I can&rsquo;t say enough about the dynamite content of this year&rsquo;s International Biomass Conference &amp; Expo, held April 16-19 in Denver, Colo. I&rsquo;ll spare you some of the details, though, since the Biomass Power &amp; Thermal team compiled a feature article for this issue to help tell you all about it. But we would have needed to double the size of the magazine in order to get all the good stuff in. It was all good.
 Particularly exciting for me this year was BBI International&rsquo;s choice to include a forest health seminar. The Rocky Mountain Forest Restoration &amp; Bioenergy Summit took place the first day of the event, overlapping with the first of two tour days, and highlighted not only the mountain pine beetle epidemic and other issues plaguing the Rockies, but also the biomass industry&rsquo;s unique position to offer a helping and healing hand.
 A biomass availability analysis recently conducted by the Colorado State Forest Service found 3 million acres in the state with high potential for biomass production and another 3 million with moderate potential, based on forest type, ownership, management and accessibility.
 Some Colorado companies, communities and entire counties are looking to local forest thinnings for bioenergy applications. Boulder County, Colo., is using its biomass resources harvested from the tens of thousands of acres it thins every year to heat five buildings, a total of 95,000 square feet. The project is so successful from both renewable energy and forest management standpoints that another biomass boiler was set up to heat a jail. The county&rsquo;s forest operations and the first district heating plant were stops on the second day of conference tours. Read more about Boulder County&rsquo;s biomass solution in the event feature beginning on page 20.
 Many panel discussions and presentations throughout the conference echoed the benefits of integrating bioenergy with forest health and management, referring back to the summit and its helpful and factual message. Too often, the biomass industry gets the stigma of being uncaring tree killers, focused only on profiting from the forests&rsquo; demise. That&rsquo;s untrue. Holding events like this summit is a good way to start chipping away (pun intended) at that false stereotype.
 The summit, the tours, the presentations, the new speakers, and the opportunities for networking culminated in a successful event, prompting a multitude of compliments from attendees. The conference drew almost 1,300 people from 32 countries, and that doesn&rsquo;t even include the U.S. I had been blogging and talking about this event for months before it took place and I can proudly say it surpassed my highest expectations.

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Success for Biomass in Denver 

The month of April saw, on the national level, several positive signs for the biomass industry in general. We are continuing to see challenges in the commonwealth of Massachusetts, however, that will drastically impede the progress of the industry in the Northeast, and could lead to additional consequences in other states.
 First, the good news. Two crucial developments on Capitol Hill in April show that elected officials know about the benefits of biomass, and they are fighting for laws that will help us stay strong and grow. One of biomass&rsquo; longest and most ardent supporters, Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif., made a convincing argument to his colleagues to extend to biomass the same tax credits enjoyed by our renewable energy brethren. While Herger is retiring from Congress at the end of this term, biomass will remain indebted to him for his steady and outspoken commitment to our industry throughout his tenure.
 At a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on expiring tax credits, Herger said, &ldquo;To the extent that some tax incentives for renewable energy may be maintained, I believe we should aim to make them technologically neutral and avoid picking winners and losers. Currently, wind energy receives a production tax credit that is double the level of other renewable resources, such as biomass and hydropower. The Renewable Energy Parity Act, which I have introduced with Mr. Thompson, would equalize the PTC for all renewables, and I urge the subcommittee to consider this reform.&rdquo;
 On the same day as the Ways and Means Committee hearing, the Senate Agriculture Committee held a markup on its 2012 Farm Bill, which passed the committee with a vote of 16-5. Thanks to Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., this legislation includes an Energy Title that would keep the Biomass Crop Assistance Program alive and well with a $193 million mandatory commitment over the next five years.
 BCAP&rsquo;s collection, handling, storage and transportation allowance has proven invaluable to the industry in recent years and we are very pleased to see the program extended with a healthy budget. The next step for the bill is a vote by the entire Senate, but even the symbolic support shown by the committee&rsquo;s vote is an important win for us.
 Now for the not-so-good news. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) is continuing with its mission to make it as difficult as possible to produce biomass energy in its state. Despite having volumes of peer-reviewed scientific evidence showing that biomass is good for forests and for the carbon cycle, DOER persists under the assumption that biomass energy is destructive to forests. This couldn&rsquo;t be further from the truth, and these regulations are worrisome to us as the Natural Resources Defense Council cheerleads for similar regulations in other states. The rules are bad for the entire renewable energy industry, and worse for biomass. Biomass Power Association continues its fight against these rules.
 As is often the case, in April we saw two steps forward for our industry and one step backwards. We continue to work on both the federal and state level for favorable laws that will promote the use of biomass done right. Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association <a href="http://www.USABiomass.org">www.USABiomass.org</a> <a href="mailto:bob@biomasspowerassociation.com">bob@biomasspowerassociation.com</a>

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Capitol Gains, Commonwealth Setbacks

Does the age-old energy resource&mdash;wood and agricultural biomass&mdash;have an exciting future?&nbsp; &ldquo;Absolutely,&rdquo; remarked Kenneth Smith, president and CEO of District Energy in St. Paul, Minn., during his keynote presentation at the first Heating the Midwest Conference and Expo, held in Eau Claire, Wis., in April.&nbsp;
 Even a partial switch to biomass heating can result in economic growth, energy independence and environmental stewardship for the Midwest, according to biomass economist William Strauss, president of FutureMetrics. &ldquo;Biomass already plays an important role in heating homes and businesses, with future potential to create new economic opportunities and energy security for the Midwest,&rdquo;&nbsp; said Strauss, noting that propane, electricity and fuel oil currently fill more than 30 percent of all Midwestern heating needs. &ldquo;A switch of 20 percent away from propane and fuel oil would create over 60,000 jobs,&rdquo; he explained during a roundtable discussion.
 More than 170 people attended the conference, which included a preconference tour aimed at building a Midwest vision for heating with renewable biomass. Chris Wiberg, conference co-chair and manager of the Biomass Energy Laboratory, was especially proud of the significant participation for a first-time conference. &ldquo;The 170-plus conference attendees actively participated in building a vision for this renewable energy source, embracing its potential economic benefits for residents and businesses,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Our goal was to start the momentum, and we succeeded.&rdquo;
 Important topics were addressed that focused on understanding the potential for biomass thermal and combined-heat-and-power systems. The Midwest Biomass Inventory Assessment was released as a snapshot of the current biomass availability relative to energy consumption in seven Midwest states.&nbsp; &ldquo;Biomass can play a role in offering affordable, renewable energy options that consumers are looking for,&rdquo; said Becky Philipp, Agricultural Utilization Research Institute team leader for the assessment.&nbsp; &ldquo;This inventory can serve as a platform to begin the development of biomass-related projects.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 Case study examples of home, residential, small commercial, school districts, institutional and large projects were presented by various speakers to help attendees understand modern combustion technologies, installation strategies, and the positive economic paybacks. Presenters also noted that new cost-effective and sustainable installations of biomass heating are planned at Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, Wis., and the Chillicothe, Ohio, Veterans Administration Medical Center.
 Heating with biomass has a wide range of potential benefits for the Midwest, including new jobs and increased uses of urban wood, logging residues, and agricultural grasses.&nbsp; Speakers also pointed out that biomass utilization improves the potential for forest and grassland management, reduces carbon dioxide emissions over fossil fuels and connects energy use to homegrown resources.
 The preconference tour emphasized the real-world applications of thermal biomass, showcasing several local schools that heat with wood chips, residues and pellets.&nbsp; Monti Hallberg, superintendent of the Barron, Wis., school system said they have a proven, cost-effective track record of heating with biomass at the high school since 1981, and recently extended wood heating and cooling to the middle school. Attendees also toured Indeck Energy pellet plant.
 The sold-out indoor and outdoor expo hall offered a wide range of heating appliances, along with biomass processing equipment suppliers and affiliated testing, research, and business development organizations. On-site vendors were pleased with the attendance and traffic for a first-time conference, and said they are looking forward to participating in 2013.
 The final morning speakers, Hans Kordik, counselor of agriculture for the Austrian Embassy in Washington, D.C., and Charlie Niebling, chairman of the Biomass Thermal Energy Council and general manager of New England Wood Pellet, provided valuable evidence that the use of biomass for thermal applications has been a tremendous success in Austria, and is growing significantly in the Northeastern U.S. Wiberg closed the conference by encouraging all attendees to become involved in Heating the Midwest by advocating for thermal biomass and participating in the Heating the Midwest Steering Committee or Action Teams.
 For more information on Heating the Midwest, visit www.heatingthemidwest.org. Author: Brian Brashaw Director, Wood Materials and Manufacturing Program University of Minnesota Duluth

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Opportunity in the Midwest

Ten years ago, the Energy &amp; Environmental Research Center instituted the Center for Biomass Utilization, which has evolved into a world-class research program, inventing, demonstrating, and commercializing new technologies for converting biomass to fuels, power, heat, and chemicals. This program has grown considerably since its inception, and as part of that continued growth, the EERC is just completing a new facility that will be instrumental in developing future biobased and alternative fuels.
 The Fuels of the Future facility incorporates a 70-foot-tall, high-bay area with multiple levels and two control rooms to accommodate a wide range of biomass and processing systems. The facility will enable the EERC to perform proof-of-concept studies for novel applications converting biomass to fuels, heat, power, and chemicals that otherwise may not have been possible because of a lack of required vertical space. The 7,500-square-foot facility is adjoined to the National Center for Hydrogen Technology and is set to become a leading center for innovation and demonstration.
 The EERC has already been heavily involved in converting crop and algae oils to drop-in-compatible hydrocarbon jet fuels for the U.S. Department of Defense. That research has involved upgrading catalytically cracked hydrocarbon fuel products using tall columns for distillation, separation, and reaction. This new facility will make those types of operations much more efficient and cost-effective. While the facility will be ready for occupancy in July, a growing list of commercial entities is waiting to fill it with new systems and test equipment. Some of the early projects to be housed in the facility include a modular gasification system for producing heat and power from agricultural wastes and manures. The technology will aid in reducing runoff of valuable nutrients from the soil, which enter the local watershed and cause eutrophication of rivers and lakes.
 The facility will also house work in renewable jet fuel development, testing new improvements to the catalytic cracking and upgrading process for renewable jet fuel, green diesel, and other renewable byproduct fuels and chemicals. A system design for a subscale pilot facility has already been completed and will be optimized for conversion of nonfood-grade biomass oils derived from crambe, camelina, pennycress, and even algae into liquid fuels. In addition, the Fuels of the Future facility will host development of new biochemical production systems that can be pilot-tested, allowing for easy scale-up. And several projects have been proposed for prototyping systems that make liquid transportation fuels from a combination of both unconventional natural gas and biogas or syngas. Along with the technical projects, the EERC will utilize the space for outreach activities, providing dissemination of lessons learned and clear and obtainable alternative pathways to a sustainable future for fuels.
 Because of the dramatic increase in U.S. oil and gas production, fossil fuels will continue to be a dominant energy source, but biobased fuels and chemicals will continue to gain ground. The EERC is committed to moving these sustainable technologies into the marketplace using new critical infrastructure such as the Fuels of the Future facility. Author: Bruce C. Folkedahl Senior Research Manager (701) 777-5243 <a href="mailto:bfolkedahl@undeerc.org">bfolkedahl@undeerc.org</a>

