Hundreds of people gathered Oct. 9 for the inauguration of the Beta Renewables facility in Northern Italy. The plant, which converts wheat straw, rice straw and the energy crop arundo donax into cellulosic ethanol, was mechanically completed in 2012 and will reach full capacity by the end of the year, according to Beta Renewables&rsquo; Chairman and CEO, Guido Ghisolfi. &ldquo;At the moment we are producing on-spec ethanol with the right quality and right yields.&rdquo; &nbsp;
In the three weeks leading up to the official opening, the company hosted at least two tours daily. What visitors see is a plant that is producing commercial qualities of ethanol. &ldquo;The most interesting visitors are the ones that were skeptics,&rdquo; he tells Ethanol Producer Magazine. &ldquo;The ones that thought we would never build a plant of this capacity and the plant would never be on-stream and the plant would never get yields.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Among those attending the celebration were customers from Eastern and Western Europe, North America, South America and Asia. &ldquo;The interest is very, very high,&rdquo; Ghisolfi says, pointing to a licensing agreement with GranBio, to build Brazil&rsquo;s first cellulosic ethanol plant using Beta Renewable&rsquo;s trademarked Proesa technology. More is yet to come. &ldquo;We are now in the process of signing three more licenses, one in Columbia, one in the United States and Eastern Europe,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and this will happen before the end of the year.&rdquo;
A year ago, Beta Renewables formed a strategic partnership with Novozymes, making the company the preferred enzyme supplier for current and future cellulosic projects. &ldquo;The opening today presents a leap forward and is truly the beginning of a new era for advanced biofuels,&rdquo; says Peder Holk Nielsen, CEO of Novozymes. &ldquo;Here, at this plant, enabled by Novozymes&rsquo; enzymatic technology, we will turn agricultural waste into millions of liters of low-emission green fuel, proving that cellulosic ethanol is no longer a distant dream. It is here, it is happening, and it is ready for large-scale commercialization.&rdquo;
Ghisolfi agrees, saying the advanced biofuel industry is at a tipping point. Not limiting himself to mentioning only his own company, Ghisolfi named DuPont, DSM and Raizen as examples of large corporations financially backing projects that will come online after the Beta Renewables plant. &ldquo;Before, the story was, there&rsquo;s no technology. Then the story was, there is technology but it&rsquo;s not guaranteed,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Then, it&rsquo;s guaranteed but not from the right size company, so how can we invest?&rdquo; But clearly the situation has now changed. &ldquo;In 2014, you will see the startup of several plants in the United States and Brazil, and all those plants are guaranteed and supported by large corporations. &hellip; We are just the first but there are other companies that are coming after us.&rdquo;
Author: Holly Jessen Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-738-4946&nbsp; hjessen@bbiinternational.com

Open For Business  The Beta Renewables cellulosic ethanol plant will produce 20 MMgy from wheat straw, rice straw and arundo donax, a high-yield energy crop that is grown on marginal land.  

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Grand Celebration Thomas VidebÃ¦k, executive vice president of business development for Novozymes, speaks at the inauguration event held in Italy on Oct. 9. 

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From Model To Full Scale  Guido Ghisolfi, chairman and CEO of Beta Renewables, right, shows Italian government officials a model of the companyâ€™s cellulosic ethanol plant. 

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A nearly 20 MMgy cellulosic ethanol facility 
in Crescentino, Italy, officially opened in early October, 
making it both the first and the largest 
commercial-scale facility of its kind in the world.  

Industry First

What&rsquo;s valuable about an old T-shirt and a soiled cardboard Big Mac container? While most people think nothing of tossing these items out, waste-to-energy firms like Enerkem and Fiberight LLC have a plan to keep garbage like this out of landfills while producing alternative fuels. While there are a few other developers looking at producing biofuels from municipal solid waste (MSW), these two companies are the closest to actual commercial-scale production, each recently reaching significant milestones in that quest.&nbsp;
Enerkem is first in line to complete its facility, with a 10 MMgy biofuel and renewable chemical plant being built in Edmonton, Alberta. In mid-September, the company expected to wrap up construction at the end of October, with a plant inauguration planned in the fall, says Marie-Helene Labrie, vice president of government affairs and communications for Enerkem. Initially, the facility will produce methanol, with cellulosic ethanol production expected in 2014.&nbsp;
The company has a 25-year agreement with the city of Edmonton, which will supply 100,000 dry metric tons of sorted MSW yearly. Once the facility reaches full production levels, the city will reduce its landfill waste to only 10 percent of residential garbage by diverting feedstock for Enerkem in combination with a previously established recycling and composting program. Labrie called the project a world first, adding that it&rsquo;s a good example of how cities can transition to a greener economy. &ldquo;This is part of our strategy and vision,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;to not only offer a domestic energy solution but also help resolve waste management issues.&rdquo;&nbsp;
In eastern Iowa, Fiberight reached a 15-year MSW supply agreement with the city of Marion in late August. The company is already working to retrofit a former corn-ethanol plant in nearby Blairstown, Iowa, which, when completed, will produce 6 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol from MSW processed in Marion, says Craig Stuart-Paul, chief executive of Fiberight. The goal is to start construction on a waste separation and recycling plant there by the end of the year. &ldquo;We should be commissioning from about eight months from start of construction,&rdquo; he says. The ethanol plant, on the other hand, is expected to begin production by about next summer.&nbsp;
The company has put in requests for proposals for MSW supply agreements in several other cities around the U.S. &ldquo;What we are seeing is, the municipal market is very, very interested in this as an option for waste disposal,&rdquo; he says. In mid-September, a proposal was submitted to Iowa City, located in the same area of Iowa as Marion and Blairstown. Although the MSW from Marion is sufficient for commercial operation of the Blairstown ethanol plant, if an agreement is reached with Iowa City, the additional feedstock will be enough to take the plant to full capacity, he says.&nbsp;
Both companies are utilizing feedstock models for which the cities supplying MSW pay a tipping fee for the ability to dispose of its waste. On the other hand, there are a few differences between the company&rsquo;s approaches. While Enerkem will receive already separated and sorted MSW from the city of Edmonton, Fiberight will operate the solid waste facility itself. In addition, Enerkem&rsquo;s biofuel feedstock stream will contain some plastics. Fiberight, which is working with a different set of regulatory requirements under the U.S. renewable fuel standard, will not utilize plastics as an ethanol feedstock.&nbsp;
Canadian Model&nbsp;&nbsp;
Enerkem scaled up from its pilot plant to a 1.3 MMgy demonstration facility in Westbury, Quebec, with operations beginning in 2009, followed by methanol production in 2011 and cellulosic ethanol production in 2012. &ldquo;We are very excited by the work we have done and all the steps we have taken from pilot to demo to now full-scale commercial facility,&rdquo; Labrie says.
Enerkem Alberta Biofuels LP, is co-located with the Edmonton Waste Management Center, where garbage and recycling from more than 324,000 single- and multifamily homes is processed. The city has had a recycling program in place for 25 years and 93 percent of single-family households participate voluntarily, says Connie Boyce, director of community relations for Edmonton&rsquo;s Waste Management Services. Residents put recyclable items, such as paper, cardboard, tin cans, glass and certain types of plastic, into blue bags. Garbage, such as food waste, yard waste and smaller household items, go into a separate can or bag. Currently, 60 percent of the total amount collected is diverted from being trucked more than 40 miles to a landfill, due to the fact that Edmonton&rsquo;s landfill ran out of space and closed in 2009. By about 2016, when the Enerkem facility is expected to be producing at full strength, the city expects to increase that to a 90 percent diversion rate, Boyce says.&nbsp;
The city sells recyclable materials, using the revenue as a small portion of its operating budget, she adds. The garbage is separated into three streams, including organic material, which is sent to a composting facility, where agricultural or residential and business landscaping products are produced and sold as another revenue source. Other materials will go to the refuse-derived fuel facility where it is shredded for Enerkem&rsquo;s use as a biofuel feedstock. The remaining portion that is not recyclable, organic or useable by Enerkem is sent to the landfill.
What, specifically, are the types of items Enerkem will receive as feedstock material? The list starts with paper and cardboard products that can&rsquo;t be recycled, perhaps because they are soiled, Labrie says. Other examples include wood, old clothing, worn out shoes and broken plastic toys, an example of a type of plastic that cannot be recycled but can be broken down into biofuels. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really a mix,&rdquo; she says.&nbsp;
The company is pleased to have the opportunity to work with Edmonton, a North American leader in waste management. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really a center of excellence for waste management,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;There are visitors from around the world that are coming to visit what the city of Edmonton has implemented as well as their partnerships with private companies like ours.&rdquo;&nbsp;
American Made&nbsp;
Fiberight&rsquo;s Lawrenceburg, Va., 500,000 gallon a year demonstration plant has been producing cellulosic ethanol for 3,000 hours. Although the company announced in August 2012 that it planned to double the capacity, Fiberight later decided it had already hit its mark at that facility and elected instead to focus on fine-tuning its integrated technology in preparation for building its first commercial plant, Stuart-Paul says.
In January 2012, the USDA announced Fiberight was the recipient of a conditional commitment for a $25 million guaranteed loan. In order to reach the loan guarantee phase, the company had to satisfy some significant requirements, which it has now achieved. Stuart-Paul is hopeful that it will move from the conditional to loan guarantee phase by the end of the year, he says.&nbsp;
One prerequisite for that was to prove out every element of its demonstration plant, from its MSW sorting and separation process to production of cellulosic ethanol. After going through that process, Stuart-Paul agrees that it was a valuable exercise. &ldquo;We learned an awful lot of lessons, hard-fought lessons, along the way,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;And we were able to overcome a lot of the problems at a smaller scale than if we had just gone ahead and built the full-scale plant from a pilot plant.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Another requirement for the pending loan guarantee was U.S. EPA approval of the company&rsquo;s separation plan, which happened in August 2012. The separation plan identifies 10 technologies and practices for sorting recyclables from MSW, including shredding, washing, air separation, optic sorting and more. &ldquo;We are very much focused around the front-end recycling and recovery of the materials and particularly plastics,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I think that&rsquo;s one thing some other people have had challenges with, how do you keep the plastics out of the cellulosic ethanol? Our position is that it&rsquo;s possible to do so.&rdquo;
Anything that can be recycled, such as many types of plastics, glass, metal, clean cardboard and paper, will be separated and sold as an additional revenue stream. Other materials, such as yard waste, craft paper and cardboard that isn&rsquo;t clean enough to be sold as recyclable grade, will go to the ethanol plant in Blairstown. Food waste will end up in the anaerobic digester at the Marion facility to produce compressed natural gas (CNG), which can be marketed as a transportation fuel, including to the fleet belonging to the city of Marion, he says. The fourth and final garbage fraction is what goes to the landfill, such as cat litter and dust. According to the EPA document outlining Fiberight&rsquo;s separation plan, 70 percent of the trash will be recovered. However, based on Fiberight&rsquo;s work at its demo plant. Stuart-Paul believes the number will be closer to 80 percent.&nbsp;
It took a long time to perfect the separation process and get EPA approval, he says. With that completed, the company has the advantage of multiple revenue streams, including from recycling various materials as well as production of ethanol and CNG. &ldquo;It is a challenge, because of the fact that MSW has got a lot of things in it,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But it is also an opportunity because you can derive value from many of those elements as possible.&rdquo;
The whole idea is to take a problem, the disposal of trash, and turn it into something useful. The company is working to trademark the name Trashanol, to highlight the fact that the ethanol it will produce will come from items tossed in the trash. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a remarkable amount of energy that was previously just thrown in a landfill and it broke down to methane. And methane is a big contributor to greenhouse gas emissions,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s 24 times worse than CO2.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Author: Holly Jessen Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-783-4946 &nbsp; hjessen@bbiinternational.com

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Center of Excellence    Edmonton is a leader in waste management and visitors from around the world come to learn from its example, says Marie-Helene Labrie, Enerkemâ€™s vice president of government affairs and communications.  

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Mountains of Trash The city of Edmonton, Alberta, sorts trash for composting, biofuels
feedstock and landfill at its integrated processing and transfer facility.

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Nearly There  Construction on Enerkem Alberta Biofuels LP, a 10 MMgy biofuel and renewable chemical plant in Edmonton, Alberta, nears completion in this aerial shot taken Sept. 9. 

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Trashanol Fiberightâ€™s 500,000 gallon a year demonstration plant in Lawrenceburg, Va., is a fully integrated operation, from MSW separation to cellulosic ethanol production. 

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Two cellulosic ethanol developers are about to go prime time, turning garbage into biofuel at separate facilities in Canada and the U.S.

