Cellulosic Ethanol Summit in the Sunshine State

Cindy Zimmerman

Cellulosic Summit 08 Bob DinneenThe third annual Cellulosic Ethanol Summit is underway in Coral Gables, Florida this week. Summit chairman and Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dinneen kicked off the event on Tuesday morning.

It is the first time the summit has been held outside of Washington DC and one of the reasons Florida was picked is because the state has become a leading supporter of the biofuels industry. The first speaker at the summit, Jeremy Susac, Executive Director of the Florida Energy & Climate Commission, discussed some of the initiatives Florida has put in place to promote the development of biofuels, including a Renewable Fuels Standard for the state.

Cellulosic Summit 08 Jeremy Susac“We have an E10 standard by 2010,” said Susac. “Another initiative that we are very proud of is the Department of Agriculture’s Farm to Fuel to stimulate the agriculture community to grow our fuels, fuel out cars, enhance our economy and strengthen our energy security.”

Susac says some of the most promising biofuels feedstocks for Florida include bagasse from sugar production, citrus peels, energy cane and sweet sorghum.

You can listen to my interview with Jeremy Susac here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/rfa/cell-summit-jeremy-edit.mp3]

Cellulosic Summit Photo Album

Cellulosic, Ethanol, News, RFA

California Ups Renewable Energy Ante

John Davis

The Governator wants his state to get more of its energy from renewable sources.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued an executive order that ups his state’s renewable energy goal from 20 percent by 2010 to a full one-third by 2020. His press release has details:

“I am proposing we set the most aggressive target in the nation for renewable energy-33 percent by the year 2020-that’s a third of our energy from sources like solar, wind and geothermal,” Governor Schwarzenegger said. “But we won’t meet that goal doing business as usual, where environmental regulations are holding up environmental progress in some cases. This executive order will clear the red tape for renewable projects and streamline the permitting and siting of new plants and transmission lines. With this investment in renewable energy projects, California has a bright energy future ahead that will help us fight climate change while driving our state’s green economy.”

The Governor made today’s announcement at the site of OptiSolar’s new plant in Sacramento, which will begin manufacturing solar panels in early 2009. When fully built out, the one-million-square-foot plant will be the largest photovoltaic solar panel manufacturing plant in North America, providing 1,000 green jobs and producing approximately 2,000 solar panels per day.

Schwarzenegger says he’ll need to propose new legislation to make the new standard a reality while also putting in safeguards for low-income customers.

Government, Solar, Wind

Algae-Biodiesel Featured at Cal Summit

John Davis

Algae-biodiesel production company Solazyme, Inc. will be featuring its SoladieselRD(TM), the world’s first algal-based renewable diesel, at a summit this week in California.

This company press release posted on MarketWatch.com says SoladieselRD(TM) will be showcased at the Governor’s Global Climate Summit in Beverly Hills, CA, Nov. 18th-19th:

“We are glad to be a part of Governor Schwarzenegger’s Global Climate Summit and applaud him for bringing together U.S. and international leaders to address this critical issue. Moving towards the Copenhagen meeting in December, these opportunities to discuss all solutions to the global climate crisis have become vitally important,” said Harrison Dillon, co-founder, president and CTO of Solazyme. “In this search for solutions, Solazyme has taken a 150 million year process of making oil and condensed it to a matter of days to renewably produce oil that can be converted into fuels that not only address these challenges, but have already been proven to be fully-scalable on a commercial level.”

Solazyme’s unique process grows algae in the dark in large industrial fermentation tanks, where the algae are fed a variety of non-food and waste biomass materials including glycerol and cellulosic biomass. This allows the company to produce oil with a very low carbon footprint efficiently in a controlled environment. Solazyme’s fuels have already been road tested in unmodified vehicles for thousands of miles. Solazyme also recently announced that it has produced the world’s first algal based jet fuel which met all eleven of the tested key criteria for (ASTM) D1655 (Jet A-1). Additionally, Solazyme’s process is the very first bridge from non–food carbohydrates and certain industrial waste streams to edible oils and oleochemicals.

