Heartland Institute is hosting its 9th International Conference on Climate Change in Las Vegas July 7-9, 2014. This year there will be three concurrent tracks featured at “World’s Biggest Gathering of ‘Skeptic’ Scientists and Policy Experts”. The scientists will review the latest climate research and publicly discuss the policy implications of government energy and environmental policies. The conference program features three concurrent tracks of information: science, public policy, and communications. In all, the conference will feature nearly 60 speakers participating in five plenary sessions and 21 break-out sessions.- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently released the third edition of its report, “Climate Change Indicators in the United States“. The report pulls together observed data on key measures of the environment, including U.S. and global temperature and precipitation, ocean heat and ocean acidity, sea level, length of growing season, and many others. With 30 indicators that include over 80 maps and graphs showing long-term trends, the report demonstrates that climate change is already affecting our environment and our society.
- Enable Energy, a technology, product development and business strategy consulting firm focused on accelerating the deployment of leading-edge solar technology, has announced the availability of SolantéÔ, an advanced commercial solar racking system that reduces the complexity and time required to install roof-mounted solar modules. The system features robust, yet lightweight, construction and a patent-pending roof attachment plate that does not require roof excavation, welding, or identification of a truss, thereby protecting roof warranties and significantly shortening the installation process. The company intends to license the technology to solar module and racking manufacturers.
- Sungevity, Inc. has announced a partnership with E.ON Benelux, a division of one of the world’s largest investor-owned utility companies, under which Sungevity will offer its turnkey solar energy service to E.ON’s base of customers in the Netherlands on a co-branded basis. The partnership is expected to expand to other European countries in the near future and is part of Sungevity’s increased focus on international expansion, which is expected to include a full range of marketing initiatives and strategic partnerships in targeted markets around the globe.
Where do Iowa Candidates Stand on the RFS?
Americans United For Change want Iowans to know where their candidates for U.S. Senate stand: with Iowa farmers or Big Oil. The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), legislation that mandates the U.S. transportation sector blend 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels into our fuel by 2022. With more than 30,000 comments sent to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on their proposed 2014 required volume obligations, aka, how many gallons of biofuels will be blended into fuel in 2014, there has still been no word on the final 2014 rule out of D.C.
In Iowa, primary elections took place last week and newly nominated Republican Joni Ernst, who currently serves as an Iowa Legislator, has not taken a firm stand on the RFS. According to Americans United for Change, she claims to be pro-RFS but often in the same breath admits she is “philosophically opposed” to all subsidies and that she “want[s] people to choose products that work for them and not have them mandated by the United States government.”
Today, Americans Unite for Change, in an effort to get a straight answer, has taken out a full page ad in the Des Moines Register and Cedar Rapids Gazette that asks the questions whether the tens of thousands of dollars Ernst’s campaign has already taken from the billionaire oilmen Koch Brothers is the reason why she is so hesitant to go to the mat for renewable fuels. The biofuels industry accounts for $5.5 billion of Iowa Gross Domestic Product (GDP, generates $4 billion of income for Iowa households, and supports 60,000 jobs throughout the state.
Jeremy Funk, Comm. Dir., Americans United for Change, said of the ad, “As the candidates from opposing parties interview to be the next Senator from Iowa, there are many issues like raising the minimum wage that will present a clear contrast for voters. The Renewable Fuel Standard should not be one of those issues in the state that leads the nation in renewable fuel production with 41 ethanol plants and 18 biodiesel plants.”
“And yet,” continued Funk, “Tea Party-favorite Joni Ernst is going out of her way to complicate the simple and flip-flopping all around the issue. Talking out both sides of the mouth is something we’ve come to expect from politicians, just not politicians from Iowa on the issue of supporting renewable fuels. A strong and clear voice of support for ethanol and biodiesel is needed now more than ever in Washington with Big Oil spending millions of dollars to try to put out of business their cheaper, cleaner competition so they can gouge consumers at the pump with impunity.”
But it seems the more money Joni Ernst’s campaign rakes in from big oil interests like the billionaire Koch Brothers, the weaker and murkier her position becomes.” Funk concluded, “You can tell a lot about how a politician would actually govern by the friends they keep.”
