US Grains Releases New Portal, App

Joanna Schroeder March 2, 2016

The U.S. Grains Council (USGC) has released a grains conversion calculator app and a U.S. grains-in-all-forms exports portal to help members of the global grain trade access critical information more easily. The U.S. grains-in-all-forms exports portal is an online calculator that converts volumes of exported U.S. commodities including ethanol and dried distillers grains (DDGs) into corn equivalents. This offers a different and holistic view of the amount of feed grains produced by U.S. farmers that are consumed by overseas customers.

“We are excited to expand our digital presence to include these products that will be helpful for both domestic and international stakeholders,” said USGC Chairman Alan Tiemann, who farms in Nebraska. “The grains conversion app and the grains-in-all-forms portal are cutting-edge resources that contain information, trends and statistics that will help the global grain trade work and grow.”

The Council’s grains conversion app converts English units to metric units and vice versa for grains and related measures. The app is available to download for free in the appropriate app stores for Apple, Android and Windows platforms. It also includes an option to switch between multiple languages including English, Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, French and Korean.

corn, Distillers Grains, Ethanol, Exports, USGC

Poll Show Iowans Support RFS

Joanna Schroeder March 2, 2016

According to a new poll from the Des Moines Register, 71 percent of Iowans favor the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), 21 percent oppose it and eight percent are unsure. The issue was a hot button for candidates leading up to the Iowa Caucus where Sen. Ted Cruz received the state’s nomination, despite voters being unsure as to what his stance on the RFS and ethanol really was and RFS supporter groups spending millions running pro-RFS and anti-Cruz ads throughout the state.

The poll also found that 66 percent of Republicans, 76 percent of Democrats and 71 percent of independents favor the RFS. Tea party supporters also support the legislation with 64 percent in favor.

The most recent poll showed a five percent growth in support among Republicans to 66 percent, while support among Democrats stayed consistent.

“Iowans know ethanol and the RFS are allowing America’s farmers and innovators to produce clean, secure, renewable fuel right here at home that reduces toxic emissions and is better for the air we all breathe. The immense benefits and potential of biofuels, like ethanol, plays a critical role in America’s energy policy and in developing a 21st century fuel for 21st century vehicles,” said Tom Buis, co-chair of Growth Energy in response to the poll.

He added, “Contrary to the oil industry spin, this poll reinforces the fact that the issue gained ground with Iowans during the 2016 caucuses and now they support it in even greater numbers than before. The relevancy of the issue is why an overwhelming 83 percent of Iowans caucused for pro-RFS candidates in 2016, higher percentage than in 2012.”

The poll was conducted by Selzer & Co., which surveyed 804 Iowa adults from Feb. 21-24. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

biofuels, Ethanol, Growth Energy, RFS

New Report: On-Farm Biodiesel Production in Vermont

Joanna Schroeder March 1, 2016

All you need to know about biodiesel in Vermont is now in a new report, “On-Farm Biodiesel Production in Vermont: Legal and Regulatory Overview.” The report was conducted by the Institute for Energy and the Environment (IEE) at Vermont Law School and reviews all Vermont state and federal regulations related to on-farm biodiesel production. The goal of the report is to inform farmers about the potential laws and regulations surrounding on-farm biodiesel production.

“As statewide partners begin to find new ways to achieve the goals of Vermont’s Comprehensive Energy Plan, which identified biodiesel as a fuel that will help Vermont meet the 10-percent renewable transportation goal for 2025, the On-Farm Biodiesel Production in Vermont report provides a timely review of the regulations that pertain to homegrown biodiesel production,” said Ellen Kahler, executive director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund who commissioned the report.

According to the report’s findings, “while several of the federal regulations are only triggered by high levels of production, there are a number of state laws and regulations that may be triggered by small-scale biodiesel production, such as state air emission provisions that establish lower thresholds when compared to the federal Clean Air Act (CAA). In addition, it is critical to understand the role biodiesel production plays in the definition of ‘farm’ and ‘farming activities’ for the purpose of states laws, such as Act 250 and the Current Use Program.”

