While cap-and-trade legislation may seem ghostly white, it is definitely not dead. A new study has emerged from the University of Tennessee&rsquo;s Agricultural Policy Analysis Center, and with it, the ghost of the now-seemingly defunct climate change legislation. The good news is the study&rsquo;s findings are nothing close to scary. Titled &ldquo;Evaluating Possible Cap and Trade Legislation on Cellulosic Feedstock Availability,&rdquo; the study looked at the possibility of linking climate change legislation with the policy goals of the renewable fuel standard. &ldquo;We wanted to make a model of how the two would interact,&rdquo; says Chad Hellwinckel, a UT assistant professor and coauthor of the study. The team from UT ran a series of tests in an economic modeler and calculator for a wide range of possible payment plans including biomass crop practices, no-till practices and one for the two together to find the most valuable carbon reduction methods that could eventually receive funding. &ldquo;What we knew beforehand was that biomass policy is by far more of a benefit to agriculture then climate change policy,&rdquo; he says. But, if done right, climate change policy can also be a good thing for agriculture.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &ldquo;We found the best policy was one that restricted residue removal to the carbon neutral level and paid incentives to no-till practices and biomass crops for their carbon sequestration values,&rdquo; he says. While the reaffirmation that biomass crop practices are a benefit to the atmosphere, Hellwinckel says that farmers who have gained a revenue stream through the practice of residue removal don&rsquo;t need to be scared. &ldquo;By restricting residue removal,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;it shifted the burden of meeting the biomass policies onto dedicated energy crops like switchgrass, and that acted to increase land use competition and increase all crops across the board by about 6 percent.&rdquo; Unfortunately, as Hellwinckel points out, there is not going to be a climate bill in the next few years, so any impact this study might have in shaping a biomass and crop residue policy that could ultimately benefit agriculture, isn&rsquo;t going to happen. But, even a never-was piece of legislation apparently can create a positive, and this study might have revealed why. Will climate change legislation happen this year, next year or anytime soon? It&rsquo;s not expected, but if or when it does, there&rsquo;s no reason to fear that specter hovering about, at least if we listen to Hellwinckel. &ldquo;The big take home message from our study,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;is that it (climate change legislation) can be a big benefit to agriculture.&rdquo;&nbsp; &mdash;Luke Geiver

Climate change legislation may sound concerning, but farmers could benefit

Don't Fear the Reaper

Does a coal-based fuel have any place in biorefining? This was the topic of a recent blog entry of mine on The Biorefining Blog, which is distributed in our weekly e-newsletter, Biorefining Week, and found on our magazine&rsquo;s website. When coal is used as a hybrid mix with woody biomass as feedstock for fuel or chemical refining, there are reasons these projects get support.
In the coal-rich Appalachians, West Virginia University is working on a coal-biomass feedstock for gasification and reformation into liquid fuel. This is a focal point of Associate Editor Luke Geiver&rsquo;s feature article in this issue.
Coal is obviously a domestic product so a coal-biomass feedstock blend for liquid fuel production would certainly improve energy security and independence issues. The fuel, derived from coal and wood, could be 100 percent domestic, as opposed to existing biofuel blends, say B20 (20 percent biodiesel, 80 percent diesel from crude, the latter likely being imported from abroad). Additionally, there would be some transportation efficiencies and cost savings without having to ship crude oil halfway around the world. Instead we could ship coal from a regional mine to a local refinery via efficient, modern locomotives. Local economic development in places like in Appalachia in the East and Wyoming in the West would also benefit.
But with coal being so rich in carbon, mercury and sulfur, there are big environmental concerns. One comment left on my blog was that these ideas of a coal-biomass feedstock blend sound like &ldquo;green-washing.&rdquo; Maybe so, but WVU Professor Kaushlendra Singh looks at it differently.
In his December feature article, Geiver interviews Singh, who says the U.S. consumes nearly 48 percent crude oil and nearly 28 percent coal to meet its energy needs, and the U.S. is the second largest producer of coal in the world. &ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t we substitute coal? If you add 20 to 30 percent biomass, you are tapping into that 28 percent consumption and you will reduce GHGs by the percentage of biomass you put in. It&rsquo;s just another way to look at things.&rdquo; On a similar note, would people say cofiring biomass with coal for power generation is greenwashing, or a step in the right direction?

HYBRID FUELS

Voters in November&rsquo;s election sent a strong message of their dissatisfaction with Washington, ushering in 106 new members of Congress and giving Republicans more than a 60-seat gain in the House. As Congress returns to finish its business in the lame-duck session, many inside the Beltway are still scratching their heads and asking, &ldquo;Where do we go from here?&rdquo; The answer for the advanced biofuels industry is, &ldquo;Full steam ahead!&rdquo; Our industry will play an integral role in strengthening our energy security while generating real and lasting job growth. My answer comes after key decision makers, from both sides of the aisle and the White House, met with members of the Advanced Biofuels Association for our board meeting last month in Washington. As we heard separately from senior Democrat and Republican staff members on Capitol Hill and a key energy and environmental advisor to President Obama, one thing is becoming clearer: investment in advanced biofuels, and our technologies to build better fuels and products is not a partisan issue. But it will be incumbent upon us as an industry to inform and educate as we move into another session of Congress and approach a presidential election year. Clearly, the new tone in town is one far more focused on the cost of government, and more determined to cut programs rather than extend and create new ones. This will require the biofuels industry be clear in the cost benefits of current or future programs. There will be a complete new slate of committee chairmen in the House, and as many as 12 new members of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee. There is less turnover at the chairmanship and leadership level in the Senate, although the balance has significantly shifted from 59D to 41R to 53D to 47R. The new chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee will be Debbie Stabenow from Michigan, replacing Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas. Also of key note, is the replacement of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, as ranking member on the Finance Committee. Top staff members on both the Ways and Means and Finance Committees briefed our board on the future of tax extenders. They addressed both the short-term opportunities surrounding the Bush tax credits for individuals as well as the longer-term effort to address all the biofuels provisions in any potential reform package. The Democrats have not agreed yet on an overall tax strategy between the White House and Congress on the larger extender provisions. However, the White House has specifically called for Congress to pass the extenders package, which includes all biofuels tax credits, in the lame-duck session. A current open discussion focuses on the level at which the current ethanol tax credit should be set, and for how long. The numbers range from 30 to 45 cents through the end of 2011. Finance Committee Chairman Baucus , D-Mont., is also drafting a bill that would grant a one-year extension of the biodiesel and ethanol tax credits, along with the Alternative Minimum Tax patch. If this fails, the likelihood of these extenders passing gets more complicated because of statutory requirements that oblige Congress to find revenue streams to offset the cost of the tax credits&mdash; something more likely to get waived because of the popularity of extending the AMT patch. Longer-term reform efforts will take time with all the personnel changes on the House Committee. This should be of concern if the extenders are only renewed through 2011.
Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for Energy and Climate Change Policy, addressed the ABFA board about the future of the current Investment Tax Credit (Sec. 1603) and DOE&rsquo;s loan guarantee program, and reiterated Obama&rsquo;s commitment to the biofuels industry. While making it very clear that the White House was pushing Congress to pass the tax extenders package in the lame-duck session, she also acknowledged that the administration was keenly aware of the frustration from the biofuels sector, with the accessibility and requirements of the DOE program. She assured ABFA members that before any decision was made concerning either program, there would be full stakeholder involvement across the board.&nbsp; As an industry, we need to be very clear what specific federal support we need across first- and second-generation biofuels companies. Our request must be clear, precise and demonstrate the benefits to the American people, and detail when policy objectives will be achieved.&nbsp; The day of the subsidy without end, without clear overriding benefit to the country, at least for now, is clearly over.&nbsp; Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association (202) 747-0518 <a href="mailto:mmcadams@bhfs.com" target="_blank">mmcadams@bhfs.com</a>

Roadmapping the political future of biofuel subsidies

Where Do We Go from Here?

6/27 Indianapolis may be home to the electrifying Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indy 500, but for four days in June, any positive buzz in the city will be coming from ethanol. As host to the 27th annual International Fuel Ethanol Workshop &amp; Expo, June 27-30 at the Indiana Convention Center, the city can expect more than 2,500 well-versed experts and attendees to arrive for the most-recognized ethanol event in the world. The anticipation for the FEW has already begun, and the mayor of Indianapolis has responded with a personal greeting to those headed for the Hoosier State. &ldquo;I admire your organization&rsquo;s commitment to ethanol, a product that helps fuel our famous Indianapolis 500 cars,&rdquo; Mayor Gregory A. Ballard wrote to International FEW members. And the city itself, according to Ballard, should provide an invigorating backdrop for the conference. &ldquo;The 13th largest city in the U.S. is continuing to grow, with more than $3 billion in new tourism offerings coming on line by the time we host the Super Bowl in 2012,&rdquo; Ballard says. &ldquo;Consistently ranked as one of the Top 25 most visited cities in the U.S., I am confident our numerous cultural attractions, convenient downtown, and diverse culinary scene will create the perfect setting for your meeting.&rdquo; The four-day event will feature keynote speeches, technical presentations and unmatched networking forums based on the current, and future, ethanol industry. The 27th installment of the FEW will include four main tracks highlighting the most up-to-date innovations, strategies and operations in the realm of production, management, coproducts and cellulosic ethanol, all of which reach the presentation floor through an abstract rating process that utilizes nearly 40 industry experts to hand pick the best of the best.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; With industry professionals attending from nearly all 50 states, 25 countries and plant personnel from almost every ethanol facility in the U.S. and Canada, this year&rsquo;s FEW will remain a conference tailored to ethanol producers, and for those interested in the current trends and challenges facing the blossoming cellulosic ethanol industry, expect the latest news and thoughts on where the industry is and where it is headed.

27th Annual FEW Heads to Indy

Traditionally, biomass was converted to charcoal or biogas for generation of energy. Currently, due to environmental concerns and the high price of fuel, the approach has shifted to the conversion of biomass into pyrolysis oil for use as fuel.&nbsp; What is pyrolysis oil? It&rsquo;s a complex mixture of chemicals resulting from the thermal decomposition of biomass. The types and amounts of each chemical may vary widely depending on the thermal process used. Pyrolysis oil is also known as biocrude, bio-oil or bioleum. There are a number of technologies that convert biomass into pyrolysis oil and all of them involve high temperature (between 400 and 650 degrees Celsius). Pyrolysis oil has the potential to become a viable alternative to fossil fuel.&nbsp; The U.S. DOE estimates that there are more than 1.3 billion tons of recoverable biomass today.&nbsp; Using current technologies, this biomass could be converted to 130 billion gallons per year of fuel per year, or 65 percent of the total U.S. consumption. Some energy crops such as switchgrass and Miscanthus, as well as algae, can also be used as feedstock for pyrolysis oil, which can then be further processed into transportation fuels.&nbsp;&nbsp; There is a catch, however: pyrolysis oil is highly acidic and corrosive. As a result, it is difficult to store and transport, and can damage engines, boilers and refinery processing equipment. Upgrading pyrolysis oil in a cost-effective manner to remove the high acid content is a challenge that must be overcome. What are the options for upgrading bio-oil? Technologies like hydrogenation, hydro-deoxygenation and other similar conventional processes address the high acidity problem; however, they require large-scale plants and capital, and exhibit substantial yield losses (up to 50 percent sometimes) mainly due to the use of hydrogen.&nbsp; Some next-generation technologies attempt to use existing infrastructure and eliminate the use of hydrogen to reduce the high capital and operating costs of upgrading pyrolysis oil. My company, the Houston-based Enhanced Biofuels, has developed such a technology. We use a proprietary reactor system that bolts onto existing facilities, to share infrastructure, and it uses a readily available and relatively inexpensive alternative to hydrogen for reducing or eliminating the acidity of pyrolysis oil in a cost-effective manner.&nbsp; Once upgraded, the pyrolysis oil can be used many different ways. It could be fed directly into a conventional refinery to make green transportation fuels while using existing infrastructure, becoming a domestic green feedstock for the U.S. refining infrastructure. It could also be a blend-stock for bunker or marine fuel. Bio-oil has lower heating value than bunker fuel, but it also has lower viscosity, essentially no sulfur, and high oxygen content. These properties will likely make a bunker fuel/pyrolysis oil mix easier to handle, and will improve the burning characteristics of bunker fuel. Pyrolysis oil is also a domestic, green low-cost alternative to heating oil and boiler fuel, which are fossil-fuel based. Upgraded bio-oil can also be used for power generation in diesel and sterling engines. This application supports distributed green power efforts, because the fuel&rsquo;s easier to transport and handle, and has higher energy density than biomass. Finally it can be a chemical feedstock. Pyrolysis oil contains carboxylic acids, and phenolic and nitrogen compounds, which can be converted into resins, adhesives, solvents, fertilizers, flavors and more. In addition to these valuable building blocks, pyrolysis oil can be processed into traditional petrochemicals and plastic intermediates through refining and processing. Pyrolysis oil has the potential to be available in large amounts and competitively priced. Upgrading bio-oil in a cost-effective fashion to reduce its high acid content is essential. Next-generation technologies that attempt to address this challenge will give pyrolysis oil great promise as a domestically grown, green feedstock for production of fuels and chemicals using the current refining and transportation infrastructure.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Author: Roman Wolff President, Enhanced Biofuels (713) 301-8660 <a href="mailto:rwolff@enhancedbiofuels.com" target="_blank">rwolff@enhancedbiofuels.com</a>

Upgrading bio-oil to serve fuel markets with a viable, domestic alternative

Pyrolysis Oil Challenges and Solutions

Green can mean many things:&nbsp; money, environmentally friendly, and under the Green Technology Pilot Program at the U.S. Patent &amp; Trademark Office, it means &ldquo;go&rdquo; for many patent applications involving clean/green technology. These applications get to bypass much of the historical sludge that has bogged down patent applications and will be examined on an expedited basis. The belief seems to be that these applications need to move faster in order to help alleviate our energy and environmental issues. Patent applications that are accepted into the USPTO&rsquo;s green program are given higher priority and examined much more rapidly. Such applications are accorded special status&mdash;the USPTO&rsquo;s most exclusive designation&mdash;as they await action. They also carry the special designation on appeal, and in the patent publication process. After the first action, such applications are accorded a status that is lower than special, yet still prioritized. The bottom line is that participating in the USPTO&rsquo;s green program means that your green patent applications will reach final resolution much sooner than they otherwise would. Not all green patent applications are eligible for the USPTO&rsquo;s green program though. The program has both technology and formal requirements. To be eligible, the patent application must be directed to an invention that &ldquo;materially enhances the quality of the environment by contributing to the restoration or maintenance of the basic life-sustaining natural elements; materially contributes to the discovery or development of renewable energy resources,&rdquo; which include &ldquo;hydroelectric, solar, wind, renewable biomass, landfill gas, ocean (including tidal, wave, current, and thermal), geothermal, and municipal solid waste, as well as the transmission, distribution, or other services directly used in providing electrical energy from these sources; materially contributes to the more efficient utilization and conservation of energy resources,&rdquo; a category that &ldquo;would include inventions relating to the reduction of energy consumption in combustion systems, industrial equipment, and household appliances; materially contributes to greenhouse gas emission reduction,&rdquo; a category that includes &ldquo;inventions that contribute to (1) advances in nuclear power generation technology, or (2) fossil fuel power generation or industrial processes with greenhouse gas abatement technology (e.g., inventions that significantly improve safety and reliability of such technologies).&rdquo; Additionally, the USPTO&rsquo;s classification system&mdash;the system that determines which applications are assigned to which examiners&mdash;must classify the application into one of the established green technology classes. In addition to the technology requirements, there are also formal requirements. The application must have no more than three independent claims and no more than 20 total claims, though applications that do not meet this criterion can be cured with a preliminary amendment. Green patent applicants wishing to participate in the USPTO&rsquo;s green program must file a &ldquo;Petition to Make Special under the Green Technology Pilot Program.&rdquo; The petition must choose one of the technology eligibility requirements listed above and, &ldquo;if the application disclosure is not clear on its face,&rdquo; explain how the application meets that requirement. The official notice emphasizes that this explanation must not rely on &ldquo;speculat[ion] as to how a hypothetical end-user might specially apply the invention.&rdquo; The USPTO&rsquo;s green program represents an opportunity for cleantech companies to strengthen their patent position in an increasingly competitive environment. Since the program began in December 2009, a total of 790 petitions have been granted to green technology patent applicants, and 94 patents have been issued. In contrast to taking an average of 30 months for nongreen applications to receive their first USPTO action, green applications in the pilot program had an average time, between the approval of a green technology petition and the first action on an application, of just 49 days. Some green patent applications have even been issued within a year of the filing date, a speed akin to Warp 11 for the USPTO. If you have a patentable idea that meets these criteria, don&rsquo;t delay in filing, however. The program, still a pilot, is set to expire Dec. 31, 2011 and is already receiving a large number of filings. Talk to an experienced patent lawyer soon before Green turns from &ldquo;go&rdquo; to &ldquo;goo.&rdquo; Authors: Adonis Neblett, Todd Taylor Attorneys, Fredrikson &amp; Byron aneblett@fredlaw.com <a href="mailto:ttaylor@fredlaw.com" target="_blank">ttaylor@fredlaw.com</a>

Speed up the patent process through the USPTO's green program

Green Means Go for Patents 

1. Alter NRG Corp. announced the signing of a 22-month extension to its agreement with Coskata Inc. to provide testing services to support Project Lighthouse, a wood-to-ethanol facility, for a minimum value $4.1 million and up to $5.6 million if all contemplated tests are performed. This includes monthly fixed payments totaling $2.46 million over the term. Alter NRG&rsquo;s wholly owned subsidiary, Westinghouse Plasma Corp., has been conducting gasification tests at the plasma center for more than 15 years. In April 2008, Alter NRG and Coskata signed an agreement that resulted in Coskata building its Project Lighthouse facility adjacent to the Westinghouse Plasma Center. Lighthouse was completed in late 2009 and, since then, Alter NRG and Coskata have been converting woodchips into ethanol and optimizing the overall process. Alter NRG converts the woodchips into a clean, tar-free syngas, and Coskata converts the syngas into ethanol using its patented technology. 2. Phoenix-based Heliae, an algae-growing technology and processing company, recently welcomed Dan Simon as its new president and CEO. Simon has more than 15 years of achievement founding and leading public and private energy, technology, and industrial manufacturing businesses. Prior to coming to Heliae, Simon was cofounder and executive with BioFuel Energy Corp., a public biofuel producer. Heliae is an end-to-end algae technology development company committed to producing renewable food, fuel and fertilizer.&nbsp; &nbsp; 3. Codexis Inc. has appointed William Rothwell as its vice president and general manager of biobased chemicals, a newly created position. Rothwell will be responsible for building and managing a new business by leveraging the Codexis-directed evolution platform in the growing field of biobased chemicals. He will report to Alan Shaw, president and CEO. Rothwell was a member of the Codexis board of directors from 2007 to 2009 as a representative of Royal Dutch Shell plc. He joins Codexis management after a 29-year career with Shell, focused on leadership and strategic development of Shell&rsquo;s global chemical business, retiring late last year. 4. LanzaTech announced in November that Prabhakar Nair has joined the company as vice president of business development in Asia-Pacific. With this appointment, LanzaTech says it has added another prominent renewable energy executive to its growing international team. He joins chief executive Jennifer Holmgren and chief scientist Sean Simpson. Nair believes LanzaTech technology will play a vital role in meeting the Asia Pacific region&rsquo;s ethanol mandates. &ldquo;LanzaTech&rsquo;s ability to produce fuel from waste is essential for regions where food resources are so critical,&rdquo; Nair says. He joins LanzaTech from UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, where he was most recently marketing director for its renewable energy and chemicals business unit. 5. Englewood, Colo.-based Gevo Inc. received notification from the U.S. EPA that its isobutanol has successfully cleared registration for approval as a certified gasoline blendstock. The EPA&rsquo;s approval makes Gevo the first company to have isobutanol listed in the EPA&rsquo;s Fuel Registration Directory. 6. Vertichem received $3 million in capital-market funding to develop its portfolio of green technology products and launch the newly formed enterprise. The investment enables Vertichem to commercialize its exclusive U.S. patents for processing using woody biomass to produce high-value specialty chemicals: lignin, xylose and cellulose. The company, headquartered in Toronto, anticipates assisting the multibillion dollar specialty chemical industry in meeting its sustainability objectives. 7. Thawer Ashcroft Crowne &amp; Co. has entered into an agreement with Algepower Inc. to offer investment collateral to the backend structure of the venture, where it will provide investors with a default-proof, collateral-backed portfolio of funded assets with face values equal to or exceeding the total amount invested in Algepower in case of a default ($25 million). Algepower is currently in its initial capital drive of $2.5 million for its pilot project, which it plans to operate through the second quarter of next year. Algepower is expecting to launch its commercial rollout the following quarter. Montpelier, Vt.-based Algepower is a producer of sustainable, renewable algoil and algae byproducts, and has patented the Algeponics system for enclosed photobioreactor facilities. 8. Pleasanton, Calif.-based waste-to-ethanol developer Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc. has received a detailed indicative term sheet from the U.S. DOE, and has begun the negotiation process to advance the loan towards closure and funding. The funding would be put towards construction and operating costs of its proposed 10.5 MMgy cellulosic ethanol facility, Sierra BioFuels near Reno, Nev. MSW feedstock tipped at landfills in the Reno-Lake Tahoe basin will supply approximately 90,000 tons of feedstock annually for the future plant. The facility will generate 16 megawatts of renewable electricity, which will be used to power the facility. Earlier this year, Texas-based global engineering and project developer Fluor Corp. was awarded the contract to provide EPC services to build the plant, which Fulcrum estimates should operational by 2012. Using proprietary waste conversion technology licensed from Bend, Ore.-based InEnTec LLC, Fulcrum&rsquo;s thermochemical process will catalytically convert syngas made from the MSW using plasma-enhanced gasifiers. &nbsp; 9. The National Alliance for Biofuels and Bioproducts has successfully produced ASTM-quality biodiesel from oil extracted from algae. The NAABB, made up of scientists and engineers from universities, private industry and national laboratories, received $44 million from the U.S. DOE to develop a commercial process for algal biofuel. In its first year, it has produced a small sample of the algal fuel. The oil was supplied by Eldorado Biofuels and was converted using the T300 solid catalyst system developed by Catilin Inc. The consortium will now disperse samples of the algae-based biodiesel to all 13 of its members for further analysis. 10. Pall Corp. has launched a new system to support research and development activities in the biofuel and biochemical sectors. Pall&rsquo;s Research and Modeling Scale Crossflow Filtration System is designed to help research and development teams evaluate the use of membranes in their processes, while also generating data that can provide them with early economic guidance for the future scale-up of their applications. The RAMs system is capable of concentrating fluid streams by more than 10 times, and enables operators to evaluate a wide variety of membranes including inorganic, ceramic, stainless steel, and organic hollow fiber membranes. The system is also highly flexible, which makes it ideal for cross-flow filtration feasibility studies to compare the effectiveness of different membranes in specific applications. It also enables the design of cost-effective &ldquo;fit-for-purpose&rdquo; pilot-scale systems. 11. DNP Green Technology and French agribusiness firm Agro-Industrie Recherches et D&eacute;veloppements restructured their joint venture, called Bioamber, where DNP Green acquired 100 percent ownership of the joint venture and ARD now becomes a shareholder in DNP Green.&nbsp; Concurrent with the acquisition of ARD&rsquo;s shares in the joint venture, DNP Green has officially changed its name to Bioamber Inc. Established as a 50/50 joint venture between DNP Green and ARD in 2008 to scale up and commercialize biobased succinic acid technology platforms, the decision for DNP Green to acquire ownership of the Bioamber joint venture was due to its evolving global business model to commercialize biobased succinic acid, according to Mike Hartmann, vice president of corporate affairs for Bioamber Inc. Share your industry briefs To be included in Business Briefs, send information (including photos and logos if available) to: Industry Briefs, Biorefining, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203. You may also fax information to (701) 746-8385, or e-mail it to <a href="mailto:rkotrba@bbiinternational.com" target="_blank">rkotrba@bbiinternational.com</a>. Please include your name and telephone number in all correspondence.
<div id="_mcePaste" class="mcePaste" style="position: absolute; left: -10000px; top: 228px; width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden;">Alter NRG Corp. announced the signing of a 22-month extension to its agreement with Coskata Inc. to provide testing services to support Project Lighthouse, a wood-to-ethanol facility, for a minimum value $4.1 million and up to $5.6 million if all contemplated tests are performed. This includes monthly fixed payments totaling $2.46 million over the term. Alter NRG&rsquo;s wholly owned subsidiary, Westinghouse Plasma Corp., has been conducting gasification tests at the plasma center for more than 15 years. In April 2008, Alter NRG and Coskata signed an agreement that resulted in Coskata building its Project Lighthouse facility adjacent to the Westinghouse Plasma Center. Lighthouse was completed in late 2009 and, since then, Alter NRG and Coskata have been converting woodchips into ethanol and optimizing the overall process. Alter NRG converts the woodchips into a clean, tar-free syngas, and Coskata converts the syngas into ethanol using its patented technology. Phoenix-based Heliae, an algae-growing technology and processing company, recently welcomed Dan Simon as its new president and CEO. Simon has more than 15 years of achievement founding and leading public and private energy, technology, and industrial manufacturing businesses. Prior to coming to Heliae, Simon was cofounder and executive with BioFuel Energy Corp., a public biofuel producer. Heliae is an end-to-end algae technology development company committed to producing renewable food, fuel and fertilizer.&nbsp; &nbsp; Codexis Inc. has appointed William Rothwell as its vice president and general manager of biobased chemicals, a newly created position. Rothwell will be responsible for building and managing a new business by leveraging the Codexis-directed evolution platform in the growing field of biobased chemicals. He will report to Alan Shaw, president and CEO. Rothwell was a member of the Codexis board of directors from 2007 to 2009 as a representative of Royal Dutch Shell plc. He joins Codexis management after a 29-year career with Shell, focused on leadership and strategic development of Shell&rsquo;s global chemical business, retiring late last year. LanzaTech announced in November that Prabhakar Nair has joined the company as vice president of business development in Asia-Pacific. With this appointment, LanzaTech says it has added another prominent renewable energy executive to its growing international team. He joins chief executive Jennifer Holmgren and chief scientist Sean Simpson. Nair believes LanzaTech technology will play a vital role in meeting the Asia Pacific region&rsquo;s ethanol mandates. &ldquo;LanzaTech&rsquo;s ability to produce fuel from waste is essential for regions where food resources are so critical,&rdquo; Nair says. He joins LanzaTech from UOP LLC, a Honeywell company, where he was most recently marketing director for its renewable energy and chemicals business unit. Englewood, Colo.-based Gevo Inc. received notification from the U.S. EPA that its isobutanol has successfully cleared registration for approval as a certified gasoline blendstock. The EPA&rsquo;s approval makes Gevo the first company to have isobutanol listed in the EPA&rsquo;s Fuel Registration Directory. Vertichem received $3 million in capital-market funding to develop its portfolio of green technology products and launch the newly formed enterprise. The investment enables Vertichem to commercialize its exclusive U.S. patents for processing using woody biomass to produce high-value specialty chemicals: lignin, xylose and cellulose. The company, headquartered in Toronto, anticipates assisting the multibillion dollar specialty chemical industry in meeting its sustainability objectives. Thawer Ashcroft Crowne &amp; Co. has entered into an agreement with Algepower Inc. to offer investment collateral to the backend structure of the venture, where it will provide investors with a default-proof, collateral-backed portfolio of funded assets with face values equal to or exceeding the total amount invested in Algepower in case of a default ($25 million). Algepower is currently in its initial capital drive of $2.5 million for its pilot project, which it plans to operate through the second quarter of next year. Algepower is expecting to launch its commercial rollout the following quarter. Montpelier, Vt.-based Algepower is a producer of sustainable, renewable algoil and algae byproducts, and has patented the Algeponics system for enclosed photobioreactor facilities. Pleasanton, Calif.-based waste-to-ethanol developer Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc. has received a detailed indicative term sheet from the U.S. DOE, and has begun the negotiation process to advance the loan towards closure and funding. The funding would be put towards construction and operating costs of its proposed 10.5 MMgy cellulosic ethanol facility, Sierra BioFuels near Reno, Nev. MSW feedstock tipped at landfills in the Reno-Lake Tahoe basin will supply approximately 90,000 tons of feedstock annually for the future plant. The facility will generate 16 megawatts of renewable electricity, which will be used to power the facility. Earlier this year, Texas-based global engineering and project developer Fluor Corp. was awarded the contract to provide EPC services to build the plant, which Fulcrum estimates should operational by 2012. Using proprietary waste conversion technology licensed from Bend, Ore.-based InEnTec LLC, Fulcrum&rsquo;s thermochemical process will catalytically convert syngas made from the MSW using plasma-enhanced gasifiers. &nbsp; The National Alliance for Biofuels and Bioproducts has successfully produced ASTM-quality biodiesel from oil extracted from algae. The NAABB, made up of scientists and engineers from universities, private industry and national laboratories, received $44 million from the U.S. DOE to develop a commercial process for algal biofuel. In its first year, it has produced a small sample of the algal fuel. The oil was supplied by Eldorado Biofuels and was converted using the T300 solid catalyst system developed by Catilin Inc. The consortium will now disperse samples of the algae-based biodiesel to all 13 of its members for further analysis. Pall Corp. has launched a new system to support research and development activities in the biofuel and biochemical sectors. Pall&rsquo;s Research and Modeling Scale Crossflow Filtration System is designed to help research and development teams evaluate the use of membranes in their processes, while also generating data that can provide them with early economic guidance for the future scale-up of their applications. The RAMs system is capable of concentrating fluid streams by more than 10 times, and enables operators to evaluate a wide variety of membranes including inorganic, ceramic, stainless steel, and organic hollow fiber membranes. The system is also highly flexible, which makes it ideal for cross-flow filtration feasibility studies to compare the effectiveness of different membranes in specific applications. It also enables the design of cost-effective &ldquo;fit-for-purpose&rdquo; pilot-scale systems. DNP Green Technology and French agribusiness firm Agro-Industrie Recherches et D&eacute;veloppements restructured their joint venture, called Bioamber, where DNP Green acquired 100 percent ownership of the joint venture and ARD now becomes a shareholder in DNP Green.&nbsp; Concurrent with the acquisition of ARD&rsquo;s shares in the joint venture, DNP Green has officially changed its name to Bioamber Inc. Established as a 50/50 joint venture between DNP Green and ARD in 2008 to scale up and commercialize biobased succinic acid technology platforms, the decision for DNP Green to acquire ownership of the Bioamber joint venture was due to its evolving global business model to commercialize biobased succinic acid, according to Mike Hartmann, vice president of corporate affairs for Bioamber Inc. Share your industry briefs To be included in Business Briefs, send information (including photos and logos if available) to: Industry Briefs, Biorefining, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203. You may also fax information to (701) 746-8385, or e-mail it to rkotrba@bbiinternational.com. Please include your name and telephone number in all correspondence.</div>