Trash to Bio-Treasure

Driving south from Vero Beach, Fla., on a warm August day to tour the new cellulosic ethanol plant, the mounting problem of waste becomes clear. The Indian River BioEnergy Center, a project of Ineos New Planet BioEnergy LLC, lies a few miles inland on the flat landscape along Florida&rsquo;s Atlantic coast. The only hill in sight is the grass and soil-covered mound of accumulated waste at the Indian River county landfill.&nbsp;
Today, when local citizens drive up to the landfill to dispose of tree trimmings and other vegetative waste, they are sent a mile down the road to the biorefinery. Pickups, contractor trucks and municipal garbage trucks weigh in and back up to dump their loads. Residents of the two participating counties don&rsquo;t have to pay, since their yard waste is covered by taxes, while others pay a tipping fee.&nbsp;
Ineos Bio gets paid for accepting its feedstock, diverting about 100,000 tons of waste streams that were formerly landfilled and turning them into bioenergy, 8 MMgy cellulosic ethanol and 5 megawatts of electrical power.&nbsp;
The management team at Ineos Bio is bemused by other differences between the petrochemical projects they&rsquo;ve worked on in the past and this first-of-its-kind waste-to-bioenergy plant. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m used to building in places like Houston where you have mile upon mile of industrial plants,&rdquo; says Chief Operating Officer Mark Niederschulte. The cellulosic ethanol plant is located a couple of miles south of Vero Beach and even though it&rsquo;s just a mile away from the landfill, the company was asked to landscape the grounds following guidelines established for shopping centers, since there weren&rsquo;t guidelines for biorefineries. Workers have planted about 10,000 individual trees, shrubs and perennials on the 70-acre site.&nbsp;
The biggest, most obvious difference from a petrochemical plant is that instead of receiving crude oil feedstocks from a pipeline&mdash;a fungible, commodity feedstock&mdash;the Indian River biorefinery feedstock yard handles a steady stream of trucks of all sizes. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re getting feedstock 24 hours a day, seven days a week and closed just four days a year,&rdquo; Niederschulte says.&nbsp;
The product marketing side is similarly a contrast. Instead of arranging large, 30,000-metric-ton-plus shipments of product around the world, Niederschulte says, there is a ready market for every drop of cellulosic ethanol at four Florida terminals located within a hundred miles of the plant. He points out that while everything about the front end and back end&mdash;incoming feedstock and outgoing product&mdash;is as different as night and day, everything in between is a chemical plant.&nbsp;
Shifting From Petro To Bio&nbsp;
Like Niederschulte, many in the Ineos Bio team moved over from the company&rsquo;s petrochemical divisions to work on the renewable energy project. The Switzerland-headquartered Ineos Group is a relatively new company, having been formed in 1998 to purchase refining assets in Europe. In a series of acquisitions, Ineos purchased technology rights and production facilities from companies such as Dow Chemicals, Rhodia, BASF, Chevron, Phillips, Monsanto, Hoechst and, in 2006, BP Chemicals. Sales the past two years have topped $43 billion from the 15 business segments that manufacture a wide range of polymers and chemical intermediates. The production network spans 51 manufacturing facilities in 11 countries.&nbsp;
Like many other companies in 2005 and 2007, Ineos began evaluating technologies as Congress debated the energy program that launched the renewable fuel standard. In 2008, Ineos purchased a conversion technology from Bioengineering Resources Inc. and its pilot facility in Fayetteville, Ark. The BRI process design was worked out in more than 40,000 hours of operation since 2003 at the fully integrated pilot plant, using a wide variety of feedstocks. Development actually began more than a decade earlier, however, when University of Arkansas Professor James Gaddy first isolated the ethanol-producing organism in work that was patented in 1992.
BRI&rsquo;s technology has been followed through the years by Ethanol Producer Magazine. In 2007, one company in the first class of cellulosic ethanol projects funded by the U.S. DOE planned to license the BRI conversion technology. A year later, Alico Inc., the LaBelle, Fla., project sponsor canceled the project. Also in 2007, a BRI representative described BRI&rsquo;s work at the International Fuel Ethanol Workshop &amp; Expo, saying the patented anaerobic bacterium, Clostridium ljungdahlii, was converting 95 to 98 percent of any combination of carbon-based waste to yield at least 75 to 85 gallons of ethanol per dry ton of biomass.&nbsp;
Niederschulte explains that in his work at BP Chemicals and elsewhere, he has been involved with six new technologies that each required 15 to 20 years to commercialize. Ineos purchased the BRI technology because it was the closest to commercialization, and its progress has followed a typical trajectory. When the technology rights and Arkansas pilot facility were acquired five years ago, Niederschulte says they focused the work on two technologies&mdash;biomass gasification and the microbial fermentation into ethanol. The goal has been to develop an efficient gasification unit with maximum energy integration and to optimize the environment for the microbial fermentation of syngas into ethanol. The time needed for the biomass to enter the unit and exit as ethanol&nbsp;is less than 10 minutes. Other systems used at the Indian River biorefinery were well-established technologies purchased from others, such as the oxygen purification system from Air Products and distillation unit from Vogelbusch.
The Indian River biorefinery is a joint venture between Florida-based New Planet Energy Florida LLC and Ineos Bio. The $130 million project received a $50 million U.S. DOE matching grant in December 2009. AMEC received the engineering and procurement contract in 2010 and following the announcement of a $75 million USDA loan guarantee in January 2011, a groundbreaking ceremony was held a month later. Construction was completed in mid-2012 and commissioning began. The company announced in November that it was producing renewable power and 10 months later the plant was fully online and producing ethanol.
2 Issues With New Technologies
For those familiar with the heyday of the corn ethanol build-out, when plants were being completed and commissioned in a matter of weeks, taking a year for commissioning might raise an eyebrow. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not surprising,&rdquo; explains CEO Peter Williams. &ldquo;There are two types of issues you deal with bringing on new technology and these are not unexpected issues. One is the interface with the site, the location you are in&mdash;noncore technology items.&rdquo;
An example would be dealing with Florida&rsquo;s weather. &ldquo;They get 12 inches of rain here and think nothing of it,&rdquo; Niederschulte points out. The Indian River site, formerly a grapefruit processing facility, has a canal and several water ponds to deal with the runoff but there was a learning curve on the best practices for dealing with feedstock processed and stored in the open.&nbsp;
Another example of site-interface is the coordination between the electric utility and the biorefinery&rsquo;s generator. Once there was a voltage dip in one of Florida&rsquo;s frequent thunderstorms, Niederschulte recalls. &ldquo;Our turbine saw that and shut down to protect itself. And we want it to protect itself. But if it shuts down, we can&rsquo;t instantaneously start back up.&rdquo; After the engineers improved the communications between the two systems, that problem was solved. &nbsp; &nbsp;
&ldquo;When you&rsquo;re building new technology, the interface with noncore items and core technology is important, and they need to be right,&rdquo; Williams says. &ldquo;There is usually a shakedown period to get all that right, because it&rsquo;s the first time you&rsquo;ve put the thing together.&rdquo;&nbsp;
&ldquo;The other side is learning how to drive, really,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;The unit operations are doing what we&rsquo;ve expected them to do. You don&rsquo;t get everything from a pilot plant. That tells you an enormous amount about the technology and gives you the confidence to build the first plant, but there are still unknowns that you have to learn. The second area is learning those unknowns, incorporating them and moving on.&rdquo; Williams adds that as the CEO of Ineos Technologies, he has seen the licensing of 40-some petrochemical technologies to experienced operators. &ldquo;Our customers say four years on average to build a plant, even knowing the site. In that context, [the Indian River biorefinery timeline of five years] doesn&rsquo;t look abnormal at all. It looks pretty quick, and we are pleased with our team.&rdquo; &nbsp;
&ldquo;Everything we&rsquo;ve done validates our views of the technology,&rdquo; Williams says. &ldquo;It reinforces our view of it being a very attractive value proposition as a technology for converting waste materials into bioethanol and power.&rdquo;
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re still learning the value proposition,&rdquo; Williams adds. For a company more familiar with the petrochemical industry, turning waste into energy means it must learn about a community, just as the community must learn about having a process industry in its backyard. For a company used to working in the world of petrochemical refineries, dealing directly with consumers is new. Communities always welcome quality jobs, but much of the value proposition is about dealing with waste, particularly for a community facing the closing of a landfill.&nbsp;
The Indian River biorefinery accepts vegetative waste from about 170,000 area residents. While that is the initial feedstock, the plant is permitted to use municipal solid waste and the company has successfully tested multiple feedstocks at the Arkansas pilot facility. &ldquo;The organism was fed a wide range of carbon feedstocks,&rdquo; Niederschulte says, including every type of vegetative waste all the way to fossil-fuel based products like tires. &ldquo;It really doesn&rsquo;t seem to care. The gasifier unit reduces it to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. If you can gasify it, we can use it.&rdquo; &nbsp;&nbsp;
&ldquo;To our surprise, where petrochemical producers want big, big, big, the people we&rsquo;re talking to say &lsquo;I&rsquo;ve got this amount of waste,&rsquo;&rdquo; Niederschulte says. &ldquo;Of the conversations we&rsquo;ve had to date, the largest has been three-times Vero, which would be 24 MMgy.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Those inquiries are coming from all over the world, Williams reports, and no one region dominates. The Ineos Bio team has fielded inquiries from Europe, Africa, China, Brazil and North America.
The next plant&mdash;which possibly will be built in Europe&mdash;won&rsquo;t look exactly like the first, Niederschulte says. The size of the first was determined primarily by scaling up the unique syngas fermentation technology, with other components sized accordingly to match. Some of those components have been oversized while others will be beefed up in the next iteration. As operating experience is gained, maintenance needs may call for the addition of a platform or additional space to bring in a crane when needed. Williams and Niederschulte say it will likely take five plants before most of the design issues are worked through, after which efficiencies of scale will be the goal.&ldquo;What we think we can do well is to drive this through to commercial business,&rdquo; Williams says. Along the way, the company will also learn the balance between the two value propositions&mdash;making bioenergy in the forms of ethanol and power and dealing with waste.&nbsp;
-----------------SIDE-BAR--------------------------------------------------------------------
Feedstock
Trucks of all sizes dump loads that range from green tree trimmings to discarded shipping pallets. All are shredded and piled to dry in the Florida sun. One task of the year-long commissioning process at the Indian River BioEnergy Center was to experience all seasons of Florida, and in particular learn how best to handle feedstocks in the rainy season. The largest area of the 70-acre site is devoted to feedstock handling and storage. The shredded and air-dried biomass shown in the top photo is trucked from one side of the property to the open-sided, roofed shed shown below. The biomass is dried further utilizing low-grade heat recycled from the gasifier unit to prepare the material for gasification.&nbsp;
-----------------END SIDE-BAR--------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------SIDE-BAR--------------------------------------------------------------------
Gasification
The Ineos Bio gasification process is a two-step, oxygen-blown technology that converts the prepared, dried biomass into a synthesis gas. Feedstocks of different bulk density, particle shape and size may be mixed together to optimize feed rate into the unit pictured below and minimize entrained air, the company says. Upon exposure to the heat in the lower chamber of the gasifier, further drying takes place followed by pyrolysis, generating a pyrolysis gas which passes through to the upper chamber where it is mixed with more oxygen, generating more heat from partial combustion. The high temperature and residence time cracks the pyrolysis gases to carbon monoxide, hydrogen and CO2.
The oxygen-blown gasification technology used in the INEOS Bio process suppresses the formation of dioxins and furans, thanks to the reducing environment in the gasifier, and destroys any dioxins and furans formed through exposure to high temperature and residence time in the upper part of the gasifier. In addition, the carry-over of volatile metals into the syngas is minimized. No tars or aromatic hydrocarbons are present in the syngas, thus the design reduces the burden on, and cost of, the syngas clean-up stage. The gasifier also operates at slightly negative pressure to prevent the escape of gases to the environment.&nbsp;
&ldquo;There is know-how in biomass gasification,&rdquo; says Ineos Bio CEO Peter Williams. &ldquo;There was a lot of development required for the gasification technology.&rdquo; &nbsp;
Once the gasification process is complete, the hot synthesis gas is quenched and cleaned. The recovered heat first generates renewable electricity, and the remaining energy is utilized in other processes. Once operating, the gasification process provides all of the facility&rsquo;s energy needs with a surplus of between 1 and 2 megawatts exported to the grid.&nbsp;
-----------------END SIDE-BAR--------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------SIDE-BAR--------------------------------------------------------------------
Fermentation
At the heart of the Ineos Bio process are patented bacteria. The naturally occurring anaerobic microorganisms evolved to efficiently convert carbon monoxide and hydrogen gases generated in their natural environment to ethanol. The cleaned, cooled synthesis gas is passed into the patented fermentation process, where the bacteria are maintained in the carefully controlled environment. The fermenter is agitated to aid gas-liquid transfer. The Ineos Bio fermentation process takes only a few minutes at low temperature and pressure and with high yield and selectivity. The high performance, coupled with tolerance to variations in syngas composition and to common catalyst poisons means fewer process steps, high-energy efficiency. &nbsp;Nutrients are added to provide for cell growth and automatic regeneration of the biocatalyst. The proprietary combination of microorganism, nutrients, process design and conditions produces ethanol at a commercially attractive and competitive cost.&nbsp;
Ineos Bio literature explains the maximum theoretical yield for the process is about 135 gallons of ethanol per dry ash-free ton of material and reports it measured yields ranging from 75 to 100 gallons per dry U.S. ton. One reason for the higher yields than those typically achieved by processes using acid or enzymatic hydrolysis followed by fermentation is that the gasifier converts the lignin, pentose, protein and other carbon-containing fractions of the biomass into syngas for the microbes to convert. The inorganic fraction and the moisture content are discounted when making the yield calculations.
Most of the syngas is converted to ethanol and any unconverted, vent-gas is cleaned and combusted to generate additional renewable power.&nbsp;
The fermenter liquid is continuously extracted, filtered to remove bacteria and nutrients, and then goes through a standard distillation process followed by dehydration with molecular sieves. Steam generated by recovering heat from the gasification process provides the energy for distillation. Water from the distillation column is recycled back to the fermenter.&nbsp;
-----------------END SIDE-BAR--------------------------------------------------------------------
Author: Susanne Retka Schill Senior Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4922

Future Feedstock  A pickup load of tree trimmings turns in at the Indian River BioEnergy Center in Indian River County, Fla. The company gets paid a tipping fee to accept vegetative waste from a two-county area.

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Ineos Bio brings the first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant in the U.S. online in Florida. 

A Waste-Filled Proposition

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A primer outlinines the inherent challenges 
for biofuel production using biomass

Demystifying Cellulose

If you&rsquo;re exporting goods without an Interest Charge Domestic International Sales Corporation, you&rsquo;re likely paying more income tax than necessary. By implementing a rather simple, low-risk tax planning strategy, you could realize significant tax savings on foreign sales. &nbsp;
For individuals, directly or indirectly through pass-through entities such as limited liability companies or S corporations, an IC-DISC may reduce the tax rate on export profits from the ordinary income tax rate to the dividend rate&mdash;a savings on tax rates of up to around 16 percent&mdash;each year, with such savings being currently &ldquo;permanent&rdquo; (at least until Congress changes the law). Similarly, closely held C corporations can also benefit from implementing an IC-DISC with what essentially becomes a tax-deductible dividend. IC-DISCs can also aid in wealth transfer or executive compensation arrangements for the exporter.
An IC-DISC is a corporation formed under state law that: &bull; Has a single class of stock.&nbsp; &bull; Maintains minimum capitalization of $2,500.&nbsp; &bull; Has qualified export receipts and qualified exports assets. &bull; Elects to be taxed as an IC-DISC. &nbsp;
If all of these requirements are met, an IC-DISC is not subject to federal (and many states&rsquo;) income tax on commission payments received from the exporter. Instead, the IC-DISC shareholders are typically taxed on the distribution of those payments as dividends.
To qualify as an IC-DISC, at least 95 percent of its receipts must be from selling or leasing &ldquo;export property.&rdquo; Property that is, one, manufactured, produced, grown, or extracted in the U.S. by a person other than an IC-DISC, two, &nbsp;held primarily for sale in the ordinary course of business for use outside of the U.S., and, three, not more than 50 percent of its value is comprised of imported materials. This does not require that 95 percent of the exporter&rsquo;s receipts be from exports. It simply requires that the IC-DISC be paid by the exporter based on export sales. Through agreements between the exporter and the IC-DISC, it can be ensured that the IC-DISC is paid based only on qualified export receipts.&nbsp;
Note that there are certain types of property that do not meet the definition of export property, such as most intellectual property and products that deplete like oil, gas, and coal, which should not include typical ethanol manufacturing.&nbsp;
Assuming the exporter is taxed as a pass-through entity that wholly owns the IC-DISC, the entity exports the goods and pays the IC-DISC a commission based on those export sales that is deductible for income tax purposes and not taxed to the IC-DISC. Then, the IC-DISC distributes back to the exporter that same amount, which passes through to the exporter&rsquo;s shareholders and is taxed to them at the dividend rate, not the ordinary income tax rate it otherwise would have been without involving the IC-DISC.
The amount of the &ldquo;commission&rdquo; cannot exceed 50 percent of the export taxable income or 4 percent of export gross receipts. In determining export taxable income, certain direct and indirect expenses can be allocated and apportioned between export and nonexport activities to maximize tax savings under formulas that generally avoid the risk and uncertainty of IRS transfer pricing rules. Further, to determine export taxable income, there is flexibility in how sales are categorized&mdash;for example, by product line or even by transaction&mdash;to optimize the commission calculation, thus, optimizing tax savings.
Unlike other tax planning strategies, the IRS recognizes that IC-DISCs are not required to have economic substance, (e.g., have its own employees and operations) generally because of the desire to incentivize the export of U.S.-manufactured goods. Given that, however, care must be taken to ensure that all legal and technical requirements are met to qualify as an IC-DISC. An IC-DISC is not difficult to form with the help of experienced legal counsel, and is not overly burdensome, especially given the immediate tax savings that can be realized.
Note that this article is intended to be a general overview and not a comprehensive analysis of IC-DISC law. Moreover, it does not constitute legal advice. Competent legal counsel should be consulted to apply the relevant legal requirements of a specific situation.
Author: &nbsp;Christopher L. Nuss| Attorney, BrownWinick Law Firm 515-242-2432 nuss@brownwinick.com

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Are You Exporting Without an IC-DISC?  If So, Why?

