Tight margins probably have your plant back on a yield maximization quest. Producing &ldquo;efficient gallons&rdquo; is the name of the game this summer. However, that wasn&rsquo;t the case in the fourth quarter of 2011 when your plant was probably running as hard as it could, regardless of yield, pushing out as many gallons as possible. The last eight months have illustrated how corn and ethanol price volatility require today&rsquo;s ethanol plants to not just know how, but when, to pursue yield maximization.
As Holly Jessen&rsquo;s page 32 feature, &ldquo;Optimal Yield: A Moving Target,&rdquo; points out, it is critical to have the best available tools, technology and data at your disposal when margins dictate efficiency over volume. Jessen&rsquo;s piece explains how Illinois River Energy LLC has coupled smart equipment investments&mdash;from grind to distributive control&mdash;with advanced yield modeling and margin management techniques to improve its ability to time and implement its yield maximization campaigns. The result: seeing the 2012 ethanol glut before most plants did. &ldquo;We knew right away when we started running the numbers that running max gallons in January made no sense from a financial point of view,&rdquo; says Illinois River&rsquo;s Neal Jakel. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been running for yield optimization since the first of the year, and still are today.&rdquo;
But as we learn in this month&rsquo;s cover story, even the most efficiently produced ethanol leaving your fermenters may not end up in your storage tanks. Sue Retka Schill&rsquo;s page 39 feature, &ldquo;Stop Loss,&rdquo; sheds light on the longtime question of how much ethanol is lost in your facilities&rsquo; various process streams. The results are noteworthy, according to ICM, which conducted testing at six ethanol plants and discovered that ethanol losses are occurring at significant levels in the CO2 scrubber bottoms, cook water tanks and other places. The data is intriguing. According to ICM, about 1,600 gallons of ethanol are lost daily at an average 50 MMgy ethanol plant. Quickly doing the math on this newfound revenue loss category, ICM has developed an affordable process rerouting fix that&rsquo;s worth a look.
Your fourth quarter production strategy probably looks much different than your pedal-to-the-metal approach of a year ago. There are times for efficiency-be-dammed gallons and times for precision and yield optimization. Now is the latter.
&nbsp;
Tom Bryan, PRESIDENT &amp; EDITOR IN CHIEF tbryan@bbiinternational.com

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Once Again, it's about efficiency 

The record summer drought in the U.S.A. is not good for global grain prices, but is a godsend for biofuel critics. As in 2007 and 2008, we are blamed for causing high food prices, but those who know the dynamics of the soft commodity market know better.
The absolute champion for criticizing biofuel policy is the chairman of the largest world food producer. Nestle&rsquo;s Peter Brabeck positions himself as morally concerned over high food prices as a result of biofuels. His real concern is, of course, reduced profit margins if prices go up. He needs a scapegoat to tell the world that it is the fault of biofuels and nothing else.
His most recent attack was in a July 17 BBC interview where he argues that: &ldquo;If no food was used for fuel, the prices would come down again&mdash;that is very clear.&rdquo; Yes, obviously. If Nestl&eacute; stops producing cookies, prices will go down as well. But that is not the point. If Mr. Brabeck would put today&rsquo;s commodity prices into a historical perspective, he would have to acknowledge that prices are not at all-time highs, they are relatively low. Low prices are not a good incentive to increase production. Whether a farm is based in Africa or America, the farmer needs to make a living.
It is undeniable that more demand will increase prices at first, followed by more supply, and it cannot be ignored that biofuel policy will have an upward impact on prices. It is highly questionable, however, that an additional demand that represents less than 5 percent of all cereals consumed globally can be called a price-setter. There has been enough evidence that this is not the case. For Mr. Brabeck, telling the true story why he doesn&rsquo;t like biofuels is too painful. It wouldn&rsquo;t go down well with the Nestl&eacute; shareholders.
The chairman of Cargill is quoted in the same interview. He&rsquo;s not a great biofuel fan either, but at least he puts things into perspective and underlines what is really driving commodity prices, things such as growing urbanization, more wealthy people eating more and different food and a decrease in investment in agriculture. He also reminds us that much arable land, especially in Africa, is not being used. And, we Europeans keep taking arable land out of production. Where is the logic?
Other favorite critics such as Oxfam also see the present situation as a new opportunity to slam the EU biofuel policy. The head of the EU office crucifies the policy in a July 16 article for the Financial Times. She indirectly blames the EU biofuel policy for the recent impeachment of the Paraguay president. She links conflicts over redistribution of land to the production of soy for EU biodiesel production. Soybeans are exported from Paraguay to Argentina and the oil is shipped to Europe. Knowing that soyoil is a coproduct of soymeal, the causality seems farfetched. Closer to the truth, the EU is importing high volumes of meal to feed animals, that, by the way, can be almost entirely replaced by distillers grains from EU-produced wheat ethanol. So more EU ethanol means less need to import soy meal and, hence, less soy to grow in South America. It&rsquo;s an easy way to reduce land use. But, to acknowledge this or address the issue of large soymeal imports is not the preferred political message. Suggesting there are good biofuels, and addressing eating habits, is a too slippery slope. So, let&rsquo;s keep it simple, let&rsquo;s blame it all on biofuel.
For me, such criticisms are a symptom of opportunism, hypocrisy and reaction. The problems cited above cannot be resolved by abolishing the EU biofuel policy; that would be pure political symbolism without any structural impact. What is needed is a set of policies that address the root causes of the volatility in commodity prices and alleviate its effects, including stricter urban planning and controlled urbanization, more investment in agriculture and innovative farming practices, and building strategic reserves of grain to keep prices in balance as is done with crude oil, to name just a few. Land abuse could be easily addressed, too. The mandatory use of biofuels in the EU resulted in a strict set of mandatory sustainability criteria. Why not add criteria that would make it impossible to import biofuels that have been produced at the expensive of land grabbing? Author: Robert Vierhout Secretary-general, ePURE Vierhout@epure.org

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Food and Fuel:  Back on the Table

Sometimes it&rsquo;s difficult to decide on a topic for this column.
Other times, a guy like C. Larry Pope comes along, and says something so outrageous, dishonest, and so transparently politically opportunistic, that the column practically writes itself. Pope is CEO of Smithfield Foods, one of the largest processors of hogs in the nation, and he recently wrote a Wall Street Journal editorial, entitled &ldquo;The Renewable Fuels Standard is Worse than the Drought.&rdquo;
Now, in fairness, maybe Pope was just angry because his company made only a third of a billion dollars this year, as opposed to the half a billion it made the year before. Maybe he was stressed out trying to figure out how to make the mortgage payments and put food on the table since his annual compensation dropped by seven million dollars this year&mdash;to only $13.2 million. Or maybe, since the &ldquo;RFS is worse that the drought&rdquo; line was the title of the article, that was a WSJ headline, and it wasn&rsquo;t an accurate indication of Pope&rsquo;s actual opinion.
But since he hasn&rsquo;t made any follow-up statements or clarifications, he must feel the headline accurately reflects his views. Which, I guess, means that if you said, &ldquo;Hey, Larry, you get to choose what happens in 2013. Drought or RFS?&rdquo;
Larry would apparently say, &ldquo;I want a drought!&rdquo;
Me? I would choose to not have a drought.
In the article, Pope says the RFS &ldquo;requires that a certain volume of ethanol (15.2 billion gallons in 2012, mainly derived from corn) be blended into gasoline.&rdquo; Mainly, in this case, means 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol. Pope either doesn&rsquo;t know or doesn&rsquo;t mention that actual ethanol use this year could be reduced by 3 billion gallons without making a single change to the existing RFS, if refiners apply excess renewable identification numbers (RINs) for gallons purchased last year, or use extra credits they get for buying ethanol that isn&rsquo;t made with corn (like sugar cane ethanol from Brazil). That 3 billion gallon reduction of the RFS translates to a billion bushels less corn, but still meets the requirements of the RFS.
Pope writes, &ldquo;Ironically, if the ethanol mandate did not exist, even this year's drought-depleted corn crop would have been more than enough to meet the requirements for livestock feed and food production at decent prices.&rdquo; While I am not sure how Larry knows how large the crop &ldquo;would have been,&rdquo; the actual irony is that the RFS he complains about is the only reason &ldquo;this year&rsquo;s drought-depleted corn crop&rdquo; could be large enough to meet those requirements.
Since the RFS was enacted, the average annual corn crop has grown from about 9.5 billion bushels to more than 12.5 billion bushels a year. That additional corn was grown because new demand created by ethanol has made growing corn profitable for farmers. There is absolutely zero chance farmers would grow as much corn if the RFS didn&rsquo;t exist. While Pope speaks longingly about the days of $2 corn, he has to know that farmers wouldn&rsquo;t have planted 96 million acres with a crop that would lose them money, doesn&rsquo;t he?
There is a reason that Larry Pope has opted to scare Americans into changing the RFS by writing a horror story for the Wall Street Journal rather than going through the process that was designed into the legislation to deal with situations exactly like we see in the United States this year. He and others just like him aren&rsquo;t interested in facts or truth. They are interested only in cheap corn, and they will say anything, twist any statistic, and take advantage of any circumstance&mdash;no matter how dire&mdash;to take profitable markets away from corn farmers and improve Big Food&rsquo;s bottom lines. Author: Ron Lamberty Senior Vice President, American Coalition for Ethanol (605) 334-3381 rlamberty@ethanol.org

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The Fallible Pope

The ethanol industry fights an ongoing battle as we work to end our dependence on foreign oil and create jobs here at home that cannot be outsourced, while producing a fuel that is cleaner burning and better for our environment. Though it sometimes can be easy to lose sight, the increasing challenges we face are directly correlated to our achievements. In particular, with higher blends of ethanol in gasoline gaining greater acceptance, we are hitting OPEC and foreign oil where it hurts most&mdash;their pocketbooks.
We have always been a target of those aligned with foreign oil, but now we have broken through. Unlike the dog track races where the mechanical rabbit is never caught, we have caught the rabbit, and that has sent a reality shock to these critics. As a result, their attacks are more frequent and even more misleading. It is important to keep this in perspective as we persevere with corn ethanol and next-generation biofuels. Oil companies are threatened by our success&mdash;if we don&rsquo;t need foreign oil, it&rsquo;s a game changer.
The unyielding heat and drought have provided new fodder for negative press. With critics making inaccurate claims that ethanol is the reason for increased food costs, we must continue to set the record straight. The folly of this argument can be traced back to 2008, when the Grocery Manufacturers Association concocted a campaign to blame ethanol for increased food prices. The myth continues, even though objective studies have shown no substantial connection.
Using these arguments, the critics are calling for a change in the renewable fuel standard (RFS). The RFS was enacted with flexibility in mind, however, and free market forces are taking effect. Ethanol production has decreased, with some plants even temporarily ceasing production due to market forces. Less corn was being ground and production slowed, reducing barrels per day by roughly 100,000 in July. During the month of July, there was nearly a billion gallons of excess ethanol, as well as over 3 billion renewable identification numbers (RINs) available, creating several options to ensure that the volume goals of the RFS can be met, while also meeting the obligations of the corn crop for feed.
As rumors shifted into high gear this summer, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack went on CNN to dispel them, saying, &ldquo;What really drives food prices more significantly are energy costs.&rdquo;&nbsp; Vilsack then went on to criticize the price-gougers who are manipulating the drought as a means to raise prices at grocery stores nationwide. Additionally, at the height of the drought, the United Nations along with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development released an agricultural report on the correlation between oil and commodity prices, stating, &ldquo;Global agriculture is increasingly linked to energy markets&hellip; These higher oil prices are a fundamental factor behind the higher agricultural commodity price projections&hellip;&rdquo;
To put things in perspective, in 2011, ethanol production used only 3 percent of the global grain supply. Simply put, corn is an industrial feedstock&mdash;caloric energy converted from solar energy to starch, protein and fiber. There are a number of uses for corn, most notably as livestock feed and in ethanol production. And, more than one-third of every bushel of corn used in ethanol production is returned to the food chain in the form of the highly valued, nutritious animal feed, distillers grains.
Increased food prices are directly attributed to higher oil prices&mdash;it costs more to harvest, transport, process, refrigerate and package the goods that show up at your grocery store. And this summer, the driving force for the increase in commodity prices and futures was an act of Mother Nature&mdash;a lack of rain.
Now that we have &ldquo;caught the rabbit,&rdquo; it falls upon us to ensure we communicate our message, dispel myths and distorted facts and educate consumers with the truth. If it is not a drought, our critics will continually use some other illogical and misleading argument to try to discredit us and stymie our success. Growth Energy is proud to represent America&rsquo;s producers and supporters of ethanol and will continue our campaign to educate the American people about the benefits of producing a low-carbon, cleaner-burning fuel that is creating economic opportunity while reducing our addiction to foreign oil.
America needs an &ldquo;all of the above&rdquo; strategy to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil, and not an &ldquo;all of the above, except renewables,&rdquo; as proposed by our critics.
Author: Tom Buis CEO, Growth Energy (202)545-4000 tbuis@growthenergy.org

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Fighting the Good Fight

The Renewable Fuels Association was pleased to work with the Kansas Corn Commission, East Kansas Agri-Energy and fuel retailer Zarco 66 to open the nation&rsquo;s first E15 station under the waiver granted by the U.S. EPA on July 10.&nbsp; Make no mistake:&nbsp; this was a historic occasion, as it was the first new fuel blend the nation has seen in more than 30 years.
It was also significant for the choice it offers American drivers. At every pump Scott Zaremba has at his Zarco 66 &ldquo;Oasis&rdquo; in Lawrence, Kan., drivers have the option to choose E10, E15, E30 or E85. This blender pump configuration takes the choice away from petroleum companies and puts the decision firmly in the hands of consumers. Since debuting E15, drivers have chosen this new fuel blend between 16 and 26 percent of the time, on average.&nbsp;
With the successful introduction of E15, albeit on a localized scale, we now have concrete data demonstrating the desire of consumers to have more fuel options. We also have data that pours cold water on ethanol critics who have done all they can to scare consumers about E15. The American Petroleum Institute and its Kansas affiliate went so far as to warn consumers against using E15. As the data from day to day usage shows, consumers are more than capable of choosing fuel for themselves without the &ldquo;advice&rdquo; of the oil industry.
This industry must remain committed to expanding the market for ethanol because doing so will not come easy. It will require more than press releases and ad campaigns. It will take a concerted and coordinated effort to beat back challenges in Congress, in the courts and in commerce, while pushing forward a positive agenda that responsibly moves the market.
First, the industry must look for ways to address the summer time Reid vapor pressure (RVP) cap for gasoline. This cap of nine pounds per square inch makes offering E15 in most regions a nonstarter. Without the one-pound RVP waiver that is granted to E10, retailers are hard pressed to find affordable gasoline stocks to blend with 15 percent ethanol. We must continue to work with EPA and other regulators to either afford E15 the same waiver or eliminate the waiver for all fuels. In either case, it opens the door for greater E15 use year-round.&nbsp;
Second, we must remain united in the face of headwinds from Capitol Hill aimed at preventing E15 from gaining a foothold in the market. That means working cohesively to address misinformation on the efficacy and safety of E15, while also pushing commonsense legislation that would ease retailer concerns over liability issues related to the partial nature of the waiver EPA granted. Successfully selling E15 in Lawrence will go a long way in dispelling those concerns.
Using scientifically and market-backed data, we must also push back on claims made by the oil industry, which is desperate to prevent ethanol and other biofuels from gaining any more market share than they have today. Hyperbole does not cancel out hyperbole. We must stick to the facts and the science; they are on our side.
Of course, all of this occurs in the shadow of pending litigation, as I write this, and grave concerns about the nation&rsquo;s corn crop and the renewable fuel standard (RFS). With the courts, there is little we can now do but make sure we take its decision and move forward in a constructive manner. As for the RFS, we can and have been pushing back hard on those calling for a waiver or repeal. The market is working to ration demand. The RFS, with its built-in flexibility, is still working. Continued, but slower, ethanol production, ample ethanol gallons in storage and an excess of 2.5 billion renewable identification numbers (RINs) all provide sufficient opportunity for obligated parties to meet requirements under the RFS.
The industry has made great strides in the three years since the E15 waiver was filed. Manufactured angst, artificial headwinds and unforeseen acts of nature are creating a perfect storm of sorts that threatens the progress we have made. The issues we face&mdash;expanding the market, accelerating innovation, defending the RFS&mdash;are too important to the nation and to this industry. In the end, we will carry the day.
Author: Bob Dinneen President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association (202) 289-3835

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Building New Markets,  Protecting Those We Have

The greening of the U.S. Navy fleet has had ramifications Down Under as well. In 2014, the U.S. Navy will shore up its presence in Australia by moving ships into the Australian naval base at Darwin. As a result, the Australian navy announced that it would join the green fleet effort and issued the following press release:
&nbsp;
Navy Signs Biofuels Pact with US
Friday, 20 July, 2012&mdash;The Royal Australian Navy has taken a major step towards &ldquo;greening&rdquo; its warships and aircraft with a new agreement that will give it access to technology being developed in the U.S. to enable the massive American fleets to run on biofuels by 2020.
The U.S. has set the target to ensure it can continue to use its armed forces globally as future fuel shortages start to bite and to reduce the military&rsquo;s environmental footprint. Australian forces have acknowledged they will have to adapt quickly to use the same fuels as the U.S. military so they can continue to work with the Americans on joint operations.
A joint approach on fuels will also be vital as plans progress for increased visits to Australian bases by U.S. warships and aircraft.
The cooperation agreement was signed yesterday aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, off Hawaii, by the RAN&rsquo;s fleet commander, Rear Admiral Tim Barrett, who is responsible for all navy surface ships, submarines and aircraft. The rear admiral is both a sailor and a pilot.
Rear Admiral Barrett said technological advances would flow from the navy and the Australian Defence Force generally to industry in Australia and the U.S., and Australian forces could benefit from advances made, for example, in Australia&rsquo;s aviation industry. &ldquo;That is a critical part. It may well be that the aviation industry allows us to share information on how they do it,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;The U.S. is doing it for all the same reasons that Qantas is doing it. Rear Admiral Barrett flew out to the U.S. carrier on an Australian navy helicopter, which was refuelled aboard the vessel with a biofuel blend. The aircraft was checked out and certified to use the green fuel.
The U.S. wants its forces to be using at least a 50-50 blended biofuel by 2020. Rear Admiral Barrett said the agreement was about being responsible into the future and being able to secure other, sustainable forms of fuel.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re about research, learning what&rsquo;s being done.&rdquo; Ideally, Australia could be in the same position on biofuels as the U.S. in 2020, he said. &ldquo;We are here to learn what we need to do to remain interoperable with them. We&rsquo;d be mad not to be involved.&rdquo;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Good on ya Australia! That&rsquo;s the way I see it.
Author: Mike Bryan Chairman, BBI International mbryan@bbiinternational.co

