We just wrapped up the 2012 U.S. Biomass Power Map and although the number of proposed plants decreased from the previous map, that&rsquo;s mainly because several of them are now under construction and were moved to the operational list.
 The map consists of biomass power facilities that use solid biomass fuel to produce 1 megawatt or more of power and supply all or a portion of that power to the grid. Also included are conversions from coal to biomass, coal plants that are currently or planning to cofire with biomass.&nbsp;
 The Spring 2010 U.S. Biomass Power Map indicated a total of 49 proposed and proposed conversions, compared with 39 on the current map, and 147 operational, under construction and idled plants, compared with 161 on the current map.
 If you look closely, you will see that there were only six plants under construction on the spring map and 15 on the new map. Although some of those were just added this year, it&rsquo;s still a pretty impressive increase. I would imagine that the end of the year deadline for the U.S. Treasury&rsquo;s 1603 program may have had something to do with the increase in plants under construction.
 California continues to be the state with the most biomass power facilities, followed by Florida, New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Oregon. You may have noticed that I called this map the 2012 U.S. Biomass Power Map. No, that&rsquo;s not a typo. We decided that we are only going to do the map once a year in the future. In place of one of the biomass power maps, we will be adding a pellet mill map.
 On the bad news side, the spring map only had three idled biomass power plants and the latest map has seven. I&rsquo;m not sure if it is from a lack of feedstock because of the slump in the construction market, possibly some issues with power purchase agreements, or just competition with other energy sources.&nbsp; The operator of one plant that went from operating to idle told me that they are looking for a partner to help refurbish and operate the plant. So although that plant is idle now, there is still a chance that the plant will be operational once again when the next map is published.

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Biomass Power Map Info Shows Progress

The original Biomass Crop Assistant Program, or BCAP, had all the hallmarks of a well-intentioned but poorly conceived federal initiative. Among other things, it provided matching payments for the collection, harvesting, storage and transportation of biomass materials to so-called biomass conversion facilities. We all know how this story ended&mdash;the USDA was deluged with requests for matching payments for material that was not economic for use in biomass boilers before the BCAP program was even instated. These requests caused huge market distortions and a significant fiscal drain on the public. Add to that the payments for business-as-usual activities, and you had a poster child for a government program run amok.
 Fast forward three years after BCAP was passed by Congress. USDA, working with the forest products industry and nongovernmental organizations, corrected earlier flaws in the program. Most importantly, material would only qualify if it didn&rsquo;t have a higher commercial use in the market; waste products would qualify only if they would otherwise be openly burned or left to decay in landfills. Other important reforms were proposed and implemented by USDA, all with the support of the industry. Meanwhile, the corrected program was achieving its intended objectives by enabling the removal of tons of forest floor debris and other waste materials in places with a high risk of forest fires.
 Despite adjustments to the program, BCAP, like many other federal programs, increasingly became a convenient target for elimination. It was defunded by the House earlier this year, with the fate of the program hanging in the balance through the work of the Super Committee for the 2012 Farm Bill.
 BCAP may have a new lease on life, however, through the efforts of Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., who sponsored H.R. 3111, the Rural Economic Farm and Ranch Sustainability and Hunger Act of 2011, or REACH. A companion bill in the Senate by Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., appears imminent. REACH codifies many of the reforms that USDA made to the program in the most recent rulemaking, including the need to demonstrate that biomass material when used for energy is &ldquo;otherwise uneconomically retrievable.&rdquo; In other words, a waste product that, but for BCAP support, would be left to decay or burn&mdash;causing forest fires and climate change. Also, REACH requires the Secretary of Agriculture to make BCAP payments based on the most cost-effective proposals, and further requires that collection of material be done sustainably.
 The federal government has a critically important role to play in the health of our nation&rsquo;s forests. When properly implemented, BCAP matching payments are a cost-effective means of promoting healthy forests and supporting rural economies. Simply put, the BCAP provisions in REACH are worth fighting for. Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association <a href="http://www.USABiomass.org">www.USABiomass.org</a>

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USDA and Biomass Energy Policy

In recent months, renewable energy and energy investment have reemerged in the policy debate in Washington, D.C. Both Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., voiced their intentions in early October to address how the government should invest in energy. While Bingaman plans to hold a hearing on U.S. investments in clean energy in the coming weeks, Alexander intends to scrutinize permanent energy subsidies and focus investments in&nbsp; research for solar technologies, batteries, green buildings, carbon capture and storage, fusion, nuclear energy and biofuels. Once again, the importance of renewable thermal energy, specifically biomass, appears overlooked in the energy debate.&nbsp;
 To raise awareness on Capitol Hill of the importance of biomass thermal energy, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council and numerous renewable energy and environmental groups such as the Biomass Coordinating Council and the Pellet Fuels Institute are hosting a Biomass Thermal DC Summit on Nov. 16. This unprecedented event will unite the nation&rsquo;s biomass thermal businesses and educate policy makers about the considerable potential of biomass thermal energy in meeting America&rsquo;s growing demand for clean, reliable and domestic energy sources.
 The summit seeks to build upon the progress of numerous nonprofit organizations, community members, and businesses, in promoting biomass thermal energy. Nearly 20 biomass thermal-related groups and associations have already indicated their support for the summit, and the list continues to grow. As part of the summit, these organizations and their member companies will engage policy makers and demonstrate industry support for upcoming key legislative issues, such as energy provisions in the 2012 Farm Bill. Also, the summit will present the perfect venue for businesses and individuals to nurture or develop relationships with their members of Congress.
 Strengthening relationships with one&rsquo;s senators and representatives is especially important given the opportunity to grow the newly formed Congressional Biomass Caucus. It was only five months ago, that supporters of biomass thermal energy witnessed this significant accomplishment. The Congressional Biomass Caucus was founded to support the development of biomass and elevate this effectively forgotten renewable resource&rsquo;s profile in Congress. As of mid-October, the caucus roster stood at 13, and the upcoming summit will help to grow support and membership. Strong constituent-to-representative relationships and direct appeals are two of the most effective methods for increasing the size of the caucus and influence; the summit will facilitate both.
 Aside from displaying broad industry support, the summit will host several networking and informational activities for attendees, including a morning orientation on constituent-to-Congress communication &ldquo;best practices,&rdquo; a public biomass briefing with industry experts, and coordinated congressional&nbsp; and federal agency outreach. The summit will conclude with an evening congressional reception.
 It is BTEC and the participating groups&rsquo; goal that the summit will serve as a milestone for our often federally neglected industry. On Nov. 16, we will again place biomass thermal energy on our political leaders&rsquo; &ldquo;front burners.&rdquo; Your support and attendance will make our coalition even more effective. If you&rsquo;re interested in joining us in Washington, D.C., visit http://biomassthermal.org/events/thermalsummit.asp for additional information.&nbsp; For other inquiries on the summit, its activities, and potential event sponsorship, contact Stephen Gunther, BTEC policy and governmental affairs fellow, at Stephen.gunther@biomassthermal.org. Author: Stephen Gunther Policy and Governmental Affairs Fellow Ellen Abramowitz Education and Outreach Fellow Biomass Thermal Energy Council <a href="http://www.biomassthermal.org">www.biomassthermal.org</a>

Putting Biomass Thermal on the Front Burner in DC

One of the largest impediments to utilization of biomass as an augment to fossil fuels in larger-scale utility-scale boilers (cofiring) is the handling and conveyance properties of the biomass material. Biomass is derived from a plethora of plants and organic materials, therefore, as a fuel, it is unlike more common solid fuels such as coal (see Biomass Power &amp; Thermal, May 2011 issue, Energy Review column by Carolyn Nyberg, manager of EERC's Analytical Research Laboratory).
 The processing and handling of these various biomass types is not well-understood because such low volumes are consumed for utility power. In contrast, literally billions of tons of coal have been at the forefront of utility-generated electricity for more than a century. Utilities and coal companies are well-versed in mining, processing, handling and burning coal in boilers. Boilers are specifically designed for coals of certain ranks, such as bituminous, subbituminous and lignitic coal. There is no similar ranking for biomass. And since the physical properties of biomass materials are highly diverse, so are the costs for getting these fuels from the field or forest into the boiler.
 Most raw biomass has a relatively low-energy density and high- and variable-moisture contents, can be very hygroscopic. Because of high moisture and hygroscopicity, Biomass tends to rot during storage and has a tendency to have a fibrous nature that can make it difficult to grind into small particles with the conventional sizing technologies that are incorporated at fossil-fired utilities. Sizing biomass for use as a fuel can be a major expense and difficult, with each decrease in size adding attendant cost.
 Coarse biomass materials (greater than 1 inch), such as corncobs and wood chips, can be and are fired in stoker-feed and bubbling-bed systems, usually small industrial-sized systems. Circulating fluidized-bed systems and large industrial and small utility-sized systems require additional size reduction (typically 6.4 millimeter (one-fourth inch)). To use biomass in large industrial- and utility-sized, conventional suspension-fired systems or advanced entrained-flow gasification systems, the biomass must be significantly reduced in size. This facilitates efficient combustion, and the use of existing feed systems. For suspension-fired, coal-based power systems, the fuel is typically sized to 80 percent less than 200 mesh (0.003 inches). As most biomass material will have a lower density coupled with a higher reactivity rate, sometimes the biomass can be sized slightly larger, when compared to coal fired in the same system.
 One processing method that can actually increase the usability of the biomass in conventional fossil systems is torrefaction, a technology that has been more popular in Europe than in the United States over the past decade. Torrefaction can reduce the moisture of the biomass, increase the energy density, improve the grindability, and enhance the ease of conveyance, all of which are necessary for increased utilization of biomass in large-scale utility systems. Most of the information coming to the public from torrefaction systems is derived from experimental or demonstration systems. Various entities, including the Energy &amp; Environmental Research Center have developed these systems.
 Next month, we will highlight a type of torrefaction system being developed at the EERC and give more specifics on how these torrefaction systems may improve the use of biomass as a boiler fuel in utility boilers. Author: Bruce C. Folkedahl Senior Research Manager Energy &amp; Environmental Research Center (701) 777-5243 <a href="mailto:bfolkedahl@undeerc.org">bfolkedahl@undeerc.org</a>

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Torrefaction of Biomass Materials

Densification technologies aim to reduce the inefficiencies associated with transporting, handling and storing bulky biomass materials. Whereas the energy densities of coal and petroleum reflect the historical benefits of geologic densification, biomass has not been similarly subject to millions of years of heat and pressure. Instead, technology must be developed and employed to reduce the volumes of water and air contained in a biomass unit and improve its overall energy density. This need is made more dramatic by the fact that economies of scale continue to suggest that future facilities will be quite large and require significant amounts of biomass, which exacerbates the associated transportation, handling and storage risks. Contracting parties must continue to carefully consider these risks in conjunction with the densification technology being implemented, and the risks/benefits of the technology itself.
 Supply agreements address both security and availability of a continuous supply of feedstock, as well as the quality of that supply. The greater the feedstock requirements, the greater the potential exposure to risk of quality, supply and transportation costs. Even the same feedstock (corn stover) can vary widely in composition from simple variances in soil and moisture in a particular area. Thus, the farther the project reaches to ensure long-term supply and availability, the greater the chance for variability in fuel feedstock specifications. Some densification approaches, particularly those that include thermochemical technologies such as torrefaction, are uniquely suited to accept a wide variety of lignocellulosic materials and create a much cleaner, homogenous product. This is highly valued by the power generator because it reduces operation and emission risks.
 In addressing exposure to increases in transportation costs in power purchase negotiations, the power generator may want to pass through the delivered cost of the biomass feedstock or subject the power price to an inflationary adjustment reflecting the market price of transportation costs. The power off-taker will want to limit its exposure. This can be a critical negotiation, particularly for larger facilities pulling resources from long distances. If densification technologies can reduce transportation costs and exposure to transportation price fluctuations, the change may have dramatic implications for negotiations and project economics.
 The introduction of densification into the process can also add significant complexity and additional legal issues to consider. Pyrolytic oils, for example, are somewhat caustic and tend to degrade quickly, creating additional transport, storage and liability concerns. Processes that aim to create a cleaner feedstock may have associated waste to deal with, implicating federal or state hazardous waste statutes and rules. Further, emerging processes may introduce new technology risks that create project financing complications.&nbsp;
 There are also fundamental transaction elements to consider. Where and how will the densification happen? Will it be in one or more centralized facilities close to suppliers, will it be in many small or mobile units utilized on-farm or will some of it happen in the field or as part of the harvest process? If much of the process is on-farm, do state right-to-farm statutes add protection, or are federal or state feedstock utilization incentives more accessible? Does the developer, feedstock supplier or another third party own and operate the densification equipment? Do title and risk of loss transfer from the supplier to the densifier and then to the developer, and at what point? Who maintains ultimate responsibility for the feedstock specifications?
 All of these issues are project and technology specific and cannot be easily addressed without an identified set of facts. While adding a densification step can add complexity and introduce additional legal challenges, those challenges will most often be variations of those already dealt with in other biomass transactions, and may be easily outweighed by the significant benefits the right densification process could bring to a particular project. Author: Joe R. Thompson Partner, Stoel Rives LLP (612) 373-8822 <a href="mailto:jthompson@stoel.com">jthompson@stoel.com</a> Sara Bergan Associate, Stoel Rives LLP (612) 373-8819 <a href="mailto:sebergan@stoel.com">sebergan@stoel.com</a>

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Densification: Associated Legal Challenges and Opportunities

Hudson Clean Energy Partners forms joint venture with Chinese city&nbsp; The Yangzhou Municipal Government Financial Affairs Office and Hudson Clean Energy Partners executed a memorandum of understanding to jointly establish a RMB fund (a fund set up in Chinese currency) to invest in China&rsquo;s rapidly growing clean energy markets. Yangzhou, a city in Jiangsu, which is one of China&rsquo;s most affluent provinces, and Hudson have developed a mutually beneficial relationship based on strategic cooperation. The joint venture will enable substantial new investment in China, help harness the country&rsquo;s manufacturing prowess, and bring foreign technologies to China&rsquo;s domestic market. Yangzhou and Hudson expect to formally establish the RMB fund in the coming months. Zhongmin Shen, who recently joined Hudson as head of operations in China, is leading the effort. Shen has more than 17 years of experience in the independent power, private equity and clean energy sectors. Hudson is opening an office in Beijing.
 Tometich joins CPM Roskamp Champion as test center manager CPM has appointed Patty Tometich as test center manager. Tometich will be responsible for all applications testing at CPM&rsquo;s pelleting and particle size reduction test center in Waterloo, Iowa. Tometich has more than 16 years of experience testing materials and providing applications solutions for customers across various industries. Most recently she served as test lab manager for the University of Northern Iowa&rsquo;s National Ag-Based Lubricants Center in Waterloo. As a test lab supervisor for Nestle Beverage, she was responsible for process evaluation and development for powdered drink mixes. CPM&rsquo;s test center processes samples of customers&rsquo; materials in a lab that simulates full-scale equipment&mdash;pellet mills, hammermills, roll crushers and shredders&mdash;to determine the most cost-efficient and effective means to consistently produce customized pelleting and grinding solutions.
 MHG Systems develops tool for predicting biomass quality Finland-based MHG Systems has introduced a new feature for its popular MHG Bioenergy ERP (enterprise resource planning) service, which estimates the moisture content of biomass in storage. The estimate is based on an algorithm, which is built into the system. With this feature it is possible to accurately monitor the moisture content and value of the feedstock. Because of rapidly increasing feedstock purchases, controlling the moisture content of the feedstock in storage is important, not only because of economic efficiency, but also for ecological reasons. The higher the moisture content of the feedstock the smaller the compensation for the supplier when the billing is based on the energy content (megawatts). Additionally carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation and the amount of nitrogen and small particles during the burning process rise when transporting and using wet material.
 BinMaster introduces 3D MultiVision software BinMaster Level Controls has introduced 3D MultiVision, a Windows-based inventory management software for the 3DLevelScanner that enables users to view data for multiple bins in a single window. 3D MultiVision software can be used with all versions of the noncontact, dust penetrating 3DLevelScanner including the S, M, MV and MVL models. By clicking on a single bin, users can zoom in on detailed information for the bin including minimum, maximum and average levels and see the 3D visualization of bin content for the MV and MVL models. The software allows multiple users at multiple locations to view bin level and volume data 24/7 via their local area network. 3D MultiVision software makes real-time bin data available across the entire organization to improve purchasing, logistics, operational decision making and financial management.
 Vecoplan is accepted into Rockwell Automation Machine Builder Program VIC's parent company, Vecoplan LLC has been accepted into the Rockwell Automation Machine Builder Program, part of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork framework of an elite group of companies and service providers that have demonstrated exceptional design, delivery and support competency. Vecoplan earned a membership into the program by demonstrating consistent innovation and reliability of shredding and recycling equipment incorporating Rockwell Automation solutions. As a member of this program, Vecoplan customers can expect the industries most advanced and reliable technology, backed by Rockwell Automation's extensive support and expertise. The Machine Builder Program also allows Vecoplan to collaborate with Rockwell Automation, working closely with Rockwell engineers with full access to new technologies from Rockwell to design and develop new product technologies.
 Bandit welcomes three new dealers Three dealerships have joined the Bandit Industries dealer network, delivering the company&rsquo;s hand-fed wood chippers and stump grinders to new locations in the West and Midwest. Diamond Rental, KC Bobcat and White Star Machinery combined bring more than 170 years of service and experience. Diamond Rental in Salt Lake City is one of the largest organizations in the area with 13 locations throughout the Wasatch front. KC Bobcat has three locations in eastern Kansas and western Missouri, including Olathe, Kansas, and Blue Springs and Platte City, Mo. White Star Machinery is a division of Berry companies of Wichita, Kan., that operates 22 separate compact equipment locations throughout the lower central Midwest. White Star serves Bandit customers in Kansas through four locations, including Wichita, Manhattan, Garden City and Topeka.
 Montgomery County Transfer Station recognized for health and safety Covanta Energy announced that the Montgomery County Transfer Station operated by Covanta Montgomery Inc. has earned star status in Maryland&rsquo;s Voluntary Protection Program administered by the Maryland Occupational Safety and Health Administration. An official flag-raising ceremony was held on-site. VPP Star status is the highest honor given to work sites with comprehensive, successful safety and health management systems. Sites such as the Montgomery County Transfer Station have demonstrated their commitment to effective employee protection beyond the requirements of state or federal standards and participants develop and implement systems to effectively identify, evaluate, prevent and control occupational hazards to avert injuries and illnesses.
 Fulford appointed to ACORE advisory board The American Council On Renewable Energy has appointed Gen. Carlton W. Fulford Jr. U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) to its advisory board. In his 37 years in the Marine Corps, Gen. Fulford held numerous leadership positions, including Commanding General, Fleet Marine Force, Pacific Commanding General, I and III Marine Expeditionary Force, and Commanding Officer, Task Force Ripper during combat operations in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as part of Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm (1990-1991). He also served as the director of the Joint Staff and after leaving active duty, served as director of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense center focused on African security matters of importance to the United States. In 2006, he formed his own consulting firm and presently consults for U.S. government agencies and other private organizations on matters pertaining to U.S. national security.
 Metso to deliver biomass boiler to We Energies Metso will supply a biomass boiler to the Domtar Biomass Energy Project owned by We Energies. The biomass boiler is a key component of a major investment to build a new biomass-fueled cogeneration power plant that will be located at the Domtar Mill in Rothschild, Wis. The value of the order was not disclosed. The biomass boiler plant will utilize circulating fluidized bed technology and will use waste wood from logging and mill activity, tree trimming and sawdust as the main fuel. The plant will produce approximately 50 megawatts of renewable electric power and provide process steam to the mill.
 Foster Wheeler selects Emerson&rsquo;s technology for biomass-fired boiler Foster Wheeler has chosen Emerson Process Management&rsquo;s PlantWeb digital plant architecture with the Ovation expert control system and AMS Suite predictive maintenance software to control a new biomass boiler at the Polaniec Power Station in Poland. When operational in 2012, this will be the world&rsquo;s largest 100 percent biomass-fired boiler. Foster Wheeler is building the 190-megawatt-equivalent, biomass-fired, circulating fluidized-bed boiler island for plant owner GDF Suez. Poland has been investing in biomass power generation to achieve a target of producing 15 percent of its total energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020. Emerson&rsquo;s Ovation system features embedded advanced algorithms and proven control routines that continually adjust the combustion process to account for the varying characteristics of biomass fuels.

Patty Tometich will be responsible for testing at CPM's pellet and particle size reduction center. 

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CAPITALIZING ON CONSTRUCTION: Emerson will provide the maintenance software for Foster Wheeler's 190-megawatt biomass power plant in Poland. 

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Business Briefs

John Elliot, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corp. of Erie County, Pa., kicked off BBI International&rsquo;s Northeast Biomass Conference &amp; Trade Show on Oct. 12 with in-depth discussion about the opportunities for worldwide export of biomass through the Great Lakes.
 &ldquo;With Pennsylvania having over 14 million acres of forestlands and studies showing 6 million tons of biomass could be harvested sustainably each year, biomass caught our attention in a special way,&rdquo; Elliot said. To take advantage of Pennsylvania's vast natural resources, the EDCEC is redeveloping two ports on Lake Erie in addition to improving inland railways to provide full transportation services to export biomass.
 With relatively the same travel time to Europe from the Port of Baltimore, &ldquo;the St. Lawrence Seaway provides a tremendous inland waterway for export purposes,&rdquo; Elliot said.
 &ldquo;We see opportunity to develop biomass exports in Pennsylvania, helping biomass businesses significantly cut transportation costs by putting product on a ship set for export,&rdquo; Elliot said. The EDCEC believes exports through the Great Lakes could substantially benefit the entire region.&nbsp;
 To further its export initiative and solidify the process, the EDCEC is building strategic relationships with inland rail transportation and port authorities. In addition, the group is developing partnerships in Europe with buyers, ports and businesses that want to buy biomass product from the Erie region.&nbsp; On a local level, the development group started the Erie Inland Port Initiative, which is a &ldquo;transportation-based development strategy to grow the Lake Erie region&rsquo;s manufacturing, timber, shipping and logistics industries,&rdquo; according to the EDCEC.&nbsp; Fostering relationships overseas, Elliot visited Europe to connect the local wood supply with European markets.
 &nbsp;Through transportation-based investigative surveys, Elliot noted that transportation costs have become an overwhelming factor in the biomass trade. Research has shown that 23 percent of all intermodal transports in the region are filled with wood product, which Elliot believed is significant. Through the surveys, the group learned that many local companies transfer wood great distances to ports outside the region.
 The EDCEC is also developing specific real estate in close proximity to port locations that hold great potential for biomass businesses wanting to relocate. Elliot said that not only can the EDCEC provide information to potential businesses regarding biomass exports, but the group would be willing to discuss further incentives to help make biomass exports a reality for the Pennsylvania region. The conference was held Oct. 11-13 in Pittsburgh.
&mdash;Matt Soberg

ERIE EXPORT INITIATOR: Elliot told attendees of the Northeast Biomass Conference & Trade Show about the Erie Inland Port Initiative and the regionâ€™s efforts to connect the local wood supply with European markets.

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Great Lakes ports to prepare for biomass exports.

Going Global

A single, science-based and inclusive definition of biomass is perhaps the key focal point in the biomass industry&rsquo;s efforts to bolster policy that can spur development, according to Charlie Niebling, general manager of pellet producer New England Wood Pellet.&nbsp;
 He spoke during a general session panel for the Northeast Biomass Conference &amp; Trade Show, held Oct. 11-13 in Pittsburgh. Niebling was among four speakers who examined the 25x&rsquo;25 National Wood-to-Energy Roadmap, focusing on the report&rsquo;s four main points&mdash;wood demand and supply, sustainability, carbon and climate change, and policy.
 Niebling focused on policy, letting attendees in on his opinion as to what areas will be the most important in the future. Besides a biomass definition, opposition of tax subsidies for fossil fuel energy, targeted extension of tax credits or authorization of new ones, and support for appropriations for specific programs will be crucial, he said. Glancing at fellow speaker John Ferrell, who is the chair of the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s Woody Biomass Utilization Group, Niebling added that an expansion of the DOE&rsquo;s Biomass Program to embrace thermal projects is also of utmost importance.
 Comparing the biomass industry policy environment in 2010 to that of today, Niebling pointed out the burgeoning tax policies, Farm Bill, fiscal stimulus, and new investments of 2010. &ldquo;It was a very rich and fertile period,&rdquo; he said, adding later, &ldquo;Things have changed rather dramatically in the past 18 months.&rdquo;
 In the wood-to-energy roadmap, policy recommendations are general and include setting realistic energy goals with properly scaled mandates; keeping forests as forests; refraining from distinguishing between new and old investments; increasing the supply of wood; and ensuring sustainability. &ldquo;That is a given in this industry,&rdquo; he said of sustainability.
 Tasked with addressing the sustainability portion of the roadmap, speaker Bruce Arnold, consultant for Woody Biomass Pulp and Paper, said one of the main questions addressed by the sustainability working group in its research for the report was how to protect forest values in the midst of an increased demand for wood as an energy feedstock. Millenium Ecosystem Assessment recently came up with a definition of forest sustainability services that includes provisioning, such as food and water; regulating, including climate, floods and disease; cultural, including recreational and aesthetic; and supporting, including nutrient cycling.
 &ldquo;Land conversion is the major threat to our nation&rsquo;s forests,&rdquo; Arnold said. Interestingly, he told the crowd that the same amount of forest cover from 100 years ago still exists today, although urban development is expected to reduce forest cover 4 percent by 2050. &ldquo;Now the good news,&rdquo; he continued. &ldquo;Sustainable forest management is existing and it is widespread.&rdquo; Removal of woody biomass for energy may actually improve forest health and help prevent or reduce wildfires, he concluded.
 Dave Tenny, president and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, followed Arnold and addressed the carbon and climate change aspect of the wood-to-energy roadmap. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not part of the solution, you&rsquo;re often times considered part of the problem, in terms of policy,&rdquo; Tenny said, adding that life is better when you&rsquo;re part of the solution.
 He launched into an explanation of the ongoing forest carbon cycle, saying that looking only at the carbon dioxide release portion of the cycle, as the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s Tailoring Rule did upon its release, portrays an incomplete picture. &ldquo;When you only take that part of the cycle into account, you are part of the problem,&rdquo; Tenny said. Tailoring Rule regulation is now deferred for biogenic emissions for the next three years, as the EPA employs a team of scientists to investigate the forest carbon cycle.
 During that time, it&rsquo;s important for the biomass industry to be active in communicating its own benefits. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s time to start speaking up,&rdquo; Tenny said. Key talking points to communicate to Congress, the USDA, DOE, White House and EPA include removing policy restraints from the scientific review of biogenic emissions, and ensuring consideration of new information regarding carbon life cycles and forest carbon.
 The DOE did have a presence on the panel in Ferrell, who addressed wood demand and supply. A few of the wood supply findings from the roadmap include the fact that wood for energy demand will be driven by short-term public policy. He also emphasized that the report&rsquo;s sustainability working group found the future role of public lands in wood supply to be modest.
 He mentioned the 2011 Billion-Ton Update, released in August, which investigated biomass supply through 2030 under a number of scenarios. The baseline scenario with the cost of biomass at $60 per ton, found about 473 million dry tons in 2012, increasing to 1.1 billion in 2030.
 Ferrell also mentioned initiatives bolstering liquid biofuels and said logistics are the Achilles heel of biomass energy.
 Arnold said the National Wood-to-Energy Roadmap is crucial at a time when interest in wood energy is increasing, while private forest investment lags, forest health and fire threats present large concerns, and views of using biomass for energy differ.
 &ldquo;There&rsquo;s growing interest, clearly, in wood for energy in the U.S.,&rdquo; Arnold said.
&mdash;Lisa Gibson

WOODY BIOMASS PROFILE: Arnold (left to right), Ferrell, Niebling and Tenny examined the 25xâ€™25 National Wood-to-Energy Roadmap during a general session panel at the Northeast Biomass Conference & Trade Show.

