South Dakota&rsquo;s Spearfish Pellet Co. LLC was built to add value to the byproducts&mdash;wood chips, sawdust and shavings&mdash;produced at the Spearfish sawmill.&nbsp;
 The plant was originally owned by Pope &amp; Talbot Inc. and was purchased in 2008 by Neiman Enterprises Inc., which also owns three sawmills in the area.
 At full capacity, the Spearfish plant can produce 50,000 tons of pellets, which makes it an average-sized plant in the U.S. According to USDA&rsquo;s &ldquo;North America&rsquo;s Wood Pellet Sector&rdquo; report, the majority of pellet plants in the U.S. produced between 30,000 and 70,000 metric tons (33,000 and 77,000 tons) in 2009.
 Unlike some of the new industrial pellet mills being proposed in the U.S. that are being built to supply European biomass power and heating customers, the Spearfish plant, like other plants its size, sells most of its product to residential customers within a 300- to 400-mile radius of the facility, says Todd Carlson, plant manager for Spearfish Pellet Co. &ldquo;For us to get to the East or West Coast and put pellets on a barge to go to Europe, that&rsquo;s a long ways,&rdquo; he says. Carlson says they do move pellets by rail to a few customers on the East Coast, but it takes a while to get the pellets to their destination.
 Supply and Demand 
 Because of byproduct commitments at its sawmill, high diesel prices and other forces impacting the wood products industry, the Spearfish Pellet plant is not currently looking to add many new customers. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve nearly sold out the last several years, so for us to take in more market share, we would have to increase our production No. 1, and No. 2 somehow figure out how to get these diesel prices back down,&rdquo; says Everett Follette, sales and marketing for Spearfish Pellet. &ldquo;The diesel is having a huge effect on how far out I can ship right now.&rdquo;
 Spearfish Pellet shares its feedstock supply with a particle board plant and a pulp mill. &ldquo;The other two plants have increased their production immensely and want more product than we have,&rdquo; Follette says. &ldquo;So right now we&rsquo;re not able to expand because of contracts with these other two companies. Currently, we are producing at the same rate we did this past season so all our customers should be fine for next season if they don&rsquo;t wait too long.&rdquo;
 Business is up about 35 percent from a year and a half ago at the particle board plant, Follette says, and the pulp mill has more business because so many other mills have shut down or cut production. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know if their demand has necessarily gone up, but their supply of wood chips has gone down and maybe that&rsquo;s why they have been asking us to supply even more.&rdquo;
 If they were able to increase their feedstock supply and increase pellet production, Follette says they would probably look at supplying pellets to big box stores such as Lowes and Home Depot. Pellets from the Spearfish plant mainly go to lumber yards or wood stove shops. &ldquo;At the time when [big box stores] got into the pellet business we were sold out so we don&rsquo;t work with very many of the big box chains,&rdquo; Follette says.
 Currently, Spearfish Pellet is holding its own against the big box stores because they provide quality pellets with a higher Btu per pound. &ldquo;We might not have the cheapest pellets, but our quality will help you get more Btu from the pellets,&rdquo; he says. Spearfish Pellet uses Ponderosa pine, producing pellets with an average of 8,631 Btu per pound, Carlson says.
 Quality and Consistency
 Spearfish Pellet satisfies its customer base by providing a high-quality consistent product. When Carlson was looking to add a third pellet mill, he checked out several equipment manufacturers but in the end went with Amandus Kahl, the company that had supplied its other mills.
 Carlson says he had two major concerns when he was shopping for another mill: not having to spend a lot of extra money to double his parts inventory and making sure that the quality of the pellets produced was consistent. &ldquo;Consistency is the name of the game for anything,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If something isn&rsquo;t broke you don&rsquo;t fix it.&rdquo;
 Amandus Kahl uses a flat die pellet mill because it&rsquo;s an efficient, quiet system and the cost to keep the machine operating is low, says Patrick Clark, vice president of sales and marketing.
 &ldquo;Our die is flat and stationary in comparison to a ring die machine where the die obviously is a ring and it rotates and with their ring die machine the rolls are fixed and in our Amandus Kahl flat die pellet mills our rolls rotate,&rdquo; Clark says. &ldquo;So it&rsquo;s basically 180 degrees opposite of the other technologies. That allows it to grind even though our revolutions per minute (the shaft speed) are at approximately 62 revolutions per minute, what happens is the inside feet per minute or rate of travel is different than the feet of or rate traveling on the outside of that roll shell and as that goes across the die, it gives us the grinding action.&rdquo;
 Clark says one of the many benefits of using their equipment is that he can take an inexperienced person, who has never been around their machines and teach them to change the roll head and die in less than 50 minutes. &ldquo;A lot of our experienced guys are doing it in 20 to 30 minutes,&rdquo; he says, adding that reduced down time, especially for plants that run 24 hours, seven days a week is important.
 Building the Pellet Market
 While Spearfish Pellet&rsquo;s mission is to add value to forest residue, Maine Energy Systems LLC (MESys) is working to increase the market share for pellet producers in the U.S. Northeast and it&rsquo;s doing it European style.
 MESys has long-term contracts with premium-grade wood pellet producers and distributes the pellets in bulk to homes and businesses in Maine and New Hampshire. The trick is to make pellet heating as simple and seamless as heating with propane or fuel oil, with which people are already familiar. According to the &ldquo;2011 State of the Hearth Industry Report,&rdquo; only about 5 percent of the 1 million hearth appliances shipped out in the U.S. in 2010 were pellet-fueled, 70 percent were gas-fueled and the remaining 25 percent used cordwood. The study, which was conducted by the Hearth, Patio &amp; Barbecue Association also pointed out that 34 percent of wood or pellet stove owners viewed their stove as a major heat source, 50 percent considered it a secondary source of heat.
 MESys aims to increase the percent of pellet fueled heating appliances and to show residents and businesses how they can make pellets their primary heat source. The company has modeled its business after the pellet industry in Europe, and over a year ago partnered with an Austrian pellet boiler manufacturer &Ouml;koFEN, says William Strauss, who co-founded MESys with Les Otten and Harry &ldquo;Dutch&rdquo; Dresser.
 MESys chose to work with &Ouml;koFEN because the company is considered a pioneer in the pellet boiler industry and manufactures one of the leading models in Europe. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the most modern, cleanest, trouble-free, efficient pellet boiler in Europe,&rdquo; Strauss says. &ldquo;The homeowner doesn&rsquo;t even know it&rsquo;s there, just set the thermostat and you&rsquo;ve got heat. No bags to deal with no ash removal no cleaning. It periodically has to be serviced like any boiler that&rsquo;s really it.&rdquo;
 The company offers semi- and fully-automated wood pellet boiler equipment systems, which require bulk storage bins that hold 3 to 4 tons of pellets, a tube or hose that goes from the bin to the boiler and a pneumatic system that automatically moves the pellets to the boiler.&nbsp;
 MESys also offers a product for pellet stove owners who want bulk delivery but don&rsquo;t have a bulk storage bin and don&rsquo;t want to lift the 40-pound bags of pellets. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a free-standing bag that holds a little over a ton of pellets and will take bulk delivery,&rdquo; Strauss says. &ldquo;It takes up about the same space as a pallet of bagged pellets and it has a little gauge at the bottom where the homeowner can open the gate and fill a bucket full of pellets and then dump those in the pellet stove.&rdquo;
 The company delivers bulk pellets by truck using a pneumatic pellet delivery system. &ldquo;These trucks are state of the art,&rdquo; Strauss says. &ldquo;They are able to deliver rapidly and gently.&rdquo; He says some companies use modified feed trucks to deliver pellets resulting in loss through breakage and dust creation. &ldquo;They rip the pellets to pieces.&rdquo;
 Market Fluctuation
 When MESys was founded in 2008 and oil prices spiked there was a flurry of interest in pellet heat, Strauss says. Then oil prices went down&mdash;equivalent to pellet heat and even lower&mdash;and interest died down.
 &ldquo;But right now pellet energy is the equivalent of about $1.95 per gallon of heating oil and heating oil in Maine is about $2 to $3.75, it really is about half the cost for equivalent energy,&rdquo; he says. A home that burns 1,000 gallons of heating oil in a season will use slightly less than 8 tons of wood pellets. At current prices, 1,000 gallons of heating oil is about $4,000 and 8 tons of wood pellets is about $2,000, cutting annual fuel costs in half.
 Strauss expects the pellet market will continue to fluctuate, however, until the public and policy makers understand, support and adopt pellet heating systems as they have in Europe. &ldquo;In the U.S. 98 percent of pellets are burned in pellet stoves and in Europe 98 percent of pellets are used in pellet boilers,&rdquo; Strauss says. &ldquo;In Europe it&rsquo;s normal to have a home heating system fueled by pellets. In fact, in Austria most new homes are built with pellet systems, but in the U.S. people don&rsquo;t even know they exist. And they think it is primitive and dirty and requires a lot of attention and that&rsquo;s just not true.&rdquo; Author: Rona Johnson Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine (701) 738-4940 <a href="mailto:rjohnson@bbiinternational.com">rjohnson@bbiinternational.com</a>

U.S. Pellet Plant Distribution by Capacity in 2009


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VALUE ADDED: Most small pellet mills like Spearfish Pellet in South Dakota were built to use wood residue from sawmills and other wood products manufacturers.


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SPECIAL DELIVERY:  MESys uses state-of-the-art trucks with pneumatic systems for bulk pellet delivery.

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Feeding the residential pellet market requires suppliers to strike the right balance between feedstock supply, transportation costs and customer demand, and sometimes to look to others for inspiration.  

The Pellet Market from Different  Perspectives  

In early March in Upper Austria, more than 100,000 people visited the three-day annual renewable home energy show in Wels. The show was complimented with a world-class conference called the World Sustainable Energy Days, where more than 750 experts from 56 countries shared information on how to efficiently heat homes and businesses with renewable energy.&nbsp;
 This year I was honored to be one of the keynote session speakers at the event. I talked about the vision of the Biomass Thermal Energy Council, the Northeast Biomass Thermal Working Group, and several other sponsoring groups. On behalf of these groups, I told the conference attendees about the U.S. biomass heating industry&rsquo;s vision for meeting 25 percent of the Northeastern U.S.&rsquo;s heating needs by 2025 with renewable energy resources. This goal was presented to the U.S. biomass heating industry at BTEC&rsquo;s Manchester, N.H., conference, Heating the Northeast, a year ago. My company, FutureMetrics, was one of the lead consultants for the analysis that is at the core of the paper that articulates the vision. If that vision is achieved, FutureMetrics estimates that it would keep $4.5 billion of Northeast heating dollars from being &ldquo;exported&rdquo; out of the region and it would create more than 140,000 new jobs1.
 The vision that I presented (more on that later in this article) is nothing new to the Austrians or to many other Western European nations. It is centered upon the use of renewable energy for heating homes and businesses and upon improving the efficiency of homes and businesses so that they require less thermal energy. Many of the presentations at the WSED conference showed how policy and the development of biomass thermal technologies have moved Austria away from reliance on petroleum fuels.
 Christiane Egger, the deputy director of the Upper Austria Energy Saving Association, presented a remarkable statistic. Of the new homes built in Upper Austria in 2009, more than 85 percent used modern Austrian wood pellet boilers coupled with solar thermal hot water collectors. The chart labeled The End of the Oil Era? shows the remarkable change from 1999.&nbsp;
 Egger also told the attendees about the three-pronged approach of the Upper Austrian sustainable energy strategy that has achieved such dramatic success. She characterized the policy as using a carrot, stick and tambourine. The &ldquo;stick&rdquo; represents legal measures such as emissions and efficiency standards, and a renewable heating mandate. The &ldquo;carrot&rdquo; is financial measures such as grant programs, regional research and development programs, and pilot projects. The &ldquo;tambourine&rdquo; represents educational efforts, training in the form of free energy advice, marketing campaigns, local energy action plans and a sustainable energy business network.
 Only two people from the U.S. were invited to speak at the conference. The other was Harry &ldquo;Dutch&rdquo; Dresser of Maine Energy Systems LLC (MESys). Dresser explained about how MESys has emulated the Austrian template in Maine and other Northeastern states. He recounted the history of how MESys has partnered with the most highly respected producer of modern pellet boilers systems, the Austrian company &Ouml;koFEN. &Ouml;koFEN and its president, Herbert Ortner, are considered the founders of modern pellet boiler technology and they continue to be the innovative leaders. &Ouml;koFEN has almost 35,000 pellet boiler systems in European homes and businesses. Ortner&rsquo;s company also had a large display in the trade show featuring the most advanced, fully automatic and environmentally clean systems in the world. They are as clean and efficient as modern heating oil boilers and, as Les Otten, the MESys principal director who also attended the conference says, the fuel smells like pine trees. Dresser also spoke about how MESys has partnered with another Austrian company that is considered the leading expert in the design and manufacturing of pellet fuel delivery trucks, Tropper Machines and Systems GmbH. The attendees learned that MESys is currently the only company in the U.S. with American Society of Mechanical Engineers certified pellet boilers, and with fully pressurized pneumatic pellet delivery trucks with certified weigh scales onboard.&nbsp;
 But whereas Austria and other Western European nations have a mature market in biomass thermal systems and fuel delivery infrastructure for homes and businesses, the U.S. with companies such as MESys is where Austria was 15 years ago; just starting out.
 That is why I presented the 25x25 vision and told the attendees about how critically important it is for the heating oil dependent states to follow in their footsteps.
 To illustrate the motive for this vision, I talked about how the Northeast states are uniquely and overwhelmingly dependent on heating oil for home heating. As a result, with the exception of Hawaii, these states, and especially the more rural states with limited access to natural gas, are some of the most petroleum dependent states in the U.S.
 Because of the Northeast&rsquo;s dependency on heating oil, based on heating oil prices in mid-March, more than $16.2 billion are &ldquo;exported&rdquo; out of the Northeast economy every year2.&nbsp;
 I told the attendees that because this exported money does not circulate in the local economies, commerce and jobs are lost. We estimate that if the entire $16.2 billion were to remain in the economy, the direct, indirect and induced effects would create almost 950,000 new and permanent jobs. But given the current quantities of sustainable biomass available in the region, the 25x25 vision sets a more modest benchmark. It calls for 25 percent of thermal needs from renewables by 2025, of which about 18 percent would be from biomass systems so as to not exceed the sustainable supply of biomass. That assumes that the current demand for wood from the pulp and paper sector remains constant from now to 2025. In Maine alone, that amounts to 6.5 million to 8 million sustainably harvested tons per year that may or may not be in demand for pulp making by 2025.
 Unfortunately, the Northeast remains addicted to heating oil and as the price increases, we export more money and jobs. Beginning with heating oil prices from just a few months ago and forecasting the effect of an increase to $4.50 per gallon, we estimate that the heating oil &ldquo;tax&rdquo; will destroy almost 390,000 jobs.
 This economic assault is dire in the rural and poorer states which are the most dependent on heating oil because natural gas infrastructure is limited.
 The WSED was inspiring for those of us trying to implement an alternative to heating oil in the Northeast. It would seem that we have a situation in these states in which the penalties for not moving away from oil dependence for thermal needs would be sufficient to motivate home and business owners and policymakers to act (a stick). Certainly the fact that energy from pellet fuel is currently about 50 percent of the cost of the same energy from heating oil and is nearly one-third the cost of propane should be a carrot. But it is not sufficient.
 What we need are carrot policies that encourage conversion (just as the Upper Austrian government has successfully done). And what is needed even more are tambourines educating people and businesses as to the maturity of pellet boiler systems and the economic benefits of using pellet fuel. There are reliable clean and hands-free technologies that can replace oil boilers here now. But policymakers and the general public have for the most part never heard about pellet boilers; or think that they are primitive and dirty and need constant attention.
 Finally, one of the interesting features of the conference was the remote devices that were placed at every seat, allowing periodic instant feedback or voting on questions that arose. Near the end of the conference, after asking the more than 750 experts to vote on where the most growth in the pellet boiler business would be, the Northeast U.S. was the top vote getter amongst the key potential pellet heating locations in Europe, South America and Asia.
 Let&rsquo;s hope they are right. 1The complete vision paper can be downloaded at www.FutureMetrics.com. 2This is based on Energy Information Adminstration data, which shows that 78 percent of every dollar spent on heating oil leaves the region (and many of those dollars leave the country). Author: William Strauss President, FutureMetrics LLC <a href="mailto:WilliamStrauss@FutureMetrics.com">WilliamStrauss@FutureMetrics.com</a>

SHARING A VISION: William Strauss of FutureMetrics had an opportunity to learn from the Austrians, and to tell them about a vision to meet 25 percent of the Northeast U.S.'s heating needs with renewables by 2025.

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Petroleum Dependency*
*Proportion of total states' total energy use

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Money Exported From the Northeast Economy 

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Jobs Lost When Billions of Dollars are Exported From the Northeast

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Austria's renewable energy policies and biomass thermal technologies are a model the U.S. could follow in reducing its reliance on petroleum fuels.

Learning from Austria's Biomass Thermal Success Story 

I hope you enjoy reading this inaugural issue of Pellet Mill Magazine as much as we enjoyed conducting the research, interviewing people in the industry and writing articles for it.
 One industry topic that the editors tried to hit hard in this first issue was supply and demand, here and overseas and how it impacts the pellet mills that supply the residential markets and those that cater to the industrial users. Although industrial and residential pellet mills don&rsquo;t compete for customers, they do compete for feedstocks, so it was important that we include both segments of the industry in our coverage.
 We also wanted to provide some insight into the biomass power industry in the U.K. and get a handle on how it might impact pellet production in North America. We worked with a freelance journalist from the U.K. to write the feature because it&rsquo;s such an important issue right now and we thought it was imperative that it be written by someone who is actually in the country (see &ldquo;Burgeoning Biomass Importer&rdquo; on page 42). We plan to do more stories on the U.K. and on Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands as they are the largest importers of pellets from North America. We also worked with a freelance writer in Brazil to produce an article about the potential for the production and marketing of sugarcane bagasse pellets (see &ldquo;Sugarcane bagasse pellets in Brazil&rdquo; on page 18).
 The magazine would not be complete without a feature on alternative feedstocks, and in this issue we included one on the production of pellets using cattails (see &ldquo;An Unconventional Pellet Feedstock&rdquo; on page 36). Although wood is currently the favored feedstock, other forms of biomass will become more important as the industry grows.
 We also enlisted the help of experts in the industry who will be writing regular columns for the magazine, including John Crouch with the Pellet Fuels Institute, Chris Wiberg of Twin Ports Testing and Bill Bell of the Maine Pellet Fuels Association. Gordon Murray, executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, will share his insights in a column in the fall issue of Pellet Mill Magazine. Although we tried to hit as many areas of interest as we could, this is a complex industry and there are probably some issues that we have missed. But that&rsquo;s OK because this is a biannual publication and we&rsquo;ll be publishing another one in October. So if you have any story ideas for our editors or would like to write a contribution, please feel free to contact me at rjohnson@bbiinternational.com.