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Greening the Fleets 

The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, the JOBS Act, which was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama earlier this year, could have a significant impact on how many traditionally farmer-owned biofuels companies are structured.&nbsp;
Many of the biofuels companies formed in the Upper Midwest in the late 1990s and early 2000s were started by local agricultural producers and investors. While this distinctive structure had many advantages, including a natural hedge against commodity prices and access to a large base of knowledgeable investors, securities and tax laws created compliance burdens for companies conducting their equity drives. Companies responded in one of two ways: they either formed a limited liability company (LLC) and registered their equity offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or a cooperative, which was exempt from initial SEC registration.
Companies that organized as LLCs and publicly registered their securities realized the benefits of being able to conduct a public offering to a large number of investors. After a successful equity drive, however, these companies were subject to the costs of being a publicly reporting company, which included hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in compliance costs, in addition to greater management distraction, increased liability and a loss of confidentiality. Companies that organized as cooperatives were able to avoid most of the SEC compliance costs, but at the substantial cost of significantly limiting their flexibility in obtaining corn supplies without incurring significant tax burdens. As a result of these challenges, many LLCs with SEC-registered equity securities decided to reorganize and deregister from SEC registration, or &ldquo;go dark.&rdquo; Similarly, many cooperatives decided to convert to an LLC structure to avoid tax and operating restrictions.&nbsp;
The process for both was similar. Companies formed multiple classes of LLC equity securities with different voting and/or economic rights and then reorganized their members into these various classes so that no class of equity securities had more than 500 record holders (300 record holders for any class of equity securities that was previously registered with the SEC). In order for this to be effective, the differences in equity securities needed to be significant. For example, a company could grant different voting rights to members based on voting versus nonvoting units, the right to elect directors, the right to amend charter documents such as operating agreements or the right to approve fundamental transactions such as dissolution, merger or conversion.
While this type of reorganization is successful in deregistering a class of equity securities with the SEC, it has the cost of taking away voting rights that members previously held. Many companies and their shareholders voted in favor of deregistering with the SEC, however, because the benefits outweighed these costs.&nbsp;
The recently passed JOBS Act makes it easier for biofuels companies to experience the tax benefits of operating as an LLC without the compliance costs associated with going public. The act raises the threshold for mandatory registration under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, from 500 shareholders to the lesser of 2,000 total shareholders or 500 shareholders who are nonaccredited investors. As a result, the necessity of forming multiple classes of LLC equity securities in order to avoid registering with the SEC has been minimized. It is important to note, however, that the JOBS Act did not affect the threshold of 300 shareholders of record for nonbank holding companies. Thus, biofuels companies that are currently publicly reporting companies must get below 300 record holders of a class of full voting equity securities to &ldquo;go dark,&rdquo; but may have up to 2,000 shareholders of record (or up to 500 unaccredited investors) for other classes of equity securities that have not been previously registered.&nbsp;
The JOBS Act makes it easier for biofuels companies that are currently subject to SEC reporting to &ldquo;go dark&rdquo; or deregister with the SEC. Further, for biofuels cooperatives looking for a more flexible organizational structure, the JOBS Act makes it easier to convert to an LLC without being subject to SEC reporting. As a result of these changes, now may be a good time to consult your legal, tax and accounting advisors to determine whether your current organizational structure is still the optimal one. 
Authors: Gregory Lynch Attorney, Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP (608).283-2240 gjlynch@michaelbest.com Porter Martin Attorney, Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP pjmartin@michaelbest.com (608) 283-0116 Jeff&nbsp; Barrett Attorney, Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP jmbarrett@michaelbest.com (414).225-8294

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JOBS Act Creates Opportunities

Since the beginning of the year, the ethanol industry has been facing an ever-changing market environment of higher input costs and increased competition. During periods of low-cost corn and high revenue, many operations overlook plant efficiency and focus on throughput. Now that the market dynamics have changed and the growth of the ethanol industry has slowed, and in order to have long-term success, producers have shifted their focus to increased ethanol yield and efficiency.
Increasing the ethanol concentration in a fermenter can be pursued by a number of strategies: purchasing high-quality corn that possesses high-starch and low-moisture content, trialing new enzymes with better starch-to-ethanol conversion or by trying a new yeast strain that is more robust than what&rsquo;s currently available in the market. But using any or all of these strategies does not necessarily maximize yield.&nbsp;
Operators must also address controlling the infection level and its organic acid metabolites with the proper antimicrobial, and maintaining healthier and more viable yeast during the course of fermentation with proper nutrition. BetaTec Hop Products has addressed both of these issues with two technologies which, used together, deliver bacterial inhibition, enhanced yeast health, higher ethanol yield and improved fermentation kinetics. Infection Potential Growth of contaminating lactic acid bacteria is a major problem in industrial alcohol fermentations. These bacteria can grow under the conditions of yeast fermentation and reduce alcohol yields by consuming glucose that could have been used by yeast for ethanol production. The end products of metabolism of lactobacilli, lactic acid and acetic acid are detrimental to yeast growth and metabolism and, therefore, occur when propagations and/or fermentations are allowed to continue under less-than-sufficient microbial control. As bacterial numbers increase so do the acids formed. The metabolism of these organisms varies from that of Saccharomyces yeast with substantial production of lactic acid and lesser amounts of acetic acid made. In addition to operating the plant under as sanitary conditions as possible, the most common strategy to control Lactobacillus contamination is by the addition of antibiotics.&nbsp; Concerns are rising, however, about the overuse of antibiotics for industrial applications that may contribute to the emergence of resistant pathogenic bacteria strains harmful to animals and humans.&nbsp; Additionally, the presence of antibiotics in saleable coproducts (distillers grains) can negatively impact their marketability.
The preservative properties of hop acids that have been used in the brewing industry for more than a millennium constitute a legitimate naturally derived alternative. BetaTec&rsquo;s trademarked IsoStab, an aqueous solution of isomerized alpha acids, has been successfully used in dry mill and wet mill ethanol plants since 2004. By adding the minimum inhibitory concentration of IsoStab to the yeast propagation tank and/or to the fermentation vessel, one can inhibit the growth of lactic acid bacteria during the production of ethanol and entirely avoid the need for antibiotics.
The mode of action for hop acids is based on the fact that the undissociated form of the hop acid is toxic to bacteria. Decreasing the mash pH increases the concentration of the undissociated form of hop acid, which is permeable to the cell membrane. The latter form is soluble in the phospholipid of the membrane and diffuses passively into the cell. Because of the higher pH inside the cell, the acid then dissociates and the liberated proton acidifies the cytoplasm, and as a result dissipates the pH gradient across the cytoplasmic membrane.&nbsp; This leads to the inhibition of nutrient uptake and, eventually, the bacteria starves to death. Enhancing Yeast Nutrition The importance of yeast nutrition has been overlooked by the fuel ethanol industry.&nbsp; Its relevance to bacterial spoilage, yeast budding, fermentable ethanol ceiling and the rate of fermentation is poorly understood. Depending upon the feedstock used and yeast cell growth during propagation, the fermentation can be negatively affected by nutrient deficiency, causing yeast stress and consequently lower ethanol yield. Bacteria contamination can also deplete the availability of nutrients and, hence, undermine yeast efficiency by scavenging essential nutrients away from the yeast. In practice, just adding nitrogen to the propagators and to the fermenters is sufficient to promote successful fermentations. However, fermentation difficulties arise from a progressive reduction in yeast viability, which is caused by the combined effect of several factors:
&bull; Loss of permeability in the cytoplasmic membrane of the yeast through insufficient synthesis of sterols. &bull; Adsorption of toxic fatty acids. &bull; An increase in the concentration of ethanol. &bull; Temperature fluctuation.
VitaHop Silver, a newly developed fermentation activator, is a proprietary formulation of dry cells of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, amino acids, vitamins and other ingredients designed to provide the yeast with the proper balance of nutrients for optimal growth and reproduction.&nbsp; In addition, VitaHop Silver increases yeast viability, particularly late in fermentation, resulting in ethanol yield enhancement. Synergies in Combination Laboratory research discovered that when both products, IsoStab and VitaHop Silver, are added simultaneously to a fermentation system, superior results in bacterial inhibition, ethanol yields, kinetics and yeast biomass and viability are achieved compared to when they are used individually or versus antibiotics.&nbsp; This suggested a complementary effect between the hop acid product and the proprietary yeast nutrient.
Those interesting findings prompted investigation of this combined performance at the commercial level. The key performance metrics examined in the case study were lactic and acetic acids, yeast cell count, yeast viability, ethanol yield and the kinetics ( rate of ethanol production).
A Midwestern ethanol plant was used to trial the IsoStab and VitaHop Silver combination. The plant was experiencing slightly elevated lactic acids and there was interest in comparing their current antibiotic program with other options in order to minimize infection and maximize ethanol production. The 50 MMgy plant utilized the BetaTec program and added both IsoStab and VitaHop Silver to the propagator. The plant continued to run at a steady state during the one-month trial.
Fermentation analysis of the plant data under this program showed positive results. HPLC data showed a reduction of 44 percent in lactic acid concentration and a relative increase of 1.7 percent in ethanol yield, despite the drop in solids during the trial. Correcting it for solid loading, the relative increase in ethanol yield jumped to 2.7 percent (statistically significant as the data was processed at the 95 percent confidence level to ensure that the differences in the data are real). The rate of ethanol production (kinetics) followed a similar trend and the combination was able to increase the production rate by 5 percent at the height of fermentation.
A review of yeast data indicates that the IsoStab and VitaHop Silver combination had an 18 percent higher yeast cell count versus antibiotics. More substantial is the fact that viability in the propagator was increased by 5.5 percent, leading to healthier yeast in the fermenter. Although one might predict that excess yeast biomass will lead to&nbsp; reduced ethanol yield, accelerated trouble-free fermentations with higher ethanol concentration resulted. The nutrients and hop acids combined treatment lead to stronger yeast that diverted glucose destined for cell mass to ethanol production.
The magnitude of the ethanol-yield increase with the IsoStab and VitaHop Silver program is critical to the plant&rsquo;s bottom line. In this particular case, the average daily ethanol production was about 150,000 gallons of 200 proof. An increase of 2.7 percent in yield corresponds to 4,050 gallons of extra daily ethanol production. Assuming a price of $2 per gallon of ethanol, this will add a profit of $8,100 per day or $243,000 per month to the plant&rsquo;s bottom line. The plant managers were so satisfied with the results that they continued on with the BetaTec program.
More than 20 plant trials have been conducted with the IsoStab and VitaHop combination technology&nbsp; with the following results: &bull; An ethanol yield increase, ranging from1.50-3.2 percent (an increase that was statistically significant compared to the control). &bull; More consistent fermentations. &bull; Yeast cell counts increase, ranging from 15-30 percent. &bull; Yeast viability improvement, ranging from 2-5 percent. &bull; Faster fermentation kinetics, ranging from 2-5 percent. Those improvements were observed against any type of antibiotic that these plants employed and affirm the complementary nature of these technologies. The combined technologies will boost the operational flexibility of a plant by allowing the producer to maximize the quantity of ethanol produced. In addition, it constitutes the perfect alternative to antibiotics and would enable the industry to sell certified antibiotic-free DDGS to local and international markets where antibiotics are either banned or being discouraged. Author: Sami Faour&nbsp;&nbsp; Technical Manager, North America, BetaTec Hop Products Sami.Faour@johnihaas.com &nbsp;(816) 509-0200
&nbsp;
The claims and statements made in this article belong exclusively to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ethanol Producer Magazine or its advertisers. All questions pertaining to this article should be directed to the author(s).

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A method for controlling infection and maximizing ethanol yields