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Industry experts discuss wood's role in U.S. energy policy 

Wood-to-Energy Roadmap

Since construction started in March, the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center, a 100-megawatt biomass power plant in Gainesville, Fla., is on track to being operational by the third quarter of 2013. &ldquo;The project has enjoyed favorable summer weather for construction and is making great progress,&rdquo; says Josh Levine, vice president, project development for American Renewables, the GREC development company.
 Minnesota-based Fagen Inc. is constructing the plant with engineering being performed by Zachry Engineering Corp. About 65,000 man hours of construction and 30,000 for engineering have been performed on the site as of the end of August, Levine says.&nbsp;
 &nbsp;&ldquo;The project will use advanced combustion technology and the latest boiler and emissions control technology to achieve best available emissions,&rdquo; according to American Renewables.&nbsp;
 The GREC&rsquo;s wood-handling system is being provided by Wolf Material Handling Systems of Elk River, Minn., Metso Power is supplying a bubbling fluidized bed boiler, and a steam turbine generator system is being installed by Siemens Energy.&nbsp;
 Project planning began in 2006 and, after a one-year negotiation period with Gainesville Regional Utilities, the local utility provider, a 30-year power purchase agreement was signed in 2009. The plant will provide enough electricity to power 70,000 homes, according to American Renewables.
 The permitting process was quite extensive, and local development site plans were required in addition to a state site certificate for facilities over 75 megawatts. Final state permits were obtained in 2010.
 Cost projections provide a capital total of hard and soft costs at just under $500 million, according to Levine. Close to its financial goal, the developers have successfully raised nearly $500 million in construction financing to date. The ongoing involvement of capital partners and financiers has allowed the project to remain on schedule.&nbsp;
 &ldquo;Completion of construction financing allows GREC to move forward without delay, ensuring that the Gainesville community will receive the many environmental and economic benefits of this renewable energy facility,&rdquo; says Jim Gordon, president of GREC.
 &ldquo;The success of this transaction, completed on a tight timeline with the participation of eight sophisticated, renewable-project finance lenders, demonstrates that a well-structured biomass transaction is understood by the project finance market and results in a marketable asset class,&rdquo; says Chris Smith, GREC project financial advisor. The combination of the power purchase agreement for 100 percent of output with an established utility, proven technology, and firm-price construction contract gives the GREC project strong credit fundamentals, he adds.
 Nearly 1 million tons of green woody biomass, or 600 million dry tons, will be needed to fuel the plant annually, which will be obtained within a 75-mile radius of Gainesville.
 Gainesville-based BioResource Management Inc. will manage feedstock procurement for the facility. Wood Resources Recovery, also in Gainesville, will provide a large portion of the biomass to fuel the facility.&nbsp;
 The GREC is co-located with GRU&rsquo;s 235-megawatt, coal-powered facility on 1,046 acres near Gainesville, 131 acres of which are leased by GREC. With the local utility largely dependent on coal imports from outside the region, significant money and resources will be kept local as a result of the GREC&rsquo;s efforts, according to Levine.&nbsp;
 Economic development projections show that the GREC will generate more than 1,100 direct and indirect jobs in the region, including 400 construction jobs during peak construction. Once operational, the facility will include 40 full-time positions on site, and provide approximately 700 indirect jobs throughout the region in the areas of forestry, supply, transportation and other secondary industries. &ldquo;In a county with high unemployment rates, this project is creating jobs where they are needed the most,&rdquo; Levine says.
&mdash;Matt Soberg

BIG IN BIOMASS: Favorable summer weather benefitted the construction schedule of the 100-MW GREC plant.

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Gainesville, Fla., biomass plant construction is on schedule and promises to be a jobs creator

GREC Making Progress

In September, Pennsylvania&rsquo;s Commonwealth Financing Authority approved a total of about $1.4 million for four biomass projects, adding to the already astounding dollar amount invested in the biomass industry in the state over the past few years.
 &ldquo;This is nothing new for Pennsylvania,&rdquo; says John Nikoloff, partner with Energy Resources Group Partners, a Pennsylvania-based consulting group. &ldquo;The state has put out tens of millions of dollars for biomass projects in the last five, six years.&rdquo;
 The latest round of funding comes from the Renewable Energy Program and the Alternative and Clean Energy (ACE) Program. ACE was launched in 2008 with a budget of $180 million for renewable projects not relating to solar, wind or geothermal. The program still retains about half of its budget and has awarded more than $21 million in grants and loans to biomass projects around Pennsylvania, Nikoloff says, adding that the funding is ongoing and not limited to once per year.
 &ldquo;Ever since the state set up the Alternative and Clean Energy Program, there has been an awful lot of ongoing support for biomass projects,&rdquo; he says.
 The four projects include two anaerobic digesters and two biomass boilers, all qualifying for net metering, Nikoloff explains. A digester at Pleasant View Farms in Martinsburg, Pa., received about $790,200 in grants and loans to cover about half of its total project cost of $1.6 million. The dairy digester will create about 1.15 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of power each year, leaving plenty of extra electricity to sell to the grid.
 The other anaerobic digester will use manure and potato peelings from Herr Foods in the Chester County town of Nottingham to produce about 2.84 million kWh of power. That project received a $350,000 grant to put toward its total cost of $1.8 million.
 The biomass boilers will be installed in the 7,000-square-foot McKanna Cooperage Building in extreme northeast Pennsylvania&rsquo;s Wayne County, and in organic greenhouse company Peace Tree Farm in Bucks County. The McKanna Cooperage Building received $35,430, about half the project cost, for biomass heating and cooling to replace about 4,500 gallons of diesel, Nikoloff says. Peace Tree Farms received almost $230,000 for its $460,000 project that will generate 2 megawatts of power from 465 tons of wood pellets per year.
 ERG Partners has helped a number of projects gain funding from the ACE program and it&rsquo;s not the only funding source available, Nikoloff says. The Energy Harvest Program was set up by the state departments of agriculture and environmental protection in 2003 and has since awarded more than $15 million to about 45 biomass projects including anaerobic digesters and combined-heat-and-power installations. The state has also funded feedstock growth, pellet, and torrefaction projects, realizing the benefits of endeavors that may not be as &ldquo;sexy&rdquo; as drop-in transportation fuels, Nikoloff says.
 &ldquo;I think the state&rsquo;s done a really good job of recognizing it, working with individual farms, small businesses and communities to help finance everything from anaerobic digesters to heating systems for regional hospitals in the state,&rdquo; he says.
&mdash;Lisa Gibson

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State provides funding for AD systems, feedstock growth, pellet and torrefaction projects.

Deep Pennsylvania Pockets

The U.K.&rsquo;s Renewable Heat Incentive will launch two months later than planned, following concerns from the European Commission about the tariff level for large biomass technologies.
 When the program made its way through Parliament in July, it was still subject to approval from the European Commission. The U.K.&rsquo;s Department of Energy and Climate Change was ready to launch the first step of the program, dealing with nondomestic generators on Sept. 30. But the commission came back to the DECC with an approval that hinges on a reduction of the tariff for large biomass technologies, currently proposed at 2.7 pence per kilowatt hour. That means the RHI will need to be amended and submitted again to Parliament for approval.
 The RHI program offers long-term support to compensate for capital and operating costs, as well as to remove additional barriers and ease financial costs, for thermal technologies classed as renewable under the U.K.&rsquo;s Renewable Energy Directive. Support will be distributed in the form of tariffs based on technology and size.
 &ldquo;We are fully committed to introducing the Renewable Heat Incentive,&rdquo; another DECC spokesperson says. &ldquo;However, we understand that the European Commission state aid approval for the RHI will be subject to a reduction in the large biomass tariff. We expect to receive written confirmation of this very shortly. This means we now need to change the regulations before the scheme can open to applications. We understand this is frustrating for industry who are already gearing up for the RHI. However, we hope to get this sorted out soon and open the scheme before the end of November.&rdquo;
&mdash;Lisa Gibson

The U.K.'s DECC has delayed the launch of its RHI program.

Implementation Impediment  

The Rural Industries Research and Development Corp., a research organization commissioned by the Australian government, published a report, &ldquo;Facilitating the Adoption of Biomass Co-Firing for Power Generation,&rdquo; to ascertain whether emissions reduction can be achieved through cofiring coal with biomass. The RIRDC says its mandate is to &ldquo;achieve results from research and development for new emerging industries, specific established rural industries and national rural issues.&rdquo;
 One of the most cost-effective ways to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is to substitute a renewable fuel, such as biomass, for a proportion of coal to generate power, according to Craig Burns, RIRDC managing director. Biomass cofiring is used worldwide in countries attempting to meet GHG reduction goals.
 The Australian government is already in the process of directing emissions reduction through legislation, which has been introduced into parliament, and may be enacted in July, according to the research organization.
 Researchers addressed barriers to adopting cofiring technology within the real-world context of power generators, landholders, policymakers and others in the supply chain, according to the report. The focus was on factors affecting adoption of cofiring and not the technology itself, which is proven and commercially available, the report says. The barriers to cofiring were identified as economics, environmental concerns, the biomass market, and perceptions and attitudes.&nbsp;
 The researchers also considered various types of feedstocks including agricultural biomass, wood waste and urban waste. The cofiring possibilities were reviewed at low levels, 3 percent by energy value, which is an entry level opportunity to reduce GHGs and would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.4 million metric tons annually.
 The conclusion was that the logistics surrounding biomass cofiring present a multifaceted problem, where simply addressing one barrier would not result in resolution. Economics is a key driver, meaning if the economics do not exist to tempt investors, the motivation to proceed with a biomass project in Australia may not exist. Despite the barriers, the report provides recommendations to make cofiring viable in Australia.
 Regarding economics, researchers determined that biomass cofiring economics are marginal under current policy settings, and that the prices generators are willing to pay may limit the market to extremely low-cost materials. They recommended that the government explore state-based renewable energy policy measures to bridge the economic viability gap for the benefit of biomass cofiring.
 Another concern was the nationwide resistance to combusting woody material for energy production due to perceived environmental effects. To overcome this barrier, researchers suggested the country convene a roundtable of key parties to discuss these concerns, commission a science-based analysis of forestry management, develop a communications program to clarify the effects of biomass, and to agree on a plan for future action.&nbsp;
 Numerous barriers were identified regarding the potential biomass market including the lack of information on biomass availability, and lack of an organized market. The research recommended the industry identify biomass sources, such as land-clearing residue and regrowth management, in the short, medium and long term.
 The report also says that the possibility of one or more major generators expressing a genuine commercial interest in biomass cofiring could serve as a focal point for industry development. Overcoming the perceptions and attitudes surrounding bioenergy can be challenging, however, social research, community education and outward support from biomass cofiring proponents may be paths to educate the detractors about the benefits of bioenergy.&nbsp;
&nbsp; The report, which was co-funded by RIRDC, the Queensland Office of Clean Energy and three Queensland electricity generators, CS Energy, NRG Gladstone Operating Services and Tarong Energy, can be found at www.rirdc.gov.au.
&mdash;Matt Soberg

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Australia explores whether emissions reduction can be achieved through cofiring.

Cofiring Conundrum

Laying out the costs, constraints and resources wrapped up in six different energy technologies, the Electric Power Research Institute has set out to provide an overview of the electricity generation options for utilities, as well as the general public, through 2025.
 Program on Technology Innovation: Integrated Generation Technology Options provides a near- and longer-term multifaceted overview of each technology, including a brief description of each; current and projected technology performance costs; major technical development direction and trends; fuel resource considerations; relevant business issues; and environmental concerns and considerations. Fuels taken into account include coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar and biomass. &ldquo;We tried to take a comprehensive view of the power generation options that are most likely to play a significant role in the mix moving forward,&rdquo; says John Hutchinson, EPRI senior project manager and principal investigator for the report. Geothermal was excluded this time, but may be included in future updates of the work, which began with an initial report in 2007, according to Stan Rosinski, program manager for EPRI. &ldquo;It is a somewhat comparative view,&rdquo; Hutchinson says of the report.
 In 2015, the total cost for a bubbling fluidized bed boiler biomass plant is estimated to be between $3,500 and $4,400 per kilowatt (kW), according to the recent report. Total plant costs for nonrenewable technologies, such as natural gas, at between $1,060 and $1,150 per kW, fell well below that. But nuclear was right up at the top with biomass at $3,900 to $4,400. The total plant cost per kW of coal is $2,000 to $2,300.
 Comparing biomass with other renewables looks much more promising. Off-shore wind is estimated to cost between $3,100 and $4,000 per kW in 2015, while concentrating solar thermal tips the scale at $3,300 to $5,300 with photovoltaic following close behind at $3,400 to $4,600. In 2025, solar, nuclear and wind power plant total costs are estimated to go down, as are biomass, estimated at $3,400 to $4,250 per kW. The total cost of nuclear power plants goes down slightly between 2015 and 2025, but coal plant costs are predicted to rise considerably when taking into account added carbon capture and storage technologies, according to the report.
 &ldquo;When you consider what the electric utilities and that sector of the industry are looking for in terms of their future planning, they want to be able to compare for their planning purposes what they see as a potential scenario for the future cost of any particular technology,&rdquo; Rosinski says. &ldquo;They have to weigh the different factors of what kind of generation they want to continue to pursue.&rdquo;
 Biomass was considered a major fuel in the report because it offers the important benefit of cofiring a renewable fuel with coal while maintaining existing assets, Hutchinson adds. Key biomass-related issues identified in the report include reducing costs and increasing fuel availability. Those costs can be reduced by mass application and economy of scale, the report adds. It would also help if biomass were consistently addressed in renewable portfolio standards.
 &ldquo;Certainly renewable energy standards factor into the mix of which renewable energy technologies we included, given that some states require some specific renewable energy technologies in their renewable energy standards, biomass included,&rdquo; Hutchinson says.
 The report provides an assessment, albeit a snapshot in time, based on how the EPRI researchers see the costs evolving, Rosinski says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really a tool the electricity industry can use to look at some of their future planning options for generating capacity.
 &ldquo;It&rsquo;s our intent to share some of this information with the public so that others that use this type of information in developing long-term energy economic studies have a view into the industry in terms of what we see as the cost for these technologies moving forward,&rdquo; Rosinski says.
&mdash;Lisa Gibson

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Electricity study includes biomass in near- and long-term power generation analysis.

Comparing Costs

A workshop, &ldquo;Transforming Biomass into Feedstock,&rdquo; was held in August at the Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho Falls, and was sponsored by various organizations including the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s Office of Science, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy&rsquo;s Biomass Program.
 The workshop was held to inform the bioenergy industry about preconversion and densification to increase biomass bulk and energy density for improved logistics and performance in bioenergy applications.&nbsp;
 Processing raw biomass can be difficult due to its variability, according to Kevin Kenney, an INL bioenergy researcher. The workshop was designed to enhance discussions about how to transfer raw biomass into high-quality feedstock, and presenters discussed three areas of feedstock preparation, namely, preconversion, formulation and densification.
 The event featured the new Feedstock Process Demonstration Unit (PDU) designed by the DOE&rsquo;s Biomass Program to test and evaluate feedstock logistic technologies in the field. The PDU consists of a series of engineering-scale test units that integrate multiple steps of the feedstock logistics system, from collection and densification of feedstock to storage, queuing and moisture management, according to the DOE. The unit physically tests formulized feedstock-related theories and ideas.
 The transportable PDU, which can process 5 tons of biomass per hour, provided first-hand demonstration of feedstock processing. A two-hour demonstration displayed an example of blending feedstocks, specifically corn stover, eucalyptus, pine and switchgrass, to produce an optimal fuel. Research has shown that some blends can be pretreated more easily than any one feedstock alone, Kenney says.&nbsp;
 Each session included discussion and feedback between researchers and industry professionals, identifying barriers to developing optimal biomass feedstock. The information will help the sponsors and DOE develop and update the biomass feedstock roadmap to describe the vision, barriers and plan for the next generation of feedstocks, according to the INL.
 Workshop materials and webinar links can be found at https://secure.inl.gov/densification2011/default.aspx.
&mdash;Matt Soberg

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INL explores challenges of transforming biomass into a feedstock commodity.

Creating a Commodity 

W2E Organic Power is building an anaerobic digestion facility in Columbia, S.C., which will be its flagship template for future waste-to-energy (WtE) projects. Construction is expected to start shortly and it is anticipated to begin operating in 2012 at a cost of $23 million.&nbsp;
 The project is a collaboration involving three companies, W2E, Ciycor LLC and Eisenmann, all specializing in various aspects of the renewable energy industry. &ldquo;We have developed a significant group of partners with waste streams for our system and we look forward to beginning this brand new effort to process waste into energy,&rdquo; says W2E CEO Daniel Rickenmann.&nbsp;
 Ciycor, a renewable energy and construction company, is a co-developer and financial partner with W2E on the project. &ldquo;The strength of the project has been greatly enhanced by the addition of Ciycor to the team, and we couldn&rsquo;t be more positive about the early completion of the Columbia facility,&rdquo; Rickenmann says.
 Eisenmann, an engineering and renewable energy technology firm, will be designing and engineering the anaerobic digestion technology for the facility. Adam Halsband, Eisenmann business development manager, says that W2E and Eisenmann will partner to optimize the facility&rsquo;s operations. &ldquo;The W2E facility is a truly sustainable, renewable energy facility returning the nutrients from the organic waste back to the Earth,&rdquo; according to Eisenmann. &ldquo;Closing the loop, the soil amendment produced by the facility will be used for local agriculture as well as commercial and residential landscape applications.&rdquo;
 The organics used for the anaerobic process will be food, grease, waste produce, yard waste and others. The company has received commitments for numerous commercial waste streams from large companies such as Walmart and Blue Cross Blue Shield.
 Because anaerobic digestion technology is relatively new to South Carolina, the permitting process took some time to complete, however, W2E did receive a solid waste permit from the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control in January, paving the way for construction to begin.&nbsp; The 3.2-megawatt facility will process approximately 48,000 metric tons of waste per year. A long-term power purchase agreement with Santee Cooper, South Carolina&rsquo;s state-owned utility, has been obtained for supply of renewable electricity. Additional agreements are being negotiated according to W2E.
 &ldquo;As the first of its kind in the United States, the Columbia facility marks a new way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while providing an alternative source of energy to the electrical grid,&rdquo; Eisenmann says.&nbsp;
 With the Columbia facility as its prototype, W2E is planning and negotiating permits and PPAs for other facilities the company hopes to build in the next 24 to 36 months. Additional WtE plants are planned in Gastonia, N.C., and Baton Rouge, La., according to W2E.
&mdash;Matt Soberg

POWERFUL WASTE: W2E will be using many forms of organic waste in its AD system, and has received commitments for numerous commercial waste streams from large companies such as Walmart and Blue Cross Blue Shield.

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W2E launches model anaerobic digestion facility in Columbia, S.C. 

W2E's Flagship WtE Facility

Just a few months into the development of its miscanthus-growing Biomass Crop Assistance Program project areas, solid biofuels producer Aloterra Energy LLC sees the BCAP program&rsquo;s job creation goal rapidly coming to fruition.
 Since the project areas were announced in June, inquiries about the program and how to get involved in the projects have come in from all over the country, as well as internationally, according to Scott Coye-Huhn, director of business development for Aloterra. And the rhizomes haven&rsquo;t even been planted yet.
 &ldquo;That&rsquo;s part of the job growth in this,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We have many companies, even entrepreneurs, coming to us with ideas as to how they can support our project, which is really exciting.&rdquo;
 Most of the BCAP project areas Aloterra has interest in occupy regions that have suffered from high unemployment rates, Coye-Huhn explains. So he doesn&rsquo;t conceal his enthusiasm when discussing the new small businesses getting off the ground that will provide harvesting and trucking services for the farmers participating in those stricken project areas.
 Near Aurora, Mo., farmer Rusty Mulford says people are lined up to help harvest and transport giant miscanthus. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s just BCAP creating more jobs,&rdquo; he says.
 But besides job creation, and perhaps equally important, the BCAP funding is also helping to establish the groundwork for a miscanthus-based bioenergy industry that maybe soon won&rsquo;t need any financial help from the government.
 &ldquo;We are looking at projections that we&rsquo;ll be able to plant this incredible energy crop for the same price as corn in a few years,&rdquo; Coye-Huhn says. &ldquo;Anyone in America that wants an energy crop is going to have access to it because of BCAP.&rdquo; The program is about more than just creating project areas and growing some energy crops, he emphasizes.
 &ldquo;This is about sowing the seeds, pardon the pun, for the energy industry and getting the infrastructure in place and learning what works and what doesn&rsquo;t work,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;All of these things are happening very quickly.&rdquo;
 The Projects 
 Of the nine BCAP project areas, Aloterra has four, spanning four states. The company will solely operate its project stretching across northeast Ohio and into a bit of northwest Pennsylvania. In Missouri, Aloterra is developing two areas&mdash;one near Columbia in the central part of the state and the other in the southwest near Aurora, with partner farmer cooperative MFA Oil Co. The two organizations have formed MFA Oil Biomass LLC, which will handle the projects. MFA Oil Biomass will also be responsible for another project area in Arkansas.
 &ldquo;To our surprise, there was a strong call from the farming community in northeast Arkansas,&rdquo; Coye-Huhn says. The area has a number of unique problems, including significant underground water resource depletion and runoff. &ldquo;And the farmers are looking for solutions and one of those solutions, as they see it, is our crop miscanthus because it&rsquo;s very efficient in its water use and is a good alternative, an option, for them. So we agreed to start another project down there under BCAP and it&rsquo;s actually ended up being one of our strongest areas.&rdquo;
 In total, the four areas represent about 18,000 acres and more than 200 farming families who have dedicated their land to the perennial crop. &ldquo;Our goal is 50,000 acres in each area,&rdquo; Coye-Huhn says. &ldquo;The government allocated us enough money to get us started this year with BCAP.&rdquo;
 Those farm families are responsible for 25 percent of the planting costs out-of-pocket, but get a rent payment for their land and matching payments on the backend of up to $45 per ton of harvested and delivered miscanthus.
 Aloterra and MFA Oil Biomass are in the process now of completing the contracts and conducting rigorous environmental and conservation plans for each farm. &ldquo;The expectations are fairly high,&rdquo; Coye-Huhn says, adding that the government wants to be absolutely certain that it is not introducing a problem plant.
 How it Works
 With environmental consideration plans in place, planting for the BCAP areas is set to begin in the spring. Aloterra and MFA will handle that aspect of the project with around 20 custom-made rhizome-tailored planters, as traditional seed-planting farm equipment will not be sufficient. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pretty massive logistical undertaking,&rdquo; Coye-Huhn says.
 The farmers will then be responsible for growing and caring for the plants, which take two years to mature before a proper harvest can commence. Because the crop is so dense and cannot be easily harvested by most traditional farm machinery, Aloterra and MFA will have harvesting services available for their farmers, in addition to the independent local companies gearing up to provide jobs in harvesting and transporting.
 Farmers will transport the miscanthus not more than 50 miles to either Aloterra&rsquo;s pellet facility in Ohio or MFA Oil Biomass&rsquo;s pellet plant in Missouri. The Ohio mill now produces small batches of pellets for test-firing using miscanthus from Aloterra's own non-BCAP Ohio farm. But the Missouri plant produces a modest several tons per hour, also with miscanthus pulled from non-BCAP participant fields, for a few customers under contract. The 18,000 BCAP acres are set to yield between 10 and 15 tons of miscanthus per acre, producing about 216,000 tons of pellets per year. But at full capacity, at the 50,000 acres-per-project-area goal, the facilities will together be pumping out around 2.4 million tons of pellets per year. Market opportunities for those pellets lie in combined-heat-and-power applications and commercial power plants, but primarily in agricultural heating markets, Coye-Huhn says.&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp; &ldquo;With our farmer co-op in Missouri, we had a fairly large customer base built in,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We have a huge agricultural heating need in this country.&rdquo; The need is massive in the sector, which currently relies on fuels that fluctuate in price, such as propane. The miscanthus pellets, however, have a cost per Btu very competitive with propane.
 Coye-Huhn emphasizes energy costs as the No. 1 issue for farmers today and expects it to only get worse without more advancements such as this. He specifically addresses poultry farms and their need for barn heating that isn&rsquo;t harmful to their animals.
 &ldquo;The type of heating can actually influence the health and size of their birds,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We know that our pellets actually create larger chickens and create an environment more conducive than other heating fuels. So it&rsquo;s not just about cost for these farmers.&rdquo;
 Mulford, who will dedicate 90 of his 150 acres to MFA Oil Biomass&rsquo;s Aurora project area, is one of those farmers. He runs a 360,000-chicken poultry farm along with a cow and calf operation of about 30 animals. &ldquo;Energy is a huge cost on my farm,&rdquo; he says.
 Situated in a logging industry region, Mulford has heated his six poultry barns with wood pellets made from sawdust since 2008, but the recent housing slump caused a shortage of feedstock. He plans to switch to about 120 tons per year of miscanthus pellets, knowing firsthand the feedstock is secure and furthering the advantages his BCAP participation will bring.
 &ldquo;I really think it&rsquo;s going to stabilize the source of biomass,&rdquo; Mulford says. &ldquo;That will give me a place to buy biomass every year that&rsquo;s dependable and reliable. And I get to grow my own so that offsets the cost even more.&rdquo;
 And such benefits aren&rsquo;t lost on Coye-Huhn. &ldquo;We recognized a couple years ago when we were assessing biomass projects that if you don&rsquo;t have the ability to provide everything along the entire supply chain, you aren&rsquo;t going to be successful.&rdquo;
 While the focus for the miscanthus grown on MFA and Aloterra&rsquo;s BCAP project areas is pellets for now, other options and products are being explored. Pellets, however, are a very deliberate model for the companies because the technologies and markets already exist, Coye-Huhn says. &ldquo;The bottom line is we need to make sure our farmers get the best return for their crop.&rdquo;
 BCAP in a Bind
 While Aloterra has good news to report from its project areas and the same can be expected from most, if not all the other companies involved in BCAP, it&rsquo;s going to be a tough road ahead. The U.S. House has voted to defund the program for 2012 and BCAP&rsquo;s fate now lies in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved the 2012 Farm Bill with full BCAP funding. The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved the 2012 Farm Bill with full BCAP funding.
 Still, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced project areas after that devastating vote, including Aloterra&rsquo;s and MFA&rsquo;s, and has said he is working to convince the Senate to maintain funding.
 &ldquo;BCAP is certainly on a respirator right now,&rdquo; Coye-Huhn says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m an optimist by nature and I believe our Congress is starting to see the benefits. I know the Senate gets it and the House is starting to.&rdquo; Even if the program survives funding cuts, Coye-Huhn thinks the matching payment element is still in trouble.
 &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t say strongly enough how important this program is,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And exactly what the government wants to happen is happening.&rdquo; Rural communities are being redeveloped, money is being put in farmers&rsquo; pockets and we are beginning to grow our own energy, he says, and it&rsquo;s all happening very quickly. Mulford would add that he sees no negatives coming from the program and it has spurred him and others to take hold of the bioenergy industry, growing crops for the very first time. &ldquo;Without BCAP, I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;d participate in this,&rdquo; he adds.
 The positive changes are coming about so quickly, in fact, that the point when BCAP funding isn&rsquo;t needed to support a robust miscanthus industry may be right around the corner. &ldquo;I really hope it gets to where we don&rsquo;t need a BCAP program,&rdquo; Mulford says, adding that he expects the price of rhizomes to decrease with the massive planting in the program, also influenced by Aloterra&rsquo;s continued and growing supply.
 &ldquo;If we can make it with [BCAP] just helping us get started, that&rsquo;s a successful program,&rdquo; Mulford says. Author: Lisa Gibson Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 738-4952 <a href="mailto:lgibson@bbiinternational.com">lgibson@bbiinternational.com</a>

PELLET CONVEYANCE: Aloterra and MFA Oil Biomass have the potential to produce 2.4 million tons of miscanthus pellets a year. 


