In the past, the conventional, manual surveying of industrial sites for retrofits or facility expansion often required hundreds of hours, sometimes over months, and occasionally involved potentially hazardous locations. When as-built infrastructures were hidden or not precisely detailed in original plans, the resulting survey errors usually led to expensive rework or change orders for retrofit or expansion projects. Today, high-definition survey technology (HDS) makes it possible for data to be collected from hundreds of survey points, with densities and accuracies of one-eighth inch, in a matter of hours, instead of days or weeks. Provided by professional specialists, HDS can be used to survey a plethora of industrial projects such as processing plants, refineries and mining operations that plan to make modifications, retrofit, expand or upgrade key equipment.&nbsp; HDS technology is based on an imaging laser that collects up to 50,000 survey shots per second, making it far easier to provide data that can be used for 2-D line work or 3-D models. The HDS system also features an external camera that collects photographic images in 360-degree, RGB color values. These image files are later fused to the data points that are assembled as &ldquo;point clouds,&rdquo; which can then be utilized for site mapping, project planning, and civil, structural and mechanical/electrical/plumbing design as data is extracted into formats such as AutoCAD, Revit and MicroStation. Savings, Efficiencies Stan Postma is vice president of Utah-based engineering services firm, MWH Americas Inc. (a subsidiary of MWH Global). His organization recently undertook the renovation of an industrial facility operated by the city of Logan, in northern Utah. &ldquo;We needed to evaluate some existing structures, including a powerhouse that is about 100 years old,&rdquo; Postma explains. &ldquo;I knew about HDS type of scanning, and thought it would be a good application for the project. HDS captured all of the information about the building in a very quick and efficient manner, enabling us to plan around the existing structure with very accurate information.&rdquo; Postma says that the city of Logan also commissioned MWH to survey an existing dam that is going through some design modifications near the powerhouse site. He says the 3-D data the HDS system provided was very helpful in planning that project as well. According to Postma, this data enabled his staff to put the dam in a 3-D animation so they could view it from any angle. This was a very useful tool because it provided a precise reference, and eliminated the need to send personnel to the site for visual confirmations. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to end up with savings on change orders and construction efficiencies all around,&rdquo; Postma concludes. &ldquo;Having all the information available in such great detail is going to save money. HDS scanning is very cost-efficient tool.&rdquo; Many design and engineering firms turn to HDS technology because the scans it provides are so accurate that it virtually removes the need to work from records that could be somewhat inaccurate, thereby eliminating the need for rework. Because all scanning is performed from ground level, HDS scanning technology is unobtrusive, making it unnecessary to interrupt production processes. This convenience also adds a measure of safety, says Brian Akers, piping lead at Job Industrial Services Inc., which handles retrofit and expansion projects for a variety of industrial facilities throughout the U.S. &ldquo;HDS technology improves on the safety of our personnel, because we spend significantly less field time in potentially dangerous environments,&rdquo; Akers explains. &ldquo;This is the case particularly in the refinery industry, where you may have thousands of miles of infrastructure. If we&rsquo;re doing a retrofit, we can have a service provide laser scans, and with the point cloud information, we can do a model a lot more accurately than we can do with conventional field measurements.&rdquo; Job Industrial Services asked McNeil Engineering to perform HDS scanning at a recent refinery project, because the team possessed the necessary state-required training certification and other safety-related qualifications. &ldquo;That removes the need for our organization to invest in HDS equipment, create a scanning team, and then send them out to the job sites,&rdquo; Akers explains. &ldquo;All that saves us capital and the loss of considerable production time at the office end.&rdquo; Author: Mike Hoffman McNeil Engineering 801-255-7700 info@mcneileng.com

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High-definition surveys bring the digital age to site planning, facility upgrades.


Industrial Facilities Turn To HDS

Every export market provides challenges, and, for a variety of reasons, agricultural products are especially vulnerable to regulatory complications. China and DDGS are no exception. The bad news is that it takes a good deal of time and effort to comply with China&rsquo;s plant registration requirements. The good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, a clear pathway to approval, and an experienced guide&mdash;the U.S. Grains Council&rsquo;s China office&mdash;to simplify the process and keep your registration on track. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re here to help,&rdquo; says Bryan Lohmar, director of the USGC&rsquo;s China office. &ldquo;There are many sensitive issues, both trade and nontrade, complicating the U.S.-China relationship right now, but we want our members to be compliant with the law in China and are available to help with this at any time.&rdquo; International trade gets complicated fast, but with approximately one quarter of U.S. DDGS being exported, the complications must be mastered. China began importing DDGS in 2007. By 2010 it had rocketed to the top of the list of U.S. export destinations. An anti-dumping case, now withdrawn, was one bump in the road. Recurring concerns about unapproved biotech events are another. China&rsquo;s current DDGS plant registration requirements are a third. But given China&rsquo;s appetite for DDGS, and its long-term growth potential, it is a hurdle that companies wishing to export to China must overcome. China&rsquo;s registration requirements are not new, but the decision almost two years ago to begin enforcing them still came as something of a surprise. China had first announced a registration process in 2010, just as DDGS imports began to increase rapidly. The regulation, however, was not initially enforced. Instead, an antidumping suit was filed against U.S. DDGS. Thanks to a vigorous response from U.S. producers and Chinese end-users, the antidumping suit was dropped in June 2012. This was followed shortly by the announcement that the registration requirements would now be implemented, effective Jan. 1, 2013. This set off a scramble to get registered. To date, 51 U.S. plants have successfully navigated the registration requirements, all but three of them facilitated by the council&rsquo;s China office. Eight more plants have finished their dossiers and are in the process of submitting samples for testing. Another eight are currently preparing dossiers for submission. While the first couple of registrations were difficult&mdash;but not unusual when a new regulation is being implemented&mdash;the process is by now well-established. It involves some work, but the process is orderly and reasonably predictable.&nbsp; So, if you have an eye on the China market&mdash;and who doesn&rsquo;t?&mdash;come on in, the water&rsquo;s fine. The process has three major steps: &bull; Preparation of the dossier. This first step can take anywhere from two months to more than a year. Notarization, authentication and preparation of the GMO Safety Certificate are the most time-consuming elements.&nbsp; &bull; Submission of samples. After the dossier is completed, a plant moves to the second stage, and submits samples to China for testing. This will require the assistance of a trader to bring the samples through customs and may take an additional month or two. &bull; Final approval. Finally, the dossier is submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture (MOA) and samples are sent for a recheck to a lab designated by MOA. This final stage typically takes about four months, including 20 business days for dossier approval and three months for a completed test. Assuming all goes well, MOA will then prepare and issue the registration certificate. Frequent changes make it even more important to manage the process carefully to avoid delay, and to work closely with a facilitator familiar with China&rsquo;s regulatory system. The council&rsquo;s Rachel Du, who has successfully managed dozens of registrations from her post in Beijing, notes that the details are subject to change. &ldquo;Since the beginning of this year, for example, the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. has stopped accepting mail applications for authentications. China now requires that samples must be submitted within one month of dossier approval, and customs checks have been tightened so it is now more time-consuming to mail samples to China. Fortunately we are in daily contact with MOA, which makes it much easier to keep up with the changing requirements.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; The stakes are high. China has leapfrogged Canada and Mexico to become the world&rsquo;s largest and fastest growing DDGS importer. And it will continue to be a growth market, as China&rsquo;s surging middle class continues to demand steadily improving diets.&nbsp; Policy considerations in China are also a factor. China remains committed to food security, and its definition of food security calls for self-sufficiency in wheat and rice. Corn is a more complicated story. China is the world&rsquo;s second-largest corn producer and had traditionally insisted on self-sufficiency (defined as 95 percent domestic production) in corn. As soaring protein demand has made that target increasingly difficult to meet, China has recently expressed greater flexibility. This liberalization, however, remains controversial in China. Corn is a staple of Chinese agriculture and China supports domestic producers through a tariff rate quota, which limits import volume and maintains a domestic corn price well above world market levels.&nbsp; This policy mix inevitably creates additional demand for replacement feed ingredients. Last year, for example, China surpassed Mexico as the top U.S. export destination for sorghum, which is not subject to the tariff rate quota. While DDGS has been mainstreamed as a conventional feed ingredient, there is undoubtedly additional demand stimulated by the artificial barriers to corn. Policy continues to evolve in many areas in China, and from a Council standpoint, trade liberalization and streamlined approval of biotech events are key concerns.&nbsp; &ldquo;We take a broad view,&rdquo; said Lohmar. &ldquo;In 2012, the Council celebrated its 30th anniversary of working in China. Most of our efforts over the years have been focused on technical assistance to the feed and livestock industry to build demand for feed grains, and these efforts have paid off as China is emerging as a top market for U.S. agricultural exports. With growing exports, problems will continue to arise, but we remain focused on where we need to be, both now and 10 and 20 years down the road. China&rsquo;s status as the world&rsquo;s top importer of DDGS is a tremendous success story, and we will work to keep that growth on track.&rdquo; Individuals wishing to learn more about the registration process in China are invited to contact Alvaro Cordero, manager of global trade in the council&rsquo;s Washington, D.C., office, at acordero@grains.org, or Bryan Lohmar, director of the council&rsquo;s China office, at bryan.lohmar@grains.org.cn. Author: Tom Sleight President and CEO, U.S. Grains Council 202-789-0789 grains@grains.org

Working in the USGC Beijing office, Rachel Du, right, has managed the registration for 48 of the 51 plants that have been approved to date in China. Raisy Liu provides accounting support for the registration process. 

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Ethanol plant registration is required for DDGS exports to China.  

The Customer Calls The Shots

With ethanol plants extracting oil from DDGS, the question of how this affects feeding performance becomes paramount to the livestock and poultry industries.&nbsp; University of Minnesota professor Jerry Shurson talks with Ethanol Producer Magazine about his most recent study on the growth performance from feeding reduced-oil DDGS to growing-finishing pigs, providing much-needed answers to the pork industry. How does metabolizable energy content, specifically in swine diets, correlate with growth, carcass quality and pork fat quality?&nbsp; Metabolizable energy is the most expensive nutritional component in swine diets and represents about 70 to 80 percent of total diet cost. Pigs have daily requirements for calories (i.e., metabolizable energy or ME) that must be met for them to grow at their genetic potential and maximize the amount of muscle (pork) in the carcass at harvest. Inadequate metabolizable energy consumption causes pigs to grow slower and can reduce the percentage of lean in the carcass. Excess metabolizable energy consumption beyond that required for lean growth can lead to fatter carcasses. The main sources of calories in feed are oil, carbohydrates and excess protein, but these are not 100 percent digestible because of their various chemical forms and the pig&rsquo;s digestive processes and abilities to use them. When ingredients high in polyunsaturated fatty acids, such as distillers corn oil and DDGS, are fed, some of these fatty acids are not converted to calories, but rather are deposited in fat tissues in the body. Linoleic acid is the predominant long-chain fatty acid in corn oil that is not well-digested by the pig, and is deposited in backfat and belly fat. Linoleic acid has a very low melting point and is the primary reason that feeding diets high in corn oil causes soft pork fat. Does less oil in DDGS mean less ME content?&nbsp; Not necessarily. Most people&mdash;including those of us doing research on this topic&mdash;reasonably assumed that removing some of the oil from DDGS would reduce the metabolizable energy content, since oil is rich in calories and taking calories out of DDGS should lead to less metabolizable energy content. However, after conducting several experiments to determine the ME content of DDGS sources with variable oil content in swine and poultry, we&rsquo;ve learned that this is often not the case. From our research, we have found that some reduced-oil (e.g., 6 percent oil) DDGS sources can have the same amount of metabolizable energy as sources that contain 10 to 13 percent oil when fed to pigs and poultry. In fact, the correlation between DDGS oil content and metabolizable energy content is very low (r = 0.11 to 0.32). Why is crude fat content a poor predictor of ME content?&nbsp; First, we know that from other experiments that we have conducted, fiber digestibility is surprisingly quite variable among DDGS sources, ranging from 23 to 55 percent. Although fiber is less digestible than other carbohydrates like starch, it can be a significant contributor of calories to the diet. Therefore, it is possible that a source of DDGS with relatively high fiber digestibility could contribute significant amounts of metabolizable energy calories in a reduced-oil DDGS source to partially make up the difference of the calories lost due to partial oil extraction. Secondly, other research studies with pigs have shown that only about 50 percent of the oil present in DDGS is digestible, compared to extracted distillers corn oil, which is over 90 percent digestible. Therefore, even those we can chemically measure the oil content in DDGS, if it is only 50 percent digestible, much of what is present is not serving as a source of calories or contributing to the overall metabolizable energy content of reduced-oil DDGS.&nbsp; What can you tell me about your most recent study? &nbsp; It was conducted at the University of Minnesota West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris, Minn., and involved 432 pigs with initial body weight of 57 pounds. They were fed experimental diets for about 90 days, and were harvested at 264 pounds. We used four dietary treatments in a four-phase feeding program. Dietary treatments consisted of a control corn-soybean meal diet with no DDGS; and three DDGS dietary treatments consisting of similar amounts of corn and soybean meal containing 40 percent low (6 percent oil), medium (10 percent oil), or high (14 percent oil) DDGS sources. We measured body weight and feed disappearance every two weeks during the experiment and calculated average daily gain, average daily feed intake, and gain efficiency during each two-week period and overall. Prior to harvest, ultrasound measurements of backfat and loin muscle area were obtained on each pig, and then pigs were shipped to a commercial abattoir for harvest and collection of hot carcass weight and pork fat samples at three locations. Ultrasound and hot carcass weights were used to calculate percentage of carcass lean, and pork fat samples were used to determine the effects of dietary treatment on pork fatty acid composition.
Your findings suggest low-oil DDGS has no affect on pig growth performance and improves pork fat quality. Why is this? Correct. Overall growth rate and feed intake was not different among DDGS dietary treatments using DDGS sources containing 6, 10, or 14 percent oil. Furthermore, gain efficiency was not different between pigs fed the 10 percent and 14 percent oil DDGS diets but was slightly reduced for pigs fed the 6 percent oil DDGS diets. This means that our &ldquo;best&rdquo; prediction equations are accurate for estimating ME content of DDGS with oil content greater than 6 percent, but they slightly overestimate ME content of DDGS with 6 percent or less oil. This gives us confidence that we can accurately estimate ME content for many of the high and moderate oil DDGS sources in the ethanol industry. The slight reduction in gain efficiency when feeding the 6 percent oil DDGS source is not surprising in retrospect, because all of the DDGS ME prediction equations previously developed used DDGS sources that contained 6 to 14 percent oil, which was what was being produced in the ethanol industry at the time these studies were conducted. We interpret this to mean that prediction equations are most accurate for the range in nutrient content from which they were derived. Now that more ethanol plants are extracting more oil, these equations are becoming less relevant and we will need to conduct more research to develop new equations to improve our accuracy in ME estimation when evaluating DDGS sources that contain less than 6 percent oil. We expected an improvement in pork fat quality when feeding reduced-oil DDGS sources. When you feed a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids as provided by corn oil in DDGS, a significant portion is deposited in body fat tissue. By reducing the oil content in DDGS, less oil is consumed by the pig, resulting in less polyunsaturated fatty acids deposited in pork carcass fat, which ultimately resulted in an improvement in pork fat quality (firmer fat).&nbsp; For pig development, what is the optimal oil percentage for low-oil DDGS?&nbsp; There is no optimal oil content for DDGS. We&rsquo;ve consistently shown a poor direct relationship between oil content of DDGS and ME content. For ethanol producers who can hit this oil percentage mark, should their product command a better price in the swine feed market? Why or why not?&nbsp;&nbsp; We formulate swine and poultry diets on a ME or net energy basis, as well as on a digestible amino acid and phosphorus basis&mdash;not on a &ldquo;profat&rdquo; or crude protein and crude fat basis, which are the traditional measures used in the commodity marketing world. Since ME content is a primary determinant of economic value of a DDGS source in a swine diet, those with a higher ME content should theoretically command a better price. From an economic point of view, our ME prediction equation could theoretically be used by DDGS marketers to establish more accurate DDGS prices based on ME content rather than profat guarantee, which is a poor descriptor of actual feeding value of DDGS sources for pigs and poultry. In addition, the ME equations can help determine which DDGS sources have higher ME value, even though purchase prices may be similar.

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Leading swine nutritionist, University of Minnesota professor Jerry Shurson, discusses low-oil DDGS and growth performance on pigs.    