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Introducing Pellet Mill Magazine

&ldquo;Can you tell me about pellet stoves?&rdquo; asks the voice on the other end of the phone.
 &ldquo;Oh dear,&rdquo; I think, &ldquo;another one of those calls.&rdquo; It is another mainstream magazine writer who works at a glossy &ldquo;shelter magazine&rdquo; (a consumer magazine that focuses on gardens and homes). The writer is probably young, living downtown in an apartment or condo (heated by natural gas), very urban, and has clearly never ever heard of wood pellets.
 You see, for years I&rsquo;ve worked for the trade association that represents the pellet appliance manufacturers, the Hearth, Patio &amp; Barbecue Association, and more recently, I now split my time between HPBA and the Pellet Fuels Institute, the association for pellet fuel manufacturers, so I often get to help with these kinds of calls. There have been fewer of them over the past two years because consumers are becoming more knowledgeable about pellet fuel and pellet stoves, but inevitably, the next energy crisis will bring a bevy of these questions.&nbsp;
 &ldquo;Sure, I can help you with pellet stoves,&rdquo; I reply enthusiastically.&nbsp;
 These calls tend to come from magazine writers who have just come off a story on refrigerators or bath fixtures, and have been assigned to cover the latest trends in fireplaces and other hearth products. They are often good writers and fast learners, but they usually have little or no experience with the day-to-day costs of heating a typical 20- or 40-year-old home. They typically live in New York City and hear or read about fuel oil, but usually the stark difference between $2 a gallon and $4 a gallon for oil is something they&rsquo;ve had no personal experience with yet. (If it can&rsquo;t be answered by Google quickly, it&rsquo;s hard to understand.)
 So I dive into the world of pellets with them, starting with the basics: why the fuel is so clean and what makes it a renewable fuel. Since I work a great deal on wood burning and air quality issues in the Western states, I often talk about how clean-burning pellet appliances are. If I detect that they are interested, I&rsquo;ll take them a little deeper into the subject: how pellets have been used for more than 20 years in the U.S., but Europe has moved far ahead of us in pellet appliance usage and fuel delivery systems.
 Many readers of this magazine have been in the pellet fuel business for years and have fielded these types of calls as well. We are all &ldquo;geeks&rdquo; on this subject, and, have to be careful not to say too much and confuse these writers.&nbsp; One issue I hope we all cover with these calls is that most pellets in the U.S. and Canada come from wood fiber that is a byproduct of other wood manufacturing or from trees that have either been killed by insects or are in danger of being killed if they are not thinned. (We always have to be careful about this last issue, since many folks in the East have no idea how incredibly overgrown and/or dying our Western forests are.)
 For me, the best aspect of these calls, as frustrating as they can be, is the basic reminder that there are still many people who don&rsquo;t know much, or anything, about wood pellets, and that we have a responsibility to never stop talking about this &ldquo;new&rdquo; fuel to anyone who will listen. Just because some of us have been talking and thinking about this for 20 years, doesn&rsquo;t mean it isn&rsquo;t still news to much of the population in both the U.S. and Canada. There are still many people who may not be ready for many of the other complex issues we would love to explain to the press, but they may be interested in an alternative or secondary source of heat during the winter.
 We also can&rsquo;t talk about how domestic supply and demand for wood pellets are always going to be mismatched and inherently unbalanced (these questions surface every three or four years when there is a so-called shortage in fuel supply). But that is a topic for my next column. Author: John Crouch Director of Public Affairs, Pellet Fuels Institute <a href="mailto:crouch@pelletheat.org">crouch@pelletheat.org</a> <a href="http://www.pelletheat.org">www.pelletheat.org</a>

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Pondering Pellets

Whether you are selling your product into residential, commercial, industrial, utility or even overseas markets, it is becoming increasingly common that pelletized fuel will be required to comply with stricter quality standards.&nbsp; While third-party testing is regularly used to demonstrate compliance, many manufacturers are installing internal laboratories to manage day to day product quality.&nbsp; Manufacturers who set up their own internal labs should be aware of the pitfalls.
 First, understand the method you need to perform.&nbsp;&nbsp; Sometimes slight method variations can result in significant differences in your results.&nbsp; Durability is a great example.&nbsp; While the European and North American durability test methods are identical in procedure, the equipment is not exactly the same.&nbsp;
The North American tumbler is 15 millimeters (mm) wider than the European tumbler.&nbsp; In addition, the North American method uses a 3.18 mm square hole sieve to separate the fines while the European method uses a 3.15 mm round hole sieve.&nbsp; While the dimensions themselves don&rsquo;t seem that different, the fact that one is a round hole sieve and the other a square hole sieve means that the North American method uses an aperture size that is nearly 30 percent larger than the European method.&nbsp; This will significantly bias your results low if the North American durability method is used to report results for European quality specifications.&nbsp; Bulk density is another method with similar issues.&nbsp;
Slight variations in the container size, drop height or number of drops can result in significant differences in test results.&nbsp; Moisture and ash methods can differ by the temperatures that are used as well as by the amount of air that is exchanged within the furnace or oven.
 Second, understand equipment limitations. Most published test methods specify tolerances for each piece of equipment.&nbsp; If the method calls for a four-place analytical balance and all you have is a two-place balance, the test will not be accurate.&nbsp; Try to maintain the analytical sensitivity that the method is calling for and pay close attention to the precision and bias section within the method.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Also, keep a close eye on the calibration section&mdash;or the lack there of.&nbsp; All measuring devices require a calibration, whether it is a caliper, balance or vessel.&nbsp; Bulk density is again a good example.&nbsp; More modern methods include a method for calibrating your bulk density container while older methods do not.&nbsp; Don&rsquo;t assume that just because you bought a one-fourth cubic foot bulk density mold that the interior volume is exactly one-fourth cubic foot.&nbsp;
 Third, your analytical results are only as good as the sample you start with.&nbsp; Take the time to develop sampling plans and sample preparation procedures that will assure that the analyzed sample is representative of the feedstock material or final product being assessed.&nbsp; Composite sampling (collecting several samples throughout the material and combining them into a single sample) is a good way to generate results that are representative of larger volumes of&nbsp; material, however, it may not identify the variability within the material.&nbsp; Grab sampling (extraction of a small amount of material from a single location) will help identify the variability, however, be careful not to rely on a single grab sample for larger volumes of material.&nbsp; Sample preparation is also very&nbsp; important.&nbsp; The reduction of the sample particle size or the sample volume should be conducted in a carefully defined fashion so as not to introduce bias into the analysis sample.&nbsp; The use of good grinding equipment as well as riffling and splitting equipment is essential.&nbsp;
 Finally, get the proper equipment and set it up in an appropriate location.&nbsp; The natural tendency is toward cheap and easy.&nbsp; It is common to gravitate toward less expensive equipment and place it in the most convenient space available.&nbsp; Using alternative equipment to grind the sample or placing testing equipment too close to an operating pellet mill may produce an inaccurate analysis.&nbsp; If your internal test results are not satisfying the purpose they are intended to serve, then you are better off not investing the time and money into setting up an internal lab.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; On the other hand, be assured that it is possible to set up a good internal lab to help comply with day to day product quality.&nbsp; With the right equipment and guidance, this can be achieved. Author: Chris Wiberg Chief Operations Officer, Twin Ports Testing <a href="mailto:chris.wiberg@twinportstesting.com">chris.wiberg@twinportstesting.com&nbsp; </a> (715) 392-7114

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Setting up an Internal Testing Lab

In the three brief years that our Maine Pellet Fuels Association has been in existence, I have been working with Maine&rsquo;s legislators to promote support for our industry. One issue that always comes to the forefront is the lack of consistent pellet quality.
 My job is to keep Maine from being the first state to regulate pellet fuels. I am best able to do so by understanding where legislators are coming from when they introduce bills with titles such as an Act to Standardize the Labeling of Wood Pellet Fuel or an Act to Regulate the Advertising of Wood Pellets. In these and similar incidents, legislators are acting based on a complaint from a constituent (Maine&rsquo;s many legislative districts are sparsely populated and a single complaint can trigger the filing of a bill). In every instance, the legislator involved is not really familiar with the Pellet Fuels Institute standards.
Most important, in every instance, the real issue is that different brands of pellets burn differently. Maine has four pellet manufacturers, plus there are plants nearby in Canada and New Hampshire. Many, many different brands of pellets are offered for sale at big box stores and other retail outlets, some from as far away as British Columbia, Canada. Some consumers are well aware that these pellets will vary greatly in color, length, burning characteristics, amount of ash generated and other characteristics, and will still all meet the PFI &ldquo;premium&rdquo; designation with which most of the bags are labeled.
 Maine is by far the most oil-dependent state in the country when it comes to home heating. Almost 80 percent of Maine homes are heated with oil, and these folks think that pellets should, like oil, be pretty much the same from one company to another. When this turns out to not be the case, some consumers in their first winter of pellet heat think that they are getting ripped off when one brand in their particular stove is less satisfactory than another. Hence the phone calls to legislators demanding standardization.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 To date, legislators have been willing to give our new industry the benefit of the doubt, and have gone back to disgruntled constituents with explanations about the new PFI standards and the need to give things time to work. This tolerance may not last forever. While most consumers will find a brand that performs well in their pellet stove (boiler system pellet heating is not at issue here) and realize that the more expensive brands may burn a little better, with less ash and slag, some will find fault with the voluntary nature of the PFI labeling and demand greater assurances. At the same time, as the number of consumers increase, many of them are purchasing inferior stoves so the number of unjustified complaints based on faulty storage or other factors unrelated to pellet manufacturing will also increase.&nbsp;
 A basic mission of trade associations&mdash;and I have managed a number of them&mdash;is to interpret an industry to legislators, the media and the general public. We will do well to explain that wood pellets are not a bulk commodity but like fine wines, or at least good ales, each brand has its own characteristics. We will also need to provide consumers with more meaningful information on the pellet bag than the little numbers below the PFI label. Author: Bill Bell Executive Director, Maine Pellet Fuels Association&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href="mailto:feedalliance@gwi.net">feedalliance@gwi.net</a>

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Consistency is Priority No. 1  

GreCon online moisture analyzer maximizes production, profits The GreCon IR 5000 moisture analyzer ensures high product quality through reliable moisture measurements unaffected by variations in pellet size, light, relative humidity, product temperature or height. After the initial installation, no recalibration is required, saving up to $70,000 in maintenance and calibration expenses over five years. The noncontact online measuring system IR 5000 uses light of the near infrared (NIR) region to determine the material moisture by reflection. Light rays from halogen lamps are led through a filter wheel to filter out the excessive spectral regions of the light. The light beam is divided into several measuring and reference beams by means of a high-quality, mirror-lens combination. The remaining rays of the NIR region are projected onto the measured pellets. Since the IR 5000 uses dual sensor technology, the reference light beam is consistent and as a result the moisture measurements are drift-free. WoodPellets.com launches stove finder tool WoodPellets.com, a distributor of wood pellet fuel, launched an innovative research tool for consumers to educate themselves before purchasing a wood or wood pellet heating system. The Stove Finder is designed to work collaboratively with industry manufacturers and hearth shops. By leveraging WoodPellets.com&rsquo;s website traffic and marketing expertise, local businesses, which often have limited marketing budgets, are able to dramatically increase their visibility and outreach to consumers, and thus increase their sales. Before being directed to a local dealer, consumers can research products by manufacturer, fuel source, and appliance type, and compare stoves, fireplace inserts, furnaces and boilers side by side. In this way, consumers can find the perfect stove according to design, efficiency rating, size and options. The Stove Finder offers complimentary listings for manufacturers and dealers, which include contact information and product details and options. WoodPellets.com has also developed extensive sales packages for manufacturers and dealers to customize and improve their listings. Modular conveyor guards improve safety and productivity Martin Engineering, a bulk materials handling company, has announced a new generation of modular conveyor guards, enabling workers to do their jobs with reduced risk and greater efficiency, while helping to ensure plant compliance with safety standards and regulations. EVO Conveyor Guards from Martin Engineering provide a simple, flexible and cost-effective solution to conveyor guarding, with component designs to help keep personnel safe by restricting access to moving parts and pinch points. The user-friendly design of the new guards is provided by standardized panels that take a systematic approach to guarding, with the flexibility to fit virtually any conveyor design. Wedge clamps allow the guarding panels to be removed and reinstalled quickly and easily, so systems can be expanded or relocated as needed.&nbsp; A variety of wedge bolts and bracket sizes are available to suit a wide range of mounting options.&nbsp;
 CBI introduces newest shingle grinder Continental Business Industries Inc. recently unveiled its newest Magnum Force Series Grinder: the Shingle Pro XL 406. Because shingle grinding is one of the toughest applications a machine can be built for, the Shingle Pro XL 406's design features also make it ideally suited for high-volume reprocessing of all types of material into a small uniform end product. This includes wood and bark reground into high-quality mulch, or any other feedstock that requires regrinding into material such as pellet feedstock, pulverized fuel or waste material into kiln fuel. Designed for single-pass processing to a finished end product, the Shingle Pro XL 406 comes with a CAT C27, 1050 horsepower electric start engine; a unique hog box design, which allows the upper hog box and bonnet assembly to hydraulically lift to expose the rotor and grates for safer and easier maintenance; a heavy-duty reinforced housing with replaceable wear liners; a rugged forged rotor with heavy-duty hammers and tips that are easy and cost effective to maintain; an integrated water spray system designed to control dust in the grinding chamber (also doubles as a color injection system for mulch processing); a completely enclosed discharge conveyor for added dust control; and a unique engine cooling system that prevents radiator clogging.

MOISTURE MEASURE: The GreCon IR 5000 uses infrared light to determine material mosture.

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HEAVY DUTY: CBI's shingle grinder can be used to process all types of biomass material.

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SAFTY FIRST:  Martin Engineering's new conveyor guards reduce risk to workers and increase efficiency. 

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Business Briefs

The difference between 0.5 percent ash content and 1.5 percent ash content in wood pellet fuel means manually cleaning out the ashes three times more often in appliances without automatic ash removal. Given the fact that the majority of the U.S. pellet market is residential or small scale, that factor is important to customers.
 And the customer is exactly what the Pellet Fuels Institute has in mind while drafting its new standards for North American pellets. The label featured on the bags of fuel will promise specific properties and quality parameters for optimal use and performance. And perhaps most important, the program will include third-party verification, crucial for producers who want to ensure their competition is honest in quality claims.
 That consistent and verified quality allows the competitive free market to function and gives appliance manufacturers a clear picture of what types of fuel will be used in their products. &ldquo;The long-term value for the industry is pretty obvious,&rdquo; says John Crouch, PFI&rsquo;s director of public affairs.
 By the Numbers
 Although still a draft and subject to change, PFI&rsquo;s standards are divided into three fuel grades: premium, standard and utility. They specify parameters for a number of properties including ash content, diameter, durability, fines, moisture and chloride content, among others.
 In the all-important ash content category, PFI&rsquo;s premium fuels require 1 percentor less, standard requires 2 percent or less, and utility grade requires 6 percent or less. Utility grade is seldom used in residential appliances, Crouch says. &ldquo;When you&rsquo;re up around 6 percent, you really need an automatic ash removal system.&rdquo;
 For moisture content, premium fuels require 8 percent or less, while both standard and utility must be equal to or less than 10 percent. Bulk density is an important factor in industrial applications as it heavily impacts storage capacity. PFI&rsquo;s standards set premium-grade bulk density at between 40 and 46 pounds per cubic foot; and both standard and utility at between 38 and 46 pounds per cubic foot. Another important category is percentage of fines from the fuel at the mill gate. PFI specifies less than or equal to 0.5 percent for premium fuel, and less than or equal to 1 percent for both standard and utility grades.
 But the bag label touting the fuel grade means almost nothing without a third-party audit of those quality parameters, so PFI has included a three-level verification system beginning with the pellet mill itself. The second verification comes from on-site visits once a month by inspectors who are well-versed in the timber industry, doing other forest product inspections such as lumber grading, Crouch explains. Finally, the inspectors&rsquo; assessments will be audited by a certification body, which had not yet been confirmed at press time.
 In addition, PFI is hopeful that the U.S. EPA will adopt the standards as a framework for the revision of its New Source Performance Standard for Residential Wood Heaters. It looks promising, Crouch says, as EPA&rsquo;s project lead for the revision is supportive of the drafted standards, despite some lingering questions. That would mean appliance manufacturers will be required to rely on the standards in the production process and dictate use of a specific grade to maintain warranties.
 PFI hopes the new labels will be attached to bags of pellet fuels in North America beginning this fall, Crouch says. A number of pellet producers have pledged to support and comply with the standards, but cost is a big factor. &ldquo;One of the key questions is how much it&rsquo;s going to cost per bag of pellets,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I suspect in any new standards process, the same questions arise.&rdquo; Cost will depend on the extent of current quality control measures at individual mills, Crouch explains. &ldquo;The producers vary as to how sophisticated their in-house QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control) procedures are.&rdquo;
 But Crouch is clear about one thing. &ldquo;The standards process is not designed to replace the internal QA/QC process, but to audit and support it.&rdquo;
 Exporting Advantages
 Although the standards will bring numerous benefits to the U.S. pellet industry and its customers, they will also encourage more use of American pellets in Europe. The continent has a 9.5 million ton-per-year pellet market, split almost evenly between heat and power. But currently, export markets to Europe are dominated by multiyear bilateral contracts and are not spot market friendly, according to Crouch. &ldquo;One of the things you need before you can have a spot market is standards,&rdquo; he insists. &ldquo;Otherwise, you really have to do bilateral contracts where you establish a relationship with one mill and you sign a multiyear contract.&rdquo;&nbsp; And given the fact that the industry is manufacturing a product that is used more extensively during the winter months and will experience peaks and valleys, the spot market is important, he adds. The PFI standards will guarantee a quality product for European spot markets, along the lines of their own specifications. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been very careful to make sure that there&rsquo;s no white space between us and the European major, major areas,&rdquo; Crouch says.
 The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) is currently implementing its EN standards system under the authority of the European Pellet Council, intended to replace country-by-country standards and also featuring third-party verification. CEN Technical Committee 335 began developing the standards around the year 2000, and while it&rsquo;s anticipated that all 27 European Union countries will use them, only Germany, Spain and Austria have committed to it so far, according to Gordon Murray, executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada. EN standards include three categories: A1, A2, and B. A1 and A2 are intended for residential use and B is for nonresidential, or bulk, all certified through an individual initiative dubbed EN Plus. In implementation, individual participating countries will register a specific organization with the European Pellet Council to administer the EN Plus handbook in that country, according to Chris Wiberg, chief operating officer of Twin Ports Testing and co-chair of the PFI standards committee.
 In fact, PFI used the EN Plus handbook as a reference in the development of its standards, Wiberg explains. In comparison, proposed ash content parameters for EN&rsquo;s A1 is 0.7 percent. A2 specifies 1.5 percent, and B&rsquo;s standard is 3 percent, all a bit lower than PFI&rsquo;s standards for similar grades. EN&rsquo;s moisture control standard, however, is 10 percent across the board, while PFI&rsquo;s premium specifies 8 percent.
 Although most of the numerical parameters are similar, the PFI standards vary from Europe&rsquo;s because of regulatory agencies and their rules. &ldquo;There are significant differences between the European EN Plus and the U.S. PFI standards, and mainly because of the EPA,&rdquo; Wiberg says. The key contrast is the fact that EN standards cover the entire supply chain and the U.S. draft does not. And in addition to the different fuel grade categories between the two standards systems, the testing methodologies used are also dissimilar.
 Possible Alterations
 While EN covers a wider array of pellet aspects, what it lacks is standards for industrial-grade pellet fuel, crucial in Europe because of its numerous pellet-fueled commercial power plants. Instead, individual power companies each have their own standards, Murray says, adding that Canada does not have its own national standards and instead follows those of the power companies, as the majority of Canadian pellets are exported to them, mainly in the U.K., Belgium and the Netherlands. While the standards of different power companies are not vastly different in most aspects, a unified set of standards would simplify the production process for suppliers. &ldquo;Really, they should have a common standard,&rdquo; Murray says.
 And it&rsquo;s on its way. The largest eight power companies in the EU are working together to develop standards for industrial pellet grades one and two. Discussion with the European Committee for Standardization surrounding whether to include those standards in EN is ongoing, but no decisions have been made.
 In addition, Sweden proposed through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 2007 that the EN standards become global, according to Wiberg, who is also a member of six out of seven working groups dedicated to developing those global ISO standards. &ldquo;In other words, seven years later down the line, now they&rsquo;re converting into ISO standards,&rdquo; Wiberg says of EN specifications. &ldquo;Under the ISO umbrella, they can open up the discussion to non-European countries.&rdquo;
 Wiberg says specifics of ISO proposed standards are not published and therefore not available to the general public, although they are essentially the CEN methods developed under ISO.
 But even if ISO implements a set of common standards for global pellet production, there&rsquo;s no guarantee they will be adopted in lieu of CEN or PFI&rsquo;s systems, Murray cautions. &ldquo;Why would they adopt ISO if they&rsquo;re happy with their own standards?&rdquo;
 Still, it seems the more unified and encompassing the standards, the better. Both Crouch and Murray compare pellet standards to gasoline standards, saying premium gasoline at one pump will have the same quality parameters as the next. In contrast, pellet producers are not required to adhere to pellet fuel standards, but doing so will enhance the products they sell. &ldquo;All the standards are voluntary, but it&rsquo;s a market access issue,&rdquo; Murray says. &ldquo;The whole point is to make sure the pellets are a high standard.&rdquo; The fear is low-quality producers can give all pellet fuels a bad reputation, discouraging their use. &ldquo;We want to avoid that,&rdquo; he says.
 And those quality-assurance standards are subject to change as the customers&rsquo; needs change. &ldquo;Standards are designed to evolve,&rdquo; Crouch says, adding that if any end-user factors arise, North American pellet producers will evaluate possible changes. &ldquo;Right now, the key is to get a good consistent product across all of North America.&rdquo; Author: Lisa Gibson Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine (701) 738-4952 <a href="mailto:lgibson@bbiinternational.com">lgibson@bbiinternational.com</a>

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BAGS O' BIOMASS: Canada's Premium Pellet Ltd. adheres to the pellet standards of individual utilities in Europe, as do all the other Canadian pellet producers who ship overseas. 

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The Pellet Fuels Institute is rolling out new pellet standards to not only define and level the playing field for producers in North America, but also to protect consumers. 

