The ethanol industry is going on the offense to bring higher blends into the marketplace through the Prime the Pump fund. Prime the Pump is not the work of any one organization, but rather a broad industry effort to grow the ethanol market by working with major retail chains to accelerate the build-out of higher blend retail infrastructure across the nation. We&rsquo;re targeting the top 20 chains in the country that represent well over 60,000 retail outlets nationwide to bring consumers a low-cost, high-performance fuel that improves the environment, creates jobs at home and strengthens our national security. These efforts have been a tremendous success, thanks to the enthusiastic participation of stakeholders throughout our industry and retail leaders eager to offer the fuel of the future. As of September, there were more than 140 sites offering E15 in 21 states including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. Here is a breakdown of some of our current retail partnerships: MAPCO: In January 2014, MAPCO became the first retail chain in the country to announce its intentions to offer E15. MAPCO has since launched five stores that sell E15 and E85 in Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee. This chain has the potential to offer E15 at 100 of their megastore locations in the future. Cenex: The company plans to offer E15 at 13 franchise locations in North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and Iowa later this year. Cenex has 1,400 locations nationwide. Minnoco: The Twin Cities-based retail chain has played a critical role in convincing other major retailers to sell E15 and E85. Minnoco has announced that 22 of its locations will sell E15. Currently, 15 locations are open and operational in the Minneapolis and St. Paul area of Minnesota. Kum &amp; Go: Based in West Des Moines, Iowa, Kum &amp; Go operates over 400 stores in 11 states primarily located in the Midwest. There are currently five open and operational E15 stations in Oklahoma, Iowa and Arkansas, and more than 60 are planned. Protec: The business has 28 locations with approximately 40 million gallons of fuel sales in Texas, Florida and Virginia that plan to offer E15. Currently, 15 locations are open and operational in Texas, Florida and Georgia. Sheetz: Sheetz, the most awarded and recognized innovator in the convenience store industry, is a new partner for E15 and E85. This year, the chain will offer E15 at 60 locations in North Carolina. In addition, Sheetz has a significant number of sites that could offer E15 with equipment upgrades. Sheetz serves more than 1 million people per day. Murphy USA: Commonly associated with Walmart and seen as a low-cost, highly competitive retailer by the industry, Murphy USA announced that all of its Chicago and Houston new builds in 2015 will offer E15 and E85. Murphy USA has 1,200 stores across the country and serves 1.6 million customers per day. Not all retailers are ideal candidates for Prime the Pump; we&rsquo;re looking for industry leaders with multiple high-volume locations to prime the markets with higher blends and encourage others to follow. This strategy has already created an unstoppable momentum. As more and more retailers notice the higher-blend trend and recognize the competitive advantage E15 offers, we know they will also be eager to bring consumers a much needed choice and savings at the pump. Thanks to our united industry efforts, stations offering E15 will continue to pop up across the nation as we work together to make it a standard offering at the pump. Author: Ray Defenbaugh Chairman of the Board, Prime the Pump Board Member, Growth Energy 319-753-1100 ray.defenbaugh@bigriverresources.com

2015/09/Defenbaugh-Ray_14417328981418_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Defenbaugh-Ray_14417328981418_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Defenbaugh-Ray_14417328981418.jpg

Prime the pump, an effort to grow the ethanol market to accelerate the build-out of higher blend retail infrastructure, has had tremendous success, writes Ray Defenbaugh. This column appears in the October issue of EPM. 

Priming the pump for higher blends

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts knows the value of renewable fuels. His state, No. 2 on the list of ethanol producing states, has 24 ethanol production facilities that produced a combined total of 1.8 billion gallons of ethanol in 2014. The industry supports 4,400 jobs in Nebraska. At the end of July, Ricketts and Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds held a news conference at Novozymes&rsquo; Blair, Nebraska, enzyme production facility, to discuss the potential impact of the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s RFS proposal. In June, Ricketts led a 30-member trade team to the European Union, including stops in Italy, Belgium and Denmark. While in Denmark, a roundtable on renewable fuels and bioproducts was held at Novozymes&rsquo; headquarters. Some of the participants included Nebraska ethanol producers Paul Kenny, chairman of the KAAPA Ethanol LLC board of directors and representative on the Nebraska Ethanol Board, and Jeff Briggs, Green Plains Inc. chief operating officer; and representatives from DuPont, DONG Energy and Leifmark. The governor and other members of the trade mission also met with Novozymes CEO Peder Holk Nielsen. "We've always known that Nebraskans support biofuel production, including the local and federal elected officials,&rdquo; said Holk Nielsen. &ldquo;Gov. Ricketts and others have written to EPA recently defending the renewable fuel standard and we appreciate their unwavering support.&rdquo; The RFS was the main topic at the roundtable, Kenny told EPM. &ldquo;We just need to have a clearer, more concise vision of ethanol and the future in the United States before people can expand and spend money.&rdquo; Briggs told EPM that he felt the meeting at Novozymes was helpful to provide a better understanding and relationship with a key supplier. &ldquo;[It&rsquo;s] important to communicate to Novozymes the support of the RFS and continued support of their business and operations in Nebraska,&rdquo; he said.
 Rooting for a Robust RFS - Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts Q. In the many issues facing you as governor of Nebraska, how high up does the RFS rank? What does the EPA need to do to get it right on the RFS? A. The EPA is changing the rules of game in the middle of the game, and they are pulling the rug out from underneath Nebraska&rsquo;s farmers and our ethanol industry. Nebraska is the second-largest producer of ethanol in the United States, and the industry has invested over $5 billion in capital investments in our state. The EPA&rsquo;s plan to slash billions of gallons of ethanol from the RFS creates uncertainty for the future of the industry, and limits opportunities for continued investment by ethanol producers and their partners. My administration is urging the EPA to make a firm commitment to a robust RFS, so that American consumers continue to have a variety of choices at the pump. Q. Tell us about your visit to Novozymes&rsquo; headquarters in Denmark.&nbsp; A. Novozymes has been a great investor in Nebraska, and we met with CEO Peder Holk Nielsen to thank him for their continued commitment to our state. At this meeting, Peder shared some of their concerns about the regulatory environment in the United States. Because of the EPA&rsquo;s proposed changes the renewable fuel standard, Novozymes has had to rethink some of their expansion plans in the United States. This is a concrete example of the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s actions potentially costing Nebraska jobs. Q. Tell us about the roundtable on biofuels held there.&nbsp; A. Nebraska delegates presented U.S. market trends and regulations to the group, with a focus on coproducts, revenue opportunities and biorefinery developments. The group summarized opportunities for businesses in the U.S. that partner with Nebraska and its companies. The Nebraska team also showcased the dynamic interaction between the corn, cattle, and ethanol sectors and their important roles in Nebraska&rsquo;s success in agriculture.&nbsp;
Author: Holly Jessen Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-738-4946 hjessen@bbiinternational.com