Doctor DDGS

The growing use of dried distillers grains as a feed additive is a subject producers hear about on a regular basis. But what about producing plastic feed containers using distillers grains-based resin enhancers, perhaps even making the whole container edible in the future? Enter SweetPro and Laurel BioComposite LLC, who are developing ways to make it happen. A 20-year veteran of the feed industry, SweetPro has been evolving toward incorporating more biodegradable materials into the containers for its distillers grains feed supplement products. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re down to a point now where two-thirds of our container is biodegradable, but the bottom third was not,&rdquo; explains Bob Thornberg, president of SweetPro. &ldquo;So we had a very significant interest in things that will move us in that direction to minimize plastic when we can.&rdquo; Laurel BioComposite LLC made the first move around last fall and contacted SweetPro with a proposal. The Laurel, Neb., company produces trademarked Bio-Res powder and pellets from distillers grains, which can be blended with resins for plastic production, replacing traditional petroleum-based resins. &ldquo;When Laurel BioComposite called and said that they have something based on distillers grains and can inject it into plastic, I thought, &lsquo;Good grief, this is almost too good,&rsquo;&rdquo; Thornberg recalls. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re a distillers grains-based company, if you will. If there are things we can use for biodegradability and distiller grains in our packaging, that&rsquo;s even better. When they called with the concept, I was ready.&rdquo; The first prototype Laurel BioComposite created for SweetPro was remarkable, Thronberg says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done wheat-based and corn-based biodegradable components and other containers have been too brittle or had limitations with biodegradability,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When we tested it in sub-zero weather&mdash;we pounded on it, jumped on it&mdash;it held up every bit as well as the other basis.&rdquo; Price was a key concern, says Tim Bearnes, CEO of Laurel BioComposite. &ldquo;If you look at using bio-resins to replace traditional resins, the challenges are that you have to make a product that is compatible with traditional plastics and maintain acceptable properties and processes as well, and you have to do that at a fair and reasonable cost point,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So we went into the whole project understanding that people are very interested in renewable and sustainable materials, but, in general, consumers are not willing to pay more for that sustainability piece.&rdquo;&nbsp; The resulting product was biodegradable and durable and comes with a potentially attractive price. &ldquo;We were able to do it with no cost implications to the producer,&rdquo; Thornberg says. By late April, roughly a semi-trailer load of the containers was waiting at one of SweetPro&rsquo;s distributors, Montana- based, Agri-Best Feeds, for some initial trial runs. &ldquo;I would think we would have some pretty good feedback within a couple months or less,&rdquo; Thornberg says. &ldquo;But we&rsquo;re not expecting much more than confirmation on what we have seen so far.&rdquo; The material has one characteristic that companies will keep a close eye on in the trial run. &ldquo;There is a bit of an odor issue that we want to see if it is off-putting for cattle and if it influences their intake,&rdquo; he says. If the odor does not affect intake, which it is not expected to, then the product will be on route to greater production, he adds. &ldquo;You always want to be sure you checked everything.&rdquo;&nbsp; If all the field testing comes back positive and there are no unforeseen challenges, the distillers grain bins could become available on the mass market relatively soon. Perhaps even by this winter but certainly within a calendar year, Thornberg says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve done a lot of work on developing and testing and we have pretty good in-house capabilities for product development, Bearnes adds, &ldquo;so it&rsquo;s not like they are taking a huge amount of risk to try it.&rdquo; Author: Chris Hanson Staff Writer, Ethanol Producer Magazine chanson@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4970

DINNER BELL:  SweetPro manufactures feed supplements for beef and dairy cattle as well as bison, sheep, goats and specialty animals, such as elk or llamas.


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NEW DIGS:  Nebraska-based Laurel BioComposite LLC moved into a new manufacturing facility in the fall of last year. 

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GOING GREEN:  A new container for SweetProâ€™s distillers grains-based feed supplements sits on top of a product in the traditional plastic container. The new containers contain resins produced from processed distillers grains.  

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Someday, cattle may be able to have distillers grains and eat the container too, thanks to a plastics ingredient manufacturer and feed company.    

Complementary Strategies For Success

Superior Industries has appointed Kevin Krieger as territory sales manager throughout the Mountain and Northwest regions of the U.S. He most recently served as a territory manager for Fenner Dunlop. The company has also appointed Bill Humphrey as territory sales manager throughout the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley regions. He was most recently employed by Aggregates Manufacturing International. Krieger and Humphrey will work closely with dealers in their respective regions to bring innovative conveying equipment to bulk materials producers. CSX has announced winners of its 20th annual Chemical Safety Excellence Award, which recognizes customers for their commitment to safe transportation of hazardous materials by rail. This year&rsquo;s winners include Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Corp., Cardinal Ethanol LLC, Cargill, POET Biorefining and Valero.&nbsp; Hasan Atiyeh, assistant professor in biosytems and agricultural engineering at Oklahoma State University, recently received a South Central Sun Grant Award to advance the development of a new hybrid gasification-syngas fermentation technology. Premium Plant Services Inc. has announced a new service center in Dubuque, Iowa. The new location will service plants in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. The company also has service centers in Hibbing, Minn., and Tracy, Minn. Three Rivers Energy LLC has joined Growth Energy. Three Rivers Energy is a 50 MMgy facility located in Coshocton, Ohio. The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville has added Parisa Fallahi to its research team. She is a postdoctoral fellow specializing in ethanol coproducts research. Fallahi received her master&rsquo;s degree in chemical engineering from Azad University,Tehran, Iran, and a doctorate in biological sciences and agriculture and biosystems engineering from South Dakota State University. Syngenta has announced an agreement with Cellulosic Ethanol Technologies LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Quad County Corn Processors, to license its Adding Cellulosic Ethanol technology. Poet Biorefining&mdash;Preston has announced Chris Hanson as its new general manager. Hanson was previously employed as technical manager of the plant. He will now be responsible for overseeing the 46 MMgy facility. Purdue University researchers are launching Spero Energy Inc. to develop technology that can make high-value chemical products from lignin with simultaneous production of lignin-free cellulose in one step using a catalytic process. The technology portfolio is based on research efforts at Purdue&rsquo;s Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio). The company will be led by Mahdi Abu-Omar, the R.B. Wetherill Professor of chemistry and chemical engineering and associate director of C3Bio. Siouxland Energy and Livestock Cooperative has changed its name to Siouxland Energy Cooperative. The change aligns the company name with its mission of returning value to members&rsquo; corn through the best cost production in the renewable fuels industry.&nbsp; Anna Wildeman, an attorney at Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP, has been named one of Super Lawyers Magazine&rsquo;s 2014 Washington, D.C., Rising Stars. She is a member of Michael Best&rsquo;s Energy Practice Group and Agribusiness, Food Processing &amp; Distribution Group. U.S. Water Services Inc. has announced the acquisition of&nbsp; Water Chemical Service Inc. (Waterchem). The acquisition includes Waterchem&rsquo;s corporate headquarters and production facility in Aberdeen, Md., and surrounding sales territories. The acquisition is expected to increase U.S. Water&rsquo;s presence on the East Coast and adds to its pathogen control capabilities nationally. Purthanol Resources Ltd. has completed negotiations with Dorax Investment Co. Ltd. to finance the acquisition of 60 ethanol modules for a total of $39 million. The modules will be used to demonstrate the Purthanol process, which produces sorghum ethanol.
Tae Seok Moon, an assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation for his project, titled &ldquo;Engineering Biological Robustness Through Synthetic Control.&rdquo; Moon received a five-year $400,000 grant to understand the principles of biological robustness by using synthetic DNA in basic bacteria cells. The research could have implications for biofuel production and several other industries.

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Business Briefs

Different jurisdictions can have different reasons for promoting renewable fuels.&nbsp; When Brazil started its pro-alcohol program in the &rsquo;70s, it was mainly to find a domestic replacement for much-too-expensive foreign oil. In the U.S., it was very much an agricultural driver, providing corn growers with a new market and, later, reducing imports of oil from politically unstable countries, a pretty important issue too.
In Europe, the discussion on renewables has always, and too much, been dominated by the environmental effects. What originally in Europe started as an instrument of energy policy is now strongly influenced and managed by environmental policymakers. In that sense, there is an interesting parallel between the U.S. and the European Union. In the United States too, the U.S. EPA is very much calling the shots nowadays. Does it make sense to put so much emphasis on the environmental benefits? Certainly, environmental performance is important. But I have the feeling that in Europe we have turned a blind eye to all the other benefits renewable fuels can bring. For example, using domestic sources to produce part of our energy needs. The time seems to be right to shift gears in the debate on biofuels and there are some pretty good reasons to do this. Here are a few. At present, 85 percent of Europe&rsquo;s oil is imported and forecasts indicate that this share of oil imports will likely increase even further by 2030. In the EU transport sector, 94 percent of the fuels used are fossil-based. The EU's oil bill currently stands at 1 billion euros($1.3 billion) a day. Europe needs to import 20 percent of its diesel needs; most of it is coming from Russia. And whether we like it or not, we are running out of oil. We can speculate long about when "peak of oil" will happen but someday it will (or maybe it has already happened). These are ample reasons to put more emphasis on why biofuels are also needed: reducing our dependency on fossil fuels and the security of our energy supply. Slowly, a shift seems to be happening. Security of energy supply is getting higher on the political agenda, mainly caused by the recent turmoil in the Ukraine. Even though the concerns are mainly about gas for heating and electricity production, one cannot exclude that one of these days diesel flows will be curtailed. We better not wait for that day. Let&rsquo;s start thinking about how we can increase domestic fuel production to hedge against such a scenario and use biofuels in a smarter way at the same time. We don't need to reinvent the wheel to accomplish the latter. The EU has legislation that forces every member state to maintain a strategic storage of crude to cope with unforeseen circumstances. Why wouldn't we add a provision that member states should also maintain a strategic storage of biofuels? Hopefully, the debate on cheaper energy that is now taking place in Europe will widen to securing energy supply. Biofuels can play a part in this. It is time for a shift in thinking about biofuels and what these fuels can deliver for society in securing part of our energy needs. Author: Robert Vierhout Secretary-general, ePURE Vierhout@epure.org

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The EU should add a provision to existing legislation requiring that member states maintain a strategic storage of biofuels, writes Robert  Vierhout. It's time to start thinking about security of energy supply and using biofuels in a smarter way. 

Paradigm Shift Needed

This year we celebrate the 238th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. On the Fourth of July our founding fathers began the arduous task of establishing a new nation outside the grasp of tyranny. Today we face a new tyranny, not from a far off ruler trying to impose taxes, but from a variety of kingdoms and oppressive groups attacking our economic and energy independence. Luckily, we have the ability to again declare our freedom from this oppression. Foreign oil threatens our security, our economic strength and takes our hard-earned dollars outside our borders. Ethanol is our renewed declaration of energy independence. The ethanol industry has created nearly 400,000 jobs, with the opportunity for up to 136,000 more, if we move to E15. These jobs are here at home and cannot be sent overseas. Americans produce the corn and other renewable fuel feedstock to produce the ethanol that Americans and many others around the world use as fuel, returning dollars into our domestic economy. The jobs created at home stimulate the economy further by creating jobs for grocers, service providers and others within the community who rely on the ability of the ethanol workforce and farmers to be able to support their families.&nbsp; Our citizens outside of the ethanol industry and our rural communities also benefit from this revolutionary fuel. Emissions are reduced, providing cleaner air for us and our children. Cleaner burning ethanol provides measurable reductions in the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to removing 8 million cars from the road each year. The renewable fuel standard (RFS) alone has the ability to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to equate to 27 million cars off the roads by 2022.&nbsp; Higher blends such as E15 will only increase our ability to preserve our environment while revitalizing our economy. By reducing greenhouse gases by 59 percent, E15 represents the best currently approved fuel choice we have in the fight against climate change. All of these benefits come with consumers&rsquo; freedom to choose their own fuel. And while ethanol already reduces the price to fill up by as much as $1.09 per gallon, higher blends have the ability to further reduce costs to consumers. We want to expand their choice to save money, utilize a cleaner fuel and help improve our environment. It is no surprise that when faced with possible loss of market share, the oil industry fights so vehemently to keep us out of consumers&rsquo; gas tanks, reducing available options to their consumers. But we have fought back. Growth Energy is actively fighting to preserve the RFS and we are continuing to lead the charge to expand consumer choice and options for fuel. But these benefits and freedoms can only truly be realized if we can further break Big Oil&rsquo;s grip on the fuel market. Despite the best efforts of the oil industry to keep their monopoly, we have succeeded in pushing back. Today, retailers are expanding E15 across the country. We are winning. Now is the time to declare our energy independence. Continue to contact your leaders and share the benefits of ethanol with your neighbors. Americans deserve the ability to choose their fuel, bolster our rural economies, keep our money within our own country and help mitigate climate change for future generations. Author: Tom Buis CEO, Growth Energy 202-545-4000 tbuis@growthenergy.org

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With the Fourth of July fast approaching, it's a great time to think about declaring independence from Big Oil, writes Tom Buis. Ethanol is our renewed declaration of energy independence. 

Let's Declare Independence From Big Oil 

Discerning anglers will tell you those small yellow perch in the hands of the folks on our cover aren&rsquo;t keepers by Minnesota fishing standards, but the aquaculture industry that grows them may soon be hooked on distillers grains. We&rsquo;ve all heard about DDGS as a fish feed, but it&rsquo;s always been a novel market most of us have brushed off. No longer, says the University of Minnesota&rsquo;s Jerry Shurson, who appears in our lead story and also in <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/11106/doctor-ddgs" target="_blank">this month&rsquo;s Q&amp;A</a>. In <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/11109/fishing-for-profit" target="_blank">&ldquo;Fishing For Profit,&rdquo;</a> Shurson tells us that aquaculture could be the next big thing for corn ethanol&rsquo;s principal coproduct. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the little known stories about future markets that really has not been developed to its fullest extent,&rdquo; he says. Managing Editor Holly Jessen reports that the growth of aquaculture, globally, is expected to drive up the demand for plant-based protein substitutes for fish meal. We learn, for example, about one producer that&rsquo;s virtually tailored its DDGS for fish. The worldwide aquaculture market, now 70 million metric tons per year, is attracting the attention of feed product manufacturers, including one pursuing microbial adaptations of DDGS and others that are introducing entirely new aquaculture products like yeast protein concentrate and bacterial biomass. As Jessen reports, the demand for new fish feed ingredients is virtually a sure bet. In <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/11108/beyond-feed" target="_blank">&ldquo;Beyond Feed,&rdquo;</a> we turn our attention to the looming regulatory issues that producers of distillers grains will soon face. Senior Editor Susanne Retka Schill reports that, under the forthcoming Food Safety Modernization Act, the ethanol industry is not just facing new recordkeeping and manufacturing requirements, but the watchful eye of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The feed industry disagrees with the assertion that animal feed needs to be produced under the same hygienic standards as human food, but industry veterans like Purina&rsquo;s Harold Tilstra and Gavilon&rsquo;s Randy Ives say it&rsquo;s best to embrace the standards and accept that distillers grains is being considered part of the human food chain by the FDA.&nbsp;&nbsp; Also this month, we look at how two distillers grains product manufacturers are collaborating. In <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/11107/complementary-strategies-for-success" target="_blank">&ldquo;Complementary Strategies For Success,&rdquo;</a> we look at SweetPro&rsquo;s effort to incorporate biodegradable materials into its DDGS blocks. The feed company is working with Laurel BioComposite LLC to make DDGS-based containers for its products. The product is sustainable, strong and price competitive with traditional petroleum-based resin containers.&nbsp;&nbsp; Finally, we examine the logistical challenges producers faced this past winter with delays caused by severe winter weather and increased rail traffic. In <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/11105/stuck-at-the-station" target="_blank">&ldquo;Stuck At The Station,&rdquo;</a> we report that product shipments that normally take a couple of days to get moving were taking up to 10 days this winter. Delays caused by congestion from increased North American crude oil production is yet another row in the strained relationship between U.S. ethanol producers and their Big Oil customers. The degree to which movement on the rails this summer eases will be telling. &nbsp;
Tom Bryan President &amp; Editor in Chief tbryan@bbiinternational.com

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Tom Bryan, editor in chief of Ethanol Producer Magazine highlights the feature stories in the July issue, which has a distilers grains theme. The stories touch on the aquaculture market, new FDA rules, new a product containing the coproduct and more.