Business Briefs: People, Partnerships & Deals

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program was established in the 2008 Farm Bill, but experienced some delays on the road to implementation. With the release of the USDA&rsquo;s final rules, BCAP is now ready and able to help expedite the development of second-generation biobased technologies. The program essentially provides incentives to interested farmers, ranchers and forest landowners to establish and cultivate biomass crops as feedstock in approved biorefineries for conversion into heat, power, biobased products or biofuels. According to the USDA, many biomass crops will take several years to become fully established, while the majority of bioenergy facilities will need several years to reach commercial production. &ldquo;BCAP serves as a catalyst to unite these multiple dynamics by reducing financial risk for landowners who switch from familiar, revenue-generating crops to new, unconventional crops in preparation for these emerging markets,&rdquo; the agency states. To participate in the program, crop producers can team up with bioenergy producers and submit applications to the USDA. Accepted applications will be selected as BCAP project areas. If selected, crop producers are eligible for reimbursements totaling up to 75 percent of the cost to establish a bioenergy perennial crop. Qualified producers can also receive up to five years of annual payments for grassy crops, both annual and perennial; while producers of annual or perennial woody crops can receive up to 15 years of annual payments. Assistance is also available for the collection, harvest, storage and transport of biomass to qualified biomass conversion facilities. Farmers participating in that component of the program can receive a dollar-for-dollar matching payment, up to $45 per ton, for the delivery cost for a period of two years. Poet LLC expects to see immediate positive impacts due to the impact of BCAP, says Jim Sturdevant, director of Poet&rsquo;s cellulosic ethanol initiative, Project Liberty. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a fantastic boost for farmers to get in the game of biomass harvesting,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Sometimes, when you are asking someone to do something they&rsquo;ve never done before, a little extra incentive goes a long way. BCAP is that incentive to help these early adopters.&rdquo; Project Liberty is designed to use corn residues as feedstock for cellulosic ethanol production. All 85 farmers that Poet currently has contracted to supply feedstock to Project Liberty are expected to participate in the dollar-for-dollar matching component, Sturdevant says. &ldquo;[This component of] BCAP is a two-year program, so these farmers can take advantage of it for another year as well,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;For new farmers that might be getting into it for the first time next year, they will also have a chance to stay in the program for two years. We happen to be paying farmers about $40 a bone-dry ton this fall, and BCAP means that farmers can double their money this fall. They&rsquo;ll get a match for the full amount. It&rsquo;s a very attractive program to get these farmers into the game and get them to invest in equipment that maybe they didn&rsquo;t have before. It just helps the economics to clear this hurdle.&rdquo; According to Sturdevant, Poet was very pleased with the components of the final BCAP rule. The only alteration to the current program that it would like to see is to have it continue on through the next Farm Bill, he says. A new Farm Bill is drafted every five years, which means time is ticking on the 2008 version that originally established BCAP. Without an extension, the program will expire. &ldquo;We would like to see it continue to grow our biofuels industry, and an absolutely essential component of that industry is feedstock,&rdquo; Sturdevant says.&nbsp; &mdash;Erin Voegele

The long-awaited final rule for BCAP finally released

Enabling a New Industry

Distillers dried grains with solubles may be an established animal feed, but Laurel Biocomposite LLC in Nebraska has found that DDGS are a viable feedstock for creating its trademarked biobased resin enhancer, LignoMAXX. Using lignin-conversion technology patented in New Zealand, Laurel Biocomposite&rsquo;s LignoMAXX is described as a resin enhancer, as opposed to a resin filler in traditional thermoplastic or thermoset applications. In bulk molding trial runs where LignoMAXX had a 25 percent inclusion rate, replacing a portion of calcium carbonate and petroleum-derived resins in some thermoset applications, the end product was 11 percent lighter and 11 percent stronger, according to president Tim Bearnes. &ldquo;The bulk density of our product is lighter than some of the materials that are being used today,&rdquo; Bearnes says. &ldquo;For example, calcium carbonate has a bulk density of three, and LignoMAX has a bulk density of one.&rdquo; Although the majority of work involves DDGS, the company intends to use nonfood-based agricultural waste like corn stover and wood wastes such as wood chips when economically feasible, he says. &ldquo;We started with DDGS because of handling and availability all year round for that material.&rdquo; A site has been identified in Laurel, Neb., for the company&rsquo;s first LignoMAXX production facility. Once built, it would require about 40 million tons of DDGS annually to produce 34 to 36&nbsp; million pounds of LignoMaxx yearly, Bearnes says. Prime customers for its LignoMAXX would be plastic or composite decking and plastic pallet manufacturers.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

How DDGS could become a viable feedstock for biobased resin enhancers

Maximizing Value 

The film titled &ldquo;Cool It&rdquo; is based on the writings and lectures of economist Bjorn Lomborg. Rather than portraying doomsday predictions of the world&rsquo;s environmental future, the documentary showcases green scientific solutions being developed today to solve current and future environmental problems. The documentary showcases a wide variety of green technologies, including solar, wind and wave power, fuel cells and algae biofuels, being developed by some of the world&rsquo;s leading scientific minds. Regarding algae, the film specifically highlights NASA&rsquo;s biobased jet fuel initiative. &nbsp;According to the film, algae biofuels show real potential in creating a replacement for liquid fuels, with the added benefit of leveraging existing fossil fuel infrastructure. In fact, a NASA researcher appearing in the film notes that approximately 10.5 million acres of algae cultivation would be enough to offset the use of petroleum-based jet fuel. While 10.5 million acres sounds like a lot of space, it is roughly equal to a 125-mile by 125-mile square of land&mdash;making it a completely feasible solution. The overarching message of the film is that we as a global community should not focus on fear and the world&rsquo;s demise, when it comes to the environment. Rather, the focus should be on renewable energy development, cutting-edge technologies and adaption measures that will have a positive impact the future. &ldquo;Cool It&rdquo; was released nationwide Nov. 12. Additional information on the film is available at www.coolit-themovie.com.&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

New documentary targets solutions-oriented approach

Reframing the Climate Debate

To make it big as an advanced biofuel developer, there are plenty of paths to follow. But considering the amount of resources and time expended in air travel, it&rsquo;s fairly&nbsp; apparent that if the U.S. military (and maybe even the USDA) has anything to say about it, success might be spelled J-E-T. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced a five-year agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration &ldquo;to develop aviation fuel from forest and crop residues and other &lsquo;green&rsquo; feedstocks in order to decrease dependence on foreign oil and stabilize aviation costs.&rdquo; The partnership will analyze a number of feedstocks that could be used in biorefineries to produce renewable jet fuels. Cobalt Technologies has already started working on it. Through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with the U.S. Navy, the biobutanol developer will work to create a successful production technology suited for that three letter word. If the California-based company succeeds, the agreement will allow Cobalt exclusive license to commercialize the process. In the meantime, the FAA agreement will develop a tool that will examine feedstock supply chain components, including biomass availability, potential of various biomasses and the amount of time it will take to get to full-scale production.&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

The U.S. military isn't alone in its pursuit of renewable jet fuel

Success Spelled with 3 Letters

Best-growing practices for Freedom Giant Miscanthus, unique renewable fuel production pathways and everything in between were covered in the biorefining breakout sessions at BBI International&rsquo;s Southeast Biomass Conference &amp; Expo in Atlanta. Nearly 600 people registered for the show. If you missed it, here&rsquo;s a CliffsNotes-style recap. The Freedom variety of Giant Miscanthus was the topic of Phillip Jennings&rsquo; talk.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s CEO of Repreve Renewables, which developed a salt-tolerant variety that grows wonderfully on marginal soils. With operations in Soperton, Ga., Repreve Renewables has 400 acres of the C4 tall grass planted. Phillip Steele, a Mississippi State University professor, discussed two-stage hydroprocessing of bio-oil from fast pyrolysis of biomass. &ldquo;[Bio-oil] is a recalcitrant chemical compound with a lot of water,&rdquo; Steele said. Once the second stage is completed, however, water and oxygen content are eliminated and the acidity is lowered to a neutral pH. His advice for project developers is, &ldquo;Work out a pyrolysis process, get a market for boiler fuel going and get cash flowing, then think about hydrocarbons for on-road fuel.&rdquo;&nbsp; After anaerobic digestion to get a methane-rich gas, Jeff Sherman, an executive with GRT Inc., said his company&rsquo;s BTF Process to turn biomass into fuel involves a bromine-mediated light alkalane conversion. &ldquo;Instead of using oxygen to activate the methane molecule, we use bromine,&rdquo; Sherman said. &ldquo;A zeolite catalyst couples them together&hellip;&rdquo; BTF is a three-step process, he said, and is simple, requiring no reformer or air separation. Well-known Auburn professor David Bransby overviewed today&rsquo;s emerging technologies. He warned the U.S. must pay attention to what other countries are doing, or get left behind. Senior chemist at National Renewable Energy Lab, David Johnson, spoke on converting lignin to hydrocarbon fuels, the improvements of which still needed include better control of hydroprocessing catalysts, and lowering the cost of base recycling. Growing enough biomass in a given area to feed algae was what Don Llewellyn, assistant professor at Eastern Kentucky University, talked about. His project is investigating locating a biorefinery in Clark County, Ky., around which enough biomass can be grown and broken down to feed enough heterotrophic, bioreactor-grown algae to produce 50 MMgy of oil a year. Enzymes to break down pectin, or pectinases, found in the hind gut of the crane fly was the topic of discussion, along with the modified yeast AJP50, for Joy Doran Peterson, associate professor at University of Georgia. Alan Lawson, president and CEO of Georgia Alternative Fuels, said his company is developing an electrochemical process that creates a free radical chain reaction, &ldquo;the propagation effect.&rdquo; He said, &ldquo;It takes off at the speed of light. &hellip; We let the free radical reaction take care of the dirty work.&rdquo;&nbsp; Food waste is much less recalcitrant than lignin, the reason that David Stewart, president of Citrus Energy LLC, said he&rsquo;s moving in that direction. The cost of enzymes to break down the fruit waste is 30 cents a gallon compared to $1 a gallon for corn stover. Focusing on the C6 sugars and standard yeast, he said Citrus Energy achieves 60 gallons a ton. Jerry Horton, president of Sweetwater Energy Inc., talked about his company&rsquo;s SweetMachines, which process high-moisture biomass onsite into a concentrated sugar stream with syrup-like consistency for delivery to a local ethanol processor. &nbsp;&mdash;Ron Kotrba

A recap of the Southeast Biomass Conference

In Case You Missed the Show

A team of chemical engineers at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville have discovered gold. Although neither the type or amount that one might associate with Hollywood films like &ldquo;The Pirates of the Caribbean,&rdquo; the findings from their research could potentially unravel a new layer of value specific to the biochemical industry. UVA chemical engineer Robert Davis, along with colleague Matthew Neurock, found that gold and other precious metal nanoparticles exhibit high catalytic reactivity when placed in alkaline water. Armed with their expertise in catalytic chemistry, they studied the mechanism for oxidizing ethanol and glycerol, which coproduced intermediate chemicals in their salt states, such as acetic and glyceric acids. The researchers submitted a paper on the subject, titled, &ldquo;Reactivity of the Gold/Water Interface During Selective Oxidation Catalysis,&rdquo; which appeared in the October issue of Science. According to Davis, the team observed about a 60 percent yield of glyceric acid and 70 percent yield of acetic acid in their salt forms from glycerol and ethanol, respectively. &ldquo;However, we never ran the reactions to complete conversion of glycerol or ethanol, so the yields are conservative,&rdquo; he says. Acetic acid, one of the simplest carboxylic acids, is a valuable chemical reagent and industrial building block that can be used for production of polyethylene terephthalate, glues and as a food additive. Glyceric acid, a derivative of glycolic acid, is often used as a facial peel and chemical exfoliant. Prior to the completion of their project, it wasn&rsquo;t fully understood how water could play a role in the oxidation catalysis of alcohols, according to Davis. He adds that because petroleum and many petroleum-derived products aren&rsquo;t water-soluble, water wasn&rsquo;t generally considered to be an effective solvent. With that in mind, Davis and his team embarked on a mechanistic study to understand and demonstrate the role of hydroxyl groups in water for the oxidation process. &ldquo;We saw the important role water had as a contributor to the oxidation reaction, specifically oxidation of carbon monoxide to form carbon dioxide via a gas phase reaction,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;Since water played a key role, we decided to start looking at the role of gold in liquid water. That&rsquo;s important for biorefining because the molecules from renewable resources are water soluble, which is different than standard petroleum refining processes that aren&rsquo;t water soluble.&rdquo; Davis says the research team has studied the oxidation reaction in semi-batch and fixed-bed reactors. With the ability to recover the catalyst, one might think it would be easily scalable, but there are a few glaring issues. &ldquo;The capital cost of using gold is very high,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;The other issues are that the acids are actually salts of the acid because they&rsquo;re high pH, so the recovery of the acid isn&rsquo;t trivial either because you have to neutralize the solution.&rdquo; As for further research, Davis says the team intends to refine the process with the absence of a base &ldquo;because that&rsquo;s going to be a real cost issue if we have to consume base to do this, and then neutralize with other acids to recover it,&rdquo; he adds. Another possibility would be to use air instead of pure oxygen, which he doesn&rsquo;t foresee being an issue. &ldquo;Using air in the absence of base would be our future goals and improving selectivities,&rdquo; he says. &mdash;Bryan Sims

A Golden Opportunity

The two companies first announced their partnership to build an industrial biochemical plant and biotechnology research and development facility in May. The final agreement just signed means the project is ready to proceed. Initial research and development efforts for the project are expected to focus on the manufacture of isoprene to support Malaysia&rsquo;s rubber industry. GlycosBio will now being evaluating partners for construction. The facility is scheduled for operation in 2012. &ldquo;For Malaysia, isoprene is a strategic product because of the large domestic latex industry, so that&rsquo;s where we plan to focus much of our R&amp;D efforts,&rdquo; says GlycosBio CEO Richard Cilento. Bio-XCell CEO Raja Ridzwa Aziz says the partnership with GlycosBio will open opportunities for his company. &ldquo;This partnership will enhance our significance as a regional biotech hub for industrial and healthcare biotechnology,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; &mdash;Erin Voegele

Another Step Forward

While there may be several cellulosic ethanol projects in the mid to late stages of development, two world-renowned firms are in the early stages of their projects, with ambitions of spurring economic vitality and helping fulfill RFS2 mandates. The DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol LLC joint venture is in the process of evaluating sites for its first commercial-scale production facility called &ldquo;Project Blackhawk.&rdquo; DDCE is scanning potential sites in the Midwest for its proposed 25 to 50 MMgy corn stover-fed facility, with Iowa under serious consideration. Representatives from DDCE presented a full application on the project to the state&rsquo;s economic development funding arm, the Iowa Power Fund board, which agreed to continue negotations on the project, according to Don Tormey, public information and communications director for the Iowa Office of Energy Independence. &ldquo;DDCE wants to have a decision made by the board no later than the end of January 2011,&rdquo; he says. Upon approval, the cellulosic ethanol plant would take about 18 months to complete construction with anticipated commercial operations in 2013, according to DDCE corporate communications director Jennifer Hutchins. Funding for a 50 MMgy plant would require about $300 million in capital costs but, unlike other commercial cellulosic projects, Hutchins says DDCE isn&rsquo;t relying on significant financial aid to complete the project. &ldquo;The majority of the capital investment will primarily come from the parent companies [DuPont and Danisco],&rdquo; she says, adding that it could potentially receive $30 million in Iowa state incentives. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not looking for large capital investments from the government.&rdquo; She adds that DDCE would need about 550,000 tons of corn stover annually, harvested from about 275,000 acres of land, for the 50 MMgy plant. Meanwhile, Archer Daniels Midland Co. is moving closer to breaking ground on its proposed corn stover-fed cellulosic ethanol in Decatur, Ill. In addition to ethanol, ADM plans to produce biobased ethyl acrylate, a compound used to make plastics, adhesives, coatings and other materials. Expected annual capacity of cellulosic ethanol and ethyle acrylate weren&rsquo;t disclosed. The facility, which would be located adjacent to ADM&rsquo;s existing 300 MMgy ethanol plant, has cleared approval by the county board and the city council, according to Decatur economic development corporation president, Craig Coil. It is in final stages of expanding an enterprise zone to accommodate the project. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re now looking at the boundary modification application request through the state department of commerce and awaiting their approval,&rdquo; he says. According to Coil, the proposed expansion would have an estimated completion in July 2012. ADM intends to leverage a $24.8 million U.S. DOE grant to fund the project, Coil says, along with various state and tax credits and exemptions. &mdash;Bryan Sims

How two cellulosic ethanol projects are coming closer to breaking ground

The Race Is On 

The Global Biofuels Alliance was established to serve as a voice for small- and medium-sized companies active in the biofuels sector. Representing a wide range of industry players, including producers, traders, marketers, distributors and other interested parties, the group is focused on building support for all biobased diesel replacements, including biodiesel and renewable diesel. Founding board member Wade Randlett says the alliance&rsquo;s most pressing goal is the reinstatement of the biodiesel tax credit. &ldquo;The biodiesel credit is the only means of leveling the playing field between petroleum diesel and renewable diesel,&rdquo; he says. The second component of its mission is to ensure that the potential of new second-generation technologies are understood and valued. &ldquo;We think that there is a new wave of technology, as well as business model innovation, that is going to occur so long as there is some leveling of the playing field between renewables and petroleum diesel,&rdquo; Randlett says. He also stresses that the alliance will serve and support both first- and second-gen biofuels technologies. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re stalwart defenders of virgin vegetable oil for biodiesel, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean that it is the only product or only way of making a diesel replacement,&rdquo; he says, noting that rather than a compete turnover to second- and third-generation technologies, the alliance is expecting the industry to broaden, to encompass a wide range of technologies, processes, and feedstocks.&nbsp; &mdash;Erin Voegele

A new trade association takes on Washington to build support for biobased diesel replacements

Pushing for Advancement 

Any fears biobutanol producers may have had regarding public acceptance, future use or a general misunderstanding of its potential could be coming to an end. For some time, biobased butanol producers and supporters like Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC or Gevo Inc. have touted its advantages compared to ethanol. Butamax boasts its biobutanol&rsquo;s ability for higher blend concentrations in gasoline, which then creates a higher level of renewable energy in every gallon of fuel. In addition, a product like Butamax&rsquo;s requires zero modifications to automobiles and infrastructure, putting the product into the gold-standard class of drop-in fuels. Gevo, the Colorado-based company, also points out its product&rsquo;s high energy density qualities and drop-in capabilities, and says the isobutanol it produces has characteristics that make it attractive to urban gasoline markets, where ozone level requirements under the Clean Air Act constitute the use of low Reid Vapor Pressure fuels. All of that sounds good but now, people (important people) are not only listening, but they&rsquo;re taking biobutanol-based action. In Brazil, a country that knows a thing or two about biofuel development, U.K.-based Butamax has opened a biobutanol technology laboratory to research and eventually engineer a biobutanol production method utilizing, you guessed it, sugarcane. In Brazil where a broad biofuel plan based on sugarcane ethanol exists, one could argue a new facility, especially one that produces a different product, might get a cold reception. &ldquo;On the contrary,&rdquo; says Tim Potter, Butamax CEO. &ldquo;Brazil&rsquo;s understanding of the ethanol biofuels industry has enabled advanced discussions on how biobutanol production could offer an export opportunity for mill owners in Brazil.&rdquo; Support for Butamax&rsquo;s product doesn&rsquo;t end in Brazil either. Butamax has R&amp;D operations on four continents, where Potter says efforts are collaborative.&nbsp; Butamax isn&rsquo;t the only company to get approval by a major player in the biofuels industry, either. The U.S. EPA has approved Gevo&rsquo;s isobutanol, listing its fuel as the first-ever isobutanol in the agency&rsquo;s Fuel Registration Directory as an additive for gasoline blending. While it may not be a household term yet, could biobutanol be the next best available biofuel? If it&rsquo;s any indication, support from countries like Brazil or entities like EPA could be showing that all those advantages highlighted by Butamax and Gevo could be something soon discussed during the evening meal.&nbsp; &mdash;Luke Geiver

New developments in the biobutanol world take root

Biobutanol: The Next Best Advanced Biofuel? 