The folks at Solazyme would love to talk to people, one-on-one during the summit. Contact Beth Starkin at 212-931-6108 or bstarkin@peppercom.com.

algae, Biodiesel

Oklahoma State University Receives Biofuels Grant

The Oklahoma Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) at Oklahoma State University (OSU) has received $20 million in funding for renewables research. The university received the money from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Four million dollars will be allowed over five years.

According to Biofuels Business, the research project will be led by Dr. Ray Huhnke, director of the Biobased Products and Energy Center at Oklahoma State University (OSU); Dr. Lance Lobban, director of the School of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma (OU); and Dr. Kirankumar Mysore, associate professor at the Samuel Roberts Noble Research Foundation. The funds will support research for molecular tools for biomass development, and the underlying microbial conversion of biomass to liquid fuels, as well as new catalytic/thermochemical conversion processes for cellulosic biomass.

“There is already a great amount of momentum in the state right now about the production of non-food based biofuels,” said Dr. Jim Wicksted, associate director of the Oklahoma EPSCoR program. “This theme area and project will build on that momentum by developing an infrastructure that supports Oklahoma’s biofuels initiative. We’re so pleased that NSF and the State Regents are willing to provide the resources that enable this work.”

BIO, News

Ethanol Report on Land Use

Cindy Zimmerman

RFA PodcastIn this “Ethanol Report” podcast, Geoff Cooper of the Renewable Fuels Association talks about a new land use report just released.

The report systematically refutes claims that ethanol production will divert land from agricultural use, stressing that agricultural land can expand without “jeopardizing forest or other sensitive lands.”

The report also gives historical context to global agricultural land use as well as the impact of increased grain demand on sustainability and the role of the ethanol co-product distillers grains used for animal feed.

You can listen to “The Ethanol Report” on-line here:
[audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/rfa/ethanol-report-21.mp3]

Or you can subscribe to this podcast by following this link.

Audio, Ethanol, RFA

New Ethanol Group Wants to Be Aggressive

Cindy Zimmerman

Growth EnergyThe newly formed ethanol advocacy group, Growth Energy, has aggressive plans for attacking some of the major issues impacting the growth of biofuels.

During an interview at the National Association of Farm Broadcasting annual meeting, Growth Energy board member Greg Krissek of ICM said they want to “especially focus on the federal work being done on mid-level and higher level blends (of ethanol) but accelerate that.”

Greg KrissekThe new organization will be “working very closely together” with the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC). “As the industry gets bigger, it’s an opportunity for coalitions to be built of groups of producers,” said Krissek.

Growth Energy will also be aggressively fighting back against food companies that have been blaming ethanol production for higher food prices. “The question is simple – are food prices going to fall? Or was it really a disingenuous statement that was made,” Krissek said. The organization is requesting that Congress to hold hearings with food companies to ask them the question.

Listen an interview with Greg Krissek here: Interview with Greg Krissek, ICM

Audio, blends, EPIC, Ethanol, food and fuel, Growth Energy

Ohio Schools Urged to Try for Biodiesel Grants

John Davis

Schools in Ohio are being urged to apply for grants to fund using soy biodiesel in buses.

This story from the Chilicothe (OH) Gazette says 21 school districts are already taking advantage of the program designed to help kids breathe easier:

“It is great to see schools take advantage of this program that requires no additional costs but provides a tremendous amount of benefits to school children, and I am hopeful that even more school districts apply during the second round of funding,” said Dan Corcoran, chairman of the council and a soybean farmer in Pike County.

The state, according to the council, has an additional $250,000 in grant funding available to fund the use of soy biodiesel in state school buses. The program was included in Gov. Ted Strickland’s biennium budget as the result of work done by the council and the Ohio Farm Bureau.