I-75 Green Corridor Project Adds 17 New Biofuel Stations
The I-75 Green Corridor Project took a huge step forward this week with the addition of 17 new biofuel stations between Chattanooga, Tennessee all the way to southwestern Florida. This week marks the 5th year of the project that began in Knoxville, TN through a grant funded by the Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program. The goal of the project is for drivers to traverse the entirety of I-75 running on biofuels including ethanol as E85 or biodiesel in a B20 blend. In all Interstate 75 is 1,786 miles from Canada to the Caribbean. The ultimate goal is to have an ethanol/biodiesel station no more than 200 miles apart.
Since the project’s inception, over 3.3 million gallons of biofuels have been sold from stations associated with the project, and 2.6 million gallons of petroleum have been displaced. The project has now displaced over 61,000 barrels of oil, or alternatively, the U.S. has now produced over 61,000 additional barrels of renewable, American fuel.
Specifically in Tennessee, five E85 stations are now open in Cleveland and Chattanooga and nearby neighborhoods of Wildwood and Ft. Oglethorpe and one station is set to open in Knoxville this summer. Jonathan Overly, executive director of the lead organization for the project, the East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition, said, “We could not have had the development of this many stations or otherwise success we have had in the project without Protec as a partner. Steve (Walk, of Protec) was great to work with and helped us achieve the project goals.”
Thus far along the corridor, E85 has been installed at 26 fuel stations, and B20 has been installed at nine. These numbers are expected to increase in the coming months with another six stations coming online this summer. The project is now in its final year and has resulted in the 1,786-mile interstate becoming the planet’s longest biofuels corridor.
Protec was instrumental is helping the project come to fruition. The company specializes in stations conversions and fuel distribution. “We are honored to be a major partner, fuel station installer and fuel provider for this important project,” said Steve Walk, an executive director of Protec Fuel. “This project can prove biofuels are accessible, and hopefully turn new users onto renewable fuels.”
The significance of this project lies not only in the extensive length of American interstate involved, but also the six-state, multi-partner coordination that has taken place. There is also significance in the fact that American drivers now have a greater number of fueling options, as well as alt-fuel vehicles. There are nearly 100 flex-fuel vehicle (FFV) models on the market today than can run on E85. Coupled with the fact that, by conservative estimates, there are over 10 million FFVs on the road, there is strong need for more stations offering E85.
FEW Kicks off with Record Crowd
The 30th annual Fuel Ethanol Workshop (FEW) has official kicked off with a record-breaking number of ethanol producers from around the world attending. The attendees represent more than 500 producers from 194 facilities representing more than 15 billion gallons of ethanol produced per year. Producers represent traditional and advanced ethanol facilities from the U.S., Canada, Argentina, Norway and Hungary.
Ethanol enthusiasts may note the significance of the 15 gallons of ethanol produced per year – the amount called for in the first-gen ethanol category of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). A hot topic for the past few months and sure to be a hot topic during FEW, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has yet to finalize the 2014 RFS rules and announced yesterday that they were delaying compliance for 2013 obligated parties until September 30, 2014.
The host of this year’s FEW is Indianapolis, Indiana. “The record level of ethanol producers at this year’s event has created an unprecedented opportunity for industry suppliers and supporters to network with ethanol producers and share their products or services,” said John Nelson, marketing director at BBI International. “We have 520 ethanol producers representing 194 ethanol production facilities already registered and we are expecting that number to grow.”
Drawing nearly 2,000 attendees, there will be at least 25 countries represented, 43 U.S. states represented and six Canadian provinces. During the course of the event, attendees will discuss issues categorized into four tracks:
- Track 1: Production and Operations
- Track 2: Leadership and Financial Management
- Track 3: Coproducts and Product Diversification
- Track 4: Cellulosic and Advanced Ethanol
energy.agwired.com will be bringing you coverage of FEW throughout the week.
Edeniq Stresses Cellulosic Ethanol is Here
At the Corn Utilization and Technology Conference last week, Steve Rust with Edeniq talked about new processing technology and products taking ethanol to the next level.
“Cellulosic ethanol is for real now,” says Rust. “People need to know that because this is key right now with discussions on the Renewable Fuel Standard.”
Rust says new technology like Edeniq’s PATHWAY Platform is helping to make cellulosic ethanol a reality. “We have a piece of equipment that pre-treats the slurry in a corn ethanol plant and then we add a helper enzyme in it that we co-fermentate cellulosic and corn ethanol in the same fermenter,” he explained. “The nice thing about our technology is that it can be used in any dry mill ethanol plant for them to be able to get cellulosic gallons for a small capitol investment.”