MEET AND GREET: Holk Nielsen of Novozymes, at left, shakes hands with Ricketts at Novozymesâ€™ headquarters in Denmark. Ricketts has made international trade missions a priority of his administration. 

2015/09/MeetAndGreet_14417312515768_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/MeetAndGreet_14417312515768_thumb.jpg

2015/09/MeetAndGreet_14417312515768.jpg

EDUCATION CAR: Ricketts checks out Novozymesâ€™ Zymobile, a 2011 Dodge Charger flex-fuel vehicle, on July 24, when a news conference was held at Novozymeâ€™s enzyme plant in Nebraska. 

2015/09/EducationCar_14417312506075.jpg

There's no question biofuels and a strong RFS are important to the future of the Cornhusker State. This article appears in the October issue of EPM.   

Ricketts, biofuels champion at home, abroad

Each fall, the pace picks up in the K-Coe Isom offices. The company works to help clients assess their current financial performance, determine tax options and cash-flow impacts and plan for the new year. Ethanol producers would do well to zero in on those same issues in the fourth quarter, before closing the books on 2015. As an ethanol producer winding down from this year&rsquo;s tighter margins, there are numerous end-of-year decisions to make. Here are some key things to consider: Taxable income Since most ethanol plants are formed as a limited liability company and taxed as a partnership, with income passing through to members, knowing the year&rsquo;s taxable income is important for a business and its membership. Prepayments Consider the impact of receiving prepayments from customers. For example, livestock producers may want to prepay for future distillers grains purchases. That means the company would receive the cash before it produced or delivered the product. It&rsquo;s important to be thoughtful and proactive in this kind of situation. Forecast future distillers grain production as well as anticipated market prices. What terms will the company offer, such as discounts or cash price contracts upon delivery, if customers want to prepay? Taking it a step further, careful thought should be given to whether it makes sense to prepay expenses, especially if a discount can be negotiated. Certain items can be prepaid in 2014 that allow the company to accelerate the deduction on its tax return while saving&nbsp; the deduction for 2015 financial reporting. This could be the best of all situations: Defer tax payments and see a minimal adjustment in the timing of cash outlay since the company was going to prepay those expenses soon after year-end and it might actually reduce the cash outlay if discounts were effectively negotitated. Depreciation Pay careful attention to the expensing and depreciation elections you made on past tax filings as well as those available for the current year. Will the company accelerate deductions? Balance cash flow and taxable income based on your company&rsquo;s goals. Cash flow End-of-year financial planning will almost certainly affect your cash flow: A question to ask: How much cash reserves does the company absolutely have to have at all times versus how much cash can be used in late 2015 for planning&mdash;to save taxes, defer taxes and, hopefully, net a larger cash balance than if no planning were done? While reassessing 2015 and your tax-related decisions, think about the year ahead. Are the decisions made today simply kicking the can down the road? Will 2016 put the company in a different tax bracket? If there were a proverbial crystal ball to show where corn and oil prices were headed, if it were known what to expect from the gasoline and export markets, plans could be made accordingly. But it doesn&rsquo;t exist. So it&rsquo;s important to go through the end-of-year planning process. Carefully think through the pros and cons of your decisions and how they will impact taxes and cash flow this year and next. Author: Donna Funk, CPA Principal, K-Coe Isom 800-303-3241 funk@kcoe.com

2015/09/FunkDonna_14417282661024_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/FunkDonna_14417282661024_thumb.jpg

2015/09/FunkDonna_14417282661024.jpg

As producers close up the books on 2015, they need to carefully consider several key issues, writes Donna Funk of K-Coe Isom. This column is titled "Playing it smart at year-end" in the October issue of EPM. 