Bacterial Inhibition Without Antibiotics

1. Ron Lamberty and Chuck Beck recently were promoted by the American Coalition for Ethanol. Lamberty, who previously served as ACE&rsquo;s vice president for market development, is now senior vice president.&nbsp; Beck was promoted from communications and membership assistant to public affairs director. Lamberty will continue to manage ACE&rsquo;s market development program, which has focused in recent years on midlevel ethanol blends and the installation of blender pumps, including the ongoing Blend Your Own Ethanol Campaign in partnership with the Renewable Fuels Association and several state corn grower organizations. The promotion will enable him to direct a planned expansion of ACE&rsquo;s market development efforts and prioritize key markets and marketers poised to switch to midlevel blends and blender pumps. Beck, who has six years of experience working in television and radio media, takes on new duties developing and executing ACE communications and public affairs strategies to support ACE&rsquo;s mission and goals.&nbsp; &ldquo;Chuck is a passionate advocate for ethanol and the epitome of a team player.&nbsp; He will enable ACE to rapidly communicate our positions to the media and help pitch story ideas about the ethanol industry,&rdquo;&nbsp; said ACE Executive Vice President Brian Jennings. 2. Douglas Cameron joined the board of directors of Proterro Inc., developers of a sugar-producing microbe. Cameron is founder and managing director of Plymouth, Minn.-based Alberti Advisors LLC. Prior to establishing the venture advisory firm, he was managing director and chief science advisor at Piper Jaffrey where he helped build the firm&rsquo;s clean technology and renewable sector, including the ethanol biofuels subsector. He also previously served as chief scientific officer at Khosla Ventures. Proterro has developed a unique photobioreactor based on the structure of a leaf to grow sugar-excreting microbes that can be used as a fermentation-ready sugar feedstock. Founded in 2008, the company is backed by Battelle Ventures and Braemer Energy Ventures. 3. Leah Hurtgen Ziemba and Mary Ann Christopher have joined Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP, and will work with the firm&rsquo;s energy and sustainability team. Now a partner in Michael Best, Christopher worked as a partner with the law firm Foley &amp; Lardner LLP, where she chaired the Offshore Wind Energy Team and was vice chair of the project and infrascture team.&nbsp;&nbsp; Ziemba, now an associate in the firm&rsquo;s Madison office, will focus her practice on the siting and permitting of new development projects and counseling clients on environmental matters. She has experience in environmental/natural resource law involving water, solid and hazardous waste. Prior to joining Michael Best, she was an associate at Nixon Peabody LLP in New York.&nbsp;
4. Mascoma Corp. named David Arkowitz its new chief financial officer (CFO), responsible for the company&rsquo;s finance and investor relations. For the past seven years he served as CFO of two public bio-pharmaceutical companies, transitioning both organizations from development state to commercial entities. He last worked at AMAG Pharmaceuticals Inc. where he served as executive vice president , CFO and chief business officer.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 5. Duane Parkinson has rejoined Ashland Hercules Water Technologies as corporate sales manager, food and beverage, North America. Parkinson&rsquo;s responsibilities will include corporate accounts sales to the food and beverage markets, focusing on grain processing and ethanol production companies.&nbsp; Ashland Hercules Water Technologies is a global producer of papermaking and specialty chemicals for the commercial and institutional food and beverage, chemical, mining and municipal markets. Its process, utility and functional chemistries are used to improve operational efficiencies, enhance product quality, protect plant assets and ensure environmental compliance.&nbsp; 6. David Nothmann, vice president of business and product development for ArborGen, has been named to the U.S. DOE and USDA Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee.&nbsp; The committee of 31 volunteers offers expertise on strategic planning and the technical aspects of the Biomass Research and Development Initiative.&nbsp; The initiative is legislatively directed to address feedstock development; biofuels and biobased product development; and biofuels development analysis.&nbsp; The committee&rsquo;s work will aid the DOE and USDA in building a sustainable biomass energy industry. ArborGen&rsquo;s scientists are developing new feedstock sources&nbsp; through purpose-grown trees to meet the growing demand for wood, fiber and energy. 7. Wes Bolsen, chief marketing officer of Coskata Inc., was recently named Chief Marketing Officer of the Year by Chief Marketing Officer Institute.&nbsp; He received the award for small to midsize companies with revenue less than $250 million, while his counterpart at Zurich Financial won the award for large companies.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am truly humbled by this recognition,&rdquo; Bolsen said. &rdquo;At the same time, I must recognize the entire Coskata team for the success of our marketing programs in 2010. Everyone here understands the vision for what is possible and helps the company communicate that to our various stakeholders.&rdquo; The award will help generate new interest in ethanol and advanced biofuels, he added. 8. Florida-based Protec Fuel named Amber Thurlo Pearson its director of marketing and publications. Pearson&rsquo;s background in alternative and renewable fuels lends itself to Protec&rsquo;s mission of helping meet the renewable fuel standard through retail ethanol blending and sales in the South, Southeast and mid-Atlantic regions. She worked in public relations for the National Biodiesel Board as well as for the U.S. DOE Clean Cities program. Protec offeres turnkey ethanol programs for retailers, fleets and fuel distributors for E85, E15 and midlevel blends. It currently supplies, either directly, or through distribution partners, approximately 250 E85 stations. 9. Craig Shealy has launched an investment banking advisory business to serve the biofuels and biomass marketplace in partnership with Cary Street Partners, a Richmond, Va.- based investment banking and wealth management firm. Shealy served as chairman and managing partner of BlackCreek Group, an energy-focused investment, development and advisory firm, and as president and CEO of Osage Bio Energy, where he led the development of a $200 million ethanol plant in Hopewell, Va. Prior to Osage Bio Energy, he managed a $1.5 billion revenue business unit for Nextel Partners and was a member of the senior management team that positioned the company for its sale to Sprint for just under $10 billion. Before joining Nextel Partners, Shealy worked in Microsoft&rsquo;s corporate development and strategy group. 10. Sweden-based Perten Instruments has released its second-generation grain moisture meter, improving upon the AM 5100. The AM 5200 meets the speed and connectivity requirements of today&rsquo;s grain industry, the company said. Flow-through analysis allows its use in automatic sampling systems, and the larger sample size improves repeatability. The moisture meter includes a color touch screen and RF-electronics.
11. Gamajet Cleaning Systems released the PowerFLEX tank cleaning machine, which offers 400 times the cleaning force of a standard sprayball at the same pressure and flow. The added power reduces cost in time, water and chemicals, often up to an 85 percent savings, according to the company. The average operating conditions are from 50 to 100 psi and 20 to 80 gallons per minute, under which the PowerFLEX will maintin 8 to 15 pounds of force at a 10-foot distance. The PowerFLEX uses Gamajet&rsquo;s rotary impingement technology. The jets of the fluid-driven machines scour an entire tank interior in a reliable 360-degree pattern. 12. Global supplier of fuel dispensers and technologies, Dresser Wayne will now operate under the brand name, Wayne&mdash;A GE Energy Business. GE acquired Dresser Inc., including its Dresser Wayne business segment, in February. GE and Dresser Wayne worked with an international brand research firm and concluded that maintaining the Wayne name was critical to preserving the strong brand. The company introduced the first oil pump in 1891, and been responsible since for many industry innovations such as the blending pump and pay-at-the-pump self-service.&nbsp; 13. Duluth-based company, Save Our Steam, was awarded the Minnesota Governor&rsquo;s Safety award for superior performance in workplace safety and health. SOS routinely works in hazardous conditions, fixing high-pressure leaks in industrial steam, gas and acid lines, without interrupting production.&nbsp; Customers include refineries, steam, ethanol, power and paper plants. In his 30-plus years, SOS has never had a reportable injury, said Jim Carter, president and owner. The company started doing business in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and Nebraska, and now serves clients all over the continental U.S. 14. Spraying Systems Co. announced two new TankJet models for use in cleaning applications that can be mounted permanently or moved from tank to tank. The new TankJet 75 fluid-driven tank cleaner from Spraying Systems Co. provides thorough impingement cleaning of small tanks without the expense of high impact tank cleaners. The unit uses external gears to reduce nozzle speed for better impact and cleaning efficiency. Ideal for medium-impact cleaning of tanks, totes and intermediate bulk containers, the unit cleans tanks up to 30 feet in diameter using rotating solid stream nozzles that complete a 360 degree indexing pattern.
The TankJet 190D motor-driven tank cleaner provides powerful 180 degree downward coverage and outperforms other units especially when removing sticky residues/skim lines and cleaning heavy sludge from the bottom and shadow areas of tanks, the company says. It operates at pressures up to 1000 psi and uses high-impact solid stream nozzles to clean tanks up to 34 feet in diameter. 15. Canadian cleantech company, NIM-Tech Inc., (short for noninvasive measurement technologies), is currently demonstrating its SonicGauge technology at a Canadian ethanol plant with the aim of increasing operational efficiencies and quality control.&nbsp; The trademarked SonicGauge system simultaneously measures multiple properties of a substance, noninvasively through a pipeline, utilizing dispersive ultrasound, nonlinear measurement methods and proprietary algorithms, to determine precise product and process quality, online and realtime. It can be used for quality assurance or process control in multiple industries. The Prince Edward Island-based company is seeking further demonstration opportunities and investors as it readies the technology for commercialization. 16. Indianapolis-based Xylogenics won the TechPoint Mira Award for its clean energy innovations. The bioengineering firm won the 2011 award for its work in genetically modifiying yeast strains to improve the conversion of sugar to ethanol. The proprietary yeast strains can potentially boost fermentation yields by 30 to 50 percent in cellulosic ethanol production facilities, according to the company. 17. Industrial Scientific Corp. announced the availability of iNet InSite, a plug-and-play docking station solution for its portable gas detectors that provides critical functionality and information for safer work environments. Subscribers of iNet InSite receive unlimited user access to iNet Control&mdash;a Web-based application&mdash;along with docking stations. With iNet Control software users can manage the performance of their entire gas detector fleet, scheduling automated events such as calibrations, as well as set up alarm thresholds. 18. Rockwell Automation Inc. acquired U.K.-based Letronix, an independent industrial automation repairs and service provider in Europe and Asia, accelerating the growth of Rockwell&rsquo;s service business abroad. Lektronix provides automation repairs, spares and other maintenance services for most industrial automation products, including programmable logic controllers, electric motor drives, industrial computers, and computerized numerical control equipment.&nbsp; Lektronix&rsquo;s management team will join the Rockwell Automation Control Products and Solutions operating segment. 19. The Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway Co. and Archer Daniels Midland Co. received the Win-Win award from international energy reporting agency Argus, receiving the reward at the North American Rail Shippers Association conference earlier this summer. The award recognizes how both parties developed an innovative solution that allows the railroad to handle 35 percent more carloads from ADM while giving the shipper more control over its railcar maintenance processes. The nearly $1 million invested by both parties included improving two miles of rail line to handle unit trains of more than 100 railcars plus new mother-and-slug locomotive combinations add force to the switching fleet. ADM is on pace to load 30,000 carloads through the facility this year after starting production in the middle of 2010 on an expanded dry mill ethanol facility next to its wet mill at Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Share your industry briefs: To be included in Business Briefs, send information (including photos and logos if available) to: Business Briefs, Ethanol Producer Magazine, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks ND 58203. You may also fax information to (701) 746-8385, or e-mail it to <a href="mailto:sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com">sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com</a>. Please include your name and telephone number in all correspondence.

1. Senior VP: Ron Lamberty was recently promoted at ACE. He owns two fuel stations and has more than 30 years experience in the ethanol and petroleum industries. 

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3. Energy Expertise: An avid member of the Energy Bar Association, Mary Ann Christopher brings her broad experience in renewable energy to Michael Best. 

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3. Farm Roots" Leah Hurtgen Ziemba brings a unique set of skills to the agribusiness practice of Michael Best having been raised on a Wisconsin dairy, earning a degree in animal science and co-owning and operating a dairy in upstate New York.

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4. New CFO: David Arkowitz brings two decades of finance leadership in the healthcare and life sciences to Mascoma. 

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5. Grain Specialist: Duane Parkinson specializes in grain processing and ethanol production. 

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7. Recognition for All: A recent award given to Wes Bolsen, Coskata, he says is for all of Coskataâ€™s team and  demonstrates that those outside the industry are paying attention.

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JosÃ© Olivares has considerable experience in algal biofuels research.

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Business Briefs

Behind corn, most ethanol distilleries rank natural gas as the highest input cost. Grain dryers consume a significant portion. Recently, natural gas prices have come down. But when, not if, prices rebound, finding cost-effective ways to improve process efficiency will have a significant impact. One area many ethanol grain distillers, and also asphalt or beverage distillers, identify as a potential one for improvement is recovering heat from the dryers and regenerative thermal oxidizers (RTO). This heat can be used to reduce process and dryer energy depending on the specific situation.&nbsp;
Ace Ethanol LLC in Stanley, Wis., has been actively improving the energy efficiency of its process operations since its first energy assessment in 2007. In 2010, management set out to reduce its dependence on natural gas by recovering heat from the RTO stack.
&ldquo;As the ethanol industry ages, grows, and becomes more competitive, the focus must shift to cost savings and operating efficiency,&rdquo; said Joe Fischer, Ace Ethanol&rsquo;s plant manager.&nbsp; &ldquo;The only way to be successful long term will be to seek out and take advantage of opportunities to make the process better and more efficient.&rdquo;
As the first large-scale plant to produce ethanol in Wisconsin, Ace Ethanol is on the leading edge. Built in 2002, Ace Ethanol operates nearly 24/7, producing more than 46 MMgy and 350 tons of DDGS per day. When the plant began examining ways to recover heat from the RTO exhaust, natural gas prices hovered around $6 MMBtu. Fischer estimated that RTO heat recovery could reduce plant gas use by about 7 to 10 percent.
In Delta-T plant designs like Ace Ethanol, as well as others (ICM, Lurgi, Poet), an RTO is used to control emissions from the DDGS dryers.&nbsp; These dryers run around the clock, year round, and pump lots of heat energy to the atmosphere. Heat leaving an RTO at similar plants can range from 300-500 degrees Fahrenheit.
One of the challenges with RTO heat recovery, however, is the high fouling potential of the exhaust, apparently due to volatile organic compounds and particulates that can adhere to surfaces they contact.&nbsp; This appears to be a bigger concern as the exhaust is cooled below 240 F and has kept many distillers from fully exploring RTO heat recovery due to the issues with the fin-tube heat exchanger technology traditionally used. The Traditional Approach Traditional exhaust heat recovery systems center around fin-tube technology due to their simplicity and relatively low cost. A fin-tube exchanger is a series of narrowly spaced plates fixed to tubes. The hot exhaust passes directly through the spacing between the plates, allowing the heat to be recovered. It acts much like a car radiator.&nbsp;
While generally considered cost effective, aka cheaper, the fin-tube is prone to fouling when deposits stick and plug the narrow gap between the plates. If left unattended, the deposits can bake into a hard material and the narrow gap makes effective cleaning very difficult, if not impossible. One ethanol plant that installed a fin-tube exchanger for RTO exhaust heat recovery resorted to bypassing the exchanger completely when it became irreparably fouled.
Seeing the significant potential cost benefits, Ace Ethanol wanted to recover the RTO exhaust heat, but was concerned about fouling, reliability and equipment life. Ace contracted with Madison, Wis.-based Kinergetics LLC, a process engineering and energy efficiency consulting firm, to explore options.
After considering the application, Kinergetics recommended a shell and tube design for the Ace application. The shell and tube was selected as the most promising option due its robustness and ability to be cleaned if fouling does occur, much like the evaporators already on site.
A shell and tube is one of the most common types of heat exchangers for heat transfer between liquids, but is much less common for heat transfer from a high volume exhaust, such as from the RTO. Because of heat transfer constraints when dealing with gases, a shell and tube has to be well-designed and optimized at critical points to keep the cost in check, otherwise, the exchanger becomes very large and expensive.
&ldquo;For shell and tube exchangers to work properly and be cost-effective, they must be designed right. There is a lot of engineering and experience that goes into making sure the right dimensions, tube counts, components, materials, etc., are used. Even the shell side design becomes important in a cost-optimized approach,&rdquo; Fischer explained.
Such tricky business is best left to a specialist. After talking with several vendors, it was determined that there were no suitable commercial units available that matched performance and economic requirements, thus, Ace Ethanol turned to Kinergetics for a custom-designed system. &ldquo;We wanted the best compromise between efficiency and cost,&rdquo; Fischer said. &ldquo;Since we run a 24/7 operation, we needed something that could be counted on to be running and be efficient with little need for attention. We felt that this shell and tube design, designed specifically for our application, would give us the best reliability.&rdquo; Designing a Solution Kinergetics has been supporting the ethanol industry since 2007 and was familiar with Ace Ethanol&rsquo;s concerns. A commercially built heat exchanger that properly addresses the heat recovery duty is often a good answer, but when heat transfer, downtime risks, high fouling potential, pressure drop and cost must be considered together, rarely is an off-the-shelf solution the best fit. It is important to cost-effectively engineer approaches to minimize fouling, reduce process downtime and decrease maintenance.
&ldquo;My biggest concerns were efficiency, tendency for fouling, and robustness (would it maintain integrity for many years),&rdquo; Fischer said. &ldquo;We felt comfortable in Kinergetic&rsquo;s abilities and were confident they would consider all things and custom design the best possible exchanger. The cost of the completed system was found to be very competitive with a traditional fin-tube approach.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Kinergetics custom engineered a shell and tube exchanger for the Ace application. If fouling does occur, the exchanger can be cleaned much like the evaporators already used onsite and there is very little risk of downtime since plugging is a minimal concern. The unique mechanical and thermal design of Ace&rsquo;s RTO exchanger optimizes thermal performance and makes the unit smaller than normally expected for a standard shell and tube design. There are plants with a capacity similar to Ace whose budget proposals (from others) based on the fin-tube technology ranged from $750,000 to well over $1 million. The Kinergetics design needed to be very competitive with traditional fin tube approaches, without the risk of failure. Companies shouldn&rsquo;t be scared away from doing the right thing environmentally. It&rsquo;s not cheap, but it can be done cost-effectively. Kinergetics estimates the return on investment for Ace is only two years. The Fix is In&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; Designing the custom shell and tube was only part of the process. Kinergetics selected and ordered specialized components, supervised fabrication, and on-site delivery to ensure proper handling on arrival. Kinergetics also provided support to address environmental questions related to the facility air permit. But these are only a part of the solution. Because of space constraints, this exchanger was designed to be installed right in the RTO stack. Weight and wind considerations presented challenges, among which were building a 75-foot tower to &ldquo;hang&rdquo; the stack, and support the 40,000-pound flooded weight while allowing for thermal expansion and dealing with Wisconsin&rsquo;s winter weather.
While Kinergetics provided the process engineering and site supervision, outside experts balanced the process. Hercules Contractors and Engineers, a construction and engineering firm in business for more than 40 years, designed the structure and foundation for the support. Daniels General Contractors handled construction of the foundation, steel structure and exchanger installation.
&ldquo;Kinergetics handled the design and contracting making it pretty much a &lsquo;turn key&rsquo; project,&rdquo; said Fischer. &ldquo;And, they worked around our schedules and kept lines of communication very open, which made the whole process relatively painless. Once the project was complete, we pretty much just had to turn a few valves and were instantly saving energy.&rdquo;
From design to delivery took approximately six months. Preparation of the site took one month, much of which was completed while the exchanger was being built. The actual installation, with dryers off, was only one and a half days and was coordinated with normal maintenance downtime. From the moment the system was started, it was clear that performance expectations were being met, and while the fouling concerns have proven to be real over time, the unit is very easy to clean and there has been no downtime. Author: Tom Tucker Principal, Kinergetics LLC (608) 442-5690 ttucker@kinergetics.net
&nbsp;
The claims and statements made in this article belong exclusively to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Ethanol Producer Magazine or its advertisers. All questions pertaining to this article should be directed to the author(s).

A steel structure was designed to support the addition of a custom-designed shell and tube heat exchanger in the RTO for Ace Ethanol. 

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An actual photo from an ethanol plant shows how badly a fin-tube heat exchanger can get fouled.

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Customized design cost-effectively addresses fouling issues


Tapping into a Heat Recovery Opportunity to Reduce Energy Costs

In a margin environment with high corn prices, relatively low oil prices and stagnant consumer demand for gasoline, the ethanol industry has borne witness to razor thin margins. The crunch has caused everything from slowdowns to temporary full shutdowns as producers wait for prices to even out and attempt to pinpoint where they can squeeze even the smallest of profit increases out of each gallon of fuel they produce. It wasn&rsquo;t always that way for the ethanol industry. A decade ago, ethanol producers may not have considered that type of incremental changes, but these days, a boost of even half a cent per gallon could make the difference between an operational or idled ethanol plant.&nbsp;
Enter Mascoma Corp. While widely known for its proposed cellulosic ethanol production plans, Mascoma is a technology development firm with a few more tricks up its sleeve. Its specialty is a proprietary consolidated bioprocessing (CBP) platform. CBP is a conversion process in which microorganisms are used to hydrolyze and ferment sugars in one step, as opposed to traditional processes, which require enzymes to hydrolyze sugars and separate microorganisms to carry out fermentation. By definition, CBP requires the use of engineered microorganisms because natural organisms are not capable of simultaneously performing both functions, according to Mascoma.
As Mascoma developed its CBP process, it engineered a yeast that can be applied in corn ethanol plants and has been proven to cut operating costs by reducing the plant&rsquo;s enzyme requirements. The Mascoma Grain Technology yeast product, commercially known as TransFerm, is the first commercial application of the company&rsquo;s CBP technology and is a drop-in, bioengineered substitute for conventional yeasts used in ethanol fermentation. Because the yeast itself expresses glucoamylase enzymes, it significantly reduces the amount of enzymes that would otherwise need to be purchased for ethanol production, according to the company. The reduced need for enzymes translates to a gross savings of 1 to 2 cents per gallon, says David Arkowitz, chief financial officer at Mascoma. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re replacing a significant amount of dollars that it costs to produce ethanol because the yeast makes its own enzymes,&rdquo; he says.
TransFerm was introduced to the market during the first quarter of this year but the product has already been used in more than 1,000 fermentations to produce more than 90 million gallons of ethanol at 15 ethanol plants, according to Mascoma estimates. That total includes six commercial customers as well as additional potential customers who are conducting trial runs to test the product at their facilities. The yeast is manufactured and distributed by Lallemand Ethanol Technology, which entered into a multiyear partnership with Mascoma in December to commercialize the product. Mascoma and Lallemand jointly market and sell TransFerm. As part of the agreement, Lallemand pays Mascoma a technology license fee and receives a portion of the net sales based on the market price of conventional yeast, as well as ongoing incentive payments based on sales performance. This is the first bioengineered yeast Lallemand Ethanol Technology has marketed at a commercial level, according to Craig Pilgrim, Global Marketing and Product Development Manager. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been involved in a lot of small incremental changes in the past,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;You can only push biology so far and then you have to take the next step. For us, it&rsquo;s great to see this product out there. It really is quite a step-change from what it was before in terms of savings and performance, so it&rsquo;s very exciting for us to be involved, not only in partnership with Mascoma, but for the industry overall.&rdquo;
Arkowitz says the product is still in the early days of availability, so it&rsquo;s difficult to predict how many ethanol producers will be using the product by years end. For now, the companies are content to grow sales in a manageable fashion and continue to optimize the product. ICM Inc. signed on as Mascoma&rsquo;s technology development partner in October and provided scale-up assistance and industry expertise to bring the product to market. Now that it has been introduced, the engineering firm is continuing to run lab tests and conduct other related work, Arkowitz says. The first few months of commercial operations have been positive, and the companies are very pleased with TransFerm&rsquo;s performance thus far. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve seen significant interest in this product,&rdquo; Pilgrim says. &ldquo;Margins are very, very tight so any kind of savings&mdash;especially in the 1 to 2 cents per gallon range&mdash;is a pretty good deal for them.&rdquo;
Valero Renewable Fuels Co. LLC, a Mascoma investor, was the first ethanol producer to sign up to use the engineered yeast product. The company signed a multiyear agreement with Mascoma in November that provides Valero with terms and pricing for TransFerm&rsquo;s use at any or all of Valero&rsquo;s 10 corn ethanol plants. Bill Day, Valero&rsquo;s executive director of media relations, declined to elaborate on the specifics of the agreement but he confirmed that Valero has trialed the product at several of its facilities and will continue to work with Mascoma and others to optimize the results.
In March, Pacific Ethanol Inc. also signed an agreement to use TransFerm at its 40 MMgy Columbia plant in Boardman, Ore., with the option to extend that agreement to include the company&rsquo;s three additional ethanol facilities. Paul Koehler, Pacific Ethanol vice president, says the Columbia plant has experienced positive operational and financial results in the months since incorporating the new yeast into its process. &ldquo;It has lowered our ingredient costs for production and is consistent in its performance,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Pacific Ethanol is pleased with the product and with the team from Mascoma and Lallemand.&rdquo; Koehler says Pacific Ethanol does indeed plan to use the product at all of its facilities, pending trials at each plant to confirm the expected benefits. Operational Considerations Bioengineered yeasts require users to complete a bit more paperwork as compared to natural yeasts and Mascoma needed to garner a favorable review from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration before distillers grains produced at facilities using the yeast product could be used as animal feed, but the actual production process is unchanged. The FDA gave the product a favorable review in February. &ldquo;For use in trials or commercial use, the facility itself doesn&rsquo;t have to do anything differently,&rdquo; Arkowitz says. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t have to invest in any capital equipment or change their processes. We mean it when we say &lsquo;drop-in.&rsquo; They can just use it instead of using a conventional yeast.&rdquo;
Mascoma intends to continue using its CBP technology platform to improve TransFerm as well as roll out additional products. The next step will be to introduce MGT 1.1, which is designed to express glucoamylase enzymes as TransFerm does but with the additional capability of generating additional yield for corn ethanol producers, according to Arkowitz. Mascoma is awaiting regulatory approval for MGT 1.1 and anticipates launching the product in the not too distant future, he says. In the meantime, Pilgrim assures there&rsquo;s no need for producers to wait for the new and improved version to become available. &ldquo;You could wait,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but you&rsquo;d be leaving money on the table.&rdquo; Author: Kris Bevill Ethanol Producer Magazine (701) 746-8385 kbevill@bbiinternational.com

