Book Review – $20 Per Gallon

Joanna Schroeder

$20 per gallonWhy are so many people in denial that the price of gas will rise again, and continue to go up? Why are businesses and towns who are already drowning under the weight of higher energy prices not doing more to wean themselves off of oil? Could the high cost of oil take out behemoth companies like Wal-Mart? The answer is yes, according to Christopher Steiner in his new book, $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better.

The $6 gallon of gasoline could be reality in the U.S. in three to four years, says Steiner, and he predicts that will kick start some dramatic changes in how we live and where we work. Steiner notes that as big as the changes were when gasoline topped $4 per gallon in 2008, most of America denied it would stay that high.

In an interview on NPR, Steiner commented, “I think $6 is a serious tipping point for Americans psychologically. We’re going to say at that point. There is no turning back. This is reality. Let’s change how we do things.” And this could come sooner then many Americans think as several energy experts have predicted that a barrel of oil will top $200 and it could happen as soon as the end of 2009 or early 2010.

One possibility Steiner proposes in his book is that Wal-Mart’s business model will succumb to the high price of gasoline and consumers will return to buying mostly local goods sold by local merchants. This also means the concept of “Big-Box” stores which were built on the back of cheap gasoline could vanish into a time capsule.Read More

book reviews

Qteros: Cellulosic Ethanol Production Breakthrough

Joanna Schroeder

Qteros, formerly Sun Ethanol, recently announced that it has broken the barrier of ethanol production from cellulosic biomass feedstocks such as corn stover, sugarcane and woody biomass. As most biofuels companies report the production of 50 grams of ethanol per liter, Qteros says it is now producing 70 grams of ethanol per liter or approximately 100 gallons per ton.

The company’s proprietary microbe, the Q Microbe is reported to achieve this breakthrough production number. It is achieved through one step on industrially pretreated cellulosic biomass feedstocks, such as woody biomass. This technology makes cellulosic ethanol production the most economical to date and it uses less water than current ethanol production.

mn_vision

During a presentation at the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnolgy and Bioprocesssing last week in Montreal, Canada, Susan Leschine a microbiologist at the University of Massachusetts said of the discovery, “We knew from the beginning that the Q Microbe was an extraordinary microorganism. These results confirm what we predicted: Qteros and the Q Microbe can make cellulosic ethanol a commercial reality.”

Jef Sharp, Executive VP was quoted in a USA Today article about the breakthrough, “According to a DOE report, there are over a billion tons of plant biomass available every year for this purpose. Qteros will not need fossil fuel inputs for fertilizer or distillation of the ethanol because the lignin portion of the plant material (about 1/3 of most plants) will be burned to generate the heat necessary to refine the ethanol. There will also be leftover green electricity created.”

Although this announcement is monumental by past comparisons, Qteros has only just begun. The company expects to make additional improvements to the process of taking advantage of ongoing efforts in molecular genetics and strain development. That’s a whole lost of science to say that the company is still in search of producing an even better biofuel.

biofuels, Company Announcement, Ethanol, Ethanol News

Texas Set to Become Offshore Wind Energy Leader

John Davis

While bureaucrats on the East Coast argue about if they’ll allow green, offshore energy wind turbines (remember the eight-year long battle that continues over a proposed wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod?), Texas seems to be on the fast track to getting the nation’s first offshore wind farm.
Baryonyx
CleanTechnica.com reports that last week, the Texas General Land Office awarded Houston-based renewable energy company Baryonyx leases for three wind farms, including two in the Gulf of Mexico:

BaryonyxsitesThe two offshore wind leases, for sites in the Gulf of Mexico, are the sixth and seventh leases for offshore wind farms signed by the General Land Office since 2005, the land office said in a statement. The third site is on state land in the Texas panhandle.

Under the lease, Baryonyx will pay the state’s Permanent School Fund a nominal fee to lease the two offshore areas for wind development, but its payments would climb if and when the company began producing energy on the site.

Once built, the two offshore wind farms would inject a minimum of $338 million into the state’s school systems over the 30-year lease, according to state officials.

Baryonyx said its offshore farms will each produce a minimum of 750 MW and use some of the world’s largest turbines, each one producing up to five MW.

Baryonyx still needs to do the environmental paperwork to get the deal done, but you can bet there will be a lot less opposition on the Gulf Coast than off of Martha’s Vineyard.

