Tyson/Syntroleum Biodiesel Plant Under Construction

John Davis

syntyson2The nation’s largest meat processor and a renewable fuel company have started construction on a biodiesel plant in Louisiana that will be the nation’s first renewable synthetic fuels plant.

This press release from Tyson Foods and Syntroleum Corp. says the Dynamic Fuels plant in Geismar, Louisiana will produce 75 million gallons of biodiesel a year when it goes to full capacity:

Construction offices are now in place and concrete foundations are being poured for the new facility. The project remains on budget and on schedule for startup in early 2010. Once in operation, the new facility will use Syntroleum’s Bio-Synfining™ Technology to convert animal fats and greases provided by Tyson into ultra-clean renewable diesel and jet fuel.

“There has been great progress in the last 18 months since the formation of Dynamic Fuels, as we have gone from concept to actually pouring concrete for the first renewable synthetic fuels plant in the United States,” said Jeff Bigger, senior vice president of business development for Syntroleum. “With the support of the State of Louisiana, outstanding effort and teamwork from the people working day to day on the project and the support of both Tyson Foods and Syntroleum we have been able to maintain our original project budget, economics and schedule for the Geismar facility.”

Jeff Webster, group vice president of Tyson’s Renewable Products Division, said, “We’re pleased with the progress made on this important renewable fuels project. Tyson is committed to revolutionizing the conversion of raw materials and by-products into high-margin initiatives, and the Dynamic Fuels venture is a cornerstone of this corporate strategy.”

The $138 million facility is expected to be finished by the end of this year with full operations by mid-2010.

Biodiesel

Alternative Fuel Vehicle Institute Announces 2009 Conference and Expo

afvi-conferenceThe 2009 Alternative Fuels & Vehicles Institute (AFVI) Conference and Expo will be held April 19-22, 2009 at the Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida. More than 35 hours of sessions with 200 speakers have been added to this year’s agenda to answer the following questions:

1. What will the automotive industry look like one year from now?
2. Will gas prices go up and when?
3. What environmental and transportation changes will come about under the new administration?
4. What alternatively fueled vehicles and advanced transportation vehicles exist for purchase today?
5. What is it going to cost to comply with the 2010 Environmental Protection Agency emission standards?
6. How do I take advantage of the new federal money available for alternative fuels?
7. When can I buy a plug-in hybrid?
8. Will anticipated new, stringent air quality regulations require new vehicle purchases?
9. How do I assess the life cycle cost for AFVs?
10. What has caused the recent surge in infrastructure development and will that continue?

For more information regarding the event, visit www.afv2009.com.

conferences, News

UF Student Wins Ethanol Contest

Cindy Zimmerman

The University of Florida Gators are National Champions again this year and now a UF student has won free ethanol-enriched fuel for a year.

Edgar the GatorUniversity of Florida student Joshua Nicdao won the Ethanol Challenge grand prize, valued at $1300, as part of the 2008 Fox Tailgate Tour. The contest was sponsored by the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) to help promote the economic and environmental benefits of ethanol to football fans and college students across the country.

“I still can’t believe I won. When I registered for free ethanol fuel for a year, I never thought I’d win,” said Nicdao. “As a student, having a year’s worth of ethanol will be a huge help to me financially, and it’s great that ethanol also helps environmentally.”

The Fox Tailgate Tour visited the University of Florida campus in October 2008 for the LSU vs. UF game where Nicdao participated in the ethanol challenge and entered to win the grand prize.

Officials with EPIC, which recently became part of the newly-formed Growth Energy organization, said they received thousands of entries for the contest and were pleased with their involvement in the tour to help promote ethanol.

EPIC, Ethanol, Growth Energy, News, Promotion

Biodiesel: It IS Rocket Science

John Davis

biodieselrocketCarlsbad, California-based Flometrics, Inc., an engineering service for the aerospace, medical device and consumer products industries, has tested B100 biodiesel on a RocketDyne LR-101 rocket engine.

This story from Space-Travel.com says it performed very well:

The B-100 fuel was found to have performance within 4% of the RP-1 fuel which the engine was originally designed for.