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A new yeast product promises to save producers pennies per gallon when pennies count the most.

Pinching Pennies

Ethanol yield is often judged by what ends up in the tank farm but there&rsquo;s plenty of places in the corn-to-ethanol process where small amounts of ethanol can be lost. In a tight margin environment that&rsquo;s worth going after.
For some time, ICM Inc. has fielded questions about whether the ethanol found in the CO2 scrubber bottom waters is actually recycled and recovered. &ldquo;ICM and part of the industry had the belief the ethanol in the CO2 scrubber recycles. So every plant has this continuous recycled flow that isn&rsquo;t necessarily lost,&rdquo; says Adam Anderson, product manager. The questions persisted, though. &ldquo;About a year and a half ago we took on the task to come up with a way to get a study done to quantify whether ethanol truly is lost.&rdquo;
Indeed, they found some ethanol is lost in the recycling of process waters. The question was also asked: just how much ethanol is being lost in venting process tanks? ICM process engineer Mareus Lopez helped design the tests to answer those questions. &ldquo;We did a mass energy balance before and after the cook water tank,&rdquo; she explains. They measured the ethanol flow going into the cook water tank and the ethanol in the water coming out, and also analyzed other relevant process streams.
Cook water is stored in a tank that receives all sorts of process water being recycled through the plant. Fresh water is added and mixed with ground corn in the slurry tank and enzymes are added for liquefaction and saccharification&mdash;turning corn starch to glucose, the food for yeast. As living cells, yeast consume glucose to make ethanol as well as a lot of CO2. Roughly one-third of the corn becomes ethanol, one-third CO2 and one-third unconverted solids, the coproduct distillers grains. Ideally, all of the ethanol leaves the fermenter as a liquid and is purified in the distillation process, but in reality, ethanol remains in the other process streams, which is what ICM sought to quantify.
Fermentation gases are passed through the CO2 scrubber, a large, columnar vessel where water washes through a filter medium as the gas moves through, scrubbing the ethanol, and a small amount of other compounds, out of the CO2. The scrubber bottom waters are then sent to the cook watertank to be recycled through the process. Other sources of ethanol come from the backset (water removed from the solids in the evaporators) and sidestripper bottoms from distillation. Six ethanol plants, ranging in size from 40 MMgy to 60 MMgy, cooperated with the ICM team to test the actual ethanol in the various process streams.
By far, the largest source of ethanol being recycled through the process comes from the CO2 scrubber bottoms. The average ethanol content in the scrubber bottom waters at the six plants was 2.7 percent by weight/volume. With every ethanol plant running a slightly different flow rate of water through the scrubbers, the accompanying chart shows the calculated ethanol flow in gallons per hour (gph) on the vertical axis in relationship to various CO2 scrubber water flow rates in gallons per minute (gpm) on the horizontal axis. &ldquo;The chart is showing for a plant running 60 gpm water, a good estimate would be they would have about 90 gph of ethanol flow out of their CO2 scrubber,&rdquo; Anderson points out.
&ldquo;This is not ethanol loss,&rdquo; Anderson adds. &ldquo;That water is going to flow to the cook water tank and on to slurry tank.&rdquo; In theory, that ethanol would just move through the process and have another chance of being distilled off. But, the ICM mass energy balance tests of the ethanol going into and out of the cook water tank showed an ethanol loss of as little as 21.3 gph or as high as 82.2 gph, with an average of 49.1 gph loss in the six plants. &ldquo;If not all the ethanol is coming out, where is it going?&rdquo; Lopez asks, adding that it could be through the slurry vent or consumed by bacteria. In the end the conclusion was that the main cause of ethanol loss is due to bacteria.&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Loss in the cook water tank was the easier one to calculate, Anderson adds. Far more complicated was devising a method to measure the ethanol content and possible losses from vents on the slurry and centrate tanks as well as the distillation vent.&nbsp; &ldquo;Those were the much more difficult ones to verify,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; Both the slurry and distillation vents are routed to the top of the centrate tank where all three vapor flows move on to emissions control. It is in the thermal oxidizer or regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) that volatile organic compounds are burned off to eliminate dust and smelly emissions. With a bit of experimentation, the ICM team devised a method to pull vapor samples, and quantify the sample and the flow in the pipe. &ldquo;We used a vacuum to pull a sample from pipes, running the samples through a water bath,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; Most of the ethanol loss from venting came from the distillation vent, with an average of 14.2 gph. The slurry vent was much smaller at 4 gph, putting total average centrate vent loss at 18.2 gph.&nbsp; The range for the six plants was from a 10.8 gph minimum to 26.3 gph maximum of ethanol in the vapor flows moving through the centrate vent.
To do the math, adding the 49.1 gph from the cook water tank loss to the 18.2 gph centrate loss results in about 1,600 gallons lost per day for every 50 MMgy produced at the six plants&mdash;about a 1 percent loss. &ldquo;If you hear 1 percent, it doesn&rsquo;t sound really bad,&rdquo; Lopez says, &ldquo;but if you take into account the revenues you get for a gallon of ethanol and talk about 67 gph, it is significant. If you figure per month or per year, it is alarming,&rdquo; Lopez says.
Once the losses were quantified, the challenge for the ICM team was to see if they could devise a cost-effective solution. A rather simple piping change and rerouting of the CO2 scrubber bottoms water to enter into the cook water tank discharge eliminates the stream&rsquo;s exposure to ethanol-eating bacteria. That still recycles the ethanol, though, so the team decided to see if they could find a way to economically recover it. With a two-year payback in mind, Anderson says they set $150,000 as the price point. &ldquo;The potential loss of the ethanol in the CO2 scrubber bottoms and the slurry vent are areas where plants are limited on operational or simple piping project options,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;We wanted to see what could be done for that amount of money and that eliminated some of the high price tag items such as an additional scrubber or something inappropriately more extravagant.&rdquo; Instead, they route the scrubber bottoms water through a heat exchanger for preheating and introduce it into one of the distillation columns capable of handling the extra flow. The changes bring the cook water tank loss to zero and the slurry vent average from 4 gph to less than 0.5, thus dropping the centrate vent average loss down to around 14.5 gph.
Kansas Ethanol LLC is one of the six plants where the testing was done, and the first to install ICM&rsquo;s recovery solution commercially. Down the road a little over an hour from ICM&rsquo;s Colwich, Kan., headquarters, the 55 MMgy ethanol plant has frequently worked with ICM&rsquo;s team on various projects, says operations manager, Thane Combs. &ldquo;The goal here has always been to be as efficient as possible in every aspect of our plant,&rdquo; he says, adding that the company consulted ICM about this issue, suspecting ethanol losses due to the tank environment.
It was calculated that the scrubber bottom discharge was roughly 2 to 2.5 percent ethanol, Combs says. With 50 gpm of water being sent to the CO2 scrubber, there is about 1 to 1.5 gpm of ethanol being washed out. &ldquo;Most plants are designed where that went to the cook water tank and then into the slurry at 185 degrees,&rdquo; he points out. &ldquo;So you are most likely flashing a pretty good portion of that off. Of course, that goes to the centrate blower and you&rsquo;re just burning that up in the RTO.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s no doubt Kansas Ethanol&rsquo;s RTO runs cooler since the system was installed. Using natural gas to add to the heat generated from the burning emissions, the plant&rsquo;s RTO is supposed to maintain 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. &ldquo;Before we put this system online, there were times that the gas would shut off to the RTO, when it was burning in excess of 1,600 degrees,&rdquo; Combs says.
Anderson adds that when ICM reviewed the cost analysis for possible solutions, one of the factors considered was the energy contributed by ethanol vapor being oxidized in the RTO. &ldquo;But ethanol is worth 10 times more than natural gas,&rdquo; he says.
For Combs, the ethanol recovery project has been worth it. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to measure and say [the loss] is zero,&rdquo; Combs says. &ldquo;We are seeing 700 gallons per day additional ethanol when it&rsquo;s running compared to when it&rsquo;s off. If you run the numbers, there&rsquo;s approximately 1,400 gallons that are in the scrubber bottom waters.&rdquo; He adds that at first they saw more ethanol recovery, &ldquo;but the longer you run it, the system balances out and you&rsquo;ve got less recycled ethanol throughout the plant.&rdquo; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Contributions Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine (701) 738-4922 sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com

Adam Anderson, ICM product manager, prepares a monometer for taking a vapor flow reading. 

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Kansas Ethanol operations Thane Combs says after running the system for some time, the plant is recovering about 700 gallons more per day that was once recycling through the plant, or lost.  

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Not all ethanol leaving the fermenters goes to the tank.

Stop Loss

Leading ethanol producers can wring out 2.8 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. Others settle for reduced revenues due to lagging yield. What are the characteristics of the most efficient ethanol producers, and what can producers on the other end of the spectrum learn from them?
Neal Jakel, general manager of Illinois River Energy LLC in Rochelle, Ill., is a firm believer that to make money, an ethanol producer must be willing to spend money. The company always has its eye on new technologies and has made multiple improvements to the plant since it was built. &ldquo;You have to invest if you want to improve the process,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The base ethanol plant was a great entry level design. It was not well optimized and &hellip; to continue to push these plants you have to invest the capital.&rdquo;
With minimum capital, the company has increased from 102 MMgy to 120 MMgy while also increasing yield from 2.77 gallons denatured ethanol per bushel to 2.82 gallons, Jakel says.&nbsp; That includes additional hammer mill capacities for a better grind profile and beefed-up distributive control systems. &ldquo;We can track every single flow meter and pump and all those details so we know exactly what is going on in the plant,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The key thing here is you&rsquo;ve got to have the data to really make the correlation.&rdquo; The list continues with the addition of a custody transfer scale to accurately measure corn before it is ground up and mass flow meters to measure exactly what concentration of thin stillage is backset. Efforts to maximize energy and heat recovery have paid off too. &ldquo;Even though we had 100 degree weather [in early August] we still were able to run 120 million gallon rate at our plant&mdash;we didn&rsquo;t have to slow down at all,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s another key to yield &hellip; making sure you don&rsquo;t put your yeast to stress because you definitely inhibit the yield performance.&rdquo;
Evaluating new technologies isn&rsquo;t easy, adds Hans Foerster, director of marketing for grain processing for DuPont&rsquo;s biorefineries business. He&rsquo;s noticed that the best producers typically exchange ideas with their peers and ask questions. &ldquo;By having a network of partners with whom you can assess ideas together, plants come to a better set of answers than they do merely relying on the folks that are trying to sell them something,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s one of the things you will see among the folks that have been in the industry the longest.&rdquo; Constant Obsession The quest to find an ethanol plant&rsquo;s yield sweet spot isn&rsquo;t about nailing down a magical number and then staying there. Forester tells EPM the best run ethanol plants have a constant obsession with improving their facilities. &ldquo;Yield improvement&mdash;in a fermentation process, in particular&mdash;it&rsquo;s an ongoing process, frankly that never ends,&rdquo; he says. Ethanol producers can&rsquo;t afford to ignore this vital piece of the puzzle&mdash;especially in a tight margin environment. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the difference between being able to continue to operate and shutting down,&rdquo; he adds.
Another reason the sweet spot is a moving target is that conditions in the financial marketplace are constantly changing. Jakel, educated as a chemical engineer, makes a distinction between running for gallons and running for yield maximization. Contrasting the conditions at the end of 2011, when commodity margins spiked more than $1 per gallon, and the extremely tight margins of this year perfectly illustrates why producers need to have the ability to assess and adapt quickly. &ldquo;We had record, record production fourth quarter&mdash;every plant was running as hard as they could,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Yield did not matter at that point, just pure gallons out the back end, regardless of your variable costs, regardless of your yield losses. The actual physical gallons out the door were the huge financial driver.&rdquo;
When that situation shifted, the industry took about four months too long to adjust the plan of attack and just kept pushing out the gallons, Jakel tells EPM. That led to a major hangover with an oversupply of ethanol in the marketplace and collapsed commodity margins, he said Illinois River Energy, on the other hand, used a financial model it had spent months developing to determine that it was time to cut production by about 7 percent and focus on maximizing the amount of ethanol it could get from a bushel of corn. &ldquo;We knew right away when we started running the numbers that running max gallons in January made no sense from a financial point of view,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been running for yield optimization since the first of the year, and still are today.&rdquo; The Data Difference Illinois River Energy recently ramped up efforts in data collection and analysis. In the past year, the company hired an intern with a background in statistics to analyze the data from every fermentation since the plant began operation&mdash;more than 5,000 in all. The information was entered into a newly purchased data historian program, less about 25 percent, which was thrown out due to incomplete data. The goal, Jakel says, was to determine which of the dependent variables had the greatest correlation to yield. The answer wasn&rsquo;t surprising but it has helped the ethanol plant make better decisions and bring in more money. &ldquo;We now have a graphical equation, a line equation that basically tells us that the No. 1 dependent variable is solids loading,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We know that as our solids loadings increase, our yield efficiencies go down.&rdquo;
In mid-August, for example, the ethanol plant was running at 33 percent solids, with a yield of 2.82 denatured ethanol&mdash;about a 120 MMgy run rate. &ldquo;If we start going too high, yeah, we&rsquo;ll get more gallons out of the plant,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but they are going to be less efficient gallons so it will be more costly and the commodity margin isn&rsquo;t there today.&rdquo; If the plant drops to 32 percent solids, yield jumps slightly and production goes down. Having this information hasn&rsquo;t meant constant changes. In fact, in eight months, the company adjusted solids levels only three times. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t jerk it around, so to speak,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It takes probably two weeks to make a significant change, [so if] we want to change by 1 percent solids it&rsquo;s going to take us two solid weeks to kind of get the water and everything balanced back together.&rdquo; Notably, the variable with the second highest correlation to yield is total fermentation time.
The next step was integrating the yield data with a financial model that takes into account all the variables. That includes factors such as corn pricing, corn basis, natural gas prices and variable costs in chemicals and enzymes, depending on the yield strategy. &ldquo;We wanted to generate a robust financial model based on this operational model that tells us&mdash;given a certain financial situation&mdash;where should we be running the plant,&rdquo; Jakel says. &ldquo;This helped us hone in and really get down to within a half a penny on a commodity margin numbers to help us make better-informed financial decisions.&rdquo;
Since it was developed, management has used the model to run various scenarios and make decisions a couple times a month, Jakel says. For example, the information helps Illinois River Energy decide what to do during any operational challenges, such temporary loss of its distillers grains dryer due to a broken conveyor. In the past, the ethanol plant would have continued production and simply turned out wet cake, despite the fact that the product is discounted compared to dried distillers grains. &ldquo;Right now, given the tight market conditions and the premiums we see on distillers grains, if we have any operational challenges in our plant we will not make wet cake,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;d rather shut down and make less gallons currently.&rdquo;
Novozymes agrees that data gathering has an important role in increasing yield. &ldquo;In addition to our new product development efforts, where we see enzymes still having a lot of potential to further increase yield,&rdquo; says Jack Rogers, Novozymes North America Inc.&rsquo;s bioenergy marketing manager for the Americas, &ldquo;we have put a lot of resources into the analytical side of measuring yield and then adjusting either enzyme usage or plant conditions in order to maximize the conditions you are getting.&rdquo;
In the past year, Novozymes has been working on several new tools and services that have been used to increase yield by 1.5 percent or more. Specifically, Rogers outlined progress with three service-marked offerings&mdash; Insight into Dextriantion, known as InDex, Neural Network Model and Novo Golden Batch.
The first two help increase yield by optimizing enzyme dosing. InDex goes beyond looking at dextrose equivalent to measure liquefaction by quantifying the amount of starch going into the solution to optimize alpha-amylase dosing. The company recently launched this product by performing analysis for its customers and, in the future, hopes to provide producers with software so they can do it on their own, Rogers says.
The Neural Network Model, on the other hand, aims for glucoamylase optimization. This predictive model aids in selecting the best type and amounts of glucoamylase, depending on unique plant parameters. &ldquo;What we have seen is that just by adjusting the dosing scheme, we have been able to&mdash;for some of our customers&mdash;achieve yield increases greater than one percent,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So it&rsquo;s not necessarily adding more or less glucoamylase, it could just be adjusting the timing of it going in.&rdquo;
Finally, there&rsquo;s the Novo Golden Batch, a statistical process control tool that uses a data-driven approach to increase yield. This offering may use the Neural Network Model as well as other statistical and mathematical modeling to identify and increase the number of high-yield fermentation batches. It helps producers by developing control charts to monitor the process to single out events, such as stuck fermentation due to a temperature spike. &ldquo;By using these control charts and knowing where the variation is, you can make changes in the process to eliminate the source of the variation,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The idea is that you are reducing or eliminating the source of poor batches, so you are getting more well performing batches, or golden batches, by this measurement process.&rdquo; Author: Holly Jessen Features Editor of Ethanol Producer Magazine (701) 738-4946 hjessen@bbiinternational.com

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Jack Rogers of Novozymes says the company has been working on several tools for yield optimization and will have more announcements soon.