Greenbelt Resources Corp. has appointed Joseph Pivinski to its executive team as interim chief financial officer. One of his first tasks is to update the company&rsquo;s financial statements reported via OTC markets. Pivinski previously served as chief financial officer and senior vice president of Consolidated Water Co. Ltd., and as vice president of finance and chief financial officer of Oriole Homes Corp.
Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP announced Cameron Field has joined the firm&rsquo;s Environmental Practice Group in its Madison, Wis., office. Prior to joining Michael Best &amp; Friedrich, Field worked as a summer law clerk in 2012 with Earthjustice and in the fall of 2012 as a legal intern for the U.S. Department of Justice&rsquo;s environmental enforcement section. From 2011 to 2013 he was a research associate with the U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law and in 2013 worked as a student clinician with the Environmental and Natural Resource Law Clinic at Vermont Law School.&nbsp;
Christian Morgen and Jesper Bang Andersen&nbsp;have joined Leifmark LLC as partners. Leifmark is an independent partner of Inbicon A/S that is authorized to market Inbicon Biomass Refinery technology in North America. Morgen and Andersen are former Inbicon executives. Morgen previously served as general manager for international sales and marketing at Inbicon. As a partner of technology with Leifmark, he is now responsible for the transfer of Inbicon technology for commercial licensing in North American projects. Andersen, also a former member of Inbicon&rsquo;s sales and marketing team, now serves as partner of alliances with Leifmark, where he will establish and maintain relationships with key industry partners, accelerate agreements that allow projects to move forward and help manage the transition across economic and legal barriers between North America and Denmark.&nbsp;
Greg Roda has joined Gevo Inc. as chief commercial officer. In this role, he will be responsible for all business development activities for the company. Roda has more than 17 years of leadership, business development, research, and product development experience in biobased materials. He previously served as CEO of Outlast Technology Inc., and as a business development executive at NatureWorks, where he oversaw commercialization of polylactic acid in the fiber and textile industry. He has also worked for Cargill.&nbsp;
Esteban Chornet, co-founder and chief technology officer of Enerkem Inc., was recently presented with the 2103 Don Klass Award for Excellence in Thermochemical Conversion Science. The award, a tribute to one of the original founders of the Biomass Energy Research Association, recognizes Chornet&rsquo;s pioneering technology innovations in the field of bioenergy.&nbsp;
Superior Industries Inc., &nbsp;a North American-based manufacturer of conveyor systems and related components, recently added Terin Louis and Matt Wulf as new conveyor components territory managers in the Northeast and Midwest United States, respectively. Louis joins outside sales following five years of service with the company&rsquo;s engineering department. Wulf previously worked in customer service and sales estimating in the company&rsquo;s conveyor components division.&nbsp;
The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association has announced that Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels LLC has joined its membership. Poet-DSM is developing Project Liberty, a 25 MMgy cellulosic ethanol plant in Emmetsburg, Iowa. &nbsp;
Cultura Technologies Inc. &nbsp;has added new offerings to its enterprise suite of solutions to the agri-food industry with its acquisition of E-Markets Inc., which offers a suite of agronomy, grain and biofuels enterprise resource planning software solutions to customers. The suite of product solutions includes ordering, price risk management, inventory management, preseason order gathering, procurement, identity preserved contracting, and traceability solutions for the agribusiness industry.&nbsp;
Fluid Quip Process Technologies LLC &nbsp;has announced the sale of a Selective Grind Technology system to United Wisconsin Grain Producers to increase ethanol and oil yield at the facility. The system will be the first to utilize a Fluid-Quip 40-inch disc mill. The FQPT SGT lineup also includes 36-inch single discs, 36-inch double discs, and 52-inch discs in full-scale operation, along with various grind plate designs that are used to tailor the SGT system to meet plants&rsquo; needs. &nbsp;
Gamajet has announced the development of the Gamajet Bullet IV to target the cleaning of sludge, oil and residual debris that collects at the bottom of large tanks, open-top tanks, process vessels and trailers. The Gamajet Bullet IV rotates in a tight 105 degree downward patter, with high-impact water jets scouring the bottom area of the tank, with no oversplash. &nbsp;
Verenium Corp. &nbsp;has announced it has entered into a definitive merger agreement with BASF Corp., under which BASF will commence a cash tender offer for all of the outstanding shares of Verenium&rsquo;s common stock. The agreement has been unanimously approved by both Verenium&rsquo;s and BASF&rsquo;s board of directors. &nbsp;
Airgas Inc. &nbsp;has announced that its subsidiary Airgas Carbonic has signed a long-term agreement for the supply of liquid carbon dioxide from Fox River Valley Ethanol&rsquo;s recently acquired plant in Oshkosh, Wis. Under the terms of the agreement, Airgas Carbonic will market food and beverage-grade CO2 co-products from the plant, which is expected to yield 250 tons per day of liquid CO2. &nbsp;
Novozymes&nbsp;has entered into a collaboration agreement with Ra&iacute;zen Energia S/A, the largest sugarcane crusher in Brazil. Under the agreement, Novozymes will supply enzyme technology to Ra&iacute;zen&rsquo;s first commercial-scale Brazilian cellulosic ethanol plant, which is scheduled to be operational next year. The plant will be a bolt-on facility to Ra&iacute;zen&rsquo;s Costa Pinto sugarcane mill in the state of S&atilde;o Paulo. The 40 million liter per year cellulosic plant will convert sugarcane bagasse and straw into ethanol. The agreement also provides for Novozymes to supply enzyme technology to the company&rsquo;s second cellulosic plant, should one be constructed.&nbsp;
Green Biologistics Inc., &nbsp;a Gahanna, Ohio-based biochemicals company, and Little Falls, Minn.-based Central MN Ethanol Co-op have announced that Green Biologistics has entered into an exclusive letter of intent to acquire substantially all of CMEC&rsquo;s assets. The transaction is expected to close next year.&nbsp;
R.C. Costello &amp; Associates Inc.&nbsp;and Zeton Inc. recently signed a memorandum of understanding to provide a customized end-to-end solution that spans from feasibility studies, process simulation, front-end engineering through detailed design, procurement, fabrication and factory testing. Costello has extensive front-end engineering experience, processing modeling and design experience. Zeton has specific know-how in the scale up of process technology, specializing in designing and building modular pilot and demonstration plants.&nbsp;
The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Minnesota recently approved the acquisition of the assets of Purified Renewable Energy LLC to its lender West Ventures LLC. With the sale closed, the plant&rsquo;s name has been changed to Buffalo Lake Advanced Biofuels. The 18 MMgy facility is located in Buffalo Lake, Minn.&nbsp;

Field has a strong background in environmental law.  

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Morgen was part of the team that advanced Inbiconâ€™s biomass technology to the commercial stage. 

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Anderson helped Inbicon establish a partner strategy and assisted in the certification of North American engineering firms.  

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Roda has experience in biobased materials development. 

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Chornet (center) receives the 2013 Don Klass Award from the Gas Technology Institute.

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Business Briefs

The American Coalition for Ethanol recently hosted a successful ethanol conference in Des Moines, Iowa.
Our conference, developed with input from ACE members, focused on policy, innovation, marketing, and profitability. We discussed how to win the renewable fuel standard (RFS) battle, efforts to increase the use of E15 and E85, and technology innovations being developed to improve profitability in the industry. With an eye toward the future, we also had a top U.S. automaker discuss the role ethanol&rsquo;s octane can play in advanced engine technologies.
But what I enjoyed most about the conference is that we recognized several ACE members for the proactive steps they are taking to advance and promote ethanol. &nbsp;
We put the spotlight on people who don&rsquo;t seek or desire the attention, but deserve it for their leadership. For example, Ron Alverson with Dakota Ethanol, who is our board president, is passionate about the fact that corn ethanol does much more to reduce lifecycle greenhouse gases than what it gets credit for. Ron is pioneering an effort to help regulators appreciate the beneficial role ethanol can play in reducing carbon emissions. &nbsp;We highlighted Delayne Johnson and Travis Brotherson of Quad County Corn Processors who developed a technology breakthrough in their research laboratory to convert corn kernel fiber into cellulosic ethanol, an innovation that is being commercialized at their plant today.
When it comes to our effort to win the RFS battle, some ACE members stand out as leaders who have gone above and beyond the advocacy call-of-duty. For example, Chippewa Valley Ethanol Co. is the first that comes to my mind. CVEC has sent more people to the ACE fly-in over the years and been more actively supportive of advocacy efforts than any other ethanol plant I can think of; they are making a positive difference. At the other end of the country, Pinal Energy has been proactive about communicating the benefits of the RFS to the Arizona congressional delegation.
Many ACE members have taken the initiative to help overcome the blend wall and increase market access for ethanol. Glacial Lakes Energy has been promoting E30 and E85 for years, and recently began hosting Flex Fuel Fridays in their area to increase sales of higher ethanol blends. Little Sioux Corn Processors and Siouxland Ethanol have both helped retailers in their area install blender pumps to sell higher blends.
Other ACE members stand out as leaders for being proactive with the media or for engaging and educating the public. Ace Ethanol, Adkins Energy, Big River Resources, KAAPA Ethanol and Mid-Missouri Energy have all taken the initiative to educate the media about the benefits of ethanol. Dave Sovereign and other leaders at Golden Grain Energy, Homeland Energy Solutions, Absolute Energy and Big River Resources launched the Biofuels Mobile Education Center a few years ago. And Gene and Kathy Griffith and their team at Patriot Renewable Fuels have become particularly effective at raising awareness about the benefits of ethanol on social media.
While we didn&rsquo;t have enough time at our conference to spotlight the efforts of every member, we singled out these leaders to remind everyone that the sharpest minds and most effective advocates of the industry are the hard-working men and women represented by the ACE grassroots network.
We&rsquo;re going to win the RFS battle in Washington this year, not because we&rsquo;ll spend more money than oil companies, but because our members&rsquo; advocacy has made a positive difference on Capitol Hill. That&rsquo;s how we enacted the RFS in the first place, and that&rsquo;s how we&rsquo;ll keep it intact in Congress. Consider the fact that RFS repeal is off the table and momentum is stalling on opponents&rsquo; so-called reform efforts.
Make no mistake, changes will be made to the RFS, but those changes will be made by the U.S. EPA, not Congress. Oil companies are asking EPA to reduce the RFS below 10 percent of gasoline demand and EPA has said it&rsquo;s likely to reduce the advanced and total levels for 2014, so we&rsquo;ll remain engaged with EPA to ensure these decisions are thoughtful and informed.
The truth is change doesn&rsquo;t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington thanks to the advocacy of people who belong to groups like ACE. Thank you for your leadership and support.
Author: Brian Jennings Executive Vice President American Coalition for Ethanol 605-334-3381 bjennings@ethanol.org
&nbsp;

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ACE Conference Highlights Industry Advocates 

It&rsquo;s no secret that Big Oil and its allies have and will continue to do anything and everything to discredit the ethanol industry. Time and again these groups have disseminated misleading information and outright distortions in attempts to deceive the American public, protect their market share and, ultimately, their bottom line. But, when you take a good look at the whole picture, it&rsquo;s clear. The facts don&rsquo;t lie and the misinformation thrown at the biofuels industry is being picked apart by the truth.
Big Oil has been pushing back on E15, saying it will damage engines and that consumers don&rsquo;t even want it. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a recent poll conducted by Fuels America, a coalition including Growth Energy, shows that there is an overwhelming desire for renewable fuels. Conducted in late September, the poll shows that 82 percent of U.S. consumers support having E15 at their local gas stations. Furthermore, for the retailers who have introduced E15 to their consumers, it has quickly become a customer favorite, with many retailers saying that their new E15 sales make up approximately 30 percent of their entire fuel sales.&nbsp;
The oil industry has attacked the safety of E15 as well, going so far as to launch national advertisements (with actors masquerading as mechanics) based on the false premise that E15 will damage your engine. The proof? An oil-funded study conducted with no scientific basis whatsoever that used dubious technical assumptions. In fact, only eight vehicles were tested and one even failed running on pure gasoline. This led the U.S. DOE to publish a blog to counter oil&rsquo;s findings, stating that the agency believes &ldquo;the study is significantly flawed.&rdquo;
Big Oil also wants you to believe that E15 results in dramatically lower gas mileage. This is simply not true. Any mileage loss is negligible and is substantially offset by the price reduction. Furthermore, the oil industry wants you to believe that E15 is a mandate, that consumers would be forced to fuel up with this blend. This couldn&rsquo;t be further from the truth. E15 has always been about consumer choice, offering an alternative at the pump that is otherwise not available.&nbsp;
Big Oil claims it needs to eliminate the renewable fuel standard (RFS) in order to have a competitive marketplace. &nbsp;It already has a near monopoly on the current fuels dispensed and the industry wants to make sure it stays this way. This battle is about market share, plain and simple. Just this year, the five biggest oil companies earned an astonishing $145,000 in profits per minute! To put that in perspective, that is nearly three times the median household income of Americans, which is $52,762 per year. Yet the industry still goes out of its way to block market access for ethanol. Why? They will do anything to prevent competition in the marketplace.
Big Oil has also teamed up with Big Food to paint the picture that the ethanol industry is driving up food prices, which is an outright distortion of reality. While feed costs have increased over the past few years, during the same time frame, the food industry has both covered its feed costs and pocketed nearly $8 billion a year in additional income. The poultry industry alone has made huge profits largely thanks to increased margins. In the past four years, retailers increased their margins by more than 11 cents per pound per year over and above the price they paid the farmer who incurred all the production costs. &nbsp; &nbsp;
Want more proof? From 2009 through this past May, the Consumer Price Index for food has increased 8.7 percent, tracking pretty closely to the 7.8 percent increase in the index for all items. Yet, during this same time frame, gasoline prices rose 38.4 percent. This increase further supports the recent World Bank study that identified energy costs as the driving force for more than 50 percent of the increase in food prices worldwide. The study also demonstrated that agriculture commodity prices had little impact on consumer food prices. &nbsp;
I could continue, correcting more and more of oil&rsquo;s tricks with cold hard facts, but I think I&rsquo;ve made my point. &nbsp;Let&rsquo;s hope Americans can see through Big Oil&rsquo;s web of deception, see the facts and understand the truth about ethanol and the liquid fuels market. It&rsquo;s time for Americans to have the choice of a clean, green homegrown American fuel that provides them with a choice and savings at the pump.
Author: Tom Buis CEO, Growth Energy 202-545-4000 tbuis@growthenergy.org