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PELLET PILE: The commercial miscanthus pellet mill in Missouri currently produces small amounts of pellets for agricultural heating customers.  

2011/11/13201934856291.jpg

ON THE FARM: Farmer Tom Beach (left) and Aloterra's Coye-Huhn stand in a young field of miscanthus that is about halfway through its growing season. 

2011/11/13201935252814.jpg

Aloterra's BCAP project areas are promoting job growth and helping set the stage for a major miscanthus presence in the biopellet industry.

Miscanthus Mania

Quality assessment and quality control (QA/QC) measures and parameters of wood pellet mills exporting their products and those selling domestically can vary widely and significantly. The mills&rsquo; quality management programs do have one thing in common, though: they all follow the standards and specifications of their customers.
 In fact, QA/QC in wood pellet mills all come down to standards, complicated by the fact that most pellet markets, and even individual customers, operate under a different set. U.S. residential heating pellet quality specifications differ from those of Europe, and European commercial and industrial power standards will differ even more from both.
 The U.S. will soon have a third-party verification aspect to its wood pellet standards, certified and marked clearly by a quality label on the bag. The Pellet Fuels Institute has been working diligently on the program, hoping it will be the framework for the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s New Source Performance Standard for residential wood heaters. Ideally, pellet stove manufacturers will specify a certain quality pellet for their equipment, voiding warranties where the specifications weren&rsquo;t followed.
 &ldquo;All producers who want to serve the domestic market are going to have to comply with that certification or accreditation scheme,&rdquo; says Chris Wiberg, co-chair of PFI&rsquo;s standards committee. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s quite different from what&rsquo;s going on overseas for international trade.&rdquo;
 PFI Program
 While U.S. pellet producers shipping overseas are generally required to test their product while it&rsquo;s being loaded onto ships, no industrywide uniform certification to bolster product quality currently exists in their markets. But such a program might make quality recognition and customer satisfaction much easier.
 PFI&rsquo;s new standard program will do just that for the U.S. residential pellet heating market. Although many pellet companies tout the quality of their product and may claim they follow PFI&rsquo;s current but nonaudited parameters, none have been subjected to an official third-party inspection to test their claims.&nbsp;
 &ldquo;Everybody is making an effort to maintain that quality,&rdquo; Wiberg says. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s inconsistent is how often they test. Are&nbsp; they truly going to go with the recommendation of every 1,000 tons? Most people do not. Are they just getting a portion of the overall analysis checked?&rdquo; PFI currently has nine quality tests and many producers could be performing just four or five, Wiberg explains, resulting in incomplete data. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s spotty as to how well different companies have been complying with the program.&rdquo;
 &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s a long time coming,&rdquo; says Luann Lafreniere, project manager and quality manager for New Hampshire-based New England Wood Pellet, of the new certification requirement. New England Wood Pellet sells its product exclusively on the domestic market. &ldquo;We are finally going to get recognition that we are a quality-controlled and bigger industry than they think we are,&rdquo; Lafreniere says.
 It&rsquo;s about consumer protection, she adds, and assuring them that the pellet they use will perform as the producer promises. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a consumer at the end of the day and I know if I buy something, I want to make darn sure I&rsquo;m getting what I pay for. And right now, anybody can stick anything on their bag and there&rsquo;s no double check from anybody. So I think this program is a great thing.&rdquo;
 The PFI standards dictate quality parameters for premium, standard and utility grades, including crucial aspects such as ash content, durability, fines, size, moisture content and others. The three-step testing phase will start at the mills, followed by an on-site inspection once per month from an auditor, and ending with verification of the product quality from the accreditation body, the American Lumber Standard Committee. While internal laboratories at all mills are not required, it&rsquo;s certainly encouraged for the producers&rsquo; sake.
 &ldquo;Picture yourself in the shoes of the production facility,&rdquo; Wiberg explains. &ldquo;When that auditor shows up, you&rsquo;re probably going to live and die by those samples and if you don&rsquo;t have some level of assurance that they&rsquo;re going to pass, you&rsquo;re putting yourself at quite a risk that those samples may fail and if so, how much of your product are you now going to have to pull off the shelf? That&rsquo;s the risk you take.&rdquo;
 PFI&rsquo;s new program specifies that any nonconforming materials must be identified, documented, segregated, evaluated and disposed of. Mills without internal laboratories, therefore, must be extremely confident in their process, Wiberg says.
 The bottom line is, quality assessments need to bedone on-site, whether they&rsquo;re done in-house or outsourced, he emphasizes. Facilities that have a controlled feed stream may decide not to incur the cost of an internal lab, and instead choose to send out samples every couple weeks. But producers with multiple suppliers and any kind of ongoing issues are definitely encouraged to set up their own internal labs, Wiberg says. &ldquo;And they may find that their auditors will say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m not going to represent you if you don&rsquo;t put something up inside your house.&rsquo;&rdquo; Auditors have a lot at stake in the proper deployment of the program and their inspections.
 &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the auditors&rsquo; stamp that goes on the bag and when the accreditation body investigates a bad product, it&rsquo;s not the producer they&rsquo;ll be upset with,&rdquo; Wiberg explains. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the auditor because they allowed that product in the market.&rdquo;
 Quality Management
 To help prevent the dissemination of bad products, a quality management program is integral and includes multiple aspects such as training, documentation, records, management of change, raw material control, equipment and operating processes, inspection criteria, storage, handling, delivery and labeling, among others.
 To receive PFI quality certification, the documentation aspect of a quality management program must encompass administrative factors, raw materials receiving, production, quality verification of the finished product, periodic inspections and customer complaints. All those documents must also be kept for a minimum of five years, along with inspection instructions, standard operating and testing procedures, test reports and data generated.
 In addition, any producer or plant that wishes to qualify for PFI&rsquo;s standards must appoint a quality manager, who is trained in quality control procedures and preferably is not responsible for production or finance.&nbsp;
 And New England Wood Pellet quality manager Lafreniere is confident the new standards won&rsquo;t significantly change the company&rsquo;s quality control procedures, which she says are already far ahead of the game. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t feel like it&rsquo;s going to make our product any better because we definitely already have a handle on that,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;But now we just prove it. They want you to prove your process can&rsquo;t allow you to make anything but your premium pellet.&rdquo;
 New England Wood Pellet will soon put in place an internal quality manual to accompany the new standards program and help train operators to record testing results to auditors&rsquo; expectations. &ldquo;We would like to be one of the first manufacturers to sign on to this pellet fuel auditing program and we&rsquo;re very confident that we have all the quality steps in place to be able to pass the first audit,&rdquo; Lafreniere says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve got all the equipment we need. There will be a little more training maybe with the operators, but just having it in a manual is going to be a specification from the auditors to begin with.&rdquo; New England Wood Pellet does internal sampling and testing twice per shift, and sends samples twice weekly to outside labs for verification of its own results. The company looks at fines, length, durability, ash content, moisture content, Btu value and raw material quality. &ldquo;We pretty much have a handle on the entire process so that nothing gets by us and into the bag,&rdquo; Lafreniere says.
 &ldquo;QA/QC starts with monitoring raw materials and working with raw material suppliers,&rdquo; says Greg Cabe, director of product quality for Enviva Biomass, which currently has a customer base composed of primarily European utilities, but could include expansion into the U.S. market. &ldquo;Within the production process, there is a host of equipment settings that can affect many of the key finished goods properties, including particle size distribution, moisture content, durability, density, and so on.&rdquo; One of the most important challenges is keeping production settings tuned to any variability in the incoming raw material, such as species or moisture content, he adds. After production, storage methods and material handling can significantly influence potential product degradation and the generation of fines or dust. Cabe added that a host of tests along the way are involved as well. Finally, given that transactions with utilities typically involve tens of thousands of tons of pellets, a final quality compliance test for the customer most often happens concurrent with a shipment, as dictated by contract terms,&rdquo; Cabe says. &ldquo;Frequently, it will include testing both on loading and on unloading of the ship.&rdquo;
 Fram Renewable Fuels LLC has testing at every stage of the process, as well, inspecting quality aspects for pellet sale and shipment to Europe. About 125 tests per week will assess quality parameters of the raw material before the dryers, after the dryers, after the hammer mill and again on the finished product, according to Harold Arnold, president and CEO of Fram. &ldquo;Then, as a check against that, we send it to independent labs once monthly just to compare with what we&rsquo;re testing,&rdquo; he says.
 Fram supplies power utilities and combined-heat-and-power plants primarily in Belgium, and while its customers don&rsquo;t require independent testing from a mill standpoint, they do require third-party sampling and testing during ship loading. Currently, those samples are also sent to Europe for testing, but with the opening this month of the Biomass Energy Laboratory in Georgia, more testing on exported U.S. pellets can be done in the U.S. &ldquo;Part of the transaction settlement process is that you provide that analysis from a third-party lab,&rdquo; Arnold says. &ldquo;Having a U.S.-based lab that is doing that may be more convenient.&rdquo; He adds that once the lab is up and running, he expects it will be used quite extensively.
 Wiberg is the new manager of BEL and says it will be able to assist pellet producers in their QA/QC measures, whether they&rsquo;re working to comply with PFI&rsquo;s standards, Europe&rsquo;s EN+ certification, or specifications of certain European power producers.
 Sharing the Standards
 Specifications of European power producers are crafted by individual companies themselves and do differ, sometimes greatly. Wiberg says it can cause problems for the producers in their quality control. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of confusion there,&rdquo; he says, adding that some differences are completely incompatible, deterring pellet producers from selling to certain combinations of power companies. &ldquo;If you meet this spec, it&rsquo;s mutually exclusive of the other spec,&rdquo; Wiberg explains, adding that it causes trade barriers. &ldquo;It just goes to show some of the specs aren&rsquo;t necessarily well thought out.&rdquo;
 Arnold says no customer specifications have completely conflicted with one another for Fram, and the company simply produces its pellets to the specifications of the strictest customer standard in each category.
 Still, it would be simpler if they all adopted a single set of standards. To remedy the problem, the seven largest power producers in Europe that import biomass are working together on a shared set of standards, but it won&rsquo;t be the end of the problem for all pellet manufacturers. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s a really good start, but there are obviously more than seven power companies out there,&rdquo; Wiberg says. &ldquo;Everyone else needs to gravitate to that spec.&rdquo;
 Help is on the way. The European Committee for Normalization (CEN) has created 27 solid biomass specifications that are now being published as EN standards. Producers who meet them and are in participating countries will receive EN+ certification. Eventually, all European Union countries will replace their own standards with EN standards.
 CEN&rsquo;s standards don&rsquo;t currently account for the specifications of the large power producers, but that aspect is in the works, along with amendments to fit all the countries in the world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is working with CEN to globalize them, requiring that all countries step forward and involve themselves in the process, Wiberg explains. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s basically the same [CEN] working product, but now opened up to all countries,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Come one, come all. The trick now is to take CEN standards and build in all the components necessary for all the other countries in the world to say these are suitable as true international standards.&rdquo;
 Ultimately, when the world standards are published, they&rsquo;ll be known as the ISO/CEN standards and while it&rsquo;s not required that the U.S. sign on, groups like PFI will be encouraged to adopt their methods. That will come with some growing pains, however, as the specs will be slightly different from PFI&rsquo;s, as will the test methods.
 &ldquo;It&rsquo;ll take a couple more years for the ISO to catch up, get all the information from all the different countries, revise them and have them re-issued,&rdquo; Wiberg says. &ldquo;Once all that happens, we&rsquo;ll have dual designated ISO standards we would hope that everyone in the world gravitates to and says, &lsquo;this is what we&rsquo;re going to have for standards for solid biofuels.&rsquo;&rdquo; Author: Lisa Gibson Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal <a href="mailto:lgibson@bbiinternational.com">lgibson@bbiinternational.com</a> (701) 738-4952

PELLET HANDLING: Customers' pellet standards greatly influence QA/QC measures at pellet mills.  

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With a plethora of different wood pellet standard programs, mills' quality measures vary depending on which set their customers adopt.

Making the Grade

With a multitude of economical and environmental reasons to utilize grass-to-energy technology, why hasn&rsquo;t the industry become more prominent in North America?&nbsp;
 The U.S. DOE has identified millions of acres of land available for energy crops and predicts tons of biomass, including energy crops, would be available annually by 2030 in its 2011 Billion-Ton Update. Similarly, the Union of Concerned Scientists concluded that significant potential exists for the Midwest region of the U.S. to capture its local agricultural base to reduce fossil fuel imports in its report &ldquo;A Bright Future for the Heartland: Powering the Midwest Economy with Clean Energy.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp; &nbsp; Innovative feedstock and boiler companies have taken advantage of agricultural resources. Feedstock companies are harvesting various grasses, including Giant King Grass and switchgrass, to manufacture products such as pellets, briquettes and logs.&nbsp; Other companies are developing technology to cleanly and efficiently process the agricultural products for power and thermal energy.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 With most wood waste already committed for pressed wood products and pellets, agricultural pellets are starting to emerge, according to Carl Kukkonen, CEO of Viaspace Inc., who projects the pellet market will grow to 46 million metric tons annually by 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 Jim Trussler, co-founder and CEO of LST Energy, hopes agricultural biomass, specifically hay, will show up on the renewable resource radar in North America.&nbsp; Trussler notes that hay is a clean, cheap and local renewable resource that can cut consumers&rsquo; heating prices in half at current fuel prices.&nbsp;&nbsp; &ldquo;We have the ability to build the industry from the ground up and do it right,&rdquo; says Paul Cerosaletti, senior educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension, when referring to the ag biomass industry. &ldquo;We need to get more examples of heating with biomass out into the public and show its benefits.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 Government agencies and research organizations are realizing the potential of agricultural biomass while private companies are implementing business strategies in an attempt to kick-start the market. The industry sees the benefits of grass as an alternative fuel, but what will it take for the industry to get to the next level?
 Grass Feedstock
 Innovative companies from across the continent are developing creative ways to grow grasses with bioenergy in mind. Grasses range from naturally grown to dedicated energy crops. Science has shown that grasses can be combusted effectively and efficiently to create energy and minimize greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
 Renewable Energy Resources Inc. produces briquettes from switchgrass for thermal or combined-heat-and-power systems. The company is merging established briquette technology with switchgrass ecology to create a market-ready energy solution for small- to large-scale applications. The company is based in Vermont with a market emphasis on other states such as New York and Pennsylvania. RER manufactures briquettes from grass that can be burned in boilers and furnaces by itself or in combination with other fuels and used on farms and by institutional, industrial and utility customers. The company transfers grass from &ldquo;field to flue,&rdquo; says John Bootle, RER founder, with field inspection, harvest, transfer, compaction and delivery to the boiler as parts of their grass-to-fuel process. He says crop-derived biomass will be important as a future thermal heat source because studies project that the availability of ag feedstocks will be significantly higher than wood.
 The benefits of grass biomass, according to Bootle, include faster carbon emission reduction than wood, low-cost sustainability, local production and local economic development. Switchgrass will deliver about 14.4 million Btu per ton, and users can expect to save more than 50 percent on their fuel bills compared to oil, according to RER.&nbsp;
 Switchgrass may be chopped, burned or compacted into briquettes. RER promotes its briquettes as having the advantages of more efficient combustion, lower particulate emissions and considerably reduced storage and transportation costs than simply chopped biofuel.
 Switchgrass grows well in poorer soils, and may be grown in most states east of the Rocky Mountains into Southern Canada. RER is seeking farmers and landowners who would like to plant biomass crops on under-utilized or unproductive land.&nbsp;
 Likewise, recognizing agricultural potential from the central region of the U.S., Missouri-based Show Me Energy Co-op is committed to establishing an innovative, profitable model for the production of biomass-based fuels. &ldquo;This model may be replicated across the country by small producer-owned cooperatives that will provide a positive economic impact on the regions in which they are located,&rdquo; according to Steve Flick, the co-op&rsquo;s chairman of the board.
 The co-op started approximately five years ago, consists of farmer stockholders and its objective is to create jobs and economic development through agricultural innovation. The co-op purchases large round bales and turns the grass into a pellet product for combustion purposes. Without impacting the food supply for animals and humans, the group has benefited Missouri by increasing the value of farmland, creating green collar jobs and advancing rural economic development.
 On the West Coast, but with a similar perspective, California-based Viaspace Green Energy Inc. transforms Giant King Grass, which can grow 15 feet high, into pellets and logs. The company globally markets its harvest as a high-yield dedicated energy crop that is a low-carbon replacement for coal to generate power and heat.
 While dependence on coal and imported oil has led to a major increase in environmental issues, biomass is carbon neutral, according to Viaspace. The company explains that plant material burned in a power plant releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere but it is reabsorbed when the next crop grows making it carbon neutral.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 Giant King Grass can be burned either directly or in pellet form as a replacement for coal or oil in power plants or used to produce biomethane in anaerobic digesters. Giant King Grass is a nonfood crop and can be grown on marginal lands not suitable for growing food crops. Viaspace says the grass is low cost because it yields more than 44 dry tons per acre annually. Combusting grass results in one-fourth the cost of solar or wind energy. Ag-to-energy is predictable and constant, as agricultural biomass can power a plant 24/7.
 &ldquo;As pellet demand increases, agricultural pellets, especially pellets from dedicated sustainably grown energy crops will be in great demand,&rdquo; Kukkonen says.
 Combustion Technologies
 In addition to an existing supply chain, it is necessary to have the energy generation technologies to capitalize on biomass benefits. Various companies are actively developing boilers and furnaces compatible with agricultural feedstocks that minimize the challenges of slagging or clinkering.&nbsp; Skanden Energy is a start-up company, based in the Northeast U.S., which markets commercial- and residential-scale multifueled biomass boilers using gasification to process feedstocks such as agricultural biomass in in loose, chip, pellet, briquette or bale form.
 In addition to the multifueled boiler systems that can process biomass with up to 50 percent moisture, the company markets residential pellet boilers. The boilers range from 30,000 to 10 million Btus. To ensure the feedstock gets to the boiler efficiently, Skanden also provides storage and fuel feeding equipment, including silos, bins, moving wedge floors, bale cutters, conveyors and automatic bale feeders.&nbsp;
 &ldquo;We take automation to a new level,&rdquo; according to Skanden. &ldquo;We offer multiple cleaning devices that remove ash automatically from the combustion chamber, boiler tubes and exhaust gases.&rdquo; The company provides control panels that can be connected to the Internet to notify the consumer and the fuel supplier about fuel and maintenance issues.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 Skanden&rsquo;s multifueled boilers are manufactured with stainless metals that eliminate corrosive tendencies and encourage multifuel use. Laura Colban, Skanden&rsquo;s CEO, says independent tests have shown the boilers are more than 90 percent efficient.&nbsp;
 Colban adds that although the interest in agricultural fuels is increasing, some financial obstacles exist in the short-term with companies receiving renewable energy-releated grants that are restricted to woody biomass technology. &ldquo;There is a need for agricultural biomass to be on par with other renewable energy sources,&rdquo; Colban says.&nbsp;
 Canada, known for its well-established wood pellet industry, is also seeking to enhance agricultural biomass as a viable renewable fuel source. Nova Scotia-based start-up LST Energy has developed a pellet burning furnace with a specially designed burner pot that eliminates clinkers found in previously marketed biomass burners, according to Trussler. LST intends to manufacture and market a wide variety of clean burning furnaces across North America.
 Trussler believes the system is an enabling technology, facilitating biomass production by promoting problem-free burning. The use of hay as a heat source was inhibited by the formation of clinkers, which must be regularly removed to ensure efficient burning, thereby frustrating those utilizing biomass fuel, he adds.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 LST hopes its furnace technology creates a bridge between the vast benefits of biomass heat and usable industrial and residential applications. Trussler says the initial market will be the agricultural community, where the benefits of crop resources as a feedstock source can be utilized.
 The production of hay as a biomass resource would have a significant effect on rural economic development. According to Trussler, 70 to 80 percent of the money spent on hay fuel would be re-injected into the local economy versus only 10 percent for oil.&nbsp;
 Interest in LST&rsquo;s boiler technology has come from Nova Scotia and the Northeast U.S. The Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture independently tested the boiler and found that the grass pellets can be burned successfully and reliably in its furnace, according the ag department&rsquo;s report.&nbsp;
 Also in the report, grass pellets were compared to wood pellets in regards to combustion performance and emissions, and showed similar performance to that of wood pellets. &ldquo;No ash sintering was observed and ash discharge was in the form of powder instead of lumped particles, which are usually observed for high-ash biomass fuel,&rdquo; the report says.&nbsp;
 Future of Ag-to-Energy
 For the ag-to-energy industry to overcome challenges, Cerosaletti says that &ldquo;just as people say eat local, we need to heat local,&rdquo; meaning utilizing local resources, such as grass, when planning the future of thermal energy options. He also says the premise &ldquo;build it and they will come&rdquo; may hold true for the agricultural biomass industry. There is a need for a large anchor company or municipality to commit to agricultural biomass as a future energy source, and the result just might be development of more widespread technology and markets.
 Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., has initiated a grass energy research project, the Catskill Grass Bio-Energy Project, through the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Delaware County. The pilot project was developed to analyze the production to consumption of grass biomass burning technologies and involves installing pellet furnaces and boilers on a small business scale.
 As part of a report on combustion technology and the future of biomass thermal energy, Cerosaletti says that the energy content of agricultural biomass is 95 percent that of wood. In analyzing boiler technology, he says problems have arisen through clinkering and corrosion, and that manufacturers need to maintain service after the sale when mechanical problems arise.
 With a large population of people that want to be energy independent, the local agricultural market can support the local economy&rsquo;s energy needs. Cerosaletti says there is an opportunity for the biomass appliance industry to develop heating units that work with a large range of feedstocks including agricultural resources. Author: Matt Soberg Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 746-8385 <a href="mailto:msoberg@bbiinternational.com">msoberg@bbiinternational.com</a>

TRIED AND TESTED: The LST Energy prototype pellet burner was independently tested by the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, which found supportive results for burning grass pellets. 

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BIOMASS BOILER: In 2010, Skanden installed a boiler at the Kingfield Elementary and Middle School in Maine, in 2010, that will save the school $34,000 annually in fuel costs. 

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With the availability of agricultural biomass, North American companies are promoting the benefits of converting grass into energy  in an effort to spur the industry.

