ND Ethanol Plant to Run on Borrowed Steam

Cindy Zimmerman

An ethanol plant under construction in North Dakota will be first plant in the country to use steam from a nearby power plant to generate heat instead of having its own boilers.

Blue Flint Ethanol, a joint venture between Great River Energy and Headwaters Incorporated, is in the process of building a 50 million gallon per year dry mill ethanol plant in Underwood, North Dakota – which is about halfway between Bismark and Minot.
Bush Union 06
According to the plant’s website, the Blue Flint Ethanol facility is unique in the industry. Most ethanol plants are built with a natural gas-fueled boiler to provide heat for drying. As natural gas prices have increased in recent years, coal-fueled plants have become more common. However, Blue Flint does not have a boiler. Instead, waste heat from the adjacent Coal Creek power plant is redirected to Blue Flint to supply all the heat that a boiler would provide. The result is one of the industry’s most energy efficient, environmentally friendly facilities.

The photo of the plant under construction shows the U-shaped pipes that will carry the steam from the power plant to the ethanol plant.

In an article in the Minot Daily News, general manager Jeff Zueger says, “We’re taking steam and using it directly in the ethanol conversion process. So this is pretty unique.”

Blue Flint Ethanol takes its name from the blue flint corn grown by Indian tribes that once lived in the area near the plant site. They plan to “use corn harvested in the same area as feedstock for its ethanol production, turning an ancient grain into modern automotive fuel.”

Ethanol, Facilities, News

Making Ethanol From Barley

Cindy Zimmerman

Barley Barley is another crop that has the potential to be part of the next generation of ethanol.

North Dakota’s Farm and Ranch Guide reports that it was a topic at last week’s 2007 Dakota Grains Conference in Bismarck.

Dr. Kevin Hicks, Agricultural Research Service, new hulless varieties and processing technologies such as pearling may make barley a desired crop for ethanol plants. he Eastern Regional Research Center in Wyndmoore, Penn., is involved in a five-year project researching how barley can be used in the biofuels industry.

“Two years into the research project, we’ve already made exciting discoveries to help launch barley to the ethanol industry,” Hicks told producers and others gathered for the 2007 Dakota Grains Conference in Bismarck last week.

The major problem with using barley for ethanol is the hull, said Louis Arnold, president of the North Dakota Barley Council. Arnold, who is a leading barley producer in North Dakota, said the council helped build the ethanol plant in Walhalla. In the beginning, the plant used barley, but it didn’t work out. “It (the hard shell of the barley) ate the pipes up,” he added.

Some of the new barley varieties being released have “looser hulls” and Arnold believes these new varieties will be able to play a big part in ethanol if the hull can be easily separated.

Read more here.

Ethanol, News, Research

Who is E85 Inc.?

Cindy Zimmerman

E85 Inc. is a name that has been popping up in cities from New Jersey to New Mexico – a company that reportedly “plans to build a billion-dollar string of ethanol plants.”

The Seattle Times did some research to find out who is behind the company and what they hope to accomplish.

Mark Dassel, E85’s senior vice president, says there’s no real mystery — he and a skeleton staff have simply been too busy to answer inquiries: “This is a 7-day-a-week, 24-hour-a-day job.”

Skimping on details, he lays out an exceedingly ambitious agenda: E85 plans to quickly put up 10 ethanol plants costing about $150 million each. Together these will produce more than 1 billion gallons of ethanol annually; the company will buy an additional 1 to 2 billion gallons from other plants, he says.

Dassel contends E85’s rapid, cookie-cutter approach means “we’re going to be the low-cost producer” when a shakeout comes.

E85 Inc. is also planning plants in Michican, Ohio and North Carolina.

Ethanol, News

Media Rates Bush Energy Record

Cindy Zimmerman

Bush Union 06 News coverage in advance of the president’s State of the Union address Tuesday is comparing the rhetoric of last year’s speech to what has really been accomplished so far when it comes to energy independence.

The Associated Press reports President Bush is expected to renew concerns about energy security in his State of the Union address. But will the rhetoric be followed by action? Up to now, the record has been mixed.

The president is expected to call for a “sharp escalation of ethanol use in his speech,” which is a “political sure bet as ethanol has widespread bipartisan support.” But the article says the administration has been criticized for “not living up to the rhetoric” since not enough funding has been provided for research into cellulosic ethanol development, as promised last year.

Ethanol, News

Biofuels on Display at Green Week in Germany

Chuck Zimmerman

Bio Ethanol - E-85Hello from International Green Week in Berlin, Germany. I’m here to attend the board meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists (IFAJ). I know I haven’t been posting much lately but that’s because of the excellent job Cindy is doing and now John Davis. I hope you’ll agree. I will be posting quite a bit though in coming weeks from events like the National Biodiesel Conference and the National Ethanol Conference.

Here at Green Week I had heard that they had a whole pavilion devoted to bio energy this year. When I got there I found that it had more booths dedicated to things like wood pellet burning stoves for heat and a number of solar panel energy companies than what we think of such as ethanol and biodiesel.