Raising  the Bar

Brazil is the world&rsquo;s top sugarcane producer, and its ever-growing cane industry earns billions annually making sweeteners, ethanol, alcohols and even electricity by burning most of the cane fiber, called bagasse. But they can&rsquo;t burn it all. Each year Brazil accumulates millions of tons of bagasse that, until now, have been treated as a burden instead of a blessing.
 Pellet producers have tried and failed for decades in Brazil to capitalize on the low-cost, high-value feedstock of cane bagasse. But a small handful of new entrepreneurs are taking a fresh stab at bagasse pellets, whipping up new formulas to treat the feedstock and building domestic market demand from the ground up.
 Why bagasse as a pellet feedstock? It has a high energy content and burn quality. It&rsquo;s also an existing agricultural byproduct that avoids impacting the food chain. If bagasse were left to rot, it would break down and release greenhouse gases, particularly methane, which is 20 percent more dangerous to the ozone than carbon dioxide (CO2). That&rsquo;s why bagasse pellets can earn carbon credits for European utilities, which are pursuing new sources to meet the European Union&rsquo;s 20 percent renewables mandate by 2020.
 Green Energy Group is the most prominent company of a rumored handful currently testing the pellet waters in Brazil. It&rsquo;s also easily the furthest along in convincing domestic and foreign buyers to try bagasse pellets. Started in 2006 by three entrepreneurial engineers, the group sees gold in industrial-grade pellets for both Brazilian factories and the European market.
 &ldquo;There is very high demand in the EU if the price is right,&rdquo; says Gloria Jacobovitz, a consultant that helped GEG prep its business plan, get feedback in Europe and win international loans. &ldquo;In Brazil it&rsquo;s a market that has to be built, but it makes financial sense, and if Brazil&rsquo;s federal or state governments want to cap CO2, there&rsquo;s a market for this.&rdquo;
 From the Ground Up
 If bagasse pellet sales were easy, Brazil would already be a world leader in consumption and export. Its 440 cane mills crushed more than 556 million tons of sugarcane during the 2010-&rsquo;11 harvest season, up 3 percent from the year prior. After squeezing out every ounce of sugary juice, as much as 30 percent of that cane weight ends up as fibrous bagasse (nearly 167 million tons last season).
 All of Brazil&rsquo;s cane mills today burn their bagasse for energy, using between 60 and 100 percent of their supply depending on the mill&rsquo;s size. On average, they burn 80 percent, so the remaining 20 percent of bagasse is waste material with few secondary markets. That&rsquo;s potentially 33.4 million tons of bagasse last year alone for new products like pellets.&nbsp;
 But it hasn&rsquo;t been easy. It&rsquo;s been slow and arduous, highlighted by thousands of hours in the lab and on the road for GEG staff, perfecting recipes for both pelletizing bagasse, and weaning industrial clients off fossil fuels.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 &ldquo;The Brazilian pellet market hasn't developed at all because every (pellet) producer in the past has only thought export,&rdquo; says Diego Maurizio Zannoni, GEG CEO. &ldquo;This is very incipient in Brazil, it's just the beginning. We&rsquo;ve had to create the market from scratch here, educating customers one at a time.&rdquo;
 Brazil&rsquo;s pellet production has been limited until now to an inconsistent 200,000 tons or less per year, produced by small logging companies almost solely from wood chips or debris, and sold domestically where the power supply is unreliable. The market is so small that it&rsquo;s been hard to keep track of who is producing what each year, says Celso Oliveira, president of the Brazilian Association of Industry Biomass. He&rsquo;s also head of the bagasse pellet venture Brazil Biomass and Renewable Energy, which is pursuing export deals in Holland and Japan.
 GEG&rsquo;s first challenge was creating its own formula for pelletizing bagasse, believing no one in the market had yet perfected a cost-effective, high-standard option that&rsquo;s on par with the energy content of wood pellets.
 Bagasse pulp is full of impurities and hash, and its fibers are longer and more uneven than other feedstocks. GEG wanted a pellet that would meet the highest export market standards, to avoid tying their hands if domestic market demand didn't pan out.
 They came up with a cylindrical pellet that&rsquo;s 6 to 10 millimeters in diameter, and four to six times that diameter in length. It has a low calorific value at 4.0 kilocalories per kilogram (kcal/kg) (or 4.5 kilowatt hours per kg), and an energy equivalent of 0.4 kg of oil per pellet. Because it produces roughly 1.5 kg of ash per 100 kg burned, these pellets likely won't qualify for residential use, and will be limited to industrial clients for now.
 To pelletize, 2 kg of bagasse (with 50 percent humidity) produce 1 kg of pellets (at 8 to 10 percent humidity). Essent Trading, a Dutch energy trader owned by German utility RWE, has certified GEG&rsquo;s bagasse pellet as meeting European Union standards for solid biofuels.
 The company is close to finalizing a $45.5 million loan through the Inter-American Development Bank, which would provide two-thirds of the financing needed for plant construction this year in the city of Votuporanga, northern S&atilde;o Paulo state. With an initial production capacity of 40,000 tons per year, the plant is located in the heart of Brazil's cane country, near multiple mills to provide bagasse, and within 300 kilometers (186 miles) of a huge market of potential industrial customers.
 Competing Interests
 The sugarcane industry is developing new ways for mill owners to utilize excess bagasse, via cellulosic ethanol and year-round energy cogeneration. The former remains years away in terms of cost-efficiencies, and for mills interested in cogeneration, entering the power business is often cost-prohibitive.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 Around 100 Brazilian mills currently produce surplus electricity consistently for sale to either the grid, or contracted buyers. Cane mills may need to retrofit their turbines and electrical systems to tap into the local grid, a costly endeavor that most hesitate to pursue unless they are guaranteed energy contracts.
 Those contracts are tough to get. Stiff competition from wind and hydropower producers at a public energy auction in late 2010 left the cane industry with just 16 percent of 1,159 megawatts in long-term contracts. Many cane millers have grown bitter with the auction system, believing tax breaks for wind put biomass at a disadvantage.&nbsp;
 Connecting to the national electric grid may also raise costs beyond a competitive advantage for small cane mills and their limited megawatt potential. Brazil's Ministry of Energy has stood behind the cane industry's aggressive goal to double its cogeneration capacity by 2020, but the government only projected a small increase in biomass&rsquo; slice of the 2020 national matrix&mdash;from 4.8 to 5.1 percent.
 Transport costs in Brazil are among the highest in the world, due to poor roads and infrastructure. Cane mills in S&atilde;o Paulo state can be as far as 500 kilometers from the nearest port, adding cost that could up-end export options while the Brazilian currency remains strong against the U.S. dollar, according to Paulo Costa, Brazil director for First American Scientific, which makes machines that pulverize organic waste material.&nbsp;
 &ldquo;I think bagasse pellets are promising, but those mill owners are making so much money right now with sugar and ethanol, I don&rsquo;t think they&rsquo;ll focus on anything else,&rdquo; Costa says. &ldquo;Pellets are a cheap product with potentially big transport costs, one more reason why mills aren&rsquo;t focusing on it.&rdquo;
 Making the Choice Easy
 Most industrial thermal power users have hesitated with bagasse pellets because of a total lack of experience with the fuel source, and upfront costs they&rsquo;d face for boiler changes. GEG has adapted for doubters, splitting the company into two branches that promise clients all of the savings of biomass fuel with none of the risk.&nbsp;
 Under the BrasPower label, GEG will cover all the costs of installing and maintaining new pellet boilers and power equipment at a client&rsquo;s factory, just to hook them on buying fuel from the company&rsquo;s other branch, BrasPellet.
 GEG has three clients signed up in the textiles and food and beverage markets to install boilers and start burning bagasse pellets in the first quarter of 2012. The company plans to produce 520,000 tons of pellets per year by 2015-&rsquo;16, which would generate 2,030 gigawatt hours of power annually.
 &ldquo;We'll manage everything if they wish, and we're offering this turnkey solution now just to develop successful examples to help build this market,&rdquo; Zannoni says. Author: Bob Moser Freelance Writer <a href="mailto:bobmoser333@gmail.com">bobmoser333@gmail.com</a>

CANE KINGS: Brazil's 440 cane mills crushed more than 556 million tons of sugarcane during the 2010-'11 harvest season. 

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FINICKY FIBERS: Bagasse fibers are longer and more uneven than other feedstocks. 

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Every year during Brazil's January-to-March sugarcane off-season, managers of the 440-odd cane mills take pause beside mountains of fibrous cane waste that litter their lots, and curse the fact they must pay someone to haul it away. 

 Capitalizing  on Cane Waste

The Southeast U.S. offers an abundance of wood resources for pellet manufacturers and several have taken up residence there to utilize that supply chain. Some larger facilities are shipping their pellets overseas to better-developed markets in Europe that incentiveize industrial biomass use. While the U.S. pellet export market seems to be evolving and more companies are trying to break into it, one particular European utility has opted to come halfway around the world and operate its own pellet plant, shipping its product to its own European utilities.
 Georgia Biomass in Waycross, Ga., is in its precommissioning phase and expects to begin shipping pellets in the second quarter of this year, according to Chief Financial Officer Sam Kang. The mill will produce about 750,000 metric tons of pellets per year for internal use by subsidiaries of German utility RWE, including recently acquired Dutch utility Essent, one of the largest pellet users in the world. With the marriage of Essent and RWE, Georgia Biomass&mdash;a subsidiary of RWE Innogy&mdash;completes the loop. Of course the Southeast has ample resources and strict, reliable sustainability codes, but why not just purchase the pellets from U.S. producers already operating there? Supply, Quality, Price Many pellet mills, not just in the U.S., are privately funded and may not be well-capitalized, Kang says. Mills with thin margins or those that are kept afloat shipment-by-shipment can&rsquo;t always provide security of supply, one of three main reasons RWE is constructing its own mill. Pellet mills with credit problems can run out of cash, putting their off-takers at risk of insufficient fuel supply. &ldquo;[Essent has] had instances when people don&rsquo;t deliver because the price of sawdust or shipping went up, for instance,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Little things like that happen and we just don&rsquo;t want to be open to that.&rdquo;
 The next reason for an internal pellet plant is no surprise: quality. &ldquo;Quality is very important and is one reason we did invest in our own pellet facility here in the U.S.,&rdquo; Kang says. &ldquo;We want to make sure we get the same consistent good quality.&rdquo; Ash content, fines and calorific value are a few of the important elements, he says. &ldquo;Yes, Essent has turned away shipments because of quality.&rdquo; Contracts specify quality parameters for the delivered fuel and the buyer can and most likely will refuse a shipment if it does not meet those specifications. &ldquo;Based on that, if there was any opportunity to renege on a contract, [the customer] would, and rightfully so,&rdquo; says John Swaan, chief operating officer for Green Frontiers Energy Group. &ldquo;If the criteria aren&rsquo;t met, they have every right to refuse a shipment.&rdquo;
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve made tens of millions of euros in investments to convert existing coal plants to be able to cofire, so we want to be able to make sure that we will also be receiving those high-quality pellets so we get subsidies to repay our investments,&rdquo; Kang says.
 Quality problems can arise when using poor raw materials or having inadequate cooling in the pelletizing, storage and handling processes, according to Swaan. &ldquo;You cannot pile up residue, process it, bring it in and expect it&rsquo;ll be magically altered and refined to something that&rsquo;s suitable,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Junk in is still junk out.&rdquo; Management of the raw material is crucial, he adds, and handling it correctly, in the case of forest residues, means avoiding scraping it through the forest floor and pushing it into piles. &ldquo;As soon as you contaminate it with dirt, obviously you&rsquo;re going to have some issues.&rdquo; While the problem isn&rsquo;t common in U.S. pellet mills, it has happened in the past and is a lesson today&rsquo;s manufacturers can learn from others&rsquo; mistakes. &ldquo;What the industry has to learn &hellip; in North America is that even though it&rsquo;s an industrial pellet, it still means that you need quality residues,&rdquo; Swaan says. The final major driver in RWE&rsquo;s decision to develop Georgia Biomass is price risk. &ldquo;Part of vertical integration is that then you would be insensitive to large price movements,&rdquo; Kang explains.&nbsp;
 But supply, quality and price aside, Georgia represents an ideal location because it has sustainably grown and harvested desirable trees as crops for decades. &ldquo;We specifically chose Georgia in the Southeast U.S. for the southern pine,&rdquo; Kang says. The tree is abundant, and has ideal calorific value for RWE&rsquo;s processes. &ldquo;More trees are grown than cut down each year,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking for long-term production here.&rdquo;
 It goes without saying that not all U.S. pellet manufacturers are guilty of supply and quality issues, and many are successfully shipping pellets to Europe fairly frequently, such as Green Circle BioEnergy Inc. in Florida and Fram Renewable Fuels LLC in Georgia. Some say success in export markets depends on proximity to wood supply and port access. &ldquo;European buyers are the same as buyers the world over,&rdquo; says Harold Arnold, president of Fram Renewable Fuels. &ldquo;They want the product at the lowest possible price. Not every project in every location can be profitable. All have their unique problems and conditions.&rdquo;
 Similarly, the hardships RWE and Essent have endured with suppliers are not attributable only to North America. &ldquo;It can happen anywhere,&rdquo; Kang says, adding that the economics, logistics, fiber sustainability and material quality in the U.S. simply represented the best opportunity for RWE and its internal pellet demand at the time it made its investment decision.
 Disconnect?
 But while some European pellet customers might say suppliers and brokers aren&rsquo;t following through on their quality, volume and price commitments, it&rsquo;s possible they simply don&rsquo;t understand the cost of delivering a consistent quality product overseas, says Pete Stewart, president and CEO of Forest2Market, a provider of market trend and industry information for forest products and bioenergy. &ldquo;On one hand, European utilities say they can&rsquo;t get consistent deliveries at a good price,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But on the other hand, they won&rsquo;t pay the price to get a quality product over there.&rdquo;
 Stewart doesn&rsquo;t consider RWE to be one of those ill-informed utilities. &ldquo;They pretty much understand the cost,&rdquo; he says, adding RWE might not fully nail down exact cost figures until it begins shipping commercial quantities from Georgia. &ldquo;Right now, their costs to manufacture and deliver a pellet is way in excess of market price, so they&rsquo;ll certainly be losing on [Georgia Biomass], or they could easily replace the volume in that plant with market-based product, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean they can replicate the quality of their product in the market, or the timeliness of delivery,&rdquo; he says. Timeliness and quality are major components of cost, he adds. &ldquo;I would suggest the price right now doesn&rsquo;t really take into account consistency or strict adherence to quality measures and that might be the disconnect between the markets and what it really costs to get a decent product to a location in Europe.&rdquo;
 The U.S. is the No. 2 producer of wood pellets in the world, but only exports 20 percent of its product, according to the American Biomass Trade Cooperative (ABTc). In comparison, Canada exports about 80 percent of its product. International investors are indeed reluctant to work with American producers because of shipping hurdles and the inability to secure on-time and undamaged product, according to the cooperative. In accordance with RWE&rsquo;s reasoning, that security of supply is the primary concern of foreign pellet customers, according to Scott Miller, founder and president of bioenergy marketing and consulting firm The Miller and De Wulf Corp., and marketing consultant for the ABTc. Among other initiatives, the cooperative seeks to serve as a middleman between American biomass product manufacturers and foreign customers, marketing and connecting the two.
 &ldquo;We will definitely be trying to streamline communication across the pond,&rdquo; Miller says. The possible pricing disconnect is one element of biomass exporting that the cooperative could tackle with its work. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s an understandable concern,&rdquo; he says.
 In the thick of it, though, the view might be much different. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s just typical business,&rdquo; Arnold says of the suggested pricing disparity. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think there&rsquo;s a disconnect. I think it&rsquo;s just the long-term situation in business.&rdquo; The buyer will never propose to pay more than the market price, he adds. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s capitalism at its best.&rdquo;
 There is substantial risk involved in the pellet export industry, specifically for startups, which account for a significant portion of manufacturers in the U.S., Kang says. But Georgia Biomass avoids that risk by supplying its own internal demand, although Kang says selling to third parties is an option if excess supply exists after RWE&rsquo;s demands are met. Even though RWE&rsquo;s mill means reduced interest in the global pellet market, Kang is still hoping for the success of pellet producers because it builds stability in that market. &ldquo;I would be very happy to see the success of all the pellet producers because it only helps the whole industry,&rdquo; he says.
 But it is a tough business to be in, Arnold cautions. &ldquo;Wood pelleting is not a get-rich-quick scheme,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It is capital intensive and dirty, dusty manufacturing at its best.&rdquo; He adds that the hype surrounding the wood pellet industry and its export potential has led many project developers to believe pellet manufacturing is a business with guaranteed profits. &ldquo;Unfortunately it is not,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The same discipline must be applied to the pellet business as any other. You can make a little money at it, but there&rsquo;s an awful lot of hard work to do it.&rdquo; Author: Lisa Gibson Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine (701) 738-4952 <a href="mailto:lgibson@bbiinternational.com">lgibson@bbiinternational.com </a>

PELLET PATRON: RWE npowerâ€™s Tilbury, England, Power Station will be one of the first customers of RWE Innogyâ€™s Georgia Biomass pellet plant in Waycross, Ga. Both RWE Innogy and RWE npower are subsidiaries of German utility RWE. The Tilbury Power 

2011/04/13040147093427.jpg

SITE SEEING: Georgia Biomass will produce 750,000 metric tons of pellets annually at its Waycross, Ga., site.


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PELLET TRAIN: The pelletizing island and railroad track are integral parts of Georgia Biomass's operation.  

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United States Pellet and Waste Wood Exports

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German utility RWE Innogy is building a wood pellet mill in the Southeast U.S. to supply fuel for its parent company's power plants in Europe. The move could be an indication of the challenges in consistently shipping high-quality pellets overseas.

Pellet  Pitfalls

In the wood pellet industry there is always competition for raw material and for making sales. It doesn&rsquo;t matter if you&rsquo;re just a small guy, because in this industry, the small guys matter. One or two new small-scale producers in the right area can wreak havoc on the sales of a pre-existing plant. That&rsquo;s the perspective of Chris Sharron, owner of Western Oregon Wood Products.&nbsp; &ldquo;A lot of the smaller ones can add up to quite a bit of tonnage,&rdquo; Sharron says.
 And, they may have advantages over large-scale manufacturers, one being that they don&rsquo;t have a lot of production to sell so lags in market demand don&rsquo;t affect them as much. &ldquo;A sawmill plant utilizing its own materials doesn&rsquo;t have transportation costs to bring materials to the plant,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A lot of them are using their own byproducts that are kiln dried, so there are also no drying costs. They can be highly competitive although they aren&rsquo;t very big, and they take little mouthfuls out of the market in a particular region that some former supplier was supplying into.&rdquo;
 WOWP, which was started by Sharron and his brother in 1985, operates two pellet plants in Banks and Columbia City, Ore., which have a combined annual capacity of 80,000 tons. Seeing the industry evolve over the decades, Sharron says there was a period of rapid growth several years ago, but in the past couple of years things have become rather flat. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s been an increased demand over the years, especially in the past five years, but it hasn&rsquo;t been real steady growth,&rdquo; Sharron says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s spiky. Fossil fuel costs go up, and if the economy is conducive to where people have jobs and disposable income, they might look at an alternative way to heat their homes, one being a pellet stove.&rdquo;
 When that happens, demand can increase at a quick pace and there may be spot shortages of fuel, which potential developers can misconstrue as a beckoning opportunity. &ldquo;[Shortages] hit the headlines and people decide pellet making is a business they should get into,&rdquo; Sharron says. &ldquo;What they don&rsquo;t realize is that there is a lag time in putting the project together&mdash;permitting and installing the equipment&mdash;and by the time they&rsquo;re ready to turn the keys and start bagging fuel, the industry has cycled back the other way, and there&rsquo;s an oversupply. That&rsquo;s kind of what&rsquo;s happened in the past few years. It&rsquo;s highly competitive now, because the market hasn&rsquo;t grown enough.&rdquo;
 To put that into perspective, Sharron says that there were roughly 40,000 new pellet stoves sold in the U.S. last year, and a general rule of thumb is that on average, a stove uses 2 tons of pellets per year. That equals an additional demand of 80,000 tons annually. &ldquo;There are a number of plants where just they by themselves are producing that or more,&rdquo; he says.
 Charlie Niebling, general manager of New England Wood Pellet, says pellet demand was off the charts in 2008 because of the big run-up in fossil energy pricing, but things slowed down in 2009, and 2010 was a soft year for the company. Despite that fact, he says things are beginning to pick up again.
&nbsp;
Supplying Close to Home
 New England Wood Pellet operates three plants in Jaffrey, N.H., Schuyler, N.Y., and Deposit, N.Y., which have a combined capacity of about 250,000 tons per year when running at full tilt. Much like WOWP, most of the pellet volume produced at NEWP ends up in residential heating applications&mdash;about 98 percent. Despite the fact that U.S. pellet exports are being touted by the government as a great opportunity, Niebling says it is unlikely that the company will ever ship overseas, as long as the domestic market is strong enough. &ldquo;Philosophically, we strongly believe in focusing our efforts on solving America&rsquo;s energy challenges, not Europe&rsquo;s, and from a practical standpoint it&rsquo;s something that is very difficult to do viably from the Northeast U.S.&rdquo;
 That&rsquo;s because of the region&rsquo;s high wood material costs, and its lack of port facilities set up for bulk cargo shipping of pellets. &ldquo;Our plants aren&rsquo;t conveniently located near port facilities; we have a lot of inland freight,&rdquo; Niebling says. &ldquo;Where it works in this country is where there is less expensive wood feedstocks, and rail to get the product to a port, one that can stage a large volume for bulk cargo shipping. The Northeast just doesn&rsquo;t have the circumstances that are well-suited to that, given the current pricing overseas.&rdquo;
 Sharron says that with the nature of pellets&mdash;a relatively low value versus bulk and weight&mdash;freight is a big issue, so most pellet plants only have the ability to distribute regionally. &ldquo;Being here in western Oregon, our markets are Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Idaho and Utah a little bit, but past that point we&rsquo;re not very competitive due to that freight issue.&rdquo;
 WOWP has looked at many opportunities to ship overseas and has had a lot of inquiries over the years, but it just doesn&rsquo;t pencil out, Sharron says. &ldquo;The value on the other end will only bear so much,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;By today&rsquo;s standards, we&rsquo;re not a huge producer, so we don&rsquo;t have the economies of scale that some of the other exporters do have.&nbsp; Alongside that, the raw material costs in this area are not conducive to getting things to balance out, certainly not to Europe or the Asian markets, where some activity is starting.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;For Pinnacle Renewable Energy in British Columbia, shipping overseas makes the most sense for the company for a number of reasons, one being the close proximity of its plants to rail and ports.
 &nbsp;Pinnacle has six plants in B.C. that produce a total of 1.1 million metric tons per year. The company ships about 90 percent of its product overseas to the large-scale industrial power generation sectors in both Asia and Europe, but mainly to Europe, according to Leroy Reitsma, Pinnacle&rsquo;s chief operating officer.
 Reitsma says demand has slowed in advance of new legislation being defined and introduced in both Asia and Europe, but indications for future demand remain strong.
 The company&rsquo;s plant development model has kept it from experiencing some of the obstacles other manufacturers are facing, such as stiff competition for raw materials and transportation costs. All of Pinnacle&rsquo;s plants are strategically located close to Canadian sawmills, and have formed material supply relationships with them. &ldquo;Fiber pricing is more a function of local economic factors, due to the high price of transporting raw residuals,&rdquo; Reitsma says. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;
 Competing for Raw Material
 In an industry that is a branch of the larger biomass power industry, wood resources of all kinds are sought after for different purposes. &ldquo;We compete for our feedstock, there is no question about it,&rdquo; Niebling says. &ldquo;When our plants are at 100 percent capacity, we are dependent on round wood chips, and then we&rsquo;re competing much more directly with the pulp and paper industry. Also to some extent, [we compete with] the biomass power plants we have up this way, although we have a slightly different feedstock need than they have because they can use a much lower quality chip than we can to make a premium grade pellet.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 Michael Curci, business development manager for Indeck Energy, says competition for feedstock is always a source of concern in the region where the company operates. Indeck has a two-year old, 90,000-ton pellet manufacturing facility in Ladysmith, Wis., that sells about 60 percent of its product for residential use, the rest commercial and industrial.
 &ldquo;There are three pellet mills within close proximity to us, and there are some proposed biomass power plants in the area that are under review by the state, so it&rsquo;s something we have to keep an eye on,&rdquo; Curci says. &ldquo;If prices go up with more competition, pellet prices will reflect that. That won&rsquo;t be the case at any individual production facility, but across the board in our region.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;The cost of raw material is a cyclical issue, Sharron says. &ldquo;Our two plants rely on byproducts or residuals from sawmilling operations, for the most part,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;In these past few years, with the housing and construction markets being soft, a lot of the area sawmills have curtailed production or even shut down completely, so there&rsquo;s less supply on the market.&rdquo;
 A big competitor for the materials WOWP uses is the composite/particle board industry, but it has been affected by the depressed wood product industry as well. &ldquo;They aren&rsquo;t as stiff a competitor as they have been at other times,&rdquo; Sharron says. &ldquo;On the other hand, pulp mills also use the same fiber, and their markets have been relatively strong, so there&rsquo;s always something, depending on the cycle.&rdquo;
 Niebling says raw material prices float, according to what fossil fuel prices are doing. &ldquo;If oil and propane prices keep going up, and there&rsquo;s enough margin for the retailer, the distributor and manufacturer to operate profitably even with higher wood costs, that price threshold can be higher than it is today.&rdquo;
 Some plants can afford to pay more for their raw materials than others, Sharron says. &ldquo;That depends on a lot of things, such as debt service,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If it&rsquo;s a new plant, it probably has a higher debt load and it might not be able to afford as much as an older manufacturer who doesn&rsquo;t carry as much debt. It&rsquo;s all relative to what the value of a finished product is at a given time.&rdquo;
 When competition for wood fiber material is fierce and prices are high, looking for alternative feedstocks is an appealing idea on the surface, but it isn&rsquo;t as easy as it sounds.
 Searching for Alternatives 
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve looked at [alternative feedstocks], but never seriously, because when you design and build plants like we have, you do it to handle one type of feedstock,&rdquo; Niebling says. &ldquo;The handling, conveying, refining and processing of biomass is unique to each individual type of feedstock. When you start to introduce different types of materials it changes your plant performance. You have to understand how those different feedstocks affect operations.&rdquo;
 Furthermore, the residential market is still the major market in the U.S., and there aren&rsquo;t many appliances or pellet stoves that can handle the quality characteristics of an ag-based pellet, which has higher ash content and is more prone to clinkering. &ldquo;You may not even be able to manufacture a lower grade pellet that you would have to sell for less, because some lower quality materials are more expensive to turn into a pellet, unless it&rsquo;s offset by the cost of the raw material at the gate,&rdquo; Sharron says. &ldquo;That might be less of an issue on a commercial or industrial basis, but no matter what the pellet is made of, we&rsquo;re competing with coal and it&rsquo;s extremely difficult to compete with the cost of a Btu of coal.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;Those in the industry know that making pellets is a low-margin proposition. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s not a lot of profit in it and there isn&rsquo;t a lot of room for inefficiency, so we&rsquo;ve been reluctant to consider blends or to make different types of pellets from other feedstocks,&rdquo; Niebling says. &ldquo;We want to get really good at doing one thing, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean that won&rsquo;t change in the future. If wood gets really expensive and suddenly hybrid willow or poplar starts to look more attractive, we&rsquo;d consider that. I don&rsquo;t see it any time soon, but if this industry grows the way we believe it will, we might all be looking at a variety of feedstocks.&rdquo; Author: Anna Austin Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine (701) 738-4968 <a href="mailto:aaustin@bbiinternational.com">aaustin@bbiinternational.com</a>