IEE researchers applied the legal review to three potential scenarios in the report that concludes with a list of “do’s and don’ts” for farmers to use as a legal checklist as they move forward with producing biofuel in on-farm operations.

VLS Professor Kevin B. Jones, deputy director of the Institute for Energy and the Environment, added, “Our institute’s research should help Vermont farmers understand the regulatory hurdles to producing biodiesel on the farm and help them convert a locally grown resource into economic and environmental benefits for Vermont.”

advanced biofuels, Biodiesel

Sumitomo Invests in Cosan Biomassa

Joanna Schroeder March 1, 2016

Sumitomo Corporation has signed a contract to acquire up to 20 percent of Cosan Biomassa, a producer of sugarcane pellets for power generation. With an eye on Asia’s need to reduce fossil fuel use and meet goals as set forth in the Climate Treaty last December, the partnership between Sumitomo and Cosan will focus on increasing exports to Japan and Europe as well as increase domestic sales.

According to a press statement, the state of Sao Paulo has the collective production potential of 45 million tons/year of sugarcane pellets. The venture has set forth a goal to produce 2 million tons by 2025 and as much as 8 million tons/year in the future. Cosan Biomassa has developed a fuel pellet made from sugarcane residues such as bagasse from the sugar mill and straw left over in the sugarcane field, and built a large-scale production plant with an annual capacity 175,000 tons that went into commercial production in December 2015.

“Brazil is already among the largest producers and exporters of agricultural commodities in the world. Pelletized biomass is a new commodity being created to serve the low carbon economy,” said Mark Lyra, Cosan Biomassa CEO. “By making use of sugarcane residues and benefiting from the economic and environmental advantages that the shift to rail logistics brings to the game, Brazil is positioned to become the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy.”

Sumitomo Corporation has targeted biomass energy as a promising source of renewable energy, and began importing biomass fuel for power generation to Japan in 2008.

“By the year 2030, we foresee that Japan will consume as much as 10 million+ tons of pelletized biomass, the majority of which would come from overseas. Renewable energy including biomass will play a prominent role in our power generation sector by that time,” said Yoshinobu Kusano, general manager, Biomass Business, Sumitomo Corporation. “We believe a relevant portion of this demand will be met by agricultural waste, particularly sugarcane biomass pellets produced in Brazil. Sugarcane’s productivity and abundant availability tied to the fact that we are using its residual byproduct as a raw material gives us a unique sustainability condition when compared to other biomass sources in the world.”

bioenergy, biomass, Brazil

US Ethanol Production Sets Records

Joanna Schroeder March 1, 2016

New records were set in 2015 for U.S. ethanol production and blending according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Last year ethanol production hit a record high of 14.81 billion gallons while refiners and blenders integrated a record 13.69 billion gallons into the U.S. gasoline supply. The industry’s monthly average output in December 2015 also crested the 1 million-barrel-per-day mark for the first time in history.

Data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows that output levels of corn ethanol were primarily responsible for a record generation of 14.83 billion Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) used by obligated parties to track compliance under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Bob Dinneen said that while the numbers are impressive, the American ethanol industry is prepared to do more. Unfortunately, added Dinneen, mismanagement of the RFS program and the oil industry’s intransigence to adopt higher-level ethanol blends like E15 kept the ethanol industry from realizing its full potential. EPA set the 2015 blending obligation for renewable fuel at just 14.05 billion gallons, rather than the 15 billion gallon level established by Congress – an act that is being challenged in federal court.

“The U.S. ethanol industry had an incredible year in 2015, but the failure of the White House and EPA to enforce the RFS as designed by Congress means our nation missed a huge opportunity to provide consumers with even larger volumes of domestically produced, low-carbon, high-octane biofuels,” said Dinneen. “There is no doubt that the ethanol industry could have produced even more renewable fuel if the Administration had stood firm on implementation of the statutory RFS volumes, rather than caving to the oil industry’s ‘blend wall’ narrative.”Read More

Ethanol, Ethanol News, RFA, RFS

University of Illinois Identifies Ideal Bioenergy Crops

Joanna Schroeder February 29, 2016

New research from the University of Illinois has identified what bioenergy crops are best for certain regions while minimizing effects on water quantity and quality. The study was based on replacing current vegetation with crops for ethanol production and looked at how each crop would impact water quantity and quality in soils.