However, as you can see ethanol is on display and it was one of the biggest displays. It looks like a variety of companies went in on the display, including Ford. The language barrier here can be a problem I found out as I couldn’t find anyone to interview who spoke good english. I did have a conversation of sorts with a gentleman in one booth with a company called Verbio. From what I could understand it looks like Germany has just instituted a tax law that makes it only possible to sell E-85 blend gasoline and that’s causing them to change over the approximately 108 fueling stations around the country that have ethanol blended gas. Although they have some ethanol production facilities started it sounds like they have to bring it in from elsewhere at present.

I was surprised that there didn’t seem to be any biodiesel on display. At least I couldn’t find any (yet). Since so many cars run on diesel in Europe I thought it would be more prominent.

International

Biodiesel Continues March Out of Midwest

John Davis

It used to be the image of a modern oilman was a Middle Eastern sheik. But more and more, it’s an American Mid-WESTERNER. Case in point, this article from the Bangor (Maine) Daily News. The town of Bucksport, Maine could become the home of one of the largest biodiesel plants in the Northeastern United States.

Dirigo Biofuels, an Iowa-based company whose owners have experience developing similar refineries in the Midwest, is working on plans for a plant in Bucksport that would produce 30 million gallons of biodiesel fuel from vegetable oil each year.

Tobin Bush, the project coordinator for Dirigo Biofuels, tells the Bangor Daily News that Bucksport is a good choice because it is close to where people would be using it and has a deep-water port.

“Most of the feed stock [raw materials] is being grown in the Midwest, but the final product is used on the coast,” he said. “Maine is right in the heart of the home heating fuel market.”

The company plans to rely on the deep-water access in Bucksport to bring in the vegetable oils it will use in the refinery, and, potentially, to ship the finished product to customers.

Plans are for the plant to be up and fully running by the end of the year, but Bush admits there’s still a distance to go to finish the deal.

Biodiesel

Minnesota Professor Looks at Economic Viability of Using Animal Fat for Biodiesel

John Davis

EidmanRecently, both Cindy and I have been telling you about using the leftovers from meat processing (chicken fat, in particular) to help make biodiesel. Now, I’ve talked with Vernon Eidman, Professor Emeritus in Applied Economics with the University of Minnesota about the economic viability of using these alternative feedstocks in alternative fuels. Check it out!

Listen To MP3 Professor Eidman
(5 min MP3)

Biodiesel

E85 Moves Down Under

Cindy Zimmerman

Saab Biopower Saab has become the first car maker to introduce a flex-fuel vehicle in Australia.

Saab officials say the BioPower program will help them gauge demand for ethanol powered vehicles and renewable fuels in Australia, even though E85 is not yet commercially available in the country.

According to AutoWeb Australia, Saab introduced the vehicles this week at a promotional event in Queensland and they will now be “loaned to media, government, industry and fleets for real world evaluation. Vehicles are already scheduled to join the fleets of the Queensland Government and ethanol producers such as the Manildra Group.”

Ethanol, News

Three More Ethanol Plants For Iowa

Cindy Zimmerman

A Dallas company plans to built three new ethanol plants in Iowa that could produce up to 300 million gallons of fuel a year.

According to the Des Moines Register, Harvest BioFuels LLC is scheduled to begin construction of a plant near Galbraith in eastern Kossuth County in April, with onstruction of plants near Garner in Hancock County and near Gilmore City in Pocahontas County to begin later this year.

Iowa is already the top ethanol producing state in the country with 25 ethanol plants producing 1.7 billion gallons a year. Twenty-one more plants are either under construction or being expanded.

Ethanol, News

Bill Would Increase Biofuels Infrastructure

Cindy Zimmerman

ThuneSalazarSenator John Thune (R-SD) and Senator Ken Salazar (D-CO) this week introduced bi-partisan legislation designed to increase the availability of alternative fuels at the pump.

According to Sen. Thune’s press office, the Alternative Energy Refueling Systems Act would provide for increased energy security for Americans by providing incentives for gas station owners across the country to install alternative fuel tanks, giving consumers greater opportunities to opt for cleaner, more environment-friendly fuels such as E-85, compressed natural gas, or bio-diesel, in an effort to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil.

This bipartisan legislation would provide gas station owners with grants for 30 percent of the costs (not to exceed $30,000) for the replacement of a petroleum tank, or the addition of an alternative fuel tank.

American Coalition for Ethanol Executive Vice President Brian Jennings praised the legislation, saying it would help the U.S. take great strides forward in making alternative fuels like E85 available to motorists. “Expanding infrastructure is of paramount importance to expanding the use of homegrown alternatives to oil,” said Jennings. “This legislation recognizes that infrastructure hurdles stand in the way to the widespread use of E85 and provides an important shot in the arm to help develop that critical infrastructure.”

Biodiesel, Ethanol, News