Most have heard projections that suggest energy demand will grow significantly, possibly doubling by 2030. Hawaii is sunny and lined with beaches, and most know this too. Pyrolysis oil development for transportation fuel in Kapolei, Hawaii, however, may not be known&mdash;but it needs to be. Envergent Technologies, a Honeywell Company, specializes in running a fast thermal process known as RTP. During the process, &ldquo;biomass is rapidly heated to approximately 500 degrees Celsius in the absence of oxygen,&rdquo; says Mark Reno, managing director. &ldquo;As the biomass moves through the unit, a tornado of hot sand vaporizes it and the product is then rapidly quenched to yield 65 to 75 percent pyrolysis oil (by weight).&rdquo; The result is a pourable liquid that can be used as fuel for industrial heat or electrical generation. It can also be used as a feedstock for drop-in transportation fuel, and Envergent is using a U.S. DOE grant to make it happen in Hawaii. The company is engineering a working demonstration facility for operation by 2013, but before that, it plans to have the process for upgrading pyrolysis oil to transportation fuel perfected. The upgrade, Reno says, requires an additional refining step that looks a lot like hydroprocessing in a traditional refinery, where hydrogen is used to remove oxygen from the feedstock and the product is further isomerized (the chemical compounds are restructured) to meet the product specs sought. There are difficulties in making this process available by the scheduled completion date, but don&rsquo;t expect these plans to fade off into the sunset. &ldquo;The biggest challenge in this work is to select the combination of upgrading steps that achieve the objective in a cost-effective way at this scale,&rdquo; Reno says. Luckily, he points out, the chemistry is fairly straight forward. Envergent will also have access to process technology expertise from omnipresent Honeywell UOP, in selecting the best methods to go from pyrolysis oil possibility to a transportation fuel truth on the Big Island. &mdash;Luke Geiver

Why pyrolysis oil has found a home in Kapolei

The Truth about Hawaii

Although most plastic components found in today&rsquo;s automobiles are petroleum-derived, serious efforts are underway worldwide to mass-produce renewable alternatives to complement, or some day substitute, them.&nbsp; Greencol Taiwan Corp., a 50/50 joint venture between China Man-Made Fiber Corp. and Toyota Tsusho Corp., the trading arm of Toyota Group, is building a 100,000 metric ton biobased ethylene facility in Kaoshiung, Taiwan. Using ethylene as a building block molecule, GTC will produce biobased monoethylene glycol, a monomer that&rsquo;s used with purified terephthalic acid to make polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The ethylene plant will feed existing ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol plants at the site, which have been transferred from Man Made China Corp. to the GTC joint venture. Wilmington, N.C.-based Chemtex International Inc. will engineer and build the plant while Petron Scientech Inc. is the process technology provider. Specifically, Toyota Tsusho will manage the upstream and downstream aspects of the project, including supplying the facility with sugarcane-derived ethanol imported from Brazil as feedstock, production of biobased monoethylene glycol (MEG) and market it from GTC to various PET manufacturers where it will off-take the biobased PET on a tolling basis, to be sold to end users in Japan, Europe and the U.S. As the final application for its biobased PET, Toyota Tsusho intends to sell biobased PET-derived textiles for vehicle interiors and resins for beverage bottles, including using bio PET for vehicle interiors developed together with Toyota Motor Corp. GTC says it has received all the necessary environmental approvals to go ahead with the project, which is anticipated to come online by first quarter 2012. &ldquo;GTC will become the first domestic manufacturing company that will produce bioethylene derivatives,&rdquo; says GTC chairman Kyle Wang. &ldquo;High-purity bioethylene oxide is a main intermediate chemical for the production of a variety of surfactants, and bioethylene glycol is a major raw material for antifreeze and PET pellets and filaments.&rdquo; According to Toyota Tsusho, the world demand for PET stood at 45 million tons in 2009. &ldquo;We expect the growth ratio of PET demand will be around 8 percent per annum due to new demand coming from developing countries during the next five years, so world PET demand will be 60 million tons per year as of 2015,&rdquo; the company said in a public statement. Additionally, Toyota Tsusho anticipates between 2.25 million to 3 million tons a year of biobased PET production is needed to penetrate the global market. For EPCs such as Chemtex, being involved in projects like this is a welcoming sign of a new and burgeoning client base within the global chemical sector. And, the firm looks to accommodate its build-out accordingly, says Dennis Leong, executive vice president and global business development manager for Chemtex International. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of interest in this field right now,&rdquo; Leong says, adding that facilities of this nature are profitable entities. &ldquo;These plants are competitive on a stand-alone basis because of their drop-in capacity,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;They can make good sense.&rdquo;&nbsp; &mdash;Bryan Sims

Making a Dent

Nebraska could become America&rsquo;s next fuel tank. At least that&rsquo;s what Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., said after USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the University of Nebraska-Lincoln would be the new home for a Regional Biofuels Feedstocks Research and Demonstration Center. Soon to be one of five regional centers, the Lincoln location will be led by USDA&rsquo;s Agricultural Research Service, and more importantly, it will help develop and construct future biorefineries. Nelson&rsquo;s remarks about the potential of the Nebraska facility may soon be echoed, as other locations have been identified in Madison, Wis., Maricopa, Ariz., and Pullman, Wash., in conjunction with Corvallis, Ore., and a southeastern center consisting of Boonesville, Ark., Tifton, Ga., and Auburn Ala.&nbsp; On Oct. 21, Vilsack announced that within 60 days, the Rural Development office of the USDA will announce funding &ldquo;of a specific biorefinery or bioenergy plant in each of the regions.&rdquo; The construction will begin in 2011 and for the effect of this measure, Vilsack said it best: &ldquo;The entire country can begin to see the economic benefit to producers and the job creation potential of the biofuel/bioenergy industry.&rdquo; &mdash;Luke Geiver

Obama's Biofuels Interagency Working Group called for them. Now, they're here

America's Future Biofuels Hotspots

Biobased chemicals and polymers derived from corn or wood or a hundred other biomasses are highly touted as potential game-changers in the chemicals sector. Through the years, many of the prominent initiatives in biobased chemicals and polymers, such as NatureWorks&rsquo; polylactic acid and DuPont Tate &amp; Lyle&rsquo;s 1,3 propanediol, relied on industrial biotechnology platforms like fermentation or biocatalytic techniques as springboards to bring their products to market.&nbsp; Building on those successes, several chemical companies are employing novel chemocatalytic approaches via high-throughput screening (HTS) experimentation as a tool to help them identify catalysts to make new intermediate and platform chemicals from biomass. HTS experimentation involves sophisticated robotics, data processing and control software, liquid handling devices and sensitive detectors for chemists to rapidly conduct hundreds, thousands or even millions of biochemical screening experiments. &nbsp; One firm that actively uses HTS experimentation methods in its technology platform is Amsterdam-based Avantium, which also provides high-throughput equipment and services for chemical and pharmaceutical clients. Specifically, the biochemical producer uses a parallel catalyst testing platform called Nanoflow for its catalyst development work. The company inherited the basis of the technology from oil conglomerate Royal Dutch Shell, from which Avantium was formed. It subsequently advanced the technology and developed several proprietary features to enable the testing of heterogeneous catalysts under industrial conditions. The use of its Nanoflow technology, according to Chief Technology Officer Gert-Jan Gruter, allows the company to run many experiments within its 64 fixed-bed lab-scale reactors as effectively and economically as petrochemical platforms. &ldquo;By using a chemocatalytic route we can keep all the six carbons in the product,&rdquo; Gruter tells Biorefining. &ldquo;You can generally optimize and fine-tune these heterogeneous catalysts relatively easily compared to genetically modifying enzymes.&rdquo; The use of HTS in its technology platform has been essential to Avantium&rsquo;s goals of creating a biobased alternative to petroleum-derived polyethylene terephthalate (PET) by using biobased ethylene glycol, and replacing purified terephthalic acid (PTA) with its platform chemical 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). According to a 2004 U.S. DOE report, FDCA was listed as one of the top 12 biobased building blocks. As a way to get to FDCA, however, a bifunctional furan is needed as an intermediate. Traditionally, chemists have gotten the sugar molecule hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) as a primary product. But HMF has its drawbacks, according to Gruter. &ldquo;The problem with HMF is that, under the conditions where it&rsquo;s formed, the acidic conditions in the presence of water, HMF reacts further to form levulinic acid,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It cannot be isolated easily. It also dissolves quite well in water and it cannot be distilled easily, so it&rsquo;s not an ideal target to work on.&rdquo; Gruter credits the company&rsquo;s Nanoflow technology for coming up with a catalyst to make methoxymethylfurfural (MMF), a stable alternative to HMF from glucose and fructose. This has allowed Avantium to oxidize MMF to make FDCA, Gruter says. &ldquo;Essentially, we have a primary step where we convert the sugars to HMF derivates, like MMF, and then in the second step we can either convert them into furan-based fuel components or into FDCA as chemical building blocks to potentially replace terephthalic acid used to make PET.&rdquo; Avantium calls its furanic chemistry platform &ldquo;YXY.&rdquo; The company has teamed with NatureWorks to help commercialize its furanics along with NatureWorks&rsquo; parent company, Cargill Inc., for access to starch-based sources such as syrups. The company started construction of a pilot plant in October to produce its furanics-based monomers and polymers beginning early next year. Gruter says Avantium also intends to use lignocellulosic biomass feedstock, where economically and technically feasible. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Eyeing Adipic Acid While Avantium uses HTS to accelerate its furanic-based chemistry for biobased chemicals and fuels, Menlo Park, Calif.-based Rennovia Inc. is working to utilize its HTS capabilities to develop chemocatalytic methods to produce existing major chemicals. One chemical Rennovia is focused on is adipic acid, which represents a 4.8 billion pound global market, according to Chemical Market Associates Inc. Adipic acid is a monomer used to manufacture nylon 6,6 fibers and resins, adipate esters and polyurethanes. The per-pound selling price for adipic acid is about $1.25, according to ICIS Chemical Pricing.&nbsp; Unlike adipic acid produced from cyclohexane feedstock by petrochemical refiners, Rennovia&rsquo;s chemocatalytic process uses glucose, which is converted into a glucarate intermediate via catalytic oxidation. The glucaric acid is then converted into adipic acid using a selective hydrogenation process with water as a byproduct. There are other companies that have identified adipic acid&rsquo;s market potential, but Rennovia CEO Bob Wedinger says he believes his company is the first to use a chemocatayltic pathway via HTS experimentation. The company believes that high space-time yields, temperature, solvent flexibility, high carbon efficiencies and low costs of product isolation are technical characteristics that make chemocatalysis the preferred method over fermentation-based techniques for high-volume chemical production, Wedinger says. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re doing fermentation, you have to keep the bugs alive&rdquo; he says, adding that employing chemocatalysis methods can be more readily used in existing petrochemical assets than fermentative approaches. &ldquo;We have a lot more flexibility where we can run at higher pressures, high or lower temperatures, pH flexibility and so forth. It gives us more degrees of freedom.&rdquo; Based on this knowledge, Rennovia developed its own structure for high-throughput R&amp;D into catalysts that can automatically synthesize and screen about 2,000 catalyst formulations per week using HTS experimentation, according to Wedinger. The company exploits its high-throughput expertise to compress the time and cost of early-stage catalyst discovery, and to develop and establish broad intellectual property&nbsp; coverage around its platform technologies. The chemical catalysis used in the two later stages of Rennovia&rsquo;s adipic acid technology were developed by Rennovia's&nbsp; founders, Tom Boussie and Vince Murphy, who were formerly with Symyx Technologies, a company in the field of high-throughput technology for catalyst, and other chemicals and materials, development. Wedinger believes that adapting traditional petrochemical processes for renewable feedstock conversion is the fastest, lowest risk and the most cost-effective path to successful commercial adoption. &ldquo;The further away from the refinery we get, the better advantage we have versus the existing petrochemical processes,&rdquo; Wedinger says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why we chose product targets like adipic acid, where we&rsquo;ll have a significant cost advantage.&rdquo; Wedinger says the company plans to move out of lab-pilot stage with demonstration-scale development expected by 2012 with a commercial plant by 2014. The firm also intends to use existing infrastructure for its feedstock supply, including tapping into the oversupplied high-fructose corn syrup capacity. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Getting to Glucaric Acid While it may not utilize HTS experimentation like Avantium and Rennovia, Rivertop Renewables leverages a different approach to making its glucaric acid from glucose. Based on 10 years of research that began at the University of Montana, Rivertop Renewables employs a proprietary process that utilizes nitric acid ito oxidize sugars wihtin a catalytic process, according to Tyler Smith, the company&rsquo;s research and development director. &ldquo;Ultimately, we&rsquo;re consuming oxygen and glucose so, from that standpoint, it&rsquo;s a catalytic process,&rdquo; he says, adding that the oxidation platform is adaptable to feedstock beyond glucose, such as sucrose and xylose. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not screening hundreds of different catalysts or anything like that. That&rsquo;s not our game.&rdquo; In addition to glucaric acid, the company is also investigating xylaric, arabinaric and mannaric acids, which are derived from sugars extracted from woody biomass, to make a range of bioproducts and polymers. Early markets for its glucaric acid include being used as a substitute for phosphates in detergents, corrosion inhibitors for road salt deicers and a sequestering agent for a wide variety of metals. The company, according to Smith, sees its glucaric acid being a viable replacement to phosphates in detergents alone, representing a $10 billion market opportunity. &ldquo;One of the attractive points to our technology is that it&rsquo;s scalable and capital efficient,&rdquo; Smith says. &ldquo;A lot of people might look at our chemistry and say, &lsquo;Well that&rsquo;s not as sexy as some of the other chemistry,&rsquo; or maybe not as high-tech, but it&rsquo;s really about keeping it simple and getting the cost down to make it scalable.&rdquo; Rivertop has tripled the size of its lab-scale reactor and plans to build a pilot plant with an annual capacity of about 100,000 pounds, according to Smith. Complementary Chemistry &nbsp;Although companies like Avantium and Rennovia see chemocatalysis holding an edge over biotechnological platforms, the companies don&rsquo;t dispute how far industrial biotechnology has evolved over the years. In fact, companies like these are exploring the ability of chemical catalysis to assist and even expand the chemistry of biocatalysis. Incorporating biocatalytic and chemocatalytic steps into a reaction cascade could mimic biochemical pathways and enable value-added products to come out of one stream. Wedinger expects industrial biotechnology and chemocatalytic processes to coexist and even complement each other&mdash;enzymatic technology could be used to free up sugars and then, once those sugars are available, companies like Rennovia could step in and chemically convert them. &ldquo;There are some chemicals that will be more cost-effective to get from fermentation, and there are some chemicals that are more cost-effective from chemocatalysis,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If there&rsquo;s a raw material that&rsquo;s derived from fermentation that&rsquo;s a cost-effective route, and we take that and do further transformations on it, that&rsquo;s fine.&rdquo; Gruter echoes Wedinger&rsquo;s sentiments. &ldquo;We think converting polymeric carbohydrates like lignocelluloses, cellulose and hemicelluloses in that first step is where biocatalytic technology could play an important role,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The first step could be biotechnology and the second step could be to use our chemocatalysis route, which makes sense if you want to make chemicals or furan-based fuels.&rdquo; &nbsp; Author: Bryan Sims Associate Editor, Biorefining (701) 738-4974 <a title="Accelerating Industrial Biotechnology" href="mailto:bsims@bbiinternational.com" target="_blank">bsims@bbiinternational.com</a>

How catalytic approaches are being adopted by biobased chemical companies to accelerate product development 

Accelerating Industrial Biotechnology

The idea of growing a bioenergy-based industry, complete with region-specific biorefinieries exploiting geographic location with other environmental attributes makes perfect sense&mdash;almost. There&rsquo;s one problem though, and it has to do with the root of the issue. In the Iowas and Minnesotas of the world&mdash;places that year after year pump out agricultural products well-suited to producing energy in the form of biofuel or biopower&mdash;growing crops is essentially routine, a way of life. The evidence can be seen from the windows of almost any Midwestern farmhouse, where fields of corn, wheat, soybeans or an array of other crops well-suited to the region, stretch from horizon to horizon. But what about the dry, arid regions of the Southwest, or the coal-rich states in the Southeast, where the prospect of growing is much more complex than the plant, water, fertilize and wait process virtually perfected by farmers in the Midwest? A look out the window in those regions shows a different scene entirely, including white, cracked soil and sagebrush, or clear-cut mountain tops surrounded by dense, dark forest. Fortunately for the bioenergy industry, many believe that the future of the country&rsquo;s energy needs can be met by biorefineries spread throughout the nation, regardless of what the view outside the window is. A Coal-State Combination &ldquo;In West Virginia, we have abundant coal resources and a huge Appalachian forest to supply large amounts of biomass for biorefining and biopower applications,&rdquo; says Dr. Kaushlendra Singh, an assistant professor for the Davis College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Design at West Virginia University. &ldquo;We are in perfect shape to take advantage of our existing resources.&rdquo; And to take advantage of those resources, Singh and his team of researchers are working to make something that, he says, looks a lot like a piece of M&amp;M candy. That &ldquo;candy&rdquo; could also be described as a hybrid feedstock that combines two unlikely energy sources, coal and woody biomass, into one form (an outer shell and an inner shell, like the M&amp;M) that could be used in a wide range of energy operations. &ldquo;Coal and biomass are like two opposite poles of the earth and generally do not go along with each other,&rdquo; Singh says. Coal is an energy-rich fossil fuel, processed at very high temperatures producing large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG), mercury and sulfur emissions. On the other hand, he says, biomass is comparatively low in energy content, and uses low temperatures for processing. Someone asked Singh why they would want to add biomass to coal, which would mean putting a lot of GHGs into a renewable source. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;I was thinking the other way around,&rsquo;&rdquo; Singh says. According to him, the U.S. consumes nearly 48 percent crude oil and close to 28 percent coal to meet its energy needs, and the U.S. is the second largest producer of coal in the world. &ldquo;Why can&rsquo;t we substitute coal? If you add 20 to 30 percent biomass, you are tapping into that 28 percent consumption and you will reduce GHGs by the percentage (of biomass) you put in. It&rsquo;s just another way to look at things,&rdquo; Singh says. Singh, who has experience working on biorefining and biomass gasification and biomass liquefaction, has teamed up with Dr. John Zondlo, a chemical engineer with experience working on coal liquefaction research, and Dr. Jingxin Wang, an associate professor of forestry and wood science, who has worked with harvesting forest residues. The team&rsquo;s efforts, which began in September, are showing that innovation in the bioenergy industry can, and will, happen anywhere; and, the regional approach seems to be a great place to start. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been working with coal for the past 30 years,&rdquo; Zondlo says, &ldquo;so a lot of the equipment that we have for coal can translate to processing biomass and coal together.&rdquo; This should sound familiar to those in the Midwest who are utilizing existing infrastructure and equipment to gather and process corn stover, or other agricultural residue. &ldquo;This is very feasible,&rdquo; Zondlo says. &ldquo;The obstacles are going to be in gathering, transporting and treating the wood so it is compatible with coal, but I think the opportunity is tremendous.&rdquo; To capitalize on the opportunity, the team is working to develop a process to combine the coal and woody biomass into that candy-like format. The team plans to find that process through two separate projects. In the first, Singh says, the group is trying gasification to transform the coal-biomass combination into a Fischer Tropsch liquid fuel. The second project involves liquefaction where the team directly liquefies the combination to get a liquid fuel. The researchers are working on a process that heats the wood particles first, then adds coal directly to the mix, and lets it cool. This, Singh says, may bind the wood particles and coal together that will make the new particle possible for either method of fuel production. While the end-product would be a hybrid feedstock to create a hybrid fuel, the process to make that concoction is what the team is really after, Singh says.&nbsp; With a successful process, the end results could vary depending on the needs of the user. &ldquo;If you want to feed it through a coal-based system, the biomass content would be around 20 to 30 percent. But, when you are talking about a biomass-based system, you are talking about 80 percent biomass.&rdquo; At this point, the team has not calculated the GHG reduction levels of the hybrid feedstock or fuel, but Singh says for each percentage of biomass used, the GHG levels will go down. Wang is securing the woody biomass from WVU-based mills and Zondlo is providing the coal used for the research. The team hopes to complete its work in roughly a year and, although it is hesitant at this time to reveal any findings, they have formed a few combination feedstock pieces. &ldquo;I can tell everybody is very, very excited about the research,&rdquo; Wang says. &ldquo;Possibly, we can create a new industry of bioenergy.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Everyone Wants In WVU is not alone in its approach to utilizing locally available resources, or in its support of building out the bioindustrial sector. &ldquo;There has been over a billion dollars of economic development energy incentives that have been approved initially, and if all of those happen it would mean more than $17 billion of capital construction investment for new energy technologies of the future,&rdquo; says state Rep. Rocky Adkins, D-Ky. &ldquo;We want Kentucky to be looked at as the place to come to have your research and development done in the energy field,&rdquo; he says. What Adkins says about utilizing the state&rsquo;s resources may sound familiar. &ldquo;We are an agriculture state, and we are a coal state. And when we combine these two industries to complement each other, I can assure you that it is going to build a strong economy.&rdquo; And if it&rsquo;s not a coal-agriculture combination, it&rsquo;s something else. Eastern Kentucky University officially opened its Center for Renewable and Alternative Fuel Technology, where a process is being developed that starts with feedstock well-suited for the region such as switchgrass or Miscanthus, and then seeks to use that feedstock to feed a heterotrophic algae strain for eventual use in biofuel production. Rep. Ben Chandler, D-Ky., says the CRAFT center is one of the nation&rsquo;s best kept secrets and that the work being done at EKU is helping to form the region&rsquo;s new economy. &ldquo;This is an investment in our state,&rdquo; he says. And like Adkins powerful words that seemingly endorse the idea that anywhere in the country a biorefinery can create, produce and provide for a region&rsquo;s energy needs, this is what Chandler says: &ldquo;Consider for a moment what our region would look like if, right alongside our beautiful horse farms, our beef cattle farms, our crop land, we had farms producing feedstock for next-generation biofuels,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Now to me, that is a pretty picture.&rdquo; And that pretty sight Chandler is talking about isn&rsquo;t from a farmhouse in Minnesota or a grain operation in Iowa. This, remember, is a different region but, if coal-woody biomass works or algae development in the Southeast is any indication, the industry will grow&mdash;no matter where one looks. Author: Luke Geiver Associate Editor, Biorefining (701) 738-4944 <a href="mailto:lgeiver@bbiinternational.com" target="_blank">lgeiver@bbiinternational.com</a>

Local feedstock opportunities mean a diverse, ever-promising biorefining industry

Regional Work for Global Change

A primary goal of the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s loan guarantee program is to reduce risk, making clean renewable technologies more attractive to investors. To do this, the loan guarantee essentially leverages private investment by assuring lenders that, should the project fail and the company default on loan payments, the DOE will step in and reimburse the lender for its losses, up to a predetermined percentage. There are two different DOE loan guarantee programs&mdash;1703 and 1705&mdash;that those in the biorefining sector may wish to pursue. While the programs are largely similar, there are some significant differences that should be considered. &ldquo;1703 was created as part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 in order to support the deployment of innovative technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions,&rdquo; says Jonathan Silver, DOE&rsquo;s executive director of the Loan Programs Office, in testimony given in September at the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy &amp; Natural Resources hearing. The 1703 program is designed to be cost neutral to the government, and has been executed as a &ldquo;self pay&rdquo; program. This means that applicants are required to pay the credit subsidy cost associated with loan guarantees they secure under the program. &ldquo;The Section 1705 program was created as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to jumpstart the country&rsquo;s clean energy sector by supporting projects that had difficulty securing financing in a tight credit market,&rdquo; Silver says. One notable difference between the programs is that the 1705 program does not require applicants to pay the credit subsidy costs associated with a loan guarantee. However, Silver says in order to qualify for the guarantee projects, construction must begin by Sept. 30, 2011. &ldquo;DOE&rsquo;s authority to issue guarantees under 1705 expires on that date, as well,&rdquo; he says. While the private sector alone can provide the massive, sustained investment that is required for the widespread and large-scale deployment of new and innovative clean energy technologies, Silver says action in this area has been lacking. &ldquo;The private sector has not invested in clean energy at the scale necessary to drive meaningful change,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A fundamental impediment for investors in the clean energy space stems from the relatively high completion risks associated with clean energy projects, including, in particular, technology and execution risks. Private sector lenders have limited capacity or appetite to underwrite such risks on their own, particularly because large-scale clean energy projects are very capital-intensive and often require loans with unusually long tenors. Without the federal government&rsquo;s financial support, following a careful review of the underlying technology, many promising technologies may not get funded to reach commercial scale or scope.&rdquo; Silver says the loan programs were designed to address these impediments, and that loan guarantees lower the cost of capital for projects utilizing innovative technologies, making them more competitive with conventional technologies, thus more attractive to lenders and equity investors. &ldquo;Moreover,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;the programs leverage the department&rsquo;s expertise in technical due diligence, which private sector lenders are often unwilling or unable to conduct themselves.&rdquo; Limitations and Setbacks Although the goals of the DOE&rsquo;s loan guarantee programs are admirable, many in the biorefining industry are finding the programs ineffective. Approximately six applications for biofuel projects have been submitted. To date, none have been awarded a guarantee, although several have been awarded for other forms of advanced energy, including nuclear, wind and solar. There has been a great deal of speculation on why loan guarantee requests for biorefinery projects seem to be stalled. Some in the industry believe its structure stacks the odds against liquid fuel projects. Others sense that the DOE is hesitant to award loan guarantees to biofuel projects due to some embarrassing project failures in the 1970s and &lsquo;80s. Either way, the industry needs to be focused on finding a solution. One of the foremost complaints from the biorefining sector is that the loan guarantee process is excruciatingly slow, fragmented, and inefficient. BlueFire Renewables Inc. recently moved into the second stage of the application process. &ldquo;From the time we first submitted the application for the loan guarantee until we were accepted for part two, they did quite a bit of due diligence,&rdquo; says BlueFire CEO Arnie Klann. &ldquo;We ended up answering a lot of questions, we had to give them more information, and many times duplicate information because it was either lost or disseminated,&rdquo; due to the fact that many of the program&rsquo;s reviewers are contracted from the private sector. &ldquo;Now we&rsquo;re in part two and we&rsquo;re getting those same questions asked again&hellip;which is very disconcerting because it&rsquo;s a time waster.&rdquo; The slow advance of the review process is especially frustrating for BlueFire because the company has already been awarded approximately $88 million in DOE grant money for the same project for which it is seeking a loan guarantee. &ldquo;That involved a very rigorous due diligence process, which is now largely being repeated.&rdquo; Klann says it would be helpful if some of the due diligence work could be transferred between DOE offices to expedite the process. In addition, Klann notes that the hurdles and criteria DOE has set for the loan guarantee program are simply not realistic for first-of-their-kind technologies in the biorefining sector. One example is the requirement that applicants have long-term off-take agreements for both product and feedstock. The requirement handicaps liquid fuel projects when compared to renewable electricity projects. This is because such off-take agreements are common in the power sector. Liquid fuels are bought and sold as commodities on the spot market, however. Klann says BlueFire has managed to put these agreements in place, but notes many other projects have struggled to meet the requirement. The Sept. 30 drop-dead date for the 1705 program also poses a problem. The program has a longer timeline than many other funding programs authorized by the Recovery Act, Klann mentions, which has decreased some of the DOE&rsquo;s urgency in reviewing applications and issuing guarantees. It is also problematic because it&rsquo;s delaying projects that are shovel-ready. &ldquo;We could be sitting here, literally, another 11 months before we have a loan guarantee. The question is how do you sustain all your permits, all your contracts? We have contracts that are time sensitive, particularly for the construction of the project. The price will change&hellip;If the department moves too slowly on this program, many projects are that are shovel-ready are going to die, and the companies supporting them are going to die.&rdquo; Complicating Financial Matters The loan guarantee programs, first and foremost, are designed to help jump-start commercial technologies that will serve the nation&rsquo;s best interest, says Michael McAdams, president of the advanced biofuels association. &ldquo;If the whole point of having a loan guarantee program&mdash;from a policy standpoint, according to congress&mdash;is to try to deploy these new technologies for national objectives, then the program needs to have a different set of requirements than a commercial bank,&rdquo; McAdams says. &ldquo;The way the program is currently functioning, there is not a significant differential between the requirements of a commercial bank and the requirements of this program. Period.&rdquo; Many investors that want to be involved in biorefinery projects are depending on loan guarantees to come through. It is possible that delays in the program could turn some investors off biofuels, impacting not just the projects that were relying on them, but the industry as a whole. &ldquo;There is a time-value to the money, and if investors don&rsquo;t see their returns coming in the way they want to see them coming in, they are not going to continue to invest,&rdquo; Klann says. &ldquo;That seems to be lost on the government programs. Think about it like an investor, you are betting your money&mdash;and your shareholders&rsquo; money in many cases&mdash;that the government is going to do what they say they are going to do. When they can&rsquo;t perform under a reasonable schedule, the equity investors are going to see a loss, potentially, in their investment and they are not going to want to invest again.&rdquo; Finding a Solution Although several problems with the loan guarantee program need to be fixed from the perspective of the biorefining industry, McAdams notes that applicants can&rsquo;t forget they have to take on the responsibility of submitting strong applications for viable projects. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one thing to have a government program trying to incentivize the advanced technologies that are moving forward, but the advanced technologies also have a responsibility to deliver an economically verifiable business plan to the government, to be funded.&rdquo; However, the way the loan guarantee program is currently structured, even strong, viable projects many not be able to meet the DOE&rsquo;s benchmarks. In late September, the ABFA teamed up with the Algal Biomass Organization and the Biotechnology Industry Organization to write a letter to President Obama and the administration outlining three specific changes that could improve the program in the short term. First, the organizations ask that the criteria mandated &ldquo;reasonable prospect of repayment&rdquo; be clarified. The letter states that it seems the DOE has interpreted the requirement to mean &ldquo;certain prospect of repayment,&rdquo; which is counterproductive to the program&rsquo;s goals of commercializing first-of-kind technology. The groups also asked that the renewable fuel program be recognized as a mechanism of long-term market certainty in the absence of off-take agreements for finished product. Second, the organizations asked that the 1705 program to be extended to benefit the rapid development of new technologies that have come into play within the past year. Finally, the group has asked that monies borrowed from the program be restored and that a portion of those monies be set aside and dedicated to biorefinery projects. Whether these requests are met remains to be seen. In the meantime, McAdams stresses the importance of all sectors of the renewable fuel sector banding together to push for improvements to the loan guarantee program as well as other federal biofuels policies. &ldquo;To help overcome problems with the loan guarantee program, and other issues like tax policy, that the renewable fuel sector faces, it is going to be increasingly important for all sectors to band together and support one another,&rdquo; McAdams says. &ldquo;The real enemy here is foreign oil. We need to be working together. The biofuels industry needs to have a conversation where we can collectively walk into the White House, sit down across from the president and say, &lsquo;If you did X, Y and Z, here is the number of renewable gallons we could provide, here are the number of jobs created, and here is the timeframe in which we can do it.&rsquo; We&rsquo;re not prepared right now collectively to have that conversation. That needs to change.&rdquo; Author: Erin Voegele Associate Editor, Biorefining (701) 850-2551 <a href="mailto:evoegele@bbiinternational.com" target="_blank">evoegele@bbiinternational.com</a>

Why biorefinery projects may not be afforded a loan guarantee

A Broken Guarantee

Posted October 15, 2009
 
 After six months of negative net returns, the model developed by the <a href="http://www.agmrc.org/ ">Agricultural Marketing Resource Center</a> for a hypothetical, single-feedstock biodiesel refinery using soybean oil, showed a return to the black in September. 

