According to Matthews and Tan, there are six ways Searchinger et al. fell short:

  1. 1.    Direct plantings of biofuels crops around the world are ignored, and instead a spike in U.S. corn-based ethanol is considered a trigger.
    2.    The U.S. spike is met exclusively by growing corn, but other ways of meeting the U.S. spike, all involving fewer GHG emissions, are ignored.
    3.    The U.S. spike met entirely within the U.S. – without regard to trade (such as half of the spike being met by Brazilian sugarcane and imported into the U.S.).
    4.    The Searchinger et al. calculations of carbon release are based on trends recorded in the 1990s but are projected forward up to 2016.
    5.    Improvements in biomass yields around the world are not considered.
    6.    The U.S. spike leads to indirect effects around the world without regard to regulatory limits (even in the U.S.).

“If you wished to put U.S. ethanol production in the worst possible light, assuming the worst possible set of production conditions guaranteed to give the worst possible set of indirect land use effects, then the assumptions would not be far from those actually presented in the Searchinger et al. paper,” commented Dr. Hao Tan. “Frankly, better science upon which to base rule-making is available today.”

If you’d like to participate in the debate, then consider attending the Land Use Conference in St. Louis hosted by NCGA (Aug. 25-26). They will be discussing current models, limitations and develop recommendations for future science and policy.

biofuels, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Indirect Land Use, NCGA, Research

A Few Minutes with ‘The Father of Ethanol’

Joanna Schroeder

Two dear friends: Merle Anderson with Shirley Ball, EPAC

Two dear friends: Merle Anderson with Shirley Ball, EPAC

“I thought it would take one-and-a-half years to get things done but now its been 22 years for me,” said Merle Anderson during our conversation at the 22nd Ethanol Conference & Trade Show. Merle is often known as ‘the father of ethanol,’ and with good reason. He helped to start the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) in 1977. As a farmer, he was involved in all the commodity groups and this gave him the idea to start an organization to promote agriculture.

“When you look back at it, I think we’ve done well. We’ve done some really good things,” said Anderson. “I think we’ve helped farmers an awful lot. I think we’ve done what’s right for America. When you talk about the transfer of wealth, I think we’ve helped a little bit –could of and should have done more. And I always have an interest in supporting our troops.”

Wealth distribution, our money going to terrorist countries, is one of the biggest reasons why we need to get off of oil. That has to change says Anderson, and he even has a way to do it, and quickly. “Have the auto industry stand up and admit that their vehicles will operate successfully on higher blends.”

Speaking of higher blends, it’s the answer to the problem of too much production and not enough demand. “We’ve been successful in creating production. We haven’t worried enough about selling the product, and we have got to solve this if the industry is going to move forward.”

That’s why ACE, in conjunction with the Renewable Fuels Association, and the National Corn Growers Association has announced a program to install 5,000 blender pumps in the next three years. The program is called BYOethanol. Anderson helped to get the first blender pumps installed in his region in Climax, Minn. and he knows that “higher blends is the answer to our problems.”

You can see photos from the conference in our Flicker photo album.

ACE, conferences, Ethanol, Ethanol News

Seawater to Jet Fuel? The U.S. Navy Thinks So

Joanna Schroeder

dn17632-1_300The search for renewable energy sources is varied and sometimes strange and here is another one to add to the strange category: turning seawater into kerosene-based jet fuel. Who would research something like this? Look no further than our very own U.S. Navy. Navy chemists have processed seawater into unsaturated short-chain hydrocarbons that with further refining could be made into jet fuel. The catch? They will now have to discover a clean energy source to power the reaction if the end product is to be carbon neutral.

The process, according to a report from New Scientist, involves extracting CO2 dissolved in the water and then combining it with hydrogen. The hydrogen is produced by splitting water molecules using electricity (hopefully not coal based) to make a hydrocarbon fuel. For those scientists out there, you’ve probably already figured out that this is a variant of the Fischer-Tropsch process which is currently used to produce a gasoline-like hydrocarbon fuel for syngas.

The project is headed by Robert Dorner who is a chemist with the Naval Research Laboratory based in Washington, D.C. Dorner, along with several other researchers have published a paper on the project, “Catalytic CO2 hydrogenation to feedstock chemicals for jet fuel synthesis“.

Dorner notes that CO2 is not often used in the Fischer-Tropsch process due to its instability but due to its abundance and concerns about global climate change, it becomes a feedstock of interest.