Greening Grass

The 2005 U.S. Billion-Ton Study was intended to estimate the biomass potential within the country based upon assumptions regarding then-current production capacity, availability and technology. It provided a starting point for U.S. analysis of biomass as a possible future alternative energy source. Expanding on the original, the &ldquo;2011 U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry,&rdquo; known as the 2011 Billion-Ton Update, included more direct inventory analysis regarding primary feedstocks, focused on price and supply quantities, and conducted rigorous treatment and modeling of resource sustainability, according to the U.S. DOE.&nbsp;
 The update evaluated biomass resource potential nationwide and improved upon the 2005 study. The researchers hoped to quantify biomass supply under improved calculations and determine how biomass can be developed for future use.&nbsp;
 Understanding the importance of harnessing biomass data, the DOE exhibited a major effort in research for the first study, according to John Ferrell from the DOE&rsquo;s Biomass Program, and again found the potential for a billion tons of available biomass annually by 2030.
 Research and Analysis
 Providing the necessary broad depth of expertise to the 2011 study, approximately 50 people provided report research and analysis while a total of 107 people contributed through review and other specialties. The primary research for the update was performed by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
 Managed by UT-Battelle, a partnership of the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute, the ORNL has a broad portfolio, which includes programs that support the U.S. DOE in scientific discovery and innovation. The ORNL is the DOE&rsquo;s largest science and energy laboratory.
 The update used the lower 48 states as a resource base, excluding Alaska and Hawaii. The forestland resources reviewed included 504 million acres of timberland and 91 million acres of other forestland. The agricultural resource base included 340 million acres of cropland, 40 million acres of idle cropland and 404 million of pasture.
 The study used scientific modeling methods to determine current agricultural and woody biomass availability and also projected the supply to 2030. Robert Perlack, senior scientist at ORNL, says the Policy Analysis System (Polysys), an economic modeling simulator developed by the University of Tennessee, was used to estimate supply curve quantities and prices. The system operates at a county level and is supported by the USDA&rsquo;s 10-year data projections extended to 2030.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 The update provided quantities based on two scenarios, the baseline, providing conservative calculations, and a high-yield scenario showing full potential. Focusing on more than just quantities, the update integrated environmental measures to ensure sustainability and also analyzed cost information and productivity, according to Perlack.
 Under the baseline scenario, for example, the current national corn yield is 160 bushels per acre, while the yield is projected at 201 bushels per acre in 2030. This assumes energy crop yields increase 1 percent annually, which is attributable to the growth of industry experience in planting energy crops, Perlack says.
 Using the accelerated high-yield scenario, national average corn yields would increase to 265 bushels per acre in 2030 based upon the assumption of higher amounts of cropland in no-till situations to allow greater residue removal. Perlack says the study assumed energy crop yields would increase at up to 4 percent annually.
 The researchers reviewed forest and agricultural resources as feedstocks in the 2011 study, according to Bryce Stokes from CNJV, a company that provides engineering research services to the DOE. CNJV is a joint venture between Corporate Allocation Services Inc. and Navarro Research and Engineering Inc. Forestry feedstocks included a composite group (a combination of logging residues and forest thinnings), conventional and fuel wood, primary and secondary mill residues, urban wood residues, and pulping liquors. On the agricultural side, the study quantified crop residues, grains to biofuels, perennial grasses and woody crops, animal manures, food/feed processing residues, municipal solid wastes and landfill gases, and annual energy crops.
 Algae potential was not reviewed in the update. It was considered as an addition to the study approximately two years ago, and at that time, and even today, the researchers determined they could not perform a sufficient analysis of potential algae contributions due to insufficient data, according to Stokes. Other assessments, however, have been done on algae including the DOE&rsquo;s National Algal Biofuels Techonology Roadmap, which can be found at www.1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdf/algal_biofuels_roadmap.pdf, and the National Microalgae Biofuel Production Potential and Resource Demand study done by Wigmosta, Coleman, Skaggs, Huesemann, and Lane, and referenced at https://bioenergykdf.net/node/322.&nbsp;
 Differences From 2005
 With a sustainability component and more directed approach in 2011, the conservative results may show more accurate projections of what the industry can expect from biomass availability compared to 2005.&nbsp;
 In 2005, the study provided national estimates, however it lacked analysis on focused spatial information and cost analysis. Environmental sustainability was addressed from a national perspective. The study estimated current availability and then broad-sweeping, long-term projections, 2025 through 2050, involving changes in productivity, efficiency and land use.
 By contrast, in 2011, a more systematic approach was taken with county-level analysis aggregated to state, regional and national levels. A more focused modeling of environmental sustainability was used for residue removal. Logically, updated data, the 2009 USDA agricultural baseline and 2007 forestry timber product output database specifically, was used as a starting point for the update. The timeline for the project was 2012 through 2030 with annual projections based on continuation of the baseline trends.
 In particular, the update separated feedstocks into &ldquo;used&rdquo; and &ldquo;potential&rdquo; categories to differentiate the biomass the nation was not yet utilizing. &ldquo;In the 2005 study, feedstocks currently used for energy production or [that] could be shifted from another market to energy production were counted in the biomass potential,&rdquo; according to the 2011 study. &ldquo;In the update, the currently used biomass is clearly delineated from the potential.&rdquo;
 Researchers involved in the 2011 study made a concerted effort to review cost assumptions that include compliance with statutes, regulations and best management practices. For agricultural feedstocks, the study explicitly modeled crop residue retention, tillage, nutrient replacement and crop rotation to provide erosion protection and maintenance of soil organic carbon. Researchers included only accessible forestry feedstock, meaning little to no road building was anticipated and forestry-related feedstocks located on steep slopes were not included.
 The major difference came from the modeling of energy crop potential at a county-level using Polysys in 2011. All estimates for energy crops assume that demands for food, feed, and exports continue to be met, according to the 2011 study.
 As the overall 2011 results showed, forest residue potential is less, compared to 2005, due to a decline in pulpwood and sawlog markets, removal of unused resources from review, and because the researchers were much more careful in separating used from potential forestry resources, according to Perlack.
 On the agricultural side, the total crop residue availability is less, due to consideration of soil carbon issues and the preclusion of residue from conventionally tilled acres. Energy crops, however, showed much more potential, Perlack notes, with the addition of pastureland in the model, unlike the 2005 study.&nbsp;
 Emergence of Energy Crops
 Showing significantly different results than 2005, the update provided a current baseline scenario supply of 473 million dry tons-per-year with 45 percent consisting of currently used resources and the remainder being potential additional biomass. By 2030, there are estimated resources annually of 1.1 billion dry tons, consisting of 30 percent used and 70 percent potential biomass.&nbsp;
 For the high-yield scenario, total resources range from nearly 1.4 billion to more than 1.6 billion dry tons annually by 2030, of which 80 percent is potential additional biomass. The update found that enough resources exist to meet the 2022 advanced biofuel goals, that potential resources are widely distributed across the nation, and planned energy crops are the single largest source of new feedstock potential.&nbsp;
 The dedicated crops showed increased potential in the update, however, because of the focus on sustainability restrictions in the modeling process. The restraints included integrating best management practices, not allowing energy crops on irrigated cropland or pasture, and allowing only 10 percent of cropland and 25 percent of all lands within any one county to be used.&nbsp;
 Perlack says that the results show a lot of potential for dedicated energy crops, and added that they are grown where the land is available, including areas with large quantities of pastureland in the great plains and southern plains regions of the U.S. The crops reviewed were perennial grasses including switchgrass, woody crops (eucalyptus, southern pine, poplar and willow) and annual energy crops such as sorghum.
 Ferrell says the largest single resource, as time goes by, are the purpose-grown energy crops, which could be seen as an extension of the current farm system. He adds that the update is extremely important to the agricultural and forestry industries and landowners should be able to increase profits and create jobs.
 Bioenergy KDF
 To maintain the 2011 update as a living, breathing document, the DOE created the Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework (KDF), an extensive online tool kit available for industry professionals, researchers, policymakers and the public. For someone interested in pursuing their own high level of analysis of focused information, the KDF is the place to search, Perlack says.
 For professionals, the KDF provides the latest research data on biomass feedstock production and supply projections to identify business opportunities. For researchers, laboratories and academia, the KDF allows focused exploratory analysis and modeling.&nbsp;
 The public can gain much-needed education about biomass and feedstock availability nationwide using the operator-friendly website. Policymakers can utilize the site to make strategic decisions at the federal, state and local levels, according to the DOE.
 Aaron Crowell from BCS Inc., a company that provides technical and engineering services to the DOE, says individuals can use the KDF to download report data, aggregate reports and complete high-level data sets.&nbsp;
 The KDF&rsquo;s modeling page includes an easy-to-use data explorer that can be used to focus on specific information regarding feedstocks, projections to 2030, prices, type of spatial data such as production, and location (county or state level). Once the model is run, one should be able to look at the spatial data for the specific factors chosen, according to Crowell.&nbsp;
 The KDF also includes forums that allow discussions with authors and contributors. The KDF modeling system can be found at www.bioenergykdf.net. &nbsp; Author: Matt Soberg Associate Editor, Biomass Power &amp; Thermal (701) 746-8385 <a href="mailto:msoberg@bbiinternational.com">msoberg@bbiinternational.com</a>

FINDING FEEDSTOCK: Researchers applied state-by-state analysis to determine biomass availability. This map shows the nationwide supply of woody biomass. 

2011/11/13201942913751.jpg

The 2011 U.S. Billion-Ton Update enhances its 2005 predecessor and finds potential for dedicated energy crops through direct inventory analysis and rigorous sustainability modeling.  

Billion-Ton Revisited 

The current flagship report of the German Advisory Council on Global Change emphasizes the urgency of a sustainable economic strategy and demonstrates its feasibility. Central aspects include resource protection and decarbonization or low-carbon economy. Expansion of energy from renewable sources and of the required infrastructure should be the central interest. The EU has laid the basis for this expansion with its directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. Germany transposed the EU directive into its national legislation, the Biofuel Sustainability Ordinance (Biokraft-NachV), the Ordinance on Requirements Pertaining to the Sustainable Production of Bioliquids for Electricity Production (BioST-NAchV) and the German Renewable Energy Act, which is due for another revision in 2012.
 Under the sustainability strategy of the EU and the German government, the production of electricity from bioliquids and biofuels is only eligible for support against the submission of sustainability certificates. The criteria are set forth in a host of regulations including the BioSt-NachV and the Biokraft-NachV. To be eligible for tax reductions and crediting to the national biofuel quota, each stage of the production and distribution pathways must be certified. This also applies to the remuneration of electricity from bioliquids under the German Renewable Energy Act.
 Certification assesses various aspects including emissions caused by the production of raw materials or the energy carriers used to produce bioliquids and biogas, and by transport. Further requirements include measures to protect land, water and air, restore degraded areas and avoid excessive water consumption. To be recognized on the European market, biofuels must at minimum fulfill the criteria laid down in the EU directive.
 Third-Party Certification
 Sustainability certification is conducted by independent auditing companies such as T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D Industrie Service, which are accredited by organizations including the Federal German Agency for Agriculture and Food. All stakeholders or producers intending to benefit from funding under the EU support scheme in ways such as crediting to the national biofuel quota need to fulfill these criteria. As sustainability must be assessed across the biofuel's entire life cycle, the T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D auditors examine all stages of the production processes:
 &bull; Is the raw material cultivated in a sustainable manner?
 &bull; Are areas of high conservation value protected?
 &bull; Is the chain of custody traceable and verifiable?
 &bull; What emissions are caused at each step of the production process?
 &bull; Does the biofuel produce at least 35 percent emissions reductions compared to fossil fuels?
 By 2017, biofuel and other bioliquids, including bioethanol, biomethane or biodiesel, must slash greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 50 percent&mdash;and from 2018 on by 60 percent&mdash;compared to fossil fuels.
 Steps to certification include selecting the right certification scheme, registration and an optional preliminary audit. Before a certificate can be issued, the biofuel or bioliquid must undergo conformity assessment to prove that the above criteria have been met.
 Accounting Method and Systems
 To calculate GHG reduction potential, total biofuel emissions are compared against a fossil fuel comparator (reference value). The fossil fuel comparator of petrol, for example, is 83.8 grams carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule (MJ) of energy. GHGs include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide with a global warming potential (in carbon dioxide equivalents) of 296, and methane with a global warming potential (in carbon dioxide equivalents) of 23. To facilitate the process, the directive provides standard values that can be used by biofuel producers, indicating the carbon emissions caused at various stages of the production process.
 If the individual value of a biofuel is more favorable than the standard value defined in the directive, separate calculation is recommendable. For this purpose, the auditors review all data submitted, for example the amount of fertilizer used in biomass production. In the case of highly efficient biofuel production, separate calculation may also be a good choice as low-energy consumption improves the carbon footprint. When certified and noncertified biomass are mixed, a mass balance system must be applied.
 In addition to the above aspects, emissions caused by changes in land use are included in the calculation of the reference value. To prevent these emissions, the EU defines the types of cultivation areas that are permitted for the cultivation of biomass. High-carbon-stock land and areas characterized by a high degree of biodiversity are excluded. However, as long as sustainability criteria do not apply to the cultivation of other agricultural crops, indirect changes in land use will continue to be a problem. Displacement effects arise when biomass cultivated on areas with permission for cultivation replaces the original agricultural crop, which then in turn is cultivated on ecologically sensitive areas.
 Abolishing the Blending Quota
 The EU aims to raise the percentage of energy from renewable sources in the transport sector to 10 percent by 2020. The German act on the biofuel quota, which came into effect in 2007, provided for biofuels to account for 6.25 percent of the fuel demand from 2010 on. As of 2015, the lawmakers intend to change the system from blending quotas (assessment of energy efficiency) to continuously rising GHG reduction targets. For example, biofuels are to reduce total GHG emissions from fuel combustion and production by 3 percent at the outset, by 4.5 percent as of 2017 and by 7 percent from 2020.
 This favors biofuels that involve a major reduction in GHGs, and the price will then be coupled to the GHG balance: the higher the reduction in emissions compared to fossil energy carriers, the higher the financial value of biofuel. This increases the pressure on the biofuel industry. Cost reductions throughout the production chain require innovations, a change in investment strategies and improved efficiency. The measures involved extend from larger production plants (economies of scale enable more cost-effective production) and more efficient use of process energy to changes in crop rotation within the scope of the cultivation of raw materials.
 Case Study: Bioliquids in the Paper-Pulp Industry: Waste liquor, a byproduct in paper-pulp production, can be used in industrial plants to generate electricity and heat. Electricity generated from waste liquor is eligible for remuneration under Germany's Renewable Energy Act. T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D certified the use of the biofuel in accordance with the REDcert standard at all six major paper-pulp plants in Germany. As there has been no experience with the certification of waste liquor, T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D aligned its certification process to the requirements of the standard. Sustainability certification covers assessment of management criteria and production processes and the verification of the mass balance and GHG accounting. The production of electricity from waste liquor saves at least 90 percent of carbon dioxide emissions compared to fossil fuels. As waste liquor is considered a residue under the BioSt-NachV, emissions from the upstream production chain need not be taken into consideration, providing waste liquor with an ideal carbon footprint.
 Case study: Biomethane: In accordance with its target of injecting 10 billion cubic meters of biomethane per year into the natural gas grid by 2030, the German government subsidizes the upgrading of raw biogas to natural gas quality under the Renewable Energy Act. Biomethane can be used to produce electricity and heat and as a fuel. Another possibility is to store large amounts of biomethane in underground caverns and convert it into electricity as needed. This solution would permit the natural gas grid to back up the electricity grid, improving the security of supply and of the grid. However, geographical separation of production and consumption makes assessment of the entire production and distribution chain an absolute must. To cater to this need, T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D's biogas and biofuel experts developed the new "Green Methane" certification. Using a substantiated catalogue of criteria as basis, the experts certify not only production and upgrading but also the distribution and the products offered to end-consumers. The three-stage process offers transparency along the entire value chain.
 From 2017 and beyond, when biofuels will save 50 percent instead of 35 percent of GHG emissions compared to fossil fuels, manufacturers will be forced to optimize their production processes further. However, biofuels and other bioliquids are subject to complex and multifaceted legal regulations. T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D's independent and impartial experts can assist market players throughout all stages of the value chain. Authors:&nbsp; Igor Dormuth and Elena Schmidt Product Managers T&Uuml;V S&Uuml;D Industrie Service 089 / 5791-2246 <a href="mailto:cms@tuev-sued.de">cms@tuev-sued.de</a>

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New EU sustainability criteria for biofuels and other bioliquids must be complied with and verified by an independent third party at every stage of the production process.

Biofuels and Other Bioliquids—Facts and Perspectives

Press-to-log technology in North America and binderless briquetting technology in Europe were essentially designed to work with granular wood waste such as sawdust, wood chips and bark. Wood waste generated by wood processing plants is mostly dry (15 to 20 percent moisture) so briquetting plants are used primarily for waste disposal. And in developing countries, most of the briquetting plants installed between 1985 and 2000, utilized residue from the agricultural processing industry such as rice husks, ground nut shells and husks from various other plants.
 Preliminary testing on almost 200 of these 90-millimeter (mm)-diameter presses with 15-cubic-meters per-hour displacement indicates that they are under-designed for new-generation crop briquetting of the fibrous biomass found in Europe and North America.&nbsp;
 The challenge is to improve briquetting operations to efficiently utilize fibrous agricultural residues from crops, horticulture operations and forests. The limitations of briquetting fibrous biomass utilizing briquette presses and processes designed for granular biomass are addressed herein.
&nbsp;
Preparing Fibrous Biomassfor Briquetting Most types of fibrous biomass have low bulk density and normal- to medium-moisture content, so processing, including cutting/chopping and shredding at the harvest site, natural or mechanized drying, and grinding for increased bulk density are required prior to briquetting Also, the availability of these materials is seasonal so they may have to be stored for considerable periods prior to briquetting.
 Binderless Briquetting 24/7
 Even after grinding fibrous material through a 6 mm screen, the bulk density is only 286 to 310 pounds per cubic meter (lb/m3) as compared to 352 to 396 lb/m3 for wood waste. Energy consumption is high and the briquette press is de-rated. Also, wear and tear on parts such as the ram, die, split die, wear ring, etc. is excessive.
 In developing countries, most of the briquette plants utilized to process fibrous material operate 10 to 12 hours per day with low productivity, low output per press and low output per person. Power consumption is also high.
 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Limitations of 24/7 Operation
 &bull; Overheating: For briquetting, the temperature required to press the fibrous material is more than 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit). Cooling is required to maintain the briquetting head temperature below 100 degrees C. Most of the European presses in operation today do not have head cooling and will overheat after eight to 10 hours, at which time the operation must stop to allow for cooling and lubricating.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 &bull; Low Output: Standard 90 to 200 diameter briquette presses are rated for outputs of 2 tons per hour on granular biomass with bulk densities of 352 lb/m3. However, processing unground fibrous biomass can de-rate the output to as low as 1.2 tons per hour. Another cause of low output is the alignment accuracy between the ram and pressing parts. For optimum output, the desired accuracy is 0.2 mm, however, the highest accuracy of presses used in developing countries is only about 0.5 mm. This disparity increases wear and, as a result, replacement of wear parts is required within 100 hours of operation to maintain minimum production levels.
 &bull; Low Productivity: A standard 90 to 200 diameter briquette press requires a minimum of three people to operate. To increase productivity to one person, the following improvements must be made to avoid jamming the die holder, which frequently occurs when briquetting material has not been preprocessed: re-engineering the die holder fixing and extraction arrangement, mechanized handling of 300-pound die holder; and automatic die holder pressure control.
 Limitations of Design and Construction
Briquette press outputs are size-specific. In most of the installations where manual firing is popular, the preferred briquette size is about 50 to 65 mm, thus the output of an extrusion briquette press is only about 1.5 to 1.1 tons per hour. Because this is typically adequate for developing countries some manufacturers tend to under-design high-output rated presses.
Today, 90 mm diameter presses with 15-cubic-meters per-hour displacement are being widely marketed. Preliminary testing of almost 200 of these presses indicates that they are under-designed in the areas of power, centering accuracy, oil contamination, die holder fixing and heating.
&bull; Powering the Press: A standard 90 mm diameter press with 200 strokes per minute is powered by 95 horsepower (75 kilowatt) motor and can deliver up to 2.2 tons per hour using granular biomass with a bulk density of 352 lb/m3. These presses have been de-rated to 1.1 to 1.3 tons per hour with 75 horsepower motors.
&bull; Centering Accuracy: The presses must be designed with centering accuracy of 0.1 mm (in 90 mm diameter) for optimal throughput and the support system should be &ldquo;slide&rdquo; rather than &ldquo;bush&rdquo; for high centering accuracy. Most of the presses beingbuilt today have a much wider gap than 0.1 mm and they have a bush support system, which results in less output and decreased service life on wear parts.
&bull; Oil Contamination: Vital moving parts are exposed and not shrouded, resulting in oil contamination, increased oil consumption and increased wear on the pump.
&bull; Die Holder Fixing: For maintenance and service, die holder fixing and removal should be quick and easy. This should be a 15-minute task yet, in many presses this requires more than one hour to complete.&nbsp;
&bull; Heating the Briquette Press: The die holder is fixed with the briquetting head for support with close tolerance, and the die holder temperature is maintained around 300 degrees C for effective briquetting of fibrous biomass. To avoid production interruption due to overheating and to guard against burns at human touch points, the head temperature should be sustained at under 1,000 degrees C.
 Preprocessing of Biomass Material
Most of the biomass residues resulting from crop harvest or otherwise have the following characteristics.
&bull; Low bulk density of 88 to 132 lb/m3 with odd sizes to handle.
&bull; High moisture upon harvest is 25 to 30 percent as compared to 12 percent moisture required for briquetting.
To facilitate effective briquetting of these materials the following activities are required:
&bull; Mechanized Collection and Transportation: A high percentage of crop residue is left in the field because there is not an effective mechanism to collect it. Because of the variety of residue types and sizes, there are more than a dozen different mechanisms required to collect it. Following collection, the residue must be transported to a processing site, which is generally four to seven miles away.
&bull; Drying: Granular material at a size of 3 mm is the only residue that can be effectively dried in a low-cost/low-temperature flash dryer. A rotary dryer must be used to dry larger fibrous materials, however, a rotary dryer is not economical to operate with these quantities. Solar drying is an alternative for drying, however, the extended drying time and large amount of space required are cost prohibitive.
 &bull; Grinding of Materials: Grinding of material is optimal for increasing the bulk density and reducing sharp edges, which can cause wear and tear on the press, and for preventing heavy material such as rocks and bricks from entering the press.
 A critical problem with the process is that residue size should be relatively small for the drying process and the residue moisture should be low for the grinding process. Simultaneous drying and grinding is possible in a few cases.
 Mechanization
 Biomass residues are uneven in size and bulky in nature, so manual handling in larger operations is labor intensive and cost prohibitive. And, where there are long transport distances and higher elevations, mechanization can even be difficult. In large, integrated biomass processing plants, mechanization is critical and must be incorporated at all stages of the process from harvesting to primary storage, from primary storage to main storage and from main storage to the processing plant.
 An electrically powered tipper/extractor and a pneumatic conveyor system are more cost effective than diesel-powered equipment.
 Mechanization reduces processing time and labor costs as well as optimizing space utilization. Automation
 For 24/7 operation and high productivity, automation should be incorporated in these key areas: Process Control:
 &bull; Drying: To maintain output moisture of around 15 percent, the temperature of the discharge flue gas should be maintained at 85 degrees C. This can be done by controlling the cold air injection into the hot air from the hot air generator.
 &bull; Die Holder Temperature: For smooth production of briquettes, the die holder temperature should be maintained around 300 degrees C by regulating the water flow into the die holder.
 &bull; Cooling Oil Temperature: The lubricating oil temperature should be controlled by an automated radiator fan.
 &bull; Die Holder Pressure: The die holder pressure is similarly maintained at the desired level. Process Optimization:
 &bull; Grinding: It is difficult to optimize loading of the grinding system, however, traveling bottom bins are effective. The bottom bin speed is adjusted and controlled in proportion to the desired input into the grinder and increases until the maximum grinding load is achieved. On/off controls start functioning at optimum loading.
 &bull; Densification Equipment: Controlling the material input flow from the storage bin into the briquette press is relatively easy. The input flow increases to maximum load per the load setting on the press.
 Future of Biomass Briquetting
 Economizing on Power Consumption: The current practice for briquetters is to install multiple presses for bulk production. Few twin, die-holder briquette presses were installed in India but the power connection for twin presses was 1.5 times compared to double output. While no real-time recording was done, the following was concluded:
 &bull; For a single 90 mm diameter press the connected load is 67.5 kilowatts (kW) for the main motor, 7.5 kW for the vertical feeder, 1.5 kW for the pump and 3.5 kW for the feeding screw. It appears that besides the main motor, all remaining load is for 2.2 tons per hour production.
 &bull; A no-load trial run indicated that 90-mm diameter presses consume about 15 kilowatt hour (kWh) units of power in one hour. While producing 1.1 to 1.3 tons per hour, power consumption is about 55 kWh units. This is comparable to the international norm for briquetting 40 to 45 units per ton of production. Higher per metric ton production is due to under-utilization of the press. If the briquette press is fed preprocessed material, it produces about 2.2 tons per hour consuming about 85 units of power.
 &bull; The 90-mm diameter twin press will have 141 kW (main motor 125 kW+ vertical screw 2 x 5=10 kW+, feeding screw 2 x 2.2=4.4 kW to oil pump 1.5 kW). If briquette presses consume about 90 percent of connected power while producing 4 tons per hour of power; electricity consumption per ton will be just above 30 kWh units.
 In view of the above, it is expected that a well-engineered, twin briquette press can reduce power consumption from 45 to 50 kWh units per ton to 30 to 35 kWh units per ton.
 Economizing in Packaging: Briquettes are commonly used in Europe and North America as household fuel for winter heating, while commercial applications use compressed natural gas based on convenience and economics. Briquette packaging in 17- to 22-pound bags may be in demand in the future, therefore it&rsquo;s difficult to estimate the packaging and shipping costs for European and North American markets.&nbsp;
 Briquettes are most commonly used in industrial boilers and shipped in bulk or in 110-pound gunny sacks. The gunny sacks are used only once for packaging and are thrown into the boilers along with the briquettes for convenience in charging.
 Today, small 8- to 10-mm diameter pellets in 11-pound bags are being marketed for residential heating. This fuel is inexpensive at about $5.50 for a 10-pound bag.
 An automatic robot system is necessary to pack&nbsp; briquettes for commercial production.
 Higher Productivity: With better press design, it should be possible to operate a briquetting plant 24/7, and with mechanized coding of the grinder it is possible to operate a twin 90-mm diameter (4-ton-per-hour) briquette press with three operators for mechanized feeding into grinder, briquette press and plant supervisor.
 Other requirements for higher productivity are:
 &bull; Wear parts with a minimum life of 200 hours.
 &bull; Reversible hammer mill for sustained operation for 150 hours.
 &bull; Intermediate storage of the post-grind material to optimize the feed rate to the briquette press.
 &bull; Automated controls to maintain constant die holder temperature, briquette head temperature and moisture in ground material, which when optimized delivers nonstop briquettes.
 &bull; An inventory of spare parts and replacement wear parts must be maintained to minimize downtimes.
 Raw Material: Chances are wood waste/biomass prices are still not established in your region and in many cases it is still a disposal problem. This is always a matter, however, of supply and demand. Check for availability of low-cost raw material in your area. Authors: Priya Jain Business Development Manager, Hi-Tech Agro <a href="mailto:Priya@hitechagro.org">Priya@hitechagro.org</a> A.K. Khater Founder, Hi-Tech Agro <a href="mailto:Amritncesltd@gmail.com">Amritncesltd@gmail.com</a>

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How to improve briquetting operations to efficiently densify fibrous agricultural residues from crops, horticulture operations and forests.