 
 Biodiesel revenue for September showed $3.02 per gallon, the soybean oil cost was $2.35 per gallon, natural gas 3 cents per gallon and methanol cost 9 cents per gallon. AgMRC's model plant showed a total breakeven cost per gallon, including variable and fixed costs of $2.96 per gallon. The net return over variable costs was 32 cents per gallon, and the net return over all costs for September was 6 cents per gallon. 
 
 The net return over all costs had ranged between a negative 2 cents to negative 22 cents per gallon from April through August, with May being the poorest month. However, the net return over variable costs remained in the black throughout the entire period, with May being the lowest month at 4 cents per gallon.
 
 The overwhelming impact of soybean oil prices, which amount to close to 90 percent of the overall cost of biodiesel production, is shown in the comparison of September's improving numbers with the poorest month, May 2009. The biodiesel revenue for that month was actually slightly higher than September at $3.10 per gallon. However, soy oil was 38 cents a gallon higher at $2.73 per gallon, natural gas remained the same at 3 cents per gallon and methanol cost was lower in May at 6 cents per gallon. AgMRC's model plant showed a total breakeven cost per gallon, including variable and fixed costs of $3.32 for that low month of May 2009. The net return over variable costs was 4 cents per gallon in May and the net return over all costs was a negative 22 cents per gallon. 
 
 It should be noted that the model indicated negative net returns over all costs for the latter half of 2007 turning to positive in March of 2008 until March of 2009. During that year, biodiesel revenue started at $5.16 per gallon, peaked at $5.51 in June 2008 and dropped to $2.68 per gallon when the net return over all costs dropped into the red. EIA reports the spot diesel price at Chicago a year ago in October, 2008, was $2.85 cents per gallon.
 
 While the AgMRC data may provide a trendline for an Iowa-based hypothetical soy biodiesel plant, it doesn't illustrate the entire picture. Last month's return to the black in the AgMRC profitability chart showed a biodiesel breakeven cost of production of $2.96 and an Iowa-based biodiesel price of $3.02. That compares with U.S. DOE Energy Information Agency reports of Chicago spot prices for No. 2 diesel that averaged $1.74 per gallon during September, putting biodiesel at uncompetitive price even with the $1 per gallon blenders tax credit. It does however, give an indication that the pressure on the biodiesel industry may be letting up, particularly for those plants that have successfully transitioned to multi-feedstock capability, producing ASTM quality fuel while blending in lower cost, waste-based feedstocks with soybean oil.
 
 Agricultural economists specializing in biofuels at Iowa State University update the prices and costs on a monthly basis on their Biodiesel Profitability Chart. The chart uses a hypothetical 30 MMgy soy-based biodiesel plant built in 2007. Basic assumptions about fixed and variable costs and efficiency rates are provided. The spreadsheet calculates revenue per gallon of biodiesel produced, cost per gallon, return on equity, and more. Price data for the hypothetical plant is taken from publicly available sources, with all prices all based in Iowa starting with April 2007. The spreadsheet also allows individuals to change multiple variables reflecting an actual situation to see how the calculations play out. 
 
 To access the Biodiesel Profitability Chart visit: <a href="http://www.agmrc.org/renewable_energy/biodiesel/profitability.cfm">http://www.agmrc.org/renewable_energy/biodiesel/profitability.cfm</a> . The AgMRC also provides balance sheets for soy oil and soybean supply and demand, with relevant biodiesel data points, under the "prices, trends and markets" tab.

AgMRC: biodiesel profitability turns corner

There is a growing global debate over biodiesel and its potential role in deforestation of species-diverse lands. Yes, for more than a year the biodiesel industry has been trying to set the record straight on indirect land use, and has succeeded in some measure, but there is much more to the complex issues at stake. It's been said that environmental policy is a luxury only rich nations can afford. Some argue that the number one enemy to the environment is the poor-not the rich. What is interesting about this is that...

 
 To view this entire F.A.M.E. Forum biodiesel blog entry and archived entries, visit <a href="http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/fameforum">www.biodieselmagazine.com/fameforum</a>.

F.A.M.E. Forum biodiesel blog: responsible environmental policy or oppression of the poor?

For buyers at Greenergy International Ltd. headquartered in London, not a day goes by without a discussion on sourcing sustainable biofuels. The biodiesel producer and fuel distributor is joined by all U.K. fuel suppliers facing new carbon and sustainability requirements. The U.K.'s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation started with mandatory reporting, with the first year closing in April. The carbon savings standard takes effect April 2010, and the feedstock sustainability standards will begin in 2011. The U.K. standards will be harmonized with the European Commission's rules for the Fuel Quality Directive and the Renewable Energy Directive currently in development. Those standards call for 35 percent greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions for biofuels in the first years of the program, and compliance with sustainability requirements now in development. The U.K. implemented its RTFO in advance of the EC directive taking effect, providing experience for other EU states, as well as the rest of the biofuels industry, to consider when devising their own schemes.
 
 The challenge for Greenergy buyers has been to get more complete information about the supply chain of the ethanol and biodiesel it handles. "We're not talking segregation of physical product," explains Alex Lewis, Greenergy head of communications. Instead, it is an accounting function described as mass balance, tracking purchases and sales; and noting the feedstocks used to manufacture the biofuel, the location where they are produced, the fuel's carbon savings and whether it meets sustainability criteria. Greenway's first report, filed this summer, was verified by an independent auditing firm in a manner similar to how certified public accountants review annual financial reports.
 
 Greenergy is a relative newcomer among U.K. fuel distributors, opening its doors in 1992 as a supplier of ultra-low sulfur diesel. In 2002, the company launched GlobalDiesel, a branded biodiesel blend, followed the next year by their ethanol blend, GlobalPetrol. In 2005, Greenergy began construction on the first of two 100,000 metric ton-per-year (approximately 30 MMgy) biodiesel plants at the English east coast port of Immingham. Greenergy has become the U.K.'s largest and fastest growing independent oil company, now selling more than 4 billion liters of fuel a year (more than 1 billion gallons), claiming a 13 percent share of the U.K.'s on-road fuels market.
 
 As part of its commitment to be a leader in providing sustainable renewable fuels to the consumer, the company posts its RTFO reports on its Web site, giving a glimpse of what a market built on sustainable biofuels may look like for all producers in the future. In the first year of the RTFO-April 2008 to April 2009-Greenergy reported carbon savings averaging 61 percent overall against fossil fuel equivalents, significantly above the U.K..'s target of 40 percent. Of that, 43 percent met sustainability standards compared with the government target of 30 percent. 
 
 Greenergy's strategy to achieve its first year performance for GHG savings was to source as much tallow and tallow biodiesel as possible, mostly from the U.S. Tallow as a byproduct of meat production (in this case, a generic term encompassing all animal fats) is automatically deemed to meet sustainability standards in the U.K. and is rated at an 81 percent GHG savings. Almost all of Greenergy's soy purchases were from the U.S. as well, although none met a qualifying standard because no U.S. agricultural standard has been benchmarked by the Renewable Fuels Agency. 
 
 Underlying Greenergy's main concern with the RTFO is the lack of sustainability standards in multiple supply nations. "Whilst we welcome the adoption of carbon targets, we question the usefulness of the second target in measuring the performance of the obligated companies," the company stated in October 2008. "While the quarterly reports provide a lot of data, we believe that they fail to provide meaningful information on the supply chains of obligated companies." Obligated parties in the U.K. are refiners and distributers who pay duties, essentially, including biofuel producers selling directly to fleets and other consumers, in addition to fuel distributors. "For widely used biodiesel feedstocks such as U.S. soy, European (non-U.K.) rape and Canadian canola, there are no standards in general use which meet RTFO requirements," according to Greenergy. "Yet all are long-standing historic crops grown under well-regulated agricultural regimes. Not meeting a qualifying standard in these cases does not mean that the crops have been grown in an unsustainable way. The simple government goal of 30 percent of feedstocks coming from sustainable sources fails to take into account the variation from crop to crop and country to country in the potential for crops to have a negative environmental impact." The company gives the example of soy grown in the U.S., which is highly unlikely to have been grown on recently deforested land compared to palm oil grown in Indonesia, where deforestation for oil palm production is a distinct possibility.
 
 <img src="http://images.bbibiofuels.com/img/10152009_3_43_22_PM.jpg" alt="nov.09bdm_policy.chart1" border="0" />
 

 In the effort to increase the supply of qualifying sustainable biofuels, Greenergy has been involved with the Roundtable on Responsible Soy, an international effort involving soy producers from South America and India, along with industry and nongovernmental organizations, whose effort is similar to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil. Greenergy is also working with Brazilian groups to develop a system to certify sustainable sugarcane ethanol. Greenergy says it has no plans to handle U.S. corn ethanol because of its poor sustainability profile, although the company does list the U.S. as the major supplier of soybean biodiesel. "We've started to talk to our U.S. suppliers to explain what would be involved [to meet the sustainability standard]," Lewis tells Biodiesel Magazine. "There is a lot of interest. People like to be ahead of the game-it opens up new markets for them." Last year, the company was able to confirm that U.S. soybean feedstocks were grown on established cropland, and Greenergy encourages its U.S. suppliers to develop more detailed supply-chain knowledge. Lewis believes it will not require a dramatic change in practices, but rather the documentation of practices in use that indicate better carbon savings and sustainability performance than the RTFO default values.
 
 Devising Defaults	
 Chris Malins, communications director for the U.K.'s RFA administering its RTFO, explains the default values for GHG savings are based on worst-case scenarios for each fuel pathway. For U.S. biodiesel, the feedstock rated lowest is canola, which sets the U.S. default at minus 8 percent GHG savings. Interestingly, the default value for Canadian canola biodiesel is 35 percent. Taking numbers from the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, Malins says the difference reflects assumptions about fertilizer application. "Our default LCA [life-cycle analysis] assumes substantially higher applications of ammonium nitrate, triple superphosphate and potassium chloride for the U.S. default than the Canadian default," he explains. For those familiar with U.S. canola production, the difference between the U.S. and Canadian score raises multiple questions, since more than 90 percent of the U.S. canola crop is grown within 100 miles of the Canadian border in similar soil and climate conditions as the Canadian production, using similar production practices. Don Scott, sustainability director for the National Biodiesel Board, says they noted a similar problem with some initial European GHG savings values for soy biodiesel that, when explored further, were derived from South American practices, which are significantly different than U.S. methods.
 
 <img src="http://images.bbibiofuels.com/img/10152009_3_44_18_PM.jpg" alt="nov.09bdm_policychart2" border="0" />
 
 Malins says the U.K. system provides two ways to address low default values. One, a company can document the actual practices for a specific area of feedstock production, and use the manual carbon calculator provided on the agency's Web site to determine the rating. The calculator could also be used to identify which changes in production practices would offer the greatest improvement in GHG savings. Two, an organization such as the U.S. Canola Council can challenge the accuracy of the FAO figures and provide evidence for suggested revisions. The U.K.'s RFA default values, however, will soon be supplanted by the European Commission's Renewable Energy Directive, Malins adds. Reports from the EC Directorate for the Environment indicate the EC system, due out in the next year, will also incorporate the ability to challenge the defaults or provide site-specific data. "It is worth noting that all country level default values are designed to be inherently conservative," Malins adds. "This is to encourage the provision of actual information and ultimately to encourage lower carbon production." 
 
 While the GHG savings ratings involve the familiar life-cycle analysis, for which the International Standards Organization has established a protocol, measuring sustainability is new. Only one certification system, developed by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil, is in place worldwide. The RSPO wrote a broad set of environmental, social and economic principles that are further elaborated in a list of criteria and indicators. Each member nation in the RSPO has developed a national plan to apply the principles and criteria to its situation, which is then approved by the RSPO in a process that allowed public review and comments. The RSPO also approves certifiers after reviewing their certification work plans. The Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels has patterned its work on the RSPO efforts, along with other certification systems. The comment period for Version Zero of the RSB proposed principles and criteria closed last spring and Version One was due out this fall. While industry participation among producers for the RSPO is obviously limited to palm oil producers, the RSB has involved stakeholders, including farmer groups, biofuel producers and industry buyers, from across the world. The negotiations around what sustainability will mean in practice also includes the biofuel industry's biggest critics-environmental groups and other organizations with concerns about worker's rights and indigenous peoples. Many of the social organizations raise concerns targeted at developing countries, where labor laws and land rights are not as well established as in North America or Europe. 
 
 There are indications that most existing European and North American agricultural practices will meet sustainability criteria. Malins points out that in the U.K., the country's farm program known as the Assured Combinable Crop Scheme is considered adequate for U.K. sustainability requirements. Those familiar with Germany's sustainability certification development say the cross-compliance requirements of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy are considered sustainable. Cross compliance ties any farm program payments to compliance with multiple agricultural best practices addressing soil and water quality and other environmental concerns. Germany's sustainability guidelines in development do add requirements above the current cross-compliance measures to protect areas with high natural value, such as grasslands with significant diversity, and areas with high stocks of carbon, such as wetlands. Direct land use change in the U.K. and German proposals is addressed by requiring eligible feedstocks to be produced from existing cropland.
 
 While Europe is much further along in the development of sustainability guidelines than the U.S., there is one topic Europeans are watching unfold in the U.S.-indirect land use change. The incorporation of indirect land use impact in the proposed rule to implement the revised U.S. renewable fuels standard sparked an industry-wide critique of the concept's assumptions and untested methodology. The EC's Directorate for the Environment studied the methodology and potential policies this summer, with the expectation of opening a public comment period on resulting proposals in the fall. A directorate spokesman gave no indication to what extent indirect land use might figure into those policies.
 It remains to be seen whether emerging sustainability and carbon requirements will elicit an industry response similar to the indirect land use issue. The U.K. experience to date would suggest that it will not. Implementation of the RSPO and the RSB appear to be proceeding with broad industry support. The real challenge may be for the biodiesel industry to keep on top of all the efforts in the future, providing current data and thoughtful feedback to policymakers, and keeping a watchful eye on the details.
 

 Susanne Retka Schill is assistant editor of Biodiesel Magazine. Reach her at (701) 738-4922 or <a href="mailto:sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com">sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com</a>.

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The United Kingdom's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation gives a glimpse of the future.

U.K. Accounting for Sustainability

Is biodiesel sustainable? To American soybean farmers, it obviously is. When asked this question, Johnny Dodson, president of the American Soybean Association and farmer from Halls, Tenn., says, "We continue to develop new varieties, we're increasing our yields with new technology. Soy biodiesel is a renewable, green, environmentally friendly fuel." His colleague on the ASA board, John Hoffman, a farmer from Waterloo, Iowa, says, "I think soybean farmers are a long ways down the road to sustainability." He points to the increase in yields and no-till practices that result in soybeans using less energy for each bushel produced. New varieties are becoming more water efficient and soybeans are a legume that fix nitrogen from the air into the soil, benefitting the crops that follow.
 
 Growing more soybeans from less land using fewer resources is one answer to the question of sustainability, but the concept of sustainability has much broader implications. The renewable fuels standard (RFS2) as revised in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 was passed to create demand to help build the biofuels industries, while incorporating three areas of sustainability. One is that eligible biofuels must come from existing cropland. Second, biofuels must meet targeted greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals. For biodiesel, this means a target of 50 percent fewer GHG emissions compared to fossil fuels. Lastly, there is a provision for the U.S. EPA to document water impact, although those findings were not to be incorporated into the rules. 
 
 There is a global context as well, with the European Union's movement towards using sustainability criteria for biofuels, and international roundtables that involve multiple stakeholders writing sustainability criteria for palm oil, soy and biofuels. Those voluntary movements are developing certification systems where third parties verify the sustainability principles are being followed. The U.S. soybean and biodiesel exporters may face sustainability criteria down the road.
 
 The biodiesel industry is faced with learning what the new sustainability concept means in practical terms, in order to answer its critics and find ways to improve. The National Biodiesel Board's sustainability director Don Scott has been giving much thought to this as he works on the NBB response to the EPA's proposed rule. He also represents NBB in the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels and facilitates the NBB's task force on sustainability. Scott says the biodiesel industry had sustainability in mind when it established a goal of meeting 5 percent of the country's diesel demand with biodiesel by 2015, although sustainability is not explicitly mentioned. "We can produce that much biodiesel with currently available oil supplies, and without upsetting markets and creating indirect effects," he says. This would displace petroleum diesel derived from imported crude, and help reduce GHG emissions. The targeted biomass-based diesel volumes in the RFS are lower than the NBB's 5 percent goal, but would still provide some economic sustainability with a mandated level of use to help keep biodiesel producers going in poor markets until a rebound. "It (biomass-based diesel mandate) was an insurance policy to keep us on track to energy independence," Scott says. "That was the intent of the act, it wasn't sustainability."
 
 The web of interrelated factors make sustainability discussions complex. Scott gives an example of the early discussion for the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels when waste-based biofuels were given strong preference over vegetable oils that also are used for food. "On its face, it's good," he admits. "But it neglects the benefits of using low value and under-utilized coproducts, which is essentially the situation we're at with soybean oil." The soybean market is driven by demand for the high protein soybean meal used for feed and food, historically creating large surpluses of soy oil that drag down the market. "By being able to use that coproduct and develop a market, it helps the overall economic stability of everyone," he says. Soybean oil has lost market share in the food sector, which has been picked up by soy biodiesel, helping maintain market stability. Greater market stability helps farmers and crushers working on low margins stay in business, providing protein and oil for food and energy.
 
 Scott offered another example of relationships in agricultural systems when considering sustainability. In its report on water impact of biofuels, the EPA focused on the widespread concern that an increase in corn production to meet ethanol demand would have a negative impact on water quality. "They failed to look at the biodiesel side," he says. "They missed that when farming soybeans in rotation with corn, soy fixes nitrogen in the soil and therefore reduces the nitrogen that needs to be added to the following corn crop. Rotations also reduce weed and insect pressures, reducing the need for pesticides." The GHG and water quality benefits from the soy/corn rotation are not included in the EPA analysis. Scott says, "Any impacts of the EPA regulations that may limit soybeans will affect water quality." 
 

 When sustainability begins to be discussed globally, it gets even more complicated. "Anytime you try to look at agriculture at global scale, it gets difficult to mandate what the best practices are," Scott says. "Water use is one example that varies so much from region to region." In some regions where water supplies are tight, irrigation obviously becomes unsustainable for biofuel feedstocks, although the rotational benefits of certain crops may still apply. In other areas though, water supply is not a problem and irrigation is used sparingly at critical times to protect yields. "You add a little bit of water and you improve the yield, and by increasing the yield, this means there is another acre you don't have to farm," Scott says. 
 
 There are other dimensions of sustainability. Our economy has been built on energy derived from fossil fuels concentrated in large, underground pools, which are relatively cheap to mine and process. "We're not as good at harnessing solar energy," Scott says. "The better we get at harnessing solar energy, the more sustainable we become. Biodiesel is a good means of harvesting solar power, providing dense energy storage." The biodiesel industry's efficiency in energy conversion continues to improve, he says, from 3.2 units of energy produced for every unit used in production, to as high as 4.5 units in recent analyses. Producing biodiesel takes little water too, he adds, requiring on average only about a half gallon per gallon of fuel produced. "Last year, when we produced the biggest volume of biodiesel ever, using that average, the entire biodiesel industry used as much water as it took to irrigate a couple of golf courses in south Texas," Scott says. 
 
 The impacts on land use from rising biofuels production are getting the most attention in today's discussion on sustainability, particularly the inclusion of indirect international land use change projections. Scott says the NBB was comfortable with the RFS2 measure dealing with direct land use change that limits eligible biofuel feedstocks to those produced on existing cropland. The U.S. has not seen a net increase in crop acres since 1959, Scott says. Long term sustainability of the nation's land resource is not threatened by crop production, but by urban sprawl, with an estimated two acres of farmland lost to development every minute. Farm commodities aren't generating enough revenue to compete with other uses, he points out, and when land gets converted to subdivisions or shopping malls, there are much higher GHG emissions, lost habitat and impervious surfaces that upset water cycles. 
 
 Sustainability concerns have actually been addressed by U.S. policymakers for a long time, in a network of regulations to protect the quality of natural resources such as water and air. The national farm policy has dealt with land conversion through measures to stop sodbusting and swampbusting for years. The possibility of having to certify biofuel feedstocks as not coming from converted lands for the EPA's RFS2 rule struck many as being unnecessary. Dodson points out that every year when he goes into the Farm Service Agency, USDA's county-level office that administers farm programs, he has to certify his crops. The FSA provides aerial photographs of a farmer's fields to use for measuring acres, photos that also serve to document that no new land conversion has occurred. 
 
 Scott adds the industry may want to adopt an approach used by renewable electricity. Since it's impossible to separate the individual electrons produced by wind from those produced by fossil fuels, credits are assigned for renewable production based on the percentage of the total. Possibly a biofuel producer could claim a percentage of sustainable feedstocks based on farmer compliance in a given supply region. USDA offices already track all farmers and their participation in farm programs now. "EPA and USDA need to work together on this," Dodson suggests.
 
 Future Implications
 While work done by the NBB has focused on the near-term implications for the industry, discussions of sustainability also involve consideration for the future. Marty Matlock, a professor of ecological engineering and area director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Sustainability at the University of Arkansas, has focused his attention on the long-term. "Over the next 150 years, we will have to increasingly move towards a biofuel footing in the energy sector," he says. Today's biofuel industry is starting where it can find traction to put in the infrastructure, but its future must incorporate the need to provide food, feed, fiber and fuel for an increasing world population "without one hectare more of land, and without one more drop of water," Matlock tells Biodiesel Magazine. As part of the Keystone Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, Matlock has evaluated national-scale metrics for land use, water use, energy use, soil loss and climate impact for U.S. corn, soy, cotton and wheat crops over the past two decades." We're getting better," he says. "Ecological services are increasing. Over the past 10 years, we have dramatically increased biodiversity because we have dramatically increased adoption of conservation tillage. Pesticide applications have decreased dramatically across the landscape. Soil health and soil carbon are going up." 
 
 Biofuels have the potential to improve agriculture's sustainability by introducing new crops and cropping systems. "The biofuel production landscape in 20 years will be much more complex, integrated and diverse," he says. Opportunities for grass-based biofuels or reforestation efforts with woody biomass converted to biofuels could change the landscape and offer potential for more diverse cropping. U.S. agriculture has seen major changes in each generation, Matlock points out. He can remember as a kid on the farm in Oklahoma when soybeans were a new crop. "They called them Chinese beans then," he says. "Now, it's one of our standard export crops," he says. Canola is another relatively new crop, introduced in northern regions just in the 1980s. 

 
 Offsetting that positive potential though are concerns about the loss of what Matlock calls ecosystem services. "More than 60 percent of global ecosystem services upon which we depend for the things we get from nature is in decline-and 30 percent is in dramatic decline," Matlock says. The most familiar of those are water and soil quality issues. "We're also losing disease control-the ability of the biosphere to buffer the landscape from disease," he adds, with diseases expanding at a disturbing rate. One example is the colony collapse disorder seen in honey production. "Those bees are signals of what's happening to the biosphere," he says.
 
 With the prospect that biofuels and farmers raising feedstocks will be facing sustainability litmus tests, Scott encourages people involved in the biodiesel industry to get involved in discussions about sustainability. The complex puzzle of interrelated economic, environmental and social factors that seek to minimize unintended negative impacts requires input from multiple stakeholders. Those who understand biodiesel and agriculture need to explain how things work so their concerns can be balanced with environmental and social concerns. 
 
 Matlock advises that any sustainability criteria should ensure short- and long-term prospects for success. "We're not going to be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together all at once," he says. Policies need to be periodically revisited to look at local, national and global effects. Reiteration needs to be built into the system to avoid allowing policies to get entrenched, he says, "and we need to allow the opportunity to experiment."	
 	
 Susanne Retka Schill is the assistant editor of Biodiesel Magazine. Reach her at (701) 738-4922 or <a href="mailto:sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com">sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com</a>.

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Sustainability, the new buzz word, is likely to become the litmus test for biofuels. Biodiesel Magazine explores the sustainable dimensions of the American biodiesel industry.

The Interconnectedness of Sustainability

In late September, Carlos St. James, president of the Argentine Renewable Energy Chamber was stuck in traffic in Valparaiso, Chile, after attending a BioTop consortium conference hosted by the Catholic university here. The conference featured several prominent European and Latin American scientists who cooperated and shared information for the mutual development of each continent's respective industries. 
 
 Biodiesel Magazine asked St. James if Brazilian energy conglomerate Petrobras' recent expansion into the Chilean market-after the recent acquisition last year of ExxonMobil's Esso distribution assets-was a hot topic of discussion at the event. "This was a very academic conference and the attendees were not very interested in the business side of things," St. James says. Nevertheless, Petrobras reported plans to invest $500 million to help diversify Chile's energy mix by introducing renewable energy sources, especially biofuels.
 

 While European and Latin American scientists cooperate on biodiesel standardization, process technologies, biogas production and other exciting aspects of renewables development, trade issues between the two continents are festering. One reason for this could be that Argentina's and Brazil's biodiesel programs are rapidly increasing their power, while Europe is struggling.
 
 "The European biodiesel industry continues to suffer the effects of over-development borne of great enthusiasm to enter a new industry and with easy access to venture capital and financing, along with government subsidized prices," AREC stated in a September report. "However, they did not consider adequately their access to raw material nor competition from countries such as Argentina with large, efficient and very professional industries, nor the critical component of being among the largest producers of feedstock."
 
 By encouraging domestic processing of soybeans-soy oil and biodiesel are taxed at lower rates than whole beans-Argentina has been accused of causing distortions in the world market. This notion was disputed in a recent report released by AREC. "The president wanted to raise export taxes, but she lost that bid," St. James says. "Of course we would like to see them go down, but I don't see that happening either-we're kind of at a stalemate right now."
 
 In August, the European Biodiesel Board told Biodiesel Magazine that it was "gathering evidence" after observing that imports from Argentina had multiplied 20-fold to 85,047 metric tons (approximately 25.5 million gallons) in April, basically accusing Argentina and the United States of colluding to circumvent the EU's countervailing measures against U.S. B99. The EBB also said that the indirect subsidy for domestic soybean processing created an unfair advantage in the international marketplace.
 
 "There has been no response from Europe on the publication of our report," St. James says. "If you are the organization that represents the industry [in Europe] then you basically have to start barking and pointing your fingers, because they are only producing at half their capacity," St. James says. "We found that 25 percent of Europe's biodiesel is made from Argentine soybeans, so there seems to be some considerable hypocrisy in the fact that our soybeans are welcome there but not our biodiesel." 
 
 Peru Trade Issue
 In other South American trade issues, Peru has also reportedly begun an antidumping investigation into U.S. biodiesel imports, and could impose tariffs similar to the EU. "The Peruvians have been complaining a lot," St. James says. "Their president said that using Peru's own soy oil to make biodiesel was immoral because of its status as a feedstuff, which has really hurt their industry, so they've had to import it. We're certainly not selling biodiesel to Peru at a discount when we can sell it at the international price."
 