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Fuels of the Future

Federal law requires that the Department of Defense purchase 25 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2025.&nbsp; Presently, the Army obtains just 2 percent of its electricity from renewable energy technologies.&nbsp; Biomass electric and thermal generation facilities are explicitly included in the statutory definition of renewable resources.&nbsp;
 In response to these requirements, the U.S. Army recently issued a request for information seeking public comment on a draft solicitation to procure up to $7 billion in large-scale renewable and alternative energy on or near Army land.&nbsp; These projects will be financed, constructed, operated and maintained by private contractors using long-term offtake agreements.&nbsp; Biomass is an eligible resource under the solicitation.&nbsp;
 The finalized solicitation should be issued shortly and will likely contemplate multiple indefinite delivery / indefinite quantity contracts with qualified offerors. Individual task orders will then be competitively awarded under these contracts for specific renewable energy projects of varying sizes and technologies up to the budgeted $7 billion in project value. The Army plans to purchase electric energy from the projects, but will not own the generation assets.
 The draft solicitation, and similar efforts across the Department of Defense, are being undertaken to meet Congressional mandates and other military objectives, including energy independence and security, and supply chain simplification. These efforts also will serve the Army&rsquo;s net zero objectives for U.S. installations. Net zero energy installations are defined as projects that produce as much renewable energy on site as they use on an annual basis, and may include conservation and efficiency efforts in addition to renewable energy generation.&nbsp;
 The Army previously satisfied its renewable energy mandates by purchasing renewable energy certificates or clean energy generated offsite.&nbsp; Biomass projects that convert waste to fuel and generate heat or power from those fuels will assist the Army in achieving its renewable energy mandates and net zero objectives. Biomass facilities also are an important component of a renewable energy portfolio for the military because the power is not generated intermittently, as is the case with wind and solar facilities.
 Two complementary trends are aligning to potentially benefit biomass projects near military installations. First, market observers estimate that 40,000 to 60,000 MW of existing coal-fired capacity will be retired or mothballed by 2020.&nbsp; Much of that lost coal capacity will likely be replaced by new gas-fired generation, which is not a renewable energy resource and has a significant carbon footprint. By contrast, biomass facilities can serve the military&rsquo;s renewable energy and energy security objectives and already qualify as renewable energy technologies under some state renewable portfolio standards.
 Second, biomass projects developed as part of the U.S. Army or Department of Defense&rsquo;s efforts will benefit from the Department of Defense&rsquo;s willingness to enter into long-term offtake contracts, which facilitate project financing and are increasingly difficult to obtain because of ongoing litigation regarding the ability of electricity buyers to subsidize capacity payments under long-term contracts.&nbsp;
 The Army&rsquo;s initiative (and other Department of Defense efforts) is being implemented from both the top down and the bottom up.&nbsp; Base commanders will have significant input on the procurement and selection process, while the Pentagon&nbsp; brass continue to establish policy directives that will be implemented in contracts to be negotiated and administered by the Army Corps of Engineers. Additional information about the Army&rsquo;s renewable energy efforts is available at the Army Energy Initiatives Task Force website (www.armyeitf.com).&nbsp; It is expected that information on the solicitation, when final, will be posted to the website.
 Biomass projects, especially those using waste streams from military installations, will benefit from their ability to simultaneously meet several of the military&rsquo;s objectives, including increased clean energy production, energy independence, net zero facility goals, and supply chain simplification. Because biomass qualifies as a renewable energy resource under the Army&rsquo;s program as well as state renewable portfolio standards, the military&rsquo;s multi-billion dollar initiative to expand its use of onsite renewable energy presents a significant new opportunity for biomass project developers. Authors: Roger Stark Partner, Ballard Spahr, LLP (202) 661-7620 <a href="mailto:starkr@ballardspahr.com">starkr@ballardspahr.com </a> Daniel Simon, Partner, Ballard Spahr, LLP (202) 661-2212 <a href="mailto:Simond@ballardspahr.com">Simond@ballardspahr.com </a> Darin Lowder Associate, Ballard Spahr, LLP (202) 661-7631 <a href="mailto:lowderd@ballardspahr.com">lowderd@ballardspahr.com</a>

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Military Renewables Plan:  A Bioenergy Booster

Parton joins Forest2Market
 Stan Parton has joined Forest2Market and will lead the company&rsquo;s bioenergy practice. Parton will be responsible for the expansion of Forest2Fuel, the company&rsquo;s suite of services for buyers and sellers of renewable energy fuels, and for managing product evolution and derivative product development. These services include biomass supply availability studies, tipping point analyses, site selection studies, wood fuel indexing for supply and off-take agreements and a price benchmark that buyers and sellers of wood fuel use to compare their performance and improve their positions in the market.
 Before coming to Forest2Market, Parton was principal in The Parton Group, a company he established in 2001. A provider of project development support services for the renewable energy and forest products sectors, The Parton Group conducted studies, including technology options analyses, plant evaluations, and many of the same services offered by Forest2Market.
 Komptech hires new sales manager 
 Tom Geissinger has joined Komptech USA Inc. as an area sales manager covering Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania. Geissinger has more than 15 years of sales experience and most recently was the Doppstadt Sales Specialist for Gibson Machinery in Ohio.
 Metso expands in India
 Metso has opened a new valve supply and service center in Vadodara, India. The new supply center supports the company's strategy to grow its valve business globally and strengthens its service capabilities in India for major petrochemical, energy, and oil and gas companies.
 Metso is also expanding its valve production premises in the U.S. and Finland, and opened a new valve facility in Shanghai, China in 2010. The company also has industrial valve facilities in Brazil and Germany.
 The new supply center in India is 400 kilometers north of Mumbai in the state of Gujarat, where Metso's service center has been in operation for more than two years. The state of Gujarat has the fastest growing economy in India, and is also one of the most industrialized states, with a per capita gross domestic product almost double the national average. The industrial city of Vadodara houses major customers and engineering, procurement and construction companies.
 Maine Energy Systems recognized for sustainability 
 Wood pellet boiler manufacturer Maine Energy Systems has been recognized as part of the first state-sponsored environmental achievement awards handed out in Maine since 2005.
 The Bethel-based business was honored as one of six stewards of sustainability presented with the 2012 Governor&rsquo;s Awards for Environmental Excellence by Gov. Paul LePage and Patricia Aho, commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.
 The awards, administered by the Maine DEP and scheduled in conjunction with Earth Day, recognize entities that voluntarily go beyond regulatory requirements to creatively and collaboratively initiate innovation that is both environmentally and economically sustainable.
 Maine Energy Systems won in the Businesses Under 15 Employees category for helping Maine homes, public facilities and businesses&mdash;including Waterville High School and Mt. Abram Ski Resort&mdash;transition to a cleaner fuel sustainably harvested from Maine&rsquo;s forests. Conversion to pellet heat can lower fuel costs for users by about half and cut the carbon footprint of an average-sized home by about 16 tons per year, while helping retain and create jobs in Maine&rsquo;s vibrant forest products industry.
 Boiler &amp; Steam Systems develops multiclones
 Boiler &amp; Steam Systems of Bellevue, Wash., has developed new high-efficiency ceramic multiclones for coal- and wood-fired boilers. The use of ceramic materials and a new casting technology has resulted in a new generation of ultra-high efficient multiclones. The new design provides a quantum reduction in particulate emissions compared with existing collectors. The new 10- and 6-inch diameter models are currently available and 9-, 11.5- and 12-inch diameter ceramic cones will be available soon.
 The new ceramic castings are a direct replacement for existing collector tubes of the same diameter. The high-efficiency designs will also help marginal boiler plants meet the new Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology standards.
 The new cone geometry evolved through a combination of multiclone research projects, CFD modeling and recent studies on high-efficiency cyclonic separation. The new designs maximize the particulate capture of the collector spinner and cone as an assembly through precision casting. A custom ceramic mix is used to create a very smooth surface with an abrasion life five times longer than that of iron castings.

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Business Briefs

On April 27, the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources released its months-overdue proposed final regulations for the qualification of woody biomass under the state&rsquo;s renewable portfolio standard (RPS). Massachusetts biomass developers and foresters alike have expressed concern that the regulations could effectively kill the state&rsquo;s biomass industry.
 &ldquo;While we have no doubt that the Department of Energy Resources intended to protect the state&rsquo;s and region&rsquo;s forests with these rules, they are not based on sound science and, in reality, will have the opposite effect,&rdquo; says Bob Cleaves, president and CEO of the Biomass Power Association.
Among a number of changes from the draft regulations filed in May 2011, is an increase in the minimum efficiency mandate from 40 to 50 percent. Now, biomass plants will receive half a renewable energy credit (REC) upon reaching 50 percent efficiency, and one full credit beginning at 60 percent. &ldquo;This provision fundamentally will shift biomass development from power-only generation units typically operating at efficiencies around 25 percent,&rdquo; the DOER writes in its summary of changes. Many developers in Massachusetts have been waiting for the regulations before finalizing project plans. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t make it easy in Massachusetts,&rdquo; says John Bos, of Russell Biomass LLC, which has held development of its 50 MW biomass power plant in Russell, Mass., in the midst of regulation uncertainty.
 The DOER also made changes to the regulations in the areas of carbon accounting, biomass fuel certificates and certificate registry, annual compliance and provisions for under-compliance, treatment of previously qualified biomass units, and eligible forest biomass and residue retention.
 &ldquo;The administrative requirements for documenting fuel sources and verifying qualification will greatly burden small biomass facilities, raising a question as to whether they can or will comply,&rdquo; says Peter Bos, developer for Russell Biomass. &ldquo;The further delay in enacting the final regulations serves to delay and likely kill all biomass projects.&rdquo; Adjacent state biomass projects will use Massachusetts wood for fuel, he adds, and are not subject to the forestry requirements in the DOER regulations. &ldquo;The main or overarching constraint to any biomass development is not even in the biomass regulations,&rdquo; Bos emphasizes. &ldquo;It is the inability of any biomass plant to compete with wind for a power purchase agreement from an electric utility.&rdquo;
 The regulation change, following decades of subsidizing biomass power, came swiftly after the infamous Manomet study, which reported woody biomass releases more carbon dioxide per unit of energy than some fossil fuels. Despite several reports challenging the findings for numerous reasons, Massachusetts has continued with its goal of prompt policy change.
 &ldquo;As we have pointed out repeatedly, the Manomet study upon which these regulations are based did not explore the carbon accounting of energy using waste wood&mdash;the fuel used by the vast majority of biomass facilities,&rdquo; Cleaves says. &ldquo;More important, the use of waste wood by the biomass industry actually promotes forest health by removing the dead, rotting material. This allows new growth to replace it and, in the process, absorb more carbon. If forests remain at constant levels or increase, then the net effect is that carbon that is being removed is being reabsorbed, and indeed is better than &lsquo;carbon neutral.&rsquo;&rdquo;
 A comment period on the proposed final regulations is open from May 19 to June 18. A link to the full regulations and information for submitting comments can be found here: www.mass.gov/eea/energy-utilities-clean-tech/renewable-energy/biomass/renewable-portfolio-standard-biomass-policy &ldquo;If the true objective here is to reduce the use of fossil fuels in favor of homegrown, alternative energy sources&mdash;thereby reducing the carbon in our atmosphere&mdash;then Massachusetts is making a grave error,&rdquo; Cleaves adds.
&mdash;Lisa Gibson

THE WAITING GAME: Russell Biomass is one of several Massachusetts developers who put plans on hold in anticipation of the state's new guidelines.