Aquaculture Ready To Net DDGS 

Cars, cars everywhere, but not an engine to pull them. This is one way to describe logistical challenges facing commodity producers and marketers during the first half of the year. The effects of prolonged rail delays are felt across the commodity board, including the ethanol and distillers grains marketing industry. &ldquo;From a DDG standpoint, it has made us more vigilant about cars continuing to move as we have ever been and avoiding the assumption that cars will move or locomotives will be there once the trains are built,&rdquo; says Sean Broderick, distillers grains marketing manager at CHS Inc. Before the congestion issues, Broderick expected an engine to arrive within two or three days. &ldquo;For the past six months, as soon as I put that [billing] in, I have to start following up right away, because I know the delays we have had, even with the follow-ups, are going to be more than what they were before. There was a time where trains waited as long as 10 days.&rdquo; The Renewable Fuels Association started getting calls about poor rail service from member companies in late December and early January. &ldquo;There were some companies that just couldn&rsquo;t get any pickups, and, of course, we have limited storage volumes at our ethanol plants,&rdquo; says Kelly Davis, director of regulatory affairs for the RFA. &ldquo;So if things don&rsquo;t run on time, ethanol doesn&rsquo;t move. When ethanol doesn&rsquo;t move, people don&rsquo;t get paid.&rdquo; The delay pushed up prices. Between late December and early April, the RFA noticed how expensive ethanol was getting at destinations such as New York Harbor, she says, adding that gas price increases were blamed on the price of ethanol. &ldquo;We felt that was disingenuous because we knew it was because we couldn&rsquo;t get our product to market due to the poor rail service,&rdquo; Davis says.&nbsp; &nbsp; Hitting The Brakes The explanations for the delays can vary depending on the source. &ldquo;We obviously had a harsh winter, and some of the railroads have pointed to that,&rdquo; says Chris Bliley, director of regulatory affairs at Growth Energy. &ldquo;But we continue to see declining service throughout the beginning of the year and it has really impacted supply. You see some plants idle some of their capacity, and whether that&rsquo;s a backlog from winter or not, but our guys are experiencing problems getting crews out to trains and that&rsquo;s the main issue.&rdquo; Harsh winter weather conditions play a large role in the congestion, especially in the Eastern U.S., where cold weather and deep snow caused delays and technical problems for the railroad companies, says Broderick. For instance, it caused issues with electrical rail switches, which leads to more manual switch operations and maintenance. &ldquo;They had to have people onsite to make sure the switches were clear enough to work,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; Some railroad companies claim the longer stretches of sub-zero weather caused limited work hours for rail workers. &ldquo;They had their service disruption excuses, but we were very upset about it, so the RFA became uniquely involved,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;We contacted the American Association of Railroads and testified before the Surface Transportation Board, while at the same time our members continued to work with their rail suppliers for a solution.&rdquo; Although the harsh winter climates certainly slowed rail traffic to an extent, there may be larger themes affecting service. &ldquo;I know there has been some snow in some areas, but certainly not like at the beginning of the year,&rdquo; says Bliley. &ldquo;So I&rsquo;d say it is a bigger problem than just the weather.&rdquo;&nbsp; As the warmer weather settles in, railroads that experienced winter issues come back to life. &ldquo;I think the eastern railroads are going to be able to clear up their issues faster than the Burlington Northern, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific,&rdquo; Broderick says. &ldquo;Most of their issues were attributed to the cold weather. Now that&rsquo;s behind us, they&rsquo;re already making headway into most of the backlog they had.&rdquo; Increased traffic from North Dakota crude oil production also crowds rail traffic moving East and West, catching disdain from other commodity sectors. With crude oil moving out and oil drilling resources, such as frack sand, moving in, it has caused a bit of congestion, Broderick explains, slowing down trains trying to move through the Dakotas and Minnesota. &ldquo;At a certain point, Amtrack complained, coal was complaining, grain trains weren&rsquo;t moving,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;We had a bumper harvest, and if you can&rsquo;t move grain, you can&rsquo;t get paid. If it&rsquo;s a commodity, you can miss the market, so to speak. So all the other commodities weren&rsquo;t moving, but guess what was moving? Oil out of the Bakken.&rdquo; Another source of rail congestion lies among the rail yards of Chicago, one of the biggest interchanges between western and eastern railroads, Broderick says. At this interchange, trains bottleneck and slow movement to eastern markets and ports. Rail maintenance schedules, especially with the western railroad lines, has the potential to continue rail delays well into warmer seasons. Railroad companies, such as Burlington Northern Sante Fe, use the opportunity to complete its maintenance-of-way programs to upgrade and maintain its systems. &ldquo;Once we get to warmer weather, where you would ordinarily think [BNSF] might catch up since the cold isn&rsquo;t causing them issues anymore, they are sort of in a type of road construction season,&rdquo; Broderick says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s work they do in the summer, at a time you normally expect to make headway. Our expectation is whatever headway they do make will be slowed by these projects.&rdquo; One such rail project includes a $400 million BNSF investment to maintain its rail infrastructure in North Dakota, according to an Amtrak press release. Along the routes between Grand Forks and Minot and Fargo and Grand Forks, BNSF will install new turnouts, high-speed surfacing, ballast cleaning, and replace ties, rail relays and signal upgrades. Working Around The Rails As railcars sit waiting for an engine to show, distillers grains producers and marketers eye other methods to get their product out. Some plants with the ability to sell into the local markets are certainly taking advantage of the opportunity, Bliley says. But that&rsquo;s not always possible. &ldquo;We really rely on the rail service and, unfortunately, some of these plants had to live with the delays.&rdquo; Others went to moving more product via truck. &ldquo;Ethanol plants were doing all kinds of different things to get around delays,&rdquo; Davis says, adding that different plants have different strategies. &ldquo;When roughly 70 percent of your product runs by rail, moving by truck increases your costs.&rdquo; There was a distinct spread between netbacks to plants moving product by the rail market and those forced to sell into the truck market, Broderick says. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re a guy that&rsquo;s selling all you can in rail, and suddenly your railcars aren&rsquo;t coming back and you&rsquo;re making money grinding corn and making ethanol, you&rsquo;re going to move the DDG at a price you probably wouldn&rsquo;t ordinarily take,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But you&rsquo;re still making money doing the whole process. It&rsquo;s worth it for you to take a discount in a truck market and move it at a price lower than you&rsquo;d like if you can keep the plant running and make up for it on the net dollars from making ethanol.&rdquo; For facilities located near river access, specifically around the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers, shipping distillers grains via barge may provide a seasonal option during warmer weather. &ldquo;If the Gulf prices are such that you can pay a little more freight to load onto the Illinois than the Mississippi, then obviously you will do it. You&rsquo;ll just have to figure out your best dollar value,&rdquo; Broderick says. &ldquo;In the winter, you don&rsquo;t have the option of loading onto the Mississippi, so you&rsquo;ll go over to the Illinois River and run down to the south in St. Louis, or you don&rsquo;t go to the river.&rdquo; Facing It Head-On To address the delay issues, the RFA and Growth Energy are voicing concerns to entities such as the Surface Transportation Board and American Association of Railroads. The RFA sent a letter to the AAR on April 3, pointing to the increase in railcars used to ship Bakken crude as a reason for other commodity rail delays. &ldquo;We have an excellent relationship with our railroads. This just had to be called out on because of how bad the service was this past winter,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;Since pricing has rebounded, cars are now moving. I&rsquo;m not sure if there are any residual delays, but at the height of it, people were talking about delays lasting until summer.&rdquo;&nbsp; To take pressure off BNSF&rsquo;s North Dakota maintenance project, Amtrak agreed to detour its westbound Empire Builder train through North Dakota as part of a request from BNSF. &ldquo;Local community and business leaders prize the Empire Builder and see Amtrak service as an important public transportation link,&rdquo; says DJ Stadtler, vice president of operations at Amtrak as part of a May announcement. &ldquo;BNSF needs to speed repairs and upgrades in order to return the Empire Builder to its previous reliability as fast as possible. We fully expect this work to be done by the end of September at the latest.&rdquo; Individual producers can also voice their concerns to legislators and railroad service providers. &ldquo;This is certainly something being debated about in Washington, D.C.,&rdquo; Bliley says. &ldquo;You saw the Surface Transportation Board hold a hearing on it, you see some of the discussion in Congress. So I would certainly voice those concerns to members of Congress, and as a customer, I&rsquo;d certainly talk to the railroads as well.&rdquo; Author: Chris Hanson Staff Writer: Ethanol Producer Magazine chanson@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4970

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Big Changes: Train speeds were about 12 percent slower than normal in late February. Dwell times jumped 40 percent in late December and remained about 25 percent above normal through the first quarter. 

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Crude Takeover: Rail shipments of ethanol have stabilized in recent years while crude oil shipments have increased nearly 1,400 percent since 2010. 

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Multiple factors, including winter weather and shale oil traffic, presented logistical challenges for dried distillers grains marketers and ethanol producers early this year.  

Stuck At The Station

Plenty of potential legal snares threaten employers trying to comply with wage and hour laws. Consider the following wage and hour traps for the unwary. Trap No. 1:&nbsp; Forgetting other applicable laws. This article focuses primarily on the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. However, states also have their own wage and hour laws. State law may give employees protections beyond those established under federal law.&nbsp; Trap No. 2:&nbsp; Assuming the risk is lower than it is. These laws are complicated and it&rsquo;s relatively easy to stumble into a violation. Unfortunately, claims can be particularly difficult and expensive to defend.&nbsp; &bull; Even an inadvertent violation generally results in an award &nbsp;&nbsp; of back wages.&nbsp;&nbsp; &bull; If a court awards back wages, it also generally awards liquidated &nbsp; (double) damages. &bull;&nbsp; Legal fees incurred in defending a claim are often high, and &nbsp;&nbsp; an employer often pays for the plaintiff&rsquo;s lawyer where there&rsquo;s &nbsp;&nbsp; been a violation. &bull;&nbsp; Plaintiffs can recover two years&rsquo; worth of back wages (or three &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; if the violation is willful).&nbsp; &bull;&nbsp; Often, a pay practice impacts multiple employees or multiple &nbsp;&nbsp; positions. We&rsquo;re also seeing aggressive enforcement efforts by, and cooperation between, federal and state agencies. Trap No. 3:&nbsp; Destroying an exemption by making improper salary deductions. Unless an employee satisfies a particular statutory exemption, most are covered by the FLSA. There are many different exemptions under the act, and each has multiple factors to consider.&nbsp; In addition to satisfying job-function requirements for a particular exemption, many also require minimum payment (often $455 per workweek) on a salary basis. Salary basis means the employee must regularly receive a predetermined amount for any week in which he performs any work. Generally speaking, unless the employee performs no work in the workweek, an employer may not change the amount paid based on changes in quality or quantity of work.&nbsp; The exemption can be destroyed if the employer makes improper deductions. For example, an employer may not dock an exempt employee&rsquo;s pay for absences caused by the employer (i.e., closing for bad weather or when no work is available). There are only a handful of deductions for partial workweek absences: &bull; Full-day absences for personal reasons, other than sickness or &nbsp; disability.&nbsp; &bull; Full-day absences due to illness or disability, if the employer has a &nbsp; bona fide paid sick leave policy or practice.&nbsp; &bull; Offsetting amounts received as jury or witness fees received &nbsp;&nbsp; during such absences. &bull; Offsetting pay received on military leave.&nbsp; &bull; Penalties for violating safety rules of &ldquo;major significance.&rdquo;&nbsp; &bull; Full-day deductions for unpaid disciplinary suspensions for &nbsp; serious misconduct violating written workplace rules.&nbsp; &bull; Proportionate deduction in the first and last weeks of employment. &bull; Deductions for unpaid family and medical leave. Trap No. 4:&nbsp; Assuming employees are exempt from overtime or minimum wage requirements because they are paid a salary. Many employers mistakenly believe they don&rsquo;t have to keep track of hours worked or pay overtime to employees who are paid a salary rather than hourly. While salary pay often is one requirement for various exemptions, it&rsquo;s never stands alone. Employers must always look at the actual job duties being performed and decide if they meet a particular exemption. Trap No. 5:&nbsp; Forgetting to include bonuses or other incentive pay in nonexempt employee&rsquo;s overtime rate. Year-end and other bonus payments made to nonexempt employees frequently cause overtime problems for employers. Overtime pay must be calculated using an employee&rsquo;s regular rate, which generally includes all amounts paid to an employee during the workweek. FLSA provides a few narrow exceptions. Employers often misapply the exception allowing discretionary bonuses to be excluded overtime calculations. Few bonuses will be considered discretionary under the FLSA. Any bonus tied to production, attendance, efficiency or quality of work must be included in the regular rate, as well as most bonuses announced in advance. If a mid- or year-end bonus is not discretionary, it generally must be apportioned back over the period it covers to determine any additional overtime owed.&nbsp; Employers who pay profit-sharing bonuses may exclude those amounts from hourly employees&rsquo; regular rates. However, the statutory exception imposes strict guidelines in this. Author: Megan E. Moritz, Attorney &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; BrownWinick Law Firm &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 515-242-2455 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp; moritz@brownwinick.com

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There are potential legal traps that could cause significant problems for unwary employers, writes Megan E.  Moritz. In this column, she outlines five of them. 

Beware Wage And Hour  Law Traps 

The American Coalition for Ethanol recently launched a new campaign built upon the personal stories, authenticity and persuasiveness of our members and other people in the business of ethanol. Our campaign, "Power by People", compliments the industry-wide effort, through Fuels America, to defend the renewable fuel standard and higher blends by going on offense and being positive about the human good ethanol delivers. It will feature a more engaging experience at www.ethanol.org, social media friendly videos and infographics that are easily sharable, and some paid advertising.&nbsp; We&rsquo;re doing this to turn the tables on opponents who are trying to scare people by saying things like E15 will ruin your engine, the RFS drives up food prices and high RIN prices mean high pump prices.&nbsp; Opponents are also playing to people&rsquo;s emotions by stereotyping the RFS as a heavy-handed U.S. EPA mandate. While ethanol opponents are appealing to peoples&rsquo; fears, we&rsquo;ve been fighting fear with facts.&nbsp; A common refrain within our industry is, the facts are on our side, we just need to get the facts out there.&nbsp; We just need to tell our story. ACE has concluded that we can&rsquo;t keep pouring all our trust, hard work and money into publicizing just the facts&mdash;reams of studies, detailed spreadsheet and bullet points supported by footnotes&mdash;in response to attacks with the hope that we&rsquo;ll win over more political and public support for ethanol. In other words, we can&rsquo;t keep doing things the way we&rsquo;ve been doing them and hope for a better result. For most people, desire doesn&rsquo;t come from data.&nbsp; We need to have the sophistication to appreciate that emotions are part of every decision people make.&nbsp; There&rsquo;s an old adage about winning the hearts and minds, a recognition that facts alone do little to captivate people&rsquo;s attention and that we need to strike a smarter balance between data and emotion. ACE believes ethanol is first and foremost about people. A profile in courage about ordinary people who joined forces, without any template or precedent to guide them, to commit their own money and time to rescue their families, neighbors and communities by building locally owned businesses in their towns. Jobs were created and profits stayed at home.&nbsp; For far too long, the people of ethanol&mdash;and their stories&mdash;have been overlooked.&nbsp; Surveys confirm that people are most likely to be convinced by other people with whom they can relate.&nbsp; If we tap into the sincerity and authenticity of the grassroots&mdash;why they make ethanol, why they care about ethanol and why ethanol is good no matter who you are or where you are from&mdash;we can capitalize on that emotional and human domain to show and tell the stories behind the facts.&nbsp; So ACE is challenging the status quo by trying to connect with people on a deeper level, an emotional level.&nbsp; This is not to say we should abandon the facts. The facts are absolutely on ethanol&rsquo;s side, and we absolutely need to get the facts out there. But we&rsquo;re going to try to deliver those facts in a more interesting wrapper, to make rational arguments about ethanol by appealing to people&rsquo;s hearts and minds. ACE is uniquely positioned to do this because we are the grassroots voice of ethanol.&nbsp; ACE members represent the heart and soul, the sharpest minds of the industry and come from various walks of life. They have experiences that can help us convey that ethanol shouldn&rsquo;t merely be valued by the barrels of foreign oil and the tons of greenhouse gas emissions it displaces, it should also be measured based on the human good it delivers. And we don&rsquo;t have to be dishonest or scare people. Because when the people of ethanol are showing and telling our story, it is a positive story.&nbsp; Ethanol has power by people. &nbsp; Author: Brian Jennings Executive Vice President American Coalition for Ethanol 605-334-3381 bjennings@ethanol.org

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A new grassroots campaign will tell the positive story of ethanol through people's personal stories, writes Brian Jennings. "Power by People" will appeal to the hearts and minds of the public. 