The program, which is administered by the Ohio Department of Development and is promoted through the council’s Clean Air for Kids program, provides grants to cover any cost difference between regular petroleum diesel that most districts now use and a B20 biodiesel, which is a blend of 20 percent biodiesel with 80 percent of the traditional diesel fuel.

You can find out more about the program by going to www.soybiodiesel.org/kids.

Biodiesel

45 MGY Biodiesel Plant to Open in Illinois

John Davis

Blackhawk Biofuels has announced it will cut the ribbon on its newest biodiesel plant this coming Wednesday (Nov. 19) in Danville, Illinois, with production at the 45-million-gallon-a-year facility to start the next day.

This story in TradingMarkets.com says the plant will at first use soybeans from Bunge Milling, adjacent to the biodiesel plant:

The cost of soybeans, which had skyrocketed in recent years, had kept the facility’s construction from completion before the new investors took over, Vermilion Advantage President and CEO Vicki Haugen said in May.

Although soybean prices have fallen, the plant will help the local ag economy by allowing farmers to sell their soybeans at a good price in Danville, according to Vermilion County Farm Bureau spokesman Tom Fricke.

The plant’s biodiesel would be created from Bunge’s soybean oil and eventually, alternative feedstocks like animal fats.

The article goes on to say that Blackhawk has an agreement with Iowa-based Renewable Energy Group to get the animal fats needed. Private investors put in $25 million, while the State of Illinois kicked in another $19.8 million to make the refinery a reality.

Biodiesel

Alternatives Helping Drop Oil Prices

John Davis

This past summer, when oil prices were skyrocketing past $145 a barrel, one man was saying that the price would fall back to $60. People laughed and said we had seen the end of less-than-$100-a-barrel oil. Well, that price has dropped below $60, and 82-year-old oil analyst Henry Groppe has proved his critics wrong… again.

So, when Groppe says in this article from Toronto’s Globe and Mail that global oil production has peaked, but alternatives, such as biodiesel, ethanol, solar and wind, will help keep those prices down by replacing that diminishing oil supply, maybe more will listen:

His view is based on a fundamental belief that global oil production has peaked, and is destined to go into a slow but steady decline. At the same time, though, he also believes those higher prices will result in demand destruction as consumers shift to alternative fuels – thus keeping a lid on prices, albeit at higher levels…

He said such a change in consumption is already happening, and not just because of a global economic slowdown. (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development yesterday slashed its 2008 and 2009 global demand estimates, citing declining estimates for world economic growth.) Power generators and major industrial consumers have already been switching away from oil and toward cheaper coal and natural gas, and many are in the process of retooling their equipment to lower consumption and shift to cheaper fuels.

The article goes on to point out that Groppe doesn’t believe that the number of cars on the road worldwide will go down, but increased alternative fuels used especially in the industrial sector will offset any production declines and consumption increases that come along.

Biodiesel, Ethanol, Solar, Wind

Oklahoma Potentially Alt Energy Leader

John Davis

While it might have a past deeply rooted in petroleum, attendees of the Oklahoma Biofuels Conference in Oklahoma City this week were told renewable energy has a huge future in the Sooner State.

This story from Forbes says a huge wind corridor in the western part of Oklahoma, along with perennial native grasses for biofuels, gives the state a great potential to be a leader in alternative energy:

“We have 40,000 megawatts of wind potential in western Oklahoma, and that industry is exploding out of the ground as we talk,” said Oklahoma Energy Secretary David Fleischaker. “The Obama administration’s attitude toward bringing wind into the grid will really benefit that industry in Oklahoma.

“In addition, to the extent we have the ability, we’ll see a lot more funding of research important to pushing the conversion of biofuels technology.”

Fleischaker said using perennial native grasses, like switchgrass, as a source for biofuel has a number of advantages over annual crops, like corn, that take much more energy to produce.

“If you have an annual, you’ve got to pull the tractor out of the barn and plant it every year, which takes a lot of energy,” Fleischaker said. “If you have a perennial, it grows back every year automatically and you can leave the tractor in the barn.”

biomass, Ethanol, News, Wind