UK Restaurants Encouraged to Make Biodiesel

John Davis

Diesel prices in the United Kingdom are as expensive as ever. And when you consider the costs of getting waste cooking grease are not getting any less, restaurant owners in the U.K. are being encouraged to make their own biodiesel from that waste. In Biodiesel Magazine, Green Fuels Ltd., a biodiesel production equipment maker, suggests some of its products as a way for small businesses to stay in the black by going green:

fuelpod2The Green Fuels FuelPod 2 is a nifty way to turn a waste product into energy. It produces clean-burning biodiesel and is a safe, user-friendly and reliable small-scale biodiesel processing system.

Larger biofuel plants sometimes fail because they cannot secure a reliable supply of waste cooking oil to convert to biofuels. However, community-scale biofuel production enables any enterprise with a canteen (and therefore a supply of waste cooking oil) to start produce biodiesel. The first 2,500 liters are tax free (in the U.K.) as well as producing an offsetting of 7 tons of carbon (CO2), and with a cost of 30p a liter, that makes for a very significant saving on energy bills.

Green Fuels points out several benefits to its FuelPod 2:

-The capacity to produce 100 liters of biodiesel every day from waste or new oil
-Timed controls make it easy to use
-Unique safety features ensure safe production of biodiesel
-Fuel dispensing system with regulation filter makes it safe and easy to fill your car
-Low maintenance
-Odor free
-Robust design
-Integrated ion-exchange resin fuel purification system to guarantee the highest quality biodiesel

The company also points to several local success stories to show their equipment delivers quality biodiesel.

Biodiesel, International

Fast Stop’s E85 Sales Soar

Joanna Schroeder

Today some retail stations are offering E85 (for use in flex fuel vehicle only) at more than $1.00 per gallon less than regular unleaded and these retail stations are seeing E85 sales soar. One reason these stations are able to sell the fuel at such a competitive price is because some of suppliers are passing along RIN values.

Fast Stop in Cresco, Iowa has reported that in the first two weeks of August, E85 sales have made up 45 percent of its total gasoline sales. With strong E85 and E30 sales, pure ethanol accounted for an amazing 42 percent of Fast Stop’s total liquid gallons sold over the two week period. The level is more than four times the so-called E10 blend wall.

Dave Sovereign“Finding a supply of E85 that reflected the RIN savings was the key – that’s when E85 sales just took off,” said Dave Sovereign, part owner of the station. “We tried to get other retailers in our area to offer higher ethanol blends. When they wouldn’t, a group of us decided to build our own station and put in a blender pump. It’s been a great investment – not just for us, but for motorists as well.”

“Fast Stop has become a magnet for flexible fuel vehicle owners in the area,” continued Sovereign. “Consumers are ready and willing to purchase higher ethanol blends; retailers just need to make them available and price them right.”

Fast Stop dispenses fuel using a blender pump, which allows the station to offer E0 (no ethanol), E10, E15, E20, E30, and E85. The station blends E85 and regular unleaded to offer consumers the choice between a variety of ethanol blended fuels; therefore, the lower E85 prices have benefited all ethanol blend levels. When sales of all fuels are averaged, ethanol accounts for 42% of the volume.

RINs, or renewable identification numbers, are credits attached to each gallon of ethanol in order to track compliance with the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). The ethanol blender can sell the RIN to refiners that choose not to blend enough ethanol on their own.

“When you see what Fast Stop in Cresco has done there’s only one question – what blend wall?” said IRFA Executive Director Monte Shaw. “Fast Stop’s real world sales data confirms the federal RFS is working as intended. Despite Big Oil’s rhetoric, there is no blend wall and retailers like Fast Stop are proving it. Given a chance, consumers will choose lower priced, cleaner burning ethanol. Big Oil is attacking the RFS not because it is broken, but because the RFS is working.”

