USDA Applauded for Biofuel Infrastructure Support

Joanna Schroeder

Photo Credit Joanna Schroeder

Photo Credit Joanna Schroeder

This morning, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Secretary Tom Vilsack made the announcement that 21 states will receive grants through the Biofuel Infrastructure Partnership (BIP) to help provide access to more renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. In response, the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) applauded USDA for expanding its efforts to provide consumers with fuel choice at the pump through expanded ethanol blends. The program will help retail station owners pay for equipment they may need to offer higher ethanol blends such as E85.

“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

ACE, biofuels, E15, E85, Ethanol, Growth Energy, RFA

Enerkem Raises C$152M in Funding

Joanna Schroeder

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.)

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.”

advanced biofuels, biochemicals, Waste-to-Energy

USDA Announces Funding for Biofuel Infrastructure

Cindy Zimmerman

USDA logoAgriculture 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

Audio, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Retailers, USDA

BioEnergy Bytes

Joanna Schroeder

  • BioEnergyBytesDF1Flottweg 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.
  • The Energy Conference, taking place in Des Moines, IA September 21-23rd, is the exclusive venue where biofuel producers and petroleum distributors meet and discuss how to increase the level of biofuels in the nation’s transportation fuel mix. The goal of this conference is to unite, across industry lines, for the purpose of growing strong business relationships that focus on higher blends of alternative fuels.
  • The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) announced that Lawrence E. Jones, an executive with two decades of international experience, has joined EEI as Vice President, International Programs.
  • Join Clean Energy Connections for Advanced Energy Consumers: Customer Models Driving Utility Industry Change from the Edge. The event is taking place Wednesday September 16, 6:30 – 9:00 pm ET. The opening speaker is Marsha L. Walton, Senior Project Manager, Market Inisghts at NYSERDA. The event will be moderated by Andrew Mulherkar, Analyst, Grid Edge division of GTM Research at Greentech Media. Panelists include: Chris Neidl, Director, Here Comes Solar at Solar One; Jennifer Metzger, Co-Director, Citizens for Local Power (CLP); Juan Camilo Osorio – Director of Research, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance; Laney Brown – Director of Smart Grid, Iberdrola USA. For those not able to attend in person, the event will be streamed live.
Bioenergy Bytes

Bubbles Could Make the Difference for Biodiesel

John Davis

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.
bubblebiodiesel1
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.

Biodiesel

Ethanol Groups Attack API Report

Cindy Zimmerman

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.”

rfalogo1Renewable 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-logo1Growth 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.”

Ethanol, Ethanol News, Fuels America, Growth Energy, Oil, RFA, RFS

Wind Industry Commits to Reducing Bat Fatalities

Joanna Schroeder

The U.S. wind energy industry has announced a commitment to reduce bat fatalities caused by wind turbines by 30 percent or more. The news came leading up to National Wildlife Day and is an agreement between the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and 17 member companies. The agreement involves wind operators’ voluntarily limiting the operations of turbines in low-wind speed conditions during the fall bat migration season when research shows bats are most at risk. The new protocols are based on over 10 years of research by the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative (BWEC) and others.

dreamstime_xs_22720312“The adoption of this protocol to reduce impacts to bats is a continuation of our legacy of care for wildlife and the environment,” said Tom Kiernan, CEO of AWEA. “American wind power is strongly committed to producing one of the safest and cleanest forms of energy, for people and wildlife. As we continue to strive to make the wind industry’s impacts as low as possible, we hope this step can serve to encourage other energy industries, and all businesses for that matter, to proactively take steps to reduce their impacts on the environment in their respective communities.”

AWEA said in a statement that despite the potential collective loss of millions of dollars in electric generation, the U.S. wind energy industry has voluntarily committed to changing how turbines are operated during the bats’ fall migration season, slowing blade rotations to fewer than 1-3 revolutions a minute, depending on blade length, thereby reducing the risk of collision. On-the-ground research over the past decade at a number of operating wind farms has shown this measures will significantly reduce the collision risk for bats in low wind speed conditions when they are most at risk. The expected reduction of overall bat impacts was calculated with data from the research by BWEC and the conservation and academic communities who worked with the industry to identify solutions.

“That this industry-wide best practice has been voluntarily adopted demonstrates how the U.S. wind energy industry holds itself to a higher standard,” said John Anderson, senior director, permitting policy and environmental affairs, for AWEA. “Our industry values all wildlife and habitat. By proactively employing this measure to reduce our already low environmental impacts further, consumers can have even more confidence in buying clean, affordable, and carbon-free wind energy.”

Representatives from the conservation community applauded the action taken by the industry. “Through common sense practices and a proactive spirit by the wind industry, it’s clear we can both move the nation toward a clean energy future, and protect wildlife,” said Collin O’Mara, President and CEO, National Wildlife Federation of the announcement.

This year, National Wildlife Day was celebrated on September 4th.