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â€˜Weâ€™ve been running for yield optimization since the first of the year, and still are today.â€™

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A relentless focus on yield requires vigilance and nimble decision making.

Optimal Yield: A Moving Target

1. ERI Solutions Inc. recently gained certifications in API 510, API 570, and API 653. The certifications allow ERI Solutions to provide the ethanol industry with required testing and inspections services to achieve OSHA and EPA compliance. To accompany these certifications, ERI Solutions has also employed an ASNT NDT Level III technician and a seasoned field service team with vast ethanol experience. 2. Blue Sugars Corp., formerly KL Energy Corp., has successfully completed the first phase of work program established under the joint development agreement (JDA) that it signed with Petrobras America Inc. in August 2010. The project has met all technology milestones and ethanol production targets to date. As a result, the two companies have elected to extend the scope of the agreement. Under the terms of the extended JDA, KLE upgraded its demonstration plant, expanded production process validations and added on-site yeast production capabilities. The facility now represents the design of future commercial plants, at a scale of 10 percent capacity. 3. Pasadena, Calif.-based Protabit LLC was awarded a Small Business Innovative Research Phase I grant from the National Science Foundation. Protabit, a spin-off of the California Institute of Technology, will use the funding to engineer cellulase enzymes for use in the production of biofuels using corn stover feedstock. The company is the developer of Triad, a computational protein design software platform that is used to generate new enzymes for experimental evaluations. Protabit engineers proteins for industrial, agricultural and healthcare applications. Its platform technology is being developed via a strategic partnership with Monsanto Co.
4. The U.S. Grains Council has selected Thomas Sleight to serve as its president and CEO, replacing the retiring Thomas Dorr. Sleight initially joined the council in 1983 and has served in multiple capacities in both Washington, D.C., and abroad. After working for other agricultural organizations, he returned to the USGC in late 2010 as vice president of operations and membership. Sleight&rsquo;s cumulative service with the council spans 18 years. Although Dorr is retiring from day-to-day administrative duties, he will continue to work with the USCG on a part-time basis as a consultant focusing on a number of long-range initiatives begun during his tenure. 5. The USDA made four awards under the Rural Energy for America Program in late June to support the installation of blender pumps and flex fuel pumps. Under the funding round, ATJ Corp. received $15,551 for a blender pump in Florida, Down to Earth Retail #1/Rick Huszagh received $29,927 to install a blender pump in Georgia, Hometown Fuel Inc. received $59,040 to install blender pumps in Missouri, and Martins Inc. was awarded $7,696 to install a flex fuel pump in South Dakota. The REAP program was authorized by the 2008 Farm Bill. Blender pumps became available for REAP grants last year, when a total of 65 projects, consisting of 266 blender pump installations, received funding.
6. Aemetis Inc. has acquired Cilion Inc., along with its 55 MMgy ethanol plant in Keyes, Calif. The company plans to continue operating the corn ethanol plant as it pursues the next stage of its cellulosic ethanol development project. The plant was built by Cilion, and began operations in 2008. The facility operated for four months before being idled. Aemetis, formerly AE Biofuels Inc., leased the plant in 2010 and began upgrading the facility. The plant has run continuously since April 2011. Aemetis plans to transform the plant into a biorefinery capable of producing both biofuels and specialty chemicals, such as isoprene. 7. Cleantech company KmX Corp. is developing a 1-ton pilot plant in Sarnia, Ontario to demonstrate how its membrane aided pathways to cellulosic ethanol, biobutanol and green chemicals can reduce operational costs and complexities for manufacturers of fermented fuel and chemical products. The pilot project will demonstrate how KmX&rsquo;s hydrophobic and hydrophilic membranes can cost effectively capture and dehydrate post-fermented alcohol molecules in the fermentation broth. The pilot will also demonstrate the company&rsquo;s novel acidic hydrolysis process and demonstrate how the hydrolyzed sugar can be taken to a pre-crystalline state using KmX&rsquo;s sugar enrichment process. 8. Global engineering, construction and services company KBR Inc. was awarded a contract for engineering and procurement services for DuPont&rsquo;s first cellulosic ethanol plant in Nevada, Iowa. KBR will provide front-end engineering, detailed engineering and procurement services to DuPont&rsquo;s Industrial Biosciences Group for the first-of-a kind plant. The ethanol facility is designed to produce 27.5 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol from corn stover feedstock. Construction on the new plant is scheduled to begin during the second half of this year. Once groundbreaking begins, the facility is expected to be complete within 12 to 18 months.&nbsp; 9. Adam Sieminski is now serving as the administrator of the U.S. Energy Information Administration. As the EIA&rsquo;s eighth administrator, Sieminski is responsible for directing the nation&rsquo;s primary energy statistical and analytical agency. He formerly served as chief energy economist for Deutsche Bank, where he worked in the bank&rsquo;s global commodities research and trading units. In a prior position at the bank, he served as director and energy strategist for the global oil and gas equity team. He has also worked for the Energy and Natural Resources Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the U.S. Association for Energy Economics, and the National Association of Petroleum Investment Analysts. From March through May, while awaiting confirmation as EIA administrator, Sieminski served as a senior director on the staff of the National Security Council. 10. AdvanceBio Systems LLC is supplying its SuPR2G Bench Scale Pretreatment Reactor to the National Renewable Energy Center of Spain, where it will be used to conduct basic research and development work related to the production of fermentable sugars from lignocellulose-rich biomass feedstock. The reactor is a small-scale, continuous-feed reactor that is designed to overcome the limitations that bench-scale batch reactors present to the research community. The technology employed by the reactor is a scaled-down version of technology deployed on a commercial scale in the pulp and paper industry. In addition to supplying bench-scale reactors for research purposes, AdvanceBio Systems is also capable of supplying commercial-scale reactors that can take in up to 200,000 dry tons of feedstock per day. 11. Novozymes and the China-based Shengquan Group have signed an agreement under which the two entities will work together to produce cellulosic ethanol from waste material produced via Shengquan&rsquo;s operations. Novozymes is supplying enzymes for the project, while Shengquan is investing $100 million in a new facility in China, which is scheduled to begin operations this summer. The Shengquan Group currently produces furfural from corncob xylose. Cellulose from the corncob was previously discarded as waste. Using Novozyme&rsquo;s enzymes, the company will now ferment that waste into cellulosic ethanol that will be marked as an industrial solvent. 12. South American agricultural company Adecoagro S.A. has announced that its sugar, ethanol and energy production cluster in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, has been certified under the Bonsucro Production Standard. The company is the 16th world-wide to achieve the certification. During the certification process, more than 33,000 hectares of sugarcane were audited. The Bonsucro Production Standard is a global multi-stakeholder, nonprofit initiative focused on improving the social, environmental and economic sustainability of sugar, ethanol and energy production from sugarcane. The certification will allow Adecoagro access to new markets and allow the company to expand its commercial opportunities. 13. Alfa Laval Inc. has appointed Jeff Sharbaugh senior vice president of the parts and service division. In his new role, Sharbaugh is responsible for driving consistent profitable growth and developing new sales opportunities for the parts and service business of Alfa Laval in the U.S. His responsibilities include leading parts sales, reconditioning services, field services and technical support activities in all of the company&rsquo;s market segments. Sharbaugh joined Alfa Laval in 1987 as a product engineer. Prior to joining the company, he was employed by Babcock &amp; Wilcox and pressure vessel manufacturing companies. 14. The U.S. DOE awarded a five-year, $12.1 million grant to researchers at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and their collaborators at the Carnegie Institution for Science; the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; the University of Minnesota, and Washington State University to develop a new model plant system, Setaria viridis, to advance bioenergy grasses as a sustainable source of renewable fuels. To engineering bioenergy grasses with the desirable traits needed for large-scale production,&nbsp; it is necessary to develop model plant systems that are closely related to bioenergy feedstock, but which are more amenable to genetic analysis. Setaria viridis, is closely related to corn and Brachypodium, which has a genetic makeup similar to wheat. 15. iDiverse has discovered a yeast gene that, when inserted into yeast and properly modulated, can increase ethanol production yield by up to 34 percent. The gene protects the yeast against some lethal stresses found in the bioproduction process, and allows yeast to produce more ethanol in conditions with high acetic acid concentrations and low pH. The gene could help increase efficiency in both first-generation and cellulosic ethanol operations.
&nbsp;
Share your industry briefs To be included in Business Briefs, send information (including photos and logos if available) to: Business Briefs, Ethanol Producer Magazine, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks ND 58203. You may also fax information to (701) 746-8385, or email it to evoegele@bbiinternational.com. Please include your name and telephone number in all correspondence.

Tom Sleight has 18 years of working for the U.S. Grains Council. He has worked in the field as well as with communications, membership and administrative functions.  

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Regardless of what opponents or skeptics of biomass-derived energy might say about our industry, they certainly cannot argue with our opportunistic nature. I suppose this is the result of building an entire industry within the margins or shadows of &ldquo;conventional&rdquo; power, heat, fuel and chemical markets.
 As biomass professionals we have to be opportunistic. Our feedstocks are typically the coproducts and castoffs of other agricultural or industrial processes, our conversion technologies are often initially optimized for other inputs, and our energy products face massive and deeply entrenched competitors, yet we continue to force the issue while pursuing and winning real market share.&nbsp;
 Every time a biomass input is converted into an energy product, it occurs because someone saw an opportunity for biomass and engineered their way over the hurdles that continued to fall into their path.
 With a focus on cofiring, co-location and repowering, this month&rsquo;s issue of Biomass Magazine is an examination of the kind of opportunism I find so exciting about our industry. In Anna Simet&rsquo;s piece &ldquo;Paper to Power,&rdquo; she examines how a shuttered paper mill in New Hampshire is being recast as a stand-alone biomass power facility, consequently putting local residents back to work and adding value to the area&rsquo;s abundant biomass supply. Luke Geiver examines the opportunity created for a small Minnesota trucking company that paid attention to local industrial sites that began to fold cofiring into their operational strategy. Their knowledge of available biomass and ability to guarantee on-time delivery has their business growing. Finally, in a Q&amp;A with BioProcess Algae Senior Scientist Toby Ahrens, we learn about the opportunity he and his organization see in carbon dioxide exiting the stack of a host facility, and their plan to capture and convert it into a valuable biomass stream.
 An argument could be made that the projects outlined in this month&rsquo;s issue aren&rsquo;t necessary. The paper mill in Berlin, N.H., could remain shuttered, the steel operation in Minnesota could operate exclusively on coal and the Green Plains ethanol facility in Shenandoah, Iowa, could continue venting CO2 into the atmosphere without wondering about the lost opportunity.&nbsp; But, you are reading about them today because our industry is populated by folks listening for even the faintest rap of opportunity at their door.

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Necessity Is Not the Only Mother of Invention

No doubt most Biomass Magazine readers are familiar with&nbsp; the Wall Street Journal biomass story that ran in late July. While the story presented evidence of regulatory noncompliance at a few facilities&mdash;some due to standards that have been nothing less than a moving target&mdash;it revealed scant evidence that when done right, biomass is not a clean, renewable source of energy.
 The story failed to capture examples of the many proud, compliant facilities in our industry. The very same week the WSJ article was published, many exciting biomass developments took place across the country. These projects are not only significant for breaking new ground, they are also noteworthy for the recognition and favorable media coverage they are generating on a local level. It is truly encouraging to see local communities embrace the positive impact of biomass. Here are just a few examples: &bull; New York &ndash; ReEnergy Holdings held Demo Day at its facility based in Lyons Falls, N.Y. Local sawmill loggers were invited to tour the facility and enter into contracts to sell ReEnergy the low-grade woody waste material they would typically leave on the forest floor. According to the Watertown Daily News, the innovative event attracted more than 100 participants, and resulted in at least 13 new suppliers for the facility. The story included a quote by a local supplier on the ReEnergy offer: &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been in this business for 30 years. I&rsquo;ve never had any company offer me the deal ReEnergy has,&rdquo; said Ronald G. King Jr., shortly after deciding to join the program. &bull; Texas &ndash; On July 25, the largest biomass facility in the country officially began producing power on the grid. This 100 MW facility, operated by Southern Power in Nacogdoches, Texas, will power 70,000 homes in Austin and the surrounding areas. Next year, this facility is expected to share the largest-in-country distinction with a facility in Gainesville, Fla. A local newspaper, the Jacksonville Daily Progress, reported that the &ldquo;facility is expected to burn about a million tons of wood fragments, which will be purchased from local landowners and businesses within a 75-mile radius from the plant&hellip; it will burn non-merchantable wood products from saw mills and other wood production waste, forest waste, precommercial thinning of cultivated trees and other noncommercial tree species.&rdquo; The Daily Progress quoted Texas state Rep. Chuck Hopson on the facility&rsquo;s local benefits, who said, &ldquo;They are going to buy all these wood products that we are now scrapping or we are having to burn and they are going to buy these products from 75 miles away. So for the people who are raising timber, it's another way that they can get some more money out of their product. It takes away a lot of biomass that we have left laying on the ground before and it's jobs for east Texas.&rdquo; &bull; Tennessee &ndash; The U.S. DOE recently dedicated a new biomass steam facility at its Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Oak Ridge, Tenn. Local newspaper the Oak Ridger reported in a story about the new plant, &ldquo;The biomass gasification technology and elimination of four fossil-fuel boilers reduces greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of 4,500 automobiles per year and models a sustainable solution to the nation&rsquo;s energy needs.&rdquo; The Oak Ridger included a quote from Johnny Moore, ORNL site office manager who said, &ldquo;This project demonstrates that public institutions and private companies can partner to supply innovative clean-energy technologies on a large scale. The biomass plant will also provide an opportunity for researchers to gather important data from a large-scale biomass process.&rdquo; &bull; Ohio &ndash; A Veterans Affairs medical center in Chillicothe, Ohio, held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its brand new biomass plant, which will provide steam heat and electrical power. According to the Chillicothe Gazette, the facility&mdash;the first operational biomass plant in the VA system&mdash;&ldquo;is expected to create five to 10 jobs in the community, as well as reduce the VA&rsquo;s carbon footprint by about 4,060 pounds per year.&rdquo; The VA received federal stimulus money to assist in the building of the plant, which is expected to save the center more than $100,000 per year.
 Finally, in an effort to aid communities in taking full advantage of all that biomass has to offer, in late July the U.S. Forest Service announced nearly $4 million in grants for 20 wood energy projects across the country.
 We are looking forward to even more positive biomass news in the coming years. Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association <a href="http://www.USABiomass.org">www.USABiomass.org</a> <a href="mailto:bob@biomasspowerassociation.com">bob@biomasspowerassociation.com</a>

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Communities Across the Country Embrace Biomass

On Aug. 2, the advanced biofuels industry had its best day in a long time. Both the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate Finance Committee passed bills containing provisions that move the ball forward for the industry.
 In what has been a difficult battle, the discussion surrounding the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. Department of Defense, the USDA and the U.S. DOE has spurned great controversy between key Republicans, Secretary of the Navy Ray Maybus and his supporters on Capitol Hill. To give credit where it&rsquo;s due, Mabus, Sen. Inouye, D-Hawaii, Sen. Cochran, R-Miss., and Sen. Murray, D-Wash., led the effort to provide the funding to advance the program. In the end, the committee provided the full $170 million in funding, $70 million more than the DOD's own request.
 This essentially ignores an effort by Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Inhofe, R-Okla., to place provisions in the defense authorization bill that would render&nbsp; the program virtually inoperable. When Congress returns, it is expected that the defense authorization bill will be brought to the full Senate floor for consideration. Given the less-than-stellar provisions supporting the authorization in the House version of the bill, it is essential that the Senate provisions are stricken or significantly modified in order to provide a strong base for the program moving forward. The bipartisan Senate Appropriations Committee vote was a good start, however.&nbsp;
 This effort drew many supporters, including a group of more than 50 organizations that came to the defense of these provisions. Virtually all of the organizations that support biofuels, along with the airline industry and a number of defense-related organizations, actively supported the effort to fully fund the MOU. This is a model that will have to be replicated to defend the renewable fuel standard (RFS)moving forward.&nbsp;
 In the finance committee, a bipartisan group vote of 19 to 5 approved a number of key provisions sought by the advanced biofuels industry. The committee extended the cellulosic production tax credit through the end of 2013 and added algae-based fuels to the credit. Additionally, the committee extended the biodiesel, renewable diesel and the alternative fuels tax credits until the end of 2013, and the Section 168 first-year depreciation allowance for cellulosic property was expanded to include algae, and extended until the end of 2013.&nbsp;
 The House has not taken action on any of the above provisions and has no schedule to do so as of this writing. Expect this to be an issue that, if it gets addressed, will take place following the election in a lame duck session. For those of you already producing gallons, with the exception of the alternative fuels mixture credit, all of the other provisions are retroactive back to Jan. 1.&nbsp;
 As I have written before, elections have consequences, and those of you in the biofuels space need to be actively engaged and remind all politicians that advanced biofuels should be part of a portfolio approach to our nation's energy policy. It should not be a partisan issue. Make your voice heard, and in every conversation remind them that the RFS is the bedrock of our nation's renewable fuels policy.
It must and should be supported for our nation moving forward.&nbsp;
 Get ready for an active fall. Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association <a href="http://www.advancedbiofuelsassociation.com">www.advancedbiofuelsassociation.com</a>

