Burning Bio News

Study shows that increases in crop production technology from 1961 to 2005 have lowered GHG emissions. While emissions from factors such as fertilizer production and application have increased, the net effect of higher yields has avoided emissions of up to 161 gigatons of carbon (GtC) (590 GtCO2e) since 1961. Each dollar invested in agricultural yields is estimated to have resulted in 68 fewer kgC (249 kgCO2e) emissions relative to 1961 technology ($14.74/tC, or ∼$4/tCO2e), avoiding 3.6 GtC (13.1 GtCO2e) per year. This analysis indicates that investment in yield improvements compares favorably with other commonly proposed mitigation strategies.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack released a report outlining both the current state of renewable transportation fuels efforts in America and a plan to develop regional strategies to increase the production, marketing and distribution of biofuels to 36 billion gallons of biofuel per year by 2022. USDA’s report identifies numerous biomass feedstocks to be utilized in developing biofuels and calls for the funding of further investments in research and development of: feedstock; sustainable production and management systems; efficient conversion technologies and high-value bioproducts, and decision support and policy analysis tools.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced that three projects have been selected to receive up to $612 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – matched by $368 million in private funding – to demonstrate large-scale carbon capture and storage from industrial sources. The projects – located in Texas, Illinois, and Louisiana – were initially selected in October 2009 for phase one research and development grants. The selections announced today are expected to capture and store 6.5 million tons of CO2 per year- the equivalent of removing nearly one million cars off the road- and increase domestic production of oil by more than 10 million barrels per year by the end of the demonstration period in September 2015.

The U.S. ethanol industry continues to see improved efficiency, according to a new report released by USDA’s Office of the Chief Economist. Nitrogen use measured on a per bushel basis has declined by about 20% since the mid-90s. Similarly, all direct energy components have declined by about 50% since the mid-90s. Together, the nitrogen and direct energy reductions result in a 30% decline in the energy required to produce a bushel of corn. Recent energy use estimates show that the ratio of energy in ethanol to the external energy used to produce ethanol is about 1.4, even without allowing for the processing component of the byproduct credit. After fully allowing for heat used to produce byproducts, the energy ratio is between 1.9 and 2.3. If biomass is used at the plant for some of the power, the energy balance ratio increases to 2.8, even using the lower byproduct credit from the regression results.

A new company, called Point Bio Energy, LLC, is developing a $124 million wood pellet project at the Port of Greater Baton Rouge in Louisiana. The 400,000 metric ton per year wood pellet facility will receive the feedstock for the plant from the underutilized wood basket in the Baton Rouge area as well as by barge from the Mississippi River, Atchafalaya River, Red River, and the Intracoastal Waterway.

According to the new Rabobank U.S. Farm & Ranch Survey, 72 percent of U.S. agricultural producers report that they have taken a range of measures on sustainable ag practices. “U.S producers understand that to be in the ag business for the long term means taking care of the land,” said Rabobank Food & Agribusiness Research and Advisory Vice President Sterling Liddell. The most significant steps are using direct seeding (64 percent), minimizing use of chemicals (42 percent), crop rotation or diversification (39 percent) and reduced energy inputs (39 percent).

Virent Energy Systems Inc. of Madison has raised $46.4 million in its latest financing round. Royal Dutch Shell PLC has been a research partner with Virent for several years and now has taken an equity stake that gives Shell one of seven seats on the Madison-based biofuels firm’s board of directors. In March, the companies announced the start-up of the world’s first biogasoline production plant, which can generate more than 10,000 gallons per year of biogasoline. “A lot of the cynics out there say renewable fuels are always five years away. You can say now that they’re not even five years away,” said Jim Lane, editor of Biofuels Digest.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced up to $11 million in funding over three years for research and development in the area of thermochemical conversion of biomass into advanced biofuels that are compatible with existing fueling infrastructure. The objective of this funding is to improve the conversion of non-food biomass to liquid transportation hydrocarbon fuels via pyrolysis, a process that decomposes biomass using heat in the absence of oxygen to produce a bio-oil that can be upgraded to renewable diesel, gasoline, or jet fuel. Applications for this funding opportunity are due July 9, 2010.

Siemens Energy has successfully completed the first firing of PetroAlgae Inc.’s biocrude fuel, a plant-based, micro-crop biomass material that is processed into a solid residue. The biocrude fuel was combined with pulverized coal in a pilot-scale burner with a thermal capacity of approximately 4 MMBtu/hr. The testing was performed at a test bed installed at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, and results show that the biocrude/coal fuel mixture burned well, and produced 20 percent lower nitric oxide (NOx) emissions than coal alone.