BioDiesel is a renewable, low toxicity, low flammability fuel. The use of vegetable based rocket fuel opens up the possibility of growing oil-producing crops on the moon or mars for use as stock for rocket fuel, eliminating the need of lifting the fuel from the surface of the earth.

NASA is already working on extracting oxygen from the lunar soil, and some scientists at ESA and NASA have proposed growing plants on the moon.

So while the moon might not be made of green cheese, it could one day produce green fuel.

Biodiesel

NREL: Biodiesel Keeps Getting Better

John Davis

mccormick1The overall quality of biodiesel keeps getting better.

The National Renewable Energy Lab says that quality is key to the growing industry:

NREL Principal Engineer on Fuel Performance Robert McCormick says biodiesel quality is improving rapidly in the United States, with large producers consistently meeting specifications. However, some small producers still have trouble meeting national standards.

McCormick and Senior Engineer Teresa Alleman served as significant contributors to revised biofuels specifications recently published by ASTM International (formerly the American Society for Testing and Materials.) Research conducted by NREL provided the technical basis for setting the new standards. McCormick and other collaborators also have co-authored the 2008 edition of the Biodiesel Handling and Use Guide.

The rigorous ASTM process yielded stringent specifications to help ensure the availability of high quality biodiesel blends in the marketplace and bolster automaker support and consumer demand for biodiesel.

NREL officials say the standards apply to any biodiesel, regardless of the feedstock used. That consistency is needed to ensure that when consumers buy biodiesel, they can rest assured that it will perform the same every time.

Biodiesel, Government

Donors Build Alt Energy Institute at Stanford

John Davis

precourtOne hundred million dollars has been donated to Stanford University for a new energy institute to find environmentally friendly energy sources.

This article from Reuters says half of the money is coming from an oil executive… interesting, since the intent of the institute is to make renewable energy cheaper than petroleum:

The new Precourt Institute for Energy is named after Jay Precourt, an oil executive who donated $50 million. Another $40 million came from Thomas Steyer and his wife Kat Taylor. Steyer is a Stanford trustee and managing partner of Farallon Capital Management.

The remaining $10 million was donated by Douglas Kimmelman, of Energy Capital Partners, Michael Ruffatto, the president of North American Power Group, Ltd, and Google (GOOG.O) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, through the Schmidt Family Foundation.

The institute will create seven to eight new faculty positions, fellowships for graduate students and postdocs, and improve undergraduate and graduate energy curricula. The institute will also operate as a sort of venture capitalist, making seed money available for new ideas.

Precourt said in a statement he was concerned “we are importing energy from insecure, unreliable sources who are, in many cases, not friends of the United States.” The United States imports 70 percent of the oil it consumes.

Part of the problem is economics. Taylor said that alternative fuels would be more attractive if the “real price of gas were included in our market, for example environmental damage, foreign policy implications (and) foreign wars.”

This new institute will combine its efforts with the Stanford Global Climate and Energy project, a program that tries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Biodiesel, Ethanol, News, Solar, Wind

Environmental and Clean Energy Inaugural Ball Announced

inaugural-ballAccording to the Clean Fuels Development Coalition (CFDC) President-elect Obama’s nominee for Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and his Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality will be among the participants representing a wide range of environmental and clean energy interests at the Environmental Inaugural Ball on January 20, 2009. This black-tie event, is the sixth consecutive Inaugural Ball focusing on these important issues.

“We have had an overwhelming response to this event from the environmental and clean energy communities. The level of excitement and interest in highlighting the importance of our message has never been greater. We will reinforce to the Obama Administration our spirit of cooperation and goodwill, to make America the Beautiful a reality for future generations,” said Ball Co-Chair Jan Hartke, representing the Clinton Climate Initiative.

Ball Co-Chair Douglas A. Durante of the CFDC said, “President-elect Obama has made it clear that energy and the environment will remain top priorities and this incredibly unique event brings the entire political, environmental, and energy communities together. Some of the legends of the environmental movement are working with us and it promises to be the best event in Washington.”