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The Facts Never Lie

Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching and with it comes friends, family and food. As families begin to prepare for the big meal, the grocery store displays large piles of turkeys in all different shapes and sizes. If I broke on the right side of the wishbone, I would wish that Americans would know the truth about the negative impact of Big Oil on food prices and the positive impact of ethanol on reducing transportation costs. &nbsp;
Oil and energy costs are the leading cause of food price increases at the grocery store, not ethanol. On average, food travels 1,500 miles from the farm to the local supermarket. When breaking it down, only 16 cents of every dollar spent on food is spent on the actual agricultural ingredients. The rest of the dollar is spent on packaging, transporting, marketing and getting it to the grocery store, which requires oil and energy.&nbsp;
This claim is backed up by the World Bank, which released a study in May finding that oil is, in fact, the primary culprit behind food price spikes. The report concluded that &ldquo;&hellip; most of the [food] price increases [from 1997-2004 to 2005-2012] are accounted for by crude oil prices (more than 50 percent). &hellip; Crude oil prices mattered most during the recent boom period because they experienced the largest increase.&rdquo; Additionally, when comparing the United Nations Food Price Index and World Crude Oil prices, there is a near perfect correlation.&nbsp;
Thanksgiving often has large meals and food, but that isn&rsquo;t the real basis of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family and loved ones which, to many, includes a substantial amount of travel. Some take planes, some take trains, but many take automobiles, and with that comes a large expense, the cost of gasoline. AAA predicted that more than 39 million people would be traveling an average of 588 miles during last year&rsquo;s Thanksgiving holiday. Add that up and it makes for a very expensive holiday season.&nbsp;
Here is where ethanol comes into play. According to a recent analysis by energy economist Philip K. Verleger, ethanol production has saved consumers an average of $1 per gallon at the pump in 2012 and 2013. I know that many people nationwide have to decide if the cost is worth the trip, but with lower gas prices due to ethanol, the decision becomes easier and more people will be reunited with family and old friends.&nbsp;
While the petroleum industry is causing rising food prices, ethanol is saving drivers money at the pump and that is truly something to be thankful for.&nbsp;
Author: Bob Dinneen President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association 202-289-3835

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Let's Talk Thanksgiving, Transportation

The latest study by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says a &ldquo;hot world is a hungry world.&rdquo; Unfortunately, global warming has become a political issue rather than a science issue and is based more on economics than logic. Because no matter the degree of temperature rise, no matter to what extent humans are to blame, anything we can do to try and mitigate either of those two effects is to our benefit.&nbsp;
It&rsquo;s not as though we need to do years more research to try and determine where the pollution is generated. We know where the pollution is originating and what&rsquo;s causing it. To not impose strict regulations to minimize the emissions from known sources is environmentally irresponsible and is often being ignored simply because of profits.
I like profit, it&rsquo;s what makes the world go around at least on an economic scale. I also like to breathe clean air and want to know that as world inhabitants we are doing everything we can to protect our environment for future generations. Unfortunately, when it comes down to corporate profits vs. environmental prophets, corporate profits are currently leading on the environmental scoreboard.&nbsp;
One of the problems is that the places on earth with the least profits are the very places that the prophets predict will be the most effected.&nbsp;
&ldquo;As temperatures climb and oceans warm, tropical and subtropical regions will face sharp changes in annual rainfall, says the IPCC report. &ldquo;East Africa can expect to experience increased short rains, while West Africa should expect heavier monsoons. Burma, Bangladesh and India can expect stronger cyclones; elsewhere in southern Asia, heavier summer rains are anticipated.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Governments around the world need to begin basing their climate change policies less on the advice of profit-oriented industry and more on the predictions of global scientists. Call me a cynic, but I have a difficult time believing the public relations spokespersons for industry who suggest that this whole climate change thing is a hoax and call into question the collective judgement of 97 percent of the scientific community.&nbsp;
The ethanol industry has known for decades that what we do contributes to a cleaner environment. The oil industry can&rsquo;t make that claim, we can. We may not be a panacea for stopping global warming, but we are far better at contributing towards the reduction of CO2 than fossil fuels. For that we can, and should, be immensely proud.&nbsp;
So while we all like corporate profits, we need to start heeding the environmental prophets and as a global community do the right thing. It may sound utopian, but it&rsquo;s high time government, industry and community began working together to address global warming and stop this nonsense of denial.
That&rsquo;s the way I see it.
Author: Mike Bryan Chairman, BBI International mbryan@bbiinternational.com

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Corporate Profits vs Environmental Prophets

This month, we catch up with four large-scale cellulosic ethanol plants, three of which are among the first in the world to finish construction. &nbsp;These early-to-market producers are notably unique. Their technology platforms and production inputs are as dissimilar as their geographic locations and corporate structures. Nevertheless, their commonalities emerge thematically in this month&rsquo;s feature lineup. &nbsp;
Starting with our page-30 cover story, &ldquo;A Waste-Filled Proposition,&rdquo; we are introduced to the crucial role that waste-to-ethanol plants can play in mitigating a growing worldwide community need&mdash;waste diversion. Ineos New Planet BioEnergy LLC is getting paid to divert vegetative and wood waste from a space-constrained landfill in Florida, writes Sue Retka Schill, EPM senior editor. In the feature that follows, &ldquo;Trash to Bio-Treasure,&rdquo; Holly Jessen, EPM managing editor, reports on two other waste-to-ethanol producers: Enerkem in Alberta and Fiberight in Iowa. Again, we see that tipping fees are, or will be, paid to each producer by the cities supplying them with waste. While materials separation and waste conversion challenges are difficult beasts, taming them may deliver a huge prize. Landfills are simply running out of space and municipalities from all over the U.S. are expressing interest in Fiberight. Ineos, too, is getting &ldquo;inquiries from all over the world.&rdquo;
If the value proposition of waste diversion is the principal thread in this month&rsquo;s issue, the challenge of commissioning novel industrial facilities is the second. Plant commissioning, put simply, is the process of assuring that all of the plant&rsquo;s systems and components are designed, installed and functioning the way they&rsquo;re supposed to.&nbsp;
Retka Schill visited the Ineos Bio facility in person in August. She returned from Florida with new insight about how large chemical companies define and carry out plant commissioning. She informs us that the pre-startup &ldquo;shakedown&rdquo; that once took a new corn-ethanol plant a month may take a cellulosic ethanol plant a year or more. In Northern Italy, Beta Renewables&mdash;long done with construction&mdash;celebrated official plant opening on Oct. 8 (see photos on page 44). Like Ineos, Beta Renewables was in the tedious throes of commissioning for months. Up north, farther from the finish line, Enerkem is also approaching project completion but just entering its own commissioning process.&nbsp;
The takeaway: Commissioning first-of-a-kind cellulosic ethanol plants is a meticulous, time-consuming process. Startup isn&rsquo;t what it used to be, but neither are the stakes. If old feedstock and technology rules no longer apply to new ethanol plants, neither should old expectations about the pace of bringing the facilities on line. &nbsp;
Tom Bryan PRESIDENT &amp; EDITOR IN CHIEF tbryan@bbiinternational.com&nbsp;

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Commissioning a  First-of-a-Kind Plant Takes Time 

The Petroleum Equipment Institute recently published estimates of the cost to convert a fuel station from one that dispenses E10 to one that supplies E15 in response to a request made by the USDA. The estimates are based on a survey of PEI members from across the nation.&nbsp;
Depending upon the specific upgrades needed and the number of fuel pumps present as a particular station, the estimates spanned from as low as $1,000 per station for an upgrade that requires only labeling and signage changes to just over $320,000 to retrofit a 10-pump station that requires existing dispensers and hanging hardware to be replaced, along with a new underground storage system.&nbsp;
The PEI&rsquo;s analysis includes estimates addressing several scenarios, including the need to replace above ground and underground equipment. The institute also compares the cost to build a new station that supplies blends of up to E10 with one that supplies E15. &nbsp;

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PEI estimates E15 conversion costs 

Sept. 30&mdash;Even with cost of production slowly slipping lower due to corn prices hovering around $4.50 per bushel, ethanol inventory levels continue to shrink. The general trend of the market is to push supplies lower, although this movement is very inconsistent from week to week. Lower ethanol production, combined with generally strong product movement following Labor Day is helping to draw buyers back into the market and keeping long-term supplies limited. If this tightness continues to be seen through the end of the year, additional ethanol market support is likely as buyers try to gain access to more product to meet future demand. But even though ethanol supplies have dropped, moderate price pressure has been seen in both ethanol and gasoline markets over the past month. This could create some back and forth price movement through the fourth quarter. Size and quality of this year's corn crop will have a major impact in ethanol price direction in the next six months. &nbsp;

Ethanol inventories tightening  during fall months

Sept. 30&mdash;As October approaches, DDGS prices are still reflective of the nearby tightness in old crop corn. While the inverse of old crop DDGS prices to new crop is not as severe as a month ago, the price drop from the beginning to the end of October is still about $15 per ton. The strong demand being seen from bulk and container exports is creating values of corn percentages of more than 110 percent for a lot of plants. This type of value is expected now through the first and second quarters of 2014 and is creating a lot of reformulation in the diets of domestic animals that are being fed. &nbsp;
Part of this phenomenon is due to the price of protein throughout the world and the value of it in the DDGS. Or, it could be due to fact that there is not a quota on DDGS in China like there is in corn and the value-added tax, and cost of freight in containers is lower. Also, overseas buyers have had advantages in buying smaller parcels at near bulk rate prices. All of these are the reasons that export DDGS demand is driving the price.
At some point, domestic demand will drop even more than it has the past couple of months. Buyers either can&rsquo;t, or won&rsquo;t, pay the premiums that export buyers have been doing. Feeding animals has not been consistently profitable for any of the U.S. meat and milk producers for years and DDGS is seeing more competition from things like corn gluten feed and canola meal. The percentage of corn price strength looks to continue through the first quarter of next year, especially given both the propensity of DDGS to drop more slowly in price and the expected drop in the price of cash corn. &nbsp;Exports are in the driver&rsquo;s seat, for now.

DDGS export demand driving  prices for now 

Of the $22 million investment, nearly $6 million is destined for Ohio-based, FDC Enterprises (FDCE) team of industry experts and companies that work within the biofuel industry to streamline the feedstock supply chain over the next three years by developing new field equipment, upgrading biorefinery conveyer processes and advancing preprocessing technologies, such as a near-infrared spectrometer to quickly evaluate biomass feedstocks. <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/10418/web-only-innovation-in-feedstock-transport-testing" target="_blank">READ MORE</a>&nbsp;

In August, Ernest Moniz, secretary for the U.S. DOE, announced more than $22 million in new investments to develop a more efficient feedstock supply chain for advanced biofuels, in addition to more affordable algae-derived fuels.