Zeroing in on smart year-end decisions for ethanol producers

Efficient cellulosic ethanol processes will depend upon the accurate analysis of lignocellulosic feedstocks. The relative importance of various biomass constituent properties depends largely on whether enzymatic hydrolysis or thermochemical technologies are used, with sugar compositions being paramount in hydrolysis and thermal properties more important in thermochemical processes. The analytical techniques for biomass used in thermochemical processes are well-established, relatively rapid and low-cost, largely due to their use in the fossil fuel industry. Moisture and ash contents are determined using ovens and furnaces, respectively. Heating values are determined using an oxygen bomb calorimeter and applying corrections based on the elemental (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur) composition of the sample, found using an elemental analyzer. The washings of the calorimeter can also be used to find the chlorine content. Other important elements in the ash can be determined by digesting the sample and subsequent analysis using equipment such as an ICP (inductively coupled plasma). The ash melting behavior can be determined using a special furnace with a digital camera to monitor ash deformation. These methods place the onus of analysis on dedicated equipment, rather than the analyst, and can be completed within one day.&nbsp; It takes significantly longer to determine the properties relevant to hydrolysis processes, however, and these methods are much more reliant on careful work by the analyst. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a widely used series of laboratory analytical procedures (LAPs) for lignocellulosic analysis. The LAP used to determine constituent sugars and lignin takes approximately three days for the two-stage acid hydrolysis procedure. Before hydrolysis, however, it is usually necessary to remove extractives from the sample. In trials in our laboratory, we have found that not removing the extractives prior to hydrolysis can lead to significant overestimations of the Klason lignin. While various solvents can be used to remove extractives, the NREL LAP recommends water and ethanol. Removing extractives using soxhlet requires up to 24 hours per sample. The remaining solid needs to air-dry prior to hydrolysis and the extractives content can be determined indirectly from the solid mass loss or directly by evaporating the solvent and weighing. Once the extractives are removed, the two-stage acid hydrolysis procedure specified in the NREL LAP involves mixing the sample with 72 percent sulphuric acid and incubating it in a water batch at 30 degrees Celsius for one hour, during which the sample needs to be periodically mixed. The analyst&rsquo;s mixing technique is key in ensuring that the sample is fully hydrolyzed. After one hour, the hydrolysate is diluted to 4 percent acid, the pressure tube sealed and placed in an autoclave at 121 C for another hour. The hydrolysate is then filtered and analyzed using chromatography equipment to identify the sugars. The residue is dried and ashed to determine the Klason lignin content, while acid-soluble lignin content is determined using ultraviolet spectroscopy. Given that it takes approximately two weeks to follow the NREL LAPs, the cost of analysis can be very high. Rapid Biomass Analysis Fortunately, there are rapid analysis methods available for lignocellulosic composition. Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) involves light just beyond the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum being directed toward the sample where it is reflected from, transmitted or refracted through, or absorbed by the matter it interacts with.&nbsp; Whether absorption occurs will depend on whether the photons have a frequency resonant to that of the rotations or the characteristic vibrations of the chemical bonds that constitute the molecules of the sample. Typically, most of the fundamental vibrational absorptions occur in the mid-infrared region (MIR), called the fingerprint region because distinctive spectra can be obtained for specific molecules and compounds. In contrast, the NIR region consists of the much weaker absorbance-intensity overtones and combination bands. The number and complexity of these, and their interactions, result in spectra that cannot easily be evaluated on visual inspection. Because of this, NIR is not a direct analytical method. Statistical models based on Chemometric methods can be developed to relate the spectra variations with the chemical variations seen in the samples. Once robust models are developed, they can be applied for rapid and direct analysis of unknown samples, becoming primary NIR analytical tools. NIR models work best when the samples used in their development are comparable to the targeted unknowns&mdash;a model developed on grass samples is unlikely to be accurate in predicting the composition of a wood sample. Given the huge variability in both biomass types and compositions seen in advanced biofuel feedstocks, NIR models need to be developed from a large and broad calibration set in order to predict analytes with confidence. While NIR is a well-established method in the food and forage industries, with manufacturers selling NIR devices with built-in models for predicting a range of properties, such as protein in grain, its application for analyzing biomass feedstocks for lignocellulosic properties has been limited until recently. While there have been a number of research publications in this area, these typically only involved one feedstock, or at most a handful. There have also been some in-house NIR models, usually also feedstock-specific, developed by companies in the advanced biofuels sector. Historically, the only means of lignocellulosic analysis for a user without access to these models would have been through the chemical analysis methods, either carried out themselves or by a companies that undertake the NREL LAPs as a commercial service (with prices being approximately $1,000 per sample for full sugars, lignin and extractives analysis). To meet the emerging need, Celignis Ltd. was launched in August at the Nexus Innovation Center at the University of Limerick, Ireland, to provide 24-hour, relatively low-cost laboratory analytical services for the characterization of biomass samples, including NIR analysis. Over 1,300 samples, covering a wide variety of biomass types, have been used to develop the Celignis models. They can predict each of the polysaccharide sugars (glucose, xylose, mannose, arabinose, galactose and rhamnose), lignin (Klason and acid soluble), ash and ethanol-soluble-extractives, covering a broad concentration range for each of the constituents. Of course, the most accurate means of analysis will always be the chemical method, providing the analyst is suitably trained. However, we consider the accuracy of NIR predictions more than satisfactory for the evaluation of advanced biofuel feedstocks. In the future, biomass NIR devices may be integrated online at biofuel production facilities. We have demonstrated in our laboratory that models using wet, whole biomass samples can be highly accurate on a feedstock-specific basis, though slightly less accurate than models based on dried, ground samples. Such a rapid means of online analysis will allow for efficiency improvements in feedstock evaluation and payment to the supplier, and even more rapid process adjustments. Author: Daniel Hayes, CEO, Celignis Ltd. (+353) 61 518 440 dan@celignis.com