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Massachusetts' final RPS regulations could quash biomass energy in the state

A Blow to Biomass

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program might not be dead yet. The Senate Agriculture Committee passed a version of the 2012 Farm Bill in late April, which includes an amended Energy Title section that will mandate energy program funding.
 The Energy Title, tweaked and brought forth by Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., allocates roughly $800 million over five years to programs that include BCAP and the Rural Energy for America Program. The support for the Energy Title was strong, passing with a vote of 16-5, and the co-sponsors of the bill make the future life of BCAP appear even stronger. Both Republican and Democratic senators from Indiana, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio and Nebraska co-sponsored.
 Many steps have yet to be taken in the legislative process, not to mention the fact that this is an election year, but the Senate meeting on the Farm Bill has instilled hope that BCAP has a solid chance at passing. &ldquo;We have good news on the energy front,&rdquo; says Senate Committee Chairwoman Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. Through savings found in other places in the Farm Bill, the 2012 version of the Energy Title is completely paid for. &ldquo;As a result of a number of additional savings, we have been placed in a situation where we can, in fact, have a strong energy title with dollars we have saved,&rdquo; Stabenow says.
 Those dollars have come, in part, by removing funding for the economic adjustment assistance to users of the upland cotton program, which will free up $476 million. Other areas of savings come from excluding catastrophic risk premium reduction offset funding, among others.
 &ldquo;This bill is a win for tax payers, clearly,&rdquo; Conrad says. &ldquo;This is a win for reformers, this is a win for farm and ranch families all across this country, this is a win for the economy of America.&rdquo; Streamlining programs like BCAP will make accessing funds easier, but more important to Conrad&rsquo;s win is the fact that the bill is fully funded with money from savings. &ldquo;Farm policy has many critics,&rdquo; he points out, adding that it&rsquo;s amazing how uninformed those critics are.
 The vast amount of funding goes to nutrition programs directed toward children, he says. &ldquo;Only six percent of farm bill spending, less than two tenths of one percent of overall federal spending, goes to farm programs,&rdquo; Conrad says. &ldquo;Somehow that gets lost.&rdquo;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

RENEWED HOPE: Aloterra has relied on BCAP for its miscanthus projects, and now might see a continuance of the program. 

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Legislation allocates mandatory funding to the 2012 Energy Title

BCAP Could Be Back

The hierarchy of a biomass project structure matters. Richard Bellefleur, general manager for biomass boiler and equipment provider Wellons FEI Corp., knows all about it.
 Bellefleur and his team are installing biomass boilers for the U.S. Veteran&rsquo;s Affairs in Chillicothe, Ohio, and in Canadaigua, N.Y. Both are scheduled to come online in 2012, and each has a different project structure varied by contractor responsibility, duties and financial wiggle room. The structures, dubbed the design-build and piecemeal models, have their own advantages and disadvantages.
 The design-build model was used in Canadaigua at a VA hospital. The VA, which was the top of the hierarchy, was tasked with completing a biomass project and enlisted the help of a general contractor, the next rung in the hierarchy. The responsibility of the general contractor is completing the project&rsquo;s execution from one end to the other, Bellefleur says. The general contractor selects other subcontractors, equipment suppliers, takes care of permitting issues, coordinates the project and project schedule, presents materials to VA for approval of standards ranging from cement selection to building design, manages project risk and controls cost.
 &ldquo;He (the general contractor) can&rsquo;t go back to the VA and ask for money because he has the contractual obligation to present the VA with a finished product,&rdquo; Bellefleur explains. The general contractor&rsquo;s work will be verified by a third-party commissioning agent. The design-build model offers a great advantage to the end user paying for the project because that end user has limited responsibilities. And there is a reduced possibility of a cost overrun because the general contractor is brought on after the price of the project is set. But in this model, the overall cost of using a general contractor will be more, as the general contractor will include contingency plans because he doesn&rsquo;t have all of the details of the project prior to construction.
 In the piecemeal model, an approach Bellefleur worked under in Ohio, a general contractor&rsquo;s role is different and comes in on the third tier of the hierarchy, under an entity that will act as the final decision maker in place of the VA. In this case, it was the Army Corps of Engineers. The model utilizes the input of more parties. Prior to bringing on the general contractor, the boiler provider, the architecture and engineering firm and even the commissioning agent will all work together to clarify and describe the main details of the project. The second tier of the hierarchy will then pass that along to the general contractor, allowing him to reduce the cost of services based on access to more upfront information.
 The model also utilizes a single decision maker for the mechanical, piping and electrical needs of the project, which Bellefleur says makes for a pretty smooth process. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t have the different trades pitching the ball to themselves.&rdquo; The advantages of this project structure are simple. Although the project can be done for a smaller price tag, it puts more responsibility on the buyer.
 In the Ohio project, the piecemeal model was used based on the VA&rsquo;s ability to completely relinquish responsibility to the Army Corps. But in New York, the VA opted for the design-build model, choosing to pay more for a general contractor and reduce its responsibility in the project.
&mdash;Luke Geiver

How to reduce costs or lessen responsibility to the customer

Project Structure Secrets

The good news about the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change&rsquo;s pending decision for Renewables Obligation support levels from 2013 to 2017 is that it is coming this fall. The bad news, according to Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, is that the decision should have already been made.
 &ldquo;We should have had the legislation by the end of April this year,&rdquo; she says. The delay is affecting investment in projects and feedstock purchases as producers wait to find out what level of support they will receive. &ldquo;Biomass has been the story of waiting,&rdquo; Hartnell says.
 The Renewables Obligation awards renewables obligation certificates (ROCs) for every megawatt hour produced by a renewable source. The number of ROCs is determined by technology type. By 2017, the entire Renewables Obligation scheme will end, which is already creating confusion about biomass investments beyond that year. Fortunately, the Electricity Market Reform program will replace it and is expected to clear up any doubt in the renewable energy sector by starting a number of different programs to solidify investment, showing investors that prices for renewable energy electricity generation will be fixed. &ldquo;Investors should be comfortable with this because the total income they will get is totally predictable,&rdquo; she says.
 Although government decisions on renewable energy can be unpredictable, there are a few reasons for the biomass industry to remain optimistic in the U.K. &ldquo;We are facing a time when a lot of our generation capacity is going to be shut down over the coming years,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Renewables look good.&rdquo; And several of the large energy providers that were previously interested in nuclear power have dropped all aspirations for developing those projects. In addition, any uncertainty, decision delay or other floundering by the DECC will only move nuclear energy further from the picture.
 Regardless of nuclear&rsquo;s role in the U.K.&rsquo;s energy future, there is one more thing Hartnell says will please biomass backers. A recent report completed by the REA shows the growth in the industry from 2009 to 2011. The report, &ldquo;Renewable Energy: Made in Britain,&rdquo; shows that the overall increase in biomass market value in that time frame was 11 percent, outstripping general economic growth over the same period (1.4 percent) by a factor of 8. The EMR program should spur even further growth.
&mdash;Luke Geiver

THE BRIGHT SIDE: Regulatory uncertainty in the U.K. is destabilizing the nuclear energy market.

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The U.K. biomass industry is waiting for regulatory clarity

Pending Policy 

The U.S. Department of Defense has many needs, but electricity tops them all, according to Dan Nolan, a 26-year U.S. Army veteran and current CEO of energy and military consulting firm Sabot 6. He authors the DoD energy blog and captivated his audience as the keynote speaker of the International Biomass Conference &amp; Expo, held April 16-19 in Denver, Colo.
 The annual event featured a number of new additions this year, including the co-located Rocky Mountain Forest Restoration &amp; Bioenergy Summit, which focused on the unique opportunity for the biomass industry to advance forest management in disease-ridden and wildfire-prone forests. The conference also included two full days of tours instead of the traditional one. But one aspect that remains the same each year is the pertinent and newsworthy panel topics. Many of the 1,300 in attendance were impressed with the speakers, presentations and fresh content.
 Nolan was no exception. In perhaps the most gripping aspect of his presentation, Nolan ended his speech with a night-view photo of the world. He highlighted the major conflict areas, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and others. The safer regions of the world were brightly lit, but all the regions in turmoil were dark in comparison. Nolan offered advice to those who wonder where conflict will arise without energy security in the U.S. &ldquo;Look at the world at night.&rdquo;
 He also explained the link between the U.S. Department of Defense and renewable energy, specifically biomass. &ldquo;DoD is a market driver,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It is the gorilla in the room.&rdquo; The DoD is an unrivaled entity in terms of its reach into the energy sector. It&rsquo;s also the nation&rsquo;s largest employer, and if all its acres were linked together, it would be the size of Pennsylvania. Nolan said the potential for biomass use within the agency is barely tapped.
 He then highlighted several military initiatives biomass producers can take advantage of, including $7.1 billion put forth by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. That initiative will help develop an infrastructure market and energy generation facilities at military installations across the U.S., inside the gates of the military communities. Applications to the program can be submitted for another six to eight months, and projects will begin in about a year.
 A History of Biomass 
 During the general session discussion &ldquo;Director&rsquo;s Roundtable: Priorities for Industry Growth in an Election Year,&rdquo; Gary Melow, Biomass Power Association state projects coordinator, gave an overview of the biomass power industry&rsquo;s history, pointing out that things have changed dramatically for producers over the years. He also explained how the industry got where it is today.
 &ldquo;Our industry was born back in the 1980s as a result of federal PURPA (Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act) legislation, which required utilities to purchase power from independent power producers,&rdquo; Melow said.
 But coal reserves found in the Western U.S. in the 1990s drove down the price of coal, and subsequently, the price of energy. &ldquo;As a result, states were deregulating their electricity markets,&rdquo; Melow said. &ldquo;So you had this perfect storm of utilities selling contracts and biomass power facilities upside down on their fuel contracts, and without subsidies or incentives or other economic financial instruments, so we started to see plants close.&rdquo;
 Things changed again in the 2000s, when the country began to see states adopt renewable portfolio standards (RPS), and plants started to come back online, according to Melow. &ldquo;We started seeing some small coal plants convert to biomass, and in the last few years, we&rsquo;ve seen some green developments.&rdquo; Unfortunately, little or no growth has occurred in states without RPSs, he said.
 The BPA&rsquo;s main initiative is emphasizing to lawmakers the benefits of biomass power, according to Melow. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re sort of going back to the future, promoting and marketing the intrinsic values that have been the core of our industry since the beginning.&rdquo; Those values include local resource utilization, support of jobs and local communities, production of a high-value product delivered to the marketplace using existing infrastructure, environmental benefits, and more.
 Following Melow, Joseph Seymour, executive director of the Biomass Thermal Energy Council, and Jennifer Hedrick, executive director of the Pellet Fuels Institute, touched on issues affecting the biomass pellet and densified fuel industry.
 Like BPA, BTEC and PFI are watching pending federal regulations such as the Maximum Achievable Control Technology rules, and they have been promoting the inclusion of biomass thermal in any national renewable energy legislation. Seymour pointed out that it&rsquo;s important for the industry to have trade organizations to unify the biomass thermal sector, and to properly convey messages to policymakers. &ldquo;When we walk into a congressperson&rsquo;s office, they usually don&rsquo;t understand biomass thermal, let alone biomass,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;So what we try and do is avoid too many cooks in the kitchen.&rdquo; Seymour admitted one particular hurdle is competing with natural gas. &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t deny that natural gas is changing the economics of some thermal projects,&rdquo; he said.
 During her speech, Hedrick shined some optimism on the growing pellet stove market, telling the crowd that 1.5 million U.S. homes are currently heating with pellet stoves, and a small but growing number are utilizing pellet boilers and furnaces. &ldquo;The residential market has been a steady market over the last several years,&rdquo; she said. One of PFI&rsquo;s major initiatives for this year is rolling out its new third-party certification standards program, with the help of the U.S. EPA.
 Michael McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuels Association, discussed progress that his members are making on their first commercial-scale advanced biofuel plants, emphasizing that the advanced biofuel industry is now a reality. &ldquo;It was just a year and a half or two years ago that people were saying that it didn&rsquo;t exist; that it was pixie dust and unicorns,&rdquo; he said, adding that he recently witnessed renewable diesel and jet fuel production at Dynamic Fuels&rsquo; plant in New Orleans.
 Joe Jobe, president of the National Biodiesel Board, highlighted in his presentation a milestone the biodiesel industry hit in 2011&mdash;reaching more than 1 billion gallons of production&mdash;and described the hurdles the industry encountered while trying to get there. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve read about the biodiesel industry being an overnight success story, and that makes me chuckle because it was more of a 20-year overnight success story,&rdquo; he said.
 The following day&rsquo;s general session, &ldquo;Groundbreakers Roundtable: Examining Projects that Survived the Development Gauntlet and Broke Ground in 2011,&rdquo; featured Joshua Levine, vice president of project development for American Renewables, Pete N&aacute;jera, vice president of operations for Enviva, Mike Scott, president and CEO of Nexterra Inc., and Mike Levin, vice president of government affairs for FlexEnergy Inc. Each speaker brought a positive and inspiring story about his project&rsquo;s success. N&aacute;jera told the crowd that one company&rsquo;s win in the biomass arena is a win for the entire industry, a success for all of us.
 Complex Cash
 Charles Grecco, executive vice president of Cate Street Capital Inc., knows about the hurdles that can hinder a biomass power project, and he explained at the event how to overcome them. In developing Cate Street&rsquo;s Burgess BioPower in Berlin, N.H., Grecco has battled public opposition and complicated debt financing options. &ldquo;Many of life&rsquo;s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up,&rdquo; Grecco said, quoting Thomas Edison.
 One of the main reasons for the 75 MW project&rsquo;s success, Grecco pointed out, was the negotiation process with the region&rsquo;s utility providers early in its conception. &ldquo;We started talking with the utilities long before we spent any money in other places,&rdquo; he said. The Berlin facility also benefited from the team&rsquo;s ability to take advantage of an active renewable energy credit market. For the power purchase agreement, the team had to get creative.
 The 20-year PPA is structured to allow the utility provider the option to purchase the biomass facility if it has been paying more than the agreed-upon rate for the biomass electricity. But the project would not have been possible without the complex debt structure Cate Street Capital was able to put together. The company used four main funding sources: 55 percent senior secured notes totaling $150 million; 18 percent senior floating rate notes totaling $50 million; the U.S. Department of the Treasury&rsquo;s 1603 grant funding and a New Market Tax Credit (NMTC) bridge loan, combined for 20 percent or $55 million; and 7 percent NMTC equity totaling $17.5 million. &ldquo;We structured every project from a debt perspective,&rdquo; Grecco said. &ldquo;So all of our contracts are long term, even our waste and sewer contracts.&rdquo;
 Touring Twice
 The district heating plant in Boulder County, Colo., is another great success story for the industry, supplying five buildings and a total of 95,000 square feet. The plant was a trailblazer in Colorado&rsquo;s forest-residue-to-bioenergy industry and is a perfect example of integrating forest management with biomass applications.
 It was a stop on the second set of tours corresponding with the International Biomass Conference &amp; Expo, which also offered attendees a dazzling view of the forests of Boulder County&rsquo;s foothills and mountains, forest thinning and treatment operations, and a stop at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colo.
 Boulder County Parks and Open Space manages more than 30,000 acres of forest, thinning 100 to 200 acres per year. Before the biomass plant was operating, that forest management resulted in the burning of about 1,600 slash piles annually, according to Terese Glowacki, natural resources manager. While different forest regions are treated in different ways at different times, much of it involves thinning. Years ago, Boulder County Parks and Open Space chipped the thinnings and left them on the forest floor in a three-inch thick layer to analyze the effect on forest health, but results were not favorable. &ldquo;We had a scientist study what the effects were, and it turned out that it actually increased the growth of noxious weeds,&rdquo; Glowacki said.
 The county&rsquo;s biomass boiler was installed following a very positive feasibility study, and began operating in 2005. &ldquo;It has been so successful that in 2011, we installed a second biomass system,&rdquo; Glowacki said, adding that the second system heats a jail.
 Wood at the treatment sites is chipped directly into a chipper truck&mdash;which Boulder County parks and Open Space rents about a dozen times a year&mdash;and is hauled to the county&rsquo;s fully-automated district heating plant or a storage area about two miles away.
 The final tour stop was the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, Colo., where attendees learned about the history of the brewery, its culture and sustainability program, and sampled some of its most popular and seasonal beers.
 Katie Wallace, New Belgium Brewery sustainability director, said the brewery hosts an on-site process water treatment plant (PWTP). Water that was used in the beer-making process is sent through a series of aerobic and anaerobic basins, and the resulting methane is piped back to the brewery where it powers a 292 kilowatt (kW) combined-heat-and-power engine.
 That system was installed about seven years ago, and a second biogas generator was recently commissioned. One generates power for the PWTP, and the other is utilized to supplement brewery electricity, up to 15 percent. The brewery also participates in the Smart Grid program, Wallace said, and has a solar photovoltaic panel array on top of its packaging hall.
 The two days of tours straddled the event, offering a hands-on opening and closing to the conference. The first day included stops at the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo., Community Power Corp.&rsquo;s modular biomass system in Littleton, Colo., and emissions monitoring systems developer Cisco in Englewood, Colo.
 All in all, the International Biomass Conference &amp; Expo offered not only learning opportunities, but exceptional networking venues. The evening trade show receptions were well-attended and the Coors Field baseball event sparked industry discussion while the Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres.
 Against a backdrop of the breathtaking snow-capped Rocky Mountains, the event was destined for success. Authors: Lisa Gibson Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 738-4952 <a href="mailto:lgibson@bbiinternational.com">lgibson@bbiinternational.com</a> Anna Simet Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 751-2756 <a href="mailto:asimet@bbiinternational.com">asimet@bbiinternational.com </a> Luke Geiver Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 738-4944 <a href="mailto:lgeiver@bbiinternational.com">lgeiver@bbiinternational.com</a>