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FEEDSTOCK COMPETITORS: Indeck Energy's plant in Ladysmith, Wis., is in an area where there is potential competition for feedstock from three nearby pellet mills and some proposed biomass power plants. 

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DEMAND ROLLERCOASTER: Charlie Niebling, general manager of NEWP, says pellet demand was off the charts in 2008, due to high fossil energy prices, and slowed down in 2009 and 2010. 


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STRONG SALES: Even if it were economically feasible, NEWP probably won't be shipping pellets overseas because the domestic market is strong at the moment.  

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North American pellet manufacturers talk about supply, demand and competition.

Making  Ends Meet

Cattails are extremely fast-growing and competitive plants. In lakes everywhere, they are displacing native plant populations that support wildlife habitat and prevent erosion, in addition to hindering swimming and boating activities in recreational areas.
 Though generally considered a nuisance, cattails do provide a benefit to the health of a watershed by filtering out excessive toxins and nutrients, such as phosphorous and nitrogen, before they reach a lake.
 That&rsquo;s the case in Lake Winnipeg, the sixth-largest freshwater lake in Canada. The Red River, which flows north into the lake through the Netley-Libau Marsh, is nutrient rich and is the main source of the high phosphorous and nitrogen levels in the lake. Too much phosphorous promotes the uncontrolled growth of pesky plants such as algae, which then grows too quickly and thickly and absorbs much of the oxygen and sunlight needed by other plants and fish.
 While cattails help mitigate nutrient loads, they can only absorb so much phosphorus until they are saturated, says Richard Grosshans, a researcher at the University of Manitoba, Canada. &ldquo;Some nutrients such as nitrogen naturally break down, but phosphorous is stored in the sediments, so over time it can actually accumulate to the point of complete saturation,&rdquo; he says.
 Several years ago, Grosshans and his team began a project to evaluate how much phosphorous could be permanently removed from the lake by harvesting marsh grasses. They hoped to understand the effects it would have on the health of Netley Marsh, a coastal wetland on the south end of the lake, as well as the health of Lake Winnipeg. Since the 1970s, the marsh has seen a significant loss of habitat.
 &nbsp;&ldquo;We ended up mostly focusing on cattails, as it is pretty effective as a wastewater treatment plant,&rdquo; says Grosshans, who also works for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a project co-partner. &ldquo;Our cattails were loaded with phosphorous, which is one of the things we&rsquo;re interested in taking out of the marsh, and cattails have a really high energy value. It&rsquo;s bound in the biomass, and we found it to be valuable as a biomass fuel.&rdquo;
 Unwanted nutrient removal, coupled with the benefit of bioenergy production, creates the greatest economic feasibility of harvesting the cattails.
 A Match for Wood Pellets 
 When the research project began four years ago, the idea was to harvest and bale the cattails. &ldquo;We were working with a company that has a gasifier with an automatic bale feeder, and they were going through about six bales a day,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;About halfway through the project we were exploring different funding sources, and Manitoba Hydro expressed interest in funding the concept of densified fuel.&rdquo;
 Starting out with 1-inch by 1-inch cubes, the team first determined that no binder was needed. &ldquo;Just heat,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s enough lignin in the cattails so it naturally binds itself. We did a trial with a binder and then with no binder, and found that they had the exact same durability&mdash;about 97 percent.&rdquo;
 Moving on to other pellet sizes, the researchers found that the cattail material compresses and binds efficiently in standard pelletizing equipment. And, energy-wise, the cattail pellets are comparable to standard wood pellets. &ldquo;We worked with the Alberta Research Council, and they did pellet trials and all of the tests and comparisons for us,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;They found that the calorific value [of the cattail pellets] was anywhere from 16 to 20 megajoules (MJ) per kilogram (kg), about same value of the standard wood pellets that they were comparing, which ranged from 17 to 18 MJ per kg. So they actually have the same energy value, if not more.&rdquo;
 The only superior characteristic of wood pellets was its low ash content, compared to the cattail pellets. &ldquo;Cattail has about 6 percent ash content, compared to wood pellet standards which are less than one-half of a percent to 3 percent,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;So we determined that the best option would be to produce mixed pellets. We're working with a company right now that produces mixed-fuel pellets from forest and ag waste, to integrate the cattails in on a commercial scale.&rdquo;
 Feedstock availability and sustainability are not an issue with cattail pellets, Grosshans says. &ldquo;When we harvest, we leave about a foot of stubble above the water level, only harvesting in about 1 to 6 inches of water.&rdquo;
 Cattails grow fast, and are extremely competitive and resilient, he adds. Properly harvesting them facilitates their health. &ldquo;We found that after the first year of harvest&mdash;because initially there was so much dead stuff out there&mdash;the following year, the plants were coming up two weeks earlier because the sunlight could get to them easier.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;Nearby areas not harvested were negatively impacted. &ldquo;Growth of cattail per square meter was about half that of our harvested site,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Leaving the stubble allows the plants to breathe and come up again next year, and we&rsquo;re getting about 14 to 19 tons per hectare (2.47 acres), with 90 days to maturity. It does depend on weather and the area because there are different varieties, but we have a hybrid variety up here that produces an amazing amount of biomass&mdash;we had cattails upwards of 12 feet tall in some areas.&rdquo;
 The real challenge to the entire scheme is getting the cattails out of the water, and harvesting when they have the lowest moisture content.
 Prepping for Pelletization
 &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of moisture in cattails,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve harvested at different times of the year, and found that a winter harvest is next to impossible.&rdquo;
 Summer is the best time to harvest relative to nutrient removal because that&rsquo;s when cattails have the highest amount of phosphorus in them, but that&rsquo;s also when nutrient reserves in the ground are the lowest. &ldquo;If you keep doing that over time&mdash;and it would take a long time&mdash;it could negatively impact your community,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;In the fall, cattails send these nutrient reserves back into the ground, into the roots and rhizomes, so they can survive until next year.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 Without enough stored nutrients, the cattails wouldn't be able to survive the long winter. Harvesting in the spring is the best option if it is being done specifically for bioenergy purposes, because the cattails are dry and easy to harvest right after the snow is gone and the ground is still frozen. &ldquo;But it has very little nutrient value in it still; it&rsquo;s lost about all but 5 percent of its phosphorus remaining,&rdquo; Grosshans says. Therefore, from a nutrient management perspective, harvesting in the spring is completely useless.
 &ldquo;We found that a good compromise is to harvest in the fall, because the plant has put some of its nutrients back into the soil to survive, and they&rsquo;ve lost about 30 percent of moisture naturally,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;You also avoid wildlife effects because most of the ducks and geese have gone south by that time.&rdquo; Most importantly, the cattails have a significant amount of phosphorous in them to make it worthwhile.
 To harvest the cattails, the team initially built a custom-designed small, wetland harvester, but it was designed when the focus was specifically to make bales. &ldquo;It cuts it and leaves it in a swath, and then we moved the swathes to allow them to dry naturally in the sun,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;Later, we had a farmer come along and bale it.&rdquo;
 In the next phase of the project, which the researchers are just beginning, some significant funding from the Manitoba government will be used to develop a commercial cattail harvester.
 Moving Ahead 
 &ldquo;As the project has developed, we have decided just to make pellets rather than bales and we&rsquo;re working with companies to develop something similar to a corn forage harvester,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;It can drive in there, cut the cattails, shred them and store them in a hopper all in one shot. Then we&rsquo;ll transport the shredded material to wherever we&rsquo;re going to pelletize it.&rdquo;
 Besides completing the design of the new harvester, the next phase of the project will take the research to a pilot-scale harvest of 300 hectares of cattails, looking at how much phosphorous is removed as a result, how much bioenergy could be created, as well as the carbon offsets that could be generated. Canada has a new carbon offset system, where the government will issue credits for greenhouse gas emissions reductions and removals.
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;re interested in nutrient management and the bioenergy part of it, but somebody came to us with a proposal to buy carbon credits,&rdquo; Grosshans says. &ldquo;So a big driver of the next phase of research is on the end of the process&mdash;selling the carbon offsets from burning the cattail pellets.&rdquo;
 Overall, the real driver of the project was to try to understand the value of net removal of marsh to the health of Lake Winnipeg, while working in multiple cobenefits such as bioenergy production, Grosshans says. He adds that it&rsquo;s not economically feasible to harvest cattail only for bioenergy purposes. &ldquo;You can do it though, especially if you have areas where you are already growing them such as at storm water treatment plants or wastewater treatment plants, and you can manage the water levels,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If you combine bioenergy with nutrient management and carbon credits, then it is a lot more economically viable. The great thing about cattail harvesting is that there are no inputs, and it grows everywhere, and it absorbs stuff that causes problems in the environment.&rdquo; Author: Anna Austin Associate Editor, Pellet Mill Magazine (701) 738-4968 <a href="mailto:aaustin@bbiinternational.com">aaustin@bbiinternational.com</a>

TAKING OVER: Fast-growing cattails can displace native plant populations that support wildlife habitat and prevent erosion.

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CATTAIL BALE: Researchers harvested two bales of cattails from the summer harvest site in the Netley-Libau Marshâ€”each bale weighed approximately 850 pounds.

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MEASURING UP: Cattail pellets are comparable in durability and calorific heat value to standard wood pellets.


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MARSH MACHINE: Researchers harvested the cattails in May using a custom-designed and built wetland harvester. 


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CATTAIL PELLETS: One of the steps in the project was to densify shredded cattails into pellets or cubes. 

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Researchers at the University of Manitoba are proving the potential of cattails as a fuel pellet feedstock.

An  Unconventional  Pellet  Feedstock 

The face of power generation in the U.K. is rapidly evolving. With the U.K. government committed to generating heat and power from renewable resources as part of the European Union Renewable Energy Directive, there is a target of increasing renewable energy use seven-fold from 2008 levels. Certainly by 2020, the U.K. target is to generate 20 percent of its power using renewable sources (the U.K. government has actually set a target of 30 percent for power and 12 percent of heat from renewable sources). Another moot factor is an aging U.K. power generation infrastructure, with a significant number of U.K. coal-fired power stations coming to the end of their operational lives under the EU Large Combustion Plant Directive (closures due in 2015). Since 2006-&rsquo;07, there has been a new focus on alternative energy sources to fossil fuels such as biomass, wind, solar, tidal and nuclear. The future of energy in the U.K. will contain elements of all these with a common goal of minimizing carbon production and encouraging renewability.
 The Importance of Biomass
 According to the 2007 U.K. biomass strategy document, renewable energy should come from sustainable biomass sources including newly managed woodland, rapid-growth willow coppice, waste wood from the timber industry, waste biomass (straw and vegetable material), organic slurry, manure, blue-green algae slurry and biofuel crops. The Directory of U.K. Biomass Generation Plants released a report in June 2010 (compiled by Enagri), which estimated that large-scale biomass power production could provide 15 to 17 percent of U.K. anticipated electrical demand by 2020 (about 60 terawatt hours (TWh)) and that the biomass fuel market could be worth &pound;5.3 billion ($8.5 billion) in 2020 requiring 50 million to 60 million metric tons of feedstock each year (depending upon calorific value). Biomass will surely play a significant role in the future of U.K. energy with around 163 biomass power stations (1 to 400 megawatt hour (MWh) capacity) either in operation, under construction or awaiting approval.
 Solid Biomass Market Drivers 
 Currently, the solid biomass market in the U.K. consists of two areas: domestic heating using equipment imported from Europe, where the biomass heating market is more mature, and large-scale power generation where the majority of solid biomass is used for cofiring with coal. The driving force behind cofiring of biomass (split between pellets, wood chips and waste biomass from agriculture or industry) is the Renewable Obligation Certificate. In 2005, the U.K. government passed The Renewable Obligation Order 2005, which required energy companies to derive 6.7 percent of the energy they provide to their customers from renewable sources (rising to 10 percent by 2010). The law requires an energy provider to generate the required renewable energy itself, or offset by buying the energy from someone who has. Renewable power generators receive ROCs for each MWh of electricity generated and these can be traded on the open market (values have achieved &pound;53.27 per MWh (April 2008 auction).
 Cofiring for coal power stations was a viable proposition until 2009 when the rules changed, meaning that the amount of ROCs a company could claim was reduced from the original figure of 2 ROCs per MWh down to 0.5 ROC per MWh. This has meant, since 2009, that the use of biomass for cofiring is less lucrative than previously (being much more dependent on the price of pellets or other biomass material). Of course, using biomass alone for energy production is eligible for different levels of ROCs, up to a level of 2 ROCs per MWh (firing biomass alone gains 1.5 ROCs, and biomass for generation with combined heat and power gives 2 ROCs).
 The 2011 Renewable Heat Incentive policy outlined on March 10 will revolutionize the way heat is generated and used in buildings and homes across the U.K. by providing a financial support scheme for generating clean heat and power (introduced for large power stations, commercial heating systems, and even domestic and small-scale business heat and feed-in systems). The scheme will provide a payable tariff for each kilowatt hour (KWh) generated using renewable sources. For biomass, the scheme is split into small, medium and large installations that will receive payments estimated at 7.6 pence (12 cents) per KWh for small to around 2.6 pence per KWh for large. This scheme will be introduced by theU.K. government this summer and will be in use until 2020.
 Biomass in the UK
 The U.K. is a small island with finite forestry resources and a rising demand for fuel from large-scale biomass energy plants is expected to leave the U.K. reliant on net imports of wood chips and pellets by 2012. A report titled &ldquo;Wood Fibre Availability and Demand in Britain 2007-2025&rdquo; from the Confederation of Forest Industries has highlighted the potential in the U.K. biomass market. The study predicts that demand for wood chips and pellets is likely to rise to about 27 million metric tons per year if the majority of new biomass plants in the pipeline are constructed and this will cause price rises in other timber-related industries such as furniture. The British wood fiber sector is set to expand rapidly to a production peak of just over 20 million metric tons by 2019 with production then declining.
It is also estimated that by 2017 U.K. demand for wood chips and pellets will be 50 million metric tons, almost double the present size of the global wood fiber biomass trade. With recovered wood providing around 3 million metric tons per year, importation of wood pellets and chips into the U.K. is expected to be around 27 million metric tons. Pellets are preferred by many commercial users because of their consistent quality (Green Gold Certification) and ease of handling, but for commercial users price is key and other imported material such as peanut kernel, palm kernel expeller, shea or olive residue, or straw may offer better economics (dependent upon calorific value).
 Imported Biomass
 The value of imported biomass in the form of pellets will be to support the biomass deficit in the U.K. via seven- to 10-year bulk supply &ldquo;bankable&rdquo; contracts. The majority of large biomass power stations are being built or planned near portside areas or near biomass sources (44 MWh Stevens Croft in Lockerbie, which has large forest resources) and as such the transportation of pellets/biomass is simplified. Figures from the Wood Pellet Association of Canada have shown that transport costs between Vancouver and Rotterdam were about $100 per metric ton in 2007 and so this has to be taken into consideration when establishing a new biomass supply chain.
 The energy used by the shipping method of biomass may be of great concern to environmental organizations and also the government, but all is not lost as Ireland-based B9 Shipping is developing cargo vessels fitted with Rolls Royce spark ignition engines, which will run on biogas and a soft sail system (100 percent renewable energy). These new cargo vessels would placate the environmental lobby and probably be cost effective as well. Many advocates of biomass power continue to argue, however, that to maximize the carbon emission savings from wood-fired power plants, it is necessary to use supplies of wood chips and pellets sourced near to the facility.
 Perspective from UK Industry
 According to John Bingham, chief analyst for the Forest Energy Monitor at Hawkins Wright, currently U.K. power generating companies are undecided about whether to use pellets or wood chips as their major imported biomass source. Bingham added &ldquo;there are around 30 major biomass power generating projects that will go ahead in the medium term and a lot more in slower development or awaiting planning permission or finance.&rdquo; Nigel Blandford is the senior sector development manager of the biomass project for Envirolink Northwest, which is designed to show potential biomass energy investors what grants and incentives are available to set up new projects in the region. Blandford reiterated Bingham&rsquo;s view that U.K. markets are undecided about which biomass material to use and that it would probably come down to cost, quality and transportation, and for cofiring, the market price of bulk coal. Bingham adds his belief that pellets have more consistent quality, particularly for the domestic market, and if they can be supplied &ldquo;&lsquo;torrified,&rdquo; the power stations find that they are more energy dense and that crushing and atomizing them to burn is much easier.
 &ldquo;The U.K. biomass market is weak at the moment, with only modest growth in the past 24 months but a lot is expected in the coming years,&rdquo; says Jon Westmacott, managing director of Land Energy, a leading U.K. pellet producer. &ldquo;Capital grants have been pulled for biomass projects and this will make a big difference to timescales. I don&rsquo;t deal with the cofiring market, as the price-point they expect is too low, and for this reason the domestic market is more lucrative ... new U.S. producers should remember there is a lot of competition from Europe as they have been leaders in fuel pellet technology for the past 15 years ... Although pellet prices have risen in the past 12 months, demand is still weak and the majority of our business will be with medium to small companies who are installing biomass boilers for heat.&rdquo; Richard Smith, the managing director of Verdo Renewables, a pellet producer and renewable energy consultancy, points out that the U.K. market is not a bottomless pit and there is a lot of competition in the world pellet market. For example, a Russian pellet plant with a 1 million metric ton capacity will be on-line imminently. &ldquo;Pellet production plants are going bust all over Europe because the demand is not there and it is cheaper to burn coal. Of course the renewable incentive scheme may make a huge difference but not immediately,&rdquo; he says.
 The potential of the U.K. market as a net importer of biomass pellets cannot be denied with the number of biomass plants in planning or under construction. At the current time the pellet market in the U.K. is still maturing both from a power generation and domestic heating viewpoint. The U.K. market needs to be encouraged and relationships should be developed with the power generation companies to potentially supply the biomass they will certainly need in the near future. Author: Huw Kidwell Freelance Journalist <a href="mailto:huw.kidwell@dolffin.com">huw.kidwell@dolffin.com</a>

EXPORT ENHANCEMENT: A report by the Confederation of Forest Industries predicts that by 2017 demand for wood chips and pellets in the U.K. will be at 50 million metric tons, double the present size of the global wood fiber biomass trade. 

2011/04/13040179075977.jpg

Biomass is sure to play a significant role in the U.K.'s energy portfolio as about 163 biomass power stations—ranging from 1 to 400 megawatt hours of capacity—are either in operation, under construction or awaiting approval. 