Ethanol”s “Power By People” 

Under the Food Safety Modernization Act, the ethanol industry is facing another set of recordkeeping requirements, new good manufacturing practices (GMP) and a new agency looking over its shoulder, the Food and Drug Administration. Exactly what those FSMA rules will require isn&rsquo;t known yet&mdash;the deadline for the final rule to be published isn&rsquo;t until next summer, and it appears most in the industry will have a couple of years to comply once they are promulgated. Though compliance with FSMA is not imminent, many are wondering just how much change lies ahead for distillers grains producers. The ethanol industry will get a second look at the proposed rules later this summer, when revisions to several sections are reopened for comment.&nbsp; The two of most interest to the ethanol industry include GMPs for the production of animal food and preventive controls. Long in place for human food manufacturing, GMPs will be a new requirement for the animal feed industry. Hazard analysis and preventive controls will be new to both human and animal food manufacturers. The first reworking of food safety rules in many years, FSMA reflects the growing need to move away from reaction to prevention, says Daniel McChesney, director of the office of surveillance and compliance at the FDA Center for Veterinary Medicine. The change in focus found in the FSMA legislation was supported by consumers, Congress, industry and the agency, he says. &ldquo;It was driven by a lot of things, one, the globalization of the food and feed supply.&rdquo; McChesney says a 2007 incident played a big role in the adoption of FSMA. &ldquo;There was concern over food safety and people were talking about moving towards prevention,&rdquo; McChesney recalls. &ldquo;Then we ended up with melamine in pet food and FDA got 18,000 consumer calls about sick and dying pets.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was the most calls the agency had gotten ever, or since. &ldquo;Pet food was the snowball that started rolling down the mountainside. Things really picked up quickly after that and moved toward prevention.&rdquo; FDA&rsquo;s role in ensuring food safety has been expanded and within FDA, the Center for Veterinary Medicine is expanding its role, from overseeing the manufacturing of medicated feeds, to ensuring GMPs and preventive controls are in place among feed manufacturers and suppliers of feed ingredients. The timeline between the act becoming law in 2011 and the deadline for publication of proposed rules was tight. &ldquo;On the animal feed GMP side,&rdquo; McChesney says, &ldquo;we looked at the time frame, we looked at writing GMPs and we said we&rsquo;re going to take the human GMPs, modify them slightly, put that out as our proposal and ask industry, are these practical?&rdquo;&nbsp; Industry Reaction The feed industry found multiple problems. &ldquo;From an animal feed standpoint, we do not think that good manufacturing requirements need to be as stringent for animal feed as they need to for human food,&rdquo; says David Fairfield, vice president, feed services for the National Grain and Feed Association. There are obvious reasons, he points out, when, where and how animals are raised is compared to how humans live. &ldquo;The idea that animal feed needs to be produced under the same hygienic standards and conditions as human food is not realistic,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We commented extensively to FDA.&rdquo; Indeed, NGFA submitted more than 100 pages of comments. &ldquo;Our view is that the preventive control requirements are way too onerous as well,&rdquo; he adds. While he expects modifications to the language, he does not expect the recent calls for an exemption or special treatment of spent brewers grains in the regulation to be extended to the fuel ethanol industry&rsquo;s coproduct. McChesney confirms that, explaining that the issue is broader than just spent brewers grains. &ldquo;When we put out new language, it will be addressing all the human food manufacturing coproducts going to animal feed, and not just the spent grains, though admittedly, the spent grains brewers were the most vocal.&rdquo; Though the end product, distillers grains, is the same, the two industries are in very different categories, he says. &ldquo;The real difference is that the brewers and human distillers are working under the human food GMPs, starting with food grade material, using food grade vessels.&rdquo; The fuel ethanol process, on the other hand, is industrial, without similar requirements in place. He adds that in reviewing the 2,000-some comments made on the rule, there was a common theme. &ldquo;Basically, all said the GMPs were too prescriptive as written and they needed to be modified or changed to be more appropriate for animal feed. We&rsquo;ve taken that to heart and we&rsquo;re doing that.&rdquo; The revisions should be reopened for comment later this summer, he adds. Ethanol Impact Although the ethanol industry isn&rsquo;t relishing the thought of a new set of regulatory requirements, many are thinking that it&rsquo;s too far off to worry about now. However, industry veterans encourage the industry to start planning early. &ldquo;The guiding principle of providing a safe product is good,&rdquo; says Harold Tilstra, manager of tech support for ingredients merchandising business at Purina Animal Nutrition. &ldquo;And, the public deserves to know there are processes in place that help with that.&rdquo; While he is sympathetic with the reluctance to embrace more regulation, he says the ethanol industry needs to avoid creating a perception with the public that it doesn&rsquo;t care about its product being safe. &ldquo;The track record on distillers grains safety is very good,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m hard pressed to think of any situation related to food safety attributable to the use of ethanol coproducts.&rdquo; Randy Ives, director of ethanol services at Gavilon Group LLC, suggests the first challenge for the ethanol industry will be a change in attitude. Working in the ethanol industry since 1994, he remembers when distillers grains was considered a low-value byproduct that got little attention. That has evolved, he says, &ldquo;to where we recognize consistent quality in the coproducts means better returns to investors, less issues with customers. It flows better, the product&rsquo;s not burnt and we have less rejected loads. We started paying attention to all the details.&rdquo; The change in attitude coming with FSMA is highlighted in the use of the word &ldquo;food&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;feed,&rdquo; Ives points out. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the difference from 20 years ago. Everything was feed then, but we&rsquo;re producing a food ingredient. We are part of the food chain.&rdquo; FSMA will be new for everybody in the feed industry, not just ethanol producers, he continues. Some ethanol producers are getting a head start as they prepare for another set of export requirements. About 75 ethanol plants have indicated they will comply with the Chinese Decree 118, Ives reports, which is almost identical to FSMA (but different from the registration issue discussed in the page 56 contribution from U.S. Grains Council in this issue). Change Ahead Helping ethanol producers meet the China export requirements, Iowa-based Rick Brehm draws upon a couple of decades of experience in the feed industry as well as time managing an ethanol plant. He suggests the biggest changes coming to meet both the China requirements and FSMA will be in wet and dry distillers storage. &ldquo;I think we will find we&rsquo;re going to have to either not allow the large overhead doors to be open all the time or we&rsquo;re going to have to find a way to prevent the birds and insects from getting in.&rdquo; Hanging strips of plastic or sliding screen doors with sensors that automatically open and close them, much like doors on a grocery store, are possible solutions. The handling of wet cake may be the most challenging, he adds. &ldquo;A lot of the wet feed pads are more open than what dried distillers grains storage buildings are,&rdquo; he says, adding that he suspects there will be requirements to rotate inventory and clean the pad. Avoiding possible contamination from birds and other wild animal droppings&mdash;a potential source of salmonella or other contaminants&mdash;is the goal. Another situation he&rsquo;s seen that will need to be evaluated is the use of the grains building for other storage. &ldquo;I think people will have the ability to store metal or machine parts, but I don&rsquo;t think they&rsquo;ll be able to store any liquid in containers that could potentially leak or be torn and potentially contaminate distillers grain.&rdquo; Bob Miller, another consultant with many years in the beverage alcohol industry and four years as an ethanol plant manager, has also visited with ethanol producers about FSMA compliance. &ldquo;What is clear is that much remains to be done and waiting for absolute clarity is not an option,&rdquo; he says. One of his concerns is the handling of antibiotics to treat infections in the fermenters.&nbsp; &ldquo;If the ethanol plant is going to continue to use antibiotics, the plan must address the possibility of drug residues occurring in distillers grains or any other coproduct, such as corn oil, that is sold or could be sold as an animal feed,&rdquo; he says. While many plants are moving away from routine use of antibiotics, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t foresee that in the near term antibiotics are going away,&rdquo; Brehm concurs. &ldquo;But compared to the feed industry, there is very little recordkeeping of antibiotics, and that may change.&rdquo; He describes the inventory controls in place in medicated feed manufacturing, where at the end of a shift the medications are weighed and the inventory balanced within a tenth or quarter pound. &ldquo;You didn&rsquo;t want to find that somebody accidently poured a whole bag of something in when they saw a one on the recipe and it meant one pound,&rdquo; Brehm explains. &ldquo;Taking inventory at the end of the day, you could stop shipment on a product until you figured out exactly what had happened.&rdquo; Best management practices and hazard analysis are not new to the ethanol industry. These tools have long been used in safety programs, along with employee training and recordkeeping requirements to demonstrate compliance. Standard operating procedures are commonly used as part of process management, and many BMPs regarding distillers grains are already widely used. Sulfur related problems in cattle, for example, were traced back to sulfur from process additives getting concentrated in the distillers grains. The industry quickly learned what needed to be done to prevent reoccurrences. Aflatoxins are another known hazard and the industry has figured out how to put preventive controls in place to avoid concentrated levels in the coproduct. As distillers grains is more widely used at higher inclusion rates, new issues may emerge, suggests the FDA&rsquo;s McChesney. Something that wasn&rsquo;t an issue at a 10 percent inclusion rate may present problems when fed at 50 or 60 percent rates, he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s that sort of problem the rule is trying to prevent. You want to be preventive, you don&rsquo;t want to find out after you&rsquo;ve had a bunch of sick animals.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Senior Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4922

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Proposed FDA regulations raise compliance questions among ethanol producers.

Beyond Feed

Ethanol producers looking for the next big market for distillers grains may want to seriously consider aquaculture feed. &ldquo;For a variety of reasons, we&rsquo;re just at beginning phases of seeing the potential for a significant amount of DDGS use in fish diets around the world,&rdquo; says distillers grains expert Jerry Shurson, a professor at the University of Minnesota.&nbsp; Fishmeal, part of the aquaculture ration, is expensive and growing more so all the time. There are also questions about the long-term sustainability of harvesting wild-caught marine fish from the ocean. &ldquo;It has put a lot of pressure on the aquaculture industry, globally, to look for alternative protein sources to replace some, if not all the fishmeal,&rdquo; he says. That, plus rapid growth in the farmed-fish industry, has opened up a huge potential for plant-based protein substitutes, including distillers grains. Testing has shown that ethanol coproducts contain very attractive nutritional components for fish. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one of the little-known stories about future markets that really have not been developed to its fullest extent,&rdquo; Shurson says, adding that he expects to see more as ethanol plants evolve into true biorefineries. In fact, Badger State Ethanol LLC is currently using Fluid Quip Inc. technology to break into this and other markets. &ldquo;They are producing a very high-quality, high-protein, high-amino acid coproduct, which has features that are very, very attractive for aquaculture feed, as well as for pig diets and poultry,&rdquo; he says. In Belgium, BioWanze SA, a 300,000 cubic meter (80 MMgy) wheat-to-ethanol plant produces 55,000 metric tons a year of gluten. Besides going into the pet food and baked goods market, the company&rsquo;s pelletized gluten is a popular replacement for imported fishmeal or high protein soy concentrate, says Andr&eacute; Tonneaux, director of BioWanze SA. These two ethanol producers aren&rsquo;t the only ones with their eye on the fish food prize. In South Dakota, Prairie AquaTech is perfecting a microbial process to convert soybean meal or distillers grains into a high-protein, low-fiber aquaculture feed. It involves inoculating the plant-based feed ingredient with a microbe that consumes carbohydrates in a process similar to fermentation, says Jason Bootsma, the company&rsquo;s chief technology officer. Although the company has been working with soybean meal longer, researchers have already discovered that distillers grains has a few advantages. Besides a lower price, distillers grains has fewer anti-nutritional properties than soy, he says. On the other hand, soy starts out with a higher protein level than distillers grains, a key factor in identifying an ideal fishmeal replacement. Fishmeal, which runs about $2,000 a ton, is 65 percent protein. Prairie AquaTech has successfully used its process to produce a soybean meal feed that can replace 100 percent of fishmeal in aquaculture ration. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t quite got to that level yet with distillers grains,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re still working on that.&rdquo; Investigating The Possibilities Shurson was part of a study of distillers grains used in aquaculture diet that was conducted in Norway, which compared the effects of including distillers grains without distillers corn oil separation and reduced-oil distillers grains. Although it was assumed low-oil distillers grains would be better for aquaculture feed due to a higher protein content, that didn&rsquo;t turn out to be correct, he says. Both types of distillers grains worked well in aquaculture diets and show potential but reduced-oil distillers grains was slightly less attractive. In this study, rainbow trout were fed a diet in which distillers grains were used as a partial replacement for other plant based proteins, such as canola meal, sunflower meal and field peas. The fish that were fed high-oil distillers grains had better feed conversion, weight gain and other benefits. Those that got low-oil but higher protein distillers grains actually experienced lower protein digestibility but better phosphorus retention and digestibility. Peter Williams, the biofuels business development manager for Associated British Agriculture, spoke last year at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop &amp; Expo about a potential new ethanol coproduct he calls yeast protein concentrate (YPC,) which is a good replacement for fishmeal in aquaculture diets. In fish feeding trials YPC was used at up to a 15 percent inclusion rate with good results. &ldquo;Not only was it able to replace the fish meal, but we got some very important increase in growth when we put this product in,&rdquo; he says, adding that yeast is a known immune stimulant that contains valuable components such as nucleotides. William&rsquo;s work in this area got started when he wondered how much yeast went through the ethanol production process. No one could answer that question. &ldquo;We found it&rsquo;s a lot more than was first realized,&rdquo; he says, adding that the amount of yeast increases during fermentation. Associated British Agriculture is in the process of patenting the technology to recover yeast and working to license it with ethanol producers in the U.S. and overseas. Dennis Evers, chief technology officer for Meridian Biotech, will speak on this topic at this year&rsquo;s FEW. The company has developed a process to grow bacterial biomass on waste products, such as ethanol stillage. The biomass, a single-cell protein, doubles in volume rapidly and can generate about 10 tons a day. An ethanol plant could potentially go from a 12-cent per gallon profit on the ethanol it produces to a 28-cent per gallon profit, just by adding production of this new coproduct, he says. Another benefit is that the methane generated during the process can be captured to supply all the facilities energy needs. Testing conducted in Australia on prawns revealed phenomenal results, including a faster growth rate. &ldquo;They liked it so much they were virtually jumping out of the water,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They just loved the stuff.&rdquo;&nbsp; Meridian Biotech is currently working on joint ventures with U.S. ethanol producers, including companies that own multiple ethanol plants.&nbsp; Evers has had 40 years to work the teething problems out of the process, he says, which is ultimately very simple. &ldquo;This is what people can&rsquo;t understand. It has so many benefits, yet it is so simple. In fact, it&rsquo;s too bloody simple, actually,&rdquo; he says with a laugh. &ldquo;I should make it look a bit more complicated.&rdquo; Big Potential Adel Yusupov, regional director for Southeast Asia for the U.S. Grains Council says worldwide aquaculture feed production is estimated at 70 million metric tons yearly. Seventy percent of that is produced in China, 18 percent in Southeast Asia and 6 percent in India. &ldquo;Globally, wild catch has been trending down, while aquafarming is on uptrend,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It is not a matter of if, but when, that the aquaculture industry will have to move feeding from fish-based (fishmeal, trash fish) toward plant-based protein feed ingredients such as soybean meal, distillers grains and corn gluten meal.&rdquo;
USGC has done some feeding trial work, promoting distillers grains and corn gluten meal in aquaculture diets. There is a potential market for U.S. ethanol producers in the Asian aquaculture market, he says. &ldquo;It is still small-niche usage area, compared to bigger poultry and swine markets, but offers strong growth potential,&rdquo; he says. Michael Franko, technical projects manager for Fluid Quip, confirms it&rsquo;s a market with huge opportunity. &ldquo;Everybody wants to be in aqua,&rdquo; he says. Besides the technology in operation at Badger State since 2009, Fluid Quip is working with two international plant projects, currently in the detailed engineering phase, which aim to produce the same high-protein coproduct. In addition, in early May, the company was issued a notice of allowance for its patent application. Producing a new ethanol coproduct like the ones described by Evers, Franko and Williams does change the composition of the distillers grains produced. Specifically, the Fluid Quip process results in about 3 to 4 fewer pounds per bushel of distillers grains, on a dry basis, Franko says. However, besides a second, high-value coproduct, the process can also result in more distillers corn oil. And, it&rsquo;s tunable, with the ethanol producer having the ability to adjust the concentration percentages of the yeast, gluten or protein, which can go to concentrations as high as 55 percent. Author: Holly Jessen Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine hjessen@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4946

A FISH IN HAND:  Prairie AquaTech currently does testing with yellow perch in 30 tanks of 30 gallons each. 