2015/09/Celignis_14417284751826_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Celignis_14417284751826_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Celignis_14417284751826.jpg

CORRELATION: Scatter plots correlate the data obtained for a sample via chemical analysis (x-axis) and the data obtained for the same sample via NIR-prediction (y-axis). 

2015/09/SliderGraphs-EPMOct15_14417284761426.jpg

Current chemical methods take days and are dependent on analyst's skill. This contribution appears in the October issue of EPM. 

New NIR models speedup feedstock analysis process

There is a heightened focus on environmental sustainability today, and for good reason. Gone are the days of it being acceptable to open valves and discharge unregulated waste streams into the environment. As time has progressed, industry has seen the impact of heightened scrutiny of the public and regulatory bodies. There are strong trends in protecting our natural resources from excessive usage and compromising their quality. Companies, and now even municipalities, are being subject to thorough review and comment periods to justify a facility&rsquo;s proposed discharge rates and water composition. Historically, one area that has come up during the environmental review cycle is the evaluation of the additives used to treat cooling tower systems. The plot of the movie &ldquo;Erin Brockovich&rdquo; was centered on the use of the cooling tower chemical additive chromate and, when it was discovered that chromates were carcinogenic, the use of chromates was banned. Today there is a new focus on cooling tower additives. This time, phosphorus (P) discharges have gained significant attention as a result of the impact they can have on the eutrophication of lakes and other waterways. Phosphorus has long been recognized as the controlling factor in plant and algae growth for many lakes and streams. A minor increase in phosphorous can fuel substantial increases in both aquatic plant and algae growth, which can have severe impacts on a community. Phosphorus originates from municipal and industrial water discharges, as well as agricultural runoff. Many parts of the country, including the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay watersheds, are regulating the acceptable P discharge levels well below those commonly employed in traditional cooling water treatments for scale and corrosion control. The state of Wisconsin, for example, is regulating P discharges at levels in the range of 0.04 to 0.075 parts per million (ppm). This represents a significant challenge for facilities operating under direct discharge permits. The use of phosphorus-bearing compounds in industrial cooling water treatment programs has been commonplace since they replaced chromates as corrosion inhibitors in the early 1970s. Typical alkaline all-organic cooling water programs where phosphonates are present as scale inhibitors can have phosphorus levels from 0.3 to 2.5 ppm as P, while stabilized phosphate programs can have phosphorus levels as high as 6.0 to 7.0 ppm. Alternative corrosion inhibitor options may not be viable since they are often based on metals such as zinc or molybdate that are also being closely regulated in terms of acceptable discharge levels. Without an effective corrosion and deposit (scale) control program in place, industrial cooling systems could be compromised in a relatively short time. Facilities could experience significantly higher operating costs as well as potentially impact production capacities, for example, from a loss of vacuum in the surface condensers. Evaluating Alternatives Specialty chemical providers have recognized the challenges facing the industry for some time and have been diligently working to find an economically viable solution that can deliver the protection required. Suppliers have investigated nonmetallic corrosion inhibitors and have made them commercially available. These organic inhibitors are often based on low molecular weight polymers, phosphonates and amino phosphonates. Some of these organic molecules have proven to be successful carbon steel corrosion inhibitors. Although they show improved environmental acceptability, they too may have some technical concerns. Organic molecules may be more susceptible to oxidizing biocides than inorganic molecules. Many azole-based copper corrosion inhibitors are susceptible to degradation by oxidizing biocides. Hydroxyphosphonic acid has shown susceptibility to chlorine, even at low levels. This presents a problem because oxidizing biocides are a necessary part of any successful water technology program for control of potentially harmful bacteria, such as legionella. Organic inhibitors based on the phosphorus molecule do not meet the discharge requirement for P due to the reversion of some of the organic phosphonate to orthophosphate. Unfortunately many alternative programs have failed to properly control the corrosion rates in systems without the use of phosphorus-bearing inhibitors. Table 1 illustrates an evaluation of green chemistry alternatives conducted by scientists at St. Michael, Minnesota-based U.S. Water Services Inc. The various alternatives were subjectively rated, with 4 being the best score and 1 the worst. Informed by their review of the alternatives, scientists at U.S. Water developed new cooling water treatment technology, working with a Midwest ethanol plant to reduce phosphorus concentrations in its discharge. The plant had two different cooling towers due to different process conditions. Both utilized induced draft counterflow cooling towers. The first cooling tower, comprised of mild steel, copper and 304 stainless steel, ran for six months from May to October at an estimated 18,000-gallons-per-minute (GPM) recirculation rate, while the second cooling tower, comprised of only mild steel and 304 stainless steel, ran year round at an estimated 12,600 -GPM recirculation rate. Traditional water treatment programs were being utilized in the treatment of the cooling towers. The program for Tower No.1 utilized an all-organic program with an azole supplement due to the copper metallurgy contained within the system. Tower No. 2 did not have an azole supplement. The results obtained from the first chemical program were satisfactory, but U.S. Water tried an alternative all-organic program and corrosion rates actually increased slightly from the first program to the second program in Tower No. 2. Needing a viable chemical treatment alternative due to discharge regulations, the client implemented the new U.S. Water program, trademarked PhosZero. In order to ensure proper system protection, corrosion rates were carefully monitored using corrosion coupons along with a Corrator, a specially designed probe that gives a direct electrochemical measurement of corrosion rate. Corrators are good tools to measure trends and instantaneous relative corrosion rates. Corrosion coupons are an alternative method to monitor the same parameter. Corrosion coupons are samples of pertinent metal (i.e., mild steel or copper) that are preweighed to a high degree of accuracy. These metal samples are put into a system and exposed to the water in the system for an extended duration. After a period of time, the metal samples are removed and sent in for analysis where they are first cleaned of debris and then reweighed. The difference in the metal mass (i.e., metal loss) and the length of exposure (in days) are used to calculate the corrosion rates. In this study, corrosion coupons were employed in addition to the Corrator to monitor the cumulative corrosion rates over a 45-to 60-day exposure period. The results are summarized in Table 3. &nbsp;The client wanted to maintain the same water efficiency (i.e., not reduce the cycles of concentration) that yielded a Langelier Saturation Index of approximately 2.25. This LSI represents a relatively high scaling potential. The heat transfer surfaces were monitored closely as well, and during the course of the entire trial there was no observed accumulation of scale that would impede the heat transfer efficiencies. Table 2 shows the pertinent cooling tower values during the trial. Corrosion rates improved dramatically within the first five hours of implementation of PhosZero. The corrosion rates for the mild steel, as measured by an online Corrater showed significant improvement during the implementation phase, falling from greater than 2.5 mils per year (mpy) to less than 0.5 mpy. The results were better than anticipated and the primary objective of eliminating phosphorus from the cooling tower chemical treatment program was attained. In addition, the zero phosphorus treatment program provided a significant reduction in the corrosion rates. The corrosion rates dropped from an approximate average of 4 mpy to an average around 1.3 mpy. The results signify a significant shift in paradigm in the water treatment industry. The norm used to be for facilities to have to settle for compromised results or additional water use when using alternate chemicals that didn&rsquo;t contain phosphorus. Now, industry is able to meet low P concentrations in their discharges while still protecting their critical assets. Author: Michael Mowbray Technical Marketing Manager, U.S. Water Services 763-497-1293 sarah.haug@uswaterservices.com Contributing Author: Gary Engstrom, Technology Manager, U.S. Water Services