USDA Announces BCAP Funding
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that the USDA will begin accepting applications June 16 through July 14, 2014 from energy facilities interested in receiving forest or agricultural residues to generate clean energy. The support comes through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP), which was authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. Agriculture residues, such as corn cobs and stalks, also may qualify as energy-producing feedstock.
BCAP provides financial assistance to farmers and ranchers who establish and maintain new crops of energy biomass, or who harvest and deliver forest or agricultural residues to a qualifying energy facility. Of the 
total $25 million per year authorized for BCAP, the 2014 Farm Bill provides up to 50 percent ($12.5 million) each year for matching payments for the harvest and transportation of biomass residues. BCAP matching payments will resume this summer, while crop incentives will begin in 2015. Some matching payments will support the removal of dead or diseased trees from National Forests and Bureau of Land Management public lands. This will be turned into renewable energy while reducing the risk of forest fire.
“Removing dead or diseased trees from forests to use for biomass production creates clean energy while reducing the threat of forest fires and the spread of harmful insects and disease,” said Vilsack. “Increasing our country’s production of biomass energy also helps grow our economy. Food is made in rural America, but fuel is made in rural America, too. This program is yet another USDA investment in expanding markets for agricultural products made in rural places across the country.”
With the 2014 Farm Bill requiring several regulatory updates to BCAP, the resumption of payments for starting and maintaining new sources of biomass (Project Areas) has been deferred until a later date when the regulatory updates occur.
Increases In Ethanol Efficiences Will Decrease Land Use
A study done by researchers at the University of Illinois’ College of Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences, has found that several factors will lower the need for land used to produced corn-based ethanol to as little as 11 percent of the corn acres by 2026 when adhering to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 15 billion gallon ceiling on domestic ethanol production.
The researchers note that a too common error made in reporting land used for domestic 
production is to measure the amount of grain shipped to ethanol manufacturers, compute the number of acres required to produce the grain and then end the analysis. However, the researchers say this is a gross oversimplification that leads to incorrectly concluding that 40 percent or more of U.S. corn acres are used for ethanol production. The real number, according to the research team is less than 25%. The reason is that most studies don’t account for the grain being used as high-value animal feed (distillers grains or DDGs).
The new study, conducted by Professors Rita H. Mumm, Peter D. Goldsmith, Kent D. Rausch and Hans H. Stein, explores the impact of technological improvements on corn grain production, ethanol production, and their interrelated effect on land use through a variety of scenarios over a 15 year period beginning in 2011, the year used to establish the base case. The researchers found that land area attributed to corn ethanol will consistently drop because plant breeding improvements and new technologies will result in significantly higher yields.
In addition, over the next decade, corn yields will improve significantly which will greatly reduce land use attributed to ethanol manufacturing. On the higher end of the spectrum, the study finds yields will increase by almost 100 bushels per acre, which represents 66 percent growth. The majority of this contribution will come from conventional breeding, with advanced breeding technology, biotechnology and agronomic improvements together contributing almost half.
“It’s no surprise to the agriculture industry that yield improvements will drive down land used for ethanol,” said Dr. Rita Mumm, coauthor of the study. “However, the mechanisms within the production complex, especially their effects on one another, were not fully understood. This work provides a clear picture on current land use and provides an approach for evaluating future land use.”Read More
Edeniq’s PATHWAY Validation Facility Shows Success
Leading into the Fuel Ethanol Workshop that is taking place this week in Indianapolis, Indiana (June 9-12) Edeniq, Inc., has announced the successful performance of its PATHWAY Validation Facility. The company’s PATHWAY Platform is a proprietary, integrated platform that produces cellulosic ethanol inside existing corn ethanol plants. Edeniq said their pilot facility showcases how their patented technologies, the Cellunator and PATHWAY Platform, work together to convert starch and break down corn kernel fiber, releasing cellulosic sugars into the fermentation process. The result is an ethanol yield increase ethanol of three to six percent. The pilot facility is located at the company’s headquarters in Visalia, California.
“The pilot facility confirms a necessary high-precision consistency in the PATHWAY Platform that is a first for our industry,” said Tom Griffin, chief technology officer, Edeniq, Inc. “Our customers are looking for a way to generate and validate cellulosic ethanol production, and with Edeniq’s PATHWAY Platform coupled with this unique pilot facility, we have equipped them with the solution.”
Funded jointly by Flint Hills Resources Renewables, LLC, and Edeniq, the pilot facility showcases the PATHWAY Platform and allows ethanol producers to quantify the impact of PATHWAY on yield enhancement and cellulosic ethanol production at their plants.