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Advanced Biofuels Industry Gaining Momentum

At the recent U.S. DOE-sponsored Biomass Conference 2012: Confronting Challenges, Creating Opportunities, much of the focus was on liquid fuels from biomass. Several presenters, including U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, mentioned butanol as a highly-regarded advanced biofuel. As part of the ongoing research at the Energy &amp; Environmental Research Center, we have been developing a catalytic pathway to convert ethanol or mixtures of methanol and ethanol to higher alcohols, including butanol, through Guerbet condensation reactions. Simply stated, cellulosic biomass such as wood chips can be converted into a mixture of gases in a gasifier, and the resulting syngas can be passed over a catalyst and converted to alcohols like ethanol. The goal of EERC&rsquo;s research is to alleviate one of the major challenges and costs involved with cellulosic ethanol production, which is the coproduction of undesired quantities of methanol with the ethanol product. Current biorefinery processing technology and associated commercial catalysts render the production of unwanted concentrations of methanol unavoidable. Methanol production is undesirable, as it is not an ideal gasoline additive because of its water affinity, corrosive nature, volatility-raising impact when blended with gasoline, and low volumetric energy content versus gasoline. Two potential solutions to the methanol problem are to limit its production, and/or separate it from ethanol. Both of these potential solutions present economic challenges.
 Rather than fight methanol production during the syngas conversion process, the EERC is developing technology to capitalize on it. Utilizing an easily-produced, mixed-alcohol product from a biomass-derived syngas&mdash;about 60 percent methanol, 30 percent ethanol, 10 percent higher alcohols&mdash;as feedstock to a condensation reaction yields a mixture of branched alcohols, or isoalcohols, comprising at least 65 percent&nbsp; isobutanol and significant quantities of higher isoalcohols including isohexanols and isooctanols.
 According to the Argonne National Laboratory, use of cellulosic ethanol to displace gasoline reduces greenhouse gases (GHGs) by 85 percent. By extension, the use of cellulosic isobutanol and higher isoalcohols to replace gasoline should reduce GHGs by a similar amount. Because isobutanol offers gasoline compatibility advantages versus ethanol, gasoline&ndash;isobutanol blends may be transportable via pipeline, which would further reduce GHG emissions.
 The EERC technology will maximize the yield of mixed alcohols and subsequent isobutanol from biomass while also generating replacements for high-value, normal alcohol- and isoalcohol-based chemical intermediates and solvents currently derived from fossil fuels.
 The flexibility to produce fuel and higher-value normal alcohol and/or isoalcohol chemical intermediates represents a commercial advantage that should serve as an offset to the financial risk of building a cellulosic fuel plant. Propanol, butanol, isobutanol and isohexanol have broad markets, carry a higher price, and are renewable in derivation, making them eligible for various credits and incentives worldwide. Of course there is the added branding of lower-carbon-footprint fuel and chemicals that can displace appreciable volumes of their petroleum-derived counterparts.
 Additionally, this technology could take ethanol produced in current grain-based plants and react it with higher alcohols, commanding a greater return when compared to fuel-grade ethanol, enhancing profitability at these plants.
 David Danielson, U.S. DOE assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, believes that building a substantial and clean renewable energy industry in the U.S. will be transformative, and once again prove that the country is capable of anything. The EERC plans to be part of that transformative industry. Author: Bruce C. Folkedahl Senior Research Manager (701) 777-5243 <a href="mailto:bfolkedahl@undeerc.org">bfolkedahl@undeerc.org</a>

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Advanced Biofuels, a Transformative Industry

Since the 20th century, scientists have worked to cure cancer. They have yet to succeed.&nbsp; Many researchers develop hypotheses that end in disappointment, with the death rate from cancer remaining a challenge. Yet the public sector continues to invest billions of dollars toward a cure. That&rsquo;s because Americans don&rsquo;t give up. Despite the costs, the stakes are too high. But most important, from each setback along the journey blooms multiple avenues of discovery, generating possibilities that we ask doctors to implement at once, especially when the prognosis is dire and time is running out. My point is when Americans try, Americans achieve, moving the needle forward, and bringing the final destination within reach.&nbsp;&nbsp;
 That confidence in American ingenuity is absent in recent efforts to block the U.S. Navy from acquiring biofuels for our military fleet with the notion that biofuels are too expensive, and thus questionable to pursue.&nbsp;
 Unsurprisingly, researchers often argue that more study is needed. But sometimes there is a time to think, and a time to act. Yes, federal investments in energy technologies entail risk, and that&rsquo;s the point. It must strike that sweet spot between what the public will tolerate and what banks cannot, sometimes getting it wrong. Even one isolated misstep can unleash a swarm of criticism that can sting decision makers into stasis.
 But the time has expired for blocking American innovation that will pull our country into the future. Microwaves, cellphones, GPS devices and digital photography, all once unaffordable national security technologies originating with the military, today are affordably commonplace among civilians. Are domestic biofuels less important to national security, or somehow impervious to cost reductions? Five years ago, the leadership of the 110th Congress created the updated renewable fuels standard to add 20 billion more gallons of biofuels by 2022 than is in the marketplace today, plus the Biomass Crop Assistance Program to begin growing the non-food crops for these fuels. Now these groundbreaking policies, too, face opposition, while special breaks for century-old, mature fuel industries continue.
 Biofuels are too expensive? Pew Charitable Trusts reports the Pentagon spent $8 billion on 130 million barrels of oil in 2005, a cost that doubled in three years for the same volume. Discontinue federal efforts on biofuels, and we&rsquo;ll learn more about real fuel costs.
 The American people have little appetite for inaction. That&rsquo;s why USDA keeps moving forward on domestic bioenergy investments because success is achieved only when the &ldquo;impossible&rdquo; is pressed into service. We&rsquo;ll never catch lightening in a bottle if we refuse to stand in the rain.&nbsp; Author: Todd Atkinson Senior Energy Advisor, USDA Undersecretary of Farm and Foreign Agricultural Service 202-720-2797 <a href="mailto:Todd.atkinson@osec.usda.gov">Todd.atkinson@osec.usda.gov</a>

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The Fearless Emergency of Now

California-based OriginOil Inc. has shipped its first production model of the Algae Appliance harvester to Ennesys, its urban algae joint venture in Paris. Ennesys is utilizing OriginOil&rsquo;s entry-level Algae Appliance unit, the Model 4. The system can process up to 4 liters (1 gallon) of dilute algae water per minute into an algae concentrate, without the use of chemicals.
 The company also received an order for two of its test-scale units from the U.S. DOE&rsquo;s Idaho National Laboratory. One of the units, an Algae Appliance Model 4, is designed to dewater algae on a continuous basis using very low amounts of energy. The other, a Solids Out of Solution Model 2K, is capable of removing contaminants from frack water. The order will be completed via an in-kind transaction under the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement between OriginOil and INL.

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OriginOil supplies systems to Ennesys, Idaho National Laboratory 

Advanced biofuels were an integral component of the U.S. Navy&rsquo;s Rim of the Pacific training exercises in July. As part of a two-day demonstration, the Great Green Fleet successfully demonstrated the use of 50/50 blends of advanced biofuels via both air and sea platforms.
 Louisiana-based Dynamic Fuels LLC and California-based Solazyme Inc. provided algae-based fuel for the demonstration. &ldquo;One point I want to make is that absolutely no modifications were required or made of any of the engines that were burning biofuels,&rdquo; said Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus.
 The Navy has been criticized over the high cost of the biofuel used in the demonstration, which cost approximately $26 per gallon. &ldquo;If we only looked at cost, we still wouldn&rsquo;t be buying nuclear subs,&rdquo; Mabus said. He has also stressed that the cost of advanced biofuels will come down in the future.

Navy's Great Green Fleet exhibits advanced biofuels

The nation&rsquo;s largest biomass power plant began operations this summer. Southern Co. announced that its 100 MW Nacogdoches Generation Facility began putting electricity into the Texas grid in July. Austin Energy is receiving energy from the plant through a power purchase agreement.
 The plant occupies a 165-acre tract in northeast Texas near Sacul and represents a capital investment of approximately $500 million. The facility will take in non-merchantable wood waste as feedstock, primarily saw mill and wood mill production waste, forest waste, pre-commercial thinning of cultivated trees, and diseased and other non-commercial tree species. Southern Co. also notes there is potential to utilize urban wood waste, tree limbs and branches produced by storms, and other non-commercial logging-derived biomass in the future.
 The Nacogdoches Generating Facility is owned and operated by Southern Co. subsidiary Southern Power, which acquired the project from American Renewables LLC in 2009.

Southern Co. brings 100 MW biomass power plant online

A new benchmark for the cellulosic biofuel sector has been reached by Kior Inc. The U.S. EPA granted the company the necessary permit to sell cellulosic gasoline in the U.S. market.
 &ldquo;KiOR&rsquo;s gasoline is the first renewable cellulosic gasoline that the EPA has registered for sale in the United States,&rdquo; says Fred Cannon, the company&rsquo;s president and CEO. KiOR&rsquo;s biofuel will be fueling American cars this year.
 The Clean Air Act requires importers and refiners of gasoline and diesel to register fuel set for sale with EPA before it can be sold. Fuel manufactures are required to analyze combustion and evaporative emissions, survey existing scientific information and, in some cases, conduct tests to screen for potential adverse health effects. With the permit now in place, KiOR can sell fuel produced this year at its plant in Columbus, Miss.

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KiOR permitted to sell cellulosic gasoline

Illinois-based Coskata has shelved plans to pursue cellulosic biofuel production. Instead, the company will focus on the production of synfuels using natural gas feedstock. In addition, Coskata has elected not to complete an initial public offering (IPO) at this time.
 Regarding the move to natural gas-based synfuels, Coskata CEO Bill Roe says his company made the decision due, in part, to lower risks and lower production and capital costs. &ldquo;We made this decision because we see an enormous opportunity to upgrade natural gas into higher value transportation fuel,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Natural gas is a huge opportunity owing to its abundant supply and historically low price, and we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of it with our syngas fermentation technology.&rdquo;
 Roe also notes that Coskata isn&rsquo;t entirely abandoning the potential to use biomass feedstock in the future. &ldquo;We still intend to build a biomass facility in the future if the economic and regulatory conditions are right,&rdquo; he says. The company is also leaving open the opportunity to complete an IPO in the future.

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Coskata shifts focus to synfuels

The U.S. Coast Guard and USDA&rsquo;s Forest Service are collaborating on efforts to reduce heating costs at the Coast Guard&rsquo;s larger Alaskan facilities by converting from heating oil to wood pellets.
 Under the agreement, Coast Guard engineer and agency biomass expert Robert Deering, along with Dan Parrent, USFS Wood Biomass and Stewardship program manager, will work closely with the USDA&rsquo;s Southeast Alaska forest products and renewable energy workgroups, the Alaska Division of Forestry, Alaska Southeast Conference and the Alaska Energy Authority.
 Deering is tasked with developing a strategy and action plan to facilitate conversion of oil heat to biomass. He will also initiate implementation of priority projects identified in the plan.

Coast Guard looks to replace heating oil with pellets in Alaska

The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change has published level of financial support that will be available for large-scale renewable power generators from 2013-&rsquo;17 under its Renewables Obligation subsidies program. An altered definition of biomass conversion and cofiring will increase incentives for existing plants to use more biomass.
 Under the new subsidy levels, support for the conversion of coal-fired plants to biomass-fired plants has been maintained at one Renewables Obligation Credit per MWh. The subsidy for cofiring has been modified to stepped levels that more accurately reflect the cost elements of different cofiring levels, and what is affordable for both enhanced and standard cofiring.
 Existing plants are able to gain credit for cofiring and conversion on a generating-unit basis, which allows more flexibility for generators to move to full conversion over time.
 It is estimated that the revised banding levels could spur between &pound;20 billion ($31 billion)and &pound;25 billion of new investment between 2013 and 2017.

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UK announces Renewable Obligation subsidy levels

Germany-based Weltec Biopower GmbH is building a 370 kW biogas plant in Bure, Switzerland, for Bio.Etique.Energy SA. The facility is expected to begin operations in November. Once the plant is running at capacity, it will feed approximately 3 GWh of electricity into the grid per year and supply 2.6 GWh of excess heat to military barracks.
 The facility will take in agricultural waste as feedstock, including liquid manure, dung, green waste and grain waste. Weltec said that the plant will utilize a wet fermentation process, which is suitable for processing heterogeneous wastes. The biogas facility will feature a 3,994-cubic-meter fermenter, a 45-cubic-meter solid matter dosing feeder, and a gas-tight storage unit with a capacity of 4,078 cubic meters.
 Weltec also recently announced that its client Fernbrook Bio won the 2012 UK AD &amp; Biogas Association&rsquo;s Best Biogas Project award for its 1.5 MW biogas plant in the U.K.

Weltec develops biogas plant in Switzerland 

BioProcess Algae Senior Scientist Toby Ahrens notes that while carbon dioxide may not yet be an official liability, any CO2 exiting up the stack of an industrial facility is, at the very least, a missed opportunity. Pointing also to the high cost and difficulty of sequestering carbon, Ahrens and BioProcess Algae seek not to sequester carbon dioxide&nbsp; but to utilize it to create a biomass stream that can be converted into high-value feed, fuel and specialty coproducts. This month, we catch up with Ahrens and inquire about his history with algae, the advantages of algal cultivation and BioProcess Algae&rsquo;s progress at its pilot facility in Shenandoah, Iowa. You grew up on an island in Maine. How did this experience shape your interest in marine science? I certainly spent a lot of time on the water.&nbsp; I loved growing up on the coast.&nbsp; But before we get too romantic about my island life, a bridge connected us to the mainland because Maine&rsquo;s largest fossil-energy power generation facility is on the island as well.&nbsp; I also believe it was the last oil-fired generating facility commissioned in the US.&nbsp; Maybe the CO2-to-algae seeds were planted in my brain earlier than I thought. Can you recollect the first time you thought about, or studied algae? Well, macroalgae was hard to miss growing up, especially when my mother made us haul it from the beach up to her garden.&nbsp; My first introduction to microalgae must have been when my Uncle Bert gave us a microscopeâ€•I must have been five or six at the time. That was really cool, but rotifers (essentially miniature buzzsaws with big appetites) were far more popular with me then than they are now! I also spent a few days at the Maine&rsquo;s Department of Marine Resources in high school learning about monitoring for harmful algal blooms, and that was probably the first time that I really got hooked from a scientific perspective.&nbsp; I worked in Dr. Peter Siver&rsquo;s phycology laboratory at Connecticut College and he was my first true mentor in research science.&nbsp; During a portion of your education, you studied conventional production agriculture, nutrient usage by wheat, I believe.&nbsp; In that context, why are algae such a good fit for production agriculture? Nutrients are an expensive input to any agricultural system, and I always liked the 4R&rsquo;s concept: the right source, at the right place, at the right time, in the right amount.&nbsp; In conventional agriculture, logistics (and economics) prevent you from applying every day in small doses as the plants need them.&nbsp; As a consequence, applications are grouped throughout the season and some nutrients are lost to the atmosphere, in surface runoff or leached through the rooting zone.&nbsp; Algae is unique in that nutrient delivery can be monitored and maintained in real time as the crop needs it.&nbsp; Nutrient-use efficiency can be extremely high.&nbsp; What does a typical day at work look like for you? Typical? Not sure I know what that meansâ€•I haven&rsquo;t had one of those in a long time!&nbsp; Fair enough. Let me rephrase. What responsibilities at BioProcess Algae take up the lion&rsquo;s share of your time? Making sure R&amp;D priorities are aligned with commercialization efforts, but that is a broad umbrella.&nbsp; I work closely with the biology group to make sure strain selection and bench experiments match product demand.&nbsp; I also work a lot with downstream partners.&nbsp; Various animal feeds have taken up the bulk of my time in recent weeks. BioProcess Algae has been paired with Green Plains Renewable Energy in Shenandoah since its beginning. What makes that corn ethanol facility such a great venue for continued R&amp;D and the company&rsquo;s continued commercialization efforts? The ethanol industry understands how to scale biological cultures as well as the importance of coproducts in making biofuels economically viable.&nbsp; We certainly share that sentiment.&nbsp; From a commercialization standpoint, it also means that we have access to very high-quality CO2, waste heat in the winter.&nbsp; Commercializing in the Midwest has also given us access to some of the premier research groups in the country for traditional food crops and oilseeds processing. At the heart of the BioProcess Algae cultivation technology is a biofilm where the algae grow. What advantages does this approach offer? The three biggest advantages are light penetration, high-density harvests and efficient gas transfer.&nbsp; Our substrate has an enormously high surface area on which the algae attach, which lets us maintain much more biomass per unit area in thin biofilms that minimizes shading and translates into higher productivity.&nbsp; We can then harvest more biomass into less water, so the culture coming out of the reactor are several times more dense than is typical.&nbsp; This means lower-cost dewateringâ€•smaller systems and lower operating expenses.&nbsp; The gas transfer is an interesting one.&nbsp; CO2 can be one of the most expensive nutrients in liquid cultures, but in our system, the CO2 can be added directly to the headspace as a gas. This is a big cost savings by not having to get it into solution.&nbsp; Whenever commercialization challenges in the algae industry are discussed, harvest and dewatering seem to come up pretty quickly. What makes those two so difficult and how is BioProcess Algae tackling them? A typical harvest is more than 99 percent water.&nbsp; We are harvesting at concentrations two to eight times more dense than typical systems, which means we have to handle two to eight times less water during dewatering.&nbsp; This translates to lower capital costs for smaller dewatering systems and less energy to run them.&nbsp; BioProcess Algae grew out of a wastewater treatment company, so we have great in-house experience removing suspended solids from water.&nbsp; What has to happen for algal protein to become regularly included in livestock rations? We have had great early results from poultry trials suggesting that the algae we tested was highly digestible, rich in protein and high in the appropriate amino acids.&nbsp; Studies on palatability, inclusion rates and any regulatory concerns need to be addressed before the product can be commercialized.&nbsp; We are working with groups on all of these fronts, as we speak. You have two offtake products, as I understand it: oil and dried powders. Is it possible to optimize your system and strain selection in order to pursue one more diligently over the other? One of the nice things about our production system is that it is highly flexible and we can dedicate different reactors to grow up material for different markets at the same time.&nbsp; The strains themselves can always be improved, and our biology group works closely with downstream partners to make sure we are selecting strains and optimizing for product quality as well as robust culture characteristics for mass production.&nbsp; It's been an incredibly hot summer. Climate scientists are reminding the general public that carbon emissions are altering the planet&rsquo;s climate and the carbon capture and sequestration has never been greater. Is algal cultivation amongst our best chances to begin to tackle carbon emissions and turn the ship around? From an environmental standpoint, CO2 mitigation is certainly a huge service provided by algae farms, but the farms also score well in terms of resource-use efficiency, including nutrients, energy and, last but not least this year, water.&nbsp; But even in a resource-constrained future, these benefits are meaningless unless the technology is profitable, socially acceptable and equitable.