Energy, Environment, News, water

Kentucky Biodiesel Plant Set to Open This Month

John Davis

BluegrassBiodieselA 14-million-gallon-a-year biodiesel plant in Kentucky is on schedule for opening later this month.

Biodiesel Magazine reports that the multi-feedstock Bluegrass BioDiesel plant at Falmouth, Ky. is about halfway through testing all of its systems and should be up and running by the end of August:

General Manager Rich Wojtkowski described a number of features used in the plant to reduce the capital investment such as using stainless steel only where required, substituting lower cost carbon steel. Flexible hoses will give the ability to reroute product streams. Gravity separation will be used, eliminating the cost of centrifuges. While using standard acid pretreatment and base transesterification, the plant is capable of handling 2 to 22 percent free fatty acids with three stages where water can be removed. “Our objective is to produce a very pure product that we can market as B100 ultra, removing all impurities,” Wojtkowski said. The plant also includes a methanol recovery and glycerin purification. “We will push for BQ9000 certification,” he added. “I have experience with ISO certification, so I know the policies and quality control that has to be in place.”

Bluegrass Biodiesel plans to offer B90 or B99 blends as well as B100 to its regional customers. “Some want a blended product, which they can blend further,” Wojtkowski said. “We handle the government issues, the filings, etcetera.”

The plant has been a work in progress for the last five years with starts and stops along the way, including running out of construction funds about a year ago. But local officials say they are pleased the company has persisted, and the plant is now on the verge of opening.

Biodiesel

The Science of Algae Biodiesel Explored on Nova

John Davis

NovaScienceNowOne of the benefits of doing this job is that I can do it from the comfort of my easy chair, while watching some of my favorite programs with one eye and searching for stories with the other (hey, God gave me two eyes… just consider it multi-tasking). But tonight, my eyes are firmly fixed on the tube, as one of my favorite programs, Nova Science Now, is featuring the really green fuel, algae biodiesel.

In this episode (on TV tonight but available on the PBS Nova Science Now Web site tomorrow, August 19th), they showed how algae is available everywhere, how the little green one-celled organisms actually turn sunlight into energy, and how to release that energy by making biodiesel out of the algae’s oil.

While the story was a good primer on how algae can be turned into biodiesel and how it will become a viable feedstock for fuel, I do have to take issue with the dig the show took on other biofuels, including corn-based ethanol and soy-based biodiesel, are contributing to the food vs. fuel debate. Reporter Andrea Kissack made some pretty big leaps in her proclamations that those crop-based renewable fuels were causing food prices to spike and contributing to the destruction of the rain forests. It might have been nice if she could have talked to some folks who know that we can get both food and fuel from crops, while getting more and more from less and less land. But, this time, it was not to be.

I suggest you take a look at the story on Nova’s Web site and judge for yourself. And if you’d like to set the record straight, there’s even a place for feedback on the story.

algae, Biodiesel

Airlines Ink Deal to Buy Biodiesel

John Davis

RentechBannerEight major U.S. airlines have signed a deal that will see them buying 1.5 million gallons of renewable biodiesel a year to use in ground equipment starting in 2012.

This press release from the Air Transport Association of America, an industry trade organization for the leading U.S. airlines, says Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, UPS Airlines and US Airways, will buy the green fuel from Rentech, Inc. with the potential for more to join later:

“We are proud to take part in this innovative, collective endeavor that over time, will further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve local air quality through the use of greener fuels,” said Glenn Tilton, ATA board chairman and UAL Corporation chairman, president and CEO. “This transaction promises to be the first of many such green fuel purchase agreements by the commercial aviation industry. It exemplifies the ongoing commitment of airlines and energy suppliers to diversify our fuel sources while contributing to a cleaner environment and adding new jobs to the economy.”

The renewable RenDiesel will be produced at the commercial-scale facility that Rentech is developing in Rialto, Calif., primarily from urban woody green waste such as yard clippings. The fuel is expected to have a low carbon footprint and minimal particulate and other emissions while meeting or exceeding all applicable fuel standards. ASIG, which provides fueling services to many airlines that operate at LAX, will handle receipt and dispensing of the RenDiesel. Other discussions regarding potential alternative fuels agreements are continuing through the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, of which ATA is a founding member.