WEB ONLY: Innovation in Feedstock Transport, Testing

Sept. 30&mdash;The potential of 1.8 billion bushels of corn stocks looms over the horizon with the possibility of a major shift in acres remaining. Preliminary yield reports have been optimistic for corn, however, later planted crops have to yet to offer yields. With production projected at 13.8 billion bushels, demand at 12.6 billion bushels and carry-in from last year at 661 million bushels (expected to increase with the September stocks report), overall carryout is projected at 1.855 billion bushels. Therefore, the supply/demand table has wiggle room on the supply and production side. The livestock sector is expected to consume 5.1 billion bushels, exports 1.225 billion bushels, ethanol 4.90 billion bushels and other industrial usage 1.45 billion bushels. Feed demand and higher ethanol demand (meaning more coproduct production) would leave room for bigger livestock placements or more coproduct exports.
World corn carryout is estimated at 151.42 million metric tons, up from last year&rsquo;s 122.59. &nbsp;The current world corn-stocks-to-use ratio is 16.3 percent, the highest ratio in three years. The increase in U.S. and world stocks will keep the market upside potential limited barring a weather threat in South America. The market anticipates more soy production out of that region as crop and currency economics warrant it. Stay tuned for a perceived bearish October outlook to report U.S. carryout for 2013-'14.&nbsp;
With the projected carryout in the corn market and inverted ethanol markets going forward, ethanol production margins look disappointing while forward coproduct values look attractive.&nbsp;

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Preliminary yield reports optimistic, but outcome still unknown 

Sept. 30&mdash;The month of September has been interesting in the natural gas market with unseasonably warm weather causing a late summer run-up in prices. Typically, demand for power peaks in July and consequently, there is higher demand for natural gas, which, along with coal, is used to help cool American homes and businesses. When comparing the weather patterns of 2013 against the historical norm, it can be seen how a relatively cool August and hot September influenced natural gas prices.
The chart plots aggregate weekly Total Degree Days for 2013 as well as the 30-year historical norms for TDDs, which gives us a sense of how relatively hot a summer month has been. TDDs are calculated by climatologists by taking the difference between the 65 degrees Fahrenheit and the average temperature over the past 30. The chart also plots the price of natural gas, using the prices from the New York Mercantile Exchange, revealing the relationship between prices and weather and shows why natural gas prices rose in September. In the month of July, when summer demand for gas is typically highest, prices were north of $3.70 per MMBtu. In the following month, temperature dipped below seasonal norms, with only one week above the 30-year average level, and Nymex prices responded, dropping below $3.30 per MMBtu. When the weather pattern shifted in September, weekly TDDs were above normal for a four-week stretch, achieving levels normally experienced in July. This extended run of above-average temperatures pushed Nymex prices back to July levels.&nbsp;

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Shifting weather patterns impact prices

It took almost three years for the European Commission to put a bill on the table of the European Parliament and European Union Council of Member States to regulate the indirect effects of land use change (ILUC) caused by the EU biofuel policy.
It took that long because there was deep disagreement within the European Commission on whether to use very much disputed science on ILUC as a basis for building on policy and rules. Time pressure forced the Commission to hammer out a &ldquo;compromise&rdquo; in which the two most involved Commission services agreed to disagree and wrote their favorite wishes in the bill. What the Commission sent to the legislators was a potpourri of different agendas. It was a mess and the whole discussion has continued to be messy since then, with the Commission very much internally divided on the issue.&nbsp;
The main reason for releasing a bill was time constraint. In the EU, adopting a bill takes at least 12 months. With the Parliamentary elections of May 2014 on the horizon, it is already challenging to issue a bill in October 2013.&nbsp;
Now, almost one year after the bill was released, the EP has spoken and the outcome was predictable, disagreement to the core. In fact the EP was just echoing the disagreement seen in the Commission. Furthermore, the third and most powerful EU institution, the Council of Ministers, is also in total disagreement. Since the day the Council started discussing the bill, the disagreement became obvious.&nbsp;
The EP has proposed amendments to the bill, many of which are confusing, contradictory or overly detailed and complicated to implement. Of the many hundreds of amendments proposed, those adopted were almost all carried by a slim majority of the voting members (about 10 percent of the members did not participate in the vote). For the Parliament this is the worst possible outcome, starting negotiations with the two other institutions knowing that only a very few amendments were carried with absolute majority (that is, a majority of the total number of its members). If they wish to do this, effectively, the other two institutions can simply ignore the views of the Parliament.
Still, the negotiation process is rather opaque, known to be driven largely by the wheeling and dealing conducted by only a few people. But the Parliament also made a decision that very much undermines the possibility of a quick fix. The member of the Parliament in charge of the bill (the rapporteur) was denied a negotiation mandate for as long as it takes for the Member States to reach a common position on the bill. This means that the process is effectively delayed by several months. The Parliament&rsquo;s rapporteur now needs to sit and wait until the Council is ready to receive her. As the EU Treaty does not put any deadline on the first reading stage of the bill it could take forever.
As a result, the Council may lose its appetite for bringing this file to a quick conclusion. The fact that the Member States are so divided on the issue doesn't help either.&nbsp;
If there is no common stance by April next year the bill will go into the freezer. The new Parliament and the new Commission appointed by the end of 2014 can then decide to defrost the bill or to put it in a coffin. The latter would mean game over and business as usual, a likely scenario, according to many stakeholders.&nbsp;
Most remarkably, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are among the loudest shouters, calling for a speedy agreement. Their main argument, to avoid uncertainty for industry. One of the leading environmental NGOs writes in its newsletter that &ldquo;delays in the final agreement create further uncertainty for the industry.&rdquo;
You must have nerves to say this. First NGOs have been campaigning aggressively against biofuels, resulting in a bill that is perceived by industry as a U-turn in policy. The immediate effect was a stop to all investments and uncertainty about what future would have in store. &nbsp;And now the NGOs that caused the problem in the first place are saying that no new law will create further uncertainty. I would argue the opposite, no new legislation means maintaining the 10 percent target and certainty at least for the next six years. &nbsp;
If the Council does not make substantial progress in the coming two months the file is as good as dead, meaning the end of the ILUC soap opera for several years.
Author: Robert Vierhout Secretary-general, ePURE Vierhout@epure.org

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Is the ILUC Soap Opera Nearing Its Finale? 

Flagship VentureLabs has announced that Midori Renewables is globally deploying its trademarked Breaking the Biomass Barrier technology, which features a novel catalyst that converts non-food biomass into sugars. The catalyst is a solid material, not an enzyme, micro-organism or acquesous acid. The company says it can easily be separated from the reaction and reused, which reduces costs.&nbsp;
Midori has been testing its technology over the past year in a variety of markets, including the biofuels and renewable chemicals sectors. The company was issued two foundational U.S. patents on its catalyst technology and has more than 10 additional families of patents pending worldwide.&nbsp;
"We evaluated hundreds of technologies before we invented our own solid catalyst, which is truly an innovative way to produce ultra-low cost sugars for sustainable biobased products," said Brian Baynes, founder and chairman of Midori and partner at Flagship VentureLabs.&nbsp;
Midori plans to construct a commercial demonstration facility next year and is currently in partnering discussions with engineering, procurement and construction firms.&nbsp;

Midori plans demonstration plant

In September, the National Advanced Biofuel Conference &amp; Expo brought members of the biofuels industry together in Omaha, Neb. Michael McAdams, president of the Advanced Biofuel Association, kicked off the opening session of the event with a simple, but powerful message&mdash;now is the time to unite. McAdams urged all members of the biofuels industry, whether first-generation biofuels, cellulosic biofuels or drop-in fuels, to work together to protect the industry that has been built over the past 30 years, particularly the renewable fuels standard (RFS).&nbsp;
The event also featured updates on cellulosic ethanol products delivered by representatives of Abengoa Bioenergy S.A., Poet-DSM Advanced Biofuels LLC and Ineos Bio. &nbsp;A preconference event, the Corn Stover Harvest &amp; Transport Seminar, addressed the technological, logistical and environmental issues of using corn stover as an advanced biofuel feedstock, while industry tours highlighted the co-located BioProcess Algae production facility and Green Plains Renewable Energy ethanol plant.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

Advanced biofuel stakeholders unite in Omaha 

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that California&rsquo;s low carbon fuel standard (LCFS) program is constitutional, overturning a prior ruling that it violates interstate commerce laws. A panel of three judges made the ruling in September, vacating a preliminary injunction made by the district court.&nbsp;
Rulings issued by the district court in December 2011 found that the LCFS facially discriminated against out-of-state ethanol, impermissibly engaged in the extraterritorial regulation of ethanol production, and discriminated against out-of-state crude oil, and was not saved by California&rsquo;s preemption waiver in the Clean Air Act. However, the opinion published by the appeals court has reversed that finding. One judge in the panel dissented to a portion of the ruling stating that the state has failed to demonstrate that a nondiscriminatory version of the regulation would be unable to achieve its legitimate local interest of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. &nbsp;
Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association are among the plaintiffs cited in court documents. In a joint statement, the RFA and Growth Energy said they are evaluating both the decision and the dissent and are contemplating all legal actions.
&nbsp;

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Court upholds California LCFS

California Ethanol &amp; Power LLC is one step closer to producing advanced ethanol following a Sept. 10 meeting of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors. During the meeting, board members of the California-based district voted to approve seven resolutions related to permitting, zoning, water and other issues related to the project.&nbsp;
David Rubenstein, chief operating officer of CE&amp;P, called the board&rsquo;s action the &ldquo;last of the permitting hurdles.&rdquo; The project is expected to break ground late this year or early next year, with operations beginning approximately two years later.&nbsp;
Once complete, the facility will have the capacity to produce 66 MMgy of ethanol from sugarcane and sweet sorghum feedstocks, along with 49.9 MW of renewable power and 940 million cubic feet of biogas. The ethanol plant will feature off-the-shelf Brazilian technology that is adapted to meet California&rsquo;s stringent clean air and water standards.&nbsp;

Advanced ethanol plant to break ground in California

Members of the European Parliament voted on draft legislation Sept. 11, calling for a 6 percent cap on first-generation biofuels and a swift transition to second-generation renewable fuels. The Renewable Energy Association said the series of tight votes will prolong instability in biofuel policy, noting that a 2.5 percent target for advanced biofuels, double counting for biofuels made from cooking oil and tallow and a 7.5 percent limit on ethanol in gasoline blends were also approved. In addition, MEPs voted to keep accounting for indirect land use change (ILUC) factors.&nbsp;
However, under the complex rules of the European Parliament, the matter is not finalized. A statement issued by the parliament explains that MEP Corinne Lepage was two votes short of receiving a mandate to negotiate with member states, who will now seek a common position on their own. In effect, a final decision on the matter could be postponed until next year. &nbsp;

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EU biofuels vote prolongs policy uncertainty

The USDA recently announced a new round of payments to biofuels producers under the Advanced Biofuel Payment Program. USDA Rural Development Acting Under Secretary Doug O&rsquo;Brien made the announcement in September on behalf of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the National Advanced Biofuels Conference &amp; Expo in Omaha, Neb.&nbsp;
According to the USDA, nearly $15.5 million was awarded to 188 producers through this round of funding, including payments to more than a dozen ethanol producers located in California, Indiana, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Texas.&nbsp;
The Advanced Biofuel Payment Program was established by the 2008 Farm Bill. It makes payments to eligible biofuel producers based on the quantity of advanced biofuel produced from renewable biomass, other than corn starch.&nbsp;

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Ethanol producers receive  advanced biofuel payments

The Atlantic Council for Bioenergy Co-operative, in partnership with BioAtlantech New Brunswick, has released a report exploring the potential to develop a biofuels industry in Atlantic Canada. The report, titled &ldquo;Fueling the Future: Atlantic Canada&rsquo;s Bioenergy Opportunities Project,&rdquo; finds that biofuel production in the region could generate $1.5 billion in gross domestic product, $273 million in tax revenues and 10,000 jobs over five years.&nbsp;
While the report specified Atlantic Canada would have to produce about 250 million liters of ethanol to meet its renewable fuel goals, the market potential is significantly greater as regional feedstocks, such as sugar beets, could be used to produce fuel to meet U.S. renewable fuel standard (RFS) mandates.&nbsp;
The report also discusses a tool developed by Gardner Pinfold Consultants Inc. that is designed to assess the financial viability of a project based on feedstock, plant scale, pre-construction and construction costs, financing, operational costs and revenues.&nbsp;

Atlantic Canada shows promise for advanced ethanol production 

Since its founding in 1790 as the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, the U.S. Coast Guard has had a history of implementing new technology within its fleet. During the U.S. Civil War, for example, the USRC Naugatuck boasted twin-screw engines, ironclad armor and semisubmersible technology that allowed it to increase or decrease the ship&rsquo;s draft in shallow waters. Continuing its pursuit of maritime innovation and reinforcing its motto of Semper Paratus (Always Ready), the USCG is conducting a year-long engine test using renewable, isobutanol-blended gasoline through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Gevo Inc., Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Mercury Marine.
 With a fleet of more than 2,000 cutter ships, boats and aircraft that conducted 19,790 search and rescues in 2012, cost-effective advanced biofuels that meet the USCG&rsquo;s standards will help the organization break its reliance on foreign fuel sources and provide a stable fuel source in the event a conflict disrupts fuel supply lines.
 Producing the Fuel
 In 2011, the USCG began an alternative fuel study, motivated by the government&rsquo;s desire to minimize its carbon footprint, says Michael Coleman, project manager for the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center. From that initial study, the USCG researched different alternative fuels for their affordability, availability, safety and potential carbon footprint reduction. The USCG selected four fuels: natural gas, ethanol blends, biobutanol and biomass liquid fuels. &ldquo;Out of those four fuels, we did a desktop evaluation including many technical factors including maturity, performance, physical safety and logistics,&rdquo; Coleman says. &ldquo;Out of those, we decided to proceed with biobutanol as our test fuel.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 For the engine tests, the USCG is sourcing the isobutanol-blended fuel from Gevo&rsquo;s plant in Luverne, Minn. The USCG selected a blend of 16.1 percent isobutanol and gasoline because of its potential benefits in an aquatic environment. &ldquo;The Coast Guard, along with many other folks in the marine industry, is very interested in next-generation biofuels instead of ethanol-blended gasoline,&rdquo; says Brett Lund, chief licensing officer for Gevo. He adds ethanol-blended gasoline is currently not compatible with most boat engines and its solubility with water make isobutanol a more attractive option.
 Gevo&rsquo;s Luverne facility is a retrofitted ethanol plant that produces isobutanol using Gevo&rsquo;s Integrated Fermentation Technology. Gevo is producing 8,700 gallons of blended isobutanol fuel at the facility for the Coast Guard tests.
 Producing the fuel presented some challenges that Gevo had to overcome, says Lund.&nbsp; Yeast naturally wants to produce ethanol, and small amounts of isobutanol.&nbsp; &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve spent quite a bit of time, five years or so, using metabolic engineering to develop a yeast that makes, almost exclusively, isobutanol,&rdquo; he says. He notes isobutanol is toxic to the yeast and causes it to perish, therefore Gevo also had to develop a tolerant yeast strain. As the isobutanol is produced in the broth, Gevo extracts the isobutanol vapor under vacuum and condenses it into a liquid. &ldquo;That really allows us to get the isobutanol out of the process without having to use conventional distillation to remove the water,&rdquo; Lund explains.
 Setting Sail
 After the initial alternative fuel study, the second phase of the isobutanol tests under the CRADA occurred over a three-month period in early 2013 using Honda outboard engines and craft, since Honda is one the major engine manufacturers for the USCG, Coleman says.&nbsp; In addition to material and benchmark testing, Honda also put the isobutanol blend through an endurance test prior to giving the USCG the approval of trying the fuel in its own boats, he explains. During Honda&rsquo;s test, the engines operate at full throttle for eight hours a day over several months and then are taken apart and inspected.
 The next round of fuel tests are in progress at the U.S. Coast Guard Training Center in Yorktown, Va. &ldquo;The training center is basically an area where Coast Guard members can learn how to operate the different boat platforms, be it anywhere from standard boat handling procedures to the mechanics of those craft,&rdquo; says Lt. Kevin Sorrell. The center is a convenient location for testing due to its availability compared to other operational units, he adds.
 At the Yorktown training center, the fuel is being tested on a 38-foot special-purpose craft using Mercury outboard engines as well as a 25-foot response boat (RBS) that uses Honda outboard engines.&nbsp; &ldquo;Both crafts are operationally used in the Coast Guard,&rdquo; says Sorrell. &ldquo;RBSes are basically stationed all throughout the United States. The special purpose craft is more of a law enforcement craft, specifically used down in the southern U.S., like the Gulf of Mexico and Florida area.&rdquo;
 &ldquo;What we hope to accomplish with this project is to get the information that&rsquo;ll give the Coast Guard decision makers the ability to make an informed decision on whether to proceed with butanol as an alternative fuel,&rdquo; says Coleman.
 If the fuel tests turn out for the better, a positive testimonial from the USCG could be quite valuable for the advanced biofuel and boating industry. &ldquo;This is really the option they are most excited about for their fleet and their industry. The fact that it&rsquo;s all home-grown and the isobutanol is 100 percent produced in the U.S. is also beneficial,&rdquo; says Lund. &ldquo;They, as well as other branches of the military, like solutions like that because you avoid some of the risk of being cut-off from fuel supply.&rdquo;
 &ldquo;The nice part from our perspective is, if it&rsquo;s good enough for the U.S. Coast Guard, it&rsquo;s pretty much good enough for any marine application out there,&rdquo; Lund adds. &ldquo;Nobody runs their boats like these guys do.&rdquo; Author: Chris Hanson Staff Writer, Biomass Magazine 701-738-4970 <a href="mailto:chanson@bbiinternational.com">chanson@bbiinternational.com</a>

BOATING WITH ISOBUTANOL: The isobutanol blended fuels are being tested in a 25-foot response boat, left, and a 38-foot special purpose craft at its training center in Yorktown, Va. 