2015/09/CoolingTower_14417286140478_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/CoolingTower_14417286140478_thumb.jpg

2015/09/CoolingTower_14417286140478.jpg

2015/09/CoolingTowerParameters_14417286149007.jpg

2015/09/GreenChemistry_14417286159449.jpg

2015/09/ZeroPhosphorusTable_1441728616845.jpg

Phosphorus-free cooling tower treatment offers viable alternative. This contribution appears in the October issue of EPM. 

Searching for effective, environmentally friendly water treatment Technologies

Name the crop, and AGCO has baled it. Extensive work with kenaf, hemp, miscanthus, energy sorghum, energy cane, switchgrass and corn stalks&mdash;nearly all nonwoody biomass&mdash;has allowed the company to build a tremendous knowledge base of how to treat each material and bring success to a project, says Glenn Farris, AGCO North American biomass and industrials segment strategy manager.&nbsp; &ldquo;We can bale it all, but we&rsquo;ll just say some are certainly more challenging than others,&rdquo; he quips. It hasn&rsquo;t come without trial and error, but that&rsquo;s the name of the game in this burgeoning industry, according to Farris. Of late, the focus has been on corn stover, and on what he dubs the Big Three&mdash;Abengoa&rsquo;s, DuPont&rsquo;s and Poet-DSM&rsquo;s commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants in Hugoton, Kansas; Nevada, Iowa; and Emmetsburg, Iowa, respectively. At Abengoa, Pacific Ag does 100 percent of the feedstock supply, and uses AGCO balers exclusively. Investment for the machines needed to complete the feedstock supply chain amount to much more than one might think&mdash;a typical-size, 25 to 30 MMgy cellulosic ethanol plant requires around 350,000 dry tons of stover per year, which equates to as many as 60 balers and windrowers when the project is fully open, and a total of around 350 pieces of equipment. Therefore, on top of the roughly $200 million cost to build a plant, an additional $40 million investment is required for machines alone. Right now, the market for large square balers in this industry is around 1,600 units, Farris says, but potential is vast. If cellulosic fuel production projections are achieved&mdash;1 billion gallons by 2023&mdash;that could ratchet up the market to roughly 4,000 balers, for corn stover specifically. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s more than two and a half times the existing market, including the other uses the balers are used for,&rdquo; Farris says. With corn stover in mind, the company&rsquo;s 2200 Series large square baler has a simplistic, robust design, with high throughput and density. AGCO&rsquo;s WR9870 windrower with biomass attachments has a Twin Max double conditioning system, which Kyle Kitt, marketing manager of hay cutting, preparation and forage, says no other player in the market offers. But regardless of a machine&rsquo;s capability or reliability, if the operator isn&rsquo;t well-trained, overall efficiencies can plummet. &ldquo;No matter how great a product is, if you don&rsquo;t have the knowledge to make it shine, it will only get you so far,&rdquo; Kitt says. Practice Makes Perfect AGCO has developed a service and training coaching model that has served the company and its customers well. &ldquo;Two years ago, we had 100 new operators at a project, and of those 100, approximately 82 of them had never participated in a baling activity before,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;Out of those 82, 56 had never sat in a tractor before. Within three weeks of the start, they were doing an outstanding job and achieved every goal that was set for them.&rdquo; &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t have 30-year veterans running this equipment, and that&rsquo;s why technology is so important&mdash;it allows these companies to monitor performance and see efficiencies improve over time,&rdquo; Kitt adds. For example, in 2012, AGCO spent time analyzing what was going on with several of the projects it was involved in, and found its baler performance to be right on, but the learning curve was how to optimize them in each environment. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s what generated all of our training&mdash;we believed our piece of the puzzle was very good, but it has to start at the operator and their understanding&mdash;we&rsquo;ve found that less than 30 percent of the issues are on equipment,&rdquo; Kitt says. And despite many years of preparation, even beyond operator performance, learn-as-they-go is the only way to perfect operations, as there is no point of reference to look back on. &ldquo;They don&rsquo;t have what the corn starch ethanol industry had&mdash;a system already in place, a commodities market, storage areas, the logistical chain. It all already existed, it just needed to expand for the new demand for supply,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;When these project developers are planning, they can&rsquo;t sit down and look at a historical price and predict what they think it will be; there is nowhere they can pick up a phone and ask if someone can send 100,000 tons of corn stover next month.&rdquo; And that&rsquo;s where the biggest challenge lies&mdash;the development of a system, which couldn&rsquo;t be done in earlier project development stages, when the focus was elsewhere. &ldquo;When you look at how the industry has evolved, for years they [cellulosic ethanol companies] spent all of their time on their technology, and rightly so, as they are technology companies to a great degree,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;So they solved problems there first.&rdquo; Now, with the Big Three all underway, the preferred feedstock system is in the making, and may or may not be one-size-fits-all. &ldquo;We don&rsquo;t know which is going to be &lsquo;the one&rsquo;, but we&rsquo;re really getting into the knowledge of spare parts, the consumables, ways to keep costs down and how to optimize the machines,&rdquo; Farris says. Though AGCO has been wheels-deep in stover logistics, its work with biomass continues to expand beyond that crop and the U.S. market. Other Markets, Road Ahead One developing and two operational power projects in Chile and sugarcane baling in Brazil and Argentina are some examples of AGCO&rsquo;s latest global biomass sector involvement, offers Ken Wagenbach, senior marketing specialist. Also attracting the company&rsquo;s attention are developments in China, where the company already has operations and sees significant growth opportunity, and the EU, where AGCO is a major market force. Opportunities abroad and outside the U.S. border are vast, but AGCO is still keeping a close eye on new and developing markets in the U.S. &ldquo;I think there will continue to be a significant amount of growth in the pellet industry, not just for export, but for home and district heating,&rdquo; Farris says. &ldquo;A lot of that is woody biomass, but you might see ag waste and purpose-grown crops become a robust part of that market. There is a different set of economics around that, and it&rsquo;s fairly compelling. I think another thing we&rsquo;re starting to hear rumblings about is the use of wheat straw and miscanthus for pulping material.&rdquo; Although a watchful eye is kept on the renewable fuel standard (RFS), business doesn&rsquo;t start or end there for AGCO, as the reality is that for them, growth will continue to happen, regardless of policy direction.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think [liquid] fuels will continue to grow, but each one of these companies is devoting a lot of their resources into the chemical areas, too, things that are used for building blocks for plastics, cosmetics and other higher-value products with large markets, so I think we&rsquo;ll start seeing more of that in the near future,&rdquo; Wagenbach says. There are many more pieces to the puzzle than just fuel, from his perspective. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s also about agronomics and sustainability,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not just totally interested in it for fuels; I think we&rsquo;re looking at this as residue management from major cropping sources, as yields increase and crop genetics change. Farris points out corn yields are steadily rising and current national averages hover around 175-plus bushels per acre, with forecasts to reach 200 within the next 15 years. &ldquo;Yields for wheat are in the mid-40s; when you see them hit 65 to 70, there will be a need to take it off because it will be a detriment to yields.&rdquo; Therefore, the once-heavily debated argument surrounding crop residue removal will become nearly obsolete, and the concept will move from a potential detriment to an extra revenue stream. &ldquo;All of a sudden, it&rsquo;s going to go beyond a niche market for one company,&rdquo; Kitt adds. &ldquo;It will become every corn farmer&rsquo;s opportunity.&rdquo; &nbsp; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4961

BIOMASS BALE:  AGCO balers are used exclusively by Pacific Ag, which does 100 percent of the feedstock supply for Abengoa. 