Limitations of 24/7 Operation of a  Capacity Briquette Plant For Binderless Fibrous Biomass

A unique development program housed under the U.S. Department of Defense has achieved a rich history of game-changing technological innovation since its inception in the 1950s. That program, now known as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, played a key role in the development of invaluable technologies, including the Internet, stealth technology and global positioning systems (GPS). The agency was specifically designed to be small, flexible, flat and autonomous. In other words, the agency was able to work around many of the bureaucratic barriers and red tape that can plague less nimble research agencies, allowing it to quickly shift gears to support and expedite the development of technologies that face steep risks but overwhelmingly high rewards, if proven successful.
In recent years, federal lawmakers, spurred by a 2006 National Academies report titled &ldquo;Rising above the Gathering Storm,&rdquo; recognized the U.S. had a clear and vital need to channel the same type of innovation into energy research. As a result, the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology (America COMPETES) Act was signed into law in 2007, authorizing the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). ARPA-E, modeled after the highly successful DARPA program, received $400 million in initial funding through the Recovery Act in 2009.&nbsp;
The agency is ultimately focused on high risk transformational energy research that could reap dramatic national benefits. &ldquo;We try to identify area of particular need that is not currently being satisfied by other governmental or industry programs,&rdquo; says Jonathan Burbaum, an ARPA-E program director who focuses on advanced biotechnology applications for biofuels and biochemicals. &ldquo;We ask not &lsquo;Will it work?&rsquo; but &lsquo;Does it matter?&rsquo; In other words, if it does work, is it really going to make a difference in the energy landscape of the United States?&rdquo;
According to Burbaum, ARPA-E achieves its goals by recruiting bright, gifted people and staying distinct from other government energy research programs without, as he says, becoming an island. &ldquo;You have to be connected in, but you have to look at where you can make the right kinds of connections and fill in the gaps for areas that [other programs] are maybe not looking at,&rdquo; Burbaum says. He refers to those gaps as unexplored &ldquo;white space.&rdquo;
ARPA-E funds a wide variety of energy projects, from carbon capture to advanced battery technology and electrofuels. Regarding biomass energy, the agency currently lists five feedstock development and biorefinery projects pursued by Agrivida, Ceres Inc., E.I du Pont de Nemours and Co., RTI International and Algaeventure Systems.
&ldquo;I think a lot of the technologies that we look at are what I would call pre-pilot,&rdquo; Burbaum says. Biomass projects generally fall in the space between basic research and pilot-scale deployment. &ldquo;If a project is already to the point where the economic analysis is telling you this is going to be a fundable opportunity, we are not going to come in and replace what would otherwise be private sector funding,&rdquo; Burbaum says. &ldquo;At the same time, if at the end of an ARPA-E project the main conclusion is that more research is needed, then I&rsquo;d say it&rsquo;s been an unsuccessful project. We really want to take it to the point where somebody can look at it and say, &lsquo;That project looks really promising.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s going to change the economics of fuels, and we are going to go out and fund that pilot plant because it is just that much different. We are trying to fit into that gap.&rdquo; Goals, Benefits, Guidelines
The first funding opportunity offered by ARPA-E was open to any innovative energy research project. Several thousand applications were eventually whittled down to roughly three dozen funded projects. Since that time, the agency has offered more targeted solicitations but Burbaum notes that program directors do look at unsolicited applications, and they are discussing whether they will enact rolling application deadlines in the future. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s something that is dependent on a number of things, including our budget,&rdquo; he says.
One benefit of the broad initial funding opportunity is that the agency&rsquo;s program directors saw firsthand what tremendous capabilities are out there. &ldquo;You could really see the scope of what was possible,&rdquo; Burbaum says. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t currently have any immediate plans to go back to that, but I think there is a virtue in doing that. I think it&rsquo;s a reasonably good idea to try to go out for broad proposals on a rolling basis, but that&rsquo;s not a decision that has been made yet.&rdquo;
Burbaum notes that approximately 33 percent of the research projects ARPA-E currently supports are university sponsored, and about 20 percent are projects under development by large businesses. The remaining projects are spearheaded by small businesses and research labs.
According to Burbaum, the design of ARPA-E allows a lot of things to be driven by individual program directors, as they are able to put their expertise to use and follow their noses to find applicable white spaces in the research environment. &ldquo;I think one of the advantages that we have is that program directors come [to ARPA-E in] three-year terms,&rdquo; Burbaum says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m gone in two years. That means that I don&rsquo;t particularly care about the turf or empire-building. I just want to identify a white space, and see what comes of it. It&rsquo;s a lot of fun to do that, particularly when I&rsquo;m concerned about what we call &lsquo;in-reach,&rsquo; basically making sure that other parts of DOE and the government know what we are up to. But I&rsquo;m not particularly concerned with whose turf that might end up being. If it&rsquo;s a white space, you&rsquo;ve usually got someone on the other side of that white space that is going to be tugging&rdquo; for control of that area, he says. &ldquo;We just go in there, plant the flag, and as the field becomes more mature,&rdquo; someone will take ownership. &ldquo;We really just focus on innovation.&rdquo;
ARPA-E also provides a great many benefits to the projects it supports above and beyond financial support. &ldquo;I think one of the hidden benefits of ARPA-E is we can provide introductions,&rdquo; Burbaum says, adding that, in some cases, there are related programs where an active program director can see how different projects might complement one another. For example, one component of project A&rsquo;s technology might be performing well while another component is struggling. For project B, the inverse might be true. The program director might realize the two projects could complement one another and offer to make introductions that will lead to mutual benefit.
Burbaum adds that ARPA-E features a crack commercialization team that is available to help successful projects move forward and procure funding to scale up their technology. The team can help make introductions not only to other government agencies and programs, but also to venture capital firms or companies. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a pretty well-networked group, and I think that&rsquo;s the sort of thing that we try to get involved in,&rdquo; he says. Industry Feedback
RTI International is a large nonprofit research agency that has a long history of securing funding from the government entities, including the DOE. The agency currently has two projects that have been funded by ARPA-E, including a biomass project, titled &ldquo;Catalytic Biocrude Production in a Novel, Short-Contact Time Reactor.&rdquo;
According to David Dayton, RTI&rsquo;s director of biofuels in the Center for Energy Technology, his agency pursued ARPA-E funding for its biocrude technology because the project fit nicely into the program&rsquo;s criteria of high-risk, high-reward research and development. &ldquo;If we could find a catalyst that works very well and put it in a process that is highly efficient and successful,&rdquo; Dayton says, &ldquo;then we could make a fairly significant impact in a short amount of time because of the ability of utilizing existing infrastructure.&rdquo;
Dayton notes that ARPA-E is different than many agencies in that it&rsquo;s not focused on a specific technology type; rather, it has a focused mindset of supporting high-risk, game-changing technologies. The expectations for ARPA-E projects are also different than those supported by other DOE and USDA funding opportunities. Specifically, timescale expectations are tight. Projects are expected to proceed rapidly and achieve results. &ldquo;They help you get your technology to the point where other funding opportunities become available to move it along the technology pathway,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;In that sense, it is very technology focused, making sure that your results meet the criteria that are set forth so that you have successful technology development at this scale, and then have a better chance of success at the next scale.&rdquo;
Alternatively, Agrivida has an ARPA-E project that focuses on expressing conditionally activated enzymes in cellulosic energy crops. Essentially, the company is working to engineer biomass feedstocks that can be triggered to produce enzymes that break down the cell wall, releasing cellulosic sugars.
Michael Raab, Agrivida&rsquo;s president and one of the company&rsquo;s founders, notes that the ARPA-E research focuses exclusively on expressing those enzymes in switchgrass. According to Raab, ARPA-E&rsquo;s support has allowed his company to expand its scale-up and research efforts. &ldquo;They&rsquo;ve also helped us a little bit in contacting commercial partners that might be interested in funding this type of research,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;In that regard, they don&rsquo;t advocate in one way or another, but they are willing to make introductions to people.&rdquo;
Raab adds that the agency has been able to provide important support throughout the project&rsquo;s stages. &ldquo;They are way more involved than most other grant agencies we&rsquo;ve worked with in terms of project management, review and monitoring, and really helping solve various technical problems that occur during the project,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They are very involved in that regard.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had a really great and positive experience with [ARPA-E],&rdquo; Raab adds. &ldquo;I think they really understand the challenges with developing new energy technologies and how those have to go to scale, and what a huge challenge it is to develop things that can compete with the infrastructure in place, in some cases for more than 100 years. They understand all the issues that are involved in trying to develop an innovative energy technology.&rdquo; Algaeventure Systems CEO Ross Youngs agrees that ARPA-E is filling a gap in energy research. Young&rsquo;s company has an ARPA-E project that focuses on reducing the costs of separating microscopic solids, such as algae, out of dilute liquid. Youngs says at first his company was worried about possible bureaucratic hurdles involved with working with a government agency, but has been pleasantly surprised. &ldquo;We have been blown away by the professionalism and the quality of individuals that are involved in ARPA-E,&rdquo; Youngs says. &ldquo;It was just not what we were expecting. We have become huge supporters of the ARPA-E methodology.&rdquo;
Those involved in the agency seem to be acutely aware of what it takes to efficiently navigate the &ldquo;valley of death&rdquo; often associated with the development of first-of-their-kind technologies. &ldquo;I think they are showing a real sense of understanding how to do that,&rdquo; Youngs adds. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s a solid program, and I think it&rsquo;s going to deliver very big benefits to the future and deliver more technologies. To us, it&rsquo;s a terrific thing for the whole country to have.&rdquo; Author: Erin Voegele Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 540-6986 <a href="mailto:evoegele@bbiinternational.com">evoegele@bbiinternational.com</a>

The U.S. DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy targets the â€œwhite spaceâ€� of existing energy research

High Risk, High Reward

If you don&rsquo;t know who Jay Keasling is and what he&rsquo;s accomplished, you should. Keasling helped create a synthetic microbial platform used in malaria-treating drugs, renewable chemicals, advanced biofuels, and he&rsquo;s been interviewed by Comedy Central&rsquo;s Stephen Colbert on the highly popular program, The Colbert Report. Keasling says his time on the show was &ldquo;great fun&rdquo; speaking about the role synthetic biology will play in the future of fuels, and while the interview was entertaining, his work is a significant achievement holding major implications. The synthetic microbial platform he helped create is the basis of Amyris, the headlining company he founded that has already issued a successful IPO and is teaming up with global partners too numerous to count.
Keasling may not have created the notion that utilizing renewable feedstocks to replace petroleum in products ranging from polymers to diesel is a good one, but he does epitomize the type of person to whom the entire biorefining industry can&mdash;and should&mdash;look for a better understanding of not only where the industry has been, but where it could be. And why? Because, in addition to his time spent founding successful companies and appearing on television, Keasling is also the CEO and director for the Joint Bioenergy Institute. JBEI, pronounced &ldquo;Jay-Bay,&rdquo; could be the best example of why people such as&nbsp; Keasling matter to the industry. In addition to Amyris and LS9, Keasling says, &ldquo;We are going to see more research from JBEI that both launches other companies&rdquo; and is &ldquo;licensed by existing companies and used in biofuels work,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I look at JBEI as developing some of the cornerstone technologies for this field, solving some of the really difficult scientific problems that companies would not necessarily look into.&rdquo;
Fortunately, Keasling is not one of a kind. JBEI is filled with innovative researchers who have that killer combination of intellectual background and business savvy to take a synthetic microbe or a genetically modified catalyst and develop it in an economically feasible way. They may work in academia donning white coats and safety goggles, but they have the spirit of MBA students dreaming of the next big thing, or, sorry to say for Keasling, the companies that will someday compete with Amyris. These are the people in the industry with whom investors want to have lunch and private companies want to work. Understanding Bright Prospects
When George Huber first started his career in research and development, he was a chemical engineering student at Brigham Young University. &ldquo;I went to a researcher and talked to him about his research, and he told me about Fischer-Tropsch synthesis,&rdquo; Huber says of his early days. &ldquo;In my mind that was the coolest idea possible. I spent as much time as I could in the lab trying to learn about it.&rdquo; Huber doesn&rsquo;t work at JBEI, but he has achieved, on a much smaller scale, what Keasling has. After joining the University of Massachusetts-Amherst staff in November 2006, he helped develop a single-step process to make olefins and aromatics from biomass using a catalytic fast pyrolysis system. That process is the basis for Anellotech, the startup company for which Huber is now a consultant.
Huber still considers research his main focus and, for companies looking to work with people such as Huber, that&rsquo;s not a bad thing. &ldquo;The goal in the academic world is to do the fundamental research that will allow the biofuels industry to occur,&rdquo; he says. But Huber asserts that researchers like him are more than aware of what their work could mean. &ldquo;I think it is an exciting time to be in this industry,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I think there is a lot of room for growth and improving these processes.&rdquo; There are big economic incentives, he explains, for the people who can stick with it and continue to develop their technology.
Aindrila Mukhopadhyay shares some of the same sentiments as Huber. She is a researcher at JBEI and, from her perspective, &ldquo;No scientist does research strictly for the research.&rdquo; Listening to Aindrila, it&rsquo;s easy to understand why many of the researchers focused on biofuels and biobased products will be able to bridge the gap between their work in the lab and their work in the office&mdash;because they truly believe in it. She says scientists like her &ldquo;have some ulterior motive&rdquo; and &ldquo;an inspiration in the back of their minds.&rdquo; For most of her colleagues and peers, she says, there is a powerful incentive to do the work they do &ldquo;to be able to explain to a layman, in a few sentences, why what you do is important.&rdquo;
Every once in a while, she says, &ldquo;You suddenly see the momentum building in your environment. You see politics changing to accommodate your research. You see the economy starting to track with your research.&rdquo; And that, she says, &ldquo;is very exciting to have in the background.&rdquo; Aindrila agrees with both Huber and Keasling, who insist that research at places like JBEI helps the bioenergy landscape simply because &ldquo;what they (private companies) cannot do is the wild stuff that we do&rdquo;&mdash;the type of research that doesn&rsquo;t come with a profit in the near-term. But she says that same research has fallout that some researchers seek out: the lucrative appeal of starting a company.
&ldquo;Some people are really geared towards starting their own company so that they can control their contributions in a much more focused way,&rdquo; she says. And in a way that will allow for more direct compensation of their work. &ldquo;There are so many of my colleagues who are so good at really whittling down a big body of science to the technology that will actually make a difference and have a product at the end,&rdquo; she adds. &ldquo;In my time in this research group,&rdquo; Aindrila says, &ldquo;I have seen three or four companies being visualized and I have seen one of them go on to be the most successful companies in biofuels, and one that is on the brink. [JBEI] inspires a lot of people and attracts a lot of very talented people because that opportunity does exist.&rdquo;
Chris Somerville, director of the Energy Bioscience Institute, a bioenergy lab run out of the University of California-Berkeley, also knows an opportunity when he sees one. In 2007, Somerville became the director of EBI, leaving behind the company he founded, LS9 Inc. Though no longer involved with LS9, he does have a direct link to BP, a company his research institution is working with directly. Somerville has a few thoughts on that link to BP, and like Keasling, he also has a few ideas on what it takes to build a startup out of a research lab, and what investors and private companies need to know if they want to join in on the party. What the Founders Believe
Somerville has founded three companies. Based on that experience, he says he has some ideas how to formulate valuable objectives, how to design goals and pace milestones regarding time and money, and how to organize and motivate teams that can execute on those goals. Unfortunately, an academic setting can at times make it tough to implement a startup culture. &ldquo;However, some aspects of those practices from companies can be implemented, such as fostering teamwork and creating or importing service providers that enable researchers to focus on what they do well,&rdquo; he says. And frequently, he adds, &ldquo;just thinking through how a problem would be approached in a company with respect to cost-benefit and risk mitigation can be very helpful in designing academic collaborations to accomplish specific goals.&rdquo;
The relationship between EBI and BP has also helped his research institution in ways others might envy. &ldquo;Because of our relationship,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;we have a very effective mechanism to learn from BP about issues affecting plans for cellulosic fuels production from their perspective, and advise them about how we see those issues from the academic perspective. Indeed, one of the major goals of EBI,&rdquo; Somerville adds, &ldquo;is to try and help BP gain a broad academic perspective on the field so that they have the information to make good decisions from a &lsquo;whole system&rsquo; perspective.&rdquo; He says his overall opinion on the relationship is that if BP implements change in the energy sector, the rest of the companies will follow.
Keasling has not yet worked with BP, but he has perspective on how to help his research lab succeed. &ldquo;I think investors need to work with academics to develop a business plan or a plan for the company,&rdquo; he says of getting an academic&rsquo;s research efforts converted to a commercial reality. &ldquo;It is hard sometimes for academics to identify products, to understand all the economics around those. Generally,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;those are things held pretty tightly by companies, so it is hard to get that information. It is easier for venture capitalists that are really well connected to get that information.&rdquo;
Keasling says for those researchers out there hoping to have the term &ldquo;founder&rdquo; behind their name one day, the key is to focus on work they find fun and interesting while keeping an eye on how it could be commercialized. At JBEI, the staff is encouraged to work on their projects in a way that will allow them to file for patents. Somerville says one of his goals is to &ldquo;foster startups.&rdquo;
Keasling and Somerville both believe their institutions are at the top of the list for companies looking for guidance, and partners, in bioenergy. And it would be hard to argue with either. As Aindrila points out, &ldquo;Industry doesn&rsquo;t have the luxury, especially startup companies,&rdquo; of performing the kind of research that she and her colleagues get to do every day. That&rsquo;s what makes people like Aindrila, Huber, Somerville and Keasling unique and so important to the industry. Not only are they on the cutting edge of the research that could be the next big thing, but they have the spirit and willingness to take off those white lab coats and safety goggles for a business suit and talk products or markets for the technology and biologic breakthroughs they worked on that morning. Keasling offers a word of advice to investors. &ldquo;Keep an eye out for interesting technology and smart people, and work with them to develop that technology even further.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Author: Luke Geiver Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 738-4944 <a href="mailto:lgeiver@bbiinternational.com">lgeiver@bbiinternational.com</a>

Intellect, experience and business sense make them the industry's dream

The Bio-Academic Entrepreneurs 

The bold undertakings conducted today by Netherlands-based Royal DSM N.V. in the field of industrial biotechnology are in far contrast to its humble beginnings as a modest, state-owned coal mining company in 1902. The firm eventually transformed into a petrochemical company in the 1990s. In the past six years, however, DSM has evolved into an international life sciences and materials powerhouse that&rsquo;s working feverishly to speed the transition to a biobased economy, a global approach to manufacturing and living based on resources derived from biotechnology rather than relying on fossil sources.
Since 2005, DSM has relied upon industrial biotechnology platforms such as fermentation or biocatalytic techniques as springboards to bring its diverse products to market. DSM&rsquo;s activity in industrial biotechnology is not only being applied to biofuel and biochemicals, but it also applies to all four of its focus markets, or &ldquo;clusters:&rdquo; nutrition, pharmaceuticals, performance materials and polymer intermediates. As a result, DSM&rsquo;s established presence in Europe has spilled into the U.S. and China.
It wasn&rsquo;t until the mid-1990s, however, during its wave of acquisitions of several biotechnology firms that DSM would realize the importance of catalysis as the basis for experiencing growth in the area of industrial biotechnology. In September 2003, DSM acquired Roche Fine Chemicals and Vitamins Division and subsequently renamed the unit DSM Nutritional Products, a decision that would position DSM as a leading industrial biotechnology and chemical company, according to Volkert Claassen, vice president of strategy and key partnerships for DSM&rsquo;s biobased products and services division.
&ldquo;From that moment on, we&rsquo;ve steadily built processes and products based on biotechnology,&rdquo; Claassen says.
Claassen, who left Genencor International in 2006 to lead DSM&rsquo;s industrial biotechnology effort in his role as vice president of White Biotechnology, recognized the monumental challenges that lay before him. During his four years in that capacity, Claassen helped shape DSM&rsquo;s emerging business area of industrial biotechnology&mdash;widely referred to as &ldquo;white&rdquo; biotechnology in Europe&mdash;into a launching platform for products and services in the areas of biofuels and biochemicals. Building on that success, Claassen is poised to take DSM&rsquo;s enlarged industrial biotechnology segment to the next level. &ldquo;We have a different mentality now, we see that industrial biotechnology can really work,&rdquo; Claassen says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s all about execution right now.&rdquo;
When Claassen says DSM is executing, he means it. This is evidenced by the spate of investment, acquisition and joint development activities DSM has in several big-name biorefining companies; moves that are poised to accelerate the biorefining landscape and broaden the availability of biobased chemicals and consumer products. Power of Partnering
Alliances or partnerships with large, reputable and resourceful global brands like DSM are considered by many small to mid-level biorefining firms a necessary business decision rather than an option for bringing their novel biobased products to market. While DSM&rsquo;s list of partnerships and collaborations might be lengthy, each has&nbsp; different elements that carry distinctly different objectives, Claassen says.
Currently, DSM&rsquo;s involvement in the biorefining sector includes a strategic investment in Carlsbad, Calif.-based Verdezyne Inc. to advance the development of ethanol and biobased adipic acid, a precursor used in the manufacture of nylon 6,6, polyeurethanes and engineered plastics; a strategic investment in Golden Valley, Minn.-based Segetis Inc. for the development of selective ketalization for identifying levulinic acid esters that can be used in cleaning solvents and other household products; a collaboration with France-based Roquette Freres to jointly commercialize biobased succinic acid; a collaboration with Elevance Renewable Sciences Inc. to explore unique monomers for the production of specialty biobased thermoplastic materials using Elevance&rsquo;s novel metathesis technology; an enzyme supply agreement with Codexis Inc.; acquisition of the Dutch C5 Yeast Co. for advanced biofuel development and production; acquisition of Microbia Inc. for its ongoing development of natural carotenoids for use in nutrition, chemicals and specialty materials; acquisition of algae developer Martek Biosciences, which added a growth platform for its health and natural food ingredients area, including sugar-based biodiesel development as part of a collaboration Martek had with BP prior to being acquired by DSM.
&ldquo;All of these are examples of companies that are doing interesting things where we can add additional applications, leverage their technology by helping them to scale up and also broaden their geographical reach, because we have market connections all over the world to make these things happen,&rdquo; Claassen explains.&nbsp;
Like the benefits of DSM&rsquo;s current investments, industry participants such as Colorado-based biobased acrylic acid developer OPX Biotechnologies Inc. (OPXBio) understand how fruitful partnerships with big name, reputable, global firms such as DSM can be, and it shows through its joint development agreement with chemical giant Dow Chemical Co.
&ldquo;For OPXBio, and I think for the industry in general, it&rsquo;s very important that these strategic partnerships get formed and they are productive and accelerate the progress to commercialization,&rdquo; says Charles (Chas) Eggert, president and CEO of OPXBio. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no question that our affiliation in our partnership with Dow Chemical adds credibility to OPXBio while increasing chances for additional partnerships, additional funding and for attracting talent that can help propel our strategy forward.&rdquo;
For industry organizations that advocate industrial biotechnology&rsquo;s rapid movement in the biobased economy, such as the Biotechnology Industry Organization, DSM&rsquo;s early and active involvement is an indication of how the industry might be reaching a point of maturity, according to BIO Executive Vice President Brent Erickson.
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s being demonstrated by a couple of things,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The first one is the merger and acquisition activity. The second thing that I think is indicative of that maturity is the IPOs we&rsquo;ve seen on Wall Street. I think we&rsquo;re moving from laboratory or concept stage of technology development to actual commercialization, and I think DSM is at the forefront of that.&rdquo;
Mark Bunger, research director at Lux Research based in the firm&rsquo;s San Francisco office, agrees with Erickson&rsquo;s theory. &ldquo;I think it&rsquo;s fair to say that DSM has been the most innovative, creative and probably even the most aggressive with their approach to industrial biotechnology, and their acquisition activity tends to reflect that,&rdquo; Bunger says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s become a part of the definition of who they are.&rdquo;
Not only are biorefining firms benefitting from the myriad of services and skills DSM might offer, but the Dutch firm believes the feeling is mutual as it is learning aspects within the entire industrial biotechnology supply chain as well, such as the business of aggregating starch and cellulosic feedstocks for various biofuel or biochemical developments, according to Claassen.
&ldquo;There was one important thing that DSM immediately realized when it considered its move into larger scale application of biotechnology,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;and that was it needed partners that had knowledge in agriculture, processing, crops and so forth because everything we did before in chemistry revolved around oil.&rdquo; Market Prioritization
According to McKinsey &amp; Co., the total global market for biofuels is estimated to be approximately $40 billion and for biochemicals, it is estimated to be approximately $70 billion. The biochemical and biopolymers market, including oleochemicals, is estimated to be around $55 billion in 2010-&lsquo;11. As the world population increases, those numbers should increase, which is expected to present a lucrative proposition for DSM.
The most attractive biorefining markets in which DSM expects rapid long-term growth, according to Claassen, include second-generation biofuel development, such as cellulosic ethanol. DSM is well-equipped and positioned to capitalize on the advanced biofuel market with its robust enzyme and yeast portfolio for pretreating and converting cellulosic sugars, Claassen says. The firm is actively working to make it happen, but commercial success largely depends on&nbsp; federal incentives, political influence and feedstock sourcing and supply considerations in different countries around the world.
&ldquo;We have enzymes that do amazing things,&rdquo; Claassen says. &ldquo;I think the enzyme/yeast system as we have it are more than capable to pretreat cellulosic feedstock and produce highly efficient ethanol, but it will be a few years away yet until DSM deepens its involvement in advanced biofuel development.&rdquo;
In the short-term, Claassen says DSM aims to contribute its expertise and resources on its partnerships and investments engaged in biochemical development. Claassen points out that biobased succinic acid is of immediate interest for the company through its joint collaboration with Roquette Freres. Both companies intend to build a 10,000-metric-ton-per-year facility near a Roquette starch manufacturing plant in Cassano Spinola, Italy. The proposed facility, scheduled to come online by second quarter 2012, would be Europe&rsquo;s largest biobased succinic acid production facility.
While Claassen wouldn&rsquo;t disclose if the company is actively seeking potential acquisition or partnership targets outside of its current portfolio of activity, he admits that DSM has an uncanny ability for monitoring &ldquo;new kids on the block&rdquo; in the event that such an opportunity rises.
&ldquo;When I joined DSM, I felt that was really the strength of the company,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We follow a number of companies closely. There are always potential candidates for a potential target for a partnership, acquisition or investment, but we see clearly that we want to focus more on where we&rsquo;re good at and we have to accelerate execution right now.&rdquo; He adds, &ldquo;That means we&rsquo;ll explore different ways to cooperate externally to engage innovators and make sure we do that in a balanced approach in win-win scenarios. I think you&rsquo;ll likely see these kinds of connections being made in the coming years.&rdquo; &nbsp; Author: Bryan Sims Associate Editor, Biorefining Magazine (701) 738-4974 <a href="mailto:bsims@bbiinternational.com">bsims@bbiinternational.com</a>