“We expect the outcome of this study to support scientifically sound national policy decisions on bioenergy crops development especially with regards to cellulosic grasses,” wrote Atul Jain, professor of atmospheric sciences at University of Illinois, regarding a paper published by the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

This figure shows how much water is used to produced one unit of ethanol (defined as water use intensity) for each energy crop. (Image courtesy of Atul Jain.)

Today, corn is the primary feedstock for ethanol production in the U.S. Prior research has found that several bioenergy grasses such as Miscanthus and switchgrasses such as Alamo and Cave-in-Rock causes less nitrogen loss as compared to corn. Nitrogen is an important nutrient for crops and a key ingredient in fertilizer, but nitrogen often washes away into rivers and other bodies of water where it is detrimental to aquatic ecosystems.

Researchers argue that another advantage bioenergy grasses and switchgrasses have over corn is their deep root system that allows them to draw water and nutrients from deeper soil levels and enables them to be more resilient in poor growing seasons.

“Growing bioenergy grasses, in general, can mitigate nitrogen leaching across the United States,” said Yang Song, a graduate student and the study’s lead author. “However, the greatest reduction in nitrogen leaching occurs when bioenergy crops displace other cropland or grassland, because energy crops consume more water and less nitrogen fertilizer than the crops and grasses that they replace, resulting in less water runoff and nitrogen loss.”Read More

biomass, Ethanol, feedstocks, Research

Federal Activities Report on Bioeconomy Released

Joanna Schroeder February 29, 2016

USDA has released a new report, “Federal Activities Report on the Bioeconomy.” According to Dr. Catherine Woteki, the report was developed to create awareness of federal agency activities that are helping to develop and support the bioeconomy. The “bioeconomy” is an emerging part of the U.S. economy, says Woteki, that utilizes renewable biological resources to produce fuels, power and biobased products.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. has the potential to sustainably produce one billion tons of biomass. This could displace 25 percent of U.S. transportation fuels, 50 billion pounds of bio-based products, and generate 85 billion kWh of electricity. To reach this would mean tripling the size of current U.S. biomass usage. USDA, DOE, and other federal agencies have activities in place that provide a foundation for the existing bioeconomy.

The Federal Activities Report on the Bioeconomy introduces the Billion Ton Bioeconomy Vision—the government’s new, collaborative vision of what America could achieve by expanding efforts to develop the bioeconomy. Moving forward, the Biomass R&D Board will be hosting a series of workshops and webinars to gather input for the vision from stakeholders and the public, which will be released later this year.

biochemicals, bioenergy, biofuels, biogas, biomass, biomaterials

White Mountain Biodiesel Expands

Joanna Schroeder February 29, 2016

White Mountain Biodiesel, located in North Haverhill, New Hampshire, has announced it has begun a plant expansion. Once completed, in about two years, the plant will have been expanded by 10,000 square foot and added 1,186,000 gallons of additional processing and storage tanks. When the expansion goes online, the biodiesel production will increase from 3,000,000 gallons per year to more than 16,000,000 gallons per year, and become the largest biodiesel facility in New England.

According to a press statement, the improvements will be made using proprietary technologies developed by White Mountain over the last nine years of operations. The planned improvements are also expected to provide significant cost reductions as a result of increased plant efficiencies. Presby Construction has been hired to complete the new building addition, and the tank installation, piping, pumps and electrical improvements will be completed the White Mountain team.

As part of the expansion, the company has begun the purchase of its own fleet of tankers and pedal trucks to enable sales of blends as high as B99.9 to retail customers within New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. White Mountain is working directly with Suntec pumps and other manufacturers to develop a reliable pump configuration to enable home heating systems to function reliably on higher blends of biodiesel. All the trucks acquired will be pre 2007 models without DPF or DEF systems allowing them to be operated on high biodiesel blends. These vehicles will also be used to pick up used cooking oil from New England collectors and for the delivery of glycerine and other waste products to New England digester facilities. The company says it is also exploring opportunities with Caterpillar to supply generators capacity of running B100 to supply the plant’s entire electrical needs.

