ACE Conference 2026

Renew 09: Empowering the Land Conference Expo

Joanna Schroeder

renewlogo2Looking for a conference that encompasses all forms of renewable energy? Then RENEW 09: Empowering the Land Conference and Expo may be the one you’re looking for. The conference, being held on June 23-24, 2009 in Tucumcari, New Mexico is a “nuts and bolts” conference for anyone looking to prosper from the emerging renewable energy economy.

Renew 09 will feature major industry thought leaders, top governmental officials and landowners sharing best-practices for developing facility-scale and utility-scale renewable energy projects. This event is for anyone involved in, or wants to be involved in renewable energy including those in wind, solar, water, and biofuels. There will also be a free, two-day Renewable Energy Expo and attendees have the opportunity to tour a 1.5 MW wind turbine installed at Mesalands Community College, operated by the North American Wind Research & Training Center.

David Griscom, Clean Energy Program Manager with the Regional Development Corporation, and committee chair for programming for RENEW 09, says, “We have developed exciting programs and content for our RENEW 09 attendees that are solution-based and actionable. Our sessions and panels will discuss wind energy, solar energy, landowner associations, rural electric cooperatives, transmission, and even new geothermal technology to create electricity from hot, dry rock on the earth’s crust.”

If you can’t be on site, all programs will be broadcast live via the internet. For registration information, visit www.EmpoweringTheLand.com.

biofuels, conferences, Solar, Wind

OriginOil Files Patent for Its Algae Production

Joanna Schroeder

Many drivers across the country are getting frustrated as gas prices are on the rise and oil prices have surpassed $70 a barrel. Algae production may be a good replacement for oil and today, OriginOil, Inc., announced that it has filed for a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) on its technology to convert algae to renewable oil. The renewable oil could be used to replace diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, plastics, and solvents.

A challenge that has faced researchers on the culturing of microalgae has been light utilization. According to a company representative, “The invention addresses challenging problems in the culturing of microalgae, including high energy utilization, fouling of light emitting surfaces, and diurnal growth cycles.” To mix metaphors, in a nutshell, this technology allows the algae to have access to the light throughout the photobioreactor, rather than just on the surface.

originoil-process-10a

The filing describes system and methods for enhancing mass production of microalgae, involving the use of light arrays. The systems and methods are useful in applications such as energy production, fuels, foods, pharmaceuticals, plastics, and CO2 fixation.  Also described are systems and methods for lysing (rupturing) cells and extracting their components, and for producing electricity with closed-loop CO2 recycling.

Vikram Pattarkine, PhD joined the OriginOil team as the chief technology officer and oversees the company’s research program. Pattarkine noted, “The pace of development at OriginOil has been extremely rapid. With this filing, we have consolidated our intellectual property protection at the international level in a number of areas of innovation at OriginOil.”

Earlier this year, OriginOil announced that it had finalized a deal with the Department of Energy’s National Laboratory to validate and commercialize the technology. The company has also been awarded Biofuels Digest’s Top 50 award as a top company changing the face of the biofuels industry.

algae, Biodiesel, Company Announcement

Oneworld Energy Expands Into U.S.

Joanna Schroeder

oneworldenergylogoThe wind and solar industry continues its rapid growth in the U.S. with the  announcement that Oneworld Energy, a company that focuses on wind and solar power installations, is expanding is presence. It will be opening an office in Melville, NY and has tapped Roger Slotkins as CEO. Melville has developed a green-tech corridor that focuses on bringing companies and employees together in the clean-tech industry. A tremendous asset to the city has been the support of Congressman Steve Israel.

Congressman Israel noted, “My goal is to see Long Island become the nation’s capital for clean energy. Oneworld is an example of the companies within the alternative energy industry we are attracting to our growing green-tech corridor. These businesses are bringing new green jobs for New Yorkers while also improving our environment and decreasing our dependence on foreign oil.”

Formed in 2003, Oneworld Energy is comprised of three divisions: Oneworld Solar, Green Breeze Energy (wind) and Composotech Structures (wind services).  In the States, Composotech Structures currently provides maintenance and repair services for wind turbine blades and is also developing a 200 MW wind farm in Oklahoma.

Mr. Allen, President and CEO of Oneworld, commented, “Given our desire to increase our presence in the U.S., Roger’s track record within the clean-tech industry will be a perfect complement.”

Company Announcement, Solar, Wind

The Irrationality of Indirect Analysis

Joanna Schroeder

branding-logo-smallThe rationale of indirect land use remains in the hot seat and the biofuels industry continues to stand its ground. Today, Robert Zubrin, author of Energy Victory and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies had an article published in Roll Call, a publication targeted at Washington, DC politicians. “The Irrationality of Indirect Analysis,” lays out why taking into consideration the indirect effects of biofuels production is a mistake.

Many in the biofuels industry remember when indirect land use took the country by storm: February 2008. This is when Tim Searchinger published his report claiming that while corn-ethanol may decrease carbon dioxide emissions, the process to create the ethanol may indirectly increase carbon emissions through expanded agriculture development particularly in third world countries.

zubrinsec0209091Zubrin writes, “A more cogent critique, in my view, would be a moral one, as the Searchinger argument, now apparently embraced by the EPA, presupposes that it is or should be a proper goal of American policy to restrict the economic growth of underdeveloped nations.”

The article continues to highlight how creating biofuels policies using scientifically unsound research would ultimately affect policies in all areas including health care and technological advances. He concludes, “Clearly such an absurd theory cannot be accepted as a basis for policy.”