TALKING POINTS: Biomass industry leaders discuss election year growth at the International Biomass Conference & Expo. From left: moderator Tim Portz, BBI International, Gary Melow, BPA; Joseph Seymour, BTEC; Jennifer Hedrick, PFI; Michael McAdams, AB

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FINDING THE KEY: Keynote speaker Dan Nolan, CEO of Sabot 6, told conference attendees about the importance of energy security in the U.S. military.

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TAKING IT IN: Tour attendees saw piles of wood chips that will fire a biomass boiler in Boulder County, Colo.

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The 2012 International Biomass Conference & Expo in the Mile High City drew attendees from around the world, eager to learn and meet others who share their passion

Biomass A Mile High

The Chesapeake Bay region is undertaking the most aggressive nutrient reduction effort to date. According to a report by the Chesapeake Bay Commission, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Maryland Technology Development Corp. and Farm Pilot Project Coordination Inc., states and local governments in the region mandate a combined annual reduction of 60 million pounds of nitrogen and 4 million pounds of phosphorus by 2025 from the six states associated with the watershed. That includes Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, and New York, as well as the District of Columbia. So, something has to change for poultry and other agricultural outfits that produce high levels of nutrient-rich manure, adding to the region&rsquo;s oversaturated soil and resulting water runoff issues.
 According to the report, &ldquo;Manure to Energy: Sustainable Solutions for the Chesapeake Bay Region,&rdquo; three major areas hold the greatest concentration of livestock: the Lower Susquehanna River region in Pennsylvania features dairy, beef and chicken farms; the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and West Virginia has a group of chicken and turkey producers; and the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia is dominated by chicken production.
 The animal manure and poultry litter problems are exacerbated by the logistical complexity of transporting excess litter away from the region. Aside from the variance in nutrient levels from one load of litter to another, the cost of long-distance transport typically outweighs the benefit. But fortunately, the organizations linked to the Chesapeake Bay report think the problem is solvable, and for the biomass industry, that&rsquo;s a good thing. &ldquo;As long as the American consumer relies on a diet of milk, meat and eggs, there will be a steady supply of animal manure as feedstock for energy projects,&rdquo; the report states.
 Digesting the Possibilities
 EcoCorp Inc., a Virginia-based renewable energy developer with a knack for anaerobic digestion (AD), is already working in the Eastern Shore to reduce the amount of excess poultry litter. The company signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with a Maryland correctional facility, allowing a 1 MW poultry litter and corn stover AD system to provide one-third of the facility&rsquo;s power needs. &ldquo;Nobody has opposed it up to this point,&rdquo; says John Ingersoll, president of EcoCorp, adding that there is no indication anyone will.
 EcoCorp&rsquo;s AD process doesn&rsquo;t destroy the nutrients, and the nitrogen is converted to ammonia, according to Ingersoll. Of the 800,000 tons of chicken litter he says is produced between the Bay and the Atlantic Ocean every year, his project is using roughly 1 percent. &ldquo;That gives you an idea of the potential,&rdquo; he says, adding that 100 digesters could be built to help process the chicken litter in that area.
 Ingersoll&rsquo;s AD system is prefabricated, allowing utilization wherever needed. And the system uses a dry fermentation process, which greatly reduces water requirements. The project at the correctional facility will be complete in early 2013, he says.
 While AD could be the choice process for many farmers whose operations contribute to Chesapeake Bay pollution, it isn&rsquo;t the only answer.
 Heating Up
 In Rockingham County, Va., Oren Heatwole is heating his poultry houses through combustion of poultry litter gathered on-site, thereby also improving the environment for his birds.
 In Accomack County, Va., Farm Pilot Project Coordination Inc. is working to produce both heat and power from 2,200 tons of poultry litter per year sourced from 11 farms with a total of 1.8 million birds. The energy will be used on-site with the resulting ash from the gasifier sold as fertilizer for local vegetable crops, further reducing phosphorous runoff.
 And in Virginia&rsquo;s Shenandoah Valley, BioEnergy Planet is partnering with Virginia Tech on a pyrolysis process that converts poultry litter to bio-oil and biochar. The partnership is developing a business model that allows technology providers to generate income from the energy produced, as well as the resulting biochar.
 But Perdue Agribusiness and Fibrowatt LLC have a project that might provide the best glimpse into the real power of poultry litter. In response to a Maryland Clean Bay Power request for proposals (RFP) by Gov. Martin O&rsquo;Malley last year, the two companies submitted a project proposal that would reduce runoff, help the state meet those lofty nutrient reduction goals, and generate 10 MW through gasification at a facility in Salisbury, Md. The project would also create 70,000 pounds of steam per hour to be used at Perdue&rsquo;s adjacent soybean processing facility.
 As of 2001, Perdue&rsquo;s business arm, AgriRecycle, has shipped 12 million pounds of nitrogen and 7.5 million pounds of phosphorus out of the region, and perhaps more important, has become the state&rsquo;s largest buyer of poultry litter. Jim Potter, president and chief operating officer of Fibrowatt&rsquo;s parent, Homeland Renewable Energy Inc., says the prospect of poultry litter used with an AD application is good, but nothing beats combustion. &ldquo;The combustion of poultry litter provides far superior value versus any other renewable energy technology,&rdquo; he says. For several years, Potter&rsquo;s team has successfully run the world&rsquo;s largest poultry litter-to-power combustion facility, producing 55 MW in Benson, Minn.
 But Potter&rsquo;s company also owns and operates Homeland Biogas Energy LLC, a company that develops large-scale biogas facilities. &ldquo;AD systems are geared more toward wetter materials such as dairy and swine (manure) with high volatile organic solids,&rdquo; he says, adding that the process doesn&rsquo;t meet the needs of the Eastern Shore states to remove nitrogen and phosphorus from the litter.
 Perdue and Fibrowatt&rsquo;s Maryland project proposal doesn&rsquo;t, however, hinge on the poultry litter or even the process technology. It&rsquo;s more about the typical project dynamics seen in other biomass projects. &ldquo;The state is the vehicle in which a project creates a predictable cash flow or the mechanism to secure non-recourse project finance debt,&rdquo; Potter says.
 Maryland has agreed to sign a 15- or 20-year power purchase agreement with the project it chooses from the Clean Bay Power RFP. Building a first-of-its-kind facility to learn about the financial project dynamics, and then applying the lessons learned to reduce cost and improve efficiency on future projects is an applicable strategy for Eastern Shore poultry litter projects, according to Potter. Thus, he believes Fibrowatt and Perdue will make a perfect fit for the region, in part because of Fibrowatt&rsquo;s global experience. &ldquo;We know the issues associated with biosecurity, with odor control, with combustion, dealing with the high-ash, high-alkaline fuel,&rdquo; Potter says.
 But the Chesapeake Bay report, in combination with other activity in the poultry litter arena, shows the industry can support multiple projects. &ldquo;Our region has the potential to verify multiple technologies,&rdquo; says Dion Banks, director of governmental affairs for Cambridge International, the parent company to Cambridge Environmental Technologies, formed in 2007 to develop biomass gasifers that can utilize poultry litter.
 Banks has already testified before the Maryland State Senate regarding a bill that would qualify biomass thermal energy systems for renewable energy credits. And Banks and his team have also hosted a roundtable discussion with roughly 30 industry representatives and members of the USDA on the potential of using poultry litter to prevent runoff from the Eastern Shore.&nbsp;
 But poultry litter-to-power development isn&rsquo;t only reserved for those on the Eastern Shore. In Quebec, Biofour Inc. is using a government grant to validate a biomass boiler specifically designed to run on agricultural residues and, of course, poultry litter. A boiler already installed at a poultry litter facility features a two-chambered system that allows for complete combustion, using both the feedstock and the resulting gases (pumped into the second chamber) for combustion.
 While some systems are still under development, poultry litter doesn&rsquo;t have to wait, as Potter has proven with his combustion and AD systems. And Ingersoll and his team are already looking at projects that would mimic the prison&rsquo;s AD setup. Banks believes that Maryland could be on the cutting edge of technology and project development in terms of poultry litter use and, as the report points out, the entire region has ample opportunity.
 Whether it is optimism or insight, Banks and the others just might have it right about poultry litter. &ldquo;The development of poultry litter-based renewables is an opportunity for the world,&rdquo; he says. Author: Luke Geiver Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 738-4944 <a href="mailto:lgeiver@bbiinternational.com">lgeiver@bbiinternational.com </a>

A BEVY OF BIRDS: Roughly 800,000 tons of poultry litter are produced on the U.S. Eastern Shore annually. 