Wind

Fiber to Fuel Company Fiberight to Construct Mini Mills

Joanna Schroeder

Innovative waste company Fiberight is on the move. Relatively quiet over the past few years as they perfected their waste-to-fuel technology, they are now ready to showcase their enhanced fiber separation technology (EFST). The company is building ‘mini mills’ next to landfills in order to be close to their feedstock: garbage. This reduces their feedstock transportation costs. In addition, the ethanol produced will also be transported localy; another way to keep costs down. For several years, the company has been developing technology that sorts and transforms (aka recycles) trash into cellulosic fibers which are then converted to biofuels.

regenex

The chemicals and enzymes that that are used in the process to convert the cellulosic fibers to sugar are also “recycled” and its transformational system divides organic and inorganic wastes and converts then according to type. For example, cardboard is sorted with other cardboard.

As reported by Ethanol Producer Magazine, Fiberight CEO Craig Stuart Paul said, “We have a team that comes largely from the waste management recycling industries and biofuel engineering industries, and we’ve really taken the approach that we believe there is an existing infrastructure in waste management. In other words, a collection infrastructure we can intercept.”

Stuart-Paul continued, “Fundamentally there is more energy in the waste stream than there is in lignocellulosic streams that is easier, if you get things right, to extract. We take a series of waste streams of industrial scrap through commercial dry waste—such as office building waste, and MSW—and we separate and sequester the organic and inorganic fractions. Then in all of the inorganic fractions, we separate the hydrocarbons and the recyclables and the stuff we send off to landfills. The organic fractions we convert to cellulosic ethanol.”

Last week, Fiberight announced a research partnership with CleanTech Biofuels in order to gain third party validation of their reported yields and costs associated with their waste-to-fuel technology.

biomass, Ethanol News

Biodiesel Back on the Menu for NC Town

John Davis

GreensboroA North Carolina city that had tried using biodiesel in the past is giving the green fuel another chance.

The Greensboro (NC) News & Record reports that after dropping a seven-year experiment with biodiesel last year, the city is ready to start fueling its garbage trucks with soybean-based B5:

“For the period that they used it, they had technical issues. So now that they are getting ready to go back they sort of want to go in one step at a time,” said Stephen Randall , Greensboro’s energy and sustainability program manager…

The city started using B20 — a 20 percent biodiesel blend — in 2002 in an effort to reduce air pollution. Greensboro even won an award from the Department of Energy for the switch to biodiesel.

But the city ran into problems when its fleet suffered from plugged filters — typical when changing to this type of fuel.

“Our worst morning we had 17 trucks go down within three hours,” said Steve Simpson , Greensboro’s fleet manager. “It definitely made it more difficult.”

Experts believe that the B5 will give the city fewer problems this time around, and Greensboro might even be able to go back to B20 because production methods are better now.

The article adds that the city is also considering natural gas for vehicle fuels.

Biodiesel

Cob Collection Trials Successful

Joanna Schroeder

corn_cobs_full_size_landscapeIt’s harvest time somewhere and it’s in Texas. Today, the first cob collection of 2009 is complete and POET is continuing to work with agricultural equipment manufacturers and growers to discover the most efficient and affordable means for harvesting cellulosic feedstock.

July 6-22, equipment for harvesting corn cobs was tested near Harlingen, Texas. The trials were in anticipation for larger harvesting efforts that will be underway this fall in the Midwest. In all, POET expects to harvest as many as 25,000 acres in Texas, South Dakota and Iowa.

POET has been using corn cobs in its pilot cellulosic ethanol plant in Scotland, S.D. and will they will also be used at its first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa in 2011. The project is known as Project LIBERTY and will produce 25 million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year.

“Agriculture equipment manufacturers are putting the final touches on a variety of harvesters that will be on the market soon,” said Scott Weishaar, Vice President of Commercial Development. “Farmers will have a lot of ways to take advantage of corn cobs as a new revenue stream.”

POET will continue work with 15-20 farmers in the Emmetsburg area in further tests this fall and will purchase cobs for use in Project LIBERTY.

“Farmers will play a big role in our nation’s energy future,” Weishaar said. “Their support has been instrumental in the success of grain-based ethanol and will continue to be crucial in commercializing cellulosic ethanol.”

Click here to view a documentary about POET’s pilot cellulosic ethanol plant.