“The PATHWAY Validation Facility was developed to provide our customers and partners with data to verify the increase in ethanol yield the technology provides,” added Brian Thome, president and CEO of Edeniq, Inc. “Edeniq is committed to increasing the bottom line for our customers and partners by allowing ethanol producers to improve their efficiency and migrate to cellulosic ethanol.”
The PATHWAY Platform is currently in commercial testing and continues to demonstrate its ability to increase ethanol yield and boost customer profits.
BioEnergy Bytes
- POET Biorefining – Caro hosted Dan Wyant, director of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, recently to highlight the benefits of ethanol for Michigan. “Ethanol provides a unique opportunity for renewable, Michigan-made energy,” said Wyant. “I appreciate all of the great work done here at POET Biorefining.” General manager Dave Gloer took the director on a tour of the plant and discussed the economic and environmental benefits of using corn ethanol for transportation fuel as well as the economic benefits of ethanol for consumers, local businesses and rural economies.
- Morrison & Foerster partner Peter Hsiao has been elected a fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers, one of the premier professional legal associations in America. Mr. Hsiao is head of the firm’s Environment and Energy Group in Los Angeles. He is a trial lawyer and chemical engineer with more than 29 years of courtroom experience in environmental, natural resources, and chemical litigation. He is one of 16 lawyers named as a Distinguished Environmental Advocate by the American Bar Association, former chair of the State Bar of California’s Environmental Law Section, and identified by Best Lawyers in America, Chambers and Legal 500 as one of the nation’s leading environmental attorneys.
- Green-e Marketplace is hosting a free, one-hour webinar about the benefits of using clean-energy in an organization’s sustainability strategy on June 12, 2014 at 10:00 am PT. Green-e Marketplace is a program that recognizes organizations using certified renewable energy and enables them to demonstrate their environmental commitment through the use of the nationally recognized Green-e logo. Green-e Marketplace gives its participants unique resources to help them communicate their commitment to clean energy on their collateral, website, and products.
- In support of the President’s bold new climate change action plan that will cut significantly down carbon pollution, save lives and help the economy, Americans United for Change released a new video called ‘Not A Scientist’ that says it all about how the climate denier culture is thriving like pine beetles in the Republican Party. The video features numerous potential Presidential candidates down the line to Members of Congress all preaching from the same climate skeptic hymnal, all refusing to acknowledge overwhelming scientific data that climate change is happening and is man-made. But while their head-in-the-sand position has become a litmus test for who’s a real Republican or not, a new PPP poll commissioned by AUFC released yesterday shows it will alienate Independent voters in the coming elections, with only 29% open to supporting a climate skeptic.
REG Completes Dynamic Fuels Acquisition
The largest U.S. biodiesel company Renewable Energy Group (REG) has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary REG Synthetic Fuels, LLC has completed its acquisition of the remaining 50 percent ownership interest in Dynamic Fuels, LLC. Dynamic Fuels was previously owned by Tyson Foods.
The new biodiesel facility will be known as REG Geismar, LLC and is a 75-million gallon renewable diesel biorefinery located in Geismar, Louisiana. The plant was formerly jointly owned by Tyson and Syntroleum and completed in 2010 as the first U.S-based large-scale renewable diesel biorefinery. The majority of the employees will stay on with REG Geismar.
As a result of last Tuesday’s closing of its purchase of substantially all of the assets of Syntroleum Corporation and the closing of this transaction with Tyson, REG now takes full ownership of Dynamic Fuels’ 75-million gallon nameplate capacity renewable diesel biorefinery.
“Closing these transactions enables our entry into the renewable diesel market in a significant way,” said Daniel J. Oh, Renewable Energy Group, Inc. president and chief executive officer. “We are excited about the opportunity to offer new products to our customers, while building on our core competencies in research, engineering, production, and distribution of advanced biofuels. We look forward to bringing the Geismar biorefinery online and work to do so has begun.”
REG paid Tyson approximately $16.5 million in cash at closing and retired approximately $13.5 million of Dynamic Fuels’ indebtedness to Tyson. REG has also agreed to make up to $35 million in future payments to Tyson tied to product volumes at the Geismar biorefinery over a period of up to eleven and a half years. REG intends to use proceeds from its recent $143,750,000 convertible senior notes offering to either replace the letter of credit that Tyson Foods obtained to support the biorefinery’s $100 million in Gulf Opportunity Zone Bonds, issued through the Louisiana Public Facilities Authority, or to redeem these bonds.