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BioProcess Algae's Toby Ahrens reflects on the algae of his youth and the role algae may play in everyone's energy future.

Algae Blooms on Iowa's West Coast

Tucked into northern New Hampshire&rsquo;s lush forests along the Androscoggin River lies the city of Berlin, a picturesque town that was once thriving as a result of the early twentieth century pulp and paper industry peak. Nestled in a heavily-wooded area near a plentiful water source, the town was an ideal location for mills, and became home to several during the mid- to late 1800s.
 Though the paper industry boom has long since dwindled, the town of roughly 10,000 still proudly embraces its tagline &ldquo;the city that trees built.&rdquo; At times that may have been more true than some residents would prefer, particularly those who became jobless when the last paper mill&mdash;the largest source of employment in Berlin&mdash; was shut down several years ago.
 But things have turned around since then, and a tree-based business will soon serve as an employment and economic boon to the town. Berlin&rsquo;s paper mill is alive again, undergoing a major transformation into a wood-fired biomass power plant.
 Something Old to Something New 
 Originally part of Berlin Mills Company, the mill was renamed Brown Company during World War II because of anti-German sentiment. It changed ownership multiple times over the years, last operating under ownership of Fraser Paper, according to Alexandra Ritchie of Cate Street Capital. For many years, it was the biggest job and revenue source in the area.
 Cate Street Capital, an investment firm focused on financing green projects, acquired the mill in 2008, acting on the opportunity to convert the existing infrastructure into something else&mdash;something the city and region could both benefit from. &ldquo;It [the 2006 mill closure] was a devastating blow to the area, because there were so many people employed there,&rdquo; explains Ritchie. &ldquo;During the [early] development process, we were able to see firsthand what happens when a mill closes, as another area mill temporarily closed.&rdquo;
 Fortunately that mill has since reopened, but Ritchie points out the trickle effect these kinds of closures have on the area economy. &ldquo;In these towns, the restaurants feel it, the grocery stores feel it, everyone is affected.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;Because Cate Street Capital expressed interest in purchasing the property, the existing infrastructure narrowly escaped deconstruction as it was temporarily owned by a dismantling company. What remained at the heart of the facility was particularly appealing to Cate Street: a Babcock &amp; Wilcox black liquor recovery boiler that had strong retrofit potential. &ldquo;We realized that would improve the economics and timeline associated with the project,&rdquo; Ritchie says.
 Babcock &amp; Wilcox, which was awarded the engineering, procurement and construction contract, installed the boiler in 1993, replacing two black liquor recovery boilers that needed retirement after a few decades of operation. &ldquo;So it [the boiler] wasn&rsquo;t that old,&rdquo; Ritchie says, adding that it is currently being converted into a bubbling fluidized bed boiler. &ldquo;It is saving us dollars and time, and it&rsquo;s an added bonus that Babcock was familiar with the existing infrastructure,&rdquo; she says. Existing boiler conditions will be upgraded to 575,000 pounds of steam per hour, a near 40 percent increase in steam flow when compared to the original boiler capacity, and the superheater will be completely replaced and upgraded from the original 825 degrees Fahrenheit to 925. Boiler outlet steam pressure will increase from 850 pounds per square inch to 900 psig.
 Other systems needed to transform Burgess BioPower into a fully functioning biomass power facility included a new turbine/generator, cooling towers, electrical switchgear with associated supporting auxiliaries, state-of-the-art air quality control systems, and a new wood yard.
 About 100 truckloads of fuel will be delivered to the wood yard each day as woodchips, dumped into a fuel storage system that sends fuel directly to a boiler via underground reclaimers. &ldquo;We might explore the option of chipping on site down the road, but the contract we have in place delivers fuel to the site via truck as chips,&rdquo; Ritchie says.&nbsp;
 Aside from attractive existing infrastructure, replacing jobs that were eliminated with the demise of the area&rsquo;s pulp and paper industry was another appealing aspect of the project.
 Jobs And Public Perception
 The 75 MW plant will be one of the largest biomass power facilities in the country when complete, and one of the most important components required to stay on time during the construction of a project of that caliber is manpower. &ldquo;Yesterday [Aug. 10] there were 275 workers on site, many of them local hires,&rdquo; Ritchie says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not at peak numbers yet&mdash;that&rsquo;ll be closer to the 400 mark&mdash;but we&rsquo;re inching up there every week. It&rsquo;s a very active construction site.&rdquo;
 Not only are hundreds of area construction jobs being generated, but the 750,000 tons of biomass fuel that the plant will require annually represents an incredible amount of jobs in the woods for loggers, foresters and truckers who have seen work opportunities dwindle over the years, Ritchie says. Berlin is situated in the middle of a 6 million-acre wood basket within a three-hour radius of the site, she points out, and it has an established, motivated and highly-skilled workforce that has been involved in paper production for years.
 A subsidiary of Delta Power Services LLC, a Babcock &amp; Wilcox company, has been awarded a six-year contract worth more than $19 million to provide operations and maintenance services to the plant, and they will take charge of hiring and training required workers. &ldquo;There will be a lot of synergies with jobs,&rdquo; Ritchie says, &ldquo;but Delta will be taking applications in early 2013 to assemble an operating team for when it goes online later in the year.&rdquo; That team will consist of about 40 full-time, benefitted workers. Cate Street put forth all efforts to communicate its plans to the public during the development process, an essential, but often tumultuous and time-consuming piece of a successful project. Ritchie says how residents have reacted has been very fortunate. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s three-plus years in the works, and we have been really lucky to have a great core support system, people who understood the vision.&rdquo;
 &nbsp;They [area residents] have been dependent on paper production for many years and have seen it start and stop so many times. They could see that this was a new and viable industry that would operate on long-term offtake agreements to provide some stability in terms of employment and revenue generated.&rdquo;
 The education process not only included listening to citizens and understanding their concerns, but getting to know local officials, including the town mayor.
 PPA&rsquo;s, Financing and the Future
 &nbsp;Berlin Mayor Paul Grenier, a champion of the project who was recently elected for a second term, has voiced his strong support throughout development of the project, describing the city of Berlin as a regular, blue-collar-folk community that would prosper from the plant&rsquo;s development.&nbsp; &ldquo;The fortunes of this property will dictate the strength of the city,&rdquo; he said during a tour of the plant site. &ldquo;This property will never be a beautiful housing project; this property will always be a means of putting people back to work, so we can prosper as a blue-collar community again.&rdquo;
 Grenier was a driving force for the project and saw what it meant to the area, according to Ritchie. He played a role in helping Burgess BioPower secure a 20-year power purchase agreement with Public Service New Hampshire, which was a temporary hiccup in development. A handful of independent biomass power producers in the area were afraid the new plant would prevent the PSNH from purchasing their power due to the way the state&rsquo;s renewable portfolio standard is set up, but the issue was collectively resolved through an agreement between the power producers, PSNH and Cate Street. The facility itself will use about 10 MW for operations; the remainder will be sold to the PSNH.
 Further demonstrating the solid economics of the project, Cate Street was able to secure what is known as an investment grade rating (BBB-), which is challenging to obtain in today&rsquo;s market. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a very complex, $275 million financing package and it incorporates the use of senior debt, New Market Tax Credits and also the Section 1603 [cash grant exchange] program,&rdquo; Ritchie says. &ldquo;We capitalized on the different tools available to us to assemble a really unique package that would get us funded and across the finish line.&rdquo;
 While the plant still has roughly one year of construction left before its operating, great progress has been made, and it&rsquo;s continuing every day. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re finishing up foundation work, and steel and boiler work is being done right now,&rdquo; Ritchie adds. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a busy, bustling site.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Contributions Editor, Biomass Magazine (701) 751-2753 <a href="mailto:asimet@bbiinternational.com">asimet@bbiinternational.com</a>

INNOVATION THROUGH RENOVATION: Burgess BioPower is being constructed at the former site of a Berlin, N.H., landmark.

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MORE AND MORE MANPOWER: At peak construction, there will be over 400 workers on the site of Burgess BioPower.

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COMING SOON: Burgess Biopower has been under construction for over one year, and is due for commissioning during fall of 2013. 


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HEADS UP: Burgess BioPower is requiring a substantial amount of new construction, but Cate Street Capital is utilizing much of the former paper mill's existing infrastructure.

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WALL IN BERLIN: Construction workers at the Burgess BioPower site have begun erecting steel walls. 

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BACK IN THE GAME: Locals who may have lost their jobs when Berlin's paper mill closed its doors in 2006 are finding work again at Burgess BioPower.


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The closure of the last paper mill in Berlin, N.H., was devastating, but its ongoing transformation into a biomass power plant is revitalizing the region. 

From Paper To Power 

Somewhere in Northern Minnesota, timber residue slash piles litter the grounds at a logging operation. Russ Anderson, president of Advanced Biomass Solutions knows about it. Across the border, hundreds of miles away on the Canadian prairie, a mound of oat hulls is accumulating at a crushing mill. Anderson knows about that, too. As part of the Advanced Biomass Solutions team based in Greenbush, Minn., his job is all about finding biomass (woody, crop residue, even ground-up railroad ties) and finding the end-user who wants to buy it.
 A self-proclaimed farm boy who &ldquo;knows how to get stuff done,&rdquo; Anderson&rsquo;s official title in the world of biomass would be more along the lines of biomass procurement and supply officer mixed in with logistics manager and contract negotiations specialist. With the help of his brother Reed and a few others, Anderson has made the small northwestern Minnesota town a profit center off of one-time and short-term biomass supply contracts combined with some impressive long-term deals, serving both the animal ingredient markets and the competitive, growing biomass-infused power generation markets.
 After a few years in the biomass supply game, the team has unique perspectives on the 50-mile radius rule, the key to forming new supply agreements, and, whether the practice of biomass cofiring for power production will create a positive financial atmosphere for the industry and for Advanced Biomass Solutions at a time when natural gas prices are tough to beat. (Here&rsquo;s a hint: the small company is already hiring).&nbsp;
 Mode of Operation
 Russ may be a farm boy at heart, but he works a desk job. Each day he calls elevators, mills, logging operations and other facilities, looking for movable biomass. After dabbling in the cattle business, the small-time manufacturing business and even the wheat screening business, he&rsquo;s found what it takes to survive with biomass. Reed, Mark Melby, Rod Thompson and Russ have created a supply network consisting of nine trucks, 15 trailers, seven staff drivers and an always expanding rolodex of industry contacts. &ldquo;My day consists of sitting on the phone and finding loads,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Some are long-term, others are day-to-day loads.&rdquo;
 Ask anyone on the team about their immediate success with biomass and they will point out their ability to enter into short-term, sometimes one-load contracts. Because the team has operated nearly debt-free and lean from day one, has purchased used trucks and even started hauling with rented trailers, Russ explains that the team can afford to enter into short-term deals because the obligation to pay down truck debt (they don&rsquo;t drive brand-new Kenworths according to Russ) or other lingering operating expenses just doesn&rsquo;t exist. &ldquo;We have a processing plant out in Western North Dakota,&rdquo; he cites as an example of their sporadic load schedules. &ldquo;It can be up to 8 loads per day. They give us about a day&rsquo;s notice and we just have to be there. Does every load make us money? No it doesn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;it is more about the service and the long haul.&rdquo;
 It&rsquo;s the long-haul vision for the team that has made providing biomass to power production facilities a goal and in some cases a reality for the company. &ldquo;We are delivering to power plants now on a consistent basis,&rdquo; says Reed Anderson, CEO. The team&rsquo;s ability to do so offers a glimpse into how others like the Andersons, people trying to build a business in the supply market, can do the same, and why there might also be the financial opportunity to do so in the future.
 The first thing to know about supplying biomass to a cofiring facility is that the industry is competitive and secretive. &ldquo;It is such a secretive business,&rdquo; Russ says, regarding the source of a biomass load and where that load eventually ends up.
 &ldquo;It is competitive enough that if I tell you that we are bringing biomass into location A, people will know where we are getting it,&rdquo; Reed says. Other companies in the biomass cofiring market throughout the same region also share the sentiment of the Andersons.
 Courtney Boone, public affairs specialist for U.S. Steel, a steel production company that is cofiring biomass at two different taconite mine and steel production facilities in Minnesota, can attest. The use of woody biomass fuel to power either facility can make or break the company&rsquo;s bottom line, Boone says, so the subject of biomass, although important, is tough, due to the company&rsquo;s stake in the use of the renewable fuel.
 The team from Greenbush has been in contract negotiations for a long-term supply agreement with a regional power production facility for over a year, Reed says (and of course, he won&rsquo;t tell you which facility). Those negotiations prove out, the Andersons believe, the difficulty of profiting from those who cofire. But, Reed and Russ also believe they&rsquo;ve found a successful path to meet the supply requirements of cofiring, regardless of their current negotiations.
 Insider Perspective
 The simple answer from Russ on how to establish a financial relationship with a cofiring facility is to talk the talk, then walk the walk. That means when he tells an oat hull supplier in Canada he can have a truck there in the morning, the truck will be there, for example. For forming long-term contracts, Russ says, it&rsquo;s a proving game. By proving out the ability of the company to perform well in other operational settings outside of a cofiring operation looking for biomass, Russ believes Advanced Biomass Solutions has been able to grab the attention of cofiring facilities. And, by diversifying its supply agreements with various biomass feedstock acquisitions and numerous contract lengths ranging from day loads to daily loads, Russ says a biomass supplier trying to break into the cofiring world can survive the tough times and the waiting game with smaller revenue streams coming in more frequently.
 According to Reed, the power production facilities the team has worked with have been good once the contracts are formed. Making phone calls and plant visits in addition to formal applications for advertised biomass contracts has worked for the company in securing its supply agreements. But to stay profitable during the waiting period typically linked to a cofiring facility, diversity is the key. That means hauling nearly every possible form of biomass and disregarding the notion that a load is ever out of range. &ldquo;I find it kind of funny about this 50 or 75 mile radius,&rdquo; Reed says in reference to the distance a power facility should acquire cofiring feedstock. Reed lives in Florida, a huge biomass producing state he notes, and he is currently working to secure a long-term supply contract. In his experience, a procuring agent at a cofiring facility will look past that the distance factor if the supplier is dependable, the feedstock is at the right price, the moisture content is within their specifications (typically below 15 percent moisture) and the supplier can, as Russ says, &ldquo;walk the walk.&rdquo;
 As for the Biomass Crop Assistance Program or any other federal- or state-based aid, Reed says his team stays away from it all. &ldquo;It is more hassle than it is worth to us.&rdquo; The do-it-yourself attitude also extends to their maintenance and logistics. Mark Melby, chief operation officer for the company, lines up the routes for drivers, arranges pick-up and drop-off times, and when the trucks return he performs maintenance to keep the fleet healthy. Rod Thompson, CFO, analyzes the numbers of each load Russ finds, but he does it a bit different than most. First, Thompson and the team discuss the potential that a single load might have for the future. If a load doesn't create a profit the first time, or appears to be too far away, the team may still form a contract with the hope of a long-term relationship.
 All operations might not have a Mark Melby, but Russ says along with having a strong resume of biomass supply, those looking to bust into the cofiring industry need to understand the basics of the power production facilities. &ldquo;There are companies like ours because they don&rsquo;t do it (procure biomass).
It is out of their services, they are busy running their power plants,&rdquo; he says. Through negotiating and completing contracts with power production facilities, the Andersons say they&rsquo;ve learned that a company cofires to comply with state-based renewable energy mandates or because it has chosen to play the green angle, and has actually advertised that they are looking for renewable energy alternatives (the Andersons have worked with cofiring advertisers).
 But, even without a state-mandate required to meet a renewable portfolio standard, a company looking to go green, or as Boone says at U.S. Steel where biomass can save money in production costs, Reed says the biomass cofiring market is legitimate. &ldquo;This is something that can hold its own, it is a legitimate power source.&rdquo; Russ agrees.
 &ldquo;No doubt about it,&rdquo; he says on the idea of retiring on the business of supplying biomass to power producers that cofire. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think biomass is going away and somebody needs to be buying and selling it.&rdquo;
 That sentiment however, doesn&rsquo;t come without a catch. &ldquo;Its tough right now as it sits with natural gas,&rdquo; Reed adds. &ldquo;As long as natural gas prices are low, I think it is going to be lean.&rdquo;
 There is no arguing Reed&rsquo;s point, but the Anderson example highlights the interwoven relationship that exists between people like Russ and Reed who make calls and visits everyday to establish a customer base, people at a cofiring facility and the general public looking for cheaper energy bills. The outlook for biomass-based cofiring certainly depends on a state-based obligation, individual company agendas to lower greenhouse gases, and the price of natural gas. But, the U.S. Energy Information Agency&rsquo;s Annual Energy Outlook 2012 shows that economic demand still plays a large role. Although coal-based power facilities in the U.S. will be reduced by one-sixth by 2020 due to federal mandates, the economy also plays a role in how much energy comes from boiler-based energy applications.
&ldquo;Economic growth significantly affects generator retirement decisions by influencing electricity demand,&rdquo; the EIA says. When economic growth is strong (and Russ would add winters are cold), the demand for electricity rises and the financial justification for maintaining operations at coal-based facilities is stronger, according to the EIA. The Andersons however, most likely won't be affected by what the EIA says. They believe biomass cofiring practices will continue to expand and their company will grow at the same time, at least the new hires the Andersons just brought on to find more biomass might hope so. Author: Luke Geiver Features Editor, Biomass Magazine (701) 738-4944 <a href="mailto:lgeiver@bbiinternational.com">lgeiver@bbiinternational.com</a>

OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Russ Anderson spearheads Advanced Biomass Solutions' day-to-day operations that include locating biomass for power producing customers. 