“This commercial purchase contract among Rentech, ASIG and the airlines validates the growing demand for synthetic fuels produced by the Rentech Process,” said D. Hunt Ramsbottom, Rentech president and chief executive officer. “The low-emissions profile and near-zero carbon footprint of our renewable RenDiesel will guarantee that the LAX ground service vehicles using this fuel will be among the cleanest and greenest of their kind.”

The agreement is expected to be a model for other renewable fuel suppliers and airports and airlines in the future.

Biodiesel

USDA Rural Tour in Iowa

vilsackAgriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, along with Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar, will visit Des Moines, Iowa tomorrow, Wednesday, August 19th as part of the USDA Rural Tour, a townhall tour of America’s heartland. The Iowa State Fair will host Vilsack as he aims to engage local citizens to open the dialogue between policymakers and rural America.

Growth Energy has asked many of their members to attend the open forum to thank Secretary Vilsack for his continued support of ethanol, America’s clean, green, renewable fuel and to up for ethanol by asking the secretary to encourage a move to E15.

usda_rural_tourAdditional tour stops to discuss green jobs and a new energy economy, with a focus on renewable energies will be upcoming in Sedalia, MO on Aug. 21 in Zanesville, OH.

For more information regarding the USDA Rural tour, click here.

blends, Ethanol, Government, Growth Energy

ZAP Secures $25 Million in Funding for EVs

Joanna Schroeder

zaptruckpkZAP, a company leading the way in electric vehicle (EV) development, announced that it has secured $25 million in new financing with Cathaya Capital, L.P. Ultimately the investment will be managed by its affiliate partner Better World International who is developing EV charging infrastructure. ZAP will use a portion of the funding to pursue longer-term contract production and assembly commitments, and to accelerate deliveries of trucks and vans to fill current fleet and government orders. With the addition of this funding, ZAP has now raised up to $31 million in new financing for ZAP’s electric vehicle capital expansion since June.

“This is a critical juncture for ZAP as we now have the means and resources to begin addressing the opportunities at hand on a global basis and to fully realize the leadership position possible in the electric vehicle marketplace,” said Steven Schneider, CEO of ZAP.

ZAP has 15 years of experience in the distribution and sale of 100 percent electric vehicles. They are leveraging this with their expertise in the design and manufacture of electric vehicles to improve on the current technology and accelerate development of powertrain technology that improves overall performance of its vehicles while achieving cost reductions.

The proceeds of this financing also will enable ZAP to expand its vehicle distribution network into the European Union (EU) where recent government incentives supporting the adoption of electric vehicles have increased demand for practical models at affordable prices. In addition to targeting market opportunities in the EU, ZAP intends to pursue automotive opportunities in China. Last month, the China Daily called for government incentives on the purchase of vehicles that reduce pollution and minimize dependency on oil.

Company Announcement, Electric Vehicles, News

Cars Using Cellulosic E85 Have Lowest CO2 Emissions

Joanna Schroeder

WorldAutoSteel has released a 2nd iteration of the automotive materials parametric Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) model, which allows for broader evaluations of automotive materials, powertrains, fuels, and vehicle total energy consumed. The study showed that celluosic E85 is the best fuel to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as compared to all other alternatives, including hybrid technology and fuel cells. This phase 2 LCA model is a successor to the Phase 1 model and was released under the expertise of Dr. Roland Geyer of the University of California’s Bren School for Environmental Science.

“This report reinforces the promise of ethanol as the cleanest, greenest fuel for our cars even when compared to hybrid and fuel cell technology,” said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy.” Today’s ethanol plants are 60 percent better than gasoline and cellulosic ethanol can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by even more – as much as 86 percent. Unfortunately, an arbitrary government cap on the amount of ethanol that can be blended with gasoline is stifling the development and commercialization of second-generation biofuels and needs to be increased. Further, we need automakers to manufacture more flex-fuel vehicles so they can utilize higher blends of ethanol. These common sense solutions can speed up the introduction of cellulosic ethanol to the marketplace, making America’s homegrown fuel even cleaner and greener, while creating green collar jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil.”

fig5_webThe Phase 2 model incorporated several new features including adding magnesium and several composites to the materials that may now be evaluated for their emissions from manufacturing through use and end-of-life; advanced powertrains including diesel and fuel cells; the ability to evaluate the impact of biofuels and other ag sources for the production of these fuels; and the capability to produce an analysis of total energy consumed over a car’s life cycle to compliment the total greenhouse gas emission analysis.

You can download the model here.

biofuels, Cellulosic, Ethanol, Growth Energy, News, Research