Burgeoning  	Biomass  Importer

The primary benefit of renewable energy is that it offsets the use of fossil fuels, reducing carbon emissions and increasing America&rsquo;s energy security. Unfortunately, many of the parts that comprise renewable energy systems are sourced from petroleum, partially defeating the purpose of renewable electricity. BioSolar Inc. is working to correct this problem by replacing the petroleum-based backsheet of solar panels with biobased materials.
According to Stan Levy, BioSolar&rsquo;s chief technology officer, a typical solar panel consists of glass, a transparent adhesive, the solar cells, more adhesive, and a backsheet. Traditionally, these backsheets have been produced using petroleum feedstock. However, the biobased backsheet developed by BioSolar is manufactured from 60 percent castor bean-based resin and 40 percent mineral filler. &ldquo;We buy the resin, we blend it with several proprietary components, which are all recyclable, and we extrude a film,&rdquo; Levy says.
In addition to its biobased features, Levy also notes BioSolar&rsquo;s product is more affordable than traditional petroleum-based backsheets. The material also offers superior durability and allows for increased panel power output.
The product has successfully completed all critical Underwriters Laboratories&rsquo; initial material property tests and is expected to officially obtain full UL material certification soon. Long-term testing by UL to determine the relative thermal index of the material is ongoing.
UL certification is crucial to getting the product to market, Levy said. &ldquo;[The photovoltaic] industry is very a conservative industry,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;Getting the UL initial recognition is a must. It&rsquo;s going to open the doors for customers to start testing it in earnest.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

BioSolar's biobased backsheets for photovoltaic solar modules reach new milestone

Making Renewables Renewable 

A little advice from a patent attorney with a background in organic chemistry and years of experience working in Chevron&rsquo;s biofuels space can go a long way. Just ask Sam Yenne, CEO and co-founder of Maverick Biofuels. He listened and now, Yenne and his team at Maverick, which includes patent attorney David Bradin, the company&rsquo;s chief technology officer, are moving their vision to convert municipal solid waste (MSW) and other nonedible feedstock into an operating facility in North Carolina. Although Maverick may look like an all-star team with names like Texaco, IBM, Ohio State University and Rutgers&rsquo; Law School on the list of former employers, Yenne has some advice of his own for other startups, technology providers or project developers looking to take the next step in the process of upgrading that, given the source, sounds overly humble. Yenne, who has a doctorate in plant physiology, a master&rsquo;s in business administration&nbsp; from Duke University and 20 years of work developing biotechnology companies, admits that while his background in commercializing technologies is extensive, he doesn&rsquo;t know everything. His advice: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be afraid to admit that.&rdquo;
Because Yenne and his team decided that &ldquo;the final answer&rdquo; for arriving at the right technology and the right plans for the future facility &ldquo;would be best derived from a team of smart people,&rdquo; as opposed to a single vision, Maverick will break ground on a pilot-scale demonstration facility this year, according to Yenne. Even at a small scale, the Maverick story reiterates that a commonly held belief also applies to biorefinery build out&mdash;you don&rsquo;t have to know everything, you just have to know the people who do. Engineering a Plan
The technology that will eventually be employed at the Maverick facility has been around for more than 100 years. Yenne and his team have tweaked it, however, and by doing so, will be able to produce what they call mixed alcohols. The technology, Yenne says, uses gasification to produce syngas, which is then converted by two catalyzed reactions. The first is a modified Fischer-Tropsch reaction altered to produce short carbon chains rather than the traditional, longer FT ones. The shorter carbon chains with double bonds, or olefins, are hydrated with water in the second reaction to create a mixed alcohol of two-, three- or four-carbon alcohols that can be blended with gasoline the same way ethanol is today. Because the process doesn&rsquo;t produce any methanol, Yenne says the energy content in the liquid is about 85 percent that of gasoline.
Even though the process to make the alcohols is based on proven technology that utilizes established equipment, Yenne says that during early discussions, potential partners and investors were focused instead on one thing: What is it going to cost? &ldquo;We could start to make some stabs at that,&rdquo; Yenne says, &ldquo;but we couldn&rsquo;t get down to the nitty-gritty details.&rdquo; Unable to answer questions such as how many compressors the facility would need, or where to compress the gas between each step, the team went in search of engineering support, both internally and externally. Today, the team employs an in-house engineer that Yenne says helps &ldquo;to talk the engineering language and translate back and forth&rdquo; because, he adds, &ldquo;one of the things you are going to recognize as you start to build these biorefineries is that there are lots of technology challenges within them.&rdquo;
Armed with an in-house engineer, Maverick went in search of an engineering firm that could help develop and refine the Maverick vision. After visiting with several different firms, Yenne and his team chose Professional Project Services out of North Carolina to, as Yenne explains, &ldquo;invest in Maverick Biofuels.&rdquo; And that was part of its selection criteria&mdash;that the engineering firm had to believe in what Maverick was doing, due to the long, committed relationship Yenne felt was part of the process of building a biorefinery with the help of an EPC contractor.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve worked with companies like Maverick before,&rdquo; says Chris Bailey, CEO of Professional Project Services, &ldquo;and they are looking for more of a partner than they are for somebody with deep pockets and a big checkbook that is ready to put a shovel in the ground.&rdquo; Having a partner helped to outline the business model the team would use in explaining the costs of operations to investors because, as Yenne explains, engineering firms like PPS have a process that helps find the key critical answers related to both pilot-scale plants and commercial facilities.
To find those answers, all efforts were focused on building a commercial facility to see exactly what all parties involved would need in the future. Not only did the commercial-first approach help estimate overall costs, the process also helped PPS to maximize the efficiency and product of the plant. &ldquo;For example,&rdquo; Yenne says, &ldquo;we know we have three major steps in our process that are going to be heat producers.&rdquo; So, recognizing the opportunity, PPS engineered a system to take advantage of that heat as a sellable product.
So what does the Maverick story reveal about finding and utilizing the expertise of an engineering firm to construct an economically sound and efficient biorefinery? For starters, as Yenne points out, there are a number of different approaches to the process, but for his team, developing plans for the commercial goal first helped them to understand the variables that would be needed in the pilot facility, no matter what. The team, he says, also benefited from having an in-house engineer. Bailey points to the importance of choosing the right EPC provider, based on the experience some would have from working in similar fields. In this, PPS was the obvious positive for Maverick, Bailey says. PPS&rsquo; work in fabricating holding vessels, as well as in building, operating and maintaining chemical manufacturing facilities, all helps PPS understand the larger construction ideas that Maverick is trying to figure out. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one thing to come up with an idea with a lot of high-level chemistry and process flow diagrams and make it work on paper,&rdquo; Bailey says. But it&rsquo;s different when it&rsquo;s time for &ldquo;build stage.&rdquo; And, as Yenne advises, the most important thing to remember during the process is that the final answer will most likely come from a group of individuals, and should not come from a single perspective. A Plan with Options
There are no cookie-cutter plans for biorefineries now. Most likely, there never will be. So, while firms like PPS can utilize their experience gained during work on similar projects in similar fields, there could be more to finding the right &ldquo;partner&rdquo; than just experience. Evergreen Engineering is also gaining experience, but in a different way. After forming in 1985, the company has grown to more than 200 people in four different cities. To some, those numbers may actually seem small, but Jeff Mills, senior project manager says in the past five years, the group has been more involved in energy-based projects. The team is currently working with clients on processes&nbsp; to convert plastic bottles and agricultural residues into transportation fuel, and with another client on a torrefaction plant.
The stages of development range from phase two research and development, to scaling up from mid- to large-scale. And Mills says that the functions of the company are different for each project. Evergreen is, in some ways, especially well-suited for the biorefining sector because of that. Look at one of the atypical services Evergreen provides.
Mills says a lot of the early work the company performs for renewable energy projects comes in feedstock feasibility studies that define the quality and amount of feedstock available near a potential build site. &ldquo;Nobody can be good at everything,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The guys that are developing a lot of these processes are usually not the guys that are talking to farmers, or are not the guys talking to the buyers and sellers of biomass.&rdquo; Because of this, Mills has already worked with a number of clients who have relocated their potential sites after reviewing the Evergreen studies. Typically, Mills says the feedstock size and moisture content can greatly affect a project, and helping clients to understand the available options helps make Evergreen&rsquo;s suite of services even broader.
&ldquo;We are usually not the developers of the process,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We are the guys that can tell them what is available and what it is going to look like.&rdquo; Like PPS, Mills also touts his experience in similar fields as a true plus. After starting in the integrated steel mill business, Mills moved to pulp and paper mills before taking over as senior project manager at Evergreen.
As for the cookie-cutter model, Mills is adamant that there are none in the biorefining industry. But, to save time and&nbsp; make the process of build-out more efficient, he recommends using the parts and pieces that are readily available in the marketplace. That doesn&rsquo;t mean that a project developer should just stick with one brand of equipment, however. One of the things Mills says developers will do is align themselves with a particular equipment provider. &ldquo;The question that comes up is, is [the equipment] the best, and was it the most economical?&rdquo; Although he tries to stick to what has already been proven, Mills doesn&rsquo;t take the single-provider approach for the &ldquo;parts and pieces.&rdquo;
Choosing an engineering provider doesn&rsquo;t have to be as hard as moving innovative ideas from the page to the plant, and Maverick&rsquo;s story shows that. For some, the best choice might be a partner that acts as an investor in a project, and works to design&mdash;or redesign in many cases&mdash;a plan. In other cases, information on feedstock sourcing or knowledge of best available equipment might be more important. And if employee size or a global presence is important, there are certainly the Fluor Corp.s of the EPC world that have signed with Cobalt Technologies and Fulcrum Bioenergy to develop their novel process ideas into biorefineries. But in the end, it might be best to remember the advice from that all-star team in North Carolina. &ldquo;No one engineering firm is going to have all the expertise in-house,&rdquo; Yenne says. &ldquo;It will be beneficial to everyone to recognize that you may need to pull in bits and pieces from here and there to make the most efficient biorefinery.&rdquo; Author: Luke Geiver Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 738-4944 <a href="mailto:lgeiver@bbiinternational.com">lgeiver@bbiinternational.com</a>

Engineering firms may tout experience or know-how, but who's the best biorefinery builder?

Building Ideas

It took a heavy dose of federal subsidies, equity, venture capital and private and public investment to scale up ethanol and biodiesel technologies capable of commercial production. The generation of robust biofuels industries led to a revision of the renewable fuel standard, RFS2, which the U.S. EPA implemented in July, and now, with a mandated consumption of 1.35 billion gallons of advanced biofuel in place for the year, a proliferation of biobased chemicals is expected follow.
Recognizing that biobased chemicals are a significant component within the overall biorefining movement in competition with the petrochemical sector, the U.S. DOE revised its original biorefinery grant program in 2009 when it included a biochemical pathway for biobased chemical production, in addition to biofuels, for qualification of funds. The DOE&rsquo;s&nbsp; original biorefinery grant opportunities went to the production of biofuels. Grant qualification for fuels hinged on stringent ASTM specification requirements. The inclusion of biobased chemicals in the DOE&rsquo;s most recent biorefinery grant program marks a pivotal time for the sector in its scale-up efforts for commercialization, according to Mark Warner, vice president of process industries for Seatte-based engineering firm Harris Group Inc.
&ldquo;The more biofuels we make, the more it will put things out of balance unless biochemicals come along with it,&rdquo; Warner tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;It does seem like, from an energy perspective, that the DOE and the government are seeing it more and more important that, as you make more biofuels, biobased chemical development must also grow so that the existing petroleum market doesn&rsquo;t get out of balance. We&rsquo;ve really started to emphasize and target biochemicals because we really think that&rsquo;s going to be a strong emerging sector in the next three to five years.&rdquo;
Nevertheless, biobased chemical developers will inevitably combat similar technological and economic scale-up challenges as they make inroads into the biorefining landscape. For biobased specialty chemical producer Blue Marble Biomaterials, many of the challenges associated with scaling up biology are inherently rooted in microbial biology, according to CEO Kelly Ogilvie. Having already demonstrated its technology at a 1 ton per day (tpd) pilot facility in Seattle, the company has scaled up to a 3 tpd plant in Carvallis, Mont. Using its proprietary Acid, Gas and Ammonia Targeted Extraction process technology, Blue Marble is capable of producing an array of biobased chemicals such as ethyl butyrate for the food and flavoring industries and propyl butyrate for the cosmetics and fragrances markets from an array of cellulosic feedstocks such as agricultural waste, spent brewery grains, microalgae, corn silage and more.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re good at our biology and we&rsquo;re good at our technology but, as a small company, we&rsquo;re not necessarily good at scale, and that I think is the biggest challenge facing a lot of companies,&rdquo; Ogilvie says. &ldquo;Scale issues, as far as going from small to major reactions and to process that material and sell into the marketplace, are all challenges that have to be overcome.&rdquo;
Many new biobased specialty chemical offerings, particularly batch operations, can be scaled up directly from bench-scale to a manufacturing plant by developing the process while concurrently performing lab testing with scale up in mind. Biochemical process technologies are often scaled up in stages from the lab to pilot-scale or semi-works scale to obtain engineering data for commercial plant design. A staged scale-up approach may not necessarily be the most practical for biobased chemicals, however, as they&rsquo;re often characterized by multistep batch syntheses and relatively low volume even though speed to market and rapid ramp-up are essential for commercial success.
Alignment of Interests
Of course, a scale-up strategy would not be initiated or achieved if a significant amount of funds were not available for the purchase of larger equipment or working capital to continue R&amp;D efforts. One way a biochemical developer can secure funding and accelerate its scale-up efforts is to form strategic partnerships with firms entrenched in established industries that employ similar biotechnological fermentation routes, have access to sugar or starch feedstocks, and can offer distribution services for end products.
Brooklyn, N.Y.-based SyntheZyme, which has been working off DARPA grants and with support from Polytechnic Institute of New York University, believes there&rsquo;s enough fermentation capacity around the world already, according to Guy Penard, a consultant to SyntheZyme. The company employs a biocatalytic fermentation pathway that uses a genetically modified strain of Candida tropicalis that, when fed on plant-based fatty acids, is capable of producing large quantities of monomers called omega-hydroxyfatty acids. When polymerized, they form a polymeric bioplastic material that could be used as a viable substitute for petroleum-based polyethylene.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve talked to larger fermentation firms that have experience with this type of process,&rdquo; Penard says. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s enough fermentation capacity available around the world to [support not building] your own plant. Why invest in building your own plant when a biochemical firm can integrate its unique processes with existing facilities that already employ biological processes?&rdquo;
According to Ogilvie, tapping into expertise of established models, such as the beer and wine industries, has helped his company in scaling up.
&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve taken reactions that happen at the nanometer [level] and have gone to massive scale,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So what we&rsquo;ve done early on is partner with mid-scale breweries and tried to tie in their institutional knowledge and expertise, and historical knowledge, on how to do this stuff.&rdquo;
Blue Marble, which was one of a handful of early-stage biochem firms that managed to secure seed money and closed on a Series A round of financing in 2008, also formed a strategic partnership with global chemical distributor Sigma-Aldrich to help with quality assurance procedures and introduce its biobased products to market this year.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s not like the boom days of 2006-&lsquo;07 where you could just walk up and get a loan from a bank,&rdquo; Ogilvie says. &ldquo;But, if you have a real project, real partners with off-takes or what looks like off-takes in the near future, banks are much more willing to get involved.&rdquo;
Whether its employing a bolt-on strategy or planning a stand-alone production plant, Warner agrees that strategic partnerships help bring forth new biobased chemical technologies and their products to market.
&ldquo;You&rsquo;re seeing more of that corporate commitment than what it&rsquo;s been the past few years,&rdquo; Warner says. &ldquo;What we worry about in the end is bankability. Is somebody going to loan money to this project? Having a partner certainly doesn&rsquo;t hurt.&rdquo;
In addition to forming strategic alliances for off-takes, access to feedstock or potential financial backing, selecting the right EPC firm, like Colorado-based Merrick &amp; Co., can significantly aid in scale-up efforts. The company has a proven track record of guiding its advanced biofuel and biochemical clients, such as Range Fuels Inc. and OPX Biotechnologies, to commercialization. Aside from being a traditional EPC firm, Merrick offers business consulting services that help clients avoid costly surprises during scale-up efforts, according to technical specialist Bart Carpenter.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very adept at helping clients with the business planning portion of the project, such as decision and risk analysis,&rdquo; Carpenter says. &ldquo;We can also build out a risk-weighted pro forma to help guide not only their process technology, but also their process development or their R&amp;D efforts to help them figure out what they need to focus on before they make it commercial-ready.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Overcoming Technical Hurdles 
Addressing technical issues associated with the scaling up of biochemical processes and figuring out ways to overcome these challenges is a daunting task for any developer. Common technical issues that are typically addressed before and during scale-up involve isolation and separation of desired product from water and other contaminants.
&ldquo;Typically, because of the toxicity of the product to the microbe, you end up making a very dilute product,&rdquo; Carpenter says. &ldquo;You might have 3 to 4 percent product and the rest is water. You have to figure out a way to economically recover that without wasting profit on energy costs.&rdquo;
While several methods exist and are employed to separate water from the desired product, such as distillation, membrane systems and chromatography, a biochemical producer can rely on conventional technology before improved recovery and separation equipment for biobased chemicals come to market.
&ldquo;You can use distillation with brute force, but that&rsquo;s not necessarily the most effective way to go forward in the future,&rdquo; Ogilvie says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been looking for technology solutions as we scale. We are constantly surveying the landscape for lateral or upstream technologies to integrate into our process to make us more efficient.&rdquo;
According to Penard, an advantage to SyntheZyme&rsquo;s process is that its pathway uses the chemical outside of the organism, which makes product separation easier. &ldquo;We certainly do expect we&rsquo;ll have scale-up issues, but we don&rsquo;t believe them to be major ones that will keep us from building larger scale plants,&rdquo; Penard says.
Another common technical challenge that biochemical developers must be mindful of is that the physical form, purity or performance of the product may change as their processes make the transition from the lab to pilot- or demonstration-scale. Since more biobased specialty chemicals are expected to enter into the food and cosmetic markets, a greater magnitude of quality is placed on those products, a requirement that biofuels don&rsquo;t necessarily have to worry about as much, according to Ogilvie.
&ldquo;Butanol, for example, could be between 80 and 90 percent pure whereas our chemicals have to be 99.8 or 99.7 pure,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Biochemicals have to specifically function a certain way. If you get a certain level of toxins in there, it might hurt people if they&rsquo;re consuming them as food flavorings as opposed to a fuel blendstock that gets poured in the tank of a car. It&rsquo;s a different level of scrutiny that I think will separate the different levels of sophistication and purity that you&rsquo;re going to see in the marketplace for renewable chemicals.&rdquo;
For biochemical firms that are considering or are in the middle of scale-up initiatives, directing resources and funding to refine one component at a time will yield greater results, according to Warner.
&ldquo;Only prove what you have to prove,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t overcomplicate things. If you can license other technology outside of the core technology of your own intellectual property, do it. Maybe you think your pretreatment or your recovery process is a little better, but if there are commercially available options, use them for now and only prove what you have to.&rdquo; Author: Bryan Sims Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 738-4974 <a href="mailto:bsims@bbiinternational.com">bsims@bbiinternational.com</a>

Is a massive build-out of the chemical sector imminent? 