E85, Ethanol, Iowa RFA, RFS, RINS

Frontier Coop To Offer E15

Joanna Schroeder

Frontier Coop will begin offering E15 at four locations beginning September 20, 2013. Frontier Coop will offer E15 as a fuel choice for consumers in Weston, Brainard, Ceresco, and Dwight.

“E15 seemed like the logical fuel to offer to support our local economies,” said Jeff Ingalls, energy department manager for Frontier Coop. “We want to give consumers fuel choice and what better than to offer a locally homegrown and produced fuel?”

Ceresco Manager Kyle SteinE15 can be used in all vehicles 2001 or newer. All the necessary steps to offer E15 were followed by Frontier Coop including being registered for the fuel survey, adopting the misfueling mitigation plan created by the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), and the pumps will be labeled properly for selling E15.

“It is a great feat for the ethanol industry to see E15 sold in multiple states, and we are pleased that Nebraska is expanding the number of locations offering E15 for 2001 and newer vehicles,” said Robert White, director of market development for RFA.

Due to a lack of a one pound reed vapor pressure waiver for E15, retailers must change their labels in the summer months and offer E15 to flex fuel vehicles only. Beginning September 15, 2013 retailers can resume offering E15 to 2001 and newer vehicles.

“It has been 30 years since a new fuel has been introduced, and just after a year, E15 is starting to gain traction, and will be sold in nine states starting September 15,” said White.

Don Hutchens, executive director of the Nebraska Corn Board, added, “It is great to see our rural communities supporting their local corn farmers. There are so many benefits of ethanol fuel and moving to E15 adds to the benefits.”

E15, Ethanol, RFA

EPA Indicates Biodiesel on Way to Billion Gallons

John Davis

nbb-logoThe latest numbers from the Environmental Protection Agency shows 132 million gallons of biodiesel was produced in the U.S. during July. Our friends at the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) say that puts year-to-date volumes at more than 768 million gallons, on pace to go over a billion gallons this year:

The production volumes are reported under the Biomass-based Diesel category under the [Renewable Fuels Standard]. To view the figures, visit the EPA’s website here. The latest numbers show a total of more than 166 million gallons of Biomass-based Diesel in July, but that total also includes production of renewable diesel. The biodiesel portion of the total was 132 million gallons.

Biodiesel has surpassed RFS targets for two consecutive years and is on pace to do so again this year.

Biodiesel, NBB

Army Awards Solar Contracts

Joanna Schroeder

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, working with the Army Energy Initiatives Task Force (EITF), awarded Multiple Award Task Order Contracts (MATOC) to a group of 22 solar technology contractors. Solar is the second of four technologies being awarded under the $7 billion Renewable and Alternative $7B MATOC Award AnnouncementEnergy Power Production for DoD Installations MATOC. The first, geothermal, was awarded May 3. The remaining technologies – wind and biomass – will be awarded on a staggered schedule by the end of the calendar year.

“The MATOC represents a major step forward in the procurement of renewable energy for the Army and the other Services that will significantly reduce timelines by streamlining acquisition processes. Utilizing the MATOC in this way will assist the EITF in meeting the Army’s goal for one gigawatt renewable energy by 2025 as well as additional Congressional mandates,” said John Lushetsky, EITF’s Executive Director.

This MATOC will be used to procure reliable, locally generated, renewable and alternative energy for DoD installations through power purchase agreements (PPA). The $7 billion capacity will be expended for PPAs to procure energy during a period of up to 30 years from renewable energy generation systems that are designed, financed, constructed, operated and maintained by contractors using private sector financing.

The companies awarded contracts are: Acciona Energy North America Corporation, Apex Wind Energy Holdings; Borrego Solar; Cobra Industrial Services; Dominion Energy; Element Power US; Emerald Infrastructure; Enel Green Power North America;  Energy Matters; Gehrlicher Solar America Corporation; Johnson Controls Government Systems;
Lend Lease; LTC Federal; New Generation Power; NRG Energy; Photon Finance; SunPower; Siemens Government Technologies; Silverado Power; Solar Power Ventures;
Standard Solar; Sunpower Corporation; and Washington Gas Energy Systems.