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COAST GUARD COLLABORATION: Gevo Inc. produces and blends the needed 8,700 gallons of isobutanol-blended biofuel for the U.S. Coast Guardâ€™s year-long test.

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The U.S. Coast Guard is testing isobutanol gasoline blends in its marine engines.

Isobutanol to the Rescue

The U.S. military is the largest single user of energy in the world. Its five branches consume every type of energy product available, and in staggering quantities. In a 2010 Global Green USA report, author Schuyler Null notes that if the U.S. military were a country, it would rank 54th in the world in total energy use, edging out developed countries like Portugal, Qatar, Israel and North Korea. Add to that the military&rsquo;s strategic objective to grow its use of renewable energy to 25 percent by 2025, and the picture that emerges illustrates the U.S. military as being one of the hottest markets for renewable energy in the world, with needs for abundant electric, thermal and liquid fuel energy.
 The Biomass Magazine team has been watching this sector develop the past two years and has published news stories in print and online the mandates, strategic initiatives and military exercises that have marked the growth of renewables in the armed forces. When we built the 2013 editorial calendar last fall, we knew it was time to dedicate an entire issue to biomass energy in the military. We thought November would be a great time to honor the men and women, in and out of uniform, driving these initiatives.
 The mix of technologies featured in this issue demonstrates the variety of locations our armed forces operate near, as well as the varying biomass resources available in each region. Sue Retka Schill&rsquo;s article &ldquo;Fighting the Good Fight&rdquo; (page 17) catches up with the Oregon National Guard as it explores the opportunity for local forest biomass resources to simultaneously move away from nonrenewable petroleum heat energy while reducing the fuel load in the state&rsquo;s forest acres. In his feature &ldquo;Isobutanol to the Rescue,&rdquo; (page 30) staff writer Chris Hanson details the U.S. Coast Guard&rsquo;s corn-derived isobutanol tests, which the USCG hopes can prove the fuel can perform in a challenging marine environment. Finally, Anna Simet&rsquo;s article about the landfill gas operation at the U.S. Air Force&rsquo;s Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, Alaska, (page 24) highlights why landfill gas is increasingly earmarked as a reliable source of baseload quality power for military bases.
 The U.S. military has a long history as an incubator for innovation, so its continued push into renewable energy production and use is not surprising. The mandate now, for the biomass industry, is to ensure biomass has a proportionate seat at the table as the military&rsquo;s energy future is boldly reimagined.

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Brothers in Arms

Proterro adds executive, expands advisory board Proterro Inc. has named Timothy Cooper as vice president of engineering. Cooper has more than two decades of experience in bioprocessing. Prior to joining Proterro, he was employed by Eastman Chemical Co., where he was responsible for the company&rsquo;s biotechnology effort and managed genetic engineering and fermentation development programs. He has also worked for Dow AgroSciences LLC, where he was responsible for development and scale-up of new fermentation processes and managed fermentation development efforts in three laboratories. In addition, Proterro has added James Barber, principal of Barber Advisors LLC, to its advisory board. Barber previously served as president and CEO of Metabolix Inc. and served as global business director for organometallics and catalysts business at Albemarle Corp. He is an advisor to Solazyme Inc., Itaconix Corp., and P2 Science Inc., and sits on the boards of Agrivida Inc., Allylix Inc., Graham Corp., and Segetis Inc.
 Law firm merger to form Stinson Leonard Street Stinson Morrison Hecker and Leonard, Street and Deinard have announced they will merge, becoming one of the largest law firms in the U.S. The combined firm will operate as Stinson Leonard Street LLP, beginning Jan. 1. Mark Hinderks and Lowell Strortz will serve as co-managing partners and Allison Murdock will be the deputy managing partner. The new firm will have more than 525 attorneys in offices in 14 cities, with substantial coverage in the Midwest, a presence in the Mountain West and Southwest and an office in Washington, D.C. The firm will offer regional and national practices in several areas, including corporate finance, banking and financial services, energy, environment, mining and natural resources, real estate and construction, and litigation.
 Enova adds COO Ken Ciarletta has been named chief operating officer of The Enova Group. He has more than 30 years of experience in the forest products and bioenergy business, with operations and sales experience in pulp and paper, solid and engineered wood products, timber management and procurement, and supply chain responsibilities. Ciarletta is a long-term leader with Georgia Pacific, Weyerhaeuser, and REW Georgia Biomass. He was director of commercial and supply chain operations North America for Georgia Biomass. He previously served as plant manager for RWE&rsquo;s Waycross pellet plant.
 Michael Best &amp; Friedrich adds attorney Michael Best &amp; Friedrich LLP announced Cameron Field has joined the firm&rsquo;s Environmental Practice Group in its Madison, Wis., office. Prior to joining Michael Best &amp; Friedrich, Field worked as a summer law clerk in 2012 with Earthjustice and in the fall of 2012 as a legal intern for the U.S. Department of Justice&rsquo;s environmental enforcement section. From 2011 to 2013, he was a research associate with the U.S.-China Partnership for Environmental Law and, in 2013, worked as a student clinician with the Environmental and Natural Resource Law Clinic at Vermont Law School.
 University researcher wins DARPA award Fuzhong Zhang, an assistant professor of energy, environment and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. The award recognizes an elite group of scientists early in their careers at research universities. Zhang&rsquo;s award funds up to three years of research on his plan to engineer bacteria to produce nonnatural fatty acids, which can be easily converted to advanced biofuels and chemicals. He will engineer the fatty acid pathway to make a molecule with a chemical structure similar to isooctane, which is the major component in gasoline.

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A group of qualified biomass technology contractors were awarded 13 Multiple Award Task Order Contracts by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering and Support Center in Huntsville, Ala. The qualified MATOC companies will be eligible to bid on future biomass renewable energy task orders, which include municipal solid waste and waste-to-energy.
 According to the USACE, the MATOC involves third-party financed renewable energy acquisitions and involves no Army or U.S. Department of Defense capital or military construction appropriation. The Army or DOD purchases the power from contractors who own, operate or maintain the energy generating assets. The total estimated $7 billion contract value refers to the total dollar value of energy available for purchase under all power purchase agreement task orders for their entire term, which can run up to 30 years.
 The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Engineering and Support Center developed the MATOC in collaboration with the Energy Initiatives Task Force, which was established by Secretary of the Army John McHugh in 2011. A total of 58 awards have been issued in four technology areas: biomass, solar, wind and geothermal.

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Army awards 13 biomass contracts 

The USDA has announced a new partnership with the Alliance for Green Heat, the Biomass Power Association, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council and the Pellet Fuels Institute that aims to expand the use of wood energy, helping to improve the health and safety of U.S. forests.
 The partnership agreement focuses on promoting wood energy nationwide as a means to address fire risks, bolster economic development in rural areas, improve air quality and meet renewable energy goals. Through the partnership and statewide efforts, the initiative will also help more communities learn about federal programs available to support wood-to-energy efforts.
 &ldquo;This is the culmination of conversations over the past four years,&rdquo; said Doug O&rsquo;Brien, USDA acting undersecretary for rural development. &ldquo;We formalized some of the things we talked about on what we can do together to kick it up to the next level.&rdquo; Among the focus areas will be coordinating and prioritizing private and public research, he said, noting the outreach effort is important to USDA Rural Development.&nbsp;

USDA announces wood-to-energy deal 

Oct. 17 marked the first-ever National Bioenergy Day. On and around that day, 24 events were held in 13 states&mdash;and one in Canada&mdash;to raise awareness about biomass and the larger bioenergy industry. We were honored that Biomass Magazine sponsored the initiative alongside Biomass Power Association, in addition to Biomass Thermal Energy Council, American Council on Renewable Energy, Pellet Fuels Institute, Forest Landowners Association and U.S. Industrial Pellet Association.
 In planning National Bioenergy Day, we wanted the focus to be on the role bioenergy plays in communities. The goal was to bring audiences, ideally people who benefit from bioenergy, to biomass facilities to witness firsthand what goes on.
 National Bioenergy Day activities drew in audiences from academia, government, media, and local communities. Visitors were able to learn about biomass electricity production, small-scale thermal heating, pellet manufacturing, managed forestry and the carbon cycle. They listened to lectures at universities and saw an anaerobic digester at work.
 I attended ReEnergy Holdings&rsquo; event at its Livermore Falls facility in Maine, where elected officials joined local residents for a tour of the facility and a presentation on the benefits of biomass. I&rsquo;d like to highlight a few more National Bioenergy Day events:
 &bull; New York Biomass Energy Alliance facilitated a day-long event in northern New York where guests could visit a school district that is using woodchips for heating to save $110,000 per year, a 22 MW biomass facility, a shrub willow farm, and a wood pellet manufacturer.&nbsp;
 &bull; In Michigan, the state biomass trade association joined forces with timbermen and forest products associations to hold a two-day event for visitors to tour a biomass facility, a forest products manufacturer, and a timber harvest/chipping operation.
 &bull; A whistle-stop tour in the Southeast took a biomass digester to several college campuses in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia to demonstrate small-scale heat and energy production.
 Additional events were held in California, Minnesota, Maine, North Carolina, Mississippi, Connecticut and Oregon.&nbsp;
 National Bioenergy Day was an event that truly showcased our industry, and the environmental and economic benefits it provides across America. We look forward to an even larger and more comprehensive National Bioenergy Day 2014.
 Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association <a href="http://www.biomasspowerassociation.com">www.biomasspowerassociation.com </a> <a href="mailto:bob@biomasspowerassociation.com">bob@biomasspowerassociation.com</a>

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National Bioenergy Day: Spotlight on Biomass

Ft. Drum is a U.S. Army post in upstate New York, positioned south of the Canadian border just beyond the eastern reaches of Lake Ontario. The 107,000-acre facility is home to the Army&rsquo;s 10th Mountain Division and has been utilized as a training facility since its first acres were purchased over 100 years ago. Situated inside of the fort&rsquo;s perimeter is a power plant that its new owner and operator, ReEnergy Holdings LLC, is hopeful will soon be among the Department of the Army&rsquo;s growing list of renewable energy success stories.
 The facility, which ReEnergy has dubbed ReEnergy Black River, was designed and configured to burn coal but was idled by its former owners Energy Investors Funds Group&nbsp; in 2010.&nbsp; While the facility no longer delivered the returns EIF wanted, it fit perfectly with ReEnergy&rsquo;s business model. In December 2011, the company purchased the plant from EIF and began an extensive retrofit project.
 Larry Richardson, CEO of ReEnergy, notes that EIF did well to preserve the value of the idled facility. &ldquo;The prior owner had really done a good job of laying up the facility,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Certainly the key elements of the facility, the three boilers and the one turbine generator, had been laid up in a manner where the quality of those items was largely preserved.&rdquo;
 Despite the facility&rsquo;s preserved condition, ReEnergy&rsquo;s additional investments into the Black River station topped $30 million with significant investments made to the facility&rsquo;s fuel receiving and distribution infrastructure.&nbsp; &ldquo;Where coal had previously been delivered by rail, we had to build the infrastructure to accept the biomass by truck, installing truck tippers as well as a new fuel conveying and storage and processing system,&rdquo; says Richardson.
 The plant&rsquo;s initial design to deliver not only power to the grid but also hot water to an on-base district heating system was scuttled early in the life of the project. Apart from where it sat, the facility had no relationship with the base, with all of its produced energy being sold over the fence and onto the waiting power market.
 &nbsp;Richardson and his team at ReEnergy hope to change all that. At press time, ReEnergy is waiting to hear from the Department of the Army and the Defense Logistics Agency on their response to the Army&rsquo;s request for proposal for enough renewably produced power to support the base, about 28 MW. &ldquo;Without question, the location of the power plant inside the fence at Ft. Drum presented a great opportunity to provide secure, renewable energy to Ft. Drum on an ongoing basis, particularlysince the plant had never delivered electricity to Drum in the past.&nbsp; It was a significant consideration in our investment decision and the alignment with the Department of Defense and the Department of the Army&rsquo;s initiatives related to secure energy and renewable energy. We felt the alignment was great and timing was right to make this happen,&rdquo; says Richardson.
 Regardless of the Department of the Army&rsquo;s final decision, the Black River project fits well into the growing power and fuel processing portfolio amassed and operated by ReEnergy. Operating predominantly in the Northeast, ReEnergy owns or operates 13 different facilities in six states with a total output of 325 MW, directly employing over 300 people.
 Making environmental performance a core element of its operating philosophy, ReEnergy recently achieved certification from the Sustainable Forest Initiative, which verifies that its biomass procurement practices adheres to stringent, responsible forestry practices.&nbsp;
 Additionally, among the investments that ReEnergy made at the Black River Project was a new cooling tower.&nbsp; Before ReEnergy&rsquo;s retrofit, water was simply taken from the Black River, a mile south of the facility, and process water was discharged back into the same river, resulting in a significant thermal plume.&nbsp; Richardson points out the significant advantage the cooling towers bring to the facility noting that it &ldquo;allowed [ReEnergy] to reduce both the withdrawal of water from the Black River and the thermal discharge back into the Black River by about 90 percent.&rdquo;
 Rounding out the facility&rsquo;s forward-thinking operating strategies is a unique feedstock program being developed with assistance from the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. Hoping to leverage the marginal land in the vicinity of the Black River station, farmers are being recruited to establish shrub willow. Nearly 1,100 acres of marginal land in a three-county area will be planted with shrub willow and will eventually contribute to the facility&rsquo;s fuel needs.
 The Black River project in many ways represents a series of firsts for ReEnergy. The facility is ReEnergy&rsquo;s largest asset when measured by output, its first coal-to-biomass conversion, and the first company-owned asset that sits on a military base. Richardson is hopeful it won&rsquo;t be ReEnergy&rsquo;s last. &ldquo;We definitely see an opportunity to replicate this business model at other military bases around the country,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;There is no question that the success here should be a differentiator for us as we pursue other opportunities around the country. That is why we are hopeful we will be awarded a contract here and really be a part of one the early success stories in the Army&rsquo;s renewable initiatives.&rdquo; Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine <a href="mailto:tportz@bbiinternational.com">tportz@bbiinternational.com</a> 701-738-4969

SECURE, RENEWABLE AND BASELOAD:  ReEnergyâ€™s Black River Project is the largest asset in its power portfolio and the first on a military base. 