 Pure Biofuels Corp. operates a 127 MMly (33.5 MMgy) biodiesel plant in Calloa, Peru, that is currently under expansion. Pure Biofuels acquired InterPacific Oil SAC's biodiesel production business in 2007, Peru's largest and longest-running biodiesel processor. InterPacific currently produces 32.7 MMly of biodiesel and has been producing commercial quantities since 2002. Two plants are under construction: Industrias del Espino with a capacity 42.5 MMly near Cocache, San Martín; and Herco Biocombustibles SA with a capacity of 85 MMly near Lurin, Lima.
 
 According to the BioTop consortium, only 10 percent of the productive capacity of Peruvian plants is currently in use. In addition, it is facing difficulties meeting the B2 mandate introduced in January, primarily because of its small agricultural sector. "Thus, it is forced to import biodiesel from other countries, such as the United States and Ecuador," BioTop reports. "In early 2009, 72,000 barrels (more than 3 million gallons) of biodiesel were imported by Petro Peru to meet the blending mandate. The challenge for Peru will be to import the raw material and refine it within the country instead of importing biodiesel directly."
 
 BioTop reports that the Peruvian government has hopes that the potentials of the biodiesel market could entice farms to switch to crops other than coca, which is used for narcotics production.
 
 <img src="http://images.bbibiofuels.com/img/10152009_3_59_45_PM.jpg" alt="nov.09bdm_marketchart" border="0" />
 
 Snapshot: Brazil, Argentina 
 Brazil and Argentina are among the top five biodiesel-producing nations of the world, delivering 1.03 million tons and 960,000 tons, respectively. The entirety of Brazilian biodiesel is consumed domestically, while nearly all of Argentina's methyl esters are exported. 
 
 Brazil currently has 65 biodiesel plants in operation and production is projected by the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service to top 1.5 billion liters in 2009, while industrial capacity is at 4.1 billion liters. There are five major oilseed crops grown in Brazil, the FAS reports-soybeans, seed cotton, peanuts, castor bean and sunflowers. Brazil's National Petroleum Agency (ANP) adds that soybeans account for 81.3 percent of the total biodiesel feedstock. 
 
 Brazil's fuel consumption climbed 0.3 percent from last year to more than 13 billion gallons in the first half of 2009, according to ANP data. The ANP's 15th biodiesel auction was held in late August. The auction system gives preference to producers with a "social fuel stamp." All of the biodiesel sold is purchased by Petrobras and the Alberto Pasqualini refinery for mixing to the B4 standard currently in place. It seems like this price discovery apparatus is fairly transparent and efficient, compared to systems used in the rest of the world. 
 
 To encourage the increased production of biodiesel feedstocks, Petrobras and Banco de Brasil recently negotiated a financial deal that will establish credit lines for domestic oilseed producers. More than $49 million will be "earmarked" for oilseed production. Petrobras also guarantees purchase of the harvest. Some 60,000 farmers will have access to a credit line. "In practice, producers will have cash to invest in production and the certainty of a buyer," Petrobras stated in September. 

 Ethanol usage increased 17.7 percent this year to nearly 3 billion gallons, and biodiesel consumption rose 42.7 percent in the first six months of 2009 as the national mandate doubled from B2 to B4. 
 
 Petrobras' biggest oil discovery in recent decades-the so called "Tupi" area off the coast of Rio De Janeiro- and the Herculean effort required to extract the material caused speculation that the biodiesel side of the business might slow. "Biofuel production projects are carried out parallel to the pre-salt activities," says Allesandra Ribas, press manager for Petrobras. "[The company] continues investing in biofuels and increased the resources earmarked for this area by 87 percent compared to the previous business plan." The strategy for the next four years foresees investments in the order of $2.8 billion in this segment, of which $2.4 billion will be set aside for Petrobras Biocombustível, the biofuels division of the state-owned oil conglomerate. 
 
 "The subsidiary was created last year to place the company in the biofuel production segment, notably biodiesel and ethanol," Ribas says. "Petrobras will invest the remaining $400 million in the biofuels logistics area, and an additional $530 million is foreseen for biofuel technology research and development, under the management of Petrobras' Research Center. In addition to this being a market opportunity, this activity is aligned to the company's environmental commitment guidelines."
 A significant advantage for Brazil is its access to cheap ethanol as an alternative to methanol for transesterification. "This is promoted by the Brazilian sugar cane industry, but currently most biodiesel is still produced with imported methanol since the process with ethanol is more expensive, and since the methanol transesterification process is technically more mature," BioTop reports.
 
 Petrobras has developed its own flex-feedstock biodiesel process technology, but Brazilian engineering firm Dedini and its Italian partner Ballestra S.P.A. are the main suppliers of biodiesel plants in Brazil with varying production capacities from 10,000 tons to 100,000 tons per year, BioTop reports, and has current projects that are integrating ethanol and biodiesel production processes. 
 
 While Brazil uses all of its biodiesel internally, not a single plant in Argentina has sought approval for selling into the domestic market since all plants are authorized only to export fuel for marketing. This is because exports are less regulated in Argentina, with its 14 "authorized" biodiesel plants. 
 
 But that situation will change in the near future. St. James says there is a B5 mandate scheduled to be implemented in 2010 that will alter the flow of biodiesel abroad, redirecting hundreds of thousands of tons of methyl esters for domestic use. "Then the Europeans will be complaining that they don't have enough Argentine biodiesel or that the price is too high," he says.&#61500;
 
 Nicholas Zeman is an associate editor for Biodiesel Magazine. Reach him at (701) 738-4942 or <a href="mailto:nzeman@bbiinternational.com">nzeman@bbiinternational.com</a>.

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Argentina and the EU are set for a trade showdown as the Brazilian demand floodgate bursts open. Plus, the Tupi oil discovery draws attention, biodiesel provides an alternative to narcotics production, and millions of dollars in credit opens for family farmers.

South American Expansion

Canada is a net oil exporter. It has huge oil reserves, and new petroleum discoveries have been made there in the past 10 years. Basically, Canada has no real problems when it comes to energy supplies, which means its forays into biodiesel production come from a sense of social responsibility and environmental conscientiousness, and not economic or national security issues. The country, however, does have access to an excellent biodiesel feedstock source, canola, and mandates at the provincial and national levels are being implemented across the vast nation. 

 
 North of the 49th parallel, biodiesel is seen more as a value-added component for farmers than as an energy solution, and a research team is looking into Canada's specific advantages as a producer of biodiesel feedstock for its own production needs-and the global market. A link has been made between the climate of certain crops used as feedstocks for biodiesel and variations related to cold weather operability. Canola oil is one of the best feedstocks, for instance, because it is grown mostly in the frigid climes of the Dakotas and Canada. Conversely, the European distributors report they only use palm methyl esters in the summer when it's warm, because of its tendency to gel quickly in cooler temperatures. Obviously, palm trees are grown in tropical climates where it's hot. Canola and palm occupy the poles of the spectrum of feedstocks, but cultivation weather does seem to have an affect on biodiesel quality. 
 
 "I don't know if a scientific conclusion has been made between cold weather operability and the environmental conditions of the feedstock," says K. Neil Harker, director of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Sustainable Cropping System Platforms for Biodiesel Feedstock Quantity and Quality (SBQQ). "But it seems logical-canola is certainly at the top of the cold weather operability range, and palm is at the bottom."
 
 Cold weather performance is not the only fuel quality trait influenced by grow temperatures and other environmental conditions. Acid number, phosphorous content, free and total glycerin levels, total of metal ions, oxidative stability performance, sterols, kinematic viscosity and cetane are all influenced by environment and agronomics (rotations, pests, weeds and fertilizer).
 
 Responsiveness to moisture, air and soil conditions can all be adjusted to enhance certain characteristics and the SBQQ network is part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Agricultural Bioproducts Innovation Program (ABIP), designed to "integrate Canada's talent from universities, industry and government in order to stimulate creativity, leverage resources, reduce costs and accelerate progress towards commercialization of bioproducts and bioprocesses." 
 
 Sites in Alberta at Lacombe and Lethebridge, and the Saskatchewan locations of Scott, Melfort and Swift Current, represent the major soil zones and ecoregions of Western Canada, and provide a diverse range of conditions for the network to evaluate influences on biodiesel quality.
 
 More Production, Increased Risk
 Canadians know they have access to an excellent biodiesel oilseed as demand grows worldwide. To increase its canola production to 3 million tons by 2015, Harker says it will have to increase acreage, yield and frequency in crop rotations. The SBQQ brings together leading scientists, farmers and biodiesel analysts to transfer and share their expertise in order to ensure that Canada and its export markets have abundant supplies. 
 
 It is estimated that canola contributes more than $11 billion annually to the Canadian economy. For every $100 million of additional canola demand, a projected $83 million in additional Canadian gross domestic product is generated, with more than 730 new jobs created.
 

 Increasing canola production by as much as 25 percent from its current total volume presents some problems for the healthiness and longevity of soil. "The biggest challenge getting there is simply access to those additional acres," says Bill Ross of the Manitoba Canola Growers Association. A traditional rotation in Canada has been wheat, peas, barley and canola. This means that canola was grown one in every four years on Canadian farms, but as producers shorten rotations and reduce crop diversity, increased risk of disease, weed and insect outbreaks could threaten canola biodiesel feedstock quality-and quantity. "Club root, for instance, may totally prevent you from shortening the rotations," Harker says. "It's a disease that's very long-lived in the soil."
 
 This past year was a record breaker for Canadian canola as 10.9 million tons were grown on 6.4 million hectares (15.8 acres). "We have several different studies with different seed streams from regions in Alberta and Saskatchewan," says Dave Murray, a biodiesel analyst for the Alberta Research Council. "We're actively looking at a variety of crops as feedstocks because canola is particularly hard on soil. It's a cash crop so people want to grow more of it, but it can cause a lot of damage."
 
 Diseases such as sclerotina build up in the soil when canola cycles through the rotation more frequently, but if producers are in a four-year rotation, there's no need to worry about build-up. Therefore, increasing production can actually have a negative correlation with sustainability. Disease and pest risk are very high when canola rotations are short and continuous. "Of course, those factors can lead to reduced yields," Harker tells Biodiesel Magazine.
 
 Sacrificing sustainability for frequency is unacceptable. If a farmer is going to shorten his canola rotation, there has to be a strategy to mitigate increased risk. "With shorter rotations, your management takes over and you have to scout for things like sclerotina, and be ready to take over-ready to spray," Ross says. "We're also trying to find a variety that is more resistant or using biological controls that make the plant attack the fungus. So we're funding some of that research."
 
 Competitive Edge
 Canada would need 600 MMly (158.5 MMgy) of biodiesel to meet a federal B2 mandate, which is expected to go into effect sometime in 2011. Meanwhile, Canada's methyl ester refining capacity is projected to reach 216 MMly by the end of the year, a 71 percent increase over 2008, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service said. "The mandates might help with some people's plans to put up plants," Ross says.
 
 Interestingly, the majority of Canada's biodiesel production does not come from virgin oils. "For biodiesel, in 2009, 49 percent of the production capacity is estimated to be tallow-based (an increase from 36 percent in 2008), 37 percent yellow grease-based (a decrease from 59 percent in 2008) and 14 percent canola-based, an increase from 2008 levels where canola-based biodiesel accounted for six percent of the production capacity," FAS stated. "By 2010, forecasts [indicate] that tallow-, yellow grease- and canola-derived biodiesel production capacity will account for 46 percent, 37 percent and 17 percent, respectively."
 
 Canadian biodiesel production is relatively non-existent, so producers have to look elsewhere for buyers today. With that said, competition among raw material suppliers is becoming increasingly fierce. Low price palm oil from Asia, record soy crops in South America and the U.S., an increased use of waste greases, tallow and animal fats are all creating a dynamic world marketplace for buyers. Canada sees it all opening up for canola, and some of its superior traits as a source for biodiesel. 

 
 According to reports, Europe makes a quarter of its total methyl ester reservoir from imported feedstocks-mostly from South America. Canada isn't really looking to compete for the European market. "We don't ship anything to Europe," Ross says. "It's the U.S. plants that use Canadian canola for biodiesel production. ADM's plant in Velva, N.D., uses a lot of seed from Manitoba and Saskatchewan." 
 
 Agricultural producers in Canada know the raw material business for methyl ester manufacturing is set to take off. Following a $1 million investment from the federal government, the Canadian Agriculture Ministry commented that this "research network will help farmers grow more canola more often, giving them a competitive edge in the burgeoning biofuels industry, and giving them more income, which will in turn boost the economy."
 
 Nicholas Zeman is an associate editor for Biodiesel Magazine. Reach him at (701) 738-4972 or <a href="mailto:nzeman@bbiinternational.com">nzeman@bbiinternational.com</a>.

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Quality issues during biodiesel production typically revolve around distillation additives, process technologies and ASTM methods at the refinery level. A new emphasis, however,  is being focused on the field, where biodiesel feedstocks such as canola are grown and harvested. A Canadian team is examining how to tweak environmental and agronomic conditions for a superior biodiesel feedstock.

The Main Rotation

Fermentation processes, combined with traditional recovery methods, are emerging as a successful path to biobased coproducts from biodiesel production. Worldwide, interest in industrial biotechnology grows as new technologies prove product capabilities and economics.
 
 Glycerin is one of the most widely available chemicals in the world, touting a production of more than 2 billion pounds1 and growing. As the biodiesel industry well knows, the supply of glycerin will continue to dwarf demand until more than 5 billion pounds is expected to hit the world by 20201. Prices of glycerin in the U.S. have either been widely fluctuating or painfully low, reflecting a dependence on soybeans, refining capacity and biofuels policy, but predominantly reflecting the large supply of glycerin entering the U.S. marketplace. 
 
 In 2008, biodiesel crude glycerin production reached approximately 251 kilotons in the U.S., on top of the estimated 150 kilotons of glycerin from nonbiodiesel sources2,3. U.S. demand for glycerin's traditional uses in soaps and cosmetics, food additives, industrial foams and transportation fluids were outstripped by supply on the order of some 75 to 100 kilotons. The slow rise in crude oil prices over the past six months may give encouragement to biodiesel margins, but it won't solve glycerin's long-term picture.
 
 Businesses and research groups around the world are focused on launching innovative and sustainable technologies capable of connecting glycerin to valuable applications. Researchers in the biotechnology industry are well aware of the supply issues surrounding glycerin, and have recently invested in the means to develop technologies to convert glycerin to biofuels and a portfolio of other end-products.
 

 Industrial biotechnology company Glycos Biotechnologies Inc. (GlycosBio) of Houston, Texas, recently developed a biotransformation technique that directs crude glycerin from the biodiesel process into ethanol at high-yield efficiency. Using microorganisms as biocatalysts-enzymes or microbes that initiate or accelerate chemical reactions-GlycosBio makes possible the conversion of a disadvantaged coproduct into another prominent chemical. Scientists recognize that glycerin is sometimes difficult to convert in a microbial transformation, but its inherent chemistry opens alternatives to produce hundreds of compounds. For that reason, biofuel producers can tap crude glycerin streams to produce new and valuable coproducts. 
 What does this mean for the biodiesel industry? This new biological process enables owners of biodiesel plants to use glycerin streams within their plants to diversify coproducts and provide revenue management flexibility. Crude glycerin exiting the separation units can be converted to products such as ethanol and propylene glycol. Propylene glycol is an important component of polyester resins, industrial solvents and hydraulic fluids, and boasts a U.S. market of $786 million. At 85 cents per pound, propylene glycol has the potential to add 29 cents in production margin per gallon of biodiesel. If soybean oil prices begin to rise again, glycerin provides minimal plant contribution against low oil prices; but unlike glycerin, the industrial uses, and prices, for propylene glycol present a more sustainable source of economic value. 
 
 Translating this into plant dollars, a 50 million gallon plant that converts nearly 4.5 million gallons of crude glycerin can churn out 25 million pounds of propylene glycol, the value of which is more than $21 million at today's prices.
 
 <img src="http://images.bbibiofuels.com/img/10152009_4_09_44_PM.jpg" alt="nov.09bdm_glycerinchart" border="0" />
 
 Microbial Biotransformation
 The science begins by modifying the metabolic pathways of selected microorganisms to digest glycerin and ensuring that growth conditions and metrics are met by the cultured strains. From there, only strains that consume large amounts of glycerin with a minimum of interfering coproducts are selected. High-throughput screening expedites the selection of characteristics based on glycerin consumption, conversion yield and minimizing competing metabolites. Exclusive production of the desired product is crucial, but measures can be taken to moderate byproducts if they prove useful in maximizing the primary target. Successful strains are introduced into fermentation reactors containing crude glycerin with two goals in mind: minimize reaction time and select strains for actual process stream conditions.
 
 From there, the fermentation is scaled up and process development begins. In designing actual operating conditions, feedback to the laboratory fermentation work helps scientists to develop strains with the actual production process conditions. Over the past six months, GlycosBio researchers have doubled the production titer of certain products, while increasing the rate kinetics and glycerin consumption of the strain. 
 
 The technical problems that industrial biotech companies such as GlycosBio face include the challenge of scaling a different bioreaction for each biobased product that the company rolls out. Those problems are compounded under risks of contamination, variable crude feedstock content and alignment with downstream recovery operations. However, those tasks can be overcome at manageable expense using prepilot bioreaction volumes far smaller than commercial scale. 
 
 The disruptive capability of the technology is the ability to biologically ferment glycerin into higher value biochemicals or fuels that can provide revenue during periods of lower biodiesel crush spreads. That's the concept of a biorefinery-like a petroleum refinery, several strata of liquid fuels, chemicals and energy are produced. The biorefinery was conceived to be a more economically sustainable model.
 

 Different Approaches
 The conversion of glycerin to propylene glycol is under development by Dow, UOP and Huntsman4. Separately, Dow and Solvay developed technology for converting crude glycerin to epichlorohydrin. DuPont-Tate & Lyle have been successful in their joint venture to produce and market 1,3-propanediol.
 
 Other companies such as Green Biologics in Oxford, UK, and Myriant Technologies in Quincy, Mass., are also developing processes around glycerin as a viable starting material for diverse chemicals such as butanol and acetone. Arkema SA in France is developing techniques to convert crude glycerin to acrolein, admittedly a small market itself, but having large potential as a precursor to acrylic acid. Arkema's process is entirely non-biological and uses a dehydration reaction on a solid catalyst producing acrolein and by-products hydroxyacetone, acetaldehyde, propionaldehyde, and acetone4. 
 
 The production of biobased chemicals and materials is gaining momentum. ADM, Cargill and other traditional grain suppliers are among the most heavily involved in chemical production from biomaterials. Cargill owns the massive NatureWorks bio-polymeric plastics and resins operation in Nebraska. ADM formed its Industrial Chemicals unit in 2007, with the intent to produce USP-grade propylene glycol among other renewable chemicals. 
 
 Industrial Biotech Incentives
 Companies have their sights set on a projected $215 billion biobased chemicals market. McKinsey & Co. predicts that sales of chemicals from renewable, biobased sources will consume 10 percent of worldwide chemical sales in 20125. It's not a new idea, but the U.S. DOE is betting that these chemicals and other products will service biofuel plants as more profitable coproducts alternatives to glycerin.
 
 The successful approach for GlycosBio and others will be to demonstrate technologies converting high levels of glycerin to a single product, and obtain market traction quickly, making it easier to attract funding for more ambitious projects.
 
 Investment in additional chemical products and capabilities logically follow these initial breakthroughs. In fact, many companies in this space are pursuing the green field of bioderived solvents, monomers and chemical intermediates. According to McKinsey, biofuels will account for $91 billion of these sales. By 2020, most chemical manufacturers will have significant capacity devoted to bioprocessed fuels and chemicals.

 
 David Gaskin is director of planning for Glycos Biotechnologies Inc. Reach him at <a href="mailto:dgaskin@glycosbio.com">dgaskin@glycosbio.com</a>. 
 
 References
 1. Glycerin Market Analysis, ABG, Inc. for the U.S. Soybean Export Council (2007)
 2. Monthly Energy Review, Energy Information Administration (2009)
 3. BBI International
 4. Patent Watch, American Chemical Society (2008)
 5. Industrial White Biotechnology, Chemical Week (2009)

GlycosBio scientists examine a fermenter before testing it to validate alcohol production at different concentrations of glycerin.

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The profitability of a renewable fuels production facility is often related to the value of its coproduct. With glycerin's wide range of utility in specialty chemicals production, biodiesel producers can find opportunity in the biotransformation of its coproduct stream.

Biotransformation of Crude Glycerin

Algae consume carbon dioxide (CO2) for normal growth during photosynthesis. The appeal of algae is its ability to contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction while serving as an oil feedstock for biodiesel production. The driver in algae-based CO2 fixation or sequestration has been CO2 sourcing from coal-fired power plants, which yield only half the power produced while creating about 83 percent of the CO2 emitted from all power sources. For each kilowatt-hour of electricity, about 2.1 pounds of CO2, sent out as flue gas from the coal-fired power plants, are produced.
 
 Between 1.5 and 3 pounds of CO2 are required for every pound of algae cultivated. Power plant projects are under great pressure to reduce CO2 emissions today; however, larger fermentation projects are also viable CO2 source targets, as are a number of commercial energy production and chemical manufacturing sources. But the CO2 streams from power and fermentation plants are different. The CO2 content from coal-fired power plants is considered lean compared to that from fermentation plants, and that difference in CO2 content can make for a broad range in capital expenses and production costs, as well as raw gas specifications for nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx). Defining which algae strains will accept the use of raw flue gas with lots of sulfur and nitrogen compounds, when compared to a cleaner stream from other manufacturing processes, can be problematic. If flue gas is to be a CO2 source, one challenge is selection of viable algae for cultivation assuming little or no gas purification occurs. The application of large volumes of raw gas could also be tricky.
 
 Algae cultivation as a carbon sink is a popular idea among those in power generation. For U.S. DOE or industry-sponsored demonstration projects, the algae project is usually located near or at the CO2 source.
 
 Required capital investment, specific application technologies, and end-results will vary depending on the amount and type of CO2 emitted. It's not always possible or convenient to allow an "across-the-fence" algae production site, partly because adjacent property isn't always available.

 
 Algae-based fuel can represent up to 30-times more energy per acre than a common crop. Oil palm can average one-fifteenth the energy compared to algae. Given algae's high oil yield, it's estimated that about 1 percent of today's 1 billion U.S. farm and grazing acres (as land, pond, or ocean space) could produce enough algae to replace all petroleum diesel fuel consumed in the U.S. 
 
 Therefore, the challenges to successful development of algae for biofuels, when considering CO2 applications, include the distance from the CO2 source to the algae production site, the nature of the CO2 source, and how it impacts the cost and feasibility in this application.
 
 CO2 Sources, Applications
 Many of the recently evaluated projects, or those currently being tested, are generally coal-fired power plants, which already account for about 40 percent of today's CO2 emissions. If CO2 emissions are reduced from this sector, this would considerably lower global GHG emissions. In the U.S., CO2 is now being recovered from flue gas produced by coal-fired cogeneration plants; the economic model works because a prior energy law fosters the use of cogenerated steam for an amine (MEA) solvent recovery process-a method of concentrating lean CO2content in flue gas. Ethanol plants are in the spotlight because of their significant, concentrated CO2 emissions from fermentation. Effluent from fermentation, anhydrous ammonia, and certain hydrogen reformer processes used in oil refineries would have CO2 raw gas content, often in a water-saturated state, of 97 percent to 99 percent by volume. 
 
 Despite these high concentrations, fermentation plants' volume of emissions is only 12 to 15 percent compared to that from coal-fired power plants. Gas-fired turbine exhaust in cogeneration can be less than 3 percent. Heavier hydrocarbons have higher concentrations of CO2. Some concentrate CO2 through traditional processes such as MEA, which could cost three to five times the amount of applying CO2 from a more concentrated source, such as fermentation. Other processes are being tested, including membrane and refrigeration systems.
 
 The economics behind which type of CO2 source is used is driven by the raw CO2 content in the gas, and the impurities in the CO2 stream. If the source is relatively clean and well-concentrated, direct application for CO2 fixation by certain algae strains is feasible. The economics differ wildly between using flue gas and a highly concentrated source, however, if these projects are DOE-sponsored or within the forthcoming GHG laws, and CO2 regulations call for economic considerations, concentrating or refining gas streams become more viable.
 
 Select strains of algae may endure harsher environments when applied directly to flue gas from a power plant. It's been found that a broad spectrum of algae cannot bear the NOx and SOx in raw power plant emissions, but algae strains specifically defined as NANNO2 grew in concentrations of NOx up to 300 parts per million. Other strains, specifically NANNP2 and PHAEO2 algae, also proved successful with direct application of untreated power plant emissions.
 
 Some of the above findings have proven well in raceway ponds for algae cultivation when diffusing power plant flue gas, compared to using a refined and/or liquefied CO2. Another consideration beyond algae type and growth tolerance in the direct flue gas setting would be the availability of physical space for algae cultivation, which precipitates the question of transporting the CO2 source to the algae cultivation site.
 

 CO2 Transportation, Algae Cultivation Sites
 CO2 is typically piped, trucked or railed in liquid form and purified for merchant markets, but not so for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Liquid CO2 contains much more product versus trying to transport gaseous, dilute power plant CO2. The construction of a liquid CO2 pipeline can easily cost $1 million per mile. EOR sites receive liquid CO2 piped from more than 100 miles, requiring compression on the front end and compression sub-stations en route. When considering algae fixation as a means of sequestering CO2, and a further means of producing feedstock for biodiesel, it's technically feasible to transport CO2 via pipeline. 
 
 Consideration has been given to projects using high pressure from enriched sources of CO2, such as fermentation for various destinations (e.g., EOR). This concept could be applied to biodiesel as algae fixation with CO2, but transporting raw flue gas long distances may be new for such projects. Capital cost considerations are necessary for compression and pipeline as the basic infrastructure. Quantities of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion in the power sector can amount to 20 million tons daily globally, out of a total amount of 75 million tons of CO2 daily from all sources. Thus, all means of containing, sequestering, or fixing CO2 via algae is an extraordinary opportunity. 
 
 Summary
 The greatest level of CO2 content is found among select byproduct streams in chemical manufacturing, and the large-scale plants will probably be targeted in planned legislation and EPA directives. The first 25,000 tons per year are exempt from any cap and trade, or other mechanism proposed by the U.S. House or EPA. Other mechanisms beyond cap and trade, however, may take place with new CO2-related directives.
 
 Therefore, the focus for GHG reduction as CO2 alone will apply to larger industrial projects such as power plants, chemical manufacturing, oil refining and cement plants. If the source , such as fermentation, is enriched, then a higher-quality stream of CO2 is available up to 99 percent by volume with lower impurity levels. If this stream is flue gas from power plants, the CO2 content would probably not exceed 12 to 15 percent by volume. In either case, it's a raw gas stream. If the CO2 is liquefied and/or purified, then further investment is required. The transportation mode for this raw gas would likely be a pipeline, but minimizing the distance between the source and the algae fixation site would make most sense. Long distance transportation is possible at a price. The concepts surrounding the application of various forms of raw CO2feedstock for algae projects are entirely possible. The more complex the raw stream treatment, and the farther away an algae site is from the source, the less economically feasible the project becomes. Since a large focus on fossil-fuel-based power plants is now underway, and since this is the largest single source type for global CO2 emissions, the payback against the investment for the infrastructure surrounding CO2 treatment and transportation, in the form of revenues from the sale of algae for biodiesel, may well outweigh the challenges. This form of sequestering CO2 is unique, since it represents carbon fixation in plant life, and it also is an ingredient essential for the growth of an energy-rich product for biodiesel production.
 