In addition, White Mountain says the company has begun to take legislative action in the state to include biodiesel as part of the state’s Renewable Fuels Portfolio. The company has also submitted its first set of documentation to obtain its BQ-9000 designation.

advanced biofuels, Biodiesel

BioEnergy Bytes

Joanna Schroeder February 29, 2016

Loyola University Chicago is hosting a free Collegiate Biodiesel Workshop March 17-19, 2016. The workshop will bring together students, staff, faculty and members of the biodiesel community to discuss biodiesel efforts on college campuses as well as discuss best practices and lessons learned along with sharing resources and network. Click here for more information.
Gevo, Inc. has announced that it has entered into a license agreement and a joint development agreement with Porta Hnos S.A. to construct multiple isobutanol plants in Argentina using corn as a feedstock. The first plant is to be wholly owned by Porta and is anticipated to begin producing isobutanol in 2017. The plant is expected to have a production capacity of up to five million gallons of isobutanol per year. Based on projected isobutanol pricing, Gevo estimates that it could generate approximately $1 million in annual revenues once the plant is operational, through royalties, sales and marketing fees, and other revenue streams such as yeast sales.
According to the U.S. EPA, a total of 1.74 million domestically produced D3 cellulosic biofuel RINs were generated in January, including 285,432 for ethanol, 1.29 million for renewable compressed natural gas and 161,044 for renewable liquefied natural gas.
GE has announced that it has been selected by Belgian Eco Energy to build the largest greenfield, 100 percent biomass-fired power plant in the world. The supercritical plant, which will be powered by wood chips and agro residues, will generate approximately 215 MW of cleaner energy for the industry and nearby households reaching over 60 percent efficiency when operating in cogeneration mode.

Bioenergy Bytes

U of Illinois Miscanthus Research Breakthrough

Joanna Schroeder February 26, 2016

University of Illinois researchers have studied genetic markers of miscanthus to identify early developmental traits that will improve yield. According to the researchers, “this study begins to establish links between reproducible genetic markers and a number of key agronomic traits in Miscanthus sinensis.” The research paper was published in GCB Bioenergy, “Mapping the genome of Miscanthus sinensis for QTL associated with biomass productivity.”

Over a period of three years, researchers measured developmental and biomass traits over a period of three establishment years in the offspring of a cross between Miscanthus sinensis cultivars ‘Grosse Fontaine’ and ‘Undine.’ It can take three-four years for a miscanthus crop to have a reliable yield. Next, the team extracted DNA from the plants and examined the resulting single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, to develop a genetic map. The technique improves upon older types of genetic markers that were not as tightly linked to particular genes controlling important biomass traits.

“It represents one of the very first maps that was made and it’s also one of the first times we were able to map a number of genes associated with biomass productivity, and determine the locations of those genes in the Miscanthus genome,” said U of I geneticist Jack Juvik.

On a practical level, the researchers saw strong positive correlations between biomass yield and plant basal circumference, height, and tiller (stem) number, suggesting that plants that are able to grow taller and produce more tillers in the first few years may achieve higher yields in the long term. They also found negative correlations between flowering time and yield, with early flowering individuals producing less biomass. The researchers breeders could make use of that information to improve early selection of plants with enhanced biomass productivity to accelerate the breeding program.

“The advantage to marker-assisted breeding is that you can grow seedlings, collect DNA, and probe for a large suite of DNA markers that are linked to genes that confer the characteristics you want. That can save a lot of time, because you can identify potential phenotypes without having to wait 3-4 years to get a mature plant,” explained Juvik. “The value of this kind of system in Miscanthus is substantial in terms of breeding progress.”

In addition to saving time and providing breeders with specific traits to look for in high-yielding plants, the techniques used in the study and the initial results establish a jumping-off point for future work.

Juvik notes, “This is the starting point. We’ve continued this work and applied it to other populations and to other questions about breeding Miscanthus. This sets up the foundation for moving into a range of different applications.”

advanced biofuels, biomass, Research

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