These contracts will place the Army one step closer to meeting its Congressionally mandated energy goal of 25 percent production and consumption of energy from renewable sources by 2025 and improving installation energy security and sustainability.

“Awarding these contracts for solar technology is an important milestone in the process of awarding contracts for the four technologies selected to help the Army meet renewable energy goals,” said Col. Robert Ruch, commander, U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville. “By pre-qualifying companies under each technology and awarding the contracts to them, we are situated to more quickly award task orders for individual future projects being developed by the Army or DoD. We look forward to working with the EITF and other potential DoD organizations to help implement renewable energy projects.”

In April 2012, the White House announced the Defense Department was making one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history, by setting a goal to deploy three gigawatts total of renewable energy – including solar, wind, biomass or geothermal – on Army, Navy and Air Force installations by 2025. The Army’s goal is one gigawatt of that total. These efforts support the broader DoD goal to enhance installation energy security and reduce installation energy costs.

Electricity, military, Renewable Energy, Solar

BioEnergy Bytes

Joanna Schroeder

    • BioEnergyBytesDFCleanFUEL USA, has announced the addition of Blair Poulsen as director of sales. Poulsen will be responsible for leading a team dedicated to the relationships and sales needs for both propane refueling infrastructure and OEM vehicle technology, including Thomas Built Bus, Collins Bus, General Motors and Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation (FCCC).
    • KB Racking, a leading North American solar mounting company, and FIT Solar, a Canadian developer and installer PV solar systems, have recently completed three rooftop solar installations in Toronto, Ontario. The projects are made up of 1169 units of the AeroRack mounting system and amount to over 370 kW of clean renewable energy.
    • CODA Energy, with Energy Vault and Growing Energy Labs (GELI), will deploy the first Eco-Station, a solar integrated electric vehicle (EV) fast charging station optimized by energy storage, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The charging station will incorporate a 175 kW solar array, DC fast charging, a 40kWh CODA Core UDP energy storage system, and GELI’s intelligent Energy Operating System (EOS) software.
    • Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited, which markets its products under the brand “Yingli Solar,” announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Yingli Green Energy Americas has achieved the historic milestone of more than 1 GW of PV modules delivered to over 30,000 projects across the American continents and the Caribbean.
Bioenergy Bytes

Ethanol NASCAR Driver at Farm Progress Show

Leah Guffey

While at the 2013 Farm Progress Show, NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace stopped by to talk about ethanol and why he’s so passionate about helping farmer’s get their message out about E-15 and using it, not only in race cars, but in cars traveling up and down the highway as well.

Wallace loves to help spread the message about how ethanol blends can help increase the performance of all types of vehicles, because he knows how E15 performs in the race cars he drives on the NASCAR circuit.  He teamed up with the Illinois Corn Growers Association as a sponsor several years ago and never gets tired of talking about the home-grown fuel.

“I get to educate people that ethanol is a high performance fuel, it burns really clean and all it did was do good.”

You can listen to Leah’s interview with Kenny here Interview with Kenny Wallace

Kenny is pictured here at Farm Progress Show with Leah Guffey to his right, Tricia Braid with Illinois Corn Growers Association to his left, Jeff Nalley with Cromwell Ag Radio, Renewable Fuels Association president and CEO Bob Dinneen and Domestic Fuel editor Cindy Zimmerman.

Audio, biofuels, corn, E15, Ethanol, Farm Progress Show, NASCAR, RFA

ACE: Fighting Fallacies and Making Believers in E15

John Davis

Vincent Kwasniewski GTL ResourcesMaking people converts to the idea of ethanol, especially higher blends of E15 and above, is no easy chore. But many of the folks gathered for this week’s American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) 26th annual conference, with the theme of “Unite and Ignite,” seemed pretty united and ignited to fight some of the fallacies swirling around E15. Among those is former Amoco and BP oilman Vince Kwasniewski, now with GTL Resources. During last March’s ACE Biofuels Beltway event in Washington, D.C., he told Joanna that his message to lawmakers on Capitol Hill was one of choice for the consumer.