You can read the entire article here. In addition, Zubrin will be giving a special presentation during the 25th Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Denver, Colo. on June 16, 2009 beginning at 11:30 AM.

biofuels, Indirect Land Use

Ethanol Industry Looking Forward to RFS Hearing

Cindy Zimmerman

RFAThe ethanol industry is looking forward to a public hearing and workshops this week in Washington, DC to address the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rulemaking for the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS2).

Renewable Fuels Association President and CEO Bob Dinneen will be testifying at the public hearing on Tuesday. “While we generally applaud EPA’s efforts to get the rule out, we do have some very serious concerns with the proposal, which we will be laying out tomorrow during the hearing and in the workshops,” said Dinneen during a media conference call Monday morning.

Dinneen says their most serious concerns revolve around EPA’s lifecycle greenhouse gas analysis, especially the inclusion of international indirect land use changes. “We don’t believe that the statute requires it, we don’t believe that Congress believes the analysis should include international impacts, and we certainly don’t believe that the science supports evaluating international impacts of a farmer’s decision someplace else in the world related to biofuels production.”

The EPA public hearing will be held June 9 from 10 am to 5 pm and the workshop on details of EPA’s lifecycle GHG analysis will be June 10-11, both at the Dupont Hotel in Washington, DC. More information is available here on the EPA website.

Environment, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Government, RFA

Cellulosic Technology Investment

Cindy Zimmerman

HCLTwo venture capitol companies have invested in an Israeli company with technology for converting cellulosic materials into fermentable sugars.

Burrill & Company and Khosla Ventures announced their investment in HCL CleanTech, which has “developed a proprietary technology to make an old, industrially proven German process converting lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugars economically very attractive.”

“Accessing cheap sugar locked in biomass is one of the greatest challenges now faced by those pursuing renewable fuels and chemicals. HCL CleanTech’s technology represents a step change in accessing these sugars, and drops into the pretreatment step of any fermentation-based process or chemical reforming technique which starts with oligosaccharides,” said Burrill & Company Director, Greg Young. “We are eager to see this proven at scale, at which point it becomes immediately relevant to adjacent industries aiming to use biomass as a feedstock.”

Cellulosic

Bright IDEA Could Help Ethanol and Hog Producers

Cindy Zimmerman

A bright IDEA from Novus International could help both hog producers and the ethanol industry.

Brad LawrenceIDEA stands for “Immobilized Digestive Enzyme Assay” which Dr. Brad Lawrence with Novus says helps measure the digestibility of lysine and other amino acids in dried distillers grains (DDGS), the livestock feed by-product of ethanol production. “Distillers is one of the few ingredients that we have that does come from multiple manufacturing facilities with different methods that could impact amino acid digestibility,” said Dr. Lawrence. “We run this laboratory procedure that looks at all the digestibility of all the amino acids which gives us a tool to compare the economic value of distillers from different sources.”

Novus is working on a National Pork Board research project with the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center and the Universities of Illinois and Minnesota to find the best assays for determining amino acid digestibility of distillers grains. The results of that research are expected later this year.

I interviewed Dr. Lawrence about IDEA at the World Pork Expo last week. Listen to that interview here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/wpx/wpx09-brad.mp3]

Audio, corn, Distillers Grains, Ethanol

Another New Ethanol Plant in Iowa

Cindy Zimmerman

Plymouth energyA new ethanol plant in Merrill, Iowa celebrated its grand opening last week.

The Plymouth Energy plant has been operating at full capacity since last month and will produce 55 million gallons of ethanol a year using 18 million bushels of locally-grown corn.

The plant is located north of Sioux City in the northwest corner of Iowa and the company is hoping to start construction on a second plant in the same general area later this year.

Ethanol

Mini Ethanol Brewer Gets Governor’s Blessing

Cindy Zimmerman

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger unveiled the final production model of the world’s first home ethanol system last week at the California State Capitol.

E-FuelThe E‐Fuel MicroFueler™, which we first reported on here at Domestic Fuel in May 2008, looks like a washing machine and creates ethanol fuel from organic waste or leftover alcoholic beverages.

“Ethanol holds a promise of reducing the fuel costs, which is very important, because so many times we are all subject to the oil prices,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “But when you have those fueling stations at home you don’t have to worry about if a barrel of oil is $150 dollars or if it is $50, because that price always stays the same and it will be competitive.”

Schwarzenegger also announced that the state is exploring a pilot program using the MicroFuelers for the state’s fleet of E85 vehicle. “I think that we, as a state, want to be a good example on driving cars that are have a low output of greenhouse gas emissions,” he said.

Read and/or watch the governor’s speech here.

According to a company release, E‐Fuel is currently setting up a dealership network in 16 US states, as well as Ireland and Japan, with plans to be centered in major metro areas worldwide by the end of 2010.

Ethanol

More Time to Trade Ethanol Contracts

Cindy Zimmerman

Early risers will now have a little more time to electronically trade futures contracts for ethanol on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

CBOTElectronic trading hours for CBOT grains, oilseeds and ethanol contracts will be expanded in the morning by one hour and fifteen minutes, until 7:15 a.m., starting July 1.

The new electronic trading hours will run from 6:00 p.m. to 7:15 a.m. central time Sunday through Friday for futures and options on futures for full and mini-size where offered corn, wheat, soybeans, soymeal, soyoil, rice, oats and ethanol contracts. Daytime electronic and open outcry hours will remain from 9:30 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. weekdays.

corn, Ethanol