Scaling Up to Biobased Chemicals

As President Obama emphasized in his State of the Union address, America features the world&rsquo;s greatest innovation machine. This is clearly demonstrated by the sheer volume of biochemical startups our nation has produced in recent years.
While America leads in innovation and technology development, scaling up those processes overseas is often an attractive option for domestic companies. There are many reasons for this, including a lack of incentives in the U.S., lower construction and operational costs, greater feedstock availability and access to downstream markets.
It is important for these companies to understand that no matter where they choose to site projects&mdash;whether in North America, Southeast Asia or Brazil&mdash;they will encounter different sets of benefits and challenges. Each region is unique. Local customs, political environments, laws, regulations and resources all need to be addressed in order to develop a successful project. For many companies, the formation of local partnerships seems to be the most advantageous way to navigate the complexities of these markets.
Each biorefining company is unique, and each has its own set of factors to consider when siting a project. BioAmber Inc. is currently finalizing the site for a North American plant and is in discussions with a consortium to construct another in Southeast Asia. &ldquo;These are firm projects that are underway,&rdquo; says J.F. Huc, BioAmber&rsquo;s president and CEO, noting that his company is also exploring the possibility of building a plant in South America.
According to Huc, BioAmber looks at four primary factors when scouting locations for a plant. First is the cost to serve customers. This includes feedstock, utility and final shipping costs. &ldquo;Tied closely to the supply chain is feedstock availability,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The more abundant the supply of feedstock, or the variety of feedstocks available, the more likely you are to manage the cost of your raw materials. In places like Thailand, being able to switch from sugarcane to tapioca gives you a hedge against a sharp spike in one or the other.&rdquo;
&ldquo;The second very important consideration for us is local partners,&rdquo; Huc says, adding that he believes it is necessary to find local partners who can access the best labor pools and subcontractors, oversee the engineering and construction of the plant, operate the plant effectively and contribute to feedstock security. &ldquo;That is particularly important in places like Brazil, where you have large, integrated sugarcane producers.&rdquo;
Third is government support for nondilutive funding. This doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean access to grants, but includes the availability of financing mechanisms like low-interest loans and loan guarantees to help defray the cost of capital, Huc says.
The final consideration for BioAmber is what Huc calls the specificities of the site. This includes proximity of infrastructure, including electrical service, truck weighing stations, rail spurs, and waste water management systems. &ldquo;These are all things that often will be pre-existing on a site and can significantly reduce your initial capital expense,&rdquo; he says.
NatureWorks LLC has its own unique set of considerations, and is actively vetting sites for additional production capacity. Market demand for the company&rsquo;s Ingeo bioplastic has been growing by approximately 25 to 30 percent a year, says Steve Davies, NatureWorks&rsquo; director of marketing and public affairs. Current projections indicate that the entire capacity of the company&rsquo;s Nebraska plant will be sold within the next three years, making it necessary to construct additional capacity to meet demand. A new location will have to be chosen for this capacity by midyear in order for the additional capacity to be brought online in the 2014-&lsquo;15 timeframe. NatureWorks is currently exploring options in both North America and Southeast Asia. While Davies stresses that additional production is highly likely to be installed in both regions in the future, the decision where the first expansion takes place is expected to be based, in part, on locally available incentives.
NatureWorks looks at three primary factors when considering locations for a plant, Davies says. No. 1 is the availability of feedstock&mdash;not just feedstock currently employed by its process, but also the availability of lignocellulosic feedstock for future use. &ldquo;The second is the extent to which an end market exists in a region,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;Third is, of course, regional incentives, what&rsquo;s being offered and how interested is that country or region in getting into the biochemicals business.&rdquo; A variety of secondary factors also considered includes energy costs, logistics, workforce availability, trade structure, and import and export duties. Partnering for Success
Once a location is chosen for a new plant, most biorefining companies seem to be making it a priority to find reliable local partners. Glycos Biotechnologies Inc. is in the process of developing a plant in Malaysia. In fact, the company had a team on the ground in January working to hire a construction partner.
Malaysia is a very friendly environment to develop this type of project, says GlycosBio CEO Richard Cilento. &ldquo;The government really has a long-term business plan&mdash;or strategy&mdash;to bring in new technologies and new industries into the country.&rdquo; GlycosBio has formed a partnership with two government corporations, the Malaysian Biotechnology Corp. and Bio-XCell, to help expedite development of its plant. While these corporations will not have any ownership in the project, Cilento notes they have been invaluable in helping the project succeed.
These government corporations have formed an industrial biotechnology park where they have plots and utilities in place for companies like GlycosBio. The entities also serve as a resource that supports hiring needs and the formation of off-take and feedstock supply agreements. &ldquo;It would be like finding a needle in a haystack to really try to understand the local market and [identify] the right essential partners on the operational execution side,&rdquo; Cilento says. &ldquo;This [partnership] is a tremendous benefit. It would be very difficult to do this without such a partner.&rdquo; The partnership also helps to instill local confidence in the project. &ldquo;The biochemical market is still in the early stages, so you&rsquo;re trying to demonstrate a technology that is really cutting edge,&rdquo; Cilento continues. &ldquo;A partner like that gives the market confidence. They provide a lot of credibility.&rdquo;
Alternatively, Myriant Technologies Inc. is pursuing an overseas project via an agreement to develop a joint venture that was signed with the PTT Chemical Group of Thailand. &ldquo;To try to develop a project from half a world away is enormously costly and time consuming,&rdquo; says Sam McConnell, Myriant&rsquo;s senior vice president for corporate development. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard enough to do here in the U.S., but to serve markets in Asia we sat down and decided we really need a local partner who understands how to get things done and has the necessary resources.&rdquo;
Even before the agreement with PTT Chemical was signed, McConnell says Myriant was already looking to develop a project in Southeast Asia, largely because of the incentives that are available. &ldquo;A number of countries, including Thailand, have been pretty aggressive in looking to attract high-tech manufacturing, so the fact that PTT Chemical is in one of those countries was certainly another big plus,&rdquo; he says.
NatureWorks&rsquo; strategy in the Southeast Asian marketplace could vary from establishing a local partnership with locally based companies, to simply establishing a local presence itself, says Davies. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve already done that on the sales and marketing end,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;We have local sales and marketing teams based in China, Hong Kong, Japan and Korea.&rdquo; Those locally sourced teams are great at addressing challenges associated with language, customs and logistics, Davies says.
When selecting local partners for a project, Huc notes that you want to target partners who have a track record of building and operating similar facilities, such as ethanol or chemical plants. &ldquo;When I say good track record, I mean they haven&rsquo;t run into problems from an environmental or permitting standpoint, or security. They haven&rsquo;t had a lot of accidents onsite&mdash;the companies that build projects on-time and on-budget and have privileged relationships with local trades and subcontractors.&rdquo; IP Protection
One area of particular concern for many companies is the protection of intellectual property (IP). Anytime you build and operate a plant, you are going to develop a lot of know-how that you are not necessarily going to patent, notes Huc.
When you bring technology into a new area, intellectual property of all kinds can be very difficult to manage. &ldquo;You can have IP leakage during the planning and engineering stage, you can have IP leakage during the operation phase,&rdquo; Huc notes. &ldquo;In our experience, the best way to manage that type of IP leakage is to have strong, local partners who have a degree of influence on the authorities that are responsible for IP protection, and have some dissuasive influence on individuals.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I think [IP theft] is something that has happened quite extensively in China, but you are also vulnerable to it in other Asian countries,&rdquo; Huc says. &ldquo;The real risk is that you have somebody who appropriates your process know-how and replicates what you are doing right down the street. Most countries will claim to have preventative laws now. The problem is when something like that happens, despite having laws in place, you often find yourself having very little recourse, particularly in countries that have large domestic markets for your product. You have recourse if they infringe on your intellectual property and then export it into a market like the U.S., where you do have strong laws and precedence, but if you are in a country like China or South Korea, where there is a large local market, it&rsquo;s very difficult for you to stop them from selling it domestically, especially if they are not dealing with foreign currency.&rdquo;
However, Cilento notes that, in some regions, IP protection isn&rsquo;t really a challenge. Rather, it is something that companies need to be aware of and manage from the beginning. &ldquo;Many of the countries in Southeast Asia were born from U.K. law as colonies of the U.K. years and years ago,&rdquo; he says. These countries understand that people question the security of IP in their region. &ldquo;They go out of their way to differentiate themselves from different parts of the world where IP control and theft are more prevalent. Certainly in Malaysia and Singapore, they really try to put their best foot forward to give us some comfort.&rdquo; Managing Logistics
Another primary challenge when developing a project overseas is the need to be able to manage that project from half a world away. In other words, a company&rsquo;s physical presence can be difficult to manage. &ldquo;For new technologies, the commissioning and ramp-up of the plant are very, very important,&rdquo; Huc says. &ldquo;That expertise tends to reside within the company that is deploying the technology. The further you are from your headquarters and where your engineers are, the more difficult it is to oversee that. To manage that complexity, you have to send people abroad for long periods of time.&rdquo;
The time difference is certainly a challenge as well, notes Cilento. &ldquo;You are looking at a 10- to 13-hour time difference,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Travel to and from is easily a two or three day process, that&rsquo;s without recovery time after you get back. You have to really invest a lot of time and energy in travel. You need to be able to take advantage of technologies like video conferencing and other techniques to minimize these challenges. Hiring both labor-level and senior management level employees is something that is not insurmountable, but without any critical mass or resources in country, you are really starting from scratch.&rdquo;
That said, Cilento notes that GlycosBio is not anticipating any problems finding qualified employees. Malaysia features a large petrochemical industry and has also been very active in medical biotechnology. Assimilating those skills and professionals to industrial biotechnology shouldn&rsquo;t be that difficult, he says. However, Cilento also notes that it is important to take time during local visits to meet with the local people and begin the recruiting process very early on in a project&rsquo;s development.
As biorefining companies continue to expand and establish new production facilities around the world, certain challenges will be diminished, while others will remain. With each plant a company builds, the deployment of the technology itself will become more streamlined, says Huc. This is because after a company builds and operates a few plants, it will have gained knowledge to enable the design of more robust engineering packages. However, the establishment of each new location around the globe will still be complex in terms of finding the right partners and scaling up in a new cultural environment. Author: Erin Voegele Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 540-6986 <a href="mailto:evoegele@bbiinternational.com">evoegele@bbiinternational.com</a>

How building relationships with local partners can help overcome obstacles and maximize benefits to scaling up overseas

Going Global

What do these companies, Poet, Mascoma, Sapphire Energy and Elevance Renewable Sciences, among many others, all have in common? Over three days, each company was given nearly an hour to describe their production processes and their results to a designated list of experts who were listening for one reason: project review. The meetings, held in Washington and hosted by the U.S. DOE, were meant to focus on &ldquo;deployment projects&rdquo; that are currently a part of the DOE&rsquo;s project portfolio. &ldquo;This process allows the Department of Energy an opportunity to obtain meaningful feedback regarding taxpayer-funded program activities in a manner that is understandable to our stakeholder public,&rdquo; a member of the DOE tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;The information will be useful as the Biomass Program considers future funding and portfolio decisions.&rdquo;
So how did the presenters do? While the full report and findings from the meetings have yet to be determined, the mood during the meetings was &ldquo;excellent,&rdquo; according to the DOE. Using a one through five rating system (five being the best), the reviewers grade each presentation using five criteria to rate each project: relevance, approach, technical progress, success factors and future research. In 2009, Abengoa received an average score of 4.5 for the company&rsquo;s presentation, while Poet&rsquo;s Project Liberty averaged a 3.6. While it might be hard to gauge the true value of a given &ldquo;score&rdquo; on the future success of a project, it&rsquo;s safe to say that any hype or positive talk coming from the leading biorefinery-based companies isn&rsquo;t subject to review.&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

26 bioenergy companies met in Washington to prove their worth

Under Review

Metabolic engineers within the field of bioenergy are constantly on the lookout for more reliable bioinformatic tools that can help accelerate their research. With help of a three-year, $1.25 million grant from the U.S. DOE, Menlo Park, Calif.-based SRI International intends to make this task easier when it expands its MetaCyc database and enhances its Pathway Tools software. The upgrades are anticipated to give SRI&rsquo;s bioinformatics tools even greater utility.
MetaCyc, a database that contains 1,500 metabolic pathways and 5,700 enzymes from more than 2,000 organisms within SRI&rsquo;s BioCyc collection, is an extensive database comprised of experimentally determined, and literature-curated metabolic pathways by a wide range of scientific fields of academia.
Pathway Tools software will draw on data in SRI&rsquo;s databases to generate alternative pathways to create a target compound from specified feedstocks, according to Ron Caspi, scientific database curator for SRI&rsquo;s bioinformatics research group.. SRI&rsquo;s software can also evaluate each pathway&rsquo;s utility to produce specified target compounds, thereby allowing researchers to quickly identify and evaluate multiple pathways, design effective research protocols and shorten development timeframes.
According to Caspi, SRI will expand its MetaCyc database to include energy-related metabolic pathways and enzymes associated with lignocellulosic biomass degradation, hydrogen production, biofuel and microalgae oil production. The expansion will allow the Pathway Tools software to recognize bioenergy-related pathways in sequenced microbes. This upgrade will result in more accurate metabolic pathway reconstructions and enable researchers and scientists to develop new ways to produce fuel and other valuable products from biomass and microorganisms.
&ldquo;In bioenergy today, a lot of the work has to do with genomics because people have realized the power of having the sequenced information and working at the level of an organism rather than a protein here and a protein there,&rdquo; Caspi says. &ldquo;So, people have taken the first step and committed tremendous resources into sequencing many of their relevant organisms. The next step is to put it to good use.&rdquo;
In addition to enhancing its MetaCyc database, Caspi says that SRI intends to add a new function to Pathway Tools that will aid researchers in metabolic engineering of new or modified pathways. The tool, he adds, would let a researcher specify a starting compound and an end compound, including any desired intermediates.
&ldquo;It would then scan the metabolic potential of that organism, as well as the large collection of metabolic enzymes available in MetaCyc and come up with potential metabolic routes that connect those two compounds via the desired intermediates,&rdquo; he says.
The upgrade of SRI&rsquo;s MetaCyc database, according to Caspi, should be a boon for improved computational approaches that lend themselves to more predictable genomic information access. &ldquo;I think the [biorefining industry] will find this software very useful,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Biological Data: Enhanced

What better method to test an advanced biofuel like cellulosic ethanol than to run it under real-life conditions? That&rsquo;s what EcoTrek Foundation driver and founder Tom Holm did when his Ford F-250 truck logged 10,000 miles during EcoTrek&rsquo;s &ldquo;Best of America Tour&rdquo; fueled on an E85 blend of cellulosic ethanol supplied by Poet&rsquo;s 11 MMgy cellulosic facility in Scotland, S.D. Launched Jan. 11 at the Santa Monica Pier in Los Angeles&mdash;the base of historic Route 66&mdash;the tour made its way to cities on the East Coast, including Washington and New York with stops in-between at national parks, farms, cities and other venues to promote cellulosic ethanol. The trek concluded on March 11 back on the Santa Monica Pier.
&ldquo;Everyone wants to hear this message,&rdquo; Holm tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;[Cellulosic ethanol] is something that can help the American economy, the American farmer and our national security. The timing is just right.&rdquo;
According to Holm, no engine modifications were done on the truck. EcoTrek acted as an objective third party during the cross-country journey, Holm says, adding that the fuel didn&rsquo;t pose any problems.
&ldquo;Any research that we do we&rsquo;re going to release that information,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Everything has worked out well given the extreme conditions during the winter.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Cellulosic ethanol fuels EcoTrek national tour 

Coast to Coast

Exogenous enzyme cocktails used in cellulosic ethanol production are more effective than they&rsquo;ve ever been, but if Masood Hadi&rsquo;s work on the Trojan Horse of enzymes works the way he thinks it does, forget about the need for those extravagant enzyme mixtures. Hadi, a biochemist from Sandia National Laboratory, has been working on a genetically modified plant that houses what he has coined a Trojan Horse type of enzyme that, when put through a traditional deconstruction process typically used with cellulosic material, becomes resurrected and chews up the cellulosic material on the way to sugar production. The research, which Hadi has been working on for the past three years, is based on a process that embeds an endoglucanase enzyme into a genetically modified plant like Arabidopsis, tobacco or a model of switchgrass. &ldquo;The enzyme is engineered in such a way that it is catalytically dead,&rdquo; he says. At least, Hadi says, until the plant housing the embedded enzyme is put through a deconstruction process. &ldquo;Before that,&rdquo; he explains, &ldquo;the enzyme is just a protein,&rdquo; but once the deconstruction process, such as a dilute acid treatment, happens, the enzyme is activated. In a typical dilute acid process, exogenous enzymes become active at roughly 120 degrees Celsius, but using Hadi&rsquo;s embedded enzymes, activity would start at only 80 degrees.
After working to engineer the enzymes, Hadi began working with the USDA to perform the plant transformations and characterizations before bringing the plant material back to his lab to complete structure function relationship tests that indicated the amount of sugar the plants were producing. The results of the tests to this point show that for pumping out sugar, &ldquo;all you needed was that one enzyme and you would get a lot more sugar,&rdquo; Hadi says. &ldquo;In this process, you don&rsquo;t have to add any exogenous enzymes&mdash;we&rsquo;ve completely eliminated the need.&rdquo;
The work to create a &ldquo;resurrectable&rdquo; enzyme is not complete yet according to Hadi, and while his efforts will continue to perfect the process, he isn&rsquo;t solely focused on enzymes. With the help of engine combustion experts from Sandia, Hadi is involved in a fungi-based project aimed at finding certain types of fungi that produce hydrocarbons more suitable for today&rsquo;s combustion engines. Hadi&rsquo;s role in the effort will remain in his field of biochemistry, looking at the pathways through which selected fungi strains produce the volatile organic compounds most compatible with combustion. The fungi-combustion project is expected to take roughly three years.&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

This enzyme is just like it sounds, hidden and dormant, until the right conditions occur

The Trojan Horse Enzyme

On Feb. 4, University of Tennessee personnel, as well as representatives from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and officials from state and local government attended a ribbon-cutting event to inaugurate the Center for Renewable Carbon within UT&rsquo;s Institute of Agriculture in Knoxville, Tenn.
According to CRC director Tim Rials, the new Bioenergy Science and Technology Laboratory will feature specialized facilities to support ongoing research involving biomass pretreatment and process measurement, biomass characterization and biomass conversion to fuels. Additionally, CRC research capabilities will include life-cycle analysis and a biomass fractionation reactor.&nbsp;
&nbsp;&ldquo;We have quite a bit of work underway relative to the characterization of switchgrass biomass, as well as biomass from woody sources, which is another important area for us,&rdquo; Rials tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very fortunate to have at our disposal for our R&amp;D efforts 5,000 to 6,000 acres of switchgrass planted in the east Tennessee region. We&rsquo;re interested in developing an understanding of the variability of chemical composition across that landscape.&rdquo;
Another area of focus for the CRC, according to Rials, will be how to better utilize coproduct streams. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve also adopted and advocated the view of the biorefinery where chemical coproducts play a key role in defining or extending the feasibility of these processes for fuel production,&rdquo; he says. The UTIA is working closely with ORNL in the development of lignin as a low-cost precursor for carbon fiber production. &ldquo;We have quite a bit of research that&rsquo;s looking at new transformation pathways for carbohydrates and sugars to industrial chemicals.&rdquo;
Additionally, the CRC&rsquo;s Bioenergy Production and Carbon Cycling Program will research environmental topics, including the relationships between land use, bioenergy crops and carbon sequestration, according to Rials.
The CRC consolidates existing bioenergy and biomaterials research programs. The UT Biofuels Initiative will continue work to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of cellulosic fuels. This effort involves a collaboration between UT and Genera Energy, the State of Tennessee and DuPont Danisco Cellulosic Ethanol. The SunGrant Initiative, a federal effort that predates the Biofuels Initiative, will continue to coordinate research into the development of alternative energy from renewable carbon sources.
&ldquo;To be able to develop the structure that facilitates that interdisciplinary R&amp;D, we&rsquo;re much more likely to be able to resolve some of these biofuels-related challenges,&rdquo; Rials says.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Tennessee launches research facilities at Center for Renewable Carbon

Open-Minded

Ontario will soon be home to a new 750,000 liter (200,000 gallon) cellulosic ethanol plant, thanks to the closing of a $4 million common equity investment. The money is part of a $12 million investment made by the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, Investeco Capital, and David LeGresley, former vice chairman of National Bank Financial, to support the development of Mississauga, Ontario-based Woodland Biofuels Inc.&rsquo;s proposed demonstration-scale facility.
According to Greg Nuttall, president and CEO of Woodland, the plant is currently scheduled to be operational by mid-year, noting that detailed engineering work is already underway. The facility will be located at the Bioindustrial Innovation Center in the University of Western Ontario&rsquo;s Sarnia-Lambton Research Park.
The proposed plant will feature Woodland Biofuel&rsquo;s patented Catalyzed Pressure Reduction technology, which can produce bio-based fuels and chemicals from a wide variety of feedstocks, including wood waste, agricultural waste and municipal solid waste. The gasification technology is billed as an emission-free process that uses modern, off-the-shelf equipment.
While it is possible for the process to produce biobased chemicals and other renewable fuels, Nuttall says Woodland Biofuels intends to remain focused on cellulosic ethanol. The flexible nature of the technology is an asset, he said, &ldquo;but our number one priority is ethanol.&rdquo;
Nuttall also says that the facility will employ wood waste as its primary feedstock. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a good feedstock because it&rsquo;s uniform in nature and the infrastructure is already in place to collect it,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;Agricultural waste is also something we can use, but the infrastructure isn&rsquo;t really there right now to collect massive amounts of it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

A Canadian cellulosic ethanol project moves forward

Financing Fuels Demonstration

There is a lot of money and research at the front end and backend areas of algae development. Steven Wright wants to be somewhere in the middle. Wright, the vice president for North-Carolina based InnovaTech, a filtration and separation technology provider, might just have the technology to put his company where he wants it to be. For the past 18 years, the team from InnovaTech has been developing separation equipment centered on centrifuge technology. Now, the team has tweaked its model to provide an efficient solution for algal separation and dewatering. &ldquo;We are combining principles of centrification with froth flotation,&rdquo; Wright says of his CFT unit.
The unit, which has already been tested at a North Carolina State University facility on 50 gallon photobioreactors, certainly shows that Wright and his team know what they are doing, but for the debate on where to be in the algae development process&mdash;cultivation, harvesting, separation, conversion, just to name a few&mdash;InnovaTech&rsquo;s work might reveal a new milestone for an industry battling constant outside questioning on where it will end up, and internal debate among industry leaders on where it should even start.
Wright&rsquo;s new algae harvester, which he describes as a stack of 45 RPM records inside a vessel that is capped on one end and open on the other, which looks similar to a centrifuge, indicates that in the internal debate perhaps&nbsp; no one is right. It would be hard to argue that strain manipulation work being done at some of the most advanced laboratories is a waste, or that algae farm developments in New Mexico are a wash, especially if one considers what Wright&rsquo;s harvester could do for the industry.
The process uses a precondition made up of a small amount of chemical and gas, Wright says. The spinning disc pack inside the unit sucks down the atmospheric pressure creating microbubbles. The microbubbles attach themselves to the larger algae pieces and through froth created from the spinning, the bubbles exit the unit. Because it can control the particle size that exits, Wright says the unit can allow for a continuous harvest of algae because the immature microorganisms would not be attached to bubbles and would not be removed but, instead, are returned to the bioreactors for further growth. More importantly, Wright&rsquo;s work shows that there might just be a place for everyone in the algae industry.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

Innovations are happening at every stage of algae, but where should the real focus be? 	

The Beginning, Middle or End?

