USDA has announced new funding for biofuels infrastructure at fueling stations and Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president and CEO Bob Dinneen thinks EPA should pay attention to that message. In this Ethanol Report, Dinneen also comments on what Congress may or may not do the rest of this session, and how another big corn crop makes keeping the RFS on track more important than ever.
Listen to this edition of the Ethanol Report here: Ethanol Report on Growing Biofuels Infrastructure
Photo credit – george denny, Lake of the Ozarks Shootout
More than 100,000 spectators gathered to watch nearly 100 boats race along the one-mile course, and the boat crowned as the “Top Gun” was the American Ethanol 51-foot Mystic Powerboats catamaran. The boat, named after its fuel, logged a top speed of 208 mph.
“The American Ethanol catamaran definitively proved that ethanol and marine engines are more than compatible,” said Tom Buis, CEO of Growth Energy. “The team chose to run on ethanol because the fuel performs better and burns cooler than regular gasoline. Unsurprisingly, the second place boat was also powered by homegrown American ethanol,” Buis said.
The driver of the boat, Myrick Coil, said, “This boat accelerated harder than any boat I have ever been in. It was also the biggest boat I have ever driven. Those two things usually don’t go together!”
John Cosker, owner of Mystic Powerboats, added, “All of our hard work leading up to the event paid off when the boat came alive off of the start line and rocketed to a clocked speed of 208 mph. It showed America the power behind American Ethanol.”
The owner of the boat, Don Onken, echoed these sentiments and noted that, “We showcased the potential of American Ethanol at this event, and I’m proud of what we were able to accomplish together. There’s only one thing left to do—figure out how to go faster next year.”
A California city has switched to using renewable diesel in its municipal fleet. This story from Patch.com says Walnut Creek in the Bay area is one of the first cities in the area to make the switch.
So far, the conversion has been seamless, Walnut Creek Public Works Manager Rich Payne said.
“We haven’t noticed anything in terms of performance and it didn’t require any retrofitting of our equipment,” Payne said.
The city had been using low-percentage biodiesel, which is blended with petroleum diesel, for its fleet of street sweepers, dump trucks, backhoes, lawn mowers and other equipment, Payne said. Representatives from NeXgen Fuel LLC, which is distributed by Golden Gate Petroleum, approached the city about switching fuels, Payne said.
Renewable diesel is similar to biodiesel in that it is made from the same stock, which include fats, oils and greases, but that’s where the similarities end, said Pat O’Keefe, NeXgen CEO and Vice President of Golden Gate Petroleum. “The process to manufacture it is completely different,” O’Keefe said. “Renewable diesel acts and behaves in the engine just like regular diesel.”
The price for the renewable diesel is on par with regular diesel and about 10 cents per gallon cheaper than biodiesel.
A German group that maintains quality standards for biodiesel will carry out round-robin tests for pharmaceutical glycerol. This news release from AGQM (Arbeitsgemeinschaft Qualitaetsmanagement Biodiesel) says this will be the first time for the tests, and registrations will still be accepted until Sept. 20, 2015.
Round Robin Tests to check test methods and the proper handling of professional laboratories have a long and successful history. That is why AGQM has also carried out round robin tests for Biodiesel analytics as part of its quality management system since being founded in 1999.
Apart from Fatty Acid Methyl Ester (FAME) which is mainly used as fuel (Biodiesel) and which must comply with high quality standards, glycerol – a by-product of the Biodiesel production – is also gaining continuously in importance. In the past it was used primarily in the fields of cosmetics and technology but nowadays it is used more and more as high-quality pharmaceutical glycerol which is gained by refining raw glycerol.
With this Round Robin Test we wish to enable both company laboratories as well as commercial service laboratories to carry out external quality assurance for selected parameters of the analytics of pharmaceutical glycerol.
Photo Credit Joanna Schroeder
“Secretary Vilsack has worked tirelessly to see that his vision of 10,000 blender pumps across the nation becomes reality, and the Biofuels Infrastructure Partnership is another great example of his commitment to expanding markets for farmers’ products,” said ACE Senior Vice President Ron Lamberty whose organization works with retailers and provide assistance through their FlexFuelForward website.
“BIP is a matching grant program, which means USDA also challenged states and ethanol supporters to step up and make equal or greater amounts of infrastructure funding available to station owners. The intended result is nearly a quarter of a billion dollars petroleum marketers can use to buy equipment and offer more ethanol blends to consumers. In many cases, station owners will pay little or nothing to add state-of-the-art blender dispensers and other equipment they may need to sell flex fuels and E15. We encourage retailers to apply for funding assistance through the appropriate state agencies,” Lamberty added.
Growth Energy also praised the USDA with CEO Tom Buis noting that the announcement is a “tremendous win” for American consumers. “It is unfortunate that the obligated parties refuse to follow the law and blend increasing amounts of renewable fuel,” said Buis, “but the steps by the administration and Secretary Vilsack will ensure higher ethanol blends, such as E15, penetrate the marketplace, and provide consumers with a choice and savings they deserve.”Read More
Waste-to-biofuels and biochemical company Enerkem has raised C$152.6 million and initiated the production of biomethanol from non-recyclable household garbage at the Enerkem Alberta Biofuels full-scale facility in Edmonton, Canada.
Enerkem is the first company in the world to have successfully produced biomethanol from municipal solid waste at the commercial scale. (PRNewsFoto/Enerkem Inc.)
The financings are comprised of a recently accessed C$29 million debt facility from Integrated Asset Management Corp.’s (IAM) Private Debt Group as well as C$50 million in private placements from current investors and C$73.6 million of debt from two other lenders, closed over the past year. This funding will be used for the product expansion of the Edmonton facility and the company’s global growth.