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POULTRY SCHEMES: EcoCorp has designed a rendering of a poultry litter facility for a Maryland prison. 


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ELIMINATING EMISSIONS: Cambridge Environmental Technologies has developed an emissions control system for its poultry litter gasifier.

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Bioenergy from farm waste can help solve well-known runoff issues in the Chesapeake Bay

The Poultry  Litter  Landscape

Welcome to the feedstock and material handling issue of Biorefining Magazine. For years, researchers and industry personnel have been working to devise how to transport biomass from the field or forest to the plant gate in the most cost-effective, efficient manner possible. Featured articles in this issue address these concerns in two very different ways: disposing of the issue altogether by contracting with biomass sugar providers who supply preprocessed six- and/or five-carbon sugars; and developing a sophisticated model with hundreds of thousands of variables, letting the computational power of today&rsquo;s information technology take the guess work out of analyzing the best approaches.
 But what about once the material is at the biorefinery gate? This is where receiving and conveying takes over. Yuri Chocholko, the North American sales manager for wood, biomass and fuels at Vecoplan LLC, authors this month&rsquo;s Talking Point column, &ldquo;Biomass Material Handling,&rdquo; in which he highlights the four main areas of handling biomass.
 &ldquo;Conveying may seem like a simple operation of getting from point A to B, but it can be a continual problem area in biomass processing operations,&rdquo; Chocholko writes. &ldquo;The answers gained during characterization will govern many decisions here. Distance, angle and throughput are all obvious questions that must be asked. Conveyor type, style and maintenance needs must also be considered.&rdquo;
 These are just a few of the aspects Chocholko says must be addressed when designing a material handling system inside the plant. Read the entire column on page 7.

Feedstock and  Material Handling

For more than 100 years, one room in the White House has been the center of policy discussion, debate and decisions for 19 presidents. It might surprise you to learn that room is not the Oval Office but the windowless Roosevelt Room, which was originally the president&rsquo;s office, built in 1902 as President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the White House. It is important to understand the room&rsquo;s history and significance as earlier this spring it played a symbolic role in the future of America&rsquo;s domestic biofuels industry and the greater renewable energy sector.
 At a time when Washington is determined to identify smarter investments in clean energy fuels and scrutinizing every federal dollar spent, it was incontrovertible proof of our industry&rsquo;s successful performance today and its promising future that I joined other renewable energy colleagues as President Obama invited us to participate in a meeting on America&rsquo;s energy policy at the White House. The meeting included the Secretaries of Energy, Agriculture, and Interior as well as other senior-level administration officials and was held in, you guessed it, the Roosevelt Room, which sits within earshot of the Oval Office.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 I was honored to be included and thrilled to have the opportunity to deliver a message to the president&rsquo;s team that America&rsquo;s domestic biofuels industry is no longer assessing hypotheticals of if or when, instead, today, we are now asking, how much do you need? We are moving from the beaker to the barrel, all in record time, without a lifetime of federally subsidized handouts, and delivering advanced replacement fuels that meet on-road standards, with much more to come.
 Among those participating that day were leaders of the American Wind Association, the Solar Industry Association and Growth Energy. All of us collectively understood the seriousness of what each of our industries was attempting to do to change the balance of America&rsquo;s energy portfolio.
 As the meeting started, we quickly understood the president asked us to the White House to specifically discuss which policy instruments had been most helpful to our individual industries and what other steps might be taken to further enhance the development of renewable energy and America&rsquo;s approach to energy security. The wind, solar and advanced biofuels sectors all encouraged the president&rsquo;s team to continue to send a strong signal of commitment from the federal government in various policy mechanisms that either are in place or have been helpful in the past. A consistent theme was that whatever support policy the government selected, it needed to be extended over a sufficient period of time to allow for the commercial markets to actually take advantage of the provisions.
 It was a thoughtful discussion lasting more than an hour and in Washington, that&rsquo;s equal to a lifetime. The discussion went to the very core of defining energy security and how any country arrives at such a point in its economic activity and the policies it adopts that ultimately achieve that type of independence and flexibility of economic operation. The room was in unanimous agreement that only an all-of-the-above portfolio approach that decreased the use of energy, developed the existing sources of energy and continued to foster, create and deploy new technology innovations, could help us achieve the kind of energy security our nation needs and demands.&nbsp;
 In the past several months, I have heard from many of our readers asking what happened to the president&rsquo;s support of advanced biofuels. It is a fair enough question, but between the conversation at the White House and his remarks to a packed field house later that week at a local community college, there should no longer be any lingering questions or doubt.
 What our industry needs to do now, especially as we inch closer to the height of a presidential election year, is make sure that biofuels does not become a partisan issue. We must act together to help ensure that local and national leaders alike, of all political stripes, understand and support the opportunities that this industry presents today and for the future of our nation. To turn a paraphrase of the president&rsquo;s remarks, biofuels are no joke! Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association (202) 469-5140 <a href="mailto:Michael.McAdams@hklaw.com">Michael.McAdams@hklaw.com</a>

White House gathering reaffirms Obama's support for advanced biofuels

Within Earshot of  the Oval Office 

To the laymen, the rapidly developing second-generation cellulosic ethanol industry may very well appear to be an alchemistical pursuit. But where the public may see similarities between the two, a good solution provider understands that there&rsquo;s nothing magical about the processes involved in creating cellulosic ethanol.
 As long as all parts of the process work together, turning something of little value into something of great (and it seems, constantly increasing) value can be done on a large scale&mdash;without the use of magic. Material handling and feedstock preparation, while only one part of a complex process, is equally important to the success of a cellulosic ethanol production facility as feedstock selection or any of the different chemical processes, or &ldquo;black boxes,&rdquo; generating final product. A summary of feedstock material handling can simplify it to show four main areas: characterization, receiving, conveying and preprocessing.
 Characterization of feedstock requires understanding its properties. Moisture, bulk density, particle size and range, seasonal properties, abrasiveness and contaminants are just a few of the items that should be considered as they all effect the equipment selection and material flow during processing. A woody biomass system differs from a switchgrass or corn stover system in many ways, so knowing the material properties and characteristics is an essential part of the solution provider&rsquo;s task to configure the correct equipment and processing methods. A hammermill used to reduce wood size may not perform the same task on straw; a dual-shaft shredder that can handle entire bales, the string that binds them and any loose rocks may better serve those needs.
 Receiving and storage methods for feedstock are largely determined by the characterization results, as well as how the material is transported to site. If blending different feedstocks together, allowing separate systems to handle the incoming material may be necessary. Miscanthus bails cannot be processed or stored the same as a truckload of wood chips, so blending the materials together requires additional equipment and expenses. Reducing material decomposition and accelerated decay in storage can be done via a first-in/first-out (FIFO) material flow and protecting product from the elements. These factors effect material flow options and decisions made when the facility is laid out.
 Conveying may seem like a simple operation of getting from point A to B, but it can be a continual problem area in biomass processing operations. The answers gained during characterization will govern many decisions here. Distance, angle and throughput are all obvious questions that must be asked. Conveyor type, style and maintenance needs are must also be considered. Will a belt conveyor suffice, or should a chain conveyor be considered over steep angles and long distances? What is the material&rsquo;s angle of repose and what cleat configuration would work best? If selecting a drag-chain conveyor, should you use a single- or double-chain configuration? How far can we transport the material with a single drive? In the event of a blockage, is a screw conveyor reversible for maintenance and clean out? Do you need to provide explosion and fire protection at certain transfer points? Many operators look past moving material a short distance, a seemingly simple task, but poor conveyor selection and design can be, and often is, a bottleneck in an otherwise successful operation. Be very particular and detailed in this area of your design&mdash;understanding the way feedstocks react to differing conveying methods is critical to achieving any operation&rsquo;s throughput requirements.
 Preprocessing covers a wide range of operations, but two main categories require focus: size reduction and contaminant removal. Hammermills, pelletizers and briquetters have been used for years in the biomass industry, but slow-speed single- and dual-shaft shredders are becoming more prominent amongst leading cellulosic ethanol companies. Particle size consistency, ease of maintenance, power consumption and reduced risk of fire or explosion are driving factors behind this trend. Screening, tramp metal detection and fines-removal systems all play a large part in protecting the equipment and end product. &ldquo;Black-box&rdquo; methods of breaking down sugars, and finally producing ethanol, differ but they all have a common need; contaminant-free feedstock with consistent particle size enables their most effective, efficient results. The preprocessing equipment and methods will greatly determine an operator&rsquo;s achievable levels of success.
 Finding an integrated solutions provider with equipment, experience and expertise to meet your requirements is perhaps the most important consideration to ensure all the puzzle pieces fit together correctly and work to achieve the same throughput. Look for a company that can test your materials. Work with someone who provides a complete package (hardware and software) that is intuitive and flexible, and can adapt to the constantly evolving cellulosic ethanol industry. Author: Yuri Chocholko North American Sales Manager: Wood, Biomass &amp; Fuels, Vecoplan LLC (336) 861-6070 <a href="mailto:ychocholko@vecoplanllc.com">ychocholko@vecoplanllc.com</a>