 Sam A. Rushing is president of Advanced Cryogenics Ltd. Reach him at (305) 852-2597 or <a href="mailto:rushing@terranova.net">rushing@terranova.net</a>.

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Algae is of great interest as a sink for carbon dioxide from power, chemical and fermentation projects. Viable sequestration alternatives are essential to meet changing political and environmental tones set by the federal government.

Examining CO2 Sources for Algae

For a director or officer of a company evaluating a potential business acquisition, completing a due diligence review of an acquisition target can be an overwhelming task. Engaging the right types of advisors to assist you in analyzing the right types of information will get you far in managing a successful due diligence investigation.
 
 Simply put, due diligence is the process of evaluating a business and identifying the risks in owning the business or its assets from a legal, business and financial standpoint so that you may make an informed business decision about whether to proceed with the transaction on the proposed deal terms. The purposes of a due diligence investigation are to gain information about the other party to the transaction; to assist in the negotiation of the purchase price, the valuation of assets, or the identification of important deal points of the transaction, such as representations and warranties, which can contractually shift certain risks of the transaction to one party or the other; and to identify any potential "deal killers" that indicate the acquisition will not be feasible or will otherwise be unacceptable. A target company may also need to conduct a due diligence review of its proposed acquiror for similar reasons, especially if the acquiror's stock will constitute all or part of the acquisition purchase price.

 
 Typically, the board of directors of a company considering an acquisition will ultimately be responsible for evaluating whether the proposed acquisition is a sound business decision. Such evaluation should be completed in a manner that satisfies the directors' fiduciary duties to its company. Due to the complexity and volume of information involved in a due diligence investigation, directors should consider engaging advisors to assist in the analysis of the transaction, such as attorneys, accountants, investment bankers or other consultants relevant to the company's business or industry. The responsibilities of each advisor should be clearly defined in order to avoid duplicative efforts. Each advisor should also be charged with analyzing different types of information. Attorneys should spot legal issues relating to the other party's business structure and organizational documents; contracts material to the party's business; financing documents and liens on the party's assets; legal proceedings; or other matters related to key aspects of the party's business or its assets, such as real estate, intellectual property, or tax matters. Accountants and investment bankers, on the other hand, should analyze the target's financial statements, business projections, and other matters bearing on the target's financial health and the value of the transaction. 
 
 The priorities and key issues of each due diligence investigation will vary depending on the purpose of the acquisition, the transaction structure, and the nature and business of the acquisition target. For example, long-term biodiesel marketing, plant management and feedstock procurement contracts, debt financing agreements, environmental permits and liabilities, and real estate matters will likely be more important in the context of a biodiesel plant acquisition than in the acquisition of a company owning proprietary intellectual property, in which case, patent rights, licensing agreements or legal proceedings relating to infringement claims may be of higher priority.
 
 The ultimate focus of a due diligence investigation of an acquisition target should be matters that affect the value of the transaction or which will add to or detract from the anticipated benefits and synergies of the acquisition. You should identify these priorities early in the due diligence process in order to manage a successful due diligence investigation.
 
 Ashley J. Fuhrmeister is an associate with BrownWinick, a Des Moines, Iowa-based law firm serving the renewable fuels industry. Reach her at <a href="mailto:fuhrmeister@brownwinick.com">fuhrmeister@brownwinick.com</a> or (515) 248-6621.

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Managing Successful Due Diligence Investigations in Acquisition Transactions

Over the past 10 years, biodiesel has emerged as an important part of the national, and international, discussion on renewable fuels. From french fry oil to genetically modified soybeans to slaughterhouse fats, feedstock has been at the core of the discussion. While many options have been brought to the table, some promising leads have not yet had commercial success. Meanwhile, algae looms in the background, waiting its turn. 
 
 Big money is now pouring into algae research-but what many people don't realize is that those lipids are more valuable as components of other products such as nutraceuticals and bioplastics. When they do make it to the fuel industry, there will be heavy competition for them. The biodiesel industry is not the only game in town, and we can't assume that its future rests with algae. Web sites of such companies as Solazyme, LS9, and Sapphire Energy make it clear that there will be many other products based on algal oil.
 
 Over the past several years, competition to biodiesel as a diesel replacement has begun to appear. Vendors have announced renewable diesel, gas-to-liquid, biomass-to-liquid, and coal-to-liquid as possible future fuels. These are sometimes collectively referred to as "green diesel" although there is no universally recognized name. Many of these have been proposed or are endorsed by Big Oil. Existing petroleum refineries can be retrofitted to produce these diesel equivalents, and the fuels themselves don't suffer from the materials compatibility issues associated with higher blends of biodiesel. In other words, they act like true hydrocarbons, which can petition into the D975 standard for diesel at higher blends than biodiesel. It's possible that if fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) biodiesel had not come first, "renewable diesel" would be called biodiesel, and transesterification may not have grown to prominence in the first place.
 

 Some examples of this changing landscape: airlines running test flights on biofuels; the movie "Fuel" being promoted by Director Josh Tickell, a long-time biodiesel promoter, driving across country in a Prius powered by algae-gasoline; the Diesel Technology Forum unofficially endorsing renewable diesel; partnerships between renderers and diesel refiners to produce renewable diesel; the U.S. EPA giving 1.7 RINs per gallon for renewable diesel compared with 1.5 for biodiesel; the state of Texas extending biodiesel's exemption for road tax to renewable diesel; and Bosch, supplier of fuel injectors for just about every original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in the U.S., driving a fleet of vehicles powered by 100 percent renewable diesel in partnership with Neste Oil. 
 
 So where does biodiesel fit in this brave new world? I'm the guy who bought a 2009 Jetta TDI just to run it on B100, so you can bet I want biodiesel to be THE alternative fuel of the future. However, it has become painfully clear to me that B100 as a major transportation fuel is not in the cards for the near- to medium-term future. I would propose that the biodiesel industry launch two major initiatives: state-by-state mandates for B2 to B5, and full support for B20 by all U.S. automakers. If we could somehow produce the 12 to15 billion gallons of biodiesel we'd need to hit B20 nationally-and manage to keep it in the U.S.-I say let the renewable diesel industry go after the other 80 percent. 
 
 At 2 percent, we would get a seat at the table. The supply chain for biodiesel would work its way into the petroleum distribution network, stakeholders would educate their employees and customers, and risk to users would be negligible. At 5 percent, we get back the lubricity lost in ultra-low sulfur diesel (and then some), stay within the diesel spec, and have full OEM support. At 20 percent, we're at the limits of OEM acceptance; we've reduced foreign petroleum imports by nearly the amount received from the Middle East, and are an integral part of diesel fuel. Meanwhile, all those cars and trucks driven by true believers can still run B100, and long-term work can be done by the OEMs to isolate and eliminate the issues related to high-blend biodiesel in future vehicles.
 
 My background is in the data storage networking industry, which is littered with technologies that didn't survive. While the march of progress never stops, one thing is clear-emerging technologies that cannot fully interoperate with existing standards face a tremendous challenge for long-term viability.
 	
 Now is the time to take a good look at business plans to consider what impact these future fuels will have on your market, and to think about partnering with or competing against these companies for feedstock, and temper enthusiasm for future feedstocks with the reality of greatly increased competition. With RFS2 further increasing demand for biofuels of all types, the stakes are only going to get higher.
 
 Jason Burroughs is a managing partner for Austin, Texas-based DieselGreen Fuels. Reach him at <a href="mailto:jason@dieselgreenfuels.com">jason@dieselgreenfuels.com</a>.

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Battle Looms for Future of Biomass-Based Diesel

The Internal Revenue Service's Oct. 1 deadline for producers to pass the Cold Soak Filtration Test in order to continue receiving the federal blenders credit came and went without much interruption or public comment. The original deadline was April 1, but the IRS extended it for six months, presumably to give those who could not meet the new demand the opportunity to make changes to their processes in order to pass cold soak filtration. 
 
 Although public discussion was scarce regarding the deadline, I have received a lot of calls and emails from biodiesel producers on the status of the new version of the cold soak test method, ASTM D7501. Several of these inquiries were about whether the new version would be in effect before the Oct. 1 deadline came. I was doubtful then, but now it is clear the answer is "no." As I have written about copiously throughout the past year, most producers do not care for the current cold soak test-it's friendlier toward biodiesel made from some feedstocks than to others, it's not very repeatable or reproducible. 
 
 The new method is expected to be a better test all around. It was designed to have different conditions for biodiesels that change states of matter during the chill, leveling the playing field, so to speak. Biodiesel that turns solid will be given extra time during the warm-up phase. Also, the new test method calls for warming up the samples to 25 Celsius to make a uniform fuel without isolated congealment. 

 
 My sources tell me progress is being made and the approval process is underway, and if anything is holding it up, it would be that there are certain ASTM protocols that must be followed. This means steps such as establishing "equivalency" between D7501 and the current cold soak method. 
 
 On a separate topic, one of India's largest automakers, Mahindra GV, will be tapping into the U.S. light-duty truck market with two diesel models that are expected to be available stateside in February. The exclusive importer and distributor for Mahindra, Global Vehicles USA in Alpharetta, Ga, said it has between 300 and 400 retail outlets agreeing to sell the TR20 and TR40 trucks. Both models are four-wheel drive with four-cylinder common rail diesel engines. Mahindra reported this fall that it had one of the company's largest sales month ever in the domestic Indian market, rising to 12.1 percent to a record 27,431 vehicle sales. I think this is great news for U.S. consumers, and for the continued dieselization of America. Eventually Americans will realize that the diesel vehicles of today are not the diesels of yesterday.

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Oct. 1 IRS Deadline Passes, Indian Automaker Prepares for US Debut

Posted November 18, 2009
 
 The third division at <a href="http://www.usfoodservice.com/default.htm">U.S. Foodservice</a> is now running on biodiesel blends. The Atlanta division's 185 tractors began using biodiesel fuel early in November following the first 7,500-gallon delivery of B5. In addition to using biodiesel blends in the tractors, the fuel will power the four-cylinder, Thermo King Engines in its 210 refrigerated trailers. 

 
 Atlanta joins the U.S. Foodservice division in Plymouth, Minn., which uses B5, and the Streator, Ill., division which uses B11 in all but the winter months. The Minnesota facility has used biodiesel blends for years, the company stated, starting with B3 and switching to the state-mandated B5. "The division has had no performance or engine longevity issues," a company spokesman said. U.S. Foodservice Minnesota is exploring a switch to B10 ahead of a state-mandate increase that takes effect in 2012.
 
 The biodiesel fuel costs on average about a penny more per gallon. Its use is expected to reduce the U.S. Foodservice-Atlanta fleet's carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 788,000 pounds-or about 4 percent-annually. The company estimates its total biodiesel usage in 2009 will be about 1.85 million gallons, about 4 percent of the company's total fuel use, which includes estimates for Atlanta's two-month usage. Biodiesel fuel is being testing in other locations as well.
 
 "Utilizing biodiesel is a continuation of our ongoing environmental strategy," said John Leake, president of U.S. Foodservice-Atlanta. "Improving our overall impact on the environment - while helping our customers find effective ways to do the same - not only makes good business sense, it's the right thing to do."
 
 U.S. Foodservice-Atlanta is active with and has a leadership role in several local, regional and state efforts to promote and protect the environment including the Georgia DNR Project, Partnership for a Sustainable Georgia and the Atlanta Zero Waste Zone. The division, which serves the entire state of Georgia and operations in parts of the five bordering states of Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina, has reduced electrical consumption, increased recycling efforts and decreased truck idle time to save fuel.

US Foodservice switches to B5 in Atlanta

The Canadian Province of Manitoba began requiring an average B2 blend throughout the year, as of Nov. 1. Blending flexibility is built into the mandate to allow up to B5 in warmer months and lower blends in cold conditions. Manitoba Science, Technology, Energy and Mines Minister Jim Rondeau said the province will consider a higher mandate once there is a Canadian fuel standard in place for biodiesel blends above 5 percent. Manitoba also plans to replace the current fuel tax exemption with a five-year, 14 cent-per-liter production grant in the spring of 2010 for both on- and off-road biodiesel produced in Manitoba, to help keep the province competitive with incentives offered in other North American jurisdictions.

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Manitoba biodiesel mandate kicks in

An Ohio partnership has declared U.S. Route 33 from Columbus, Ohio, to the Ohio River a Biofuels Corridor. Rural Action Inc. and Clean Fuels Ohio along with Hocking College Energy Institute are promoting the use of biodiesel with a goal of at least six retail biodiesel fueling points and three school districts using biodiesel in buses. Ohio offers grants for biodiesel dispensing stations at the retail level and for the incremental cost difference between petroleum diesel and biodiesel for K-12 school buses.

Biofuels corridor proposed for Ohio

ASTM International has a new standard, ASTM D7566, for alternative aviation fuels. Mark Rumizen, Federal Aviation Administration and chair of the ASTM task force, said concerns about the future cost and supply of conventionally derived aviation fuel and the imposition of carbon emissions limitations contributed to the development of the new standard. ASTM D7566 provides blend requirements and defines specific types of aviation turbine fuel that may contain synthetic hydrocarbons.  The initial standard provides criteria for the production, distribution and use of Fischer-Tropsch fuels, but is structured to accommodate other future alternative fuels that can be added in annexes after they are qualified.

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ASTM covers alternative aviation fuels

In August, India's Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas issued a circular "which virtually bans the sale of biodiesel by producers," the Times of India reported. Sanjeev Gupta, managing director of 50 MMgy Universal Biofuels in Kakinada, India, was not impressed. "This is not to be taken seriously," Gupta said. "Biodiesel is selling." He further observed that the circular seemed like an intimidation tactic from the state's petrol and gas industries, especially since the petroleum ministry did not have the authority to publish such a statement. A high-ranking committee oversees India's national biofuels policy, attended by a cabinet secretary-so any changes regarding biodiesel require complete approval from the government, according to Sandeep Chaturvedi, president of the Biodiesel Association of India, headquartered in Mumbai, India. 
 
 Gupta didn't seem alarmed or nervous about the document in a telephone conversation with Biodiesel Magazine, and was actually optimistic about the company's prospects following a recent $3 million shipment from its Kakinada port facility to its "first large European customer."

India's biodiesel industry discounts policy scare

At a September national oilheat industry policy summit in Baltimore, leaders expressed unequivocal support for biodiesel-blended heating oil. Oilheat organizations, such as the National Oilheat Research Alliance and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, approved a statement resolving to ensure a minimum of 2 percent bio content in all U.S. heating oil. 
 
 The Maine Oil Dealers Association labeled the gathering last week as "an unprecedented legislative and policy summit," the goal of which was to address challenges and work toward creating ways to turn existing obstacles into opportunities. The National Biodiesel Board characterized the atmosphere of the summit as not unlike "the original Continental Congress of 1776," where "oilheat leadership from Maine to South Carolina stood one at a time to set the industry on a new, cleaner, greener and more sustainable course."

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Oilheat industry supports Bioheat

State and local governments in Illinois will be boosting their biodiesel use as the result of legislation recently signed into law by Gov. Pat Quinn. The new law increases the biodiesel blend required for use by diesel-powered vehicles owned by the state or local governments when refueling at a bulk central fueling facility from 2 percent to 5 percent.

Illinois fleets upgrade from B2 to B5

The consumption of lard for biodiesel production continued to trend upward in July totaling 23.63 million pounds, up 32 percent from the 17.96 million pounds consumed in June, World Energy Alternatives reported. With the high price of virgin oils, Raj Mosali of the Ohio-based Jatrodiesel, told Biodiesel Magazine that only those plants with multi-feedstock technologies are able to make money in the current situation and offer biodiesel at a low enough price to sell significant volumes. Ultra Green Energy Services of Chicago said its biodiesel comes only from animal fats and other recycled materials, allowing sale of its product at prices well below methyl esters made from virgin oils.

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Lard use for biodiesel trends upward

Posted October 20, 2009
 
 Assessing the energy balance of soy biodiesel is a continuous effort. The University of Idaho and the USDA have been involved with the project for years-they've found that biodiesel's numbers keep improving. "New data becomes available as the industry evolves," says Jon Van Gerpen, biological and agricultural engineering department head at UI. "Ag-production practices and energy efficiencies are getting better and better all the time."
 
 The collaborative report concludes that biodiesel returns 4.5 units of energy for every unit of fossil energy required for its production. The National Biodiesel Board used the circumstance of the report's publication to criticize the U.S. EPA's proposed rule to implement RFS2. "EPA used 2005 baseline numbers for petroleum and biodiesel to project carbon impact 22 years in the future," NBB stated. "That stacks the deck in favor of petroleum." 
 
 New seed varieties and management practices have reduced the need for pesticides, tilling and fuel, and today's biodiesel plants are more energy efficient. "The EPA should take this into account when considering biodiesel's greenhouse gas reductions," said Joe Jobe, CEO of the NBB. 
 
 Some of the necessary data needed to perform this work are only processed every five years, so researchers can only study it as it becomes available or is published. "Energy efficiency data isn't available year to year," Gerpen told Biodiesel Magazine regarding the energy balance figure correlating with actual improvements in the field over the same period. "When we did our study in 2006, biodiesel had an energy balance around 3.9-it might have been better then but we didn't have all of the data available to us."
 
 Biodiesel is also the source of "valuable coproducts" like glycerin, which have been overlooked in the plan to implement RFS2. "This [energy balance study] is one more piece of information that helps to quantify the environmental benefits of biodiesel," Van Gerpen said.
 
 Biodiesel conversion was the most intensive, accounting for about 60 percent of the total energy required in the life-cycle inventory. Soybean agriculture accounted for 18 percent of the total energy requirements, followed by soybean crushing, which required almost 15 percent of the total energy. The secondary inputs added were farm machinery, and building materials for a crushing plant and biodiesel refinery.

Biodiesel energy-balance numbers published in new benchmark study

Posted November 18, 2009
 
 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. today announced that Imperium Renewables, one of the largest producers of biodiesel in the United States, has chosen the powerful iCAP 6000 Series ICP emission spectrometer to analyze biodiesel. The Thermo Scientific iCAP 6000 Series helps Imperium Renewables accurately measure the trace element content of biodiesel to ensure it complies with the strict worldwide regulations governing the biodiesel industry.
 
 Imperium Renewables can produce 100 million gallons of biodiesel per year at nameplate capacity in its flagship facility, Imperium Grays Harbor in Washington. To ensure product quality and compliance with strict government standards, the company rigorously tests its biodiesel for contaminants. Because this commitment to quality is onerous with such high product throughput, the company requires highly reliable analytical instrumentation for its routine analyses.
 
 Like most biodiesel plants, Imperium Renewables operates under stringent ASTM standards. For biodiesel to be sold as a fuel or blending stock, it must meet a set of requirements defined in ASTM D6751 or European Committee for Standardization (CEN) EN14214 standards. These standards specify the maximum allowable element concentrations in pure biodiesel finished product (B100). Until recently, the company outsourced feedstock samples and finished product testing to a third-party, and this was extremely expensive, time-consuming and inefficient. As a result, Imperium Renewables sought to create an in-house solution, focused on ICP technology, that could save time, reduce costs and increase productivity. 
 

 Imperium Renewables purchased the iCAP 6000 Series ICP because of Thermo Fisher's proven track record of providing cost-effective instruments and strong customer support. Lack of space also made the compact iCAP 6000 Series an ideal solution. Nathan Shenk-Boright, laboratory manager at Imperium Renewables explains, "We are now using ICP in our in-house laboratory, instead of outsourcing our samples for analysis. This is extremely beneficial to our customers as we can provide fast service and ensure the optimal quality of our biodiesel."
 
 The iCAP 6000 Series is an ideal ICP for high-throughput elemental analysis laboratories seeking exceptional analytical performance in a practical, reliable instrument that saves laboratory space and reduces analysis times. The iCAP 6000 offers Imperium Renewables a faster alternative to their previous time-consuming and costly outsourcing methods. It is now possible for the company to improve productivity and reliability and ensure regulatory compliance by performing extremely accurate analysis of feedstock and biodiesel in-house. 
 
 For more information on the Thermo Scientific iCAP 6000 Series of ICP emission spectrometers, please call +1 800-532-4752, email analyze@thermofisher.com or visit www.thermo.com/icap. 
 
 Thermo Scientific is part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science.
 
 About Thermo Fisher Scientific
 Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is the world leader in serving science, enabling our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. With 2008 revenues of $10.5 billion, we have approximately 34,000 employees and serve over 350,000 customers within pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, as well as environmental and industrial process control settings. Serving customers through two premier brands, Thermo Scientific and Fisher Scientific, we help solve analytical challenges from routine testing to complex research and discovery. Thermo Scientific offers customers a complete range of high-end analytical instruments as well as laboratory equipment, software, services, consumables and reagents to enable integrated laboratory workflow solutions. Fisher Scientific provides a complete portfolio of laboratory equipment, chemicals, supplies and services used in healthcare, scientific research, safety and education. Together, we offer the most convenient purchasing options to customers and continuously advance our technologies to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, enhance value for customers and fuel growth for shareholders and employees alike. Visit www.thermofisher.com.
 
 For further press information please contact: Celine Callender, The Scott Partnership, 1 Whiteside, Station Road, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire CW4 8AA, United Kingdom Tel: + 44 1477 539 539 Fax: +44 1477 539 540 E-mail: thermo@scottpr.com 
 
 SOURCE: THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC

Thermo Fisher Scientific ICP spectrometer chosen by Imperium Renewables to ensure biodiesel quality

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP is moving B2 through its 115-mile Oregon Pipeline that runs from Portland to Eugene, as of late September, following successful test runs. Kinder Morgan's Oregon line is one of only a few pipelines in the U.S. able to regularly transport blended biodiesel, according to the company, as this pipeline does not transport jet fuel, eliminating the potential for "trailback" of product into subsequent jet fuel batches.
 

 "This new biodiesel shipment capability will help diesel fuel suppliers throughout Oregon meet a state biodiesel mandate that goes into effect on Oct. 1," said Tom Bannigan, KMP Products Pipeline president. "We are transporting B2 in a way that's operationally efficient, quality controlled and cost effective."
 
 The first commercial batch of approximately 100,000 barrels of B2 was created using a new blending system to inject B99 into ultra-low sulfur diesel at the company's Willbridge terminal in Portland. Other area terminals also are expected to deliver B2 to the Kinder Morgan pipeline.
 
 Other improvements to Kinder Morgan's Pacific Northwest facilities include biodiesel blending capabilities at the truck-loading rack at the Willbridge terminal and for barge loading at the Linnton terminal in Portland. In the company's Southeast operations, Plantation Pipe Line Company (operated by Kinder Morgan), became the first pipeline in the country to transport biodiesel for commercial purposes in June.

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Kinder Morgan moves biodiesel on Oregon pipeline

The U.S EPA hopes to issue its highly anticipated final rule on the revised renewable fuels standard by the end of this year, according to EPA spokesman Dave Ryan. "We're working diligently to complete the rule so all relevant provisions can be implemented in 2010," he said. 
 
 The comment period for the proposed ruling was extended three months to Sept. 25, and thousands of comments were received-the exact number of which EPA declined to give. However, the National Biodiesel Board estimated its campaign alone had generated over 8,000 responses during the public comment period. "We review all comments," Ryan said. "We make revisions to the rule as appropriate, not based on the number of comments on an issue but on the substance and importance of the comments."
 
 In a letter to U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) just before the comment period closed, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson indicated industry furor over some of the proposed regulations had been heard. While citing feedback stating how important it is to take into account indirect emissions from biofuels, Jackson also said it was clear that there are significant uncertainties, in particular with the estimate of indirect land use change. "In the proposal, we asked for comment on whether and how to conduct an uncertainty analysis that could help quantify the magnitude of this uncertainty and its relative impact on the resulting life-cycle emissions estimates," Jackson wrote to Harkin. "The results of the peer review, and the feedback we have received from the comment process, supported the value of conducting such an analysis. Therefore, I have asked my staff to quantify the uncertainty associated with specifically the international indirect land use change emissions. They are working closely with USDA as well as incorporating feedback from experts who are commenting on the rule. This analysis will allow us to quantify the impact of the uncertainty on the life-cycle emissions. We will present these estimates in the final rule, and I plan to incorporate those estimates of uncertainty in my regulatory decisions."
 
 Jackson was responding to Harkin's request for information regarding an amendment he had introduced to H.R. 2996-the Senate Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2010-that would have stopped funding for the EPA's implementation of any rule limiting biofuels based on indirect land use. "In light of the EPA letter, and because EPA had said it would delay issuing regulations to establish renewable fuel volume biofuel requirements for 2010," Harkin withdrew the amendment, according to spokesman Grant Gustafson.
 
 In the House agricultural committee, Chairman Collin Peterson earlier successfully negotiated language in the Climate Change bill that passed the House, which would require a full analysis of indirect land use change impacts; and would also require agreement among the EPA, USDA and Congress before any resulting policy could be implemented, delaying any possible implementation for five years. 
 
 -Susanne Retka Schil

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EPA to issue final RFS2 rule in December

India has taken sharp steps to promote the production and use of biodiesel by removing import duties, ending the excise tax on B100, and even giving benefits to blended fuels. In addition, the country has an aggressive jatropha cultivation program, said Sandeep Chaturvedi, president of the Biodiesel Association of India, which is helping to create jobs for the world's second largest population, 25 percent of which lives below the poverty line. "It will be a few more years until we see results from jatropha, so we are keeping going with used cooking and industrial oils," he said. "India has a capacity for biodiesel production that is nearly 3,000 tons (just under a million gallons) per day, but we are only operating at about 10 percent of that volume."
 

 Nearly all of the nations with significant biodiesel production capacity are operating well below peak, but the development of second-generation technologies and feedstocks remains strong. India's Center for Jatropha Promotion and Biodiesel (CJP) said years of continuous research, trials and experiments have resulted in "a big breakthrough" in the search for a viable alternative feedstock. "After having a number of successful field trials, CJP is happy to announce the much-awaited commercial release of Couple Oil Crop Cultivation technology," the organization said. 
 
 CJP is dedicated to the development of oilseed-bearing trees, nonfood vegetable oil plantation and technologies "in order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, bring greater control and security of fuel supply and reduce dangerous climate changing emissions, including carbon dioxide." With an effort to "grow beyond oil," CJP has identified, developed and cultivated as many as 12 oilseed-bearing trees and nonfood oil crops in addition to jatropha. "With years of continuing research, experiments and trials, we have provided an adage to find and develop second-generation biodiesel feedstock with low-cost input technology," CJP said. 
 
 R.R. Sharma, plant science director for CJP, said jatropha plantations occupy about 50 percent of the planted land, and the rest of the acreage under development will be utilized in a sustainable manner in conjunction with experiments involving various intercropping options, patterns and agro-technologies. "We have been in search of such an intercrop for Jatropha, which should be oil-bearing like jatropha itself without competing with it for food and water, and should be capable of fulfilling jatropha fertilizer requirements while still maintaining soil fertility," he said.
 
 Emergence of the combination crop system may change the entire scenario of the biodiesel industry and shall provide much relief to it, which is desperately in need of viable, sustainable, nonfood feedstocks. "Now we can ensure an oil yield [between 1200 and 1350] gallons per hectare," Sharma said. "The same acreage of land [soon] may provide double the output." 
 
 -Nicholas Zeman

With its aggressive jatropha program, India hopes these oil-bearing nuts will provide a viable feedstock for biodiesel production and create jobs for its citizens. 