An alliance of industry, academic and government organizations, formed to commercialize technologies that will utilize concentrated solar energy to convert waste CO2 into diesel fuel. The solar reforming technology platform will be colocated next to industrial facilities that have waste CO2 streams such as coal power plants, natural gas processing facilities, ethanol plants, cement production facilities and other stationary sources of CO2. A solar reforming system is currently being demonstrated in Sacramento, CA, and demonstrations will continue both at Sandia’s facilities in New Mexico and at a power plant project site in Bakersfield, CA.

Daniel O’Brien, Kansas State Research and Robert Wisner, Iowa State University recently presented their study on Measuring Supply-Use of Distillers Grains in the United States. This report examines the projected supply and use of distillers grains in the United States during next decade and provides a preliminary examination of how expanding the proportion of ethanol allowed to be mixed in U.S. fuels from 10% (i.e., E-10), to 11% (E-11) and 15% (E-15). The authors presented extensive information including the finding that moving to E-15 will challenge the complete utilization of distillers grains locally because the local markets are already approaching saturation.

The worries about antibiotic resistance and the rise of superbugs have reached into the ethanol industry. Ethanol producers have long used antibiotics to control bacteria that can contaminate the fermentation process. But now, the Food and Drug Administration is developing a policy to regulate the use of the drugs and is conducting tests in Iowa and nationwide to determine the extent to which the antibiotics are getting into livestock feed produced by the plants.

“In an effort to conserve water and provide even greater sustainability our company has achieved the status of zero liquid discharge (ZLD)”, says Patriot Renwable Fuel LLC’s President and CEO Gene Griffith (Annawan, IL). Rick Vondra, Patriot plant manager, went on to say, “the short definition for this process is that we fully utilize use all of the water that enters the plant, therefore using less overall, and the production wells are less impacted. More importantly, it means that no wastewater is discharged into the environment.”

The Fiberight plant in Blairstown, IA, is using waste fibers from International Paper’s nearby Cedar River mill to make cellulosic ethanol. The company plans to introduce organic pulps, the stuff made from residential trash, to the fuel-making process within weeks. The plant should be able to produce up to six-million gallons of cellulosic ethanol per year when it reaches capacity in 2011.

Rutgers University professor Clinton Andrews and colleagues ran the numbers on land required to implement a renewable energy strategy. They identified clear limits on some technologies, notably biofuels, but concluded that the bigger challenges to renewable energy and land relate to siting energy facilities, particularly transmission lines. –mj: This report contains some interesting information, but the extension of supplying 100 of world energy by individual technologies is puzzling. Presenting extraneous information just because it can be calculated clouds the discussion.

Commercial flower growers want to tap into the growing market of consumers looking for sustainable products, but those growers aren’t willing to go through a difficult and costly certification to do it at this time. Purdue University faculty Roberto Lopez, Jennifer Dennis, and Maria Marshall, found that nearly two-thirds of U.S. growers aren’t interested in spending the time and money to become certified as sustainable. One-third hadn’t even heard of certification organizations such as Veriflora and MPS, which can charge thousands of dollars for certifications.

Environmental groups and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reached a settlement requiring the agency to propose a rule on greater information gathering on confined livestock farms. The rule, to be proposed within 12 months, would require the 20,000 or so domestic factory farms to report information like how they dispose of manure and other waste. – mj: The process of revising the federal manure rules began over ten years ago. It has cost millions of dollars, and the ’solution’ will not ‘fix’ the problem. I’d say the public process has failed the public. Unfortunately, the regulation of manure is only a minor example of this crisis.

Officials with EcoPower generation in Hazard, KY, is getting the green light from Frankfort, to construct their new proposed biomass power plant facility. The plant will be built on a 125 acre site in northern Perry County. The 50 MW generating plant will be built in the Coal Fields Regional Industrial Park. Officials say the construction could begin the end of this year and be finished as soon as 2012.

A new University of Illinois at Chicago study of facilities that produce most of the nation’s ethanol found that the energy needed to make a gallon of the corn-based fuel decreased on average by about 30 percent within the past decade. Steffen Mueller, principal research economist at UIC’s Energy Resources Center, surveyed the nation’s 150 “dry mill” ethanol plants. He said his survey shows that adoption of new technologies reduces energy production needs.

The University of Minnesota, Morris is nearly ready to utilize its biomass gasification system to heat and cool a large portion of its campus buildings. Experiments with fuel densities, which had occupied plant researchers efforts for months have paid off. Lowell Rasmussen, UMM’s Vice Chancellor for Finance and Facilities, said that test burns last week using wood chips and corn stover have proved successful. – mj: This operation has been years in the making. Well done UMM!