Royal DSM is making significant inroads in the biorefining sector, and it shows no signs of slowing down

Royal DSM's Partnerships,  Market Penetration & Progress

Logistics have proven to be a challenge for the biorefining industry. In many cases, bulky feedstocks can be difficult and prohibitively expensive to transport and store. One solution that&rsquo;s been discussed for years is distributed collection and preprocessing locations modeled after the network of grain elevators that dot the landscape of rural America. Rather than storing grain, however, locations that serve as drop-off points for biomass feedstocks would feature pyrolysis systems to process those feedstocks into bio-oil that could more easily be transported to biorefineries for conversion into biobased fuels and chemicals. Biochar produced as a byproduct of the pyrolysis process could then be used to help rehabilitate degraded soils.
A research project as South Dakota State University is focused on determining the specific impact that various types of biochar can have on degraded soils. The project, which was recently awarded a five-year $1 million grant through the USDA&rsquo;s National Institute of Food and Agriculture&rsquo;s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, is being led by SDSU professor Tom Schumacher. Together with a team of colleagues, Schumacher will produce biochar and bio-oil via a microwave fast pyrolysis process. The resulting biochar will be introduced to degraded soils in the university greenhouse for evaluation. The team will test biochar resulting from three different feedstocks: corn stover, switchgrass and woody biomass.
&ldquo;The hypothesis for this project is the biochar will have different physical properties that will vary due to the feedstock source,&rdquo; says Jim Julson, a professor in SDSU&rsquo;s agriculture and biosystems engineering department. The processing parameters of the pyrolysis method are also expected to have an impact on the ability of the resulting biochar to function as a soil amendment.
In addition to studying the effect biochar could have on degraded soils, the research will also address emergent herbicide absorption, soil water-holding capacity, and nutrient cycling. &ldquo;These are all things that have an effect on the overall soil productivity, and we&rsquo;ll look at what effect the biochar has on [those elements.]&rdquo;&nbsp; The potential to sequester carbon dioxide and impact greenhouse gas emission levels will also be studied by researchers.
According to Julson, concerns have been raised regarding the quality of biomass or crop residues that can safely be removed from cropland for use as biorefining feedstock without impacting soil quality and production potential. Biochar soil amendments may play a role in mitigating these concerns. &ldquo;In this case we are going to take biochar [and add it to lower producing soils] to try to maintain, if not enhance, the production potential of the whole landscape.&rdquo; Although the project will initially involve soil trials in an SDSU greenhouse, Julson says that the goal is to gather data that would allow the research to scale-up to plot trials. That scale-up is likely to happen once the initial five-year research project is completed.&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

SDSU researchers evaluate use of biochar as a soil amendment

The Benefits of Biochar

Law students looking to enter the clean technology sector now have a list of the top clean technology law firms in the U.S. Ratings and rankings service Vault.com has released a top 10 list of the best clean technology and renewable energy law firms that, according to Brian Dalton, director of research and consulting at Vault.com, will allow current law students looking for employment &ldquo;an instant overview of the firms ranked highest by clean tech practitioners.&rdquo; To complete the rankings, Dalton says associates were able to vote for up to three firms in their own practice area, but were not permitted to vote for their own firm. &ldquo;Self-identified corporate associates were allowed to vote only in the corporate-related categories,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Litigators were allowed to vote in the litigation categories and so on.&rdquo;
The benefit of the list, Dalton says, is linked to the job seeker&rsquo;s understanding of not only what each law firm specializes in, but what it might take to get a job at each firm. &ldquo;The more an applicant knows about the inner workings of a law firm before he or she even applies there, the better they will do in the resume process and the following interview steps. It allows the candidates to narrow their search and then research the firms in that practice area and discover what it takes to get hired there, find out more about the firm&rsquo;s culture and compensation.&rdquo;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

Clean technology firms with strong energy practices

Vault.com's Top 10  Clean Energy Law Firms

Minnesota-based Cortec Corp. will use Mirel bioplastics to manufacture a new line of film products. The manufacturer of the material, Telles, a joint venture of Metabolix Inc. and Archer Daniels Midland Co., has been working with Cortec through a mutual development and commercialization effort to develop a proprietary processing and extrusion method, resulting in the first commercially viable finished flexible film products made from Mirel P5001 film grade resin.
&ldquo;Our combined effort with the Telles technical team to develop a unique method of extrusion-blown film products has resulted in a process innovation,&rdquo; says Boris Miksic, president and CEO of Cortec. &ldquo;The combination of Mirel film resin with the new extrusion and processing method delivers practical and diverse benefits for end-users, including multiple end-of-life options.&rdquo;
Cortec will launch two new products based on Mirel P5001; EcoOcean, for marine biodegradable markets, and Eco Works for disposal in anaerobic digestion systems. Mirel P5001 was tested and approved under ASTM D7081 and ASTM D5511 to ensure compliance with biodegradation in marine environments and anaerobic biodegradation.&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

Mirel bioplastic selected for a new line of film products

Finished Flexible Film

Howard Salis has proof that he was paying attention during his undergraduate and graduate days&mdash;and the biofuels industry should be thankful. Salis, now a synthetic biologist at Pennsylvania State University, has developed a DNA compiler program that can design and predict DNA sequences in microorganisms. Part of his chemical engineering background and time spent in the classroom, Salis says, gave him &ldquo;this idea that we solve equations and we solve them on the computer during our undergraduate and graduate curriculum.&rdquo; As Salis says, those classes came in handy, and for him it meant that he was able to construct a computer software program from scratch that can design new DNA sequences to improve the efficiency of the superbugs used in the biofuels industry today.
&ldquo;The software makes specific predictions about which specific DNA sequences will give you a certain amount of protein, and then we measure that,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We compare the prediction with the experimental data.&rdquo; After testing a DNA sequence on the computer, the team then tests those predictions at Salis&rsquo; lab. A user can simply tell the program the amount of protein an organism should make, and the program will in return tell the user the DNA sequence that will produce the desired amount of protein. This function, Salis says, is crucial to the biofuels industry. &ldquo;There have been multiple companies that used the software,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;In one example, a company had spent three years working on a product. They had a bottleneck. They used the software to eliminate that bottleneck and it immediately increased production by 50 percent.&rdquo;
He also points to other companies such as LS9 and Amyris that he says could benefit from using the software. &ldquo;If they want to make more biodiesel or octane, they need to go through a process of mutating their DNA and then measure how much more product they are making. Of course,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;the more complicated this system gets and the more enzymes you have, the more mutations you could make.&rdquo; Because of that, he explains, a process like this would typically require hundreds and thousands of iterations (mutations), &ldquo;and that is why it takes so long to engineer microorganisms.&rdquo;
The software program can control aspects such as protein production across a 100,000-fold scale. &ldquo;This is a very large dynamic range. It would be like if you had the volume on your stereo and the dial went from one to 100,000.&rdquo;
The software will not only help companies that have already started on a project. Salis points out that companies starting from scratch can use the software to optimize a pathway, and in the lab his team has already performed more than 150 tests to prove the efficiency and accuracy of the software. The software is available free online. Established companies that want to test it out may want to try the version that can be licensed because, as Salis says, &ldquo;if a company were to send a fancy enzyme to my Web server, I can&rsquo;t guarantee it.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

A synthetic biologist engineers program to test DNA sequences in superbugs

Software Every  Bioenergy Firm Needs

The best part about the Kbase (knowledgebase) that a team of scientists from Argonne, Oak Ridge and Lawrence Berkley national labs, plus Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and others are working on is not that the work will help those scientists understand how microbes interact and live within their environments. As Doreen Ware, a CSHL professor working on the Kbase project says, the best part might instead be that the team will &ldquo;focus on a specific assortment of plants and microbes that the energy department hopes to exploit to produce biofuels.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The scientists want to create a system that can be used by the entire scientific community as a tool to understand the microbes and environments those microbes live in. The Kbase will be made available via cloud computing. Michael Schatz, another scientist from CSHL working on the project, sited Google as an example to explain the project as something that will enable anyone with internet access to tap into the information the team of scientists has recorded.&nbsp;
&mdash;Luke Geiver

The Kbase will reveal relationships between microbes and environments

Why Cloud Computing  and Biofuels Make Sense

The USDA announced four new Biomass Crop Assistance Program project areas spanning six states in late July, bringing the number of project areas named in the past few months to nine. Together, the nine project areas span an estimated 330,000 acres of energy crop production.
Two of the new BCAP project areas will target the growth of camelina in areas of California, Montana, Washington and Oregon. The third will encourage the growth of hybrid poplar trees in Oregon, while the fourth is designed to support the growth of switchgrass in Kansas and Oklahoma.
Although the past year has been highly successful for BCAP, the future of the program remains uncertain. According to Todd Atkinson, chief of staff at the USDA&rsquo;s Farm Service Agency, the funding for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, has already been allocated. This means no new project areas are expected to be announced before that date. Additional project areas could be named during the next fiscal year, as long as more funding is allocated to the program.
Existing project areas, however, will not be affected if Congress fails to fund the program in the next fiscal year. According to Atkinson, funding that has been obligated to existing project areas and has been allocated via contracts the FSA has entered into with projects is already in hand. &ldquo;If funding [for BCAP] is terminated into the next fiscal year, it will not affect any of the contracts we enter into right now,&rdquo; he says.
Regarding funding for the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Atkinson notes that the U.S. House of Representatives has passed an agricultural appropriations bill, which proposes zeroing out funding for the BCAP program. However, the U.S. Senate has not acted on its version of the bill. Once the Senate acts, both versions of the bill will have to be reconciled in a conference committee. It remains to be seen what the final outcome will be for BCAP. Federal lawmakers may also be working on the 2012 Farm Bill soon. It is impossible to project at this time whether that bill will reauthorize the BCAP program.
The biorefining industry will clearly benefit if the program is reauthorized and allocated additional funding. Atkinson stresses how important feedstock development is to the sector. &ldquo;As resources are invested in research and development&hellip;capital equipment, facilities and infrastructure, and all the financial risk mitigation tools to help start this industry, I like to say &lsquo;forget not the feedstock,&rsquo;&rdquo; Atkinson says. &ldquo;We need the feedstock in addition to the facilities. Many of these dedicated energy crops may take two or three years before they are mature enough to harvest, so an investment needs to be conducted in tandem with the development of the facilities that propose to use these feedstocks. The [facilities] that are in precommercial stages or are under construction now that may be ready to go online in [the 2013-&rsquo;14 timeframe] need sufficient quantities of feedstock. It all rests on a strong base of available feedstocks that can be obtained economically.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

USDA announces more BCAP project areas, but the program's fate is unclear

An Uncertain Future

Despite reports that Ineos New Planet BioEnergy&rsquo;s Indian River BioEnergy Center cellulosic ethanol biorefinery project in Vero Beach, Fla., may be running behind schedule, CEO and Chairman Peter Williams says the project is, in fact, on schedule and expected to meet its commission date in April 2012.
&ldquo;Things are progressing well and are on track at the Vero Beach site,&rdquo; Williams says. &ldquo;As is the case with all major projects as complex as this, elements will change, but this does not change our expected start date.&rdquo;
Specifically, reports appear to have focused on a change in the phasing of recruitment for the project and the necessary administrative steps taken in the grant funding with Indian River County that, according to Ineos Bio, had no bearing on the completion of the project.
&ldquo;Ineos Bio has consistently stated in its announcements that the first bio-ethanol facility will be mechanically complete in April 2012 and will be commissioned in second quarter 2012; this has not changed,&rdquo; said Ineos in a company statement.
The biorefinery, which officially broke ground in February, is slated to produce 8 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol and 6 megawatts (gross) of renewable power from local yard, vegetative and household wastes when operational. The renewable electricity is expected to power approximately 1,400 homes. Located at a former citrus processing plant site, the BioEnergy Center will provide 380 direct and indirect jobs (including 175 construction jobs) over the next year and 50 full-time jobs in Indian River County where current unemployment is around 13.6 percent, the sixth highest in the state.
In January, the Ineos Bio/New Planet Energy joint venture received a $75 million USDA loan guarantee as part of the USDA&rsquo;s 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program to help cover the cost of building the plant. In addition to support from the state of Florida in the form of a $2.5 million grant, the Indian River BioEnergy Center received significant support from the federal government as part of its ongoing effort to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, spur the creation of the domestic biorefining industry and provide new clean technology jobs throughout the country. In late 2009, the project received a $50 million U.S. DOE grant as part of its Section 932 Integrated Biorefinery program.
The key to Ineos&rsquo; conversion technology lies in its patented anaerobic fermentation step. During this process, naturally occurring bacteria convert gases derived from the biomass into ethanol.
In August, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack paid a visit to Vero Beach to tour the facility. While there, Vilsack announced a series of joint USDA and DOE grants to spur research into improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of growing biofuel and bioenergy crops.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

Ineos Bio makes progress on nation's first cellulosic biorefinery project

Setting the Record Straight

Finding cost-effective means for disposing or diverting the millions of tons of MSW generated each year may be a dilemma faced by many counties and municipalities across the nation, but those in North Carolina are inching closer to finding a solution, thanks to a $93,119 grant from the North Carolina Biofuels Center to help fund a project for cost-effectively utilizing MSW for conversion into biofuels and biochemicals.
The Environmental Research and Education Foundation received the funding and will spearhead the project, &ldquo;Utilizing Municipal Solid Waste as a Biofuel Feedstock,&rdquo; in collaboration with Maverick Biofuels, North Carolina State University and Waste Industries USA Inc.
According to Bryan Staley, EREF president and CEO, the thrust of the 16-month-long project is to determine the potential for using MSW as a feedstock for biofuel production, such as biobutanol, by evaluating various conversion technologies such as gasification, pyrolysis and wet oxidation; and infrastructure needed to make the entire process viable at scale. Additionally, NCSU will conduct a life-cycle analysis as part of the project to assess which conversion technologies might be the most cost-effective, evaluate cost benefits and assess carbon intensity levels.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to develop some numbers that would bracket out the various MSW conversion technologies that are out there,&rdquo; Staley says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re hoping that the life-cycle analysis will be reflective of the inclusion and the exclusion of the various initial feedstock that would come in.&rdquo;
Maverick Biofuels&rsquo; role will be to provide technical assistance in conversion technology, Waste Industries will provide the MSW feedstock and EREF will aggregate information on the variability of waste composition and waste generation points, as well as evaluate ideal site location, according to Staley.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims

How MSW will be efficiently, economically utilized in the Tar Heel State

Collaboration by Design

As part of a major capital investment at its Ingeo lactide and biopolymer production facility in Blair, Neb., Minnetonka, Minn.-based NatureWorks LLC will soon be the world&rsquo;s first to offer in commercial volumes a high-purity, polymer-grade lactide rich in the stereoisomer meso-lactide.
Identified as Ingeo M700 lactide, the new material can be used as a chemical intermediate for a variety of applications such as for copolymers, amorphous oligomers and polymers, grafted substrates, resin additives/modifiers, adhesives, coatings, elastomers, surfactants, thermosets and solvents. Samples of the new polymers and lactide intermediates will be available in 2012 with commercial sales expected of Ingeo M700 slated for 2013. NatureWorks began offering L-lactide intermediates in 2010.
According to Manuel Natal, global segment leader for lactide derivatives at NatureWorks, until now several niche-focused producers have attempted to address the functionality requested by the market with what are described chemically as racemic lactides.
&ldquo;Compared to these, the high-purity Ingeo M700 will be lower in cost, easier to process and an overall better alternative to high-priced racemic lactide, as well as L- and D-lactides, in a host of industrial applications,&rdquo; Natal says.
A lower melting point, improved ester delivery, lower water content, less catalyst usage and lower reaction temperatures are several other significant advantages Ingeo M700 is expected to have over conventional racemic lactide.
NatureWorks&rsquo; family of Ingeo biopolymers are produced from starch such as dextrose with microorganisms that create lactic acid and then form long chain lactide monomers. Through polymerization, the chains form polylactide polymers, which are then pelletized.&nbsp;
&mdash;Bryan Sims&nbsp;

NatureWorks to broaden biopolymer portfolio with new Ingeo lactide

Intermediate Innovation

Dong Energy wishes there were more cities like Frederica. The Denmark town is participating in a waste refinery project that will convert municipal solid waste into a bioliquid suitable for biogas or, as Dong Energy hopes, second-generation biofuel. The technology, developed in part between Dong Energy and subsidiary Inbicon, is based on a process that heats MSW in a reactor at low temperatures and atmospheric pressures, cools it, then treats the MSW mix with a cocktail of enzymes. The large plastic and glass pieces are removed and recycled, and everything else is converted into a bioliquid. The process requires no pretreatment or presorting of the MSW.
It&rsquo;s called REnescience, and Jonny Trapp Steffensen, international sales manager for the process, says Dong Energy has two major stakes in the Frederica project that is putting the REnescience process to the test. The first is to further develop the gas-upgrading facility for injection into the natural gas grid based on biogas from Frederica&rsquo;s municipal wastewater treatment plant. The second is to show &ldquo;that the REnescience concept fits well with a municipal wastewater treatment plant,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The bioliquid has a strong biogas potential and can thus serve as a booster to existing biogas plants that run on animal manure or wastewater sludge,&rdquo; he adds.
Early on in the project, the tests were conducted at an Inbicon facility. Now, any municipality with the right vision can put the process to use. Nanna Dreyer Norholm, senior innovation manager for the facility in Frederica, and the rest of her staff can help with design and support for the process. Or they can also provide a back-of-the-envelope type of feasibility assessment. Or, perhaps they can offer a test run to show that the process works on your waste too.
&mdash;Luke Geiver

Danish city to test Dong Energy/Inbicon-inspired MSW-to-bioliquid process

Nothing to Waste in Frederica

U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus appeared on the television show Platts Energy Week in July to talk about the Navy&rsquo;s goals and ambitions for biobased fuels. During his appearance, Mabus stressed that the Navy has always been a leader in U.S. energy innovation. &ldquo;The Navy has always led when we&rsquo;ve changed energy sources,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Sail to coal; coal to oil; oil to nuclear; and now I think we&rsquo;re on the verge of doing that again, to change to alternative fuels.&rdquo;
The Navy and Marine Corps have set an ambitious goal of utilizing 8 million barrels (336 million gallons) of alternative fuels annually by 2020. Mabus says that goal is absolutely possible. &ldquo;There are so many good ideas out there right now; so many people working on this and what we can do&mdash;what the Navy can do, what the military can do&mdash;is we can bring a market,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;We use a lot of fuel and we can help get some of these smaller companies or some of these newer technologies over from being just a good idea to being commercially viable.&rdquo;
Mabus, however, also notes that the alternative fuels it adopts must be useable in existing ship, aircraft and transportation vehicle engines. This is because the Navy is already operating with the vast majority of the fleet it will be employing in 2020. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t go around changing engines,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re just changing the type of fuel that is used and it&rsquo;s got to work exactly the way the fuel works today.&rdquo;
During the interview, Mabus also outlined several actions the Navy is taking to support the development of advanced biofuels. This includes meeting with venture capitalists and finance organizations to educate them on the market the military offers and the types of fuels it needs. &ldquo;We tell them to bring us the companies that can do it,&rdquo; Mabus says.
Mabus also notes he has testified before congressional committees to encourage the revision of military offtake agreements for fuels, which are currently limited to five years. &ldquo;I think people are recognizing the concern there,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not just Navy; it&rsquo;s government-wide. I hope there will be some progress there. You can only do five years for fuel; you can do up to 30 years for electricity, so it&rsquo;s just sort of an order of semantics, but I hope we can get there.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&mdash;Erin Voegele