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India anticipates reaping rewards from its aggressive jatropha program

The European Commission will be conducting a public consultation this fall on proposed policies to implement the EC Fuel Quality Directive and Renewable Energy Directive. Ariane de Dominicis and Wojciech Winkler spoke about implementation of the European Union renewable fuel policies at a late September Webinar hosted by the International Fuel Quality Center, a nonprofit facilitated by Hart Energy Consulting. Winkler assisted in the Fuel Quality Directive's legislative process and is presently responsible for its implementation. Dominicis is coordinating the biofuels policies. Both work at the EC Directorate General for Environment.
 
 The RED sets targets for all member states that the EU will reach 20 percent renewable content in all energy sectors and a 10 percent renewable share in the transport sector by 2020. The FQD deals specifically with transportation fuels, calling for a 6 percent reduction in life-cycle analysis greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity between 2010 and 2020 for all transport fuels. Additional criteria call for an initial GHG savings threshold of 35 percent for biofuels, rising to 50 percent in 2017 and 60 percent in 2018 for new production facilities. 
 
 According to the preliminary default GHG ratings shared by Dominicis and Winkler, the GHG reduction targets in the FQD will present a challenge for all biodiesel except the waste-based product. The current default GHG savings value of 38 percent for biodiesel from rapeseed methyl ester is sufficient only for the first years of the program; soy methyl ester at 31 percent is not. Palm methyl ester is rated at 56 percent if methane emissions at processing facilities are mediated and only 19 percent if methane is not controlled. Waste-based biodiesel scored above 80 percent in GHG reductions. GHG emissions can be reported using either the default values or actual values can be used, Dominicis said, a policy that should create incentives to improve GHG reduction performance for different fuel pathways. The regulations will also allow the updating of default values and GHG methodology when new science or evidence is available or new fuel pathways created, she added.
 
 Direct land use change is addressed in the EC policy with the prohibition of eligible biofuels coming from land converted from high-carbon stock areas, such as wetlands, continuously forested areas or undrained peatlands. While the permanent conversion to cropland is prohibited, Dominicis added that biomass from those lands could be used. "You could use the forest, but you can't clear the forest and convert it to cropland," she said. Guidelines on how to identify such areas are currently in development. 
 

 Dominicis said the indirect land use issue is being studied now by the EC in two tracks. One group is examining the current science while another is exploring possible policies. She gave no hints whether indirect land use will ultimately be incorporated into the EC policy. A preliminary consultation conducted this summer solicited comments from industry, several EU states, and potential exporting countries that elicited a range of responses relative to incorporating indirect land use change effects. A fall consultation on the full policy will be open to the public on the directorate's Web site. 
 
 While the EC directive set the end of 2010 as the deadline for the new policies, the goal within the Directorate for Environment is to have the sustainability criteria and indirect land use issue determined by the spring of 2010, giving time for the individual member-states to incorporate the policies into their national implementation plans.
 
 Winkler addressed the fossil fuel component of the FQD in the Webinar, too. A system to collect national fuel quality data is being developed, he said, along with a system for monitoring compliance with the new GHG reduction and sustainability goals, including specifying appropriate analytical methods to measure compliance. The system will allow some flexibility, Winkler added, mentioning as an example the potential for special specifications for states with low ambient temperatures that impact biodiesel blends and variances for vapor pressure levels for ethanol blends. 
 
 The Directorate for Environment is also working on the methodology to determine nonbiofuel GHG emissions, as well as the baseline value for the fuel mixture used in 2010, he added. The goal is to develop technology-neutral approaches to achieving a 6 percent reduction in carbon intensity for suppliers of energy used in road transport and nonroad mobile machinery between 2011 and 2020. 
 
 To learn more about the EC renewable energy policies visit <a href="http://www.ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables">www.ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables</a>.
 
 SIDEBAR
 IDB releases new Biofuels Sustainability Scorecard
 The Inter-American Development Bank has released a new version of its Biofuels Sustainability Scorecard to help developers anticipate the impacts of potential biofuel projects. The first version of the interactive, Web-based tool was released a year ago and addressed 23 variables including GHG emissions, water management, biodiversity and poverty reduction. The updated version includes new social categories addressing issues related to indigenous people, local grower arrangements and impacts on food security, among others. The scorecard includes a spatial analysis tool that enables users to quickly access Geographic Information System data regarding areas for biodiversity preservation. Future versions will add data layers to show the spatial dimensions of water scarcity, cultural sites and high carbon sequestration, among other parameters. To access the scorecard, visit <a href="http://www.iadb.org/scorecard/">www.iadb.org/scorecard/</a>. 

 
 -Susanne Retka Schill

Biofuel producers in the European Union will get the first look this fall at proposed rules to implement the EC's Renewable Energy Directive and Fuel Quality Directive. PHOTO: GREENERGY 

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EC makes progress on implementing renewable fuels policy

R3 Energy LLC in Cottonwood Falls, Kan., recently started selling biodiesel from its new plant, which makes fuel from animal fats and other recycled oils. The facility was commissioned with a treatment system in place to help pass the Cold Soak Filtration Test, which is now necessary if producers want to continue receiving the $1 per gallon excise tax credit. "It's a little expensive," said Kristof Reiter. "But I think it's important that the whole industry puts out a higher quality product, and we can do that." 
 
 Over the past months, several new products have hit the market to assist producers with meeting and continuing to comply with Internal Revenue Service stipulations that require biodiesel to meet the ASTM standard for cold soak before it can receive tax benefits. 
 
 Since its 2006 launch, Cognis Corp.'s Quality Trait Analysis System has conducted more than 150 million biodiesel tests for its customers, has participated quarterly in the ASTM Interlaboratory crosscheck program and recently completed an American Oil Chemists Society-sponsored round robin of its base capabilities as per the ASTM D6708 requirements.
 
 "The beta versions of oxidation stability and cold soak filtration will be available to existing customers immediately for evaluation," Cognis stated. "The commercial versions will be released during the fourth quarter."
 
 Megan Nitz, lab director for Prairie Pride Inc. in Deerfield, Mo., said she needed to see repeatability in sample size, result range and the test phases of new cold soak products before selecting a cold soak testing platform to meet the needs of their facility.
 
 "The addition of oxidation stability and cold soak filtration to the slate of tests required on each batch of biodiesel significantly increased the analysis time by as much as 3 days," said Barbara Stefl, business director for Cognis. "With the screening capability of the QTA System for these tests, producers and buyers of biodiesel can have confidence in the quality of the product before the long method is complete."
 
 There was some speculation that the Oct. 1 deadline might be pushed back again, but as the date approached, an eleventh hour extension did not seem to be forthcoming. "I don't think it will be extended again," Reiter said. "I didn't think it made much sense to implement it in the spring [when the original deadline was set], but winter is getting ready to start and it should be enacted."
 
 R3 Energy uses Schroeder Biofuels', Cold Clear filtration technology to remove sterol glucosides and other impurities that can drop out of fuel suspension in cold weather. Cold Clear works by removing certain contaminants "that create higher than normal likelihood of surface crystallization" on filters, which can cause break downs. The system is designed to be a single pass three-stage bank of filters and absorbers that sequentially remove those compounds likely to cause filter plugging, Schroeder stated. "I think it's the easiest equipment on the market to implement into the scheme of a biodiesel plant," said Jonathan Dugan, biofuels manager for Pennsylvania-based Schroeder. "It's a simple housing with absorption cartridges that can be changed very easily, and there are no hazardous materials or chemicals involved."
 

 Each three-stage housing compartment can treat an estimated 15,000 gallons of B100 per complete change. The filtration housing is sized for five gallons per minute of flow, but is easily scaled for higher requirements that can accommodate the specific needs of individual plants.
 
 In addition, there is a specification for blended fuel-from B6 to B20-as well as pure biodiesel, so fuel terminals and distribution centers that perform blending operations also have to comply with ASTM specifications. Therefore, Schroeder recently increased the handling capacity of its Cold Clear system to allow for the purification of blended fuel, as well.
 
 -Nicholas Zeman

After Oct. 1, biodiesel producers and/or blenders whose fuel does not pass the cold soak test may not be eligible to collect the $1 per gallon federal blenders credit. PHOTO: TERESA ALLEMAN/NREL 

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IRS deadline pressures producers to pass cold soak

The 63rd International Auto Show in Frankfurt, Germany, began Sept. 15 with several interesting diesel debuts from BMW AG and several other European manufacturers, said Dirk Arnold, BMW product communications manager.
 
 BMW only offers two diesel models in the U.S.-the X5 xdrive35d and 335d models-but the automaker has a wide portfolio of compression-ignition motors available in Europe. Earlier this year, BMW announced the introduction of a 3.0 liter twin turbo diesel engine and is introducing the 740d in Frankfurt for sale in 2010, along with the 320d EfficientDynamics edition, which emits only 109 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. "We have several new diesel offerings in Europe, where they are selling quite well," Arnold said. 
 
 The BMW Alpina line showed the D3 Bi-Turbo in Frankfurt, featuring a 2.0 liter, four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine with an aluminum block, even though less than 2,000 of these cars are made annually. 
 
 Receiving a lot of attention was the Vision EfficientDynamics concept car. This futuristic vehicle is a diesel hybrid plug-in, but costs a fortune to make. The powertrain provides acceleration to 100 kilometers per hour in 4.8 seconds, and its average fuel consumption is near 62.6 miles per gallon, BMW reported. "This is a very far look into the future," Arnold said. "Maybe this would be possible for production with some completely new diesel engine or other new technology, but for the next five years the advantage of combining diesel and electric systems is relatively low compared to the tremendous cost." 
 
 One of BMW's brands, the popular sports hatchback Mini, entered the diesel market with a new model being presented in Frankfurt. "The broad range of new models is being rounded off by the world debut of the Mini One D, a new entry-level diesel consistently upgrading the Mini portfolio of particularly economical and efficient models," BMW said. 
 
 "Engineers have been working continuously with the technical aspects of biodiesel, and blends of 7 percent to 12 percent work in our motors with no problem at all," Arnold told Biodiesel Magazine on the opening morning of the show. 
 
 The German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) hosts the Frankfurt Auto Show and said it expected nearly 750,000 visitors at the event. This year, VDA focused on recovery from the financial crisis and environmental sustainability, including the production of clean diesels. "These are just some of the new models that will already be on our roads in the coming months," said Matthias Wissmann, VDA president. "And most of them feature surprisingly low fuel consumption and amazingly low CO2 emissions."

 
 Stateside, Ford Motor Co. approved B20 in its 2011 Super Duty diesel line, a move that received praise from biodiesel industry leaders and the National Biodiesel Board. Ford responded by making its 2011 line of F-Series Super Duty diesel pick up trucks compatible with biodiesel blends up to B20. 
 
 "We have a fleet advisory board and we go through a very specific process of communication with our customers, and we are always asking them what they are looking for," said Anne Marie Gattari, spokeswoman for Ford. "Biodiesel compatibility kept coming up over and over again and it speaks to fuel economy, it speaks to an environmental solution and it allows an opportunity for us to advance our technology."
 
 For vehicles currently on the road, Ford has approved biodiesel blends up to B5, so increasing the methyl ester compatibility of its models, regarding emissions compliance, engine components and other specs, required some considerable modifications. "The new 6.7-liter Power Stroke V-8 turbocharged diesel will employ an aftertreatment system to help comply with 2010 federal regulations to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) levels in diesel emissions by more than 80 percent compared with the previous standard," the company stated. 
 
 The Ford aftertreatment system for its new clean diesel technology involves a three-stage process. First, the exhaust stream enters a diesel oxidation catalyst, which converts hydrocarbons into water and carbon dioxide. NOx is then scrubbed from the emissions after receiving an injection of diesel exhaust fluid, and passes through a selective catalytic reduction chamber, which turns the gas into water and inert nitrogen. Lastly, a diesel particulate filter traps any remaining soot, which is periodically burned off in a process known as regeneration. "The regeneration process sees temperatures in excess of 600 degrees Celsius to burn away soot," according to Ford. 
 
 "Our diesel customers account for the majority of our Super Duty sales," Gattari said. "And fleet customers who often buy hundreds of models at a time represent the largest percentage of our diesel sales-they wanted biodiesel." Approximately 65 percent of the company's Super Duty sales are diesels. 
 
 -Nicholas Zeman

Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board, Daimler AG, and Matthias Wissmann, president of the German Association of the Automotive Industry. PHOTO: VDA 

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Frankfurt auto show unveils new diesel options

A significant new market for biodiesel could open up if tests on biodiesel blends by an Iowan regional railroad are successful. Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd. (IAIS) is testing B10 and B20 on one of its switching engines in cooperation with the University of Kansas and Renewable Energy Group Inc. REG is supplying the biodiesel fuel, the University of Kansas Transportation Research Institute is performing emissions testing, and IAIS is monitoring engine performance, engine wear and horsepower.
 
 Biodiesel blend tests in locomotives have been few and far between. Locomotive engine manufacturers have not yet tested nor endorsed the use of biodiesel because railroad companies are not requesting to use biodiesel. If the industry were to take interest in biodiesel, it would be a significant market. In 2007, the rail industry consumed 3.6 billion gallons of diesel fuel, making it the second largest industrial user of petroleum diesel fuel, second only to the on-road sector. 
 
 "We hope this biodiesel blend demonstration will serve as the tipping point for the rail industry's use of renewable fuels," explained REG vice president of customer and service technical, Myron Danzer. "We expect to find reduced diesel particulate matter and carbon emissions, as well as improved lubricity with the use of biodiesel. This partnership is fitting as IAIS serves several of the biodiesel plants in the REG network by transporting large volumes of our REG-9000 biodiesel nationwide. For IAIS to burn the biodiesel they haul is a prime example of going green." 
 

 IAIS President and CEO Dennis H. Miller added, "Our company has been looking at biodiesel as an alternative to diesel fuel for some time. This could open the door for more than 600 other railroads to have another source of fuel to use in their locomotives that burns cleaner and is environmentally friendly. It is also another value-added market to Iowa farmers and the ag industry by providing another use for their products." 
 
 IAIS has incorporated biodiesel testing into the regular maintenance schedule for the switching engine being monitored. The 2,000-horsepower diesel electric is a 16-cylinder, two-stroke engine. Ted Peltier, assistant professor of civil engineering at the University of Kansas, said he and a student made their first trip to Iowa in June with portable emissions testing equipment. Baseline measurements were taken on the switching engine for emissions and engine performance, before the fuel was switched to B10. In late September, after 90 days in service, the team went back to repeat the measurements. A B20 fuel blend was to be used until the next scheduled maintenance in December when the locomotive will switch back to straight diesel fuel to complete the comparative analysis. 
 
 IAIS is testing power output and fuel efficiency using a dynamometer, and checking for engine wear. "In the locomotive world, people say burning bio is going to cause wear," said Randy Laughridge, assistant chief mechanical officer at IAIS. "We ask them, where's your data?" One of the purposes of the tests is to collect that data on biodiesel's impact on engine wear. While biodiesel use in older light- and heavy-duty trucks can have problems with gasket and hose compatibility with biodiesel use, Laughridge explained locomotives primarily use steel and copper lines. The impact of biodiesel on fuel filters is part of the testing, he added. "But we haven't had any issues so far," he said. "No complaints." 
 
 By press time, Peltier said the University of Kansas team had not completed the data analysis for the B10 testing conducted in late September. The Kansas team is only monitoring the gaseous emissions, he added. "Particulates are important, but the portable equipment we use for small engines could only be scaled up for the gases. The equipment we use for particulate matter tests can't be scaled up." Tests are being run for levels of nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and total hydrocarbons, as well as carbon dioxide. "There aren't current regulations on CO2, but everyone expects them to be coming in the future," Peltier added. 
 
 Locomotives, along with marine diesels, are among the last diesel industry sectors required to meet more stringent emission standards by the U.S. EPA. The standards apply to newly manufactured and remanufactured railroad locomotive engines that were originally built after 1973. The first tiers of standards became effective in 2000 with the final date for Tier 0 through Tier 2 compliance set for 2010. More stringent Tier 3 and 4 standards were adopted by the agency in March 2008. The Tier 3 standards become effective in 2011 and 2012, and are expected to be met by engine design methods to reduce emissions. Tier 4 standards become effective in 2015 and are expected to require exhaust aftertreatment technologies to meet the standards. Typically, rail locomotives are kept in service for decades, receiving regular maintenance and replacement of key parts. The big diesels, which range from 600 horsepower for small switching engines to over 2,500 horsepower for long haulers, actually generate electricity to supply power to traction motors driving the running gear. With regular maintenance, the diesels undergo major overhauls every 10 to 15 years. With such a slow turnover in the fleet, EPA expects the air quality benefits from its emissions standards to extend to 2030 and beyond.
 
 -Susanne Retka Schill

Biodiesel blends are being tested in a switching engine at the Iowa Interstate Railroad's Council Bluffs, Iowa, rail yard. PHOTO:REG

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Regional railroad puts biodiesel blends to the test

We've all attended those conferences where there are lots of people looking to sell things but no one wants to buy anything. The sign of a successful conference is when buyers and sellers are both there, along with everyone in between. 
 The National Biodiesel Board's National Biodiesel Conference and Expo exemplifies what a successful event is. It provides real opportunities where everyone in the industry is in one place, which is a unique situation. And this year, it's all happening in Texas.
 
 Texas is the perfect host state for this event. Country singers croon about Texas women's beauty, but our state has much more to offer than pretty women and good country music. We boast huge agricultural potential. In terms of development, Texas is home to major sectors of the global petrochemical industry. More than any other location, biodiesel producers and marketers have a collection of end-customers available in their backyards. With a Texas twist, the conference is sure to be better than ever. 
 
 From educational and commercial perspectives, NBB's conference is without competition the premier biodiesel event. And because it's in Texas, NBB is doing it even bigger this year-with a bigger resort, bigger networking opportunities and even bigger places to sit and connect with other industry leaders. 
 

 The conference theme, "Today's Challenge, Tomorrow's Impact," captures the realities of our industry. This year we have seen plants close their doors and shut down production. We bid adieu to European markets as we knew them, fought to protect biodiesel from regulatory nightmares in the RFS2 rulemaking process, and rallied for a continued tax incentive. 
 
 The past year has been nothing short of challenging, yet it has positioned our industry to have a major impact in 2010. The National Biodiesel Conference and Expo promises to assemble experts, field leaders, tested champions and the latest technology all in one place. It's our chance to take advantage of leading contacts, business opportunities and industry insight in a concentrated setting. With new and improved sessions, tracks, networking opportunities and more, the 2010 conference will pack months of opportunity into just a few days. 
 
 NBB's conference is among the best, and it's one you simply cannot miss because it includes a broad spectrum of the industry. Some attendees will be interested in buying and selling. Others will want to get involved. Many attend the conference to learn about what is being offered, and they will apply the information to advance their business while gaining a better understanding of the commercial side as well.
 
 The event will be held Feb. 7-10 at the Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center in Grapevine, Texas. If you register by Nov. 13 you can still access early registration discounts.
 
 You can find information online www.biodieselconference.org or call (303) 798-3664. I urge you to join me in the Lone Star state for the biodiesel event of the year.
 
 By Jeff Truckess, NBB governing board member and executive vice president of governmental relations for Houston-based Green Earth Fuels.

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Bigger in Texas

The NBB's work with original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) through the OEM outreach program, which promotes greater acceptance and use of biodiesel blends, has yielded results as Ford Motor Co. unveiled its all-new diesel engine. Engineered and built by Ford, the B20-approved engine will debut in the Ford 2011 F-Series Super Duty truck, which will hit dealer showrooms mid-2010. 
 
 "This is the first of what we expect to be many formal announcements of B20 approval in new clean diesel technology," said Steve Howell, NBB technical director. "With the formal approval and acceptance of B20 in the 2011 Super Duty, Ford now has a clean, green engine of tomorrow that will also reduce NOx emissions by more than 80 percent." 
 
 The NBB and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have spent more than $10 million testing B20 to evaluate the fuel's compatibility in new diesel engines and aftertreatment systems. In addition, many OEMs are doing their own durability tests on biodiesel blends.

 
 "It's rewarding to see the efforts by NBB and NREL start to pay off," Howell said, noting that most of the NBB funding for the testing was provided by U.S. soybean farmers through the soybean checkoff program. "The engine makers asked for an ASTM B20 blended standard, in addition to the pure biodiesel standard, and we worked hard to get it passed."
 
 Ford's support for B20 could have substantial market implications. Ford currently dominates the on-road diesel truck market with nearly a 46-percent market share of the diesel vehicle registrations in the U.S., according to the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.

'Feed me, Seymour!' NBB's OEM outreach program pays off as Ford's newest diesel motor thirsts for biodiesel. Photo: FORD MOTOR CO. 

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Have you driven a Ford … lately?

New biodiesel plant maps now update automatically as changes happen. The new maps are database-driven and available online. 
 
 "The most important improvement is that these maps are rendered in real time, meaning no more waiting for new maps to come out," said Scott Tremain, NBB director of information technology. "Plant locations can now be administered directly from our membership information management system," or MIMS. 
 
 The new maps feature interactive street-level zooming and the ability to view all locations or filter locations by state. The results can be easily exported for use in Microsoft Excel, GPS units, or even into a PDF for printing. These features are also available on the biodiesel retailer and distributor maps.
 
 The new maps can be accessed from the www.biodiesel.org home page in the center "Start Here" box, the "Buying Biodiesel" tab in the navigation menu or anywhere previous links to the maps could be found online.
 
 Check out the new maps at: <a href="http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/plants/">http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/plants/</a>.

Improved biodiesel plant maps on NBB's Web site update plant data to give consumers and marketers real time information. 

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NBB biodiesel plant maps go live

Posted October 30, 2009
 
 The <a href="http://www.rspo.eu">Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil</a> announced that more than 250,000 metric tons of RSPO-certified palm oil, or corresponding certificates, have been purchased since becoming available late last year. Almost half was purchased in the last two months. The organization released the first year results a few days before opening its sixth general assembly which will convene Nov. 4 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
 
 "Six years after the foundation of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, we are witnessing the first stages of a viable market for sustainable palm oil," said Jan Kees Vis, RSPO president. "Now is a great time for more producers and users of palm oil to join the endeavor, so that one day all palm oil will be produced in a socially and environmentally sustainable way."
 
 The quarter million sales accounts for 22 percent of the total certified production of 1.1 million metric tons from plantations in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea over the past year. After a slow start, product manufacturers and retail companies began purchasing sustainable palm oil this past summer, the RSPO said, paying a premium for the certified sustainable product. By September and October, the market uptake of sustainable supplies rose to about 50 percent. 
 
 The rise in sales of sustainable palm oil coincides with a growing number of companies publicly pledging to fully switch to sustainable palm oil within a certain time frame (many choose 2015), as all RSPO members are required to do. Worldwide, an estimated 40 million tons of palm oil is produced annually. About 4 percent of global production capacity has so far been RSPO-certified.

 
 The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil is a multi-stakeholder association created in 2003 by seven organizations and companies aiming towards sustainable production of palm oil. The roundtable includes palm growers, processors, traders, retailers, investors and leading nongovernmental organizations such as WWF and Oxfam International. The RSPO now has more than 400 members.

Certified sustainable palm sales growing after one year

The NBB has long supported innovation in feedstock opportunities. It's no surprise the organization is helping to find yet another unique alternative to support biodiesel. Twenty miles north of Salt Lake City, hopeful researchers harvested a flowery red and yellow safflower crop as part the "Freeway-to-Fuel" project. Sponsored by NBB, the Utah Department of Transportation and others, the program is testing whether nontraditional or unused lands at military bases, airports, local municipalities and roadside parcels can be used to grow and harvest biofuel feedstock crops. 
 
 The test plots at the roadside lab in Utah may hold the key to increasing biofuel production while reducing the costs for mowing, upkeep and maintenance of these unused parcels of lands. Plus, the biodiesel produced from these crops could someday fuel their equipment, reducing cost even more. 
 

 "Biodiesel is the most diverse fuel on the planet," said NBB CEO Joe Jobe. "And the Freeways-to-Fuel program can expand that reach even more. This initiative can also complement urban farming projects, offering fruits and vegetables as well as plants grown to produce biodiesel."
 
 Safflower, canola and soybeans are examples of feedstocks that can be grown and harvested to produce vegetable oil for biodiesel in addition to protein for humans and livestock. Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County officials are using 200 acres of vacant land near the airport to grow safflower for making biodiesel. The tillage required to make the land productive for biodiesel will also make it more economical for the city and county to use portions of the same land, or other publicly-owned, idle parcels, for community-supported farming.

NBB's feedstock program supports a new initiative turning underused land into unexpected opportunity. 

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Biodiesel feedstock program supports Freeways-to-Fuel project

At the national oilheat industry policy summit held in mid-September in Baltimore, oilheat leadership from Maine to South Carolina set the industry on a new cleaner, greener and more sustainable course. At the event, oilheat leadership, including National Oil Heat Research Alliance, the New England Fuel Institute, and Petroleum Marketers Association of America, approved a statement formally embracing cleaner burning fuels such as Bioheat, and endorsed an ultra-low sulfur standard and solar technology. 
 
 The historic collaboration of assembled oilheat associations and stakeholders formally adopted long-term goals, which include expanding the availability of Bioheat. A resolution calls for changes to heating oil, part of which directs that all heating oil will be mixed with a bio component by July 2010 to ensure that at least 2 percent of the fuel is renewable, with goals to increase levels over time.
 
 "It is an exciting time for the industry," said Peter Carini of Champion Energy of New York. "As an industry, we face many challenges, but most of them can be met if we embrace this exciting opportunity to create a new product that will be environmentally responsible and competitive, ensuring that our industry will be a part of the solution to the energy security and climate change challenges facing our nation." 
 
 This news means a greatly expanded market opportunity for biodiesel producers. At a 5 percent blend, the Bioheat market has the potential to increase biodiesel demand by 450 million gallons annually.

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Oilheat industry embraces Bioheat, opens door for 450 million gallon market

Five years ago, barely a quarter of the people asked had ever heard of biodiesel. Today, most people are familiar with the renewable fuel. One of NBB's core functions is raising the public's awareness of biodiesel and building confidence in the fuel-and those efforts are paying off.
 
 According to an Internet-based survey conducted in August by Moore Information, 86 percent of the participating respondants have now heard of biodiesel. That compares to just 27 percent in June 2004. The survey sampled a representative group of registered voters.
 
 <img src="http://images.bbibiofuels.com/img/10152009_5_04_23_PM.jpg" alt="nov.09bdm_nbbchart1" border="0" />
 
 But that's not all the numbers show. Not only have people heard of biodiesel, they are also becoming more familiar with what it is. In 2004, 8 percent of people were familiar with biodiesel. Today, 48 percent of those surveyed say they are familiar with biodiesel. The survey also demonstrated that people's view of biodiesel is widely positive. Also, 80 percent of consumers surveyed said they would use the fuel, the highest percentage to date. 
 
 <img src="http://images.bbibiofuels.com/img/10152009_5_04_57_PM.jpg" alt="nov.09bdm_nbbchart2" border="0" />

 
 In addition to looking at how people view biodiesel, NBB also examined how survey participants responded to certain key words and biodiesel's benefits. All of biodiesel's benefits tested well, with economic benefits leading as the greatest benefit. The survey also showed that the term "renewable" is favored over "biofuels," "alternative" and "green." 
 
 For more detailed analysis of the Moore Information survey, visit NBB's web site or contact the communications office.