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A BROTHER'S PERSPECTIVE: Reed Anderson believes his Northern Minnesota company can grow through power-producing customers the team is already in talks with. 


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ABOVE AVERAGE FLEET: The logistics portion of Advanced Biomass Solutions' hauling arm is made up of paid-for, used-a-bit trucks, that help create a profitable business. 


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The Anderson brothers broke into the biomass supply industry by contracting with power production facilities in search of short-term contracts. The company hasn't stopped profiting since.  

A Strategy for Supply

Portable gas and diesel generators help power many aspects of the global economy. Construction companies and the remote communities depend on gensets to provide heat and power in areas where connecting to the grid is not possible. They are also used to power outdoor events, concerts, military operations or provide a critical source of power in disaster areas. In the developing world, generators also help to overcome issues associated with unreliable, outdated and non-existent electricity grids. The vast majority of commercially-available generators are designed to run on fossil fuels. However, a new equipment package could change that by allowing these gensets to be fueled with biomass-based syngas. Funding for the project was provided the the U.S. DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory.
 An ongoing project led by the University of Minnesota Morris and California-based All Power Labs LLC has resulted in a fully integrated solution that combines All Power Lab&rsquo;s unique gasification system with a genset, a system housed in a single 20-foot shipping container. The result is the PowerTainer, a portable system that allows a diesel generator to run on more than 90 percent biomass syngas.
 Additional organizations participating in the project include Cummins Power Generation and the University of Minnesota Center for Diesel Research, and HGA Architects and Engineers. According to Jim Barbour, a staff scientist at UMM, Cummings provided the genset to the PowerTainer project, offered engineering consultation services, and participated with the integration of the genset with the gasification system. The Center for Diesel Research helped optimize the operation of the diesel engine on syngas.
 Syngas Genset Technology
 The heart of the PowerTainer is a multi-staged biomass gasification system developed by All Power Labs.&nbsp; According to Jim Mason, company founder and director, the innovative system is a modified version of a fixed-bed, down-draft reactor. &ldquo;We have separated the drying from the pyrolysis, and drive those off of waste heat from the engine,&rdquo; he says.
 The multistate heat exchange system, Mason continues, functions to return all the waste heat flows from the gasifier and the engine to the appropriate process points within the reactor. &ldquo;This is how we create temperature conditions that take care of the tar in the reactor,&rdquo; he says.
 The tar treatment method is one element that makes the gasification system unique. Rather than dealing with tar removal downstream, an aspect of operation that can complicate the system and also requires bulky equipment, the technology deals with tar in the gasification system itself.
 &ldquo;We do that by the separation of different process stages within the reactor,&rdquo; Mason says. The gasification system is overlaid with a highly effective automation system that works with maps of the reactor that specify&nbsp; where tar is and is not generated. The automation system can operate the reactor with a high degree of sophistication to control, within certain parameters, where gasification occurs. The automation system, combined with the heat-exchanger that pushes a large quantity of heat back into the system, allows for tar production to be minimized.
 The gaseous fuel that results is produced through an on-demand basis for the genset. The gasifier responds to the load variations of the engine, Mason says. The syngas produced by the gasifier is not very energy dense, which makes storing it inefficient.
 The syngas can fuel both spark-ignited engines and diesel engines. When the syngas is fed into a spark-ignited engine, it can replace 100 percent of the fossil fuel that would normally enter that system. When the syngas is fed into a diesel generator, such as the one contained within the PowerTainer, the producer gas must be mixed with a small injection of diesel fuel. Current evaluations show that it should be possible to replace more than 90 percent of the diesel with biobased syngas. Other than changing the speed control of the engine, Mason says that no other changes were made to the Cummins genset that is a part of the PowerTainer.
 In addition to the gasification system and Cummins genset, the standard 20-foot shipping container also houses a small filter train, a hopper and an electronic automation system. Mason notes that the inclusion of a hopper in a demonstration-scale operation is unique. However, he says the team did not want that component of the project to be an afterthought. Rather, the goal was to fabricate an entire, compact, fully-integrated system that could encompass all aspects of operation, from fuel-feeding to power-generation.
 Regarding feedstock, the PowerTainer has been optimized to gasify corn cobs. All Power Labs has also designed similar gasifiers that are optimized for wood chips. Mason says the gasification system does have some limits regarding how small the biomass can be. Specifically, it cannot take in shredded or granular fuels.
 The PowerTrainer Goes Public
 UMM hosted a demonstration of the PowerTainer in June. &ldquo;The engine ran just beautifully,&rdquo; Barbour says. &ldquo;It performed well.&rdquo; Approximately 50 people attended the event, representing a wide variety of interests, from university researchers to industry professionals, farmers and entrepreneurs. The two-year project is now in its last six months, and is scheduled to conclude in December. During the final stage of the project work will focus on emissions evaluations. The work will be completed using university lab equipment, including gas analyzers. &ldquo;We also have an instrument that actually measures soot, which is an important emissions issue with diesel engines,&rdquo; Barbour says.
 UMM Economics Professor Arne Kildegaard will also develop an economic model that will address equipment and operational costs, Barbour says. The analysis will include comparisons to more conventional means of small-scale power generation, such as the steam turbine found on campus.&nbsp; The ultimate goal of the project is commercialization. While specific plans for commercialization or licensing haven&rsquo;t been released, Mason is able to provide cost estimates for a future commercial version of the PowerTainer. Based on gasification systems fabricated and sold by his company, the estimated cost would be within the $1 to $2 per watt range, most likely between $1.30 and $1.70 per watt. Theoretically, using these figures, a 100 kW system could represent between $130,000 and $170,000 in capital expenses.&nbsp;
 All Power Labs has been supplying gasifier experimentation kits on a commercial basis for approximately four years. For the past year and a half, the company has also sold larger-scale integrated gasifier-genset skids, called PowerPallets. Overall, Mason estimates his company exports 60 percent of the systems it builds.
 Regarding the PowerTainer project, both Mason and Barbour stress that the distributed power generating potential of the system is one of the most important aspects of the system&rsquo;s development. Distributed power generation helps overcome some of the logistical problems associated with biomass procurement, shipping and storage. In the form of a portable system, like the PowerTainer, distributed power systems that are capable of operating on biomass fuel also offer contractors, farmers, and others more control over the source of power they use. In addition, the use of locally-sourced biomass can help insulate those who own the systems from price shocks in the commodity market.&nbsp;
 Author: Erin Voegele News Editor, Biomass Magazine (701) 540-6986 <a href="mailto:evoegele@bbiinternational.com">evoegele@bbiinternational.com</a>

Demonstrating Success: The University of Minnesota Morris hosted a demonstration of the PowerTainer in June. 

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A modular gasification technology produces on-demand, biomass-based syngas.

Demonstrating Portable Energy

State renewable portfolio standards, limited ability to increase solar, wind or hydro power, and broad public support for renewable initiatives have sparked strong interest amongst U.S. utility companies to utilize biomass fuel. While cofiring biomass may be an appealing way to reduce coal consumption, there are challenges associated with handling and storing biomass.
 Generally speaking, biomass storage systems can be divided into two groups: gravity-discharge systems and mechanical-reclaim systems.&nbsp; As the name suggests, gravity-discharge systems rely on the force of gravity to promote the flow of material, whereas mechanical-reclaim systems use a mechanism to assist material discharge from storage facility. Depending upon the plant&rsquo;s needs, this storage facility can be a stockpile, a storage silo or both. Stockpiles have surface reclaimers or gravity reclaim systems, which typically use a bottom screw reclaimer or reclaim hoppers with belt feeders.
Biomass storage silos often have a bottom reclaimer for discharging material. Once reclaimed, biomass is conveyed from the storage facility to the boiler-feed bins, which are usually gravity-discharge and meter biomass into the boiler using screw feeders.
 Several material handling steps are involved in a biomass cofiring process. If the material storage and handling equipment is not designed properly, material flow issues can occur, some more common than others.
 Common Flow Problems
 A no-flow condition can result either from arching&mdash;also known as bridging&mdash;or ratholing. Arching occurs when an obstruction in the shape of an arch or bridge forms over the hopper outlet, due to the cohesive strength of the material or the mechanical interlocking of large particles. When material forms a stable arch above an outlet, discharge is prevented and a no-flow condition results.
 For materials such as milled biomass and sawdust, ratholing may occur as a result of flow channeling. During this condition, material moves toward the outlet through a steep, funnel-shaped flow channel surrounded by stagnant material. Hopefully, as the level of material in the flow channel drops, layers of material from the top surface of the stagnant region will slide into this active channel. If this fails to occur, the flow channel empties and a stable rathole forms, resulting in a no-flow condition.&nbsp;
 Whenever stagnant material is present inside a bin or silo, it will result in limited live storage capacity during flow. Such stagnant material can be a result of ratholing or steep drawdown angles; this material will not discharge by gravity, thus occupying valuable storage space.&nbsp;
 Another common flow problem is the tripping of feeder and bottom reclaim drive motors.&nbsp; When tripping occurs, the device cannot operate, resulting in the inability to discharge material from storage facility. The only way to address this problem, which typically occurs if the material consolidation pressures acting on the feeder or reclaimer are not properly calculated, may be to vacuum out the entire contents of the silo.
 Other flow problems that could occur include transfer chute pluggages, attrition and dusting of pellets, and particle segregation. Equipment wear can also be an important issue due to abrasive nature of woody biomass, particularly if it contains bark.
 In general, when flow problems such as the aforementioned occur, valuable generation capacity and production time are lost, excessive maintenance and housekeeping costs are incurred, and health and safety issues arise. Flow problems and their solutions can be best understood by first learning how bulk solids flow.&nbsp;
 Flow Patterns, Properties
 As bulk solids discharge by gravity from a storage system, two types of flow patterns can develop: funnel flow and mass flow. In funnel flow, only a portion of the material is in motion during discharge, which flows toward the outlet through a channel that forms within the stagnant material. Funnel flow occurs when a hopper is not sufficiently steep and smooth to ensure flow along the walls, or when the hopper outlet is not fully activated.
 In mass flow, all of the material is in motion whenever any is discharged; there is no stagnant material. Mass flow occurs when the hopper is sufficiently steep and smooth to ensure flow along the hopper walls. Shallow valleys&mdash;at the intersection of adjacent hopper sidewalls&mdash;cannot be present, and the outlet must be fully active.
 The flow pattern in which a bulk solid discharges from a storage system strongly influences the flow problems that may occur.
 For the reliable storage and feeding of biomass, the type of handling system used&mdash; including its geometry and materials of construction&mdash; must be designed to suit the flowability of the material.&nbsp; Whether it is mechanical-reclaim or gravity-reclaim, characterization of flow behavior is necessary in order to design features of the system. Various flow property tests can be performed to determine flowability, which is influenced by moisture content, fines content and storage time at rest. Flow property tests must be run at representative handling conditions and include the following tests: cohesive strength, interlocking strength, wall friction, compressibility, permeability, chute angle, angle of repose, and drawdown angle (see sidebar).
 Achieving Reliable Material Flow 
 When properly designed, the components of a handling system will be able to store and reliably feed difficult-to-flow materials, whereas poorly designed equipment may not be able to do the same, even with free-flowing materials.
 For gravity discharge systems such as boiler-feed bins, selecting the appropriate flow pattern is critical for reliable performance. Mass flow is recommended for fine, cohesive materials such as sawdust and milled woodchips; funnel flow is suitable for coarse, free-flowing, non-interlocking, non-degrading materials in cases where particle segregation is not important.&nbsp;
 For mechanical reclaim systems such as silos using bottom screw reclaimers, the discharge pattern is almost always funnel flow. The key for designing a mechanical reclaim system is selecting the right type of mechanism that will work reliably for the particular application. There are various types of configurations available for mechanical reclaim systems, such as a flat bottom silo with a rotating screw or sweep arm reclaimer, a revolving screw reclaimer within a conical bottom silo, a flat bottom silo with a top screw reclaimer, etc. Using flow property test results, the right type of mechanism can be selected so that the system is not over- or under-designed for the application.&nbsp; The test results can also aid in the design of mechanism features.
 The storage system should be designed so as to minimize the consolidation pressures acting on the feeder or reclaimer. The compressibility and wall friction information obtained from flow properties testing can be used in this regard. Additionally, for gravity discharge systems where mass flow is required, the hopper angles must be steep enough to promote flow along the walls.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
 Material handling is a key component to successful biomass cofiring. Technology is available for analyzing storage and handling systems to eliminate or minimize flow problems in existing facilities, as well as for designing new installations to avoid such problems in the first place. Flow property test data is a key component in the process, as it will ensure the reliable storage and flow of biomass materials. Authors: Jayant Khambekar Project engineer, Jenike &amp; Johanson Inc. <a href="mailto:jayant@jenike.com">jayant@jenike.com</a>, (978) 649-3300 Roger A. Barnum Senior consultant, Jenike &amp; Johanson Inc. <a href="mailto:rbarnum@jenike.com">rbarnum@jenike.com</a>, 978-649-3300
&nbsp;
Flow Property Tests Cohesive strength: Used to calculate opening sizes to avoid flow stoppages due to cohesive arching and ratholing. Measured as a function of consolidating pressure in accordance with ASTM Standard D6128. Interlocking strength:&nbsp; Used to calculate opening sizes to avoid flow stoppages due to mechanical interlocking of its particles.&nbsp; Characterized by particle size, particle shape and elasticity behaviors. Wall friction: Measured as a function of consolidating pressure in accordance with ASTM Standard D 6128.&nbsp; Information obtained from this test is used to determine critical hopper angles for achieving mass flow. The wall material of construction and surface finish must match what will be used for design or analysis purposes. Compressibility: Measures the change in its bulk density as a function of consolidating pressure.&nbsp; Used to determine storage capacity of equipment and to calculate material-induced material induced loads; measured in accordance with ASTM Standard D 6683. Permeability: Measure of material resistance to gas flow through it, particularly important when material contains a significant portion of fines.&nbsp; Data obtained is used to calculate the critical, steady-state, flow rate of the material that can occur during discharge as a function of outlet size and consolidating pressure.&nbsp; Chute angle: Determines the minimum (shallowest) required chute angle to maintain flow after impact of a material stream with its surface.&nbsp; Angles are measured as a function of impact pressure. Angle of repose and drawdown angle: Measured to help determine the total and live storage capacities of a system; these tests provide no further insight regarding material flowability for design purposes.

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GO WITH THE FLOW: As bulk solids discharge by gravity from a storage system, two types of flow patterns can develop: funnel flow and mass flow.

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RATH OF BIOMASS: For materials such as milled biomass and sawdust, ratholing may occur as a result of flow channeling.

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Cofiring biomass with coal is an attractive method of meeting renewables goals, but several material flow-related issues may occur during handling and storage.

September 2012

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Once Again, it's about efficiency

Food and Fuel: Back on the Table

The Fallible Pope

Fighting the Good Fight

Building New Markets, Protecting Those We Have

Greening the Fleets

JOBS Act Creates Opportunities

Necessity Is Not the Only Mother of Invention

Communities Across the Country Embrace Biomass

Advanced Biofuels Industry Gaining Momentum

Advanced Biofuels, a Transformative Industry

The Fearless Emergency of Now

Featured

Pinching Pennies

Stop Loss

Optimal Yield: A Moving Target

Algae Blooms on Iowa's West Coast

From Paper To Power

A Strategy for Supply

Demonstrating Portable Energy

Contributions

Bacterial Inhibition Without Antibiotics

Tapping into a Heat Recovery Opportunity to Reduce Energy Costs

Conquering Cofiring Flow Challenges

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

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Once Again, it's about efficiency

Food and Fuel: Back on the Table

The Fallible Pope

Fighting the Good Fight

Building New Markets, Protecting Those We Have

Greening the Fleets

JOBS Act Creates Opportunities

Necessity Is Not the Only Mother of Invention

Communities Across the Country Embrace Biomass

Advanced Biofuels Industry Gaining Momentum

Advanced Biofuels, a Transformative Industry

The Fearless Emergency of Now

Featured

Pinching Pennies

Stop Loss

Optimal Yield: A Moving Target

Algae Blooms on Iowa's West Coast

From Paper To Power

A Strategy for Supply

Demonstrating Portable Energy

Contributions

Bacterial Inhibition Without Antibiotics

Tapping into a Heat Recovery Opportunity to Reduce Energy Costs

Conquering Cofiring Flow Challenges

September 2012