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A STEP UP:  Jason Bootsma of Prairie AquaTech stands in the companyâ€™s current testing facility. A new building is currently under construction where the company plans to produce commercial-scale volumes of plant-based fishmeal replacement.

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EUROPEAN SCENE:  Along with gluten, the 80 MMgy wheat-ethanol plant produces condensed distillers solubles marketed as liquid protein animal feed and DDGS.  

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BioWanze SA, a European ethanol plant produces pelletized gluten, which is popular in the fish feed market.Â 

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Fluid Quipâ€™s technology offers ethanol producers the option to produce a high protein stream from whole stillage. The coproduct has value as a portion of the fishmeal ration.Â 
	


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Distillers grains and other new coproducts of ethanol production show potential in replacing fishmeal, the holy grail ingredient in aquaculture feed rations.

Fishing For Profit

China is a country with limitless potential and ever-increasing possibilities. According to the U.S. State Department, trade between the U.S. and China has grown from $33 billion in 1992 to $538 billion in 2012. That is a 1,530 percent increase in just 20 years. That is why the Renewable Fuels Association recently joined a trip to China led by USDA Under Secretary Michael Scuse. The group, including the RFA&rsquo;s Kelly Davis and Growth Energy&rsquo;s Jim Miller, visited the lesser-traveled northeast region of China, home to 110 million people, to reinforce our current relationships in the region and develop additional markets for U.S. agricultural products including ethanol and dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS). The trade mission observed a rapidly growing economy in northeastern China while visiting the city of Dalian, home to 4.5 million residents. Signs of growth are everywhere, from new high-rise apartments forming a new skyline to the shift from street markets to grocery stores over the past 10 years. Families in China&rsquo;s expanding middle class are eager to buy their first cars. Twenty million vehicles were purchased in China last year, compared to the approximately 14 million vehicles U.S. consumers will buy this year. Continued urbanization and rise in vehicle demand has led to an increased demand for gasoline. The mission began with a focus on expanding agriculture markets in China. It included a visit to Huishan Dairy and the Chinese beef company Haoyue. Both were found both to be modern, fully integrated facilities utilizing DDGS. China is the leading importer of American DDGS. It clearly sees the benefit of the high-protein, lightweight, easy-to-ship feedstock. In March, China purchased more than half of all American exported DDGS, with Mexico and South Korea topping off the top three. March set the monthly record for U.S. DDGS exports. If the U.S. continues at the pace we&rsquo;re going, we will break all previous records for DDGS exports. The focus then shifted to expanding ethanol markets as the group toured the Sinopec fuel ethanol plant in Chanchun and traveled to Jilin to visit a 175 MMgy corn ethanol plant. Today, a large portion of China&rsquo;s gasoline is actually blended with MTBE and low-level methanol blends. Ethanol is currently blended in only six Chinese provinces and accounts for less than one percent of the fuel supply. There is tremendous room for growth, but China currently bans the import of food-based ethanol. However, these restrictions might be removable at the provincial level, making it possible to find a location willing to change policy or start a new program that allows imports. In addition to combatting the food myth, the delegation detailed the economic and environmental benefits of U.S. produced high-octane, low-cost ethanol to the National Energy Administration and state-owned oil companies in an effort to open China&rsquo;s gasoline market to more ethanol. RFA planted the seeds for American exports. Now we must tend the field and watch them grow.
Author: Bob Dinneen President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association 202-289-3835

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RFA joined Growth Energy and others on a USDA trip to China, where signs of rapid growth were everywhere, writes Bob Dinneen. The goal was to develop additional markets for DDGS. 

Trade Focus: China 

On occasion, I update folks on what&rsquo;s going on in Australia (Down Under, as they say). First, because I live here and, second, because Australia, an ultra-modern, first world country, is of interest to many on a global scale. Last September, the Liberal Party (similar to U.S. Republicans) won in a landslide victory over the Labor Party (similar to U.S. Democrats). Now I will be the last to say that the Labor Party, which had been in office for six years, was an environmental giant, but since the election, the country has rapidly begun the process of negating almost all of the environmental programs that were in place. The carbon tax, designed to reduce carbon emissions from the country&rsquo;s biggest emitters, is set to be repealed in July of this year. The government has called for the abolishment of the Clean Energy Council, an organization established to oversee the establishment of clean energy programs. Additionally, they have said that they will cut funding to the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The CEFC had billions of dollars allocated to it to help develop, with private industry, renewable energy projects. The Treasurer of Australia, Joe Hockey has openly stated that the few wind farms that he sees on his drive to Parliament are obnoxious and offensive and funding for such development should be terminated. Over 70,000 hectares (nearly 173,000 acres) of natural forest in the State of Tasmania has been taken off the list of protected areas and the government will allow large areas of it to be harvested. The tax credits for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel are on the hit list for elimination. At the same time, coal is being used in record amounts because it&rsquo;s plentiful and cheap. This is in a country that has so many natural renewable feedstocks available to it that it boggles the imagination. Australia has more sunshine than almost any country in the world, yet industrial-size solar projects struggle to get built. Wind is another major source of potential renewable energy with millions of hectares of open space, yet there is very little assistance from government to develop it and, in fact, as I stated earlier, some in government find it repugnant. Australia is surrounded by oceans. There is enough energy in tidal and wave power to generate enough electricity to completely power the country of 23 million people. Enormous sources of biomass exist in forest trimmings, field residue, and municipal solid waste. Geothermal power could provide a significant energy source in numerous parts of the country. If I sound like I am trashing Australia, I&rsquo;m not. Australia is a beautiful country with great people, a strong economy and a wonderful environment. Perhaps that&rsquo;s part of the problem. The air here is clean and so the urgency to act does not seem very pressing. Yet, Australia thumps its chest and boasts of its clean air while exporting millions of metric tons of coal to China to pollute its environment. It&rsquo;s time for a major rethink of the strategies that drive the environmental agenda of Australia. The chance, however, of that happening under the current government is negligible. That&rsquo;s the way I see it!
 Author: Mike Bryan Chairman, BBI International mbryan@bbiinternational.com

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Australia is a beautiful country that isn't taking advantage of renewable energy opportunities, such as power generated by wind, solar or ocean waves, writes Mike Bryan. Those in power need to rethink their environmentally unfriendly policies. 

Time for An Environmental Rethink

Listening to the speakers at the recent Distillers Grains Symposium in Dallas, I had the chance to reflect on our industry&rsquo;s past and future.&nbsp; Indeed, the development of the types and qualities of distillers grains and other coproducts in the marketplace today began generations ago at beverage distilleries. At the turn of the 20th century, as various states adopted regulations to prevent pollution by dumping distillery waste into rivers, its use as a feed ingredient was born. With the advent of the fuel ethanol industry after World War II, these byproduct feeds were increasingly used. During the initial buildup in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and then the exponential growth of the past decade, distillers grains quality has come to the forefront of many discussions. Long gone are the days when distillers grains (dry, wet or modified) are seen as byproducts only, when the ethanol plants are in business only to produce fuel. The inherent value of coproducts is now recognized, as evidenced by the increasing number of plants that have installed centrifuges and are selling both distillers oil and low-oil distillers grains. In fact, the sale of distillers oil has become economically important during the past few years, especially in light of the challenges the ethanol industry has faced. Selling coproducts is a balancing act between many competing factors in the marketplace. We have the interests of the ethanol and beverage alcohol plants that produce the coproducts balanced against the livestock industry, comprised of domestic and international beef, dairy, swine and poultry customers. Some livestock producers actually view DDGS as a preferred feed ingredient, due to multiple benefits that it brings to their feeding operations. Add to this coproduct price (in relation to competing ingredients) and availability (including logistics such as this year&rsquo;s rail transport issue). Finding the right balance has taken tremendous effort over the years. Many have been involved in this endeavor, and much progress has been made. It is instructive to examine our progress to date. Back in 2005, we published an article in the inaugural issue of Distillers Grains Quarterly magazine and outlined the opportunities and challenges that our industry faced. In 2005, the top 10 research and development priorities included: 1) Augmenting use in species-specific livestock markets. 2) Improving nutritional content, quality and value. 3) Optimizing and maximizing inclusion rates; 4) Developing livestock feeds with higher value. 5) Utilizing next-generation coproducts from new ethanol processes. 6) Standardizing analytical laboratory methods. 7) Educating livestock producers. 8) Transportation issues. 9) Fractionating nutrients into concentrated streams. 10) Environmental issues. The list of other potential issues included antibiotic residues, sulfur and phosphorous levels, mycotoxin contamination, energy consumption and cost, optimizing coproduct quality and ethanol production, variability and consistency, flowability and developing other value-added uses. Fast forward to 2014. Some of these issues have been completely resolved, such as the standardized laboratory procedures. Unfortunately, most of the rest still require ongoing efforts to manage or mitigate. Several emerging issues were discussed at the recent DGTC symposium and include: * Complying with the Food Safety and Modernization Act regulations. The multi-tiered regulations will require significant effort to meet and all producers of fuel ethanol and beverage alcohol will be required to comply, although very small producers will be exempted from some of the requirements. * Understanding performance impacts in various species when feeding low-oil distillers grains. Some work has been done, but more is needed to fully understand how best to feed these relatively new coproducts. * Understanding the effects of fiber removal, especially in monogastrics. Some plants are starting to implement this next step to cellulosic ethanol. Understanding the impacts on coproducts and how to use them in livestock feeds is still in its infancy. * Incorporating other new processing technologies at ethanol plants that alter or produce entirely new coproducts. What is their value, how can they be used, and under what official feed definition from the Association of American Feed Control Officials do they fit? Or, will they require a new definition? * Protecting export trade. China imports about half of the DDGS shipped from the U.S. Issues with unapproved genetically modified traits in corn could be problematic this year, potentially hindering sales to China. Overcoming our other challenges and improving coproduct quality and value is not yet complete. We must continue our efforts to achieve balance amongst the ethanol and beverage plants, livestock producers, price and availability. Author: Kurt A. Rosentrater Executive Director, Distillers Grains Technology Council 515-294-4019 karosent@iastate.edu

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Distillers grains are no longer seen as byproducts, least of all by the ethanol producers producing the feed ingredient, writes Kurt Rosentrater. Unlike in past days, the inherent value of coproducts are not fully recognized. 

Byproduct Evolves Into Preferred Ingredient

As world oil prices were on the brink of collapse back in the mid-1980s, Vermont was seeing its first successful wood chip-to-heat school installation come to life.&nbsp; Today, more than 40 schools in the small state of 625,000 people have adopted wood heat, and that&rsquo;s just a snippet of the industry&rsquo;s success story there.
 Though Vermont is still very much considered an oil state&mdash;three quarters of energy consumed in the state is petroleum-based, and No. 2 heating oil still dominates home heating&mdash;its portfolio of biomass thermal projects is extensive. Besides 46 schools, there are more than 40 public buildings, multifamily complexes, college campuses and businesses that have installed wood chip heating systems, and more than 120 bulk residential pellet installations.
 And it&rsquo;s no coincidence that the origin of the word Vermont is thought to stem from the French phrase &ldquo;les verts monts,&rdquo; or green mountains. Nearly 80 percent of the state&rsquo;s rolling terrain is covered by 4.6 million acres of forests, mostly privately owned, and that number is on the rise. In fact, the net growth of trees has exceeded removal since the first inventory in 1948, according to the Vermont Woodland Association.
 At the same time, forestry activities in Vermont annually contribute nearly $3.5 billion to the state, and are a significant driver of the economy, including the workforce. A 2013 report from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation indicates that nearly 21,000 jobs in the state are directly impacted by Vermont&rsquo;s forests.
 The success of the state&rsquo;s burgeoning biomass thermal industry is associated with its heavy reliance on expensive oil, sustainable forestry and the multifaceted advantages that this abundant natural resource offers. But without the individuals who have worked tirelessly for decades to advocate for, ieducate about and implement wood heat, those characteristics would be meaningless to the industry. Foresters, state agencies&nbsp; and officials, environmental groups, nonprofits, equipment providers&mdash;and list goes on&mdash;have banded together to keep wood heat rolling, and it has resulted in the highest concentration of local, community-scale biomass thermal installations in the country. And for many, it&rsquo;s not just a trend or profession, it&rsquo;s a passion.
 That&rsquo;s the case for Tim Maker, who is one of a small handful of people who have been around since the beginning. Maker was the founding executive director of the Biomass Energy Resource Center, the nonprofit largely responsible for driving the industry in Vermont, and has played a significant role in seeing numerous projects in other states to success.
 Success Maker
 Maker has witnessed the evolution of wood heat in the state firsthand. Back then, it was a very small group of people working to illustrate some big ideas, he reflects. &ldquo;At the start, you could count the people doing it on one hand,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;All are still, to some capacity, involved to this day. There were just two vendors for equipment then, and they fiercely battled each other for each project that came up. That was a really important driver&mdash;it was somebody who really cared, and they were selling this stuff to make their livelihood.&rdquo;
 Maker, 68, says he retired from BERC and the industry in 2009, but it didn&rsquo;t last long. &ldquo;Things were still so interesting that I just couldn&rsquo;t [retire], but maybe I can in a couple more years,&rdquo; he jokes. Now CEO of Community Biomass Systems, Maker, described by his colleagues as a wood energy pioneer who wrote the guidebook on intuitional wood heat systems, began his career in the industry in 1980 by working for a state energy audit program that was run through the University of Vermont Extension Service. When the program was defunded, Maker began his own consulting business, and at one point volunteered to be part of a small team advised by a local school board to determine a heating solution for the small, rural school. That&rsquo;s where it all started.
 &nbsp;&ldquo;We decided we&rsquo;d look at everything, even renewables,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;This was in 1985. We learned there were a couple wood chip heating plants in Vermont, and we observed them and ended up making a school board recommendation, which it took to the voters, and the bond vote passed unanimously. Nobody said no. We figured we were on to something.&rdquo;
 Soon after, Maker decided to work wood heat into his consulting business, which was initially more about efficiency than heating technologies. &ldquo;I went on to be the project manager of about one school system per year over the next 12 to 15 years, and I wrote a book about it for the Northeast Regional Biomass Program, and that was what led me to this relationship with the state, which I had been sort of partnering with for years to create BERC.&rdquo;
 With a desire to package up Vermont&rsquo;s wood heat successes and make it available outside of the country, the state energy office hired Maker to lay the groundwork for a nonprofit to do so, and BERC was founded in 2001. Maker took on the role of executive director six years after moving to a new position. At that point, the reins were handed off to Christopher Reccia, who is now commissioner of the Vermont Public Service Department.
 Reccia, who has also worked in renewable energy since the early 1980s, says he&rsquo;s always had an interest in utilizing alternatives to fossil fuels, and emphasizes the importance of sustainable forest management. &ldquo;The metaphor I have is within a garden, if one only picks the vegetables and not the weeds, eventually he will end up with all weeds. We have a lot of low-grade wood, and if we keep taking out the timber only, we&rsquo;ll have no market for the low-grade wood, and that&rsquo;s all we&rsquo;ll be left with. Using these low-grade wood resources helps provide added-value back to landowners.&rdquo;
 Reccia says the PSD was a partner on the well-known &ldquo;Fuels for Schools&rdquo; program, which provided a 30 percent rebate to schools making energy improvement and was one of the main drivers for the influx of installations, and has always been supportive of wood heat. Its comprehensive energy plan, enacted in 2011, calls for 90 percent renewables by 2050 in all sectors&mdash;electricity, thermal and transportation, and Reccia believes wood heat has a strong role to play in meeting that goal. &ldquo;I think biomass, at scale, is a really important component of the thermal piece for us.&rdquo;
 The work of BERC and the popularity of wood heat installations at schools have provided a strong market for low-grade wood, and that success has reverberated down the supply chain. It&rsquo;s allowed chipping businesses to flourish, Reccia says, and it&rsquo;s also serving as an anchor use for loggers providing that fuel. &ldquo;Combined with the fact that Vermont is 80 percent forested, it&rsquo;s a natural fit.&rdquo;
 On top of the widespread economic benefits, many dollars are being saved. &ldquo;When we first started, we usually saw a 30 to 35 percent fuel cost reduction from oil to wood chips,&rdquo; Maker says. &ldquo;At the peak, it had grown to an 80 percent cost savings. It&rsquo;s eased back a little now, to about 70 percent, but that&rsquo;s still the real driver.&rdquo;
 Foreseeing the Future
 Growth of Vermont&rsquo;s biomass energy industry has been steady over the decades, and though some slight changes may be on the horizon, the consensus is that isn&rsquo;t going to change any time soon. Since the 30 percent Fuels for Schools subsidy isn&rsquo;t available, the rate of schools adopting wood heat technologies has slowed down, but that doesn&rsquo;t mean a slow-down of the entire sector. &ldquo;We have the beginnings of a vibrant pellet industry, pellets are starting to come into the smaller schools, and we have one pellet mill doing really innovative work. Their business model is to be small&mdash;they procure their feedstock from within 30 miles and sell their pellets within 30 miles, and that&rsquo;s pretty unusual.&rdquo; &nbsp;There are some financial incentives for people to switch to pellet boilers in smaller applications, and that&rsquo;s starting to take off, Reccia says. &ldquo;The price differential between a pellet installation and oil, gas or propane has been a little harder, but federal tax incentives have helped there.&rdquo;
 Reccia says he sees biomass energy use continuing to expand in Vermont, particularly using wood resources for thermal purposes, rather than large-scale, electric generation. &ldquo;I think the efficient use of biomass, and the need to document sustainable harvesting practices is the most important factor to retain public acceptance and ensure the renewability of this resource over time,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where some of the focus has been during the last several years. As carbon becomes more of an issue, being able to show that its low-carbon will be important, and again, that goes back to sustainability.&rdquo;
 Maker notes that the movement of colleges and large facilities transitioning to wood chip heat is really cost driven, rather than subsidy driven. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re really not getting any incentives from anybody. Maybe for a study, but after that, they&rsquo;re doing it because the economics are so good. And there&rsquo;s so much potential for community-scale district heating to take hold&mdash;one tremendous success has been the Montpelier district heating system just becoming operational now. They&rsquo;re hard projects to develop and get going, but I&rsquo;m hoping there will be more of that.&rdquo;
 Part of Vermont&rsquo;s continued success will be showing other states that they can follow suit, and that wood heat technologies are no longer a new or unfamiliar approach to heating, in the opinion of BERC Executive Director Adam Sherman. &ldquo;Vermont is demonstrating how you can combine best-in-class projects, policies, legislation and programmatic support to achieve critical mass thresholds of market transformation,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A real theme that&rsquo;s come out of numerous biomass thermal conferences in the last year and a half is this notion of demonstration that it&rsquo;s the new normal. It&rsquo;s not fringe behavior, it&rsquo;s not fringe technology. This is mainstream, and we have an opportunity to make it as normal as heating with oil, propane and natural gas. The technology is there, the economics are there, and we&rsquo;re getting there with public understanding.&rdquo;
 The fact that Vermont remains the largest consumer of No. 2 heating oil&mdash;despite its widespread adaptation of wood heat&mdash;is something that will keep the industry moving forward. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s going to motivate us to get to the next level,&rdquo; Sherman adds. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll continue work here, and Vermont will be a proving ground for the build-out of the biomass heating fuel market. What works here can be exported and adapted to the rest of the country.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine <a href="mailto:asimet@bbiinternational.com">asimet@bbiinternational.com</a> 701-738-4961