Characterization, receiving, conveying and preprocessing feedstock 

Biomass Material Handling  

The U.K. Bribery Act 2010, effective July 1, 2011, has significant reach beyond the U.K. and will affect many U.S. biofuels companies. A U.S. biofuels company that conducts business in the U.K. could be prosecuted under the act for failing to prevent bribery committed by any of its employees, agents or associated persons, notwithstanding the fact that the act constituting bribery is committed outside the U.K. and involves no U.K. people. A U.S. biofuels company can protect itself from prosecution by enacting and demonstrating &ldquo;adequate procedures&rdquo; to prevent bribery throughout the company.
 To illustrate the act&rsquo;s potentially wide reach, consider a U.S. biofuels company conducting business in Asia. It appoints an agent in an Asian country to assist establishing business there. To speed up telephone service connection, the agent makes a &ldquo;facilitation payment&rdquo; to a local official. The company also has a representative in the U.K., but does not have any connection with the Asia business. The U.S. company is liable under the act for failing to prevent bribery. It&rsquo;s not relevant that neither the U.S. company nor the U.K. representative was aware of the Asia agent&rsquo;s actions, or that the bribe has no connection with the U.K. The potential application of the act to the U.S. company is triggered simply because the U.S. company conducts business in the U.K. Even if the U.S. company has no U.K. representative, it would still be liable for an offense if it simply conducts business in the U.K., including dealing directly with U.K. customers.
 U.K. regulators have indicated they will be actively looking to bring legal proceedings in the U.K. against non-U.K. companies and businesses. Speaking at an event for the U.S.-Russia Business Council not long before the bribery act became effective, the U.K. Serious Fraud Office director said, &ldquo;[O]ur view is that if a foreign group has a subsidiary in the U.K. and in another country and that bribery occurs in that other country, then that bribery is within the remit of the SFO.&rdquo;
 Key to whether the act applies to a U.S. biofuels company is if it conducts any &ldquo;part of a business&rdquo; in the U.K. Therefore, if the bribery is committed outside the U.K. and if the U.S. company does business in the U.K. whether through a branch or office or by appointing a U.K. agent, the U.S. company&rsquo;s activities will be covered by the U.K. Bribery Act; and if a U.S. parent company does business in the U.K. through a U.K. subsidiary, the U.S. parent might also be covered. Whether it applies to the U.S. parent company will depend on how the U.K. subsidiary is controlled and if it has complete operational independence from its U.S. parent company.
 If the act applies to a U.S. company, then it will commit an offense if a person associated with the U.S. company performing services on its behalf bribes someone with the intention to obtain or retain business or an advantage in business and the U.S. company is unable to show it had adequate procedures in place designed to prevent bribery from being committed by persons performing services on its behalf.
 Key points: A U.S. biofuels company will be liable for the actions of its &ldquo;associated persons.&rdquo; A person is &ldquo;associated&rdquo; with a company if it performs services on its behalf. An associated person will include employees and agents but also subsidiary companies, distributors, subcontractors and joint venture partners. The act that constitutes bribery needs no connection to the U.K. The act applies to bribery carried out anywhere in the world and neither the bribe giver or receiver needs to be a U.K. person or have any U.K. connection. Bribery is not just cash payments or making &ldquo;facilitation payments,&rdquo; but can include corporate hospitality, gifts or charitable donations. The U.K. Bribery Act catches bribes paid or offered to any person, not just foreign public officials, meaning it applies to bribery in both private and public sectors. While this article refers to U.S. companies being within the scope of the U.K. Bribery Act, it applies to any commercial U.S. entity conducting business in the U.K. This includes U.S. partnerships, trading businesses and professional organizations doing business in the U.K.
Sanctions: Offenses under the U.K. Bribery Act are criminal in nature and can lead to monetary penalties, imprisonment of a company&rsquo;s directors and officers, disqualification of persons from acting as company officers, and prohibition of a company from bidding on government contracts in the U.K. Authors: Emma Roe, Daniel O&rsquo;Gorman; Richard Weiner Attorneys, Cobbetts; Vice President, Fredrikson &amp; Byron <a href="mailto:emma.roe@cobbetts.com">emma.roe@cobbetts.com</a> <a href="mailto:daniel.orgorman@cobbetts.com">daniel.orgorman@cobbetts.com</a> <a href="mailto:rweiner@fredlaw.com">rweiner@fredlaw.com</a>

UK Bribery Act Reaches Beyond UK 

Volkswagen of America Inc. is partnering with Amyris Inc. and Solazyme Inc. to evaluate emissions reductions and demonstrate the performance of Volkswagen&rsquo;s TDI Clean Diesel technology. Volkswagen will provide each company with two products&mdash;a new 2012 Passat TDI and a 2012 Jetta TDI&mdash;in order to closely examine the effects that the fuels produced by Amyris and Solazyme will have on Volkswagen clean diesel technology and the environment. Amyris has developed a synthetic biology platform that converts plant sugars into hydrocarbon compounds called isoprenoids. Amyris is currently focused on commercializing a 15-carbon hydrocarbon called beta-farnesene, which can be further converted into fuels like renewable diesel and specialty chemicals. Solayzme employs a proprietary biotechnology platform to produce algal oils which, through various finishing steps, can be further refined into algal-derived fatty acid methyl esters, Soladiesel BD, and renewable diesel, Soladiesel RD.
 Avantium announced its second major partnership for its YXY technology to produce PEF bottles. Danone Research and Avantium have entered into a joint agreement for development of PEF bottles for Danone, No. 2 worldwide in bottled water business. YXY is used as an efficient chemical-catalytic technology to convert carbohydrates produced from plants, grains, energy crops, lignocellulosic matter, waste streams, waste paper or agricultural residues, into a wide variety of biopolymers. Avantium recently opened its pilot plant in Geleen, Netherlands, with the capacity of producing 40 tons of PEF for application development. Avantium also has a major agreement with The Coca-Cola Co.
 Dedicated energy crop developer Mendel Biotechnology Inc., with its wholly owned subsidiary Mendel Bioenergy Seeds, and BP Biofuels have signed a four-year agreement to conduct a demonstration field trial of Mendel&rsquo;s trademarked PowerCane Miscanthus and evaluate its performance as feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production at BP Biofuels&rsquo; 1.4 MMgy demonstration-scale production plant in Jennings, La. A total of 100 acres of PowerCane Miscanthus is expected to be planted early this year near the Jennings cellulosic ethanol demo facility, and the first biomass harvest from these fields is expected to occur next year. While BP Biofuels controls 1.4 MMgy of production at its Jennings cellulosic ethanol demonstration-scale facility, the company&rsquo;s priority this year is developing a $400 million, 36 MMgy cellulosic commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol project in Highlands County, Fla., which is expected to begin production by next year.
 Germany-based BASF Venture Capital has led a $13.5 million investment round that raised a total of $18.2 million for San Diego, Calif.-based renewable specialty chemical developer Allylix Inc. Also participating in the financing round were existing investors Tate &amp; Lyle Ventures, Avrio Ventures and Cultivian Ventures. Allylix has developed a multifaceted yeast fermentation-based technology platform derived from glucose for the biosynthesis, discovery and production of renewable specialty chemicals, primarily terpenes and their derivatives. The core technology platform involves gene cloning and expression, metabolic engineering, protein engineering, fermentation development, recovery and purification and synthetic organic chemistry. Seattle-based biorefining firm Blue Marble Biomaterials and Anheuser-Busch Companies LLC have signed a memorandum of understanding for Blue Marble to begin development of a pilot biorefinery to be co-located at a North American Anheuser-Busch brewery. A specific location of the Anheuser-Busch site wasn&rsquo;t disclosed. The project will initially focus on converting spent brewery grains and biogas derived from the brewing process into high-value biobased chemicals that can be readily used in the food, flavoring and fragrance industries using Blue Marble&rsquo;s proprietary Acid, Gas and Ammonia Targeted Extraction process technology.
 California-based Genomatica and Japan-based global chemical manufacturer Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. have signed a memorandum of understanding to exclusively negotiate definitive agreements for a joint commercial operation in Asia for the production of biobased butanediol (BDO) using Genomatica&rsquo;s process technology. Mitsubishi made an upfront payment to Genomatica of $3.5 million while the companies continue to work toward completing their definitive agreements. The agreement builds on a previously announced MOU between the companies signed last April and an equity investment by Mitsubishi into Genomatica in December 2010, strengthening the partnership between the two. Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. is the eighth largest chemical maker in the world.

Many people associate tobacco with health problems, but that could change. A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is developing an innovative biofuels production technique that could yield huge quantities of renewable, drop-in biofuels. If successful, tobacco could one day be associated with a healthier environment.&nbsp;
 According to LBNL, the work focuses on transferring a hydrocarbon-synthesizing gene from cyanobacteria into a tobacco plant. The resulting plants would be able to produce fuel molecules within their leaves. Rather than undergoing a typical biorefining conversion process, the leaves would simply have to be crushed to extract the fuel.
 The $4.9 million project is being funded by the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which is designed to support potentially game-changing, high-risk, high-reward innovation. Christer Jansson, a plant biochemist with the LBNL&rsquo;s Earth Sciences Division, is leading the effort. &ldquo;We want to bypass downstream processes like fermentation and produce fuels directly in the crop,&rdquo; says Jansson. &ldquo;After the biomass is crushed, we could extract the hydrocarbon molecules, and crack them into shorter molecules, creating gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel.&rdquo;
 There are several reasons tobacco is an attractive crop for this type of research: it&rsquo;s already grown in large-scale operations within more than 100 countries, it can be harvested several times a year, features large leaves to efficiently store a lot of fuel, and is amenable to genetic engineering efforts. The research team estimates that 1,000 acres of the genetically modified crop could yield 1 million gallons of fuel on an annual basis. The team anticipates growing the first plant in 18 months.
&mdash;Erin Voegele

Smoking Out Potential 

The biorefining industry has made great strides in technology development, but as the industry begins to scale-up production, a strong technology platform in and of itself may not be enough to ensure that commercial operations are as economically competitive as possible. It will also be important that biorefining companies find ways to leverage the production of coproducts while reducing energy use and waste.
 A researcher at North Carolina A&amp;T State University is developing biorefining models that can help make biorefinery operations as efficient as possible. Lijun Wang, an associate projector of chemical, biological and bioengineering, is developing such models for lignocellulosic biofuel production, algae cultivation and thermochemical conversion of waste biomass into bio-oil. &ldquo;I think the big issue of the moment within the industry,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is the need to improve process efficiency while bringing costs down so biobased products can be competitive in the market.&rdquo;
 For cellulosic ethanol production, Wang has developed an innovative model that involves the coproduction of acetic acid and activated carbon, which are recycled back into the process to increase efficiencies. Wang says only the cellulosic component of lignocellulosic biomass can be effectively converted into ethanol. As a result, the hemicellulose and lignin fractions of the feedstock are wasted in a typical fermentation operation.
 In Wang&rsquo;s design, cellulosic (C6) sugars are converted into ethanol via a yeast fermentation process, while the hemicellulosic (C5) sugars are used to produce acetic acid. Although the commonly used commodity chemical could be sold into the market as a coproduct, Wang&rsquo;s biorefinery design calls for it to be recycled back into the plant&rsquo;s operation where it is used to pretreat lignocellulosic biomass and help separate the C5 and C6 sugars. The design could help reduce operational costs, as a plant effectively produces its own feedstock pretreatment solution.
 Wang&rsquo;s design also incorporates the processing of fermentation residue into activated carbon, which can be used to treat wastewater coming out of the fermentation process. The activated carbon can then be burned onsite in a cogeneration facility to produce heat and electricity to power the facility and its biorefinery operations.
 Wang, however, hasn&rsquo;t focused exclusively on the cellulosic biofuels sector; he is also leading an ongoing algae project. Under Wang&rsquo;s algae production model, wastewater treatment would be combined with algae cultivation. The challenge, he says, is to design an algae production system that can operate economically and efficiently year-round. The project contains several components including biological and computer modeling work to select the most appropriate algae strain for use in a specific wastewater treatment operation, and testing it in a photobioreactor system.
 &nbsp;As part of the project, Wang is also designing a method to use carbon dioxide gas produced via an anaerobic digestion system using biological matter found in wastewater to bubble through the algae solution serving as an agitator. The agitation process has typically been done using energy-intensive pump systems. Wang says his method would have the additional benefit of increasing the amount of carbon dioxide circulating within the solution, helping to promote algae growth. The project will also seek to develop ways to help increase the amount of sunlight that can penetrate the algae solution.
&mdash;Erin Voegele