Durante noted that the broad appeal of the ball includes an Honorary Committee comprised of members of Congress. Major environmental leaders in the House and Senate are on the Honorary Committee such as Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), Chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee; Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee; Henry Waxman (D-CA), Chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee; Ed Markey (D-MA), Chair of the new House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment; Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Zach Wamp (R-TN), Co-Chairs of the House Renewable Energy Caucus; Senator Mark Udall, (D-CO), immediate past Chair of the Renewable Energy Caucus, and many others.

For more information, visit http://www.environmentalball.org.

Government, News

Economic Stimulus Sought for Agriculture and Renewables

Cindy Zimmerman

A diverse coalition of 34 business, agriculture and environmental groups is asking Congressional leaders to support an economic recovery package that provides strong funding for agriculture-based, clean energy development programs.

25x'25The National 25x’25 Steering Committee and other renewable energy advocacy groups outlined a three part recommendation in a letter to Congressional leaders this week. The letter recommends including at least $1.2 billion each year in mandatory supplemental appropriations for important Farm Bill Energy Title programs; restructuring and extending the federal Production Tax Credits (PTC) for renewable energy, cellulosic biofuels, and biomass for five years; and extending and expanding successful clean renewable energy and conservation bond programs which provide PTC-like incentives for electric cooperatives, public power, and municipalities to build new renewable energy facilities and invest in energy efficiency.

The coalition is largely made up of agricultural organizations, but also includes such groups as the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and the Environmental Law & Policy Center. NWF Director of Global Warming, Agriculture and Wildlife Julie Sibbing says their top priority is addressing global climate change and they believe addressing energy needs is a new way is the only way to get there. “Unfortunately this economy is very dependent on good credit and funding to start up these new industries and the economic crisis is really taking a toll,” she says. “If we don’t free up some money we could be putting the entire green tech future on hold for several years.”

Sibbing says USDA programs such as Rural Energy for America and the Biomass Crop Assistance that fund renewable energy have a big impact on rural economies and play an important role in moving the green tech industry forward. “We think now is the time to move the next generation of biofuels forward, but it relies extensively on the agricultural sector,” she said.

Energy, Environment, Ethanol, Government, News

Ethanol Industry Leader Outlines Priorities

Cindy Zimmerman

The chairman of the Renewable Fuels Association outlined the industry’s top priorities for 2009 during a telephone press conference Tuesday morning.

Chris StandleeChris Standlee with Abengoa Bioenergy says there are three main priorities for the industry – stimulating economic growth, increasing blend limits, and modeling life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions.

Standlee called on Congress and the Obama administration to recognize and continue to build upon the success of agriculture and the ethanol industry as they work to stimulate the economy and create green jobs. “Ethanol is one of the original green jobs,” said Standlee, and there are more than 325,000 jobs currently related to ethanol in the nation. They would like to see any stimulus package include provisions for ethanol producers to obtain credit and capitol necessary to build new biorefineries and deploy new technologies for next generation ethanol.

Standlee says modernizing the blend level for ethanol in vehicles is critical for the success of the Renewable Fuels Standard. RFA believes that all vehicles can immediately accommodate ethanol blends of 12-13 percent, which will help in the short term, but long term that needs to be increased to 15 or even 20 percent. “Preliminary data shows that such a move is possible and practical,” said Standlee.

Finally, RFA is actively involved in EPA’s development of life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions modeling and the issues related to indirect land use. “The scientific community is far from consensus on these issues,” said Standlee. “It’s imperative that EPA consider the litany of issues and variables surrounding this discussion, including appreciating the fact that the environmental footprint of petroleum is getting worse over time.”

Listen to Chris Standlee outlining the industry’s priorities here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/rfa/rfa-standlee-open.mp3]

Ethanol, News, RFA

Verenium Back in Compliance

Cindy Zimmerman

VereniumCellulosic ethanol company Verenium Corporation has regained compliance with the continued listing requirements of the NASDAQ Global Market. NASDAQ previously notified Verenium that it had fallen out of compliance with a rule requiring listed companies on the NASDAQ Global Market to maintain a minimum market capitalization of $50 million. NASDAQ has confirmed that Verenium now meets the requirements of this rule.

Cellulosic, Ethanol, News