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FEELING CHIPPER ABOUT BIOMASS: Vermontâ€™s wood heat market has served as a support anchor for many subsectors, including chipping businesses.

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The Green Mountain State is a national leader in community-scale wood heat, but it didn't happen overnight.

Vermont's Wood Heat Renaissance

Every year, I look forward to the distributed and onsite bioenergy projects issue of Biomass Magazine. It has become an annual favorite of our staff, readers and advertisers, and for good reason. Biomass was the earliest source of light and heat, warming and illuminating small bands of ancient humans. Today, it continues to excel as an energy source in smaller applications. This month&rsquo;s stories clearly demonstrate that biomass streams are being captured and converted in myriad ways to deliver heat and power to their host environments. What I find particularly exciting is that strong economic advantage was a commonality amongst this month&rsquo;s stories.
 In &ldquo;California Craft Beers and Biogas Bargains,&rdquo; (page 40) staff writer Chris Hanson's appropriately titled feature, we learn that in the exploding craft brewery sector, anaerobic digestion is often the most economic wastewater treatment solution available.
 Biomass offers the same economic advantage in providing building heat, as Managing Editor Anna Simet reveals in &ldquo;Vermont&rsquo;s Wood Heat Renaissance&rdquo; (page 30). In the article, Tim Maker, now CEO of Community Biomass Systems, said of his early days in the Biomass Energy Resource Center, &ldquo;When we first started, we usually saw a 30 to 35 percent fuel cost reduction from oil to wood chips. At the peak, it had grown to an 80 percent cost savings. It&rsquo;s eased back a little now, to about 70 percent, but that&rsquo;s still the real driver.&rdquo;
 That&rsquo;s still the real driver, which should be music to the ears of everyone who cares about this industry. Most of us are drawn to this industry because we believe that for our energy cycle to be sustainable, it needs a continued, steady progression toward biogenic, rather than geologic, carbon inputs. For almost everyone else, biomass-derived energy has to make economic sense to attract their attention. The externalities and true costs of carbon arguments, while extremely valid, do little to move people. Industries need low-priced energy. Counties need to reduce their heating expenses. Brewers want cost-effective water treatment solutions, and consumers want cheaper power. This month&rsquo;s stories prove that in the right situations, biomass doesn&rsquo;t just compete with fossil inputs from a cost perspective, it dominates.

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Biomass was the earliest source of light and heat, warming and illuminating small bands of ancient humans. Today, it continues to excel as an energy source in smaller applications.

Buy Local,  It's Cheaper

Superior Industries adds territory sales managers Superior Industries has appointed Kevin Krieger as territory sales manager throughout the Mountain and Northwest regions of the U.S. He most recently served as a territory manager for Fenner Dunlop. The company has also appointed Bill Humphrey as territory sales manager throughout the Great Lakes and Ohio River Valley regions. He was most recently employed by Aggregates Manufacturing International. Krieger and Humphrey will work closely with dealers in their respective regions to bring innovative conveying equipment to bulk materials producers.
 Mascoma adds scientific advisory board member Mascoma Corp. has added Johannes Pieter (Hans) van Dijken to its scientific advisory board. Van Dijken is a microbiologist and yeast researcher. He currently serves as a professor emeritus of industrial microbiology at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Van Dijken has consulted for Mascoma since 2007.
 Babcock &amp; Wilcox to acquire Megtec The Babcock &amp; Wilcox Co. has announced its subsidiary, Babcock &amp; Wilcox Power Generation Group Inc., has signed a definitive agreement to acquire industrial process solutions provider Megtec. Megtec, which employs approximately 600 people in 10 countries, will operate as B&amp;W Megtec, a wholly owned subsidiary of B&amp;W PGG. The purchase was expected to close June 30. The acquisition is expected to expand B&amp;W PGG&rsquo;s role as an environmental products and solutions provider beyond its historical focus on utility markets, to a variety of industrial applications for customers the company has not traditionally served.
 Genomatica adds executive vice president Genomatica has appointed Kaspar Evertz as its executive vice president, commercial. He will lead the company&rsquo;s business development, licensing and technology transfer teams with a focus on licensing its process technologies, and the delivery and execution of those licenses. He also will be responsible for securing strategic partners to support the development of additional commercial processes through sponsored development programs. Evertz previously served as executive vice president and managing director of industrial projects at Ferrostaal AG GmgH. Professor wins NSF award Tae Seok Moon, an assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation for his project, titled &ldquo;Engineering Biological Robustness through Synthetic Control.&rdquo; Moon received a five-year $400,000 grant to understand the principles of biological robustness by using synthetic DNA in basic bacteria cells. The research could have implications for biofuel production and several other industries.
 Verdezyne reaches production milestone Verdezyne Inc. has produced more than 1 metric ton of biobased dodecanedioic acid (DDDA) using its proprietary yeast platform and downstream process. The Michigan Biotechnology Institute and the Michigan State University Bioeconomy Institute worked with Verdezyne to run the bio-based DDDA process at the 4,000-liter scale. This production confirmed the scalability of Verdezyne&rsquo;s process and produced polymer-grade material for potential customers and partners.
 Attorney named as Rising Star Anna Wildeman, an attorney at Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP, has been named one of Super Lawyers Magazine&rsquo;s 2014 Washington, D.C., Rising Stars. She is a member of Michael Best&rsquo;s Energy Practice Group and Agribusiness, Food Processing &amp; Distribution Group.
 Andritz to market Tornado Pulper technology Andritz Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of the international technology Group Andritz, signed an agreement with Bolton-Emerson Americas LLC giving Andritz exclusive rights to market and sell the Tornado Pulper for solid and liquid fuel applications, as well as biochemical processes.
 ABC presents projects of the year The American Biogas Council has named Stockton, Iowa-based AgriReNew and Stanley, N.Y.-based Lawnhurst Energy LLC as the Agricultural Biogas Projects of the Year. Harvest Power&rsquo;s Energy Garden in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., was named Merchant Biogas Project of the Year. The ABC named the Michigan State University South Campus Anaerobic Digester in East Lansing, Mich., as the Institutional Biogas Project of the Year, while the Village of Ridgewood Biogas project in Ridgewood, N.J., won Biogas Project of the Year.

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The U.K.-based Renewable Energy Association has published the results of an analysis that determined the renewable energy supports more than 100,000 jobs in the U.K. and has attracted almost &pound;30 billion ($50.95 billion) in investment since 2010.
 The report found the U.K. biomass power sector employed approximately 3,320 people in 2012-&rsquo;13 across the supply chain, with 170 U.K. companies active in the supply chain. Sector turnover was &pound;500 million. Annual generation is expected to increase from 9,275 gigawatt hours in 2013 to 22,826 GWh in 2020. Installed capacity is expected to grow from 2,024 MW in 2013 to between 2,505 GW and 3,366 GW, depending on which government forecast is referenced.
 The biomass combined-heat-and-power (CHP) sector in the U.K. employed an estimated 2,180 people across the supply chain in 2012-&rsquo;13, with 140 U.K. companies active in the supply chain. The sector turnover was an estimated &pound;370 million.
 The report also includes data on biofuels, anaerobic digestion, biomass heating and mixed energy from waste.

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Report highlights UK bioenergy impact 

A proposed project under development by Southwest Renewable Resources aims to develop a unique biomass production facility and up to 25 MW of bioenergy capacity in South Sioux City, Neb.
 The planned facility would house a manufacturing operation for SSR&rsquo;s patent-pending Southwest Renewable Fuel. The resulting fuel would be fed directly into a cogeneration power unit. The exact size of that unit has not yet been determined, with 15 MW and 25 MW configurations currently being considered.
 SRR&rsquo;s biofuel is a mix of biomass and polyethylene plastic. According to Tracy Willson, senior partner of SRR, the fuel is waterproof. In addition to wood and other types of cellulosic biomass, the process can also incorporate nonrecyclable municipal solid waste.
 Earlier this year, the Nebraska cities of South Sioux City, Wakefield and Wayne, along with the Northeast Public Power District, entered a memorandum of understanding with SRR. The four public entities and SRR have agreed to work together to supply electricity to the three cities and NPPD via the biomass-fired cogeneration system.

Proposed Nebraska project to produce biomass fuel, energy

On June 2, U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy unveiled the Obama administration&rsquo;s highly anticipated Section 111(d) carbon emission reduction rules for existing power plants. The Biomass Power Association was watching this announcement carefully, as it marks the first of a series of EPA rules due out this summer that will have a big impact on the biomass industry.
 After reviewing the proposed rules, our reaction is cautiously optimistic.
 The 645-page proposal, known as the Clean Power Plan, leaves it mostly to individual states to design their own carbon reduction strategies that, when combined, will create a 30 percent overall reduction of carbon emissions from existing power plants by the year 2030. The landmark plan sets what are, in effect, the first national renewable energy targets that have been implemented as a response to climate change. While the rules are controversial and will be debated throughout the 2014 campaign season, they represent a significant shift in energy policy that will undeniably benefit renewable energy sources.
 &nbsp;This includes biomass. The framework specifically mentions biomass several times in a positive light, in one place stating, &ldquo;Burning biomass-derived fuels for energy recovery can yield climate benefits as compared to burning conventional fossil fuels.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;The Clean Power Plan closely follows the National Climate Assessment released in May by the White House, which contained a chapter on bioenergy that was also very supportive of biomass. The report recognized bioenergy as &ldquo;one component of an overall bioenergy strategy to reduce emissions of carbon from fossil fuel, while also improving water quality, and maintaining lands for timber production as an alternative to other socioeconomic option.&rdquo; Critically, the report noted the role of biomass in keeping forests healthy enough to continue to serve as a carbon &ldquo;sink&rdquo; that can capture hundreds of millions of tons of carbon per year. It also observed that bioenergy has the potential of displacing a not insignificant 30 percent of the nation&rsquo;s current U.S. petroleum consumption.
 &nbsp;Based on these signs, it appears that the administration foresees a continued and expanding role for bioenergy in our nation&rsquo;s energy mix. However, one question looms large. For the nation to fully embrace biomass, the EPA&rsquo;s Tailoring Rule decision becomes even more crucial. Biomass will need to be recognized under the Clean Air Act as a renewable source of energy with a favorable carbon profile when compared to fossil fuels.
 It will be extremely tough to meet the ambitious new carbon reduction targets without biomass as an option for forested states looking to add a baseload, renewable source of energy. It will be even harder to keep forested lands maintained and at a lower risk of wildfire without our industry, as the USDA is well aware.
 While we are not out of the proverbial woods yet, we have good reason to be encouraged by the recent signals from the White House and the EPA. Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association <a href="http://www.biomasspowerassociation.com">www.biomasspowerassociation.com </a> <a href="mailto:bob@biomasspowerassociation.com">bob@biomasspowerassociation.com</a>

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On June 2, U.S. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy unveiled the Obama administration's highly anticipated Section 111(d) carbon emission reduction rules for existing power plants. The Biomass Power Association was watching this announcement carefully.