University researcher designs efficient, sustainable biorefinery systems

Aiming for Efficiency 

Using their own licensed catalytic fast pyrolysis process for converting nonfood lignocellulosic biomass such as wood, agricultural residues and energy crops into a variety of bioboased compounds equivalent to their petrochemical counterparts, a team of University of Massachusetts Amherst chemical engineers, led by George Huber, has developed a new bifunctional gallium-promoted zeolite (Ga/ZSM-5) catalyst that boosts yield of aromatics, namely benzene, toluene and a mixture of xylene isomers, as well as olefins ethylene and propylene, by 40 percent over previously used zeolite based catalysts. The new process was published in the December edition of the German Chemical Society&rsquo;s journal Angewandte Chemie.
 The increase in yield, according to Huber, is attributed to adding small amounts of gallium oxide to the previously naked zeolite catalyst. In the single-step catalytic fast pyrolysis process, biomass is fed into a fluidized-bed reactor where it&rsquo;s pyrolyzed into vapors. These vapors subsequently enter the team&rsquo;s improved gallium-zeolite catalyst, inside the same reactor, which converts the vapors into aromatics and olefins.
 Huber explains that when gallium is introduced, it uniquely modifies certain catalytic sites within pores innately featured on the zeolite catalyst, which improves certain key reactions, resulting in improved aromatic and olefin yield.
 &ldquo;There are two key reactions that we think it improves,&rdquo; Huber tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;One is in decarbonylation reactions, which are critical to breaking carbon-oxygen bonds to make carbon monoxide, and for removing oxygen found in the biomass. The other is the oligomerization reactions for making olefins so they can be oligomerized better.&rdquo; Huber says the economic advantages of this new process are three fold: the reaction chemistry occurs in one single reactor, the process uses an inexpensive catalyst, and aromatics and olefins that are produced can easily be dropped into the existing petrochemical infrastructure.
 While the research team&rsquo;s catalytic pyrolysis technology has been licensed to New York-based Anellotech Inc., co-founded by Huber, which is scaling up the process for introduction into the petrochemical industry, Huber notes that work is ongoing to further improve the process.
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to understand what the gallium is exactly doing, improve the catalyst even further and demonstrate this on a larger scale, and move this technology forward so we can economically make aromatics and olefins from biomass,&rdquo; he says.
&mdash;Bryan Sims

UMass Amherst researchers improve output from catalytic pyrolysis process

Packing a Pyrolytic Punch 

A new biobased version of nylon fiber may soon be hitting commercial clothing lines thanks to a joint research partnership forged between Toray Industries Inc. and Ajinomoto Inc., two of Japan&rsquo;s leading plastics and specialty chemicals manufacturers. The two companies aim to jointly develop and produce the nylon raw material 1,5-pentanediamine (1,5-PD), also known as cadaverine, from the amino acid lysine produced from plant materials by Ajinomoto using fermentation technology, as well as commercialize a biobased nylon derived from this substance.
 Specifically, the biobased nylon that Ajinomoto and Toray intend to research and develop will be produced from plant materials by decarbonating the amino acid lysine through an enzyme reaction to make 1,5-PD, which Toray will then polymerize with dicarboxylic acid. According to a joint statement by the two firms, lysine is a core product of the Ajinomoto Group produced using fermentation technology. The biobased nylon fiber made from 1,5-PD is not only sustainable because it will be plant-based, but it will also show promise for development into highly comfortable clothing.
 &ldquo;For example, nylon 5,6 fiber manufactured using 1,5-PD is pleasing to the touch, yet has the same strength and heat resistance as conventional nylon fiber made from the petrochemical derivative hexamethylenediamine,&rdquo; the statement claims. &ldquo;It also absorbs and desorbs moisture nearly as well as cotton.&rdquo;
 The two firms have already carried out successful test production runs of 1,5-PD using Ajinomoto&rsquo;s feed-use lysine, as well as test production of biobased nylon made by polymerizing 1,5-PD. Additionally, the two companies intend to expand the scope of the collaboration into the development and production processes and evaluation for its use in textile and plastics applications, according to the joint statement.
 This partnership between Ajinomoto, a leading manufacturer of amino acids, and Toray, a leading manufacturer of nylon, is expected to enable the creation of biobased nylon products that are competitive in terms of quality, environmental stewardship and cost. Finally, the companies intend to deepen the collaborative effort with the view of using a membrane-integrated bioprocess that&rsquo;s being developed by Toray in the production technology for lysine.
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Biobased nylon fiber may soon be found in clothes you're wearing

An Interwoven Partnership  

Producing lactide monomers for polylactic acid resins derived from feedstocks such as corn starch, tapioca starch or cane sugar isn&rsquo;t a new undertaking for Purac. In February, the Dutch-based company, a subsidiary of global bakery ingredients supplier CSM, successfully started up a new 75,000 metric ton per year lactide production facility at an existing Purac site in Thailand, further validating Purac&rsquo;s established position as a leading global supplier of its trademarked Puralact lactide monomers, which can be used to produce bioPLA-based resins for various types of bioplastics.
 &ldquo;The successful start up of our 75,000 metric ton per year lactide plant marks another milestone in Purac&rsquo;s commitment to the development of the PLA market,&rdquo; says Jeroen Jonker, vice president of bioplastics for Purac. &ldquo;We are now able to supply monomers that can be transformed into high-performance PLA while providing the scale and security of supply as required by the end use markets.&rdquo;
 Purac notes that the new plant will enable Purac to meet current demand levels from its committed commercial partners, such as Netherlands-based Synbra, while accelerating market development in a broad segment of plastics such as packaging, foam and fiber industries.
 According to Purac, several batches of its Puralact D and L-based lactide building blocks have already been produced and physical deliveries to customers are scheduled to start this year. The company says that PLA polymers made from the company&rsquo;s Puralact L and D monomers aim at gaining a significant share of the plastics market, which should enable its partners to produce PLA with application temperatures up to 180 degrees Celsius (266 degrees Fahrenheit).
 PLA homopolymer resin produced from Purac&rsquo;s stereochemically pure L-lactide has recently been tested and validated in a range of high-end applications, including fiber spinning. In a technical performance comparison between a regular commercial PLA fiber grade and a comparable Puralact L-based PLLA homopolymer, Purac&rsquo;s PLLA homopolymer yielded fully drawn yarn with excellent mechanical and thermal properties due to the PLLA hompolymer&rsquo;s significantly higher melting point. Fast crystallization and high levels of crystallinity of the PLLA, according to the company, provide important benefits to physical properties of fibers and fabrics.
 &ldquo;Based on our proprietary technology we have demonstrated the benefits of Purac&rsquo;s PLA building blocks in demanding applications in the packaging, foam, fiber and consumer products industries,&rdquo; says Francois de Bie, marketing director of bioplastics for Purac.
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Purac positioned to become premier global supplier of biobased lactide monomers 

A Monumental Milestone   

The biorefining industry is hungry for a low-cost, high-quality and readily available supply of sugar feedstock from nonfood biomass sources. A number of pure-play sugar technology developers and manufacturers like Renmatix, Virdia (formerly HCL CleanTech), Sweetwater Energy, Comet Biorefining Inc., Proterro and others are deeply involved in this specialized sector, jockeying for position in the sugar feedstock supply chain to feed demand. Collectively, they bring a unique set of core strengths, processes and long-term business approaches to deliver a consistent, readily convertible sugar feedstock that can compete on price and quality with crude oil feedstock for petroleum fuels and food-based industrial sugars from corn and sugarcane.
 &ldquo;Everyone realizes they need a nonfood cellulosic option that is economically disruptive, attractive and competitive with the alternatives in use today, be it either oil or otherwise,&rdquo; says Mike Hamilton, CEO of King of Prussia, Pa.-based Renmatix. &ldquo;Having an economic sugar is really the enabler behind meeting consumer downstream biorefining and government support for displacing petroleum-derived fuels, chemicals and other products.&rdquo; Renmatix employs a patented, two-step, supercritical fluid hydrolysis technology platform&mdash;trademarked the Plantrose process&mdash;that can efficiently extract and solubilize C5 (hemicellulose) and C6 (cellulose) sugars from a variety of lignocellulosic biomass such as wood or agricultural residues when subjected to water at high temperature and pressure, all the while separating out the lignin. Renmatix owns and operates a demonstration-scale production facility located in Kennesaw, Ga., capable of converting 3 dry tons per day of biomass into fermentation-ready sugars for trial testing to potential customers. Renmatix also operates a pilot plant in Kennesaw. In January, BASF invested $30 million in Renmatix to support its scale-up activities.
 Hamilton, a former Rohm and Haas executive, tells Biorefining Magazine that his company will continue improving the economics of its Plantrose process while working toward its first commercial-scale facility, which is expected to produce 100,000 metric tons annually. An announcement on the commercial facility location is expected later this year.&nbsp; &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a limitless demand for renewable materials,&rdquo; Hamilton says, but the material has to make economic sense. &ldquo;Until today, there really haven&rsquo;t been a lot of cellulosic options that are economically attractive,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Being able to provide sugars at economically attractive price points is really going to allow those things to occur.&rdquo;
 London, Ontario-based Comet Biorefining Inc. utilizes a unique biomass pretreatment process and enzymes to isolate and extract sugar, primarily monomeric glucose, and its lignin constituents. CEO and founder Andrew Richard, former chief technology officer at Mascoma, says Comet has pushed the envelope on biomass pretreatment to the point it doesn&rsquo;t consider the process &ldquo;pretreatment&rdquo; anymore.
 &ldquo;We call it activation now because we think that more closely describes what we&rsquo;re trying to do,&rdquo; Richard says. &ldquo;We do use enzymes downstream from the activation process, but we use them at significantly lower levels than what most people would talk about because of the benefits of the activation process that we use, and we use very simple equipment to get there.&rdquo;
 The impetus behind the company&rsquo;s focus on biomass conversion to sugars came in 2009 when Richard recognized the burden of feedstock aggregation, transportation and conversion to usable sugars. Richard says Comet formed to specifically address this glaring deficiency within the feedstock supply chain to help ease that burden.
 &ldquo;The limitations,&rdquo; Richard explains, &ldquo;are around the fact that these systems and plants tend to be so complex that you need to make them large in order to get economies of scale. When you do that, you need to bring in thousands of tons of biomass in a day, and you end up with larger supply radiuses and end up with a large capital expenditure (CAPEX) because you&rsquo;re either transporting half water, if it&rsquo;s wood, or mostly air if it&rsquo;s an agricultural material.&rdquo;
 He says Comet set out to tackle all the drivers necessary to get to low CAPEX and operating expenses (OPEX). &ldquo;We&rsquo;re taking on inconsistent feedstock that changes every day,&rdquo; Richard says, &ldquo;and it has to be a relatively simple process that gets you to some useful intermediate product, which, for us, is cellulosic sugar.&rdquo;
 As sugar technology developers continue to optimize their processes, finding the right balance between ideal price points and delivering a high-quality sugar product to downstream customers is paramount because, in a customer-driven enterprise, not every downstream conversion process relies solely on one uniform type of sugar, says Andrew Held, director of feedstock development for Madison, Wis.-based Virent Energy Systems. Essentially, each sugar product has to be customized to meet strict feedstock specifications. Virent employs a patented catalytic BioForming process technology at its 10,000 gallon per year demonstration facility in Madison, which converts soluble sugars from various biomass stocks into a range of advanced drop-in biofuels such as biogasoline and light and heavy diesel fractions, plus chemicals.
 &ldquo;I think what&rsquo;s interesting in this space is, like in the commercial sugars markets, there are existing contracts that already have quality specifications adherent to it,&rdquo; Held says. &ldquo;So, when you see the moving market price you&rsquo;re at least getting a known commodity. I think it&rsquo;s fair to say that in the case of cellulosic sugars overall, the market is quite a bit less mature at the moment.&rdquo;
 Since January 2011, Virent and Danville, Va.-based Virdia have been working together as part of a grant from BIRD (Binational Industrial Research and Development) Energy, a U.S.-Israel joint renewable energy development funded by the U.S. DOE, the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures and the BIRD Foundation. In March, both companies announced the successful conversion of cellulosic pine tree sugars to drop-in gasoline and biojet fuel within the BIRD grant project. Additionally, Virdia has been working with biotech outfit LS9 since last year as part of a $9 million DOE grant to demonstrate an integrated process that converts biomass into renewable diesel and other fuels and chemicals. &ldquo;You need to provide [sugar] substrates with the right fermentability,&rdquo; explains Philippe Lavielle, CEO of Virdia. &ldquo;You also need to provide substrates with high monosaccharide sugars with no inhibitors, no impurities and you need to provide the right concentration as well. What you don&rsquo;t want is a sugar product that&rsquo;s dilute with a combination of monosaccharide and polysaccharide sugars and inhibitors.&rdquo;
 If enough ready-to-use sugar feedstock volumes enter the market to meet high demand, its developers understand that a distributed, modular approach is the most practical avenue to achieve economies of scale. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re going to be cost-competitive, you&rsquo;ve got to get your [feedstock] logistics way down,&rdquo; says Arunas Chesonis, CEO of Rochester, N.Y.-based Sweetwater Energy. &ldquo;The ability for us to have a decentralized model with smaller [manufacturing] units allows us to be both feedstock-flexible by region, and it allows us to grow with that customer in the appropriate fashion.&rdquo;
 Sweetwater Energy operates a pilot facility in Rochester that supplies sugar samples to its downstream customers. A demonstration-scale sugar processing facility is scheduled to be operational this summer. &ldquo;We expect our first commercial facilities to be installed throughout the U.S. in 2013,&rdquo; Chesonis says.
 According to Richard, Comet Biorefining&rsquo;s strategy is centered on employing a licensing model as opposed to a build-own-operate (BOO) strategy. Last year, the company constructed a sugar toll processing plant in Southwestern Ontario and signed an exclusive agreement with Fulton Engineered Specialties Inc., which will provide turnkey construction and installation services of Comet&rsquo;s modular cellulosic sugar process systems on an exclusive basis. &ldquo;We see not only supplying the technology to produce sugars, but also the modules to produce them because when you talk about small, distributed plants, they need to be very low in capital cost,&rdquo; Richard says.
 Lavielle says Virdia will employ a BOO model and leverage existing infrastructure and feedstock logistic assets at brownfield sites, at least for its first few commercial facilities, he notes. &ldquo;The scale will be much bigger than the first commercial plant, starting at about 500,000 tons per year,&rdquo; Lavielle says. &ldquo;The next step in the value chain for us would be to plug in biorefining companies that might be interested in co-location activities with our future commercial sugar processing facilities.&rdquo;
 Proterro Inc., a venture-backed startup headquartered in Princeton, N.J., is taking a different approach using a noncellulosic material as its starting point to produce sugar. The company is optimizing a patent-pending biosynthetic process that combines an engineered photosynthetic microorganism, a cyanobacteria, with an advanced high-density, modular solid-phase bioreactor to produce its trademarked sucrose end product, called Protose. While Proterro is open to all options, CEO Kef Kasdin says an ideal approach that her young company will likely pursue is a joint-venture model with partners, such as existing ethanol plants or biobased chemical companies, to deploy its novel sugar processing module units on a host site, leveraging existing infrastructure elements such as carbon dioxide to feed its process. &ldquo;We use up a lot less space than sugarcane,&rdquo; Kasdin says. &ldquo;If you look at Brazil today, they basically have a co-location strategy. They have acres upon acres of sugarcane that are feeding ethanol plants. We would fit into that model very well.&rdquo; Author: Bryan Sims Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 738-4974 <a href="mailto:bsims@bbiinternational.com">bsims@bbiinternational.com</a>