A living laboratory under development in Abu Dhabi region of the United Arab Emirates aims to make salt-tolerant, feedstock-derived energy commercially viable. The demonstration project will be led by the Sustainable Bioenergy Research Center, a research organization founded by the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology, Etihad Airways, the Boeing Co. and UOP LLC, a Honeywell Company.
The flagship program developed by SBRC will be a five-year demonstration project that uses integrated seawater agricultural systems to support the development and commercialization of biofuel feedstock. The program will initially focus on the cultivation of salicornia, a salt-tolerant succulent. The Salicornia bigelovii strain has shown particular promise as a biofuel feedstock, says Jim Rekoske, Honeywell UOP&rsquo;s vice president and general manager of Renewable Energy &amp; Chemicals.
The living laboratory project will be built on land that consists of only sand and water today. In addition to cultivating biofuel feedstock, the project will also produce fresh water and create a habitat for wildlife. &ldquo;We think of this as an ecosystem development project, not a natural-oil production process,&rdquo; Rekoske says. &ldquo;There is a very large fraction of the world that does not have access to the type of arable land that would be necessary for traditional oil seed crops,&rdquo; and this project will demonstrate a regionally-adaptable solution.
Oils harvested as a result of the project will be transported to the U.S. for conversion into biobased jet fuel at Honeywell UOP&rsquo;s demonstration-scale facility. That fuel could be used to complete demonstration flights within a three- to four-year timeframe.
&mdash;Erin Voegele

SBRC to cultivate Salicornia bigelovii as a feedstock for drop-in biofuels

A Salty Solution

Mascoma Corp. and its proposed cellulosic biorefinery have been given a big vote of confidence by the nation&rsquo;s largest independent oil refiner, Valero Energy Corp. Valero has made an undisclosed investment in Mascoma and has signed a nonbinding letter of intent with Mascoma and its operating subsidiary Frontier Renewable Resources LLC, which is jointly owned with J.M.Longyear LLC, to support the construction of a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant. Under the terms of the agreement, Valero will potentially invest up to $50 million in the project and enter into an off-take agreement for the facility&rsquo;s entire ethanol production capacity.
The proposed 40 MMgy facility is slated for development in Kinross Charter Township, Mich. The plant will employ Mascoma&rsquo;s proprietary cellulosic production technology to convert hardwood pulpwood into ethanol. Unlike other cellulosic production processes, Mascoma&rsquo;s technology combines hydrolysis and fermentation of both C5 and C6 sugars into a single step, says Justin van Rooyen, the company&rsquo;s vice president of business development.
&ldquo;We intend to break ground mid- to late this year in Kinross,&rdquo; van Rooyen says. &ldquo;Construction time is anywhere from 18 to 22 months. The goal is to have the facility up and running early in 2013.&rdquo;
Valero has been very active in the renewable fuels arena in recent years. The company has purchased 10 corn ethanol plants, most of them acquired through the VeraSun bankruptcy. &ldquo;Those were relatively new plants,&rdquo; says Bill Day, Valero&rsquo;s executive director of media relations. &ldquo;They have space for expansion, and we&rsquo;ve said that as new technologies became available&mdash;including cellulosic&mdash;we might be able to add those technologies to the existing plants.&rdquo;
Mascoma is one of several cellulosic companies Valero has become involved with, including ZaeChem Inc. and Qteros Inc. &ldquo;Mascoma, with this project, would be [building] the first real commercial-sized wood-based cellulosic ethanol plant in the country,&rdquo; Day says, noting that Valero&rsquo;s involvement stems from its interest in knowing what the next generation of biofuels will be. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s why we got interested in cellulosic,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;This project with Mascoma will allow us to have a commercial-scale cellulosic plant in addition to the corn ethanol plants that we have.&rdquo;
In fact, Day says that at some point Valero would like to add cellulosic or other advanced fuel capacity to the corn ethanol plants it currently owns. While corn ethanol is the technology of the present, we think there will be other cellulosic and advanced biofuel technologies in the future that we could add to these facilities&mdash;while still producing corn ethanol, Day continues. &ldquo;We have been working a couple of companies, looking at what might be available on a commercial scale,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;There is a lot of cellulosic ethanol being produced now on a demonstration scale in small batches, but [Mascoma&rsquo;s process] looks like the emerging technology as far as getting cellulosic produced at a commercial level.&rdquo;
However, Valero&rsquo;s interest in advanced biofuels is not limited to cellulosic technologies. According to Day, his company is also developing a joint venture project with Darling International Inc. to produce renewable diesel. Construction on the plant, which will be built adjacent to an existing Valero oil refinery in Louisiana, is expected to begin in September with completion in 2013.&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

Valero Energy Corp. invests in cellulosic ethanol and renewable diesel 

Mixing Oil with Renewables

Bioplastic sales may be lagging in the U.S., but that hasn&rsquo;t deterred Cereplast Inc. from gaining a significant foothold in the European bioplastic marketplace. In doing so, the El Segundo, Calif.-based bioresin manufacturer managed to lock up several supply and distribution arrangements, most of which came in January with local European partners.
The first supply and distribution agreement for Cereplast came with BioWorks PI, a division of Galant PLC, to supply its bioplastic resins to Poland&rsquo;s market. Under terms of the agreement, BioWorks will distribute Cereplast Compostables Resins and Cereplast Sustainables Resins&mdash;resins made from renewable resources such as corn, wheat, tapioca and algae&mdash;to product and package manufacturers in Poland. Additionally, the company entered into supply and distribution agreements with Euroink Romania to supply its bioplastic resin in Romania and Italy-based ColorTec S.r.l. to supply its bioresin products to the Southern Italian and Slovenian markets. The company also has a supply and distribution agreement with RI.ME. Masterbatch, a leading European supplier of colorized resin used in the production of plastics.
According to Cereplast CEO Frederic Scheer, the arrangements fall in line with the company&rsquo;s aggressive growth strategy to establish a local presence in Europe.
&ldquo;We are very active and proactive in signing such contracts,&rdquo; Scheer tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;They are very important to us because I believe that is the best way to serve our clients, to speak their language and be present locally.&rdquo;
Much of the market demand for bioplastics resides in Italy, according to Scheer, which is driven in large part to a nationwide ban that was put on petroleum-based plastics that went into effect Jan. 1. Scheer says he expects other countries, such as France, Austria, Germany and Spain, to enact similar regulations, which should open the door for more sales potential of the company&rsquo;s bioresin products. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just the tip of the iceberg,&rdquo; Scheer says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite significant at such a point that the European Union decided it will consider a general ban on polyethylene bags in all of Europe by 2014 or 2015. You&rsquo;re probably looking at millions of tons of material there, which translates into a $4 to $5 billion market for bioplastics in Europe within the next three to four years.&rdquo;
In 2010, Cereplast&rsquo;s total sales revenue hit $6.3 million, a 133 percent increase compared to $2.7 million set in 2009. According to Scheer, 2010 sales were limited due to supply constraints on raw materials from mid-November through December. The supply of raw materials has improved this year with projected revenue for its first quarter to be $5 million to $6.5 million. With market potential already open in Italy for bioplastics and widening in other parts of the continent, Scheer forecasts revenue in 2011 to be $24 to $32 million, a 300 to 400 percent jump compared to last year. Although Cereplast has an office situated in Germany, Scheer says the company may consider the idea of building a bioresin production plant somewhere in Europe, either owned or jointly operated with a partner, to better serve its European clientele. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s definitely something that is on the radar screen that we&rsquo;ll have to consider,&rdquo; he says.
Including Europe, Cereplast intends to continue expansion efforts in South America, Asia, as well as in the U.S. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll see growth in the U.S., as well,&rdquo; Scheer says. &ldquo;The pressure and volatility of the price of a barrel of oil will really push the U.S. to use more and more bioplastics.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

How one U.S.-based bioresin manufacturer is extending its reach into Europe

Strategic Expansion

Biocentric President Michael Burton laid out his company&rsquo;s plans for recovery in a corporate information statement released in January. &ldquo;The company recently suffered a dramatic series of events in which the former board of directors abandoned the company and its operations, causing a traumatic series of events leading to the closure of the Santa Ana, Calif., corporate offices,&rdquo; says Burton.
While Biorefining Magazine was unable to reach Burton for further comment, his statement notes that legal council has been retained to address outstanding disputes along with debt accrued under the company&rsquo;s previous management. The company&rsquo;s Death Valley Junction project has been transferred to its joint venture partner, and a new board of directors is expected to be announced as soon as reasonably possible. In addition, Biocentric&rsquo;s corporate headquarters and testing center has been relocated to Salt Lake City.
The statement also notes that Biocentric has been working to restore relationships for algae-derived product orders from the company&rsquo;s former operations while striving to fulfill the commitments for products to ensure revenue. According information provided by Biocentric, negotiations are also in process with an undisclosed private company with operations in the algae and green energy sectors for several exclusive licensing and distribution rights.&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

Algae developer Biocentric Energy Holdings rebuilding after corporate collapse

A Quest for Revival

Hawaii Island uses the highest amount of renewable energy in the state, and after a recent contract between the Hawaiian Electric Company and Aina Koa Pono, the Big Island&rsquo;s renewable energy use is only going to get bigger. Aina Koa Pona, a renewable energy solutions provider, will convert land fallow for 14 years into a 13,000-acre energy farm called the Ka&rsquo;u Energy Farm. The plan is to invest nearly $320 million into the farm. The money will be enough to create a 16 MMgy biofuel plant alongside energy crop fields featuring sweet sorghum and eucalyptus. The farm will cycle the crops and use crop residue for other liquid fuels and electricity, according to Aina Koa Pona. Congresswoman Mazie K. Hirono is excited about the &ldquo;visionary steps&rdquo; taken by the energy developers, and Mayor William Kenoi for the County of Hawaii says the island is an ideal place for building a sustainable energy future &ldquo;because of its incredible natural resources and expansive amount of available land.&rdquo; Although neither Hirono or Kenoi commented on the growth potential of the farm, Aina Koa Pona expects the facility will produce 100 full-time farming and 300 construction jobs.&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

The Big Island's plans for an energy farm may mean one thing—jobs

Energy Farms Aren't Just About Energy

As biobased fuel alternatives continue to be tested by automobile engine manufacturers on land, military aircraft engine manufacturers are doing the same by air. In January, a Pratt &amp; Whitney F100-PW-220 engine powered its first test flights of a U.S. Air Force F-15 Eagle at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.&nbsp;
The flight tests were conducted with a blend of Hydrotreated Renewable Jet (HRJ) with traditional JP-8 jet fuel. Prior to the flight test in Florida, Pratt &amp; Whitney conducted ground testing on the F100 engine model at Arnold&rsquo;s Engineering Development Center in Tennessee, which included a blend of JP-8 jet fuel, HRJ and a synthetic fuel made from coal. The flight tests using biofuel, according to the company, are in support of the Air Force&rsquo;s goal to acquire half of its domestic jet fuel requirements from biobased sources by 2016.
Tedd Biddle, a Pratt &amp; Whitney fuels fellow, tells Biorefining Magazine that results from the flight and ground tests fueled with blended HRJ and traditional JP-8 performed as expected with no impact on performance. &ldquo;This is yet another encouraging step toward certification of biofuels for military and commercial aviation applications,&rdquo; Biddle says.
The flight test conducted on its F100 engine was Pratt &amp; Whitney&rsquo;s second military engine to successfully complete ground and flight tests using HRJ fuel blended with regular JP-8 jet fuel. A C-17 Globemaster III, powered exclusively by four Pratt &amp; Whitney F117 engines, completed testing in August 2010. Similar tests are planned for its F119 engine in the near future.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Hydrotreated renewable jet fuel gets boost during military tests

Turbo Charged

For two straight summers, Lee Elliot spent weeks in a Jeep Wrangler driving through the Southwestern U.S. He wasn&rsquo;t on a camping trip or a sightseeing tour, rather Elliot was bioprospecting for new strains of algae. A graduate student at the Colorado School of Mines, Elliot&rsquo;s project was funded in part by C2B2 and National Renewable Energy Laboratory to establish a culture collection of unidentified strains with the idea, he says, &ldquo;to sample various sites with different water sources in order to isolate unique strains of algae.&rdquo; Over the course of two summers, Elliot collected 75 water samples from different sites, and roughly 360 unique isolated strains. When he was done, Elliot says he felt overwhelmed by algae but upon his return from the road, everyone in his lab was &ldquo;absolutely&rdquo; excited to see what he had found. Now, with hundreds of strains already identified and more in progress, Elliot says he has one major hope for those hot days spent pounding the pavement. &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;that others will be able to use everything that I have done to increase the success of future bioprospecting efforts.&rdquo;
Those efforts, Elliot explains, would not have paid off if not for another familiar, albeit now defunct, culture collection project, the Aquatic Species Program. &ldquo;NREL and the DOE did this for nearly 20 years for the Aquatic Program,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but they couldn&rsquo;t really find the winning strain.&rdquo; By utilizing sample maps and surveys of diatoms in U.S. lakes and streams in the Southwest under the former Aquatic Species Program, Elliot was able to outline a series of locations that held the potential for algae. &ldquo;We also checked the rules, in terms of where you can collect water samples from,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and the rules say you can collect water from anywhere but in national parks.&rdquo; The main areas Elliot searched were state lands or Bureau of Land Management areas. Or, he says, &ldquo;If I was driving down the highway and saw a green pool of water next to the road I would sample from that.&rdquo;
While most of his time was spent driving to each site or trying to find a place to stay in the middle of the night&mdash;after all, he collected samples from California, Nevada (near Reno), Utah (near the Salt Lake area), the Denver metro area of Colorado, much of New Mexico and much of Arizona. Elliot says when he got to each site he would spend a few hours collecting samples, documenting the location and water chemistry, before packing the algae samples into 50 milliliter conical vials for transport. He also packed duplicate samples, which were frozen for future study or enriching.
Although his driving days are done, Elliot is still hard at work on the project. He hasn&rsquo;t sequenced any of the strains, but he has used morphology to distinguish unique species. The big question everyone asks is what did he find? The work isn&rsquo;t done, but Elliot, who has logged more miles than most of us could ever imagine, all for the sake of algae, says that what he found is &ldquo;pretty amazing,&rdquo; and that some of the algae cells &ldquo;can really pack on a lot of oil.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

A Jeep Wrangler, shabby motels and thousands of miles—all in search of a better algae strain 

Meet the Bioprospector

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 information on where the industry is, and where it is headed.

27th Annual FEW  Heads to Indy

There are few things more satisfying in a chemical engineer&rsquo;s career than when the first drop of at-rate, at-cost, on-spec product comes off a commercial-scale system. That first drop is the culmination of tireless efforts to scale up from idea to reality, and declares you the champion for that moment.&nbsp;
Scale up begins by defining the factors, levels and responses captured from the bench development effort. A factor is a controllable variable, or knob, that can be turned to a level, or set-point. The response is the characteristic product measurement resulting from the factor at a specific set-point. In feedstock characterization, a common factor is the moisture content, the level is the specific moisture percentage tested in the process system, and the response is the ultimate affect on product conversion.&nbsp; A designed experiment is a series of tests measuring factor interaction at varying levels to extract meaningful correlations on response affects. This allows an engineer to set boundary limits on both incoming streams and process run conditions for the operators to follow to insure on-spec product.&nbsp;
Factors and responses are measurements that require validated test methods to ensure that decision making information is based on statistically proven repeatability and accuracy against a known standard.&nbsp;
A scale-up ratio defines the geometric, kinematic, and dynamic similarities between scales. Scale-up ratios are primarily selected based on the technical novelty of the system and the acceptable level of project risk determined by the investors. Typical scale-up ratios range from 5-1 for a first of its kind application up to 100-1 for a tried-and-true technology.
The factors, levels and responses create a two dimensional analysis of variance (ANOVA) or a three dimensional response surface originating from the bench scale. A model is developed from the correlations of the ANOVA. The first cut of the model is used to screen for main effects. The main effects are the factors that are the controllable, critical few.&nbsp;
Using scale-up ratios, the pilot-scale is constructed and the predicted model from the bench-scale ANOVA is compared against actual pilot-scale run data. If the predicted values and the experimental data have a strong correlation, then the risk in using the same model and scale-up factors as a basis for the commercial scale is low. If the predicted values and the actual data have a weak correlation you must go back to the bench-scale, adjust the model and note the differences until you develop a correlation that matches the acceptable risk profile of the project.&nbsp;
In an emerging field such as biorefining, companies compete to bring their technology first to market. The first rush is to prove the technology in a beaker. Occasionally investors see a success on the lab bench and assume the scale-up should just be a matter of routine. This is where many efforts fail. The scale-up is rushed, steps are skipped because the understanding of the complexities of scale-up had not been clearly articulated and thus expectations are not met. The carnage begins. The unfortunate part is that the small failures along the path of the scale-up effort are where the big breakthroughs occur. However, if the team doing the scale-up is either underfunded, or over stressed trying to fit a preassumed, inflexible scale-up expectation, the real pot of gold can be missed. A scale-up plan must be a fluid, agile path that adapts as new information emerges.&nbsp;
In developing a plan for an entire plant, each major unit operation must be individually scaled with clearly defined input and output streams.&nbsp;
Output stream specification in biorefining begins with understanding the ASTM requirements for saleable product. Every renewable fuel has a few ASTM specification components that are difficult to meet. It keeps the riff raff out. These components need to be accurately measured to ensure that the material is within specification at the transfer of sale.&nbsp;
Input streams are qualified using feedstock characterization. To avoid a possible &ldquo;garbage in garbage out&rdquo; scenario, the output stream ASTM requirements should be referenced with specific focus on the difficult components. The variations in a feedstock source are best identified by regular and rigorous sampling, testing, and processing of the actual feedstock that will be utilized at the plant. As the feedstock is processed through each unit operation, the collective input variable factors typically reduce in number as waste materials are removed. Thus, garbage in, and good stuff out.&nbsp;
Feedstock composition is source dependent and material properties must be empirically measured at process conditions to understand variations. Most biorefining feedstocks are mixtures of many constituents and these influence the overall bulk properties of the fluids. For example, manure is a mixture of volatile organic solids, water and other constituents, and published data on manure viscosity and density may not measure up to what is available at the plant. Viscosity and density are two common engineering fluid properties that are affected not only by the temperature and shear rate, but also greatly in the mixture composition that is present for the fluid.
Historically the reactor has been the focus of scale-up. Biorefining presents challenges for input and output unit operation scale-up that could rival the reactor complexities. Three common reactors are a stirred tank batch reactor, a continuous flow batch reactor, and a plug flow reactor. An ethanol fermentor is a pH and temperature controlled stirred tank batch reactor. Yield is the typical response. The correlation between actual and experimental results is usually strong.&nbsp;
Many installed anaerobic digesters are flow mixed covered lagoons. This is a rudimentary example of a continuous flow batch reactor. Hydraulic retention time (HRT) is the most significant scaling characteristic for sizing an anaerobic digestor system. Typically a lagoon style anaerobic digester has an HRT on the order of 25 to 30 days. The lagoon is sized to be able to handle the conversion of the volatile organic solids to methane based upon anticipated inlet flows. Temperature varies with the environment and economics have been marginal.&nbsp; To improve yield, anaerobic digesters have adopted temperature-controlled stirred tank batch reactor configurations. In a batch reactor with an agitator, the HRT reduces due to the higher surface area of the solid particles with the substrates and the microbial action on the surface area driving the reaction kinetics. HRT for a well mixed batch reactor can be reduced in half. This enables the reactor itself to have a smaller volume and makes the temperature control and the economics of heating more advantageous due to higher heat transfer of mixing. With the volatile organic solids now uniform from the agitation and at a higher temperature these combinationally drive the reaction kinetics further reducing the HRT and improving the economics.&nbsp;
The critical few factors and the geometric, kinematic, and dynamic scale ratios of a stirred tank batch reactor are shown in accompanying diagram.
Columns are continuous flow catalytic bed reactors used for conversion of biomass feedstocks into various products. The use of catalytic columns is becoming common in the emerging field of renewable diesel. Hydrogen is added to a catalytic column having been developed to selectively react the feedstock carbon chains to a blend of alkanes meeting the ASTM 975 diesel specification. Catalytic bed reactors are usually continuous plug flow reactors since the catalytic activity is a critical factor in the conversion efficiency. The plug flow regime must be carefully designed so that back mixing does not inhibit the developing progression of the reacting plug flow mass.&nbsp;&nbsp;
The reactor scale-up is based upon space velocity with the alkane product concentration as the characteristic variable. Space velocity is a term from catalytic column reactor development terminology. Two common terms are liquid hourly space velocity or the weight hourly space velocity, one being volume and the other mass basis. This biorefining application has a long established history in the oleochemical refining industry and the technology has proven transferrable from the hydrogenation of fats, oils and grease. These prior industrial learnings can be applied as a basis for the scale-up using renewable feedstocks to supply the emerging renewable diesel markets.
When scaling any reactor, do a reality check against the common reactor rules of experience. Do not be discouraged if new data and valid results are questioned by previous practitioners that may not support your findings. If you have done a rigorous scale-up and are confident in your results, then the new economical method will reap you the rewards. Authors: Marc Privitera, Christina Borgese Founding Engineers, PreProcess Inc. <a href="mailto:cborgese@gmail.com">cborgese@gmail.com</a>

Engineers' perspectives on taking process technology from bench-scale 
to commercial production