The U.S. military still sees benefits in biofuels

Fighting for Biofuels

1. Oil extraction technology company OriginOil Inc. developed a real-time control network that supervises continuous algae harvesting operations at large-scale algae production sites. The company recently filed for patent protection on the new control technology, which aims to simplify the complex task of computerizing an intelligent control system for commercial environments where all algae production and extraction processing systems are integrated. Codenamed Green Stick, the network will be installed at Australian algae producer MBD Energy&rsquo;s power plant test site where it will interface with MBD&rsquo;s own growth control system to integrate operations with OriginOil&rsquo;s proprietary Single Step Extraction unit and downstream concentration and separation processes. Measuring and controlling the hundreds of interactions that are critical to automate and scale large production operations, including algae growth, dewatering, flocculation, cell lysing and oil recovery, have so far been accomplished in the industry with little automated process sophistication. The real-time control network system is managed by a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System that connects the biology and engineering with high throughput process control. 2. Netherlands-based lactic acid producer Purac, a subsidiary of global bakery ingredients supplier CSM, and BASF SE, the world&rsquo;s leading chemical company, are leaning toward taking their two-year development agreement further with the possible formation of a joint venture to produce biobased succinic acid. Both companies say the complementary strengths in fermentation and downstream processing led to the development of a sustainable and highly efficient manufacturing process based on a proprietary microorganism, Basfia succinicproducens, a natural producer of succinic acid that can process a range of cellulosic and hemicellulosic sugars contained in biomass. The demand for succinic acid is anticipated to see steady growth in the coming years. Main drivers are expected to be bioplastics, chemical intermediates, solvents, polyurethanes and plasticizers. During the existing cooperation, according to BASF, critical steps of the jointly developed production process have been validated in several successful production campaigns. The resulting volumes were used to evaluate the market. The newly developed process would combine high efficiency with the use of biobased feedstocks and the fixation of carbon dioxide during production. Purac currently has six lactic acid production units operating across the globe. 3. After nearly five years of research and development, the work of Pacific Renewable Fuels and Chemicals, and Red Lion Bio-Energy, has become SynTerra Energy Inc., a new biorefining company that&nbsp; combines pyrolysis and syngas technologies to produce synthetic diesel and renewable chemicals. In 2006, Red Lion Bio-Energy, a Toledo, Ohio-based company, began working with the Renewable Energy Institute International of Sacramento to test the pyrolysis process developed by Red Lion Bio-Energy. The process involves steam reformation with pyrolysis followed by a Fischer Tropsch process that converts the syngas with a catalyst designed by SynTerra into synthetic diesel. Known as the Syntrex process&nbsp;, it creates a syngas with a low volume of contaminants helping to lower the cost of downstream purification. The synthetic diesel contains zero sulfur and has a 50 percent higher cetane level compared to conventional diesel fuel, all with a 50 percent greenhouse gas reduction. 4. Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC announced the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted it another patent addressing foundational methods for low-cost biobutanol production. The patent addresses the fermentative production of four carbon alcohols. &ldquo;Specifically, butanol, preferably isobutanol is produced by the fermentative growth of a recombinant bacterium expressing an isobutanol biosynthetic pathway,&rdquo; states the patent abstract. Butamax filed for the patent in January 2008. On Aug. 9, Butamax also announced the filing of a second patent infringement case against Gevo, alleging Gevo has unlawfully used Butamax technology. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Delaware. The lawsuit addresses Gevo&rsquo;s infringement of the patent granted the same day. In response, Gevo issued a statement asserting that the lawsuit is without merit, and that the new lawsuit will be consolidated into a single case with the lawsuit Butamax filed in January. 5. Emeryville, Calif.-based biotechnology firm Amyris Inc. has signed a collaboration agreement with Japan-based resin and polymer manufacturer Kuraray Co. Ltd. to develop innovative polymers made from Amyris&rsquo; biobased farnesene, Biofene, as a replacement for petroleum-based feedstocks such as butadiene and isoprene in the production of specified classes of high-performance polymers. Upon successful completion of the technical development program for the first polymer, Amyris and Kuraray will enter into a supply agreement for Kuraray&rsquo;s exclusive use of Biofene in the manufacturing and commercialization of the polymer products. Information as to when Amyris would begin supplying its Biofene to Kuraray, at what capacity it would be used and at what location it would be integrated couldn&rsquo;t be verified. 6. California-based bioplastic producer Cereplast Inc. is hosting an online forum allowing members of the public to engage in the development of proposed usage guidelines for its new bioplastics symbol, which was selected this spring via the company&rsquo;s &ldquo;Make Your Mark&rdquo; competition. According to Cereplast, the goal of the symbol is to help consumers identify products and packaging made from bioplastics. The online comment period will be completed in two phases, with phase one closing mid-August, followed by Cereplast posting a new draft of the guidelines online and opening up a second comment period. The bioplastics symbol is expected be available for use by Nov. 15. One of the most important topics of feedback is defining what type of material will qualify as a bioplastic for the purpose of symbol licensing. Members of the public and representatives of industry are expected to provide feedback on the appropriate minimum biobased content level of plastic material that can be labeled with the symbol. 7. Germany-based international specialty chemicals company S&uuml;d-Chemie AG held groundbreaking July 26 for a 1,000 ton-per-year demonstration-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Straubing, located in the Lower Bavaria region. The plant, which is expected to begin production by the end of the year, will convert wheat straw collected from area farmers to ethanol using S&uuml;d-Chemie&rsquo;s trademarked sunliquid process. The company said the demonstration plant will be the largest ag waste-to-ethanol plant in Germany when complete. The sunliquid process is a biotechnological process that utilizes specially developed enzymes to dissolve the cellulose and hemicelluloses into sugar monomers in high yields. The process then uses specialized yeasts developed by S&uuml;d-Chemie to simultaneously convert the C5 and C6 sugars to ethanol in a &ldquo;one-pot reaction,&rdquo; which increases ethanol yields by up to 50 percent. Lignin produced from the process will be used to provide power for the facility. 8. Houston-based Terrabon Inc. has been awarded a $9.6 million, 18-month contract by Logos Technologies Inc. to design a renewable and more economical jet fuel production solution for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Started in April, a customized production process for DARPA will be engineered, constructed and operated at Terrabon&rsquo;s demonstration facility in Bryan, Texas, to produce 6,000 liters (1,585 gallons) of jet fuel using the company&rsquo;s proprietary MixAlco biomass conversion technology. Developed at Texas A&amp;M University, Terrabon&rsquo;s MixAlco process converts low-cost, nonfood biomass into valuable chemicals such as acetic acid, ketones and alcohols that can be further processed into renewable fuels, such as biojet fuel. The new contract with Logos represents the second phase of a partnership that originated more than a year ago to validate Terrabon&rsquo;s MixAlco process to produce biojet fuel. In the first phase, Terrabon, along with other third-party collaborators, produced 100 liters of biojet fuel with Logos, DARPA&rsquo;s main contractor assisting in the commercialization effort to bring biojet fuel technologies to market. Terrabon intends to use the 6,000 liters produced at the Bryan facility for fit-for-purpose, performance and OEM testing to begin qualification for the alcohol-to-jet pathway under the ASTM D7566 specification. 9. Dow Chemical Co. and Japan-based Mitsui &amp; Co. Ltd. have announced the formation of a joint venture and execution of a memorandum of understanding to provide innovative and sustainable biopolymers for use in the high-performance flexible packaging, hygiene and medical markets. Mitsui will become a 50 percent equity interest partner in Dow&rsquo;s sugarcane growing operation in Santa Vit&oacute;ria Minas Gerais, Brazil. According to Dow, the initial scope of the joint venture includes production of sugarcane ethanol, which will be used as a feedstock to produce biopolymers. The first phase includes construction of a new sugarcane-to-ethanol production facility in Santa Vit&oacute;ria to begin this fall and be complete in 24 months.
&nbsp;
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With more biofuel companies doing business overseas, understanding the risks and dangers of violating the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is critical. The FCPA makes it a felony for a U.S. citizen (or a foreigner acting on his behalf) to offer or make a corrupt payment to a foreign official or political party for purposes of obtaining or retaining business.
The FCPA prohibits U.S. individuals or companies from paying, authorizing or promising payment of money or anything of value to any foreign official, political party or candidate for foreign political office, for the purpose of influencing any official act or decision, including omission to act, to induce such official to use his influence with a foreign government or instrumentality thereof to affect or influence any act or decision of such government or instrumentality to assist the U.S. individual or company in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person. The prohibitions of the FCPA apply to all U.S. individuals and companies. FCPA regulations also apply to foreign firms and persons who take any act in furtherance of such a corrupt payment on behalf of a U.S. individual or company.
&ldquo;Corrupt behavior&rdquo; is established when the payment made to a foreign official was intended to induce the recipient to misuse his or her official position or to influence someone else to do so. The payment must have been made voluntarily and intentionally, and with the purpose of accomplishing an unlawful end or result by some unlawful means. To establish corrupt behavior, the U.S. government must establish corrupt intent and knowledge that the action was corrupt. The U.S. government is required to establish that the individual making the payment satisfies the &ldquo;knowing standard&rdquo; where &ldquo;such person is aware that such person is engaging in such conduct that such circumstances exists, or that such result is substantially certain to occur; or such person has a firm belief that such circumstance exists or that such result is substantially certain to occur.&rdquo; Congress intended this to apply to &ldquo;a conscious disregard or deliberate ignorance of known circumstances that should reasonably alert one to the high probability of violations of the FCPA.&rdquo; Simple negligence or mere foolishness is not a basis for liability.
While the FCPA prohibits direct payments to any foreign official, foreign party official or candidate for political office, it also forbids payments to &ldquo;[a]ny person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official to any foreign political party or official thereof, or to any candidate for foreign political office.&rdquo; This covers the payment of money when the U.S. individual or company knows that the payment will ultimately be made to the foreign official to accomplish the intended act that is in violation of the FCPA.
The U.S. government must establish that the payment was made directly or through a third party to a foreign official. A foreign official has been defined to include &ldquo;any officer or employee of a foreign government or any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, or any person acting in an official capacity for or on behalf of any such government or department, agency, or instrumentatlity.&rdquo;
The FCPA prohibits payments made in order to assist the firm in obtaining or retaining business for or with or directing business to any person. The U.S. Department of Justice interprets &ldquo;obtaining or retaining business&rdquo; broadly, such that the term encompasses more than the mere award or renewal of a contract.&nbsp; It should be noted that the business to be obtained or retained does not need to be with a foreign government or foreign government instrumentality.&nbsp;
The FCPA includes an exception for payments made to a foreign official, political party or party official for the purpose of facilitating or expediting or securing the performance of a &ldquo;routine governmental action&rdquo; by the official or party. &ldquo;Routine governmental action&rdquo; is defined as an action ordinarily and commonly performed by a foreign official in connection with obtaining permits, licenses, or other official documents to enable another person to do business in a foreign country; processing governmental papers such as visas and work orders; providing police protection, mail pick-up and delivery, or scheduling inspections associated with contract performance or inspections related to the transit of goods across country; providing phone service, power, and water supply, loading and unloading cargo, or protecting perishable products or commodities from deterioration; or actions of a similar nature. A &ldquo;routine governmental action&rdquo; does not include any decision or action by an official involved in the decision-making process concerning whether, or on what terms, to award new business to, or to continue to do business with, a particular party.
Criminally, a U.S. company can be fined up to $2 million. Officers, directors or shareholders acting on behalf of the company who willfully violate the FCPA&rsquo;s provisions can be fined not more than $100,000 and imprisoned for not more than five years or both. Any employee, agent or representative of the U.S. company who is a U.S. citizen, national or resident, or who is otherwise subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S. and who willfully violates the FCPA can be fined not more than $100,000 or imprisoned not more than five years or both. The penalties listed above cannot be paid by the U.S. company on behalf of the sanctioned individual.&nbsp; Civilly, a U.S. company that violates the FCPA can be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 in an action brought by the SEC or the U.S. Attorney General. Officers, directors, employees, agents or shareholders acting on behalf of the U.S. company who violate the FCPA&rsquo;s provisions can be subject to a civil penalty of not more than $10,000 in an action brought by the SEC or the U.S. Attorney General. Author: Richard Weiner Vice President, Fredrikson &amp; Byron (612) 492-7009<a href="mailto:rweiner@fredlaw.com"> rweiner@fredlaw.com</a>

What biofuel companies need to know about the FCPA

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act:The Essentials

Winds of change in consumer preference and awareness are driving companies to use materials and ingredients inside their products that are less toxic, more biodegradable and made from renewable resources. The demand for these features is driving manufacturers in the building, automotive, medical devices, packaging and toy industries to reach back to the chemical ingredient suppliers to provide solutions that deliver on both performance and a sustainable environmental profile. We are on the cusp of an extraordinary opportunity for the U.S. chemical industry, and the U.S. manufacturing industry as a whole. As a nation, we need to put our commitment to green chemistry into action and develop the infrastructure to catalyze the biobased materials industry.
Segetis, as well as others such as Natureworks, Elevance, Gevo, and Metabolix, are utilizing alternate raw materials streams to spur innovation in sustainable chemistry. Companies such as these reduce our nation&rsquo;s dependence on fossil fuels by leveraging the vast acreage across America that is used to grow corn, grass, wood and other agricultural feedstocks. The primary harvest or waste streams (husks, cobs, wood pulp liquor) can be converted into biobased products that deliver superior performance, are safer for our children, better for our environment and benefit our economic viability as a nation. This infusion of new technologies is beginning to reenergize the U.S. chemical industry, which is home to some of the largest and best companies in the world, with some of the brightest and most qualified labor. The U.S. trade commission reported that in 2007, the biobased product industry employed nearly 6,000. Growth has been significant since then with jobs in the sector now in the tens of thousands. A 2009 USDA analysis predicts that with proper support, the industry could create or save tens of thousands more jobs in the future. This is a remarkable recovery from the 5.8 million jobs in the U.S. manufacturing industry and nearly 200,000 jobs in the U.S. chemical industry lost between 2000 and 2010.
The biomaterials era is an emerging industry. Starting something new and growing from a small base takes time and capital. The chemical industry in particular is capital intensive. Scale is enormous with many of the markets demanding billions of pounds. Building biomaterials volume fast and large enough is challenging. Financing this growth is the No. 1 challenge.
The biobased materials industry has seen that venture funds or private investment funds are available to spur innovation and build demonstration plants. However, fewer funding options exist to build the large-scale plants needed to put our industry on the map and realize the huge potential. Public markets are starting to become more active after the deep recession. Government funding opportunities currently available only for biofuels must be opened up to the broader biobased materials industry. Government funding serves a critical need to de-risk the first-of-its-kind capital investment. Manufacturing investment incentives would also deliver a huge boost to catalyze the bio industry. There are many other support mechanisms, but the point is that in order to realize this extraordinary opportunity, we need to do what it takes now to make sure we establish the U.S. as a center of excellence in biomaterial supply, before it&rsquo;s too late.&nbsp;
This is our chance. We know that dependence on oil is unsustainable in the long-term and the resources of the world are unevenly distributed. If we invest today in our biorefineries and the products they produce, we bring a bounty of benefits: we secure our future feedstocks for fuel and value-added chemicals; infuse growth needed in jobs and manufacturing output; make a commitment to environmental stewardship; and leave a legacy to our future generations.
So let&rsquo;s take advantage of these winds of change and set our course to a winning solution that will strengthen the U.S. green economy. Author: Atul Thakrar President and CEO, Segetis (763) 795-7200 <a href="mailto:info@segetis.com">info@segetis.com</a>

The U.S. must establish itself now as a center of excellence in biomaterial supply before it's too late

Biobased Materials: Strengthening the US Green Economy

1/16. If you go to one biomass event in the western U.S. next year, make it BBI International&rsquo;s Pacific West Biomass Conference &amp; Trade Show, produced jointly by Biomass Power &amp; Thermal and Biorefining magazines.
The PacWest biomass show heads to the Bay area this year, which will be held Jan. 16-18 at the San Francisco Marriot Marquis.
The conference, one of three distinct regional offshoots of BBI&rsquo;s International Biomass Conference &amp; Expo, will feature more than 60 speakers in four tracks: &bull; Biomass power and thermal &bull; Feedstock &bull; Biomass project development and finance &bull; Biorefining The third annual Pacific West Biomass Conference &amp; Trade Show will connect the area&rsquo;s current and future producers of biomass-derived electricity, industrial heat and power, and advanced biofuels, with: &bull; Waste generators &bull; Aggregators &bull; Growers &bull; Municipal leaders &bull; Utility executives &bull; Technology providers &bull; Equipment manufacturers &bull; Investors &bull; Policy makers
The PacWest biomass show is designed to help you, the biomass industry stakeholder, identify and evaluate solutions that fit your operation.
It&rsquo;s time to improve your operational efficiencies and tap into the revenue-generating potential of sustainable biomass resources in the region.
Register today at <a href="http://pacificwest.biomassconference.com" target="_blank">http://pacificwest.biomassconference.com</a>.

Biomass Event Hotspot: San Francisco in January

Washington&rsquo;s last minute maneuvering this summer got me thinking that the country-spun political wisdom of Will Rogers continues to hold true even in today&rsquo;s instant access world where one vote or press conference on Capitol Hill can have immediate worldwide consequences. I&rsquo;m reminded of the observation the Oklahoman once made that, &ldquo;This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.&rdquo; Well that baby has certainly been busy and as Congress adjourned for its annual summer recess, Wall Street and other world markets are signaling the need for adult supervision in D.C.
The procrastination of the inevitable on Capitol Hill was enough to make a high school senior smile with envy but left the rest of us scratching our heads while watching the value of our investments plummet. Washington&rsquo;s jolting performance and the economic aftershocks have those of you on the verge of commercializing your replacement fuels questioning whether Congress and the White House can successfully provide the policy tools needed to ensure certainty in the markets for your next step.
Unfortunately, I don&rsquo;t have encouraging news to share with you as I look at the renewable fuels landscape right now in Washington. Here&rsquo;s a recap. For three months, we saw an effort to amend and redirect the funds associated with the ethanol tax credit. The Senate, for the first time since 1978, actually voted to repeal the long-standing credit that has supported the domestic ethanol industry. By a vote of 73 to 27, senators voted to repeal the credit effective July 1.&nbsp;
Following that vote, however, Sens. Thune, Klobachar and Feinstein attempted to negotiate a compromise to repeal the ethanol credit, bank $1.4 billion in savings to the treasury and allocate around $800 million for infrastructure and extending the cellulosic production tax credit. That deal ran into a number of snags and officially terminated July 31. Unable to pass this deal through the entire Congress, as part of a debt ceiling deal that was clear of any tax provisions, meant that $800 million of anticipated savings were now gone as the credit continues to operate across July and August at a burn rate of $400 million per month.
Further complicating the current political and legislative environment was that agreement to raise the debt ceiling. Prior to adjournment, after months of vitriolic wrangling, lawmakers agreed to cut the budget by $917 billion over the next 10 years in return for raising the debt limit. The deal essentially allows the president to raise the debt as long as Congress agrees to pass an equal amount of spending cuts or tax increases. The agreement also creates a first-of-its-kind congressional super committee made up of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats from each respective chamber.
In order to raise the debt limit, which everyone agrees will be needed, Congress must pass a plan to reduce spending or raise revenue on the order of $1.5 trillion over 10 years by Dec. 23. This plan is to be finished by the new super committee by Nov. 23. Then an up or down vote will be taken on the proposal by both chambers of Congress. If it fails, an automatic sequestration of across-the-board spending cuts will go into place up to $1.2 trillion from both mandatory and discretionary programs.
What does all this mean to our domestic advanced biofuels industry? If Congress does not reach agreement, the military budget could see significant cuts in the order of $300 to $600 billion over 10 years. That would not be particularly helpful in the Pentagon&rsquo;s efforts to work with renewable fuels moving forward.
Secondly, if the current polar opposite view continues on tax increases or tax changes, this would make it extremely difficult to extend many of the four current biofuels provisions that expire at the end of this year, the ones I outlined here last month. If you thought 2009 and 2010 were difficult, wait until you see this fall&rsquo;s effort to extend any of these credits. In a future column, we can explore why letting a current credit expire is viewed by several conservative icons as raising taxes. But that is for another day.
The good news for America&rsquo;s domestic advanced biofuels industry is our continued support from members, both Republican and Democrat, who recognize not only the need, but also the promise and desire to see advanced and cellulosic replacement fuels come to the market. With that in mind, this is a critical time where all renewable energy elements need to work together.
As an industry, we will need to continue to work closely with Congress by identifying smarter investment opportunities for federal dollars that will help us successfully cross the so-called Valley of Death and commercialize our advanced technologies. So, before we&rsquo;re knee-deep into next year&rsquo;s presidential political wrangling, we need to do some serious rethinking about our expectations of Washington&rsquo;s role and taxpayer support by presenting a solid return on investment across a range of national interests. If we do not make our case as a crucial element for funding, it may be another two years before we can create significant partnerships with the federal government. Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association (202) 469-5140 <a href="mailto:Michael.McAdams@hklaw.com">Michael.McAdams@hklaw.com</a>

Can America afford to stick around for the second act?

Lights, Camera, Congress… 

Last weekend, my cousin&rsquo;s husband stopped in at my place to look at a car that I want to sell. He popped the hood and we talked about the car for a while, and then we caught up on family news over a couple of beers. It had been some time since we&rsquo;d last talked, so he asked what I was doing these days. I told him I&rsquo;m the editor of two monthly magazines centered on renewable fuels and chemicals. He sort of scoffed, and I knew we were going to get into &ldquo;the discussion.&rdquo; He led into our talk about biofuels with ethanol, citing the usual arguments: Why do we as citizens put up with mandatory use of ethanol, a fuel that costs more per gallon and decreases mileage, he asked. I knew right from the beginning this was going to be a tough sell. When I told him ethanol blending in most cases lowers the cost of gasoline per gallon, he asked if that were still the case without government subsidies. I knew then he was not going to be convinced easily, but his point of view, unfortunately, is not uncommon. The mainstream population has been fed this anti-biofuels propaganda for years by the oil and gas lobby and, more discouragingly, by those who do the lobby&rsquo;s work without pay or benefit: the average rank-and-file Joe, who is misinformed about the merits of biofuels and spreads that misinformation as truth. I asked him if he knew about oil and gas subsidies he as a taxpayer is funding, to which he responded no. I asked him if, instead of sending untold billions, even trillions, of dollars to foreign governments whose agendas include collapsing western culture, would he support retaining at least some of that money within our own borders where it creates jobs, fuel, tax money and investment in the future; and his response was that we can produce enough of our own oil if the government would ease drilling restrictions. When I asked him if he realized oil was a finite material and when it&rsquo;s gone, it&rsquo;s gone, he shifted the argument to food crop displacement. My visitor had never heard of distillers grains and its role in the food vs. fuel debate, or how corn oil is being extracted from distillers grains to make biodiesel&mdash;our next topic. He said when his company&rsquo;s trucks started running on biodiesel a few years ago, many of them had troubles. I asked how long ago this was, and mentioned some of the quality issues present early on and the achievements made in improving the quality standard. He did concede that the switch to ultra-low sulfur diesel has caused some technical issues in diesel and biodiesel blends, so all of his blame was not placed squarely on biodiesel. Our discussion then advanced to next-generation biofuels and biobased chemicals. He hadn&rsquo;t really heard anything about second-gen fuels, and all he said about biobased chemicals was &ldquo;they need improvement.&rdquo; I gave him a couple of issues of Biorefining Magazine and asked him to take them with when he left.
The point of my relaying this to readers is two-fold. One, we should always be prepared to discuss the merits of first- and second-generation biofuels and biobased chemicals with those who see them through a very narrow, tainted scope. And two, no matter what, the issues of cost, subsidization, performance, quality and availability, among others, will remain paramount as the next-generation of biofuels and biobased chemicals develop and are forced to endure the same old arguments as their predecessors. The advantage we have is 30-plus years of lessons learned.
Author: Ron Kotrba Editor, Biorefining Magazine <a href="mailto:rkotrba@bbiinternational.com">rkotrba@bbiinternational.com</a>

Spurious Claims

Several biofuel tax incentives will expire at the end of the year, including the $1 per gallon biodiesel blender credit. Congress is gridlocked. A super committee has been tasked with getting the debt ceiling and budget deficit under control. Understandably, those in the biodiesel industry must be wondering what the organization that represents them on Capitol Hill, the National Biodiesel Board, can do, or is doing, to secure a favorable policy landscape for biodiesel well into the future.
After interviewing Joe Jobe, CEO of the NBB, and Anne Steckel, the NBB&rsquo;s new vice president of federal affairs, I wrote a story, &ldquo;The Uncertain Tomorrow,&rdquo; that covers this timely topic as the year heads toward its sunset. There are several bills out there that aim to extend or alter the biodiesel incentive, but they are going nowhere fast. Will any legislation get through Congress in the next month or two? And, if so, could an extenders bill be attached? While those in the industry give me mixed opinions on whether the industry would be better off with or without the credit, the NBB leadership believes the tax credit is essential to the livelihood of its members. Here&rsquo;s why.
 When asked what NBB&rsquo;s No. 1 policy priority is today, neither Jobe nor Steckel said it&rsquo;s extension of the biodiesel tax credit. Instead, they say their focus is on upholding and defending the implementation of RFS2 and its biomass-based diesel carve-out&mdash;and the best method to do this is through extension of the tax credit. So how are they working to do this? &ldquo;NBB members have an incredible team of lobbyists and consultants who keep them plugged in on Capitol Hill and in the executive branch,&rdquo; says Jobe. &ldquo;Along with a strong in-house staff, our team includes three lobbying firms that specialize in energy, tax and agriculture issues, as well as a strong legal team. We also have a legal team that leads our litigation efforts defending against challenges to the RFS2, and regulatory and trade teams.&rdquo; Steckel adds, &ldquo;This is a historically difficult fiscal environment, and getting anything through Congress will be a real challenge. That said, it is certainly not time to throw in the towel, and I don&rsquo;t think it would be time to give up next year either if Congress allows it to lapse in December.&rdquo; Check out the full story on page 42. And contact your representatives and let them know what your position is.

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POLICY  PRIORITIES

In the late 19th century, Timothy Campbell, a U.S. Representative from New York, said to President Grover Cleveland, &ldquo;What's the Constitution between friends?&rdquo; in response to Cleveland's refusal to support a bill based on his belief that it was unconstitutional. I frequently encounter a similar sentiment when assisting clients in confidentiality agreement negotiations. Many times, confidentiality agreements are negotiated early in a transaction at a time when everyone is in the &ldquo;honeymoon phase.&rdquo; Everyone is working towards what is anticipated to be a mutually beneficial deal, and very often the possibility that conflict could arise in the future is not considered. For this reason, confidentiality agreements are either not considered or given little attention. However, as with all good planning, considering potential problems from the outset can allow you to avoid liability in the future should problems arise. In most cases during the honeymoon phase, you can use the good feelings of all parties involved to negotiate sensible and comprehensive confidentiality agreements that will protect both parties if conflict were to arise in the future.&nbsp;
 Many companies have a standard confidentiality agreement that they use for a variety of purposes. While it may be appropriate to use a standard confidentiality agreement for a number of similar situations, there is no one-size-fits-all confidentiality agreement that will cover every transaction. These agreements should be specifically tailored to match not only the type of transaction involved, but also the nature of the confidential information.&nbsp;
 The first consideration when negotiating a confidentiality agreement is whether both parties will be providing confidential information or whether one party will disclose the confidential information while the other party is purely a recipient of the confidential information. Determining which parties will be disclosing confidential information will be essential to how the confidentiality agreement is structured. If both parties are expected to provide the other with confidential information, in most cases, it makes sense to have an agreement where the rights and responsibilities of both parties are the same. In this case, both parties will have an interest in protecting their confidential information while at the same time negotiating an agreement that is not overly burdensome or punitive in the event confidential information is disclosed.&nbsp;
 Negotiating a confidentiality agreement where only one person discloses confidential information and the other person is the recipient of that confidential information, is frequently more difficult. When only one party is expected to disclose confidential information, the disclosing party has a greater interest in protecting the confidential information and providing meaningful, and potentially more punitive, remedies in the event the confidential information is compromised. On the other hand, the receiving party has a greater interest in reducing the restrictions associated with confidentiality agreement and minimizing the penalties involved in violation of the agreement.&nbsp;
 When negotiating a confidentiality agreement, you should always consider the mechanics involved in determining what information is covered by the agreement. Some confidentiality agreements provide that only information which is clearly marked as confidential is covered, while others provide that any information exchanged is automatically covered by the agreement. It is important to understand these mechanics before any information is exchanged so you do not accidentally disclose sensitive information that is not covered by your confidentiality agreement.&nbsp;
 In addition, you should always consider the burdens of complying with the confidentiality agreement in light of the types of information to be provided. Frequently, confidentiality agreements require the parties receiving the confidential information to return all copies of the confidential information at the request of the disclosing party. In order to ensure compliance with this type of provision, the person receiving the confidential information must keep close tabs on what information was provided and who has control of the information. This task can be increasingly difficult in the event copies of the confidential information are made or electronic versions of the document are saved on various computers in your organization. Keep in mind that many confidentiality agreements also require the return or destruction of any notes or documents that are created that analyze the confidential information. Without careful procedures designed to keep track of the confidential information, it will be difficult to ensure compliance with the terms of this type of confidentiality agreement.&nbsp;
 Finally, it is always a good idea to have confidentiality agreements with your employees and any service providers who may have access to your confidential information or the confidential information of another. You could be liable in the event your employee or a service provider that you have engaged discloses the confidential information of another, especially if the information is covered by a confidentiality agreement you have signed. Author: Joe Leo Attorney, BrownWinick (515) 242-2462 <a href="mailto:leo@brownwinick.com">leo@brownwinick.com</a>

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What's Confidentiality Between Friends?