2015/09/AGCO_14417315518517_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/AGCO_14417315518517_thumb.jpg

2015/09/AGCO_14417315518517.jpg

LOOKING GOOD: AGCOâ€™s 2200 Series large square baler is working the fields around the newly completed U.S. cellulosic ethanol facilities.

2015/09/AGCO-2200Series-Baler_14417315528605.jpg

AGCO is well-equipped to aid the first U.S. cellulosic ethanol plants in devising efficient and effective feedstock supply chain models. This article is titled "From Blueprint to Baler" in the October issue of EPM.        

Equipment company has strong biomass knowledge-base

A multitude of questions surround the challenge of bringing in the mountains of biomass needed to feed a commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant: Are crop residues a reliable resource? Will farming communities support the development of this new supply chain? Will farmers make long-term commitments? Pacific Ag and Genera Energy Inc., both with roots outside the Corn Belt, bring different perspectives to these questions. Pacific Ag has two decades of experience harvesting forages and crop residues in the Pacific Northwest, exporting to Japan and Korea. The company describes itself as a service provider, aiding farmers with residue management while providing consistent feedstock quality and supply to customers. Genera Energy&rsquo;s roots are in the Tennessee state government and university initiative to create a comprehensive and integrated switchgrass-to-ethanol biofuels project that resulted in partnering with DuPont to build a demonstration facility in Vonore, Tennessee. Genera Energy spun out from those early efforts, launching in 2012 to pursue commercial biomass supply business opportunities. While working on equipment optimization and logistics strategies, Genera Energy has also focused on supply-chain modeling aimed towards just-in-time supplies of both energy crops and residues. Genera Energy&rsquo;s chief operating officer Keith Brazzell cautions that, for many, being dependent upon a single feedstock could be a trap&mdash;be it corn stover or miscanthus. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one thing if you&rsquo;re in the middle of Iowa and thousands of acres of corn and if somebody&rsquo;s corn doesn&rsquo;t come in, you can get somebody else&rsquo;s,&rdquo; he says. Furthermore, relying upon crop residues requires large storage yards for a year&rsquo;s worth of stover or straw. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve spent a lot of time on what crop mixes work out for just-in-time supply,&rdquo; he says, adding there is a place for some inventory. Generally, baling grain crop residue requires a compressed harvest window to meet the farmer&rsquo;s need for fall field work. Looking at other crops provides multiple harvest windows throughout a season. A biomass sorghum might be harvestable in July and could stand for several weeks, Brazzell says. Switchgrass that goes into dormancy in the fall has a long harvest window while the spring harvest of winter cover crops could fill another time frame. Energy crops can also greatly reduce the number of acres needed to supply a biorefinery. While corn stover is reportedly yielding between 1.5 to 2.5 tons per acre, Brazzell points out, grass can yield 8 tons and a biomass sorghum even more at 10 or 12 tons per acre. Winter cover crops could supplement as well, with biomass yields around 3 tons per acre, he says. Genera Energy has been working on modeling the mix of crops and related factors to meet the feedstock needs of a biorefinery. The database being built will be useful for contingency planning and adjusting to changing conditions. &ldquo;One of the worst things you can do is build a 20 or 30 million gallon plant, and run out of biomass,&rdquo; Brazzell says. While working with a mix of feedstocks addresses the risks associated with relying upon a single residue, the time and cost associated with establishing perennial energy crops raises another issue&mdash;the need for long-term contracts. &ldquo;Once you invest in the establishment of a perennial crop, you cannot afford to have that land go away three years later because somebody sells it out from under you,&rdquo; Brazzell says. Most farmers are in their upper 50s and many are 70 years or older, he points out. &ldquo;You have to think long-term leases and what happens as it passes from one generation to the next.&rdquo; In interviewing landowners, they have found while some are not willing to enter into five- or 10-year leases, others are. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s harder to get a row-crop farmer to tie up his land long term, and that&rsquo;s not best utilization anyway. His land might be better for biomass sorghum,&rdquo; he adds. Perennial crops are more appropriate for underutilized land, perhaps reclamation acres, land coming out of conservation or unused pastureland. Pacific Ag takes a different approach. While the company strives to build long-term relationships with farmers, Harrison Pettit, vice president corporate development, says they don&rsquo;t ask for long-term agreements. &ldquo;Our belief is that growers need to feel that they are not locked in, or backed into a corner,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Conditions change. It&rsquo;s better that growers have the psychological parachute.&rdquo; Managing Residue Pacific Ag has built its business around providing residue management services for growers. A large part of bigger yields in wheat and corn crops has come through higher plant populations, Pettit points out. &ldquo;That means as grain yields grow, so does the amount of residue per acre.&rdquo; Managing the residue by removing some of it eliminates the need for multiple field passes to incorporate the residue, saving fuel, time and equipment. Removing some residue can also mean easier planting and better emergence for the next crop, improving yields the following year.