EPA, White House Signal Support for Biomass 

A visit to the current Placer County website yields a powerful image of a forest fire overtaking a home, with this boldfaced banner: &ldquo;Fire season is coming&hellip;are you ready?&rdquo;
 There, Internet users are offered a variety of steps to take to increase the chances of their homes surviving a wildfire. Though wildfire awareness and preparedness seem to improve every year, occurrences of devastating wildfires continue to rise, and predictions are pointing to 2014 as potentially being the worst wildfire season on record. According to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, between Jan. 1 and May 3 alone, CAL FIRE has responded to over 1,200 wildfires that have charred nearly 2,700 acres. In an average year during the same period, CAL FIRE typically responds to fewer than 600 wildfires.
 As a response to increasing wildfire severity, hazardous forest fuels reduction activities are being advocated and pushed for more than ever, a mitigation method that not only helps reduce the spread of fires, but also poses numerous other benefits, including the potential production of renewable heat and power.&nbsp; Placer County, in northeastern California is getting close to realizing that benefit, as it is in the process of rolling out a 2-MW combined-heat-and-power plant at Lake Tahoe&rsquo;s Cabin Creek, which will be fueled entirely by wood generated as a result of hazardous forest fuel removal.
 Brett Storey, Placer County biomass manager, has been orchestrating the project since its inception. He was hired in 2006 to find an economic use for the region&rsquo;s biomass thinnings, something other than open burning, and serious project evaluations on the bioenergy plant were initiated in 2009. From the beginning, one important consideration was the optimal size of the facility. &ldquo;The size was based on how much fuel we could sustain over the life of the project, which could be up to 40 years, and we also looked at the transmission capabilities of the current lines and the potential to increase that, as well as regulatory agency emission allowances,&rdquo; Storey says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s how we ended up with a 2-MW system.&rdquo;
 A study commissioned to determine how much fuel was available within a 30-mile radius of the proposed plant indicated over 100,000 bone-dry tons annually, roughly six times more than the facility would need. With such an abundance of fuel available, a much larger facility could be built, but the current transmission line could only handle up to 2.7 MW. &ldquo;The cost and time it would take to go through the environmental process for the transmission line would make it unacceptable from an economic standpoint,&rdquo; Storey says.
 Forest waste will be ground and screened in the forest, hauled to the site by truck and then dried and sent through a Phoenix Energy gasification system. The cleaned up syngas will be sent through a GE Jenbacher engine to create power, and the resulting biochar&mdash;about 500 tons annually&mdash;will be sold under contract as a soil amendment or a means of water filtration.
 In the future, Storey says heat produced on site may be purchased by three or four nearby, county-owned buildings. &ldquo;They will be upgrading and have expressed interest in purchasing the waste heat off of this project, so, ultimately, in about five years we will be a full-service operator using everything we can squeeze out of this facility.&rdquo;
 He adds that the plant location is in a former landfill area, and no homes are around it. &ldquo;Just natural forest all around,&rdquo; he says, noting that the onsite storage area will be large, as material for six months will have to be stockpiled. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not allowed to go into the forests in the winter to grind and haul, so we&rsquo;ll be delivering six extra months material, in addition [to everyday fuel] to keep running 24/7 all year.
 Low-Carbon Profile
 The environmental footprint of the plant has been carefully considered throughout the development process, Storey adds, including an emissions analysis of forest thinnings piles openly burned in several areas, compared to what the potential emissions profile of the facility would be, taking into account everything from &ldquo;the chainsaw hitting the tree to grinding and hauling of the trucks to our facility.&rdquo;&nbsp; The results, which were not actually based on gasification but old boiler technology, were still much more favorable than open burning, according to Storey. &ldquo;We know that gasification reduces those emissions further, but we wanted to show a worst-case situation. In the worst case, if you put that forest wood through our facility instead of open burning, there&rsquo;s an 88 to 90 percent emissions reduction&hellip;on the GHG side, it&rsquo;s about an 18 percent reduction.&rdquo;
 Numerous project partners and supporters who have come together to help advance the project, Story says. Placer County is an equity partner, the leaseholder of the site and will be the fuel delivery operator. &ldquo;The reason we want to do that is because the U.S. Forest Service is our fuel agreement partner, and what we were able to do is sign a master fuel stewardship agreement&mdash;a 10-year contract that allows us to work on national Forest Service land and remove the material.&rdquo;
 That&rsquo;s being done on a cost-share basis, he adds. &ldquo;They figured out what it costs them to open burn [the fuel], so they&rsquo;ve added that cost to the agreement, making our cost low enough to make it economic for our developer, Tahoe Regional Power Co.&rdquo;
 In addition, the facility will take in fuel from a community fire district in the area, which currently has a need to dispose of the material. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t know what to do with it, so they will want a contract with us as well,&rdquo; Storey says. However, the majority of fuel&mdash;95 percent&mdash;will come from the Forest Service.
 Phoenix Energy, the gasification technology provider, will be the eventual owner and operator of the project, and already has two operating small-scale biomass gasification plants in the state. In CEO Greg Stangl&rsquo;s opinion, these systems are ideal for deployment in California. &ldquo;I believe there is a great opportunity for small, community-scale biomass plants to produce clean, renewable energy for California, and our third plant shows the technology is gaining momentum,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The piling and burning forest biomass in the open is a complete waste of a resource and bad for air quality, but it is often the only economic option for local communities.&rdquo;
 Electricity from the $12 million project, which was partially funded with a $1.5 million U.S. DOE grant, will be purchased by Liberty Energy.
 Cabin Creek Biomass Energy is slated for construction next summer, with an operational goal of early 2016. It&rsquo;s a small, simple facility,&rdquo; Storey adds, &ldquo;but we believe it&rsquo;ll be a trendsetter for forest regions throughout the U.S.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine <a href="mailto:asimet@bbiinternational.com">asimet@bbiinternational.com</a> 701-738-4961

FUELING THE FIRE: The Angora Ridge Forest Fire in south Lake Tahoe, Calif., burned 3,100 acres of forestland and destroyed many homes.


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Cabin Creek Biomass Energy will reduce the threat of catastrophic wildfire in Placer County while producing 2 MW power, heat and biochar.

Fire Threat Turns Energy Asset

When the Tucker RNG thermal conversion unit connected to the power grid for the first time April 23 in Charlotte, N.C., Richard Tucker, president of Tucker Engineering Associates, could feel the weight of the world coming off his shoulders. After more than a decade of developing his high-temperature, fast pyrolysis system, he was finally seeing it export electricity for the first time. This installation marked a significant step toward commercializing a new and exciting conversion technology, and demonstrates the success of a long-term, public-private partnership.
 &ldquo;It was a really great moment to see the machine doing exactly what it was designed to do,&rdquo; Tucker says. &ldquo;This has been a long journey for us and we couldn&rsquo;t have done it without the help of the U.S. Forest Service, The ReNewable Gas Company, and ReVenture Park. Seeing the electricity produced as a result of this technology made it all worth it.&rdquo;
 Tucker RNG
 The Tucker RNG system was initially designed by Tucker over a decade ago. Its research and development has included not only Tucker&rsquo;s engineering firm, but public agencies and other private companies.&nbsp; Tucker and the team invented solutions to a host of technological challenges that had previously kept pyrolysis from being widely adopted, such as the production of tars, and nagging issues in material handling and gas cleanliness.&nbsp;
 The patented, high-temperature pyrolysis system is a distributed-scale biomass conversion technology capable of processing a broad range of feedstocks to produce high-Btu gas for a variety of uses, such as steam or electricity generation via an off-the-shelf genset. Heating feedstocks to up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in an environment devoid of outside air, this technology uses a proprietary gas upgrading and cleaning system to further refine its gas, producing energy-dense renewable natural gas with 600 to 850 Btu per standard cubic foot, depending on feedstock properties. In addition, the system yields a high carbon byproduct with an 80 to 95 percent fixed carbon content and usable process heat for on-site applications, such as drying feedstock. The Tucker RNG system is highly customizable, able to process between 20 and 250 dry tons of biomass per day depending on equipment configuration, which allows the technology to be scaled appropriately to meet specific and changing needs.
 The Tucker RNG System is especially well-suited to applications where it can be used to reduce energy costs, process waste feedstocks, and produce heat and electricity for customers interested in green energy. The system is uniquely engineered for economically efficient renewable gas production, and designed and sited in an environmentally conscious manner. While the unit can use a wide variety of feedstocks, including municipal solid waste and refuse-derived fuels, using woody biomass decreases total carbon emissions and lessens the environmental impact of the energy produced compared to other sources, including coal. The system also reduces net carbon emissions by capturing heat and carbon generated in the conversion process.
 Collaborative Approach 
 Tucker RNG&rsquo;s operating outputs and commercial design suitability have been independently evaluated by third-party engineers and scientists, and by the U.S. Forest Service. The commercialization of this technology is an example of a successful public-private research and development partnership. In addition to major private funding, the development of the Tucker RNG system was partially funded by a research joint venture with the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Biomass Research Development Initiative. The joint venture provided opportunities for the company to cooperate with researchers and capitalize on the existing efficiencies and engineering of the Tucker RNG system, as well as develop new knowledge that will facilitate decision making by industry, policymakers and other stakeholders.
 &nbsp;&ldquo;This project is the perfect opportunity to grow ongoing research relationships between the forest industry, the U.S. Forest Service and Tucker Engineering Associates,&rdquo; says Nate Anderson, project director for RMRS BRDI. &ldquo;It is a chance to contribute to a technology that has the potential to increase renewable energy production, create jobs and minimize the environmental footprint of producing energy from woody biomass.&rdquo;
 In addition to providing funds to help bring the technology to market, the resources of the BRDI project have allowed scientists to conduct a full life-cycle assessment of the Tucker RNG system&rsquo;s products and compare their environmental impacts to fossil fuel alternatives. The team is also examining the environmental impacts of harvesting woody biomass from forest ecosystems, developing catalysts for liquid fuel and chemical production, developing new products and applications for wood-based carbon products and assessing the potential economic impacts of system deployment.
 Private investment has also played a key role in developing and launching the first commercial installation of the Tucker RNG system. Specifically, Tucker Engineering Associates partnered with The ReNewable Gas Company to develop projects domestically, and entrepreneurs at ReVenture Park purchased the first installation of the Tucker system. This location and the business partnership with ReVenture Park, situated on a former Brownfield Superfund site, helped support the remediation of the large industrial park, resulting in positive impacts on the environment and the local community.
 While the RNG company is in the final stages of commissioning the first installation at ReVenture Park, Charlotte&rsquo;s first eco-industrial park, it is also hosting a myriad of visitors from around the world who are interested in the technology. RNG will take on the role of developing projects, both directly and through partnerships, in the U.S. The team of people who supported the first commercial installation, which includes private investors and government groups like the Rocky Mountain Research Station, sees a bright future for the technology.
 &ldquo;For me, one of the most rewarding aspects of working on this project has been seeing the different government and private entities come together to bring Richard Tucker&rsquo;s technology to fruition,&rdquo; says Van Morris, president of RNG.
 The team has also received additional support from other RMRS and USDA technology development programs. These collaborations have produced a unique and highly efficient distributed scale thermal conversion system. The group will continue to work together into the future to develop new and viable energy technologies and projects.
 Authors: Maureen Essen Human Dimensions Research Associate University of Montana &ndash; College of Forestry and Conservation US Forest Service &ndash; Rocky Mountain Research Station <a href="mailto:maureenaessen@fs.fed.us">maureenaessen@fs.fed.us</a> Caroline Morris Director of Marketing &amp; Public Relations,The ReNewable Gas Company <a href="mailto:Caroline@RNGnow.com">Caroline@RNGnow.com</a> Nate Anderson Research Forester Rocky Mountain Research Station USDA Forest Service

Tucker RNG system inventor Richard Tucker (right) and Nate Anderson, project director of the Rocky Mountain Research Station Biomass Research Development Initiative, stand in front of Tucker RNG.

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Public and private collaboration has resulted in a unique and highly efficient distributed-scale fast pyrolysis system.

Tucker RNG: Little Machine, Big Impact

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was recently held to commemorate completion of a landfill gas-to-energy project at the Pecan Row Landfill in Valdosta, Ga.&nbsp; The 4.8-MW project is expected to generate enough energy to power approximately 2,000 homes.
 Advanced Disposal partnered with Energy Systems Group to design, build, own and operate the project. Power produced at the facility will be purchased by Green Power EMC via a long-term power purchase agreement. Green Power is a nonprofit corporation comprised of 38 member-owned electric cooperatives in Georgia. The mission of the group is to facilitate the procurement and marketing of renewable energy in Georgia and make it available to member cooperatives.
 &ldquo;This marks ESG&rsquo;s third landfill gas project in Georgia, and our sixth in the United States, further exemplifying our strong focus on developing sustainable infrastructure solutions,&rdquo; said Greg Collins, president of ESG.

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Landfill gas-to-energy project begins production in Georgia  

Humboldt State University, along with 15 regional partners, has received a $5.88 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct innovative biomass research. The award was made under the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, a collaborative effort between the DOE and the USDA.
 Under the grant, a team of academics, industry partners and forestland managers led by HSU Forestry Professor Han-Sup Han will build on existing research on the conversion of forest residues into renewable fuel and other valuable bio-based products. The three research areas will be feedstock (processed forest residues) supply, mobile conversion technologies, and economic life-cycle analysis.
 The feedstock supply group will be led by Han, the lead principal investigator on the grant. Han&rsquo;s group will focus on the economics of converting forest residue into high-quality feedstocks. The mobile conversion technologies group, led by Arne Jacobson, director of HSU&rsquo;s Schatz Energy Research Center, will study biomass conversion technologies that convert slash or wood chips into biomass fuels and products at or near collection sites in the forest. Ted Bilek, an economist with the USDA Forest Service, will lead the economic life-cycle analysis group. Bilek&rsquo;s team will perform economic analyses and conduct a life-cycle analysis documenting the economic benefits and other environmental effects related to utilizing forest residues.

Research leader: HSU forestry professor Han-Sup Han will lead the collaborative effort.

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DOE grant supports biomass research at HSU 

Rentech Inc. has acquired all three of New England Wood Pellet&rsquo;s manufacturing facilities, a $34.5 million investment that adds 240,000 tons to the company&rsquo;s annual pellet output.
 New England Wood Pellet, founded in 1992, has built facilities in Jaffrey, N.H.; Schuyler, N.Y. and Deposit, N.Y. Rentech cited several reasons for the acquisition, including New England Wood Pellet&rsquo;s strong financial profile, the fact that the company commands an approximate 15 percent share of the market for heating pellets in the Northeast U.S. and is well-known to many popular retailers, and the transaction expands Rentech&rsquo;s current wood pellet offerings to the domestic market.
 Rentech will maintain New England Wood Pellet&rsquo;s brands, including its bagged New England Wood Pellet and Warm Front brands. Julie Dawoodjee Cafarella, vice president of investor relations and communications at Rentech, said the company will also retain all employees of the Jaffrey, Schuyler and Deposit facilities.
 The New England Wood Pellet acquisition comes one year after Rentech&rsquo;s assumption of Georgia-based Fulghum Fibers Inc., the leading provider of contract wood chip processing services in the U.S. The company is also in the process of converting two Wawa and Atikokan, Ontario, wood processing facilities into wood pellet plants.

Rentech acquires major US pellet producer  

The pace of change is really picking up when it comes to use and acceptance of wood pellets and chips for heat in the Northeast. And that&rsquo;s a good thing, because the region has a voracious appetite for fossil fuel, consuming 84 percent of the home heating oil used in the U.S. It&rsquo;s estimated that the Northern Forest region spends $6 billion per year on imported fossil fuel. Beyond concerns about cost, supply and the environment, depending on fossil fuel is a bad choice: 78 cents of every dollar spent on home heating oil leaves our local economy.
 That&rsquo;s why the Northern Forest Center has made advancing biomass heat a top priority and is working with a wide range of collaborators to catalyze the market for high-efficiency, low-emission wood pellet boilers for homes and small-scale commercial installations (ideal for businesses, nonprofits and housing facilities).
 The center&mdash;a nonprofit organization working across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York&mdash;and many others believe we can build an energy economy that brings substantial economic benefits to rural communities, reduces dependence on heating oil, cuts net CO2-emissions over time, and supports healthy, working forests while protecting public health and forest sustainability. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 When people switch to wood pellets, 100 percent of the money they would have spent on oil stays in the regional economy. Home and business owners save 40 to 50 percent on their fuel bills, and what they do spend buys pellets grown and produced in the region. Demand for pellets creates jobs in the pellet mills and further down the supply chain for loggers, foresters and truckers. The mills create an important market for lower grade wood, which helps forestland owners with the cost of stewarding their forests.
 We&rsquo;ve shown how biomass wood heat can benefit the region through the Model Neighborhood Project. Over the past two years, participants in the original Model Neighborhood Project in Berlin, N.H., have saved $120,000 and avoided adding 700 net tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The total positive economic impact of the project to date is more than $450,000. Participants in Berlin&mdash;and now also in Farmington and Wilton, Maine&mdash;have proven the new, high-efficiency boilers to be reliable, cost-efficient and easy to use. And they&rsquo;re sharing their stories. They&rsquo;ve hosted tours, welcomed media coverage and championed the systems to potential adopters.
 Catalyzing Change
 More than a few things need to happen for new technology or systems to take hold. Some of the essentials for biomass heat include reliable retailers, qualified installers and technicians, pellet manufacturers, bulk delivery pellet suppliers, acceptance by real estate and insurance industries, attractive financing options and supportive public policy, including alternative energy rebates for new biomass installations.
 More and more, these essentials are available in the northern New England, especially in northern New Hampshire and western Maine near the Model Neighborhood Projects. Two years ago, a high-efficiency residential pellet boiler was a rarity. Now, there are nearly 300 installed in Maine and New Hampshire. Since September, Efficiency Maine has distributed over 120 rebates for residential pellet boiler installations, helping drive costs down and increase familiarity with these systems. This success is a model for how policy, industry and social connections can combine to drive the market. As demand has gone up, the average price of installed residential boilers in Maine has dropped by $3,000, a 17 percent decrease.
 Moving to chip-based systems for larger installations, the state of Vermont has generously funded schools to shift from oil to biomass and now about 30 percent of Vermont schoolchildren attended wood-heated schools, and the average school has cut its fuel costs by over 50 percent.
 In Colebrook, N.H., the center has been working with the town to research the feasibility of installing a biomass district heating system that could provide heat to buildings along Main Street and at some large facilities, including the hospital.
 Regional Impact&mdash;A Triple Play
 Each one of these installations is an important step toward realizing the vision of an energy economy that brings substantial economic benefits to rural communities, reduces dependence on heating oil, cuts net CO2 emissions over time, and supports healthy, working forests.
 Wood heat is not new to the Northeast, but wood heat that burns at 85 percent efficiency through systems that are thermostat-driven&mdash;entirely automated or nearly so&mdash;is a game changer. It makes wood heat more convenient and efficient than ever before. With a cost per Btu that is significantly lower than oil, heat from wood is now in a position to compete against the dominance of oil in the region. Author: Maura Adams Program Director, Northern Forest Center <a href="mailto:kshort@northernforest.org">kshort@northernforest.org</a> <a href="http://www.northernforest.org/renewable_energy.html">http://www.northernforest.org/renewable_energy.html</a>

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The pace of change is really picking up when it comes to use and acceptance of wood pellets and chips for heat in the Northeast.