Biorefining Technology Scale-Up

1. Seattle-based Blue Marble Energy managed to raise $1.3 million in a Series A-1 round by selling convertible debt into preferred stock. While the investment round went to Blue Marble Energy, a significant portion of the proceeds will be disbursed to its subsidiary Blue Marble Biomaterials in the form of working capital to further operations at its 100 metric ton per month production facility located in Corvallis, Mont., according to CEO Kelly Ogilvie. Built on the success of demonstrating its proprietary Acid, Gas and Ammonia Targeted Extraction process technology at its 1 ton per day pilot facility in Seattle, Blue Marble Biomaterials can manufacture a variety of green chemicals at the Corvallis demonstration facility, such as ethyl butyrate for the food and flavoring industries, and propyl butyrate for the cosmetics and fragrance markets from a variety of cellulosic feedstocks, including woody biomass. 2. Waste Management Inc. and Genomatica have forged a strategic joint development agreement to research and advance Genomatica&rsquo;s technology and manufacturing processes for production of biobased intermediate and platform chemicals from MSW-derived syngas. Under the agreement Genomatica will create proprietary, specially-designed organisms and complete manufacturing processes to convert syngas into various biobased chemical products. Biological production of chemicals is anticipated to provide another potential use for any syngas produced by or for Waste Management through other pathways such as anaerobic digestion, gasification or landfill gas. The joint development agreement with Waste Management follows a successful move by Genomatica to advance its first commercial product, Bio-BDO (1,4-butanediol), made from dextrose from corn wet mills and sucrose from sugar mills. BDO is an intermediate chemical with a $4 billion market worldwide. 3. Houston-based KiOR Inc. received a term sheet for a loan guarantee from the U.S. DOE to support a $1 billion-plus biofuels project. If approved, the company said it plans to leverage the funds towards the build-out of four biocrude oil production plants that will contribute approximately 250 million gallons of advanced biofuel for RFS2. The first two plants are expected to be in Mississippi, with additional sites planned in Georgia and Texas. &ldquo;While the term sheet is an important step in the process, we recognize that more work lies ahead to finalize the loan guarantee, and there is no assurance it will be issued until the loan is closed,&rdquo; says KiOR President and CEO Fred Cannon. KiOR&rsquo;s first bio-crude oil production facility will be located in Newton, Miss., and is expected to be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S. Additionally, it&rsquo;s anticipated that more than 14,000 jobs will be created during the construction of the facility, with more than 4,000 jobs created during operations. 4. Ineos Bio JV got the gold shovels out in February and broke ground near Vero Beach, Fla., at the future home of a first-of-its-kind facility that will produce 8 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol and 6 megawatts of electricity. After completion in 2012, the Indian River BioEnergy Center will use the Ineos-based gasification-fermentation technology that uses local yard, vegetative and other household wastes sourced from a landfill visible from the site.&nbsp; The unique facility is the first of four biorefinery projects that were funded with $50 million from the U.S. DOE in 2009 to begin construction at a commercial scale. More than 200 people attended the event. The massive site, once a grapefruit processing plant, will create roughly 380 direct or indirect jobs through the process of construction and eventual operation. 5. Sweden&rsquo;s Energy Agency believes in Chemrec AB&rsquo;s biorefinery technology used in &Ouml;rnsk&ouml;ldsvik, Sweden, and now the European Commission does too. Since the Energy Agency awarded Chemrec a $75 million research and development grant in September 2009, the EU commission has come out in support of the grant, claiming that the objectives and goals of the R&amp;D grant to further the facility are compatible with the EU&rsquo;s priorities. &ldquo;The R&amp;D grant is to offset the increased cost and risk that a first-of-its-kind industrial size plant is always saddled with,&rdquo; says Patrik Lownertz, vice president of sales for Chemrec. The Domsjo Fabriker biorefinery is using a black liquor gasification technology that utilizes syngas in a range of thermochemical catalytic processes to produce biomethanol, biodimethyl ether (BioDME), synthetic diesel, synthetic gasoline and ethanol, Lownertz says. The CEO of the Domsjo biorefinery, Ola Hildingsson, says he hopes &ldquo;the demonstration plant will make it easier and considerably less risky for other companies in the sector to implement this technology, thereby contributing to a more sustainable energy supply within the EU.&rdquo; 6. Novamont is coming to Connecticut and the company is bringing its novel Mater-Bi bioplastic material along. The developer and manufacturer of renewable bioplastics based in Italy already distributes the bioplastic made from agricultural waste and municipal solid waste to China, Germany, France, Scandinavia, Denmark, the U.K., Japan, Australia and the U.S., and after recognizing a significant growth potential in the New England area for compostable products, the company will create a North American presence in Danbury, Conn., a Novamont representative tells Biorefining Magazine. &ldquo;Connecticut has excellent access to a large pool of talented commercial and management personnel,&rdquo; the spokesperson says. According to a Novamont statement citing research based on biodegradable resins, the global market will reach 1.2 billion pounds by 2012, up from 541 million pounds in 2007. &ldquo;North America will be a significant contributor to this global growth in the coming decade,&rdquo; the company says. The Mater-Bi product is currently produced at a manufacturing plant in Terni, Italy, using corn starch, vegetable oil or other renewable raw materials. 7. Metabolix Oilseeds Inc. of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, has been awarded $203,000 in research funding by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture through its Agriculture Development Fund, to accelerate its ongoing research and development of oilseed crops&mdash;specifically camelina&mdash;as a potential source for biobased plastics. Aside from its inherent advantages as having the ability to thrive in marginal nonirrigated land without competing with food crops, camelina is a viable candidate as a production vehicle for polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) polymers. According to Metabolix, its subsidiary has produced PHA polymers in the oilseed itself. Last year, Metabolix and Archer Daniels Midland Co. began commercial production of Mirel bioplastic at their $300 million commercial facility in Clinton, Iowa. 8. Two leading California-based cellulosic ethanol and biobased chemical firms, BlueFire Renewables Inc. and Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc., have secured additional funding that will be put towards furthering their respective project development and commercialization efforts. BlueFire Renewables received $150,000 and secured an additional $9.85 million in committed funding from Lincoln Park Capital Fund LLC, a Chicago-based institutional investment firm. The funds are expected to enable the company to shore up its short-term cash needs and aid in the closing of additional financing for its 19 MMgy cellulosic ethanol project currently under development in Fulton, Miss. Meanwhile, Fulcrum BioEnergy closed on a $75 million Series C round of financing. A portion of the financing will be used to fund the equity capital of its Sierra Biofuels project, currently under development near Reno, Nev. Using post-sorted municipal solid waste as feedstock, the future facility is expected to produce 10.5 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol, 16 megawatts of renewable electricity and other high-value chemical products. Fulcrum has been working with Fluor Corp. on the engineering services for the project and expects to break ground for construction this summer, with an anticipated 2012 completion date. 9. Houston-based bioenergy technology firm Terrabon Inc. achieved a significant milestone recently by exceeding its target yield threshold of 70 gallons of renewable cellulosic gasoline from one dry ton of waste feedstock at its demonstration facility in Bryan, Texas. &ldquo;Just the research around the process conditions to ultimately achieve that conversion is where a lot of the research in our lab, and translating that into our demonstration plant, has really made this come to fruition,&rdquo; says Terrabon CEO Gary Luce. Terrabon&rsquo;s MixAlco process is described by Luce as a linkage of biological fermentation and chemical processes. It begins by treating the feedstock with lime to enhance its digestibility, and then ferments the biomass using a mixed-culture of microorganisms to produce a mixture of carboxylic acids. Calcium carbonate is added to the fermentation to neutralize the acids to form corresponding carboxylate salts, which are then dewatered, concentrated, dried and thermally converted to ketones. The ketones are then hydrogenated into various alcohols that can be refined into renewable gasoline, diesel or jet fuel blendstocks using specific catalysts obtained by CRI/Criterion, a Shell Group subsidiary. Luce adds that Terrabon intends to leverage existing partnerships with Waste Management Inc. as its core feedstock supply partner, in addition to Valero Energy Corp. for potential off-take arrangements. 10. Glycos Biotechnologies Inc. recently announced the appointment of Gary Mossman, chemical industry veteran, to its board of directors. Mossman&rsquo;s experience spans both large and small molecular technology with more than 40 years of executive management and investment responsibility in private and public pharmaceutical and specialty chemical firms. Mossman is currently chief operating officer and director of PLx Pharma and chairman of Redline Industries. In addition, he is a director of the Nassau Bay Economical Development Council and the CCISD Educational Foundation.&nbsp; Previously executive vice president and COO of Cambrex Corp., Mossman joins current GlycosBio board of director members including Walter Burnap, Richard Cilento, Steve Jurvetson and Dan Watkins.
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">rkotrba@bbiinternational.com</a>. Please include your name and telephone number in all correspondence.

People, Partnerships & Deals

First there was a spark of ingenuity, and then came the testing, both in the laboratory and the field. Now, you are ready to scale up your technology and go to market. But is your patent portfolio ready to take the next step with you?
Patents are the form of intellectual property (IP) that covers machines, methods and compositions of matter. They provide the patentee with the right to exclude others from manufacturing, using, selling or offering for sale the patented technology.&nbsp;
This exclusionary right may be enforced in court. In this fashion, the patentee may prevent a late-arriving copyist from obtaining the benefit of the technology without incurring the research and development costs. As an indirect consequence, investors may be more willing to invest in the patentee because the legally enforceable exclusivity reduces the risk of loss of investment. To obtain a patent, the inventor must file an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The USPTO will examine the application and determine if the claimed technology meets the requirements for patentability.
It is desirable to lay the foundations for patent protection early to limit the possibility that the patenting of your technology will be frustrated by others filing on, or publicly disclosing, similar technology. One strategy that helps balance the ability to get an early start on the patent process with the relatively unrefined understanding of the technology common to basic R&amp;D involves the filing of one or more provisional patent applications.
Provisional applications do not start the examination process, but instead are designed to permit an inventor to memorialize the invention in a formal way at a reduced cost. The USPTO filing fees are under $250. Further, because the rules governing the presentation of the information in the application are relatively flexible, the associated attorney preparation fees are relatively modest. Thus, one or more provisional applications may be filed at a relatively modest overall cost to memorialize different stages of&nbsp; the R&amp;D process over a one-year period, after which time it will be necessary to begin the examination process.
As important as getting an early start is ensuring an adequately detailed disclosure of the technology in the application. Fundamentally, the disclosure must permit one of ordinary skill to manufacture and use the patented technology. Thus, at an early stage in the R&amp;D process, the manner in which the innovation is to be carried out may be so tentative that it may not yet be ready for patenting. However, once the threshold has been crossed, consideration should be given to making the application &ldquo;scale-ready.&rdquo;
Making a patent application scale-ready requires a recognition that one may claim the technology only as it is disclosed to the USPTO in the application. Consequently, to permit the patent to cover the commercialized technology, the application should capture not only the experimental version of it, but the scaled-up version as well.&nbsp; For example, if the experimental version involves batch-processing, but the commercial version is likely to be continuous, the application should include disclosure of the expected differences in the equipment, the process and/or the chemical or biological processes required to permit continuous processing. Similarly, if the raw materials require different processing in the scaled-up version, then this should be included. Alternatively, if the operational ranges will vary between the experimental-scale and commercial-scale versions of the technology, this should be reflected in the application. All such questions should be considered as early in the process as possible to provide a robust application that can grow with the technology as it matures.
It is impossible to anticipate every twist and turn that may occur. So, what if the technology develops in a direction unanticipated in earlier patent filings? As long as confidentiality is preserved and the technology has not been offered for sale, these improvements may be captured in a subsequent patent application. In fact, unexpected developments that occur during scale-up may be used to extend patent coverage beyond that captured in earlier applications that address the technology only in broad terms. These applications filed on improvements indeed may provide a more daunting challenge to competitors, requiring them to navigate a growing portfolio to take their products and processes to the market. Author: Paul Craane Partner Attorney, Marshall, Gerstein &amp; Borun LLP (312) 474-6623 <a href="mailto:pcraane@marshallip.com">pcraane@marshallip.com</a>

Ensuring that intellectual property grows with your process

Will Your Patents Scale Up With You? 

The desire for energy independence, security of energy supply, and reduced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has set tremendous challenges. In the U.S., the target is to provide an additional 16 billion gallons of transportation fuel from domestic and renewable biomass resources by 2022 and so, displace the need for about 550 million barrels of oil at a savings of $32 billion, while reducing GHG emissions by at least 60 percent. For companies like Ineos, the target represents both opportunity and challenge. On one hand, it creates a vast market for new technology and innovation. On the other, it requires diversion of resources and capital from existing core businesses that underpin both company performance and sustain jobs&mdash;more than 3,000 jobs here in the U.S. It&rsquo;s for that reason that we welcome the fiscal incentives provided by the U.S. DOE and USDA. These combine to create a public-private partnership to drive the rapid development and deployment of new technology to meet the twin demands for domestic supply of transport fuels while meeting challenging new GHG emission requirements. And while the advanced biofuels industry might be seen by some observers to be at a crossroads, we believe that, in fact, there is a credible path forward to deliver well against the challenge laid down. The key as we see it is having the ability to utilize the cheapest renewable carbon source&mdash;waste.
Ineos Bio has developed and is commercializing new technology that takes a wide variety of biomass or other carbon waste and converts it with high efficiency into both bioethanol and excess renewable energy. An important milestone was achieved in early February when we and our joint venture partner, New Planet Energy, broke ground on the Indian River BioEnergy Center in Vero Beach, Fla. This will become the first facility in the world to produce advanced biofuels from waste on a commercial scale.
When production begins next year, the facility will generate 8 MMgy of advanced bioethanol together with 6 megawatts (gross) of renewable electricity, of which about 1 to 2 MW will be exported to the grid. Feedstocks will include yard waste, wood, vegetative and household wastes. These break the link between food crops and biofuel production while also reducing the amount of waste going to landfills.&nbsp;
The Ineos Bio process is comprised of four main steps: gasification, fermentation, distillation and power generation. This feedstock-flexible process has been in development for more than 20 years, including seven years of integrated pilot plant testing at Ineos Bio&rsquo;s R&amp;D facility in Fayetteville, Ark. At pilot-scale, the process has achieved a production rate of 100 gallons of ethanol for every dry ton of feedstock. We have successfully tested a wide variety of feedstocks including wood, vegetative, and municipal solid waste, purpose-grown crops and even carbon sources like waste coal, tires and auto-shredder residue. Independent life-cycle analysis calculates that with biomass feedstocks, the GHG savings will be 100 percent or more. More because diverting waste from landfills also prevents methane production, which is itself an additional contributor to GHG emissions.
The next stage of our plan is to license this technology across the U.S. and globally, essentially using the Vero Beach facility to create the template. We believe that this plan is credible for two reasons. First, there is widespread feedstock availability in the U.S. and beyond. As communities, we already have to collect our waste. The Ineos Bio technology can latch onto the existing waste infrastructure and divert it to more efficient use. Secondly, the engineering, technical and commercial resources required to deploy the technology already exist. As a leading global licensor of chemical process technology, Ineos has the broad infrastructure and capabilities required to license, train, and support Ineos Bio&rsquo;s customers.
Ineos is a company with proven capability to deploy this advanced biofuel technology, and we are certainly optimistic given the strong policy direction and fiscal incentives. A huge amount of work remains to be done, but we really do believe that we can achieve our aspiration to provide communities large and small with the ability to utilize local waste to produce advanced biofuel and renewable power locally. Provided we grasp the opportunity, we can make an important contribution to a cleaner, sustainable energy future, starting today. Author: Peter Williams CEO, Ineos Technologies <a href="mailto:peter.williams@ineos.com">peter.williams@ineos.com</a>

Leading world chemical producer breaks ground on advanced biofuel plant 

Ineos Bio Takes Advanced Biofuel Technology Commercial

Only a few times in our nation&rsquo;s history has a generation been called to action or to discovery. Among these seminal times Americans helped win a world war, demand civil rights for all, made the first steps on the moon and opened the doors to a entirely new world with the Internet. These historic points not only changed our nation, but acted as a clarion call for the world. Our nation stands at the precipice of another of these unique moments as we seek clean energy alternatives that could transform the world.
The readers of this magazine know better than anyone, the clean energy generation is real and not a scholarly hypothesis from a Washington think tank. The transformation from fossil fuels to a cleaner, more efficient and renewable source is well on its way and led by the commercialization of advanced biofuels and bioproducts. That is why the recent release of findings of the RAND Corp. was so startling, and candidly suspect.
RAND was tasked by the U.S. Department of Defense to study the viability and efficiency of investing in alternative fuels as it moves to develop and deploy its Great Green Fleet. Unfortunately the results RAND submitted to DOD were not only incomplete, but the group surprisingly took the opportunity to embrace failed energy policies of the past.
It is important to recognize that DOD&rsquo;s strategic move to advanced biofuels is a matter of national security. Here are the facts. The DOD is a one of the world&rsquo;s largest consumers of fuel, representing close to 2 percent of annual U.S. petroleum use. In 2008, DOD purchased $16 billion worth of fuel, using 119 million barrels of petroleum for the year. Together, with the private commercial airline industry, DOD currently uses 1.5 million barrels (63 million gallons) of jet fuel per day. Armed with just these few facts, you can see that our nation&rsquo;s defense is at the mercy of the market just as much as we are when we pull up to the gas station. This must change.
The Pentagon should be congratulated, not criticized as RAND has done, for its foresight in establishing a priority that by 2020, 50 percent of its energy will be acquired from alternative sources, and deploying the Navy&rsquo;s Great Green Fleet. This puts DOD in the technology driver&rsquo;s seat and should keep to the progress it has already paved instead wrecking itself in a ditch if it follows RAND&rsquo;s recommendations.
The flawed findings of RAND were met by a swift response from Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, who was not shy in publicly demonstrating there was no loss of enthusiasm for the Pentagon&rsquo;s commitment to advanced biofuels. Secretary Mabus wrote on the White House blog that Navy tests have shown that advanced biofuels perform just as well as, or better than, fossil-based jet fuel.&nbsp; He wrote, &ldquo;Just as importantly, neither of these fuels impacts food supply, the carbon footprint in terms of production is low, and the cost of each is rapidly falling.&rdquo; The Navy will not be deterred and steered off course.
I am proud to share with you that members of the Advanced Biofuels Association are helping DOD with this endeavor and have already demonstrated measureable, real-world success. This includes Solazyme, an ABFA member that last year produced more than 100,000 gallons of algae oil utilizing algae and a fermentation process. The company is a key partner with the U.S. Navy and delivered 20,000 gallons of jet and diesel, the largest amount of advanced algae biofuel ever produced to date. Solazyme also signed a follow-up contract to deliver more than seven times more fuel in 2011&mdash;150,000 gallons. RAND apparently ignored the success in 2009, when ABFA member Sapphire Energy participated in two test flights using algae-based jet fuel in a Boeing 747 and a 737-800 twin-engine aircraft. Sapphire is on track in its commercial demonstration in New Mexico to produce 1 million gallons of jet fuel and 1 million gallons of alternative diesel fuel from algae. Another ABFA member, Amyris, has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Embraer and General Electric to test renewable jet fuel.
The technologies and benefits of advanced biofuels are real. Every day we are seeing example after example of real world applications from state-of-the-art biorefineries going online by ABFA companies like Tyson and Neste to partnerships with Rentech and Audi, as well as Virent and Scuderia Ferrari that fuel SUVs and Formula One racecars, respectively. America cannot afford to step back in time to failed policies and have future generations pay for that mistake. Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association (202) 469-5140 <a href="mailto:Michael.McAdams@hklaw.com">Michael.McAdams@hklaw.com</a>

RAND Corp.'s findings are suspect and uninformed

The Clean Energy Generation

The biorefining industry is young, full of promising startups holding an array of technologies capable of working wonders in conversion of biomass to advanced biofuels and biobased chemicals&mdash;at lab- or maybe even pilot-scale. But when it comes to moving beyond the small-scale achievements of producing on-spec products in millimeter-sized beakers, what do project developers and technology providers need to consider for the next level of demonstration-scale production or, more importantly, commercialization?
Seeking answers to this question, we developed the March issue of Biorefining Magazine around the theme of scale-up. There are so many angles to think about during scale-up that it would be impossible to cover in a 40-page magazine. Considerations include choosing the right engineering firm to develop a scaled-up process, one that may not tell project developers what they want to hear but instead what needs to be heard.
As Marc Privitera and Christina Borgese, founding engineers of PreProcess Inc., write in their contribution article, &ldquo;Biorefining Technology Scale-Up,&rdquo; on page 34, &ldquo;Occasionally inventors see a success on the lab bench and assume the scale-up should just be a matter of routine. This is where many efforts fail. The scale-up is rushed, steps are skipped because the understanding of the complexities of scale-up had not been clearly articulated and thus expectations are not met. The carnage begins.&rdquo;
Privitera and Borgese say the irony is that big learning breakthroughs occur through the small failures experienced on the road to scale-up. &ldquo;However, if the team is underfunded or overstressed trying to fit a pre-assumed, inflexible scale-up expectation, the real pot of gold can be missed. A scale-up plan must be a fluid, agile path that adapts as new information emerges.&rdquo;
There are legal questions too, such as will your intellectual properties scale up when your technologies and processes do? This is addressed in the Legal Perspective column by Paul Craane, a partner attorney with Marshall, Gerstein &amp; Borun, on page 9 of this issue.
Author: Ron Kotrba Editor <a href="mailto:rkotrba@bbiinternational.com">rkotrba@bbiinternational.com</a>

Spring 2011 Pellet Mill Magazine

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

People, Partnerships & Deals

Columns

Introducing Pellet Mill Magazine

Pondering Pellets

Setting up an Internal Testing Lab

Consistency is Priority No. 1

Biorefining Technology Scale-Up

Will Your Patents Scale Up With You?

Ineos Bio Takes Advanced Biofuel Technology Commercial

The Clean Energy Generation

Scale Up

Featured

The Pellet Market from Different Perspectives

Raising the Bar

Capitalizing on Cane Waste

Pellet Pitfalls

Making Ends Meet

An Unconventional Pellet Feedstock

Burgeoning Biomass Importer

Building Ideas

Scaling Up to Biobased Chemicals

Going Global

Contributions

Learning from Austria's Biomass Thermal Success Story

Spring 2011 Pellet Mill Magazine.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

Columns

Introducing Pellet Mill Magazine

Pondering Pellets

Setting up an Internal Testing Lab

Consistency is Priority No. 1

Biorefining Technology Scale-Up

Will Your Patents Scale Up With You?

Ineos Bio Takes Advanced Biofuel Technology Commercial

The Clean Energy Generation

Scale Up

Featured

The Pellet Market from Different Perspectives

Raising the Bar

Capitalizing on Cane Waste

Pellet Pitfalls

Making Ends Meet

An Unconventional Pellet Feedstock

Burgeoning Biomass Importer

Building Ideas

Scaling Up to Biobased Chemicals

Going Global

Contributions

Learning from Austria's Biomass Thermal Success Story

Spring 2011 Pellet Mill Magazine