“I must say a huge thank you to our financial partners, employees, as well as the City of Edmonton and Alberta Innovates – Energy and Environment Solutions who believed in us and have accompanied us while we were reaching this pivotal operational milestone,” said Vincent Chornet, president and chief executive officer of Enerkem. “We are about to fundamentally transform the waste industry over the coming years and allow energy and chemical groups access to a new and competitive source of renewable carbon.”
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that 21 states will receive grants through the Biofuel Infrastructure Partnership (BIP) to help provide access to more renewable fuels for America’s drivers.
“The Biofuel Infrastructure Partnership is one approach USDA is using to aggressively pursue investments in American-grown renewable energy to create new markets for U.S. farmers and ranchers, help Americans save money on their energy bills, support America’s clean energy economy, cut carbon pollution and reduce dependence on foreign oil and costly fossil fuels,” said Vilsack.
USDA estimates that the BIP grants will support nearly 5,000 pumps at over 1,400 fueling stations across the country. “Our investment will nearly double the number of pumping systems available across the U.S.,” Vilsack said. According to the list of estimated numbers of pumps that could be installed per state, Florida and Texas will be the biggest beneficiaries with 892 in Florida and 763 in Texas. Minnesota at 620 and Illinois at 428 are the largest recipients in the Midwest.
Secretary Vilsack also challenged conclusions in the American Petroleum Institute report out yesterday that he called “preposterous.”
Listen to Vilsack’s announcement here: USDA Secretary Vilsack biofuels investment
Q and A with reporters: Vilsack answers BIP questions
Flottweg SE is founding a subsidiary in Peru to reinforce its presence in the South American market. The centrifuge manager finds this the next step in building out their global sales network. The new company, Flottweg Peru SAC, was founded in April, 2015, and will now start operational activities under the leadership of Luis Pacheco. The subsidiary consists of its own office as well as a workshop and workshop warehouse. Flottweg has a strong presence in the biofuels industry.Researchers in Canada might have found a way to increase biodiesel production by using bubbles. This article from McGill University’s The McGill Daily says Peter Adewale, a PhD student in the school’s Bioresource Engineering Department, has devised a method to shorten the production time of biodiesel to twenty minutes, a significant drop from previously reported production times ranging from 24 to 96 hours.
The biodiesel was made from inedible tallow – a type of animal fat – using enzymes as a catalyst, and the bursting of bubbles formed by ultrasonic waves, a process known as ultrasonic mixing, to speed up the process…
Adewale tells The Daily, “When you are using edible canola oil, you are competing with human [consumption]. Down the road, it will lead to either high cost or scarcity.” To become a more viable alternative fuel, biodiesel would need to be made from non-edible sources such as animal fat waste, generated by the meat processing industry and tanneries.
Originally, Adewale was interested in creating models of the interactions of methanol and animal fat to see how those two reagents mix with each other to produce biodiesel. According to Adewale, after spending two years trying to learn how to use the modelling software COMSOL, he was told by the software’s producers that what he was trying to do was simply not possible. The level of modelling needed to simulate the particles mixing was too complicated, given the software that was available at the time. “Eventually, I had to drop the idea,” Adewale explains.
And so, two years into what he had hoped would be a three year PhD, Adewale decided to try an experimental approach, since dropping his theoretical modelling approach. He started by studying the characteristics – like the free fatty acid content and melting points – of different animal fats, such as tallow, lard, choice white grease, and yellow grease, all of which could be used to make biodiesel.
Adewale found tallow was conducive to ultrasound mixing and eliminated the use of some caustic catalysts.
Ethanol organizations responded Wednesday to what they say is a “flawed study” released by the American Petroleum Institute (API) that concludes “statutory biofuel mandates under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) are infeasible to achieve in 2015 and beyond and could cause severe harm to consumers and the U.S. economy.”
Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) President and CEO Bob Dinneen says the talking points in the study commissioned by NERA Economic Consulting (NERA) are nothing new from the oil industry.
“It’s déjà vu all over again,” said Dinneen. “This study is virtually identical to a study that NERA published for API in 2012. The conclusions of both analyses are completely divorced from reality… API was wrong in 2012, and it’s wrong in 2015.”
“This newest API study contains many of the same fatal flaws that plagued the 2012 study. This study claims that gas prices will rise by $90 a gallon and diesel will rise by $100 per gallon. It foolishly assumes EPA will not ever utilize its cellulosic waiver authority to partially reduce the advanced and total RFS volume requirements. And it also assumes obligated parties would purchase a RIN credit at any price rather than making modest infrastructure investments to expand renewable fuel distribution.”
Growth Energy CEO Tom Buis says that API is “repackaging stale, false talking points” about the RFS. “(D)espite what API claims, over 84 percent of cars on the road today are approved to use E15,” said Buis. “Regardless of what API claims, the bottom line is that ethanol blends help clean the environment, are higher performing, less expensive and directly benefit the consumer by providing a choice and savings.”
Fuels America stressed that API doesn’t speak for fuel retailers who tell a story about the benefits of higher blend fuels. “When consumers have a choice, there is no blend wall,” said Dave Sovereign, owner and operator of the Cresco Fast Stop.
“We need to be supporting homegrown renewables. We need to be blending more ethanol into our fuel supply, not less,” said Cheryl Near, owner of Jump Start gas station in Wichita, Kansas. “We need blender pumps, we need to buy direct from the ethanol plants, and then we can pass our savings on to the consumers.”