The Beauty of Local Wood Heat

For more than 100 years, the red brick Oxford county courthouse in South Paris, Maine, warmed judges, commissioners, clerks, auditors and inmates with fossil fuel-derived heat. Those days are over. The courthouse, built in 1895, has just emerged from its third winter of utilizing locally produced wood pellets to heat its occupants and daily visitors.
 Funded largely by an Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant program that was a part of the stimulus package officially known as the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the new heating system has nearly halved the county&rsquo;s annual heating expense. &ldquo;The genesis of the project can be traced back to the stimulus package,&rdquo; recalls Oxford county administrator Scott Cole. &ldquo;We tried to get it going in 2010, but we realized we didn&rsquo;t have the administrative capacity to handle it, so we punted one more year and we went after it with gusto in 2011, and succeeded.&rdquo;
 The project was broader and more involved than simply swapping out the existing heating oil boilers with new pellet boilers. The courthouse, a 17,000-square-foot, two-story structure that is situated over a basement was bleeding warm air through large, single-pane windows and a poorly insulated attic. This attracted the immediate attention and effort of the project engineer, Rick Grondin of Integrated Energy Systems. &ldquo;We used some of the money to insulate the attic,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Instead of putting in one more boiler, I first looked to reduce the load and used dense-packed cellulose insulation in the attic.&rdquo;
 Further driving down the load was a move away from steam fed radiators to a forced hot water system. &ldquo;It takes a lot less energy to make 140 degree water than it does to make 215 degree water,&rdquo; Grondin notes.
 After the completion of the attic insulation and window projects, the heat load requirements were determined, and Grondin went to work on satisfying the new heat load. Complicating the issue was the building&rsquo;s limited space for its heating infrastructure. &ldquo;We had a very small boiler room for all of this,&rdquo; says Grondin. Through a competitive process, the county arrived at a system centered around the use of three pellet boilers of Austrian design. &ldquo;The OkoFen boilers offered a solution that addressed all of the problems.&rdquo;
 OkoFen is an Austrian boiler manufactured, assembled and distributed in North America under a licensing agreement by Maine Energy Systems. Austrian manufacturers are global market leaders in pellet boiler design and manufacturing and their products are beginning to gain marketplace momentum in the U.S. and Canada.
 Grondin and the county decided upon three separate boilers that would be connected to the same hot water delivery infrastructure. The boilers work together, communicate with one another and share the annual heating work load. Each boiler is capable of delivering 191,000 Btu per hour at full power.&nbsp; &ldquo;The boilers are staged,&rdquo; says Grondin. &ldquo;When you have a very low load, one fires and then it modulates up to the next load requirement. If it can&rsquo;t meet the load at full power, the second boiler fires and ramps up. If the load still isn&rsquo;t met, the third boiler fires up.&rdquo;
 Largely, two boilers are able to generate the heat that the building thermostats call for. &ldquo;Occasionally, the third boiler kicks on the coldest days,&rdquo; adds Grondin.
 Fuel Storage Challenges
 The tight spaces in the boiler room also created fuel storage challenges for the project team. &ldquo;Fuel storage is tough here,&rdquo; says Cole. &ldquo;The footprint of the building is not conducive to putting in a large silo, which would have been ideal.&rdquo; Space around the building is at a premium, and snow removal already presents a challenge for Cole and his team, so a decision to move fuel storage inside of the building was made. &ldquo;We really tried to find a place to put a 30-ton silo. In my opinion, that would have been preferable. We just couldn&rsquo;t do it. Parking is tight. The last thing we needed was one more obstruction outside of the building, so we had to convert some space in the basement. I think we are a little undersized, but we had to have it that way,&rdquo; says Cole.
 In an average winter, the pellet boilers at the courthouse can be expected to consume somewhere between 65 and 70 tons of pellets. If the external silo Cole favored were feasible, around half of the annual usage could have been stored onsite, meaning that only one pellet delivery would have been necessary each heating season. Instead, two fabric storage bags were deployed into the boiler room with a total storage capacity of just over 16 tons. The county now takes fuel deliveries of between 8 and 10 tons of pellets seven or eight times in a given heating season. Pellets are delivered by Maine Energy Systems pellet delivery trucks, and pneumatically blown through hoses into the waiting storage bags in the courthouse.
 Navigating the Learning Curve
 All heating systems require some attention and technical acumen for the operators, and both Grondin and Cole recall a learning curve for the Oxford county maintenance staff. &ldquo;The first year is more or less a learning experience for the facilities person, because it is something a little different,&rdquo; says Grondin. &ldquo;But really, the only thing they need to concern themselves with is making sure they have pellets to burn, ordering pellets and making sure that when the ash containers get full, they get emptied.&rdquo;
 Grondin is quick to point out the misconceptions surrounding the technology and its ease of use. &ldquo;These are fully automated. When thinking about these types of solutions, people tend to think of wood stoves with all of their manual operations, manual adjustments during a fire and then the manual cleaning. This is the other end of the spectrum in the extreme. Maybe not as good as gas or oil in terms of low maintenance, but it&rsquo;s pretty darn close,&rdquo; he says.
 For Cole, it was important to develop some technical know-how for the systems in-house. &ldquo;The operation and maintenance is certainly trouble free. That said, it is good to have someone on the staff with a little training in troubleshooting the system. Someone has to really embrace the system and not just call on outside help right away,&rdquo; he says, adding, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not an enormous leap (relative to operating an oil-fired boiler), and it is certainly worth the savings.&rdquo;
 Half-Priced Heat
 While Oxford County didn&rsquo;t need to be convinced of the environmental benefits of a transition to pellet-derived heat, the budget-constrained county needed the project to deliver some savings, and the sooner, the better.
 Before the transition to pellets the courthouse&rsquo;s heating oil boilers consumed somewhere between 8500 and 10,000 gallons of heating oil each winter. With recent heating oil prices fluctuating between $3.50 and $4.00 per gallon, heating the building was costing the county between $30,000 and $40,000 a year.
 Cole points to a comparison of 118 gallons of fuel oil and one ton of pellets, each delivering about the same amount of Btu. At a price of $3.50 per gallon, the heating oil Btu would cost $413. The county currently enjoys a three-year contract for pellets at $219 a ton, delivering a nearly 50 percent reduction in total heating cost.&nbsp; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve cut our fuel costs in half,&rdquo; notes Cole.
 Stimulus Hastens Economic Benefit
 Cole reports the project cost the county right around $300,000, with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant contributing $235,000. The remaining funds were contributed by the county. &ldquo;We could realize our savings much quicker because of the grant, because we didn&rsquo;t have to amortize the cost of the capital,&rdquo; says Cole.
 With such a prominent building installing a pellet-fired heating solution and enjoying the economic benefits, it is no surprise that cities and schools in the county are taking notice. &ldquo;Since the county installed its system, several of the town offices have gone to pellets as well, which is cool,&rdquo; reports Cole. This momentum also has the net effect of getting more and more of the HVAC technicians in the area comfortable with these pellet technologies. &ldquo;What we are noticing now, after having gone through three winters, is the familiarity with pellet boilers in the field of technicians has gone up,&rdquo; Cole says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s pretty cool. It&rsquo;s happening. It&rsquo;s definitely happening.&rdquo;
 Finally, Cole points to the growing pellet supply chain in the area and the positive economic impact of using local resources to heat local buildings. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s definitely a fuel that makes sense for this part of the world,&rdquo; he adds. Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine <a href="mailto:tportz@bbiinternational.com">tportz@bbiinternational.com</a> 701-738-4969

THE COUNTY PELLET SEAT: After three heating seasons in the books, other cities and schools within the county are taking notice of the success and ease of the pellet solution and deploying their own biomass solutions.

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NONTRADITIONAL STORAGE: Project engineers preferred to have one fabric pellet storage bag per boiler, but space constraints dictated system design to two bags placed side-by-side. 

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382,000 BTU OF PELLET HEAT: With an office just across the hall from the boilers, Oxford County employee Ed Curtis is able to keep close tabs on the countyâ€™s pellet-driven heating systems. The system is comprised of three OkoFen boilers that share 

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MAXIMUM CONTROL: County technicians can quickly assess all of the control points of the boiler system including run time, flue gas temperature, water temperature and level of modulation.

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A century-old courthouse in western Maine's Oxford County transitions away from oil and toward pellet heat.

Pellets Warm County Seats

A recent report published by Wilson Engineering on behalf of the Vermont Bioenergy Initiative explores the potential of growing and harvesting energy grasses for thermal energy in Vermont.
 Four different grass energy project models are evaluated in the paper, including an in-depth analysis of the comparative advantages and disadvantages of each. The paper explores a closed-loop model, a small-scale, on-farm model, a regional model, and a consumer model. The report indicates the regional processing model would make sense for Vermont. It includes a central processing plant that would purchase baled biomass from local farmers and process that feedstock into cubes, briquettes or pellets for delivery to commercial or institutional thermal installations.
 The report also notes millions of acres of idle and marginal lands in the Northeast are conducive for growing these energy crops. As the market for bioenergy products develops, they could provide am impact source of feedstock for heat, fiber or liquid fuels production.

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Energy grasses show potential for thermal energy in Vermont 

Biomass fuel suppliers serving the U.K. thermal market are now able to register their fuels as sustainable by applying to the government&rsquo;s Biomass Suppliers List. The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change said the list will ensure biomass supported under the Renewable Heat Incentive is sustainable. Beginning this fall, biomass fuels used under the RHI must certain greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction thresholds.
 Producers and traders of wood fuel who wish to access the growing RHI market can apply for free to the BSL. Small and micro enterprises will be able to use a new simple carbon calculator developed to make the process as easy as possible for small businesses.
 Larger enterprises will be able to use the U.K. Solid and Gaseous Biomass and Biogas Carbon Calculator to calculate the GHG emissions associated with their fuel. Individuals and businesses that self-supply their fuel are also encouraged to register as self-supplier.

UK opens biomass  fuel registration 

Wood stoves are finally getting attention in Washington, D.C., and they will get even more next year.&nbsp; Most of the focus surrounds the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s proposed regulations, but residential heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) tax credits are also on the chopping block.
 The sides are not as evenly drawn as one might expect. Some conservative Republicans supported wood and pellet stove tax credits this year, and some of the most liberal Democrats urged the EPA to soften its emission regulations. Republicans are mostly concerned with the economic impacts of these policies on industry, and Democrats with the health impacts of wood smoke.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
&nbsp; So far, Congressional strategy of the stove industry has been to mobilize support of Republicans, most of whom are friends of fossil fuels.&nbsp; Such is the topsy-turvy world of wood stove politics.&nbsp; It gets stranger.
 People who heat with wood and pellets mainly do it because it&rsquo;s cheaper than the alternatives.&nbsp; The attraction of newer stoves&mdash;the ones that industry will build in coming years&mdash;is that they can be more efficient than the old and will save consumers even more money.&nbsp; Demonstrably higher efficiencies are key in motivating consumers to replace an older stove sooner. Despite this, industry is fighting against consumer hangtags that would list the efficiency of the appliance.
 Even more surprising and counterintuitive is that the EPA is also proposing to eliminate consumer hangtags, but at the same time is spearheading ever more detailed and clear consumer hangtags for Energy Star products, automobiles and other things.
 Here is the dilemma of reducing stove emissions, and it&rsquo;s not too different from power plants: regulation only covers new stoves and grandfathers all older ones, which produce far more smoke.&nbsp; Industry makes a legitimate point that the focus should be on retiring older stoves, not making new ones marginally cleaner than they already are.&nbsp; Industry trade group Hearth, Patio and Barbeque Association may end up going to court with a legal challenge that the EPA has not &ldquo;adequately demonstrated&rdquo; that making stricter emission standards is the &ldquo;best system of emission reduction&rdquo; because it didn&rsquo;t sufficiently show that the alternative of retiring older stoves isn&rsquo;t a better system of emission reduction.&nbsp; Here is another example of the extreme topsy-turvy nature of wood stove politics: if a court sided with HPBA and directed the EPA to regulate existing stoves, conservative Republicans supporting the industry would flee in droves.&nbsp; One of the only tenets that the Obama administration has to move these regulations forward with Republicans is the assurance that existing stoves will be grandfathered and with no requirement to remove them or stop reinstalling old ones purchased on the secondhand market.&nbsp;
 Industry favors voluntary, not regulatory, measures to remove old stoves from operation.&nbsp; On a national scale, that would cost hundreds of millions. If that were the solution, there would be little support from conservative Republicans who are not fans of &ldquo;cash for clunker&rdquo; type programs.&nbsp; (As some predicted, a program audit found it was not an efficient way to reduce carbon output.)&nbsp; Of all of the letters to the EPA from conservative Republicans, none suggested any large-scale funding to tackle the problem of existing stoves, and even HPBA has not put effort into that solution.
 Democrats and moderate Republicans have been more supportive of stoves and boilers as a renewable energy solution and are making some progress at the state level.&nbsp; Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Oregon are starting or expanding rebate and change out programs. and other states will be joining that list. Democrats in charge of the EPA are moving much slower, if at all, and still seem to regard stoves mainly as a pollution problem, not an energy solution.
 The most likely result is an NSPS that enacts stricter regulations on new stoves and boilers, and a continuation of small, local programs that offer voluntary rebates to remove stoves from areas with particularly high levels of wintertime particulate matter. The result will be a very gradual reduction in wood smoke, as the EPA tries to balance practical and legitimate concerns. This will be less impactful than the Democrats wanted, and more intrusive than Republicans wanted.&nbsp; The real beneficiary will be consumers who heat with wood and pellets, who will finally have access to cleaner, higher-efficiency appliances.&nbsp; Maybe the EPA will even allow them to see that information on a hangtag. Author: John Ackerly President, Alliance for Green Heat <a href="mailto:jackerly@forgreenheat.org">jackerly@forgreenheat.org</a> <a href="http://www.forgreenheat.org">www.forgreenheat.org</a>

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Wood stoves are finally getting attention in Washington, D.C., and they will get even more next year.  

July 2014

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Paradigm Shift Needed

Let's Declare Independence From Big Oil

Aquaculture Ready To Net DDGS

Beware Wage And Hour Law Traps

Ethanol”s “Power By People”

Trade Focus: China

Time for An Environmental Rethink

Byproduct Evolves Into Preferred Ingredient

Buy Local, It's Cheaper

EPA, White House Signal Support for Biomass

The Beauty of Local Wood Heat

Wood Stove Politics: Democrats, Republicans and Unlikely Bedfellows

Community Digesters: Opportunities, Challenges and Strategies

Pathway to Nowhere

Featured

Doctor DDGS

Complementary Strategies For Success

Stuck At The Station

Beyond Feed

Fishing For Profit

Vermont's Wood Heat Renaissance

Pellets Warm County Seats

California Craft Beers and Biogas Bargains

Mobilizing Pyrolysis

Contributions

Industrial Facilities Turn To HDS

The Customer Calls The Shots

Tucker RNG: Little Machine, Big Impact

Departments

Fire Threat Turns Energy Asset

July 2014.css-7jxktu{position:absolute;bottom:0px;left:0px;right:0px;height:3px;border-radius:3px;background-color:var(--chakra-colors-brandBlack);}

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Paradigm Shift Needed

Let's Declare Independence From Big Oil

Aquaculture Ready To Net DDGS

Beware Wage And Hour Law Traps

Ethanol”s “Power By People”

Trade Focus: China

Time for An Environmental Rethink

Byproduct Evolves Into Preferred Ingredient

Buy Local, It's Cheaper

EPA, White House Signal Support for Biomass

The Beauty of Local Wood Heat

Wood Stove Politics: Democrats, Republicans and Unlikely Bedfellows

Community Digesters: Opportunities, Challenges and Strategies

Pathway to Nowhere

Featured

Doctor DDGS

Complementary Strategies For Success

Stuck At The Station

Beyond Feed

Fishing For Profit

Vermont's Wood Heat Renaissance

Pellets Warm County Seats

California Craft Beers and Biogas Bargains

Mobilizing Pyrolysis

Contributions

Industrial Facilities Turn To HDS

The Customer Calls The Shots

Tucker RNG: Little Machine, Big Impact

Departments

Fire Threat Turns Energy Asset

July 2014