“E15 is not something that consumers are mandated to use. It’s not something that going to cause the disappearance of E10. It’s something that consumers ought to have the choice to use, and retailers ought to have the choice to offer,” he said.

Vince added that getting educated is key to having the best weapons in your arsenal when battling fallacies put out by Big Oil.

“Unfortunately, our opponents primarily in the oil industry and the American Petroleum Institute have a lot of money to spread misinformation, and it’s getting picked up by the press, not very critical of where it’s coming from and getting parroted back to the public,” he said, advising ethanol advocates to hit back with the facts. “Ethanol is energy beneficial. Ethanol has less greenhouse gas admissions. Ethanol costs less than gasoline. Ethanol gets no subsidies.”

Listen to Joanna’s interview with Vince here: Vince Kwasniewski, GTL Resources

Visit the ACE 26th Annual Ethanol Conference photo album.

ACE, ACE Ethanol Conference, Audio, E15, Ethanol, Government

Ethanol Report on RFS Attacks

Cindy Zimmerman

fps13-dinneenThe attacks on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) by the oil industry just keep coming and Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president and CEO Bob Dinneen was at the 2013 Farm Progress Show this week to talk about the latest – a petition for a partial waiver submitted recently to EPA by the American Petroleum Institute (API) and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM).

ethanol-report-adIn this “Ethanol Report” interview, Dinneen talks about RFA’s letter to EPA urging them to reject the waiver request. “API really doesn’t have standing to even file a waiver because they’re not an obligated party,” he says.

Dinneen also talks about cellulosic ethanol production, RINS, and his reaction to Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL) considering legislative changes to the RFS.

Ethanol Report interview with Bob Dinneen: Ethanol Report on Latest RFS Attacks

Subscribe to “The Ethanol Report” with this link.

Audio, Ethanol, Ethanol News, Ethanol Report, RFA, RFS

Mosaic Investors See Good ROI

Joanna Schroeder

Every day consumers and businesses purchase energy from utility companies. But now, some consumers are actually earning an income from utilities that purchase solar power. Now in California, residents can earn income as PG&E energy from a solar installation completed by Pristine Sun, 322 KW solar installation constructed on dual-use farmlands.

Today, Mosaic is offering California residents the ability to invest in the solar project for as little as $25. The total offering is $140,725 and investors are expected to earn 5.5 percent annually over a 10-year period- double the current rate on a 10-year U.S. Treasury bill.

solar project in northern californiaThe solar project will generate revenue by selling clean energy produced to PG&E, one of the largest investment-grade utilities in the country, under a 20-year Purchase Power Agreement. The panel installer, Panasonic, has provided the project with a 12-year production guarantee. This means that if the solar projects fail to generate an expected minimum, Panasonic will cover the shortfall in associated revenue.

“Small utility-scale solar projects like this– complete with a low-risk purchase contract with PG&E and top quality components by Panasonic– are the future of utility-scale solar in America,“ said Troy Helming, CEO of Pristine Sun. “As a Mosaic investor, I’m excited to be making our projects available through their innovative and successful platform.”

This partnership between Mosaic and Pristine Sun launches a series of similar solar investment opportunities with competitive returns. Pristine Sun is the leading integrator for PG&E’s Feed-in-Tariff program, and is developing 50 MW of solar power plants in California, enough to power 50,000 homes, to be sold to utilities under 20-year Power Purchase Agreements.

“California contains nearly a third of the entire solar capacity of the United States, but 75% of Californians can’t install solar directly on their homes,” added Billy Parish, President of Mosaic. “We’re thrilled to work with Pristine Sun to provide these opportunities for all residents (over 18) to participate and earn 5.5% returns.”

Electricity, Energy, Renewable Energy, Solar, Utilities