Clean Energy, Environment, Wind

Iluméxico to Bring Solar to Rural Communities

Joanna Schroeder

Iluméxico, the Mexican social enterprise focused on solar power, has made a commitment through the Business Call to Action (BCtA) to offer its Solar Home Systems to 50,000 off-the-grid rural homes. By 2020, more than 300,000 people will have access to solar power and along the way, Iluméxico will help create 180 new jobs, of which 90 will be designed for women and 70 will be based in rural communities.

The company plans to increase its “ILU Centros” support network from 5 to 50 locations nationwide and strengthen alliances with both public and private institutions. Anticipating up to 70 percent growth within the next five years, Iluméxico also plans to expand its business into two new Latin American countries by 2020.

Ilumexico solar power“Delivering affordable, sustainable solar power to off-grid rural communities brings Iluméxico one step closer to realizing its vision of ensuring access to electricity for all Mexicans by 2040,” said Manuel Wiechers, Iluméxico’s CEO. “Bringing clean, long-lasting illumination to people at the bottom of the economic pyramid is furthering the country’s development through income generation and learning opportunities for client families, along with cleaner, more sustainable energy use. We are pleased that our work has been recognized by the Business Call to Action and look forward to working with the organization and fellow members to advance our mission.”

More than three million Mexicans – 600,000 households – live in remote, rural locations. Their geographic location and isolation make it difficult and expensive for government infrastructure and electrification projects to reach them. Iluméxico’s business model taps into this unmet need through the design and manufacture of a wide range of solar systems for bottom-of-the-economic pyramid markets. Approximately 60 percent of Iluméxico’s customers are indigenous and all live in isolated areas in communities of less than 100 households.

Suba Sivakumaran, BCtA’s Programme Manager, added, “Consistent access to clean, efficient energy can transform lives and livelihoods, with wide-spread impacts on a country’s development agenda. This includes income-generating opportunities, reduced use of biomass and other unsustainable solid fuels, greater opportunities for education and healthcare, and more engaged, productive households and communities.”

Clean Energy, Electricity, International, Solar

BioEnergy Bytes

Joanna Schroeder

  • BioEnergyBytesDF1Puerto Rico’s electric power utility (Puerto Rico Electric Power Agency or PREPA) could ease the costly economic burdens of its aging, fossil-fuels-intensive electric system, but instead is doing a huge injustice to ratepayers by ignoring the potential to rely more on renewable energy and increased energy efficiency, according to a new report to be released Thursday, September 10, from Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Further, the study finds a proposed PREPA debt-restructuring deal too generous to wealthy bondholders.
  • Martifer Solar, a subsidiary of Martifer SGPS, has added 14 PV plants – rooftops and fix structures – in a total of 11.5 MW of new third party O&M contracts to its portfolio in Italy. The plants are located in Puglia, Lazio and Veneto, and are being supervised and provided O&M Services for the company Green Utility SpA.
  • Beginning this school year, many Detroit Public Schools students will ride to and from school in 35 cleaner-operating buses fueled by propane autogas. ABC Student Transportation, Detroit Public Schools’ transportation provider, chose buses fueled by propane autogas because of the buses’ advanced technology, environmental benefits, and fuel and maintenance cost reductions. To fuel the buses, ABC installed a station with a 12,000-gallon propane tank. This is the largest fleet of propane autogas school buses in the state of Michigan.
  • The U.S. energy storage market had its best quarter in two and a half years. According to the latest edition of GTM Research and the Energy Storage Association’s U.S. Energy Storage Monitor, 40.7 MW of energy storage were deployed in the second quarter of the year, a ninefold increase year-over-year. According to the report, the largest driver of the growth was the interconnection of a 31.5 MW project in the PJM region.
Bioenergy Bytes

Gevo Selling Isobutanol for Boats on Missouri Lake

John Davis

gevoGevo is selling gasoline blended with isobutanol at a Missouri lake. This company news release says Harbor Marina Pumps at Lake Pomme de Terre is the first U.S. marina to sell gasoline blended with Gevo’s renewable fuel at the pump.

Lake Pomme de Terre is located in one of the premier recreational boating regions of the country. Gevo is now working to strategically roll out its marine fuel blend to marinas on other lakes including Lake of the Ozarks and Table Rock Lake, as the company ramps up isobutanol sales to marine, outdoor equipment and off-road vehicle markets…

In June, the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) officially endorsed isobutanol as a drop-in fuel for marine and recreational boat engines. Gevo’s bio-based isobutanol helps meet renewable fuel and clean air standards, while solving concerns that many boaters have with ethanol-blended fuels, which can damage internal engine parts.

Harbor Marina owner Todd Spencer said he made the decision to offer isobutanol-blended gasoline to his recreational boating customers once he concluded that it would be a superior renewable fuel for their boats. Gevo’s isobutanol is moisture resistant, does not cause phase separation and helps reduce engine corrosion. It is a highly stable, high octane marine fuel.

“My fuel supplier introduced me to the idea of blending Gevo’s renewable isobutanol with the straight, ethanol-free gasoline my marina was previously offering,” Spencer said. “At Harbor Marina, we pride ourselves on providing the best in entertainment, food and beverages – and now we can add: the best-in-marine fuel.”

isobutanol