Survey indicates public's awareness of biodiesel triples

>> Lake Erie Biofuels LLC has a new name, Hero BX, and with it a new marketing strategy based on its proprietary blending technology to ensure high-quality biodiesel. "HERO BX is producing superior biodiesel today using first generation feedstocks from waste oil to catfish oil, to vegetable oil, and tomorrow we will add to our feedstock portfolio the most efficient and cost competitive second- and third-generation feedstocks such as camelina and algae," CEO Leonard Kosar said. Currently producing 45 MMgy at its Erie, Pa., plant, the company plans to expand as it continues to grow its global market.
 
 >> Global Alternative Fuels LLC began commissioning the expansion of its El Paso, Texas, biodiesel plant in October, tripling its capacity to 15 MMgy within a year of opening its doors. Plans are being made to boost production another 10 MMgy within a couple of years at the multi-feedstock plant, according to Dean Rigg, chief financial officer. SRS Engineering Corp. was initially working on a methanol recovery system and feedstock pretreatment system when its role was expanded to include the two-stage expansion. 

 
 >> The nation's largest independent renderer, Darling International Inc. has teamed up with Valero Energy Corp. to apply for a U.S. DOE loan guarantee to build a facility capable of producing more than 10,000 barrels per day (135 MMgy) of renewable diesel on a site next to Valero's St. Charles oil refinery near Norco, La. For some time Darling has been studying the biofuels arena and looking for the right partner for a joint venture, according to Brad Phillips, treasurer. The company is not announcing the technology provider at this time, although Phillips said it will be a smaller scale hydrotreating process similar to current oil refining technology. 
 
 >> A Scottish consortium has bought out the original investors in Argent Energy Plc, Motherwell, Scotland. The consortium, which includes Souter Investments and existing plant managers, bought the company from a group of investors led by Cinven Ltd. Argent Energy pioneered large-scale commercial biodiesel production in the United Kingdom when it started production in 2005. "Since we started production we have delivered over 170 million liters (45 million gallons) of biodiesel and our plant is currently running close to full capacity," said Jim Walker, managing director. With a capacity of 13.5 MMgy, the plant recycles used cooking oil and tallow as feedstocks. A new preprocessing facility is currently under construction. 
 
 >> National Wind Solutions Inc., Houston, has acquired a shuttered biodiesel plant in Poteet, Texas, in Atascosa County. The company is evaluating engineering proposals to modernize the facility and considering moving it to another location. If brought into production successfully, it will be the alternative energy company's first venture into biofuels. A company spokesman said if upgrading and converting to multi-feedstock capability can be accomplished economically, the company is considering further acquisitions. 
 

 >> Cummins Inc.'s filtration division announced in August it was cutting 400 jobs at its Lake Mills, Iowa, plant. The company will consolidate North American filter assembly operations in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, beginning in November. While the Lake Mills plant will lose 400 jobs, Cummins stated it will still employ 110 people there. "The current recession has led to the steepest drop in sales in the 52-year history of Cummins Filtration," said Joseph Saoud, division president. "Sales have fallen more than 30 percent since November 2008, and we do not expect any meaningful recovery in demand until 2011."
 
 >>Brazilian oil company, Petrobras, plans to invest $3.84-million in an Inaja palm biodiesel plant in the Amazon state of Roraima. According to Brazil's crop research agency, Inaja palm has seven times the oil yield of soybeans at 975 gallons per hectare. Petrobras currently has three biodiesel plants in operation at Quixadá, Ceará; Montes Claros, Minas Gerais; and Candeias, Bahia.
 
 >> U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) hosted senior U.S.EPA officials on Sept. 3 at a Newton, Iowa, biodiesel plant managed by Renewable Energy Group Inc. The forum highlighted the challenges facing the biodiesel industry in Iowa and the need for the EPA to take interim steps to implement the biodiesel volume goals under the renewable fuels standard. "Biodiesel stakeholders have made important business decisions based on the modest biodiesel volume requirements provided for in RFS2," said Manning Feraci, National Biodiesel Board vice president for federal affairs. 
 
 >> Lisa Raitt, Minister of Natural Resources Canada, announced in September that the Methes Energies' biodiesel plant will receive up to $5.4 million through the ecoENERGY for Biofuels program."Our government is delivering results for families and workers in Mississauga by encouraging clean energy development," said Minister Raitt. "By investing in this project, we are helping to create and sustain local jobs and economic opportunities now, when they're needed the most." 
 

 >> Cognis Corp. announced that it has added two capabilities to its Quality Trait Analysis (QTA) System for Biodiesel. "The addition of the oxidation stability and cold soak filtration tests to the QTA System enables biodiesel producers and buyers to quickly assess the quality of their product," the company stated. Cognis' expanded capabilities for its QTA system is the latest in a series of industry introductions in recent months as companies offer solutions for biodiesel producers preparing to meet new ASTM guidelines for biodiesel. 
 
 >> The popularity of the diesel-electric hybrid vehicles has helped Navistar become the first original equipment manufacturer to accumulate more than 5 million miles with customers driving hybrid International-brand trucks and IC Bus -brand buses. Depending on the specific application and other conditions, Navistar reports hybrid trucks can deliver up to 40 percent fuel savings in stop-and-go driving and pick-up/delivery operations. 
 
 Share your Business Briefs To be included in Business Briefs, send information (including photos, illustrations or logos, if available) to: Business Briefs, Biodiesel Magazine, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203. You may also fax information to (701) 746-5367, or e-mail it to <a href="mailto:rkotrba@bbiinternational.com">rkotrba@bbiinternational.com</a>. Please include your name and telephone number in each correspondence.

Pat Black, chairman of Erie Management Group, and Len Kosar, CEO, show off the new brand for the Erie, Pa.-based biodiesel producers. PHOTO: HERO BX 

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Navistar reports more than 5 million miles driven with its diesel-electric hybrids. PHOTO: NAVISTAR

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BusinessBriefs: Companies, Organizations & People in the News

USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan will tour Renewable Energy Group Inc.'s new biodiesel feedstock research center at the company headquarters in Ames, Iowa, on Tuesday, Oct. 20. 
 
 The day's events, not open to the public, will begin at 1:30pm in Nevada, Iowa, where the deputy secretary will tour a 50-MMgy ethanol plant, Lincolnway Energy, which employs a corn-oil extraction process. Then at 4:30pm, the deputy secretary is scheduled to tour REG's feedstock research center in Ames where many alternative biodiesel feedstocks, including corn oil extracted from ethanol plants, are being studied and characterized. 

 
 For more information, contact the Iowa Renewable Fuels Assocation Executive Director Monte Shaw at (515) 252-6249 or REG Communications Specialist Alicia Clancy at (515) 239-8118.

USDA deputy secretary to visit REG biodiesel feedstock research center on Oct. 20

Posted October 20, 2009
 
 The UK Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance is stepping up its campaign to prevent the British government from removing the 20 pence per litre tax differential for biofuels from April 2010.
 
 Speaking at the European Biofuels Expo and Conference 2009, Chair of the UKSBA Mark Sneesby, told how the government's plan to remove the tax differential for biofuels in 2010 would undermine the U.K.'s growing low-carbon economy by making biodiesel more expensive than fossil fuels and therefore commercially unviable. 
 
 Green captive fleet operators such as McDonalds and 3663 First for Foodservice, who currently use high-blends of biodiesel in their vehicle fleets, could see fuel bills rise by as much as 20 percent. Any ensuing reduction in demand would have a massive impact on U.K.-based sustainable biodiesel producers supplying these high-blend users. 
 
 The British government plans to remove the tax differential from April 2010, relying instead on the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation as a supporting mechanism for the biodiesel industry. However, early misdrafting of the RFTO and continuing consultation around its form given the European Renewable Energy Directive mean that it is not yet a sufficiently robust mechanism to support the emerging sustainable biodiesel sector.
 
 Uncertainty around Government policy in this area is preventing adequate business planning for U.K.-based producers and preventing incoming investment in to the green economy of UK PLC from abroad.
 
 Mark Sneesby said: 
 

 "The UKSBA has been formed to create a voice for the sustainable biodiesel producers in the U.K. who are working with green companies committed to making a real difference in the reduction of carbon emissions. The use of high-blend sustainable biodiesel in these fleets is delivering 85 to 90 percent carbon savings against the equivalent fossil fuel, with the minimum of technological change and it is happening now.
 
 "Many renewable solutions, such as wind or nuclear, require long-term investment and take many years to fulfil their potential, whilst the sustainable biodiesel industry is an established and growing economic sector delivering real results in reducing CO2 emissions and providing 'green collar skills.' 
 
 "The UKSBA is in ongoing constructive discussions with HM Treasury and the Department for Transport as well as other policy makers in Westminster and Europe, proposing that the tax differential is not withdrawn until the RTFO is stable and actually working as a supportive mechanism for the industry. 
 
 "We have suggested that any tax support should be targeted towards only fully sustainable producers and high-blend users, to ensure that public money is not supporting biofuels produced from unsustainable sources.
 
 "Longer term, we have also proposed that the UKSBA contributes to the 2010 consultation around the RTFO, to ensure that it becomes the intended robust mechanism for ensuring the long-term development of the biofuels industry in the U.K.".
 For further information about the UKSBA's campaign contact: 
 
 Zoë Anderson
 The Whitehouse Consultancy for UKSBA
 Tel: 020 7793 2536 or <a href="zoe.anderson@whitehouseconsulting.co.uk">zoe.anderson@whitehouseconsulting.co.uk</a>
 

 SOURCE: UKSBA

UK Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance rallies for retention of tax support

Posted October 20, 2009

 
 <a href="http://www.innovationfuels.com/">Innovation Fuels Inc.</a> was recognized at the annual Syracuse Economic Champions banquet and awards ceremony on Wednesday, Oct. 21. The Chamber of Commerce recognizes businesses that have added employees, expanded their space or relocated due to growth. "It's recognition that it's really small business that are driving the local economy," said John Fox, CEO of Innovation Fuels.
 
 Innovation moved its corporate headquarters from Albany, N.Y., to the Tech Garden in downtown Syracuse, N.Y. this summer. "We moved to Syracuse largely because it is in the hub of our upstream activities," Fox said. The company is supplying biodiesel locally, and working with researchers and extension agents at Cornell University along with several farmers throughout Upstate New York on the development of pennycress and camelina as new biodiesel feedstocks.
 
 Innovation Fuels operates a 40 MMgy multi-feedstock in the New York Harbor at Newark, N.J., and has terminal facilities in Milwaukee, Wis. Plans to build a biodiesel plant in Wisconsin are waiting for market improvements, although Fox reports the New Jersey plant has been "humming along." Located in a harbor with barge, rail and truck access, the company recently added blending facilities to be able to sell B20 at the rack and have begun selling a bioheat product in the region.

Syracuse NY recognizes Innovation Fuels

Posted October 21, 2009
 
 A Renewable Energy Group Inc. limited liability corporation, REG Seneca LLC, purchased the 60-MMgy Nova Biofuels Seneca LLC biodiesel plant in Seneca, Ill., according to a Securities and Exchange Commission 8-K filing. Also purchased was Nova Biosource Technologies LLC. Both of the purchased entities were subsidiaries of Nova Biosource Fuels Inc. 
 
 The 8-K filing reads: "Pursuant to the Seneca Asset Purchase Agreement, the Seneca Purchaser (REG) agreed to acquire substantially all of the Seneca Sellers' assets, excluding certain specified assets, used in manufacturing ASTM D6751 quality biodiesel and related coproducts out of its production facilities in Seneca, Ill., including all patents and intellectual property rights to Nova's process technology, and to assume bank term debt of approximately $36,250,000." 
 
 REG had no comment on the Seneca plant purchase. 
 

 This news follows REG's purchase of three large biodiesel plants earlier this year: Western Iowa Energy, a 30 MGY facility in Wall Lake, Iowa; Central Iowa Energy, LLC, a 30 MGY facility Newton, Iowa; and Blackhawk Biofuels, LLC, a 45 MGY facility in Danville, Ill.

REG purchases Nova Biofuels' 60 MMgy biodiesel plant in Seneca, Ill.

Posted October 21, 2009
 
 <a href=" http://www.growthdesign.com/ ">Growth Design Corp.</a> unveiled plans to build a biodiesel plant across the street from its conference center in Forest City, Iowa, at an Oct. 18 open house. The firm is applying for a USDA grant to help fund the project and expects to break ground on the facility late this fall. 
 
 Growth Design intends to install two Mcgyan reactors, capable of producing 2 to 3 MMgy each, with fittings installed for a third reactor to be installed in the future, according to Bill Luetscher, Growth Design executive vice president for planning and operations. Plans are to use regionally available waste feedstocks such as corn oil removed from distillers grains by ethanol plants and waste greases available from regional meat processors. 
 
 Growth Design held the event to give their neighbors in Forest City the chance to see an artist's rendering of the planned facility. "The issue is getting people to unlearn what they know about ethanol plants and biodiesel plants," Luetscher said. The Mcgyan reactor is a new continuous flow technology that has a much smaller footprint than a traditional biodiesel reactor. The first Mcgyan installation at<a href="http://www.evercatfuels.com/about.asp"> Ever Cat Fuels LLC,</a> Isanti, Minn., went into production late this summer with a grand opening help in late September. <a href="http://www.sartec.com/mcgyan.html">The Mcgyan reactor </a> employs a permanent metal oxide catalyst in a cylinder measuring 6 inches in diameter by 6 feet that catalytically converts both triglycerides and free fatty acids to biodiesel in a single continuous flow operation. 

 
 A demonstration of the new technology was given at the Forest City event by University of St. Thomas professor of engineering Greg Mowry. He and his students built a self-contained unit , using a small-scale Mcgyan reactor. "It fits on the back of a pickup truck and can produce 7,000 to 10,000 gallons of biodiesel a year," Leutscher said. "He's looking at the technology for humanitarian uses."
 
 Growth Design is a consulting firm serving the non-profit sector. When it started in the early 1980s, Luetscher explained, it began helping groups with capital campaigns. The company's work has evolved into helping non-profit organizations develop for-profit enterprises as subsidiaries to help fund their work. The recent spike in energy prices sparked interest among several non-profits in developing alternative energy solutions to contain energy costs as well as contribute to greening efforts. 
 
 "We plan to run the commercial biodiesel plant as a for-profit business, and integrate it with the conference center where we'll also use solar, wind and geothermal energy," Leutscher said. Growth Design has one rural elective cooperative that is quite interested in the project, as well as other clients that include hospitals and colleges. Their interest in the Mcgyan process grew out of the companies relationship with Minneapolis-based Augsburg College, he added, where the Mcgyan process was initially developed.

Mcgyan process to be deployed at Forest City, Iowa

Posted October 21, 2009
 
 The Dow Chemical Co. presented at the European Biofuels Expo and Conference held earlier this month in the U.K. in an effort "to affirm our commitment to the biodiesel industry and to present our range if innovative solutions," said Donna Rohan, biodiesel sales manager for Dow Water and Process Solutions. 
 
 When it acquired rival Rohm and Haas earlier this year for $15 billion, Dow Chemical brought several biodiesel products under its roof. Amberlyst BD20 is a solid catalyst FFA esterification technology "that offers biodiesel producers the flexibility to produce biodiesel from inexpensive low-quality feedstocks without sacrificing the quality of the end product." Many facilities have been looking to expand their processing capabilities-as cash on hand becomes available-to include a larger feedstock portfolio. 
 
 Partner products Ambersep and Amberlite further the power of the feedstock purification technology platform. The biodiesel products are sold under a "differentiated business unit," Dow WPS, which offers a "broad portfolio of ion exchange resins, reverse osmosis membranes, ultrafiltration membranes and electrodeionization products."

Dow affirms commitment to biodiesel industry

Posted October 21, 2009
 

 The $50 million program that allowed the U.S. EPA to purchase or retrofit 14,000 diesel-powered vehicles and pieces of equipment has seen some results. EPA told Congress-which allocates funding-in a report issued last week that its Diesel Emission Reduction Program resulted in reducing 46,000 tons of NOx, and 2,200 tons of particulate matter over a vehicle's lifetime.
 
 DERP provides financial support for retrofits, repairs, replacements, idle reduction, cleaner fuels and other clean technologies. EPA has given sector-specific clean diesel grants for several years, although fiscal year 2008 was the first time Congress funded the program. Competitions are now underway for clean diesel funding grants totaling $60 million. 
 
 In further developments on the diesel policy front, the EPA was awarded $300 million under the National Clean Diesel Campaign under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. All of these programs support the use of biodiesel.
 
 Most of the financing is done through the Smartway Clean Diesel Finance Program. EPA launched SmartWay in 2004 to help improve the freight industry's environmental performance. Today more than 2,000 organizations participate, ranging from large multi-national trucking fleets, several rail companies, many well-known retail and commercial shippers, as well as small "mom and pop" trucking companies. 
 
 "Through their SmartWay participation, these companies both calculate and adopt strategies for lowering their transportation energy use and CO2 emissions," EPA stated. "EPA provides technical support, including tools to evaluate options for lowering fuel use and emissions, and help in locating financing for the purchase of environmental and fuel saving technology." 
 
 In 2009, the partnership projects that it will eliminate 6 million tons of CO2 and conserve more than 540 million gallons of diesel fuel, a savings of at least $1.3 billion a year in fuel costs.

EPA reports to Congress on Clean Diesel Program

Posted November 2, 2009
 
 <a href="http://www.catilin.com">Catilin Inc. </a>announced results from an analysis of its new T300 catalyst completed by <a href="http://www.sriconsulting.com/ ">SRI Consulting</a> of Menlo Park, Calif. "SRI came to us and said they'd like to do an in-depth study and publish it for their subscribers," said David Sams, vice president for business development. The independent study supported results from Catilin's internal work as well as outside engineering analysis commissioned by Catilin. SRI Consulting concluded that Catilin's solid catalyst process has a value advantage over the traditional catalytic process of 13 cents per gallon of biodiesel. When the capital expense savings are included, the advantage increases to 19 cents per gallon of biodiesel.
 
 "We are pleased that SRI Consulting has completed this review and will include the information as a supplement to their Biodiesel Production Report. This thorough analysis validated our T300 catalyst as a real breakthrough in current and future biodiesel production for use with first-, second- and third-generation feedstocks," said Larry Lenhart, president and CEO.
 
 Catilin is commercializing the research done in developing the new catalyst at Iowa State University in Ames and the U.S. DOE's Ames Laboratory. The T300 heterogeneous catalyst is nontoxic and can be a direct replacement for conventional catalysts used in biodiesel production. The drop-in solid catalyst operates at industry standard pressures and temperatures and is removed with filtration. As a result, current producers can retrofit their plants in a matter of days at very low cost. Another key advantage is that the glycerin coproduct has purity greater than 98 percent and qualifies as technical grade, which significantly enhances its overall value. 
 
 Sams reported engineering and equipment ordering is underway for the first deployment of the T300 catalyst in a sizeable plant, which he expects to be operational by early February. "We've asked other companies that have approached us and wanted the catalyst to wait," he added. "We intentionally are doing the first project individually, so we can work out any issues. The next step will be to install it in multiple plants in parallel." His goal is to begin working on the second wave of installations in January.
 

 "The potential benefits of a solid catalyst for the biodiesel industry are significant and we are glad to see Catilin pursue this work," said Glen Meier, director of technology and feedstock development for Renewable Energy Group Inc. REG has followed the development of the catalyst since work began by a team led by Victor Lin at ISU and the Ames Laboratory. "We also appreciate the efforts of Catilin to operate at typical temperatures and pressures to conserve energy, and believe this will widen the market acceptance of the catalyst," Meier said.
 
 The abstract of the SRI Consulting report is here:<a href=" http://www.sriconsulting.com/PEP/Public/Reports/Phase_2009/RW2009-5/"> http://www.sriconsulting.com/PEP/Public/Reports/Phase_2009/RW2009-5/</a>. For an earlier article in Biodiesel Magazine about Catilin's work, "A Solid Catalyst Unlike the Rest," visit <a href="http://biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3536">http://biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=3536</a>

SRI Consulting reviews Catilin technology

Posted October 27, 2009
 
 A 5 MMgy biodiesel plant will be on the block in a court-ordered auction 11 a.m., Wednesday, Dec. 16 conducted by Maas Companies Inc. The auction will take place on site in Keokuk, Iowa, where Tri-City Energy LLC operated the plant for approximately 17 months. 
 
 Tri-City began producing in late 2006 after refurbishing an 85 year old wheat processing plant a block off Main Street in Keokuk. Biodiesel Magazine reported at the time that a group of local investors planned a four-phase project starting with soy biodiesel processing at the 5 MMgy plant under construction, with plans to add crushing and a second, larger plant along river front property. The magazine's plant plant list recorded the plant as using animal fats and vegetable oils as feedstocks using process technology by Techno-Chemicals.

 
 A foreclosure motion begun by plant creditors was temporarily put on hold in late 2008 when Tri-City Energy announced a possible cash infusion from a new investor. That effort failed however, and last week, Maas Companies listed the court-ordered auction. <a href="http://www.maascompanies.com/response.asp?project_id=185">The Maas auction bill </a>says the plant at 219 South 5th St. in Keokuk produced 1 million gallons of biodiesel. The 17,000 square foot building sits on a 24,500 square foot lot and includes 11-12,000 gallon tanks.

Keokuk, Iowa 5 MMgy biodiesel plant auction set for Dec. 16

Posted October 21, 2009
 
 Advanced Refining Concepts LLC, owners of the trademarked ClearRefining technology, a proprietary pollution-free process for liquefying natural gas and other biogases to produce clean fuel products, today announced that it has begun construction on a new production plant in Northern Nevada. The 100,000-gallon per day plant will produce the company's inaugural product, trademarked GDiesel, a clean and efficient domestically produced No. 1 diesel fuel. The facility will be ARC's first commercial plant and is scheduled for completion in January 2010.
 
 The plant, which will be named the Peru Heights facility and has room for expansion, sits on 10 acres owned by the company at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, a 107,000 acre industrial park located approximately 10 miles east of Reno, Nev.
 
 "Beginning construction of this facility is an important milestone for ARC, advancing our goal of making America energy independent by reducing this country's need for foreign crude oil imports," said Peter Gunnerman, co-founder of Advanced Refining Concepts. "We expect the GDiesel produced at our Peru Heights facility initially will be used for large fleet operators, power producers or as blend stock."
 
 The facility, which will employ 25 full-time workers, will consist of 10 fully automated ClearRefining units, each capable of producing up to 10,000 gallons of GDiesel per day.
 
 "The location we've selected just outside of Reno is ideal for this venture," said Gunnerman. "The facility has convenient access to natural gas, existing fuel lines and is strategically located near rail and truck lines."
 

 About Advanced Refining Concepts, LLC
 Advanced Refining Concepts (ARC) develops and manufactures fuels that produce cleaner emissions and more efficient combustion. ARC's products are manufactured using the company's proprietary ClearRefining process, a pollution-free, single-step method for liquefying and combining natural gas, or other biogases, with a petroleum base to form ultra clean liquid motor and industrial fuels. Replacing traditional petroleum-based fuels with the company's domestically produced fuel products reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on imported oil. The company's products, GDiesel, GPetrol and GJet, are compatible with existing fuel storage and dispensing equipment and require no modifications to vehicles or power generating equipment. 
 
 For more information, visit <a href="http://www.AdvancedRefiningConcepts.com">www.AdvancedRefiningConcepts.com</a> or <a href="http://www.ClearRefining.com">www.ClearRefining.com</a>.
 
 SOURCE: ADVANCED REFINING CONCEPTS LLC

Advanced Refining Concepts begins construction on 'GDiesel' plant in Nevada

Posted October 27, 2009
 
 Canada's biodiesel industry is looking to expand its capacity from 130 million liters (34 million gallons) of biodiesel production to between 500 to 600 million liters in order to meet the Canadian mandate of 2 percent renewable content in diesel by 2011. "Our expectation is we will get to 500 million liters by 2011," said Gordon Quaiattini, president of the <a href=" http://www.greenfuels.org/">Canadian Renewable Fuels Association</a>. 

 
 Quaiattini reported changes to the government's ecoEnergy program are expected in the next few weeks. "It will create a much clearer picture of where or when that additional capacity will come about," he said. <a href="http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/transportation/bio-fuels.cfm?attr=16 ">ecoEnergy for Biofuels</a> will invest up to $1.5 billion over nine years in support of biofuel production in Canada. Administered by Natural Resources Canada the program runs through March 2017, providing producer incentives. The incentives for ethanol production for the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2009-2010 amounted to 10 cents per liter. The incentive for biodiesel was not made public because of the small number of companies involved. 
 
 Biox Canada Ltd., Hamilton, Ontario, 67 MMly, was the first Canadian biofuels producer to sign an agreement under the program in November, 2008. Other biodiesel producers currently in production or planned that have since been accepted into the program include:
 <ul>
 Bio-Diesel Quebec, Inc,. Saint Alexis des Monts, Quebec, 10 MMly; 
 City-Farm Biofuels Ltd., Delta, British Columbia, 5 MMly; 
 Methes Energies Canada Inc., Mississauga, Ontario, 5 MMly; 
 Noroxel Energy Ltd., Tillsonburg, Ontario, 10 MMly; 
 QFI Biodiesel Inc., St. Jean sur Richelieu, Quebec, 40 MMly; 
 Western Biodiesel Inc., High River, Alberta, 19 MMly; 
 Woods Bio-Diesel, Englehart, Ontario, 40 MMly.</ul>
 

 The total planned and current capacity in the program totals 196 MMly for biodiesel, contrasted with 1.4 billion liters for ethanol.
 
 CRFA recently congratulated Biox Corp. founders Timothy Haig and Kevin Norton on being awarded the 2009 Ontario Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year-Cleantech Award earlier this year. "They are Canada's largest biodiesel producers and are clearly recognized for their leadership," Quaiattini said. The Biox entrepreneurs developed a patented production that converts both triglycerides and free fatty acids (FFA) in a two-step, single phase, continuous process at atmospheric pressures and near-ambient temperatures in less than 90 minutes, according to company information. The process achieves conversion yields greater than 99 percent, even when using up to 10 percent FFA feedstocks. "The cleantech entrepreneur award for Tim and Kevin is an affirmation of their pioneering efforts," Quaiattini added "BIOX is proof of the promise of renewable fuels in Canada. They are reducing harmful green house gas emissions, diversifying the fuel supply and creating new high value jobs."

November 2009

Business Briefs

Business Briefs: People, Partnerships & Deals

Pushing for Advancement

BusinessBriefs: Companies, Organizations & People in the News

Columns

HYBRID FUELS

Where Do We Go from Here?

Pyrolysis Oil Challenges and Solutions

Green Means Go for Patents

Battle Looms for Future of Biomass-Based Diesel

Oct. 1 IRS Deadline Passes, Indian Automaker Prepares for US Debut

Featured

Accelerating Industrial Biotechnology

Regional Work for Global Change

A Broken Guarantee

U.K. Accounting for Sustainability

The Interconnectedness of Sustainability

South American Expansion

The Main Rotation

November 2009.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: People, Partnerships & Deals

Pushing for Advancement

BusinessBriefs: Companies, Organizations & People in the News

Columns

HYBRID FUELS

Where Do We Go from Here?

Pyrolysis Oil Challenges and Solutions

Green Means Go for Patents

Battle Looms for Future of Biomass-Based Diesel

Oct. 1 IRS Deadline Passes, Indian Automaker Prepares for US Debut

Featured

Accelerating Industrial Biotechnology

Regional Work for Global Change

A Broken Guarantee

U.K. Accounting for Sustainability

The Interconnectedness of Sustainability

South American Expansion

The Main Rotation

November 2009