2013/10/Pow-Biomass-Black-River-1113_13827175888077.jpg

WIN-WIN-WIN: Flanked by dignitaries including Maj. Gen. Mark A. Milley (in uniform), former commander of Ft. Drum, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (far right),ReEnergy CEO Larry Richardson discusses the Black River Projectâ€™s local economic impact.



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FUEL CHANGE, INFRASTRUCTURE CHANGE: Originally designed to receive its coal via rail, ReEnergy made significant investments in wood-receiving infrastructure at the Black River Project, including these two truck dumpers.

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ReEnergy has opened a new front with its Black River Project at the Army's Ft. Drum, N.Y.

Mission Alignment

A new report has determined that wood pellets imported to Europe from the Southeast U.S. and British Columbia, Canada, for electricity production immediately or very rapidly contribute to climate change mitigation. The report, titled Forest Sustainability and Carbon Balance of EU Importation of North American Forest Biomass for Bioenergy Production, was prepared by the European Biomass Association, BC Bioenergy Network, U.S. Industrial Wood Pellet Association and Wood Pellet Association of Canada.
 The document informs stakeholders about current biomass sourcing practices, highlights the role of Sustainable Forest Management in forest-based outlines commercial realities of SFM decision making in the context of healthy forests used for multiple purposes. It also examines the carbon dynamics of forests from which biomass fuels are obtained.

2013/10/November-13-BMM-14_13827186837537.jpg

Electricity from pellets shows quick carbon savings 

Enova Energy Group has announced it will acquire Southeast Georgia Biofuels, a wood pellet plant in Nahunta, Ga.
 The plant, previously known as Biomass Innovations LLC, opened as a briquette manufacturing facility in 2009. The plant ceased operations in 2011 and was later purchased by Southeast Georgia Biofuels for conversion to wood pellet production. The conversion was completed in 2012.
 Following its purchase of the facility, Enova plans to install additional equipment to bring the plant closer to hitting its 150,000-ton-per-year capacity. Its current run rate is 75,000 to 100,000 tons per year. The plant&rsquo;s output is ENPlus certified. Pellets produced at the plant are currently marketed through Danish commodity brokerage firm Copenhagen Merchants out of the port of Brunswick. The arrangement will stay in place through the ownership transition.

Enova to purchase Georgia plant

The USDA recently announced a new round of payments to biofuel producers under the Advanced Biofuel Payment Program. USDA Rural Development Acting Under Secretary Doug O&rsquo;Brien made the announcement Sept. 12 on behalf of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the National Advanced Biofuels Conference &amp; Expo in Omaha, Neb.
 The program was established by the 2008 Farm Bill. It makes payments to eligible biofuel producers based on the quantity of advanced biofuels produced from renewable biomass, other than corn starch. The program is not limited to traditional liquid biofuel producers, pellet produces and biogas producers can also be eligible for payments. Approximately three dozen pellet producers received payments under this funding round.

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Pellet producers awarded USDA payments 

Gulf Coast Renewable Energy closed on the acquisition of West Monroe, La.-based Bayou Wood Pellets LLC on Aug. 15. According to GCRE, it is making significant investments to expand the facility&rsquo;s production capacity.
 Construction is already underway to increase the facility&rsquo;s production capacity from 54,000 to 120,000 metric tons per year, said Westin Lovy of Bridge Lane Capital, a South Norwalk, Conn.-based asset management firm that provided funding for the acquisition and improvements.
 The pellet plant will take in feedstock generated from sawmill residue sourced from Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi. The resulting pellets will be sold to overseas utility customers under a long-term offtake agreement.
 In addition to the acquisition of the Bayou Wood Pellet plant, GCRE is also pursuing plans to develop three additional pellet plants in Mississippi, including a 320,000-metric-ton-per-year proposed plant in Copiah County, Miss. Regarding the company&rsquo;s expansion plans, Lovy said GCRE and Bridge Lane Capital are actively seeking opportunities in not only pellet manufacturing, but also businesses upstream and downstream in the supply and delivery chain in order to serve the domestic and overseas markets.

GCRE buys La. pellet plant

Pellet boiler heating systems will help the Oregon Army National Guard meet its ambitious goal of net zero energy at all of its 53 installations statewide by 2020. ORARNG, which volunteered to participate in broader initiative of 19 pilot projects at U.S. Army sites across the country targeting net zero energy, water and waste, has four thermal pellet heat projects planned at National Guard sites. These projects offer a couple of benefits for ORARNG, says Lt. Col. Ken Safe, construction and facility management officer and Net Zero Energy project lead. &ldquo;It allows us to reduce our energy cost, because the sites where we&rsquo;re doing the conversion are on propane,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The more substantial benefit for the net zero program is it allows us to get off fossil fuels and go to renewable energy.&rdquo;
 In addition to reducing energy costs and aiding sustainability goals, the net zero&nbsp; program has energy security and independence goals as well. A net zero energy installation is one that produces as much energy onsite as it uses over the course of a year. ORARNG expects that 65 percent of the reduction from its 2003 energy baseline will come from improved energy efficiency. And, while the unit is looking at multiple renewable technologies including solar, geothermal, wind and wave energy, wood-to-energy rates high for thermal heat since it can be produced on the site where it is consumed, Safe points out, compared to renewable electricity that is transported or given renewable energy credits as offsets.
 Partnering For Pellets
 ORARNG has partnered with others in its planning efforts, receiving a $250,000 woody biomass utilization grant from the U.S. Forest Service in 2012 for design work, plus a $489,000 renewable thermal incentive from the Oregon Department of Energy. And, the project has received funding from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry &amp; Communities Inc., with one product being a case study done by Dovetail Partners Inc. on the lessons learned from aggregating multiple projects into one planning process. Energy efficiency consulting firm Tetra Tech Inc. is helping with coordination and review of the project design and did the initial evaluation, which identified buildings and locations for possible conversion.
 Seven National Guard buildings at five locations were identified where biomass-fired boilers would be a cost-effective replacement for propane heating systems. Buildings at three of the National Guard facilities already have hot water boilers installed, making the conversion to pellet-fired biomass boilers relatively easy. The Burns Armory in Burns, Ore., is a typical older armory, a 12,000-square-foot facility built around 1954. The Biak Training Center in Powell Butte, Ore., will convert to a pellet system to heat 20,000 square feet in a simulation center, classroom and administrative building. Conversion at the Youth Challenge Program facility in Bend, Ore., housing an academy for at-risk youth, has a favorable payback compared to other facilities due to its high heating and domestic hot water use for 10 months a year. Biomass conversion will be a bit more complicated for the maintenance shop at the Central Oregon Unit Training and Equipment Site in Redmond. The 10,000-square-foot building with its high bays and a few offices currently has a direct-fired radiant heat system.
 McKinstry Essention Inc. was awarded the design-build contract in late September for the installation of the biomass pellet boilers, storage and handling equipment, as well as associated safety and efficiency systems. SolaGen Inc. is supplying the biomass boilers. The Burns Armory is the smallest system with one 150 kilowatt (kW) unit. Biak is slated for one 220 kW boiler and COUTES for one 540 kW unit. The Bend Youth Challenge Program center would use two units, sized at 220 kW and 400 kW. The Biak and COUTES projects have been funded and construction is expected to be completed in April, while the Burns funding request is pending approval. The four heating conversions will annually replace 58,551 gallons of propane with 183 tons of pellets to achieve $85,000 in savings each year.
 As project planning unfolded, plans for biomass utilization at the Umatilla Training expanded. Initially, the ORARNG was looking at utilizing three pellet heating systems for the dining hall, a barracks and a simulation center, but wanted to study the possibility of building a single system or even a combined-heat-and-power system. As investigation proceeded and more was learned about the Army facility&rsquo;s future following the Base Realignment and Closure process, the ORARNG realized it could have as many 25 or 30 buildings for its use, with other buildings being transferred to an adjacent Native American tribe and county. Thus, a larger system is now being considered that would utilize wood chips for district heating and power generation. A second $250,000 WBUG grant was awarded for the design, plus a $50,000 Wood Energy Cluster grant from the Oregon DOE and USFS. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has recommended the project be ranked as one of the Army&rsquo;s top-five priorities for funding through its Energy Conservation Investment Program. That project is expected to replace 258,910 gallons of propane used yearly with 2,004 tons of wood chips for an annual savings of $362,000.
 Bountiful Benefits
 The multiple partners in the ORARNG project reflect the multilayered benefits being anticipated from the biomass energy projects. &ldquo;Oregon was a pilot state for a wood-to-energy effort with the forest service,&rdquo; says Ron Saranich, regional biomass coordinator with the USDA Forest Service. &ldquo;Facilities that are eligible are all sited in areas where we wanted to do hazardous fuel reduction&mdash;basically east and central Oregon where the high threat of fire danger and overgrown forest is located.&rdquo;
 Oregon is adopting a wood energy cluster approach, explains Matt Krumenauer, senior policy analyst for Oregon&rsquo;s Department of Energy. &ldquo;Right now the smaller projects that are able to offset heat load at facilities are very competitive and able to be developed with pretty good energy savings and other benefits. Clustering multiple projects in a given geographic area begins to develop the sort of demand that helps meet land management objectives.&rdquo; Besides reducing fire risks in overgrown forests, the state seeks to foster economic development and job creation in communities that have been impacted by the decline in forestry products, he adds, plus there is another long-term strategy. &ldquo;Creating this opportunity to keep people working in the woods, to keep producing pellets and woodchips and other products locally helps us maintain that workforce so as these new markets and opportunities for more advanced fuels develop, we have the skills and infrastructure and people in place to take advantage of those opportunities and continue to grow that industry.&rdquo;
 &ldquo;It&rsquo;s really exciting to feel like you&rsquo;re part of a broader goal,&rdquo; Safe adds. &ldquo;We have a forest health situation in Oregon where we&rsquo;re at risk of wild fires, and to some degree pine beetles and other insects with the congestion in forests. From forest health to jobs for local economy, both in the forest and the manufacturing of pellets all the way to transportation, there&rsquo;s a number of jobs added at the local level.&rdquo;
 With the National Guard ultimately being a community-based organization, pellets are a good fit. As the gas heating systems in other guard facilities around the state reach replacement age, Safe says, he will recommend they take a closer look at biomass thermal heat. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll be getting the net zero thermal renewable credit, as well as helping the local economy.&rdquo;
 While replacing currently low-priced natural gas isn&rsquo;t a cost savings right now, Safe points out that [the market] is hard to predict five or 10 years ahead. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been raising the question when I give talks about our Net Zero Energy program,&rdquo; he adds.&nbsp; &ldquo;Even as a backup system, the more, the better in my opinion.&rdquo; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Senior Editor, Biomass Magazine <a href="mailto:sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com">sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com</a> 701-738-4922

COMBATING NATURE:  An Oregon Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter flies past the Government Flats Complex fires after dumping a â€œBambiâ€� bucket of water on the fire near The Dalles, Ore., in August. ORARNG believes using biomass pellets an

2013/10/Pel-Biomass-Army-1113_13827214653943.jpg

Warming Trainees: The Biak Training Center, Powell Butte, Ore., will use a pellet boiler system to heat 20,000 square feet in a simulation center, classroom and administrative building.

2013/10/Pel-Biomass-Biak-1113_13827214692332.jpg

TARGETING CLUSTERS: Oregon Army National Guard sites are centrally located for wood-to-energy utilization. In particular, the state would like to reduce the fire hazard in eastern forests. 

2013/10/Pel-Biomass-map-1113_13827214718168.jpg

Biomass thermal coincides with the Oregon Army National Guard's energy security goals and has larger-picture benefits such as aiding wildfire reduction and job creation. 

Fighting the Good Fight 

The State University of New York&rsquo;s College of Environmental Science and Forestry celebrated the grand opening of a new combined heat-and-power system in September at its Gateway Center. The system fires biomass pellets and natural gas, providing the campus with 65 percent of its heating needs and 20 percent of its electrical power.
 According to ESF President Cornelius Murphy Jr., when operating at full power, the system reduces campus-wide fossil fuel usage by 9,000 barrels of oil per year, and lowers campus utility costs by 20 percent.
 The Gateway Center is the centerpiece of the college&rsquo;s Climate Action Plan, which states ESF&rsquo;s commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2015. The CHP system will serve as a teaching tool, benefitting students enrolled in ESF&rsquo;s new sustainable energy management major and renewable energy minor.

Pellet Power: New York Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, ESF President Neil Murphy and State Sen. John Defrancisco cut the ribbon at the official opening of the ESFâ€™s Gateway Center.

2013/10/News-Biomass-Ribbon-1113_13827215933234.jpg

SUNY fires up biomass CHP system 

The U.S. EPA has published a final rule to expand the definition of heating oil under the renewable fuels standard (RFS). The amendment expands the scope of renewable fuels that can be used to comply with the RFS by adding an additional category of compliant fuel produced from qualifying biomass that is used to generate heat to warm homes or other buildings. However, renewable identification numbers cannot be generated for the new category of fuel oils if that fuel is used to generate process heat, power, or other functions.
 The original definition of heating oil included any No. 1 or No. 2 nonpetroleum diesel blend that is sold for use in furnaces, boilers and similar applications and contains at least 80 percent mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats. The expanded definition includes biobased fuel oils that do not meet the original definition but are actually used to heat homes and other facilities to control ambient climate for human comfort.