Whether biofuels will truly contribute to the reduction of the world&rsquo;s reliance on petroleum, a critical question simply remains. What is the most cost effective process to produce biofuel?
 This was a question I asked in 2009, and recognizing a possible solution, I formed AE Resources Inc. As part of a Sponsored Research Project at Penn State University, AE Resources entered into an agreement with the university to develop and commercialize what we believe to be such a solution. Under the direction of Matthew M. Kropf, the project has investigated the technical aspects of the advanced biofuel production reaction with a focus on the development of a novel technology to minimize chemical waste, improve efficiency, product quality, and further translate to other value-added products. The research has resulted in an improved process and understanding of the benefits of ultrasound and microwaves in chemical processing.
 The Multi-Energy Optimization Process focuses two unique yet distinctive energies at the point of reaction thus optimizing the chemical conversion. Combining microwave and ultrasound has proven to produce biodiesel more efficiently than other traditional means. It produces a complete emulsification, uniformly distributing equal sizes of oil and catalyst droplets while heating it at the point of reaction. This patented technology has demonstrated that the energy needed to produce a gallon of biodiesel to be 662 Btu compared to 4,912 Btu. It furthermore reduces the catalyst consumption from 0.5 percent weight NaOH to 0.2 percent weight NaOH at atmospheric pressure. This approach has been demonstrated for a multitude of feedstocks including those with high FFA content without the need for neutralization or additional catalysts.
 Higher frequency ultrasonic cavitation is shown to result in smaller size and narrower distribution of methanol droplets in oil. The ultrasonic technique itself is shown to create finer dispersions of methanol than those prepared conventionally, as compared to shear mixing. To demonstrate the pertinence of microwave for biofuel production, the dielectric loss of pure methanol was measured as increasing amounts of NaOH catalyst were added. The relation between dipolar relaxation and the free rotation of a single polar molecule was confirmed with the complex permittivity measurements of methanol over a range of temperatures. As the temperature increases, the available energy for molecules to rotate, free of hydrogen bonding, is also increased. Practically, this result indicates that preheated methanol will absorb microwaves less efficiently.
 More importantly, this confirmed that when properly &ldquo;tuned&rdquo; and administered, microwave energy directly couples to hydrogen bonding breakages, which are limiting factors in diffusion and chemical activity. This means that the appropriate selection of microwave directly enhances the reaction rate. Measuring the time rate of change of the temperature during microwave heating of various emulsions of the components oil and methanol also revealed an unexpected result. It demonstrated that the heating rate of emulsions is greater than either component. This is a unique result, in that, one would expect the heating rate to be limited to the more active, higher dielectric loss material, in this case methanol. However, it was shown that when methanol droplets are suspended ultrasonically in a catalyst-free emulsion, the net heating rate can be greater than that of methanol alone. The reason for this extension is due to the stabilization, both mechanically and thermally, provided by the oil. The oil allows for heat to be conducted away from the methanol droplets at the same time as it prevents the fine droplets from nucleated boiling. In fact, in other studies of near-critical and supercritical fluids, stabilizing droplets in oil has been used to achieve the maximum superheated temperatures by conventional heating.
 In any manufacturing process, there a four key components to maximizing efficiencies and reducing costs while maintaining quality: capital investment, the cost of raw material, energy consumption and labor. A revolutionary approach to energy efficiency has been developed for the industrial chemical industry. MEOP is a highly cost-effective, energy-efficient organic chemistry process providing more than 26 percent savings in operational costs, and a 50 percent lower capital expense than current methods.
 The technology is an alternative, energy-efficient method of producing organic compounds that nets a 50 percent reduction in energy use and 60 percent reduction in catalyst needs. Proof of concept has been achieved with a prototype, which consistently produces near-perfect emulsifications, while achieving superheated temperatures. This has resulted in a more efficient and streamlined approach to the production of a multitude of organic chemical products. With the introduction of this technology, producers reduce capital and energy costs, maximize labor costs and increase output without sacrificing quality. Author: Chris Getty President, AE Resources Inc. (412) 996-2002 <a href="mailto:getty@aeresource-inc.com">getty@aeresource-inc.com</a>

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Reducing Cost While Increasing Output 

When Alfred Willard French founded French Oil Mill Machinery Co. in 1900, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate and veteran of the linseed oil industry believed that engineering creativity and research could produce superior vegetable oil mill machinery. Today, the 110-year-old company is applying those founding principles not only to the industrial food oil markets, but it&rsquo;s also serving the burgeoning biodiesel industry through the offering of its Innovation Center in Piqua, Ohio.
 By working closely with French Oil&rsquo;s team of experienced engineers, customers are able to optimize and fine-tune their extraction process through lab tests on the company&rsquo;s processing equipment, such as conditioners, screw presses or extruders, for obtaining desired processing results prior to ordering the equipment, says Tayte French Lutz, marketing coordinator for French Oil.
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve performed many tests on a variety of different products over the years,&rdquo; Lutz tells Biodiesel Magazine. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s valuable for us to see how our equipment can be used and what other markets there are for our equipment, but of course it&rsquo;s great for our customers who can use our equipment to test their materials and their process to see exactly how much residual oil they can get from their products and improve their process based on information learned in the trials.&rdquo;
 While the company has years of experience testing common biodiesel oilseed feedstocks such as canola, soybeans and jatropha, the company has also tested other oil-bearing materials, including grape seed, moringa, paprika, walnut, hemp, corn germ, apricots, peach pits, coffee beans and chili peppers. &ldquo;Some produce more oil than others,&rdquo; she notes.
 French Oil&rsquo;s Innovation Center offers process optimization of its equipment to companies that integrate biodiesel and agribusiness processes, says Lutz. Can Pro Ingredients Ltd., for example, which processes canola and alfafa, partnered with French Oil in November 2005 to optimize the proprietary fractionation equipment it uses at its plant in Arborfield, Saskatchewan, Canada. The canola is processed into high-quality extra virgin oil, and press cake, which is used in a protein concentrate.&nbsp;
&nbsp; &ldquo;There have been some other customers in the biodiesel industry that have taken advantage of the Innovation Center,&rdquo; Lutz says, adding that an undisclosed biodiesel producer has been conducting trials for more than two years with the company. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a great project for us and them,&rdquo; she says. While a specific cost of conducting performance trial testing at French Oil&rsquo;s Innovation Center varies by project, Lutz assures, &ldquo;The cost is very manageable for customers in the crushing and agribusiness industry,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;especially considering&nbsp; these companies are spending millions and millions of dollars to get their processes up and running, so our costs are incredibly manageable considering the overall spending for startups.&rdquo;

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INNOVATIVE BY DESIGN: French Oil offers a range of equipment to meet the needs of biodiesel and agribusiness companies, such as the company's conditioner/cooker (bottom) and its achiever screw press (top).


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How French Oil works with industry to achieve process improvements

A Confluence of Process Optimization

When he was only 14 years old, Sam Flournoy set out to design and build his own biodiesel processor. It was the summer of 2008, and fuel prices were skyrocketing. Flournoy&rsquo;s father, who owns a local tree works company, was spending $10,000 to $12,000 a month on fuel. According to Flournoy, one of his primary goals was to produce a renewable fuel that his father could use to offset a portion of his fuel costs.
 &ldquo;My father had heard about biodiesel from one of his friends,&rdquo; Flournoy says. &ldquo;The guy showed us his set-up and it seemed pretty easy to do, so I started doing some research and a whole lot of reading, and started building my first processor.&rdquo;
 According to Flournoy, it took about six months of work before he was able to produce his first batch of biodiesel fuel. &ldquo;It was kind of like a work in progress for most of the time that I had it,&rdquo; he says. Once the processor was operational, Flournoy began to automate the machine. &ldquo;I introduced the PLC (programmable logic controller) to the machine, and eventually got it to where it could run a whole batch pretty much by the touch of a button,&rdquo; he says.
 The first processor Flournoy built could produce a 60-gallon batch of biodiesel in approximately 8 hours. He has since sold that machine, and constructed a new model. The new processor can also produce 60-gallon batches of biodiesel, but does it much faster. &ldquo;The second one is the same size but it produces biodiesel in about half the time because I added a couple more tanks to make it more of a continuous batch,&rdquo; Flournoy says. &ldquo;I bought all new parts for the second one and designed each tank by myself.Right now I am working on a few other things to get the batch time down even lower.&rdquo;
 Flournoy is collecting waste vegetable oil from his high school, several other schools, hospitals and restaurants for use as feedstock. The fuel he currently produces is being used to fuel equipment in his father&rsquo;s fleet. According to Flournoy, depending upon the specific piece of equipment, the company is using anywhere from a B20 to a B100 blend.
 Flournoy says he will likely sell the second biodiesel processor as well, so he can begin work on a more streamlined third model. &ldquo;When I first started out I was more focused on producing the fuel and selling it, but after my first processor I realized I was really interested in designing the processors and making them as efficient as they can be,&rdquo; he says.
 After he graduates from high school, Flournoy says he plans to continue his education in a field that will allow him to continue working on biodiesel production. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not 100 percent sure what I want to go into,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But, I definitely want to test the water with some kind of chemical engineering, or mechanical engineering, that sounds like something that would interest me, definitely.&rdquo;

DESIGNING THE FUTURE: Richmond, Va.-based high school student, Sam Flournoy, collects WVO from his and other high schools, restaurants and hospitals for use as feedstock in the processing units he designed and built. 

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Young Richmond entrepreneur designs his own biodiesel processors

Building a Unique Small-Scale Solution

e-Biofuels LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Imperial Petroleum Inc., recently announced it sold approximately 26 million gallons of biodiesel during the fiscal year ending July 31, resulting in approximately $106 million in revenue.
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;re very excited about the company&rsquo;s growth prospects,&rdquo; says Imperial President Jeffrey Wilson. At the Middletown, Ind., facility&rsquo;s current product rates, the company is on pace to produce in excess of 34 million gallons of fuel in fiscal 2012 or an annual increase of about 30 percent. &ldquo;In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011, we settled or resolved all of the past vendor and litigation issues that had faced e-Biofuels at the time of its acquisition by [Imperial].&rdquo;
 On Sept. 16, Imperial further announced that it has entered into definitive agreements with accredited and instrumental investors to raise $3.1 million before fees and expenses in a private placement of equity securities.
 &ldquo;The proceeds of this equity raise will enable us to rapidly expand our biodiesel operations at the Middletown facility by about 30 percent,&rdquo; Wilson says. &ldquo;We expect the rapid expansion of the plant to between 40 and 45 MMgy to increase cash flow and revenues, enabling us to continue on our growth trajectory.&rdquo;

Biodiesel producer announces record sales

A New Benchmark 

The International Biorefining Conference &amp; Trade Show held in Houston in September wasn&rsquo;t exclusively about biobased chemicals and next-gen biofuels. In fact, the event featured two speakers who presented novel biodiesel technologies that are on the verge of commercialization.
 John Massingill, president of Advanced Materials and Processes, presented on his company&rsquo;s fiber processor, which essentially consists of steel fibers between 8 and 150 microns in diameter, that can be used both as a device to clean crude crop oils and as a reactor to transesterify triglycerides into biodiesel and glycerin.
 The technology can be used to remove soapstock, gums and free fatty acids from crude vegetable oils, allowing farmer cooperatives to increase their yields by not sending out more valuable fractions of the oil as cheaper soapstock, which only sells for 5 to 10 cents a pound. The fiber processor operates via a polar phase whereby some of the liquid &ldquo;runs down the fibers, with the other running around the fibers.&rdquo;
 If this technology sounds farfetched&mdash;and even farther from commercialization&mdash;it&rsquo;s not. Massingill said it&rsquo;s going commercial next quarter at Valley Co-op in Harlingen, Texas, in a 13 MMgy cottonseed crush facility. While the cottonseed plant is being outfitted with the technology, the co-op&rsquo;s 3 MMgy Greenline Industries plant (Valco Bioenergy) is also being retrofitted to use the fiber processor for biodiesel production.
 Matthew Kropf, director of the Energy Institute and assistant professor of petroleum technology at the University of Pittsburgh Bradford, who is also a research associate and adjunct professor of engineering science and mechanics at Penn State, said he chose this opportunity at the International Biorefining Conference &amp; Trade Show in Houston to unveil his new biodiesel approach, named Multi-Energy Optimized Processing.
 Under development for four years, the process combines ultrasonic cavitation and microwave heating, which Kropf said reduces the energy required to make biodiesel and the costs associated with catalyst use by enhancing the reaction rates through process intensification approaching supercritical reaction. MEOP involves the dielectric permeation of material where only the methanol is being heated via microwaves, not the oil, which saves energy. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t need supercritical, you need the methanol stable and heated at the right frequencies,&rdquo; he said. Stable in emulsion, he said the process can get the methanol temperatures up to 145 degrees Celsius. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s stable by using the right frequency of emulsion,&rdquo; Kropf said.
 Early on, Kropf converted a kitchen microwave and tied in ultrasonics, but household microwaves are multimode, so he moved on to develop a 10-gallon-per-hour pilot using a single-mode microwave. The process used less than 0.2 percent catalyst, which he said is less than half the industry standard, and only 1 kilowatt of energy for the microwave input with 50 watts of energy input for the ultrasonics. It achieved 99.8 percent conversion efficiency. The work was then scaled up and demonstrated at 30 gallons per hour.
 Kropf&rsquo;s research was funded by AE Resources Inc., which holds exclusive rights to the technology. Chris Getty, president of AE Resources, told Biodiesel Magazine that the MEOP biodiesel process only requires 600 Btu per gallon compared to what he said is around 4,200 Btu for conventional biodiesel processing.
 Kropf and AE Resources are now looking for partners to take the technology commercial.

Two alternative biodiesel processes discussed at Houston event 

New Technologies Continue to Develop 

After a trip to Washington, D.C., to speak with a number of people about alternative fuels, Robert Franick, manager at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), decided the idea of developing a &ldquo;one-stop shop&rdquo; for alternative fuel issues ranging from emissions to fuel evaluations was a good one. &ldquo;The more people I talked to,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;the more I realized there are a number of organizations that can do emissions testing, others that can take concepts from the laboratory to commercialization, and others that can run fuel analyses.&rdquo; But &ldquo;there are not a lot of organizations that can do all three,&rdquo; he says&mdash;and this is why Franick is excited about the formation of the International Alternative Fuel Technology Center in Texas.
 For those seeking help with a biodiesel-related issue, Franick says the IAFTC can take a client&rsquo;s ideas for biodiesel from conception, to pilot operation and even to commercialization, in part, due to the chemistry and chemical engineering division at the facility. In addition to previous work with biodiesel, the staff at SwRI has also worked with shale, tar sands, coal, cellulosic ethanol and synthetic paraffins. &ldquo;We can help them work through their problems,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and that is the key; regardless of what the problem is, we probably have a way of helping them solve the issue.&rdquo;

LARGE SCALE: The alternative fuels center will work with clients at the bench-scale level all the way to commercialization. 


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A new alternative fuels technology center may have all the answers

The Problem Solver

While operational economics may be difficult for some in the biodiesel industry, others, such as Keystone Biofuels LLC, a 20 MMgy multifeedstock facility in Lower Allen Township, Pa., are finding that favorable market conditions, spurred on by state and federally mandated biodiesel volume requirements coupled with the $1 per-gallon federal biodiesel blender tax credit and sustained Renewable Identification Number prices, are creating ideal opportunities to reinvest in their facilities by expanding staff or making significant plant upgrades.
 Keystone President and owner Ben Wooten tells Biodiesel Magazine that plant upgrades were always a focus since the company moved its production facility from Shiremanstown to Lower Allen Township in January. The efficiency upgrades made at the plant, according to Wooten, include a methanol recovery system for recapture of methanol in biodiesel and glycerin for reuse, in addition to switching from water-wash to dry-wash finishing. He adds that the installation of demetholizer equipment will increase production capacity from 20 MMgy to 60 MMgy. While the plant is operating on the new upgraded equipment, Wooten adds that he intends to have the plant operate at half-speed through December to monitor performance before adding 14 new employees in a second shift that will monitor the increase of production volume by early next year.
 &ldquo;When you go through the experience of a new industry, you learn a lot very quickly,&rdquo; Wooten says, adding that he&rsquo;s already sold out of product through the end of the year. &ldquo;With a new plant, we were able to do the things we wanted to have that we couldn&rsquo;t have in the old plant.&rdquo;
 Wooten says the plant size increased&nbsp; from 15,000 square feet at its old Shiremanstown site to 60,000 square feet in Lower Allen Township. The new plant also features a 26-car rail spur for improved load-in and load-out of product, built-in containment with steam for use during the winter and an additional 1.2 million gallons of biodiesel storage, adding that he managed to finance the upgrades without bank financing.
 &ldquo;That was the biggest challenge,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Most of the money came through equipment leases and then we sold a small stake in the company to some private investors to raise some capital to finish off what we were doing.&rdquo;
 In Nevada, Biodiesel of Las Vegas has resurrected its 4 MMgy production facility outside of Las Vegas. The plant, which operated from 2004 through 2008, had closed due to the economic downturn. Today, BLV, a subsidiary of parent company New-Com Inc., has reinvested $65 million in equipment and infrastructure upgrades in order to operate more efficiently and economically heading into 2012, according to Ryan Geurts, marketing specialist for BLV.
 The plant has its own rail yard for efficient delivery of inbound and outbound product and the company plans to incrementally increase production capacity to 15 MMgy by the end of next year, Geurts says, adding that the company has already taken pre-sell orders for biodiesel and negotiations with high-profile strategic partners are also in the works.
 &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting a lot of inquiries and there&rsquo;s a lot of excitement even with local consumers,&rdquo; Geurts says, adding the plant is expected to be in full production by end of the fourth quarter. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not open to the public in that sense, but to see that people are jumping onboard excited about an alternative fuel like that makes us feel good about the market.&rdquo;

ON SCHEDULE: Construction is underway at the 4 MMgy Biodiesel of Las Vegas project with completion expected by the end of this year. 


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Evolving industry translates into added efficiencies, market drivers 

Re-emerging Growth

The three-member team at Organic Drive, a startup biodiesel production company based in the U.K., approaches its personal expenditures with the same analytical mindset as it would in optimizing yield or batch cycle times. The result of such an approach is a weekly food bill of roughly $5, for all three, according to Tom James, director and cofounder at Organic Drive. Although that weekly food bill might indicate incredible discipline (or sheer lack of appetite), it is, as James infers, a matter of self-inflicted circumstances.
 Every member of the team left their consulting jobs where at one time or another each worked on problems related to everything from nuclear reactors to submarines, and of course, biodiesel production. None of the members, which includes Geoff Cunningham and Duncan Morrison, have children or mortgages (they share a bungalow). And, Organic Drive is a reality today because, as James puts it, the group didn&rsquo;t want to &ldquo;wake up&rdquo; one day and have regrets at not following their passion to make biodiesel because of &ldquo;inaction, apathy or lack of belief.&rdquo; Their passion for biodiesel has helped create a 25 metric ton (roughly 7,500 gallons) per week facility that relies on a reengineered ex-brewing vessel as the main reactor.
 It might sound like the team is merely living out some kind of fantasy, but James and the team have combined their engineering backgrounds and time at Cambridge University, along with countless trips to other facilities to build and operate a successful plant. In the next two months, according to James, production will increase to nearly 60 tons per week. &ldquo;It has been operational now since the end of March,&rdquo; he says of the used-cooking-oil-based refinery. &ldquo;Most of our time since then has been spent redesigning and rebuilding purification systems,&rdquo; along with work on yield and batch cycle times. &ldquo;We know the statistics on startup company successes, and they aren&rsquo;t pretty,&rdquo; James says. &ldquo;However, we believe with enough planning and hard work, we can buck the trend.&rdquo;
 The fact that the team has no stockholders to please benefits the team, and James says they&rsquo;ve been able to move faster in the development process than the average chemical or biofuels company. For instance, he says, the team went from a clean sheet of paper to an operational and proven flash evaporator in just two weeks at a fraction of the cost. The team is also taking advantage of its contacts in North Africa to find untapped sources of used cooking oil, as well as working to develop a noncatalytic, supercritical reactor design for treating brown grease. &ldquo;We are looking to undergo aggressive growth in the immediate future,&rdquo; James says, adding that, &ldquo;if we fail, it will not be for lack of effort.&rdquo;

They gave up everything for biodiesel. Was it worth it?

Living the Biodiesel Dream

Approximately 100 professionals working in the feedstock and biorefining sectors recently met at Idaho National Laboratory to participate in a U.S. DOE-funded workshop. According to Kevin Kenney, an INL research engineer who served as a principle planner and host for the event, one of the primary objectives of the group was to develop a report for Energy Secretary Steven Chu. &ldquo;Our objective was to broaden the view of densification from just a mass and energy perspective to include what are referred to as preconversion and formulation concepts.&rdquo; The group also aimed to engage the development of partnerships that would put INL&rsquo;s feedstock process demonstration unit (PDU) to work.
 The PDU is a full-scale biomass preprocessing system that converts biomass into high-quality feedstock. &ldquo;In the simplest terms, it looks very much like a pellet mill, only it&rsquo;s much, much more than that,&rdquo; Kenney says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a research tool that we use to develop and demonstrate the concepts of preconversion formulations and densification.&rdquo; Since the unit is commercial scale, it is able to produce feedstock that biorefining companies can use for rather large-scale research purposes. Kenney says the main components of the PDU are grinders, hammer mills, a rotary drum dryer, and a pellet mill.
 While Kenney notes that to date the PDU has only been used to process cellulosic feedstocks, he says the system is certainly not limited to any specific feedstock type. For example, the system would work well with potential biodiesel and biobased jet fuel feedstocks such as camelina.

FORMULATING FEEDSTOCKS: Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory gather raw biomass for processing during a demonstration of the feedstock PDU for more than 100 industry, academic and national laboratory experts, who attended a DOE-sponsored Biomass 

2011/10/13195584178217.jpg

Researchers, members of industry unite to report on feedstock densification

Feedstock Solutions  

As California goes, so goes the nation, is the old saying. It might be clich&eacute;d, but the Golden State continues to pioneer, leading the country in instituting bold, low-carbon energy policies and infrastructure build-out initiatives, and the California Energy Commission is a driving force behind those efforts.
 In September, the CEC unanimously adopted the state&rsquo;s third annual transportation energy investment plan to help change the types of vehicles Californians drive and the fuels they use. The latest investment plan appropriates $100 million in state funds to leverage funding and investments from federal agencies, research institutions, private investors, auto manufacturers and other stakeholders to advance the CEC&rsquo;s Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program.
 Assembly Bill 118 authorized the CEC to provide approximately $100 million annually over seven years to encourage the development of new fuels and technologies. The 2011-&lsquo;12 plan allocates funding to encourage a score of transportation investments for the development of different biofuels, such as biodiesel, including: $24 million to help develop and produce biofuels such as gasoline and diesel substitutes and renewable natural gas; and $3 million to encourage the development of innovative technologies and advanced fuels, including biodiesel derived from new high-productivity feedstocks such as algae.
 Funding comes from sources such as the vehicle and vessel registrations, identification plates and smog abatement fees. The CEC&rsquo;s first investment plan combined $176 million in funds from fiscal years 2008-&lsquo;09. The second investment plan, in fiscal year 2010-&rsquo;11, provided $83 million. &ldquo;This innovative transportation investment program is unique in the country,&rdquo; says CEC vice chairman James Boyd.
 California is working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050, decrease petroleum fuel use to 15 percent below 2003 levels by 2020, and increase alternative fuel use to 20 percent by 2020.
 &ldquo;The funding plan for fiscal year 2011-&lsquo;12 builds on two earlier versions, fine-tuning California&rsquo;s seven-year program to increase alternative and renewable fuels and to test innovative vehicle technologies,&rdquo; Boyd adds. &ldquo;An essential element of California&rsquo;s climate change and energy policies, this program successfully attracts outside investment and promotes sustainable transportation alternatives within our state.&rdquo;

LOW-CARBON LEADER: James Boyd, CEC vice chairman, says the transportation energy investment plan is integral to Californiaâ€™s climate policies. 

2011/10/1319558606633.jpg

California's biodiesel infrastructure poised for expansion

November 2011

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Biomass Power Map Info Shows Progress

USDA and Biomass Energy Policy

Putting Biomass Thermal on the Front Burner in DC

Torrefaction of Biomass Materials

Densification: Associated Legal Challenges and Opportunities

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act:The Essentials

Biobased Materials: Strengthening the US Green Economy

Lights, Camera, Congress…

Spurious Claims

POLICY PRIORITIES

What's Confidentiality Between Friends?

Reducing Cost While Increasing Output

Featured

Miscanthus Mania

Making the Grade

Greening Grass

Billion-Ton Revisited

High Risk, High Reward

The Bio-Academic Entrepreneurs

Royal DSM's Partnerships, Market Penetration & Progress

A New Standard for Quality

Clearing the Way for Byproduct Quality

Easier Than Ever

The Uncertain Tomorrow

Contributions

Biofuels and Other Bioliquids—Facts and Perspectives

Limitations of 24/7 Operation of a Capacity Briquette Plant For Binderless Fibrous Biomass

Will NYC Homeowners Embrace Bioheat as the Evolution of Oilheat?

November 2011.css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Biomass Power Map Info Shows Progress

USDA and Biomass Energy Policy

Putting Biomass Thermal on the Front Burner in DC

Torrefaction of Biomass Materials

Densification: Associated Legal Challenges and Opportunities

Foreign Corrupt Practices Act:The Essentials

Biobased Materials: Strengthening the US Green Economy

Lights, Camera, Congress…

Spurious Claims

POLICY PRIORITIES

What's Confidentiality Between Friends?

Reducing Cost While Increasing Output

Featured

Miscanthus Mania

Making the Grade

Greening Grass

Billion-Ton Revisited

High Risk, High Reward

The Bio-Academic Entrepreneurs

Royal DSM's Partnerships, Market Penetration & Progress

A New Standard for Quality

Clearing the Way for Byproduct Quality

Easier Than Ever

The Uncertain Tomorrow

Contributions

Biofuels and Other Bioliquids—Facts and Perspectives

Limitations of 24/7 Operation of a Capacity Briquette Plant For Binderless Fibrous Biomass

Will NYC Homeowners Embrace Bioheat as the Evolution of Oilheat?

November 2011