Cellulosic, Company Announcement, Ethanol, News

Ethanol Free Fuel in Oregon

bill_signing_2009oregonOregon Governor Ted Kulongoski signed HB 3497 to amend Oregon’s ethanol mandate by allowing service stations to sell premium, higher-octane gasoline without ethanol. House Republican Leader Bruce Hanna and Rep. Tim Freeman introduced introduced the bill.

“HB 3497 will give service stations the choice of selling unblended premium fuel,” Rep. Freeman said. “The bill addresses the concerns we’ve heard from many Oregonians who have experienced problems with the state’s ethanol mandate. HB 3497 doesn’t repeal the mandate, but better enables loggers, snowmobilers, fisherman and others to purchase the fuel they need to operate their equipment safely and effectively.”

Under previous law, retailers are required to sell gasoline that contains at least 10 percent ethanol. Though a 2008 law permitted the sale of unblended fuel for certain non-road uses, unblended fuel has been difficult to access because of distribution and storage issues.

“This bill will allow more retailers to sell unblended fuel to owners of the vehicles and tools who are exempted from the ethanol requirement,” Rep. Hanna said. “While improving access to unblended fuel, this new law will give the state’s renewable fuel standard an opportunity to work as it was originally intended.”

House Bill 3497 exempts premium gasoline, which has an octane rating of 91 or above, from the 10 percent ethanol blending requirement imposed under ORS 646.913. The new law will apply to gasoline sales that occur on or after January 1, 2010.

Ethanol, Government, News

Senators Urge EPA to Approve Higher Ethanol Blends

Cindy Zimmerman

US SenateA bipartisan group of nearly 20 senators have sent a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) urging approval of up to 15 percent ethanol blends in regular gasoline.

The letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was signed by Senators John Thune (R-SD), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Roland Burris (D-IL), Byron Dorgan (D-ND), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ben Nelson (D-NE), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Al Franken (D-MN), Richard Lugar (R-IN), Kit Bond (R-MO), George Voinovich (R-OH), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Dick Durbin (D-IL).

The letter from the senators also advocated the approval of an interim blend between E10 and E15 “to meet the new RFS and keep our renewable fuels industry growing. Particularly as second generation biofuels are being developed and commercialized, it is important that we also support the steady expansion of markets for ethanol by moving to a higher percentage of ethanol blended gasoline in the near future.”

Ethanol, Ethanol News, Government

OriginOil Announces ‘Milking’ Live Algae Oil Extraction

Joanna Schroeder

OriginOil has seen many successes the past few months and today they have achieved another. The company has succeeded in extracting algae oil on a continuous basis without cell sacrifice. This process, which OrginOil has coined ‘milking,’ joins the company’s Cascading Production technique to create a combined cycle which creates additional process efficiencies. Aside from any production gains, combining the two processes is desirable because algae cultures must be refreshed regularly to remove waste toxins. Cascading Production supports Live Extraction by removing a percentage of the culture every day, refreshing the environment and giving the algae culture space to grow.

Milking, or Live Extraction, is efficient because it achieves continuous production of algae oil without destroying the algae cell. Consequently, a single algae cell can produce more oil during its lifetime using lower amounts of energy. This process is also different from others in that OriginOil’s process does not use expensive consumables such as reverse osmosis membranes nor is it limited to oil-bearing algae strains.

Live_Extraction_Diagram_highres2

Usually, algae protect their oil behind a tough cell wall. The challenge of live extraction is to harvest the oil without causing permanent damage to the cell. This goal has been achieved in the laboratory at bench scale and is now being scaled up to OriginOil’s intermediate 200-gallon tank size.

“We are pleased with the results we are getting from conventional harvesting,” said Vikram Pattarkine, PhD, OriginOil’s CTO. “We expect the new Live Extraction process to coexist with our daily ‘destructive’ process to create an even more efficient combined cycle.” The company recently filed for patent protection of the new Live Extraction process.

algae, Company Announcement

Nebraska Students Win Award for Ethanol Report

Cindy Zimmerman

Eight journalism students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are receiving a national award for an in-depth report on ethanol.

The report titled “Ethanol: Salvation or Damnation?” has taken first place in a student reporting category in the Society of Environmental Journalism’s 2009 awards.

According to SEJ, “the students took a vital issue in their community and shone a light on a wide variety of angles. That they went far enough to find people in their community affected by ethanol’s varied impacts — from farmers to families shopping for tortillas — made this a clear-cut winner.”

The full-color magazine – with this clever graphic depicting the seal of the United States with a fuel gauge, gas nozzle and corn plant – will be available in August.

Ethanol, Ethanol News