EPA expands RFS definition of heating fuel 

CleanWorld has broken ground on an anaerobic digestion facility at the University of California, Davis. The UC Davis Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester facility is under construction at the former UC Davis landfill in Davis, Calif. The facility represents the successful commercialization of a technology developed by Ruihong Zhang, a UC Davis researcher and professor.
 The biodigester will divert 20,000 tons per year of food waste from dining halls, dormitories and local restaurants, agricultural waste and green waste out of Davis-area landfills. Biogas produced by the biodigester will be combined with gas captured from the landfill, generating 1 megawatt of power. In addition to electricity, the project will produce more than 4 million gallons of fertilizer and soil amendments. The UC Davis READ facility is expected to be generating power by December.

Installing Innovation: Sid England (left) and Ruihong Zhang of UC Davis; Michele Wong of CleanWorld, John Meyer of UC Davis and Mike Feuz of Otto Construction break ground on the UC David READ facility.  


2013/10/News-Biomass-UCDavix-1113_13827216698161.jpg

UC Davis READ facility breaks ground 

Ameresco Inc. recently celebrated the completion of its 1.4 megawatt landfill gas-to-energy project at the Johnson Canyon Landfill in Gonzales, Calif. Ameresco designed, permitted, constructed and now operates the facility at the landfill, which is owned by the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority. Ameresco Johnson Canyon LLC has an agreement with SVSWQA to purchase landfill gas for use in its plant.
Electricity generated at the facility is being sold to the city of Palo Alto under a 20-year power purchase agreement.
 &ldquo;We are thrilled to have partnered with the Salinas Valley Solid Waste Authority and the city of Palo Alto to provide residents with clean, renewable energy for years to come,&rdquo; said Michael Bakas, senior vice president of renewable energy at Ameresco. &ldquo;We have had a successful track record working with many counties and municipalities in California and across the nation to provide alternative energy resources, and we are excited that our project will help SVSWA and Palo Alto and its constituents to achieve their sustainability goals in a cost-effective manner.&rdquo;

Ameresco opens Calif. landfill gas project 

The farthest north facility of its kind at 61 degrees latitude, the Anchorage Landfill Gas-to-Energy Project at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is the largest green energy project amongst the U.S. Air Force&rsquo;s Pacific operations. Its existence is the result of collaboration by the Municipality of Anchorage, Doyon Utilities and JBER, and after just one year of successful operations is being expanded.
 The pieces to the project puzzle had been falling together for many years before it was a done deal. The first piece was passage of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which required federal facilities to increase renewable energy consumption to at least 7.5 percent by 2013. In 2006, because it was exceeding the threshold limit for nonmethanogenic organic compound emissions, the Anchorage Regional Landfill brought on line a gas collection system, which it tested and operated for three years. During that time, Doyon Utilities purchased the utility infrastructure&mdash;electrical, water, sewer and natural gas distribution system&mdash; on three Army bases in Alaska:&nbsp; Ft. Wainright, Ft. Greely, and Ft. Richardson, which have merged into a joint base facility that is now run by the Air Force, says Robert Zacharski, JBER site manager.
 In 2010, the Municipality of Anchorage put out a request for proposals to use gas generated at ARL, and Doyon Utilities was selected.&nbsp; A contract was signed in 2011, and the power plant became fully operational just over one year later.
 System Details
 The landfill gas collection system draws from 87 acres of landfill and consists of 36 vertically drilled wells, 21 horizontal collector wells that range between 60 and 120 feet deep, and eight interconnections with the leachate system. &ldquo;We purchase methane from the municipality of Anchorage,&rdquo; Zacharski explains. &ldquo;A vacuum is applied to the landfill&mdash;if we get too much we&rsquo;ll flare off the excess&mdash;and we bring our portion through a mile-long [low-pressure] pipeline to the base&rsquo;s generating building.&rdquo;
 There, five 1.4 MW GE Jebaucher gas engines produce power that is tied into the base&rsquo;s distribution system, enough electricity to meet half of the power demand for the Ft. Richardson side of JBER, or 100 percent of its emergency backup power.
 The facility is currently undergoing an expansion&mdash;which was part of the initial plan&mdash;but it&rsquo;s happening much earlier than expected, as there are few landfills of this size operating in similar climates to use as baselines for methane generation. &ldquo;Initially we put in four 1.4 MW generators, totaling 5.6 MW, and we&rsquo;re just commissioning the fifth unit right now, which will put the plant at 7 MW. Our project financial model underestimated the gas generation in the landfill, so once we started operating it became apparent we could push up the fifth unit installation from year five to after year one.&rdquo;
 A sixth unit is scheduled in five years, but Zacharski says gas use will be maxed out at that point.
 Operation, Maintenance and the Military 
With an operation and maintenance budget of $639,000 for the power plant, gas processing facility and transmission pipeline, Doyon Utilities uses subcontractors as well as in-house personnel. The system is run by one operator, 40 hours a week, who can monitor it remotely to check for abnormalities, according to Zacharski.
 Surprisingly, operational challenges caused by the harsh climate have been minimal. &ldquo;The gas supply remains very consistent between winter and summer,&rdquo; Zacharski says. &ldquo;You might think digestion would slow down in winter, but we haven&rsquo;t found that&rsquo;s the case.&rdquo;
 Initially there were some issues with the outer piping and freeze ups, but it was remedied this summer. &ldquo;We had some teething problems, but it hasn&rsquo;t been really different operating a similar plant [elsewhere],&rdquo; Zacharski says. One specific climate-driven innovation that the project partners believe is the only application of its kind and will reduce future maintenance and repair costs is installation of preinsulated HDPE (high-density polyethylene pipe) with electric heat trace, to ensure the pipeline won&rsquo;t become blocked with frozen condensate. In this case, the heat trace is a thin wire along the bottom of the pipe that can generate heat when needed.
 While the climate overall hasn&rsquo;t been too different from developing a project in more temperate regions, doing so on a site owned by the military may pose more challenges than the typical model, according to Zacharski. &ldquo;The Air Force has different ideas of what an acceptable payback is, so you have to structure your finances to meet those expectations, and that may be difficult to do,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They want a pretty rapid turnaround.&rdquo;
 Additionally, approval processes are lengthy. &ldquo;Getting a notice to proceed to build a plant and making a schedule becomes challenging, when you don&rsquo;t know when you&rsquo;re going to get the go-ahead to start construction, or even if the project will go. On the private side of the fence, you have that control, but you lose a little of that on a military installation.&rdquo;
 For the $35 million project, Zacharski said cash flow will turn positive in about four years. It is expected to result in a savings to JBER of $32 million in power costs over the initial contract period and $73.6 million over the potential life of the project, and the municipality will annually take in $1 million from gas sales, nearly $52 million over the life of the project.
 &ldquo;In general, this has been a very successful project,&rdquo; Zacharski adds. &ldquo;It utilizes waste gas that was being flared, producing no value to anyone, to increase Doyon&rsquo;s, the municipality&rsquo;s and the Air Force&rsquo;s bottom line.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine <a href="mailto:asimet@bbiinternational.com">asimet@bbiinternational.com</a> 701-738-4961

FIRING UP: Anchorage Mayor Dan Sullivan, Col. Brian Duffy, Base Commander of JBER, and Doyon Utilities President Dan Gavora at the commissioning of the Anchorage Landfill Gas-to-Energy Project.

2013/10/Bio-Biomass-Handshake-1113_13827218581617.jpg

LANDFILL GAS TO THE RESCUE: The JBER landfill gas plant generates 100 percent of Ft. Richardson's back-up emergency power.

2013/10/Bio-Biomass-JBER2-1113_13827218637493.jpg

EARLY EXPANSION: The JBER Landfill Gas Waste-to-Energy Plant consists of four generator units designed to run on methane gas sourced from the Anchorage Landfill. A fifth is currently being installed, several years earlier than expected.

2013/10/Bio-Biomass-JBER3-1113_13827218677315.jpg

Alaska's first landfill gas-to-energy project provides the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson with seven times its renewable energy mandate per the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Anchoring Air Force Energy Goals 

U.K.-based Element Energy recently published a report finding that advanced biofuels offer a more cost-effective means to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions over the next 17 years, when compared to electric vehicles. The report, titled &ldquo;The Role of Biofuels Beyond 2020,&rdquo; was commissioned by BP.
 The U.K. has set targets calling for an 80 percent reduction in GHGs by 2050 when compared to a 2050 baseline. While electric plug-in and hydrogen vehicles are expected to play a significant role in realizing GHG reductions in the long term, the analysis shows that the vehicle fleet will continue to be dominated by vehicles with internal combustion engines through at least 2030, which means biofuels will play an important role in meeting emissions goals.
 The analysis considers three scenarios. A &ldquo;low biofuels&rdquo; case in which conventional biofuels are blended at E10 and B7, a &ldquo;medium biofuels&rdquo; case assuming E20 and an increasing share of cellulosic ethanol, and a &ldquo;high biofuels&rdquo; case that considers the impact of blending butanol and drop-in biofuels at high rates.

2013/10/November-13-BMM-28_13827220165095.jpg

Study highlights GHG reduction potential of butanol, drop-in biofuels 

California-based NextFuels has unveiled its strategy to produce advanced biofuels from wet, unprocessed agricultural waste via a hydrothermal process originally developed by Shell in the 1980s. The company is currently focused on converting agricultural waste from palm oil production in Southeast Asia into drop-in coal and petroleum replacements.&nbsp;
 The technology processes biomass within liquid water at temperatures of 300 to 330 degrees Celsius and pressure of 200 to 230 atmospheres, producing a putty-like GreenCrude. The GreenCrude can either be burned as a coal replacement, or further refined into transportation fuels.
 NextFuels is in the process of designing and assembling a pilot plant in the Netherlands. The facility is expected to be operational by the second quarter of next year. The company also plans to construct a demonstration plant in Asia.

NextFuels revives hydrothermal technology, plans test facilities 

I don&rsquo;t cry wolf, but we are in the fight for the future of our industry.
 In mid-October, we saw a leaked draft of the proposed renewable fuel standard (RFS) 2014 Renewable Volume Obligation rule, which apparently would have favored the oil industry across the board. This draft proposal, which was cleverly leaked and circulated to the press, sought to color the attitude and direction of both the regulatory process as well as legislative discussions. All of this done at a time when the government is shut down and the press is solely focused on opening the government and avoiding a catastrophic default of paying our debts. Not to mention, most of the folks who would respond are at home on furlough.
 &nbsp;Our industry is currently staring down an effort to repeal the RFS by the oil industry and livestock agriculture, who are joined by several environmental organizations and the small engine manufacturers. We have endured multiple hearings on both sides of the Capitol and endless press briefing and articles assailing the RFS and the renewable fuels industry.&nbsp; Nevertheless, we are still standing and delivering more gallons of environmentally sustainable cheaper fuels every day.&nbsp;
 &nbsp;For over 40 years, the oil industry did not build a single refinery. They didn&rsquo;t need to, because the big boys just kept making the refineries they owned larger and squeezing out the smaller refineries that competed against them. Today, to avoid their obligations under the RFS, refiners are exporting record volumes of gasoline. These exports specifically reduce their obligations under the act and save them cents on the gallon. Removing those gallons also reduces the size of the pool and reduces competition for price, thereby leaving consumers exposed to higher prices from the lack of volume and competition.&nbsp; And, refiners make more margins on their fewer gallons; this is 101 economics.&nbsp;
 &nbsp;And now we return to dysfunctional Washington, D.C.&nbsp; We have a government that has been shut down for two weeks with no agreement to open back up or increase the nation&rsquo;s debt limit. There is no clear path for extending the biofuels tax credits&mdash;which all expire at the end of the year&mdash;and no Farm Bill because we allowed the funding extension to expire at the end of September. And now, on top of these legislative issues, the renewable fuel sector also has to worry about just exactly what the U.S. EPA will do on the 2014 obligations.&nbsp;
 &nbsp;Under the RFS, the agency is required to release the next year&rsquo;s volume obligations by Nov. 30 of each year. Because EPA did not finalize the 2013 numbers until August this year, most observers expect them to miss the deadline again, especially considering 96 percent of EPA employees are on furlough with no pay.
 &nbsp;On the good news front, EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy issued the following statement in response to extensive press coverage on the leaked 2014 RVO document:&nbsp; "The Obama Administration remains firmly committed to furthering the development of all biofuels&mdash;including corn-based ethanol, cellulosic biofuel, and advanced biofuel&mdash;as part of the president's commitment to developing a clean energy economy. Biofuels are a critical part of the president's all-of-the-above energy strategy that is reducing America's dependence on oil and creating jobs across the country. At this point, EPA is only developing a draft proposal. The agency has made no final decision on the proposed renewable fuel standards for 2014.
 &ldquo;And no decisions will be made on the final standards without a full opportunity for all stakeholders to comment on the EPA's proposed 2014 renewable fuel standards and be heard on how to best foster a growing biofuels industry that takes into account infrastructure- and market-related factors."
 &nbsp;That means advocates for advanced biofuels still have an opportunity to stand up and fight to protect the RFS. The time is now and the need is for everyone to get involved.&nbsp; Contact your members of Congress, send comments to EPA, write a letter to your local newspaper or call me to talk about what you can do to help. The need is urgent and the wolf is lurking close by. Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuel Association 202.469.5140 <a href="http://www.advancedbiofuelassociation.com">www.advancedbiofuelassociation.com </a>

November 2013

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Are You Exporting Without an IC-DISC? If So, Why?

ACE Conference Highlights Industry Advocates

The Facts Never Lie

Let's Talk Thanksgiving, Transportation

Corporate Profits vs Environmental Prophets

Commissioning a First-of-a-Kind Plant Takes Time

Is the ILUC Soap Opera Nearing Its Finale?

Brothers in Arms

National Bioenergy Day: Spotlight on Biomass

An Urgent Call to Action

Featured

Industry First

Trash to Bio-Treasure

A Waste-Filled Proposition

WEB ONLY: Innovation in Feedstock Transport, Testing

Isobutanol to the Rescue

Fighting the Good Fight

Anchoring Air Force Energy Goals

Contributions

Demystifying Cellulose

Departments

Mission Alignment

November 2013.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

Are You Exporting Without an IC-DISC? If So, Why?

ACE Conference Highlights Industry Advocates

The Facts Never Lie

Let's Talk Thanksgiving, Transportation

Corporate Profits vs Environmental Prophets

Commissioning a First-of-a-Kind Plant Takes Time

Is the ILUC Soap Opera Nearing Its Finale?

Brothers in Arms

National Bioenergy Day: Spotlight on Biomass

An Urgent Call to Action

Featured

Industry First

Trash to Bio-Treasure

A Waste-Filled Proposition

WEB ONLY: Innovation in Feedstock Transport, Testing

Isobutanol to the Rescue

Fighting the Good Fight

Anchoring Air Force Energy Goals

Contributions

Demystifying Cellulose

Departments

Mission Alignment

November 2013