The race is on to commercialize low-cost, high-quality sugars from nonfood sources

Sugar Rush 

It&rsquo;s important not to overlook the importance of efficient biomass supply chain systems in the success of the biorefining industry. No matter how impressive a future commercial-scale plant&rsquo;s conversion technology may be, the facility could easily fail if feedstock cannot be delivered in a timely, cost-effective, efficient manner. A new analysis tool, known as &ldquo;BioFeed,&rdquo; is showing great promise in helping design supply chain systems that can meet those requirements, ensuring a reliable flow of feedstock.
 &nbsp;The BioFeed model is the product of University of Illinois researchers funded by BP&rsquo;s Energy Biosciences Institute under a research program titled Engineering Solutions for Biomass Feedstock Production. According to Kuan Chong Ting, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering who leads the research program, the program itself includes five different task areas including harvesting, crop monitoring, transportation, storage, and systems informatics and analysis.
 While the first four tasks involve developing better technologies for those particular components of the supply chain system, Ting says that the goal of the fifth task is to try to fit the other four tasks together in a way that makes the entire biomass system&mdash;from farm operations to delivery to the biorefinery gate&mdash;more efficient. &ldquo;Within that task, we need to have a computational tool to help analyze what is happening through the value chain, and modeling is one of the most important tools that we can use to do this kind of work,&rdquo; Ting says.
 About seven of the 20 researchers that currently work under the ESBFP program have contributed to the development of the model. They include Yogendra Shastri, visiting research assistant professor in the EBI; Alan Hansen, professor of agricultural and biological engineering; and Luis Rodr&iacute;guez, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering. Rodr&iacute;guez serves as leader for the task group that designed the model.
 Hanson notes that BioFeed also enables the team to evaluate how changes in individual supply chain technologies flow through the entire feedstock supply chain. &ldquo;We can introduce different types of technologies into that supply chain and see the impact on the overall system,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;This has been really useful as we have proceeded in developing the model and evaluated different scenarios concerning the introduction of different types of technology and storage options. That has been very important in the model development.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;&ldquo;When we started developing the model, we looked at all the important operations a feedstock or energy crop would go through before it was delivered to the refinery,&rdquo; Shastri says. Some of the most important of these steps are harvesting, post harvesting packing, such as bailing, grinding or pelleting, handling, storage and transportation. As a result, BioFeed is capable of optimizing more than 300,000 individual variables, including harvest schedules, equipment type, storage sizing, transportation attributes and the logistics involved with moving biomass from one place to another. BioFeed can also take into account regional factors, such as weather patterns, crop yield, farm size and transportation distances.
 &ldquo;What we essentially do is use mathematical equations to model these operations,&rdquo; Shastri adds. The researchers input the appropriate data into the model, and the results are generated by solving the equations developed by the team. The goal is to discover the best design for a particular biomass supply chain system. &ldquo;Typical results that we get out of the model [include] what kind of equipment should be used, what the size of the storage facility should be, what should be the biorefinery size, and how the equipment should be operated on a daily basis,&rdquo; Shastri says. &ldquo;There are quite a few decisions that have to be optimized, but these are some of the important ones we look at.&rdquo;
 One unique aspect of the model&mdash;and one of the reasons so many variables are analyzed&mdash;is that it looks at daily operations rather than just designing a supply chain system that ignores seasonal and daily fluctuations during of the year. It tells you how you should operate components of the supply chain, such as transportation and storage on a daily basis. &ldquo;When you start talking about these issues,&rdquo; Shastri says, &ldquo;the number of decisions that you have to make increase exponentially, and that is why we have so many variables in the model.&rdquo;
 Due to the model&rsquo;s capabilities and the extremely high volume of data and variables it is designed to analyze, it cannot be run on a standard computer. Rather, Shastri notes that the team is currently using a very powerful computer cluster to run the model. While designed to take in a huge amount of data, the model was also designed to be very flexible. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve devised it in such a way that we can apply it to different crops and different geographical regions,&rdquo; Shastri says. Furthermore, it has been built in a way that allows it to take in different types of data and still run as designed.
 Ting explains that there are two different sides to the task team: informatics, or the collection of data, and analysis, which is the processing of that data. &ldquo;The data provides values for the parameters, and the equations in the model are the analysis part,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If we separate the data from the model, we can program the model in a way that is very generic.&rdquo; In other words, you can change the data values as you run different scenarios for different crops, regions and production methods. &ldquo;That allows us to make the model very representative of what is happening in reality,&rdquo; Ting says. &ldquo;With that, we have a tool that many people can benefit from.&rdquo;
 According to Rodr&iacute;guez, his team has already been approached by several entities hoping the model will be available for use. He says the Illinois Department of Transportation expressed interest in using it to figure out an effective way to produce biomass to power its fleet. While it is likely some version of the tool will be made publicly available in the future, the details around this have not been worked out yet. &ldquo;I anticipate that we will find ways to publish it in a way that can be distributed, but working with BP right now there are, of course, some intellectual property concerns,&rdquo; Rodr&iacute;guez says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not something that we&rsquo;ll be rushing out the door with, but given the commercial interest, I think we are looking into that now.&rdquo; Shastri says the team is working to develop a Web-based interface that would connect to the model. &ldquo;The idea is that somebody could go on the Web and access the model through a user interface,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Hopefully in the future, when the model is commercialized, that will be one of the ways to make it accessible to members of the general public.&rdquo;
 Assuming the model is eventually made available, there are several groups of people who could benefit beyond biorefining project developers and investors. Those in the research community could also use it to identify areas where additional research and development are needed. Developing such a model in concert with others developing biomass technologies provides &ldquo;checks and balances&rdquo; for both sides, Rodriguez says. Technology developers can identify where new information is needed. &ldquo;By taking the extra step of integrating those elements in the form of a model,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;we can see how those predicted needs are really going to impact the future of the system quantitatively.&rdquo; The educational community is another group that could benefit. Universities and colleges are working to educate the industry&rsquo;s next generation of human capital, Ting says. Teachers would like to have this model to demonstrate how changes in the values for variables can impact the performance of an entire biomass system. &ldquo;There are many markets for this kind of model,&rdquo; Ting says. &ldquo;The question is how do we deliver to the right market? There are some rules we have to follow on campus, and we have to be accountable to our sponsors, so we are making that arrangement to see if we can make this model available to various potential users.&rdquo;
 The team also expects to continue making improvements to the model. &ldquo;One of the important issues we want to address is uncertainty,&rdquo; says Shastri. &ldquo;When you talk about farm operations and production of these crops, there are things that are uncertain. We don&rsquo;t know what the weather will be. We don&rsquo;t know how the yield will be. There are systematic ways of using mathematics to address those issues. That would be an important future addition to the model.&rdquo;
 Ting adds that the model is programmed in a way that allows it to answer system-level questions. &ldquo;We have a whole list of system-level questions we would like to answer,&rdquo; he says, including those related to what percentage of cost should go to harvesting, transportation, storage and other elements of the supply chain. &ldquo;When the system-level questions start to expand, we either change the data or we change the model,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;That is where we start to tweak and improve the model. There is no end. There is no perfect model, but our goal is to provide a useable model.&rdquo;
 The team is also working to develop additional modeling and analysis approaches. In particular, says Rodr&iacute;guez, we are looking into how those interested in establishing a new biomass-to-bioenergy market should choose sites for their facilities. &ldquo;We also have an agent-based modeling approach to study that, once these investments are made, then how do these systems evolve over time?&rdquo; he says.
&ldquo;Finally, we are looking at some modeling analysis work at the low operational level. Not just day-to-day decisions, but within the day, how we can help people make decisions as to how to better operate their systems.&rdquo; Author: Erin Voegele Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 540-6986 <a href="mailto:evoegele@bbiinternational.com">evoegele@bbiinternational.com</a>

A new model developed by University of Illinois researchers can help increase biomass supply chain efficiencies 

June 2012

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Success for Biomass in Denver

Capitol Gains, Commonwealth Setbacks

Opportunity in the Midwest

Fuels of the Future

Military Renewables Plan: A Bioenergy Booster

Feedstock and Material Handling

Within Earshot of the Oval Office

Biomass Material Handling

UK Bribery Act Reaches Beyond UK

Featured

Biomass A Mile High

The Poultry Litter Landscape

Sugar Rush

An Analytic Advantage

June 2012.css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Success for Biomass in Denver

Capitol Gains, Commonwealth Setbacks

Opportunity in the Midwest

Fuels of the Future

Military Renewables Plan: A Bioenergy Booster

Feedstock and Material Handling

Within Earshot of the Oval Office

Biomass Material Handling

UK Bribery Act Reaches Beyond UK

Featured

Biomass A Mile High

The Poultry Litter Landscape

Sugar Rush

An Analytic Advantage

June 2012