&nbsp; &ldquo;And we&rsquo;re paying them something,&rdquo; Pettit adds. For a business based on offering residue management services, Pacific Ag had a challenge on its hands when it took on the contract to supply Abengoa&rsquo;s cellulosic ethanol plant in southwest Kansas&mdash;the region was in the middle of a multiyear drought. &ldquo;It was a matter of being very selective on which fields were harvested at all,&rdquo; explains Pacific Ag&rsquo;s vice president of supply Steve Van Mouwerik. &ldquo;And all of them were harvested much more lightly, because it really is all about what you leave and not what you take.&rdquo; Starting in the teeth of the drought meant starting slowly and spending the time with growers, he continues, &ldquo;giving them an opportunity to decide for themselves if they like what you&rsquo;re doing, the timing of what you&rsquo;re doing and how it fits with their cropping schedule. It&rsquo;s going to be different for someone who plants corn-on-corn versus someone who is rotating between corn and wheat or corn and soybeans or milo.&rdquo; This year, the area is experiencing more than double the normal rainfall, and with it, no shortage of residue. After experiencing both extremes, he adds with a chuckle, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re looking for five normal years.&rdquo;&nbsp; Areas like southwest Kansas, in or near cattle country, are familiar with baling straw and stover for feedlots, and it&rsquo;s a good base to build upon, says Van Mouwerik, but there are big differences. The legacy model, which people are used to, alternates between harvesting little or nothing and, the next year, harvesting everything possible due to high demand for forage supplies. &ldquo;When you have consistency of demand, you can really settle down to growers seeing a consistency of residue management.&rdquo; One lesson learned in building the supply shed for the Hugoton, Kansas, project is that the ideal 20- or 30-mile supply radius around a biorefinery can&rsquo;t be the initial target. &ldquo;What you really are mapping, when you first go in, are the early adopters, the innovators in the community,&rdquo; Van Mouwerik says. &ldquo;You went where the people who wanted to try something new were located and what you did with them was watched by the neighbors.&rdquo; The following year, the innovator would be adding fields and the neighbor would give it a try. &ldquo;We learned the speed of success was really relying on how we could create experiences that could be viewed and talked about. That provides you with your growth curve and supply.&rdquo;&nbsp; Payments to growers do not reflect the distance from the biorefinery, he adds, reflecting the fact there are other markets for the residues, typically dairies and feedlots. As the supply fills in closer to the plant and demand becomes more consistent and the market matures, he adds, a distance-based discount evolves. Growers also begin to quantify the benefits of residue management. In the two decades of working in the Pacific Northwest with grass seed growers, harvesting and shipping the residue to Japanese markets, he watched the market mature. &ldquo;When growers saw it wasn&rsquo;t going to be hot and cold, they settled down. The pricing came to reflect the avoided costs that they had in their entire farming operation, the distance it was from a point of demand, and the benefits that they were enjoying. It takes time to mature those dynamics in the stubble fee or the biomass feedstock markets.&rdquo; Another big difference from the legacy forage and bedding markets is in quality. The traditional markets have much higher tolerances, and there&rsquo;s a &ldquo;go-along and get-along&rdquo; framework that defines that activity, Van Mouwerik says. Equipment operators recruited from the traditional baling operations quickly learn the ropes of meeting higher quality demands. Good communication is needed to meet the growers&rsquo; needs, while helping them understand the end user&rsquo;s needs. Moisture levels are well understood, and not much different for biorefineries than other markets. Ash content is a greater concern for biorefineries, however. &ldquo;We have operating rules of thumb, so that [equipment operators] run their equipment and heights and speeds on fields with different types of soil such that they&rsquo;re minimizing the amount of ash that&rsquo;s in the bale,&rdquo; Mouwerik explains.&nbsp; National Footprint In expanding its residue management business from the Pacific Northwest into the High Plains, Pacific Ag is pursuing a national footprint. &ldquo;The fall corn harvest is the big harvest season,&rdquo; Van Mouwerik says, &ldquo;but you need to find complementary harvest windows and products that will keep equipment and human resources operating.&rdquo; The Pacific Ag team has followed the custom combine crews north, even into North Dakota, to supply dairies, feedlots, mushroom operations and other emerging markets. The company is finding that as end users realize they can count on consistent supply and quality, more markets develop. Plus, it gives market options for varying conditions. For example, moisture-damaged wheat straw that won&rsquo;t meet specifications for an ethanol plant might work well for a mushroom customer, he says. &ldquo;It makes it more resilient and lower cost for everyone when you have a number of markets pulling their quality out of the pile,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Six years ago, when we began this, we saw how to connect the dots, but we had to go prove it to ourselves and it&rsquo;s proving true.&rdquo; End users of residue have struggled with a fragmented supply base and inconsistency. &ldquo;We see there&rsquo;s strong demand for the kind of quality control and logistics, reporting and reliability of supply that isn&rsquo;t so hyper local that it&rsquo;s hard to have clear supply profiles,&rdquo; he says.&nbsp; And, in working with end users, Pacific Ag provides the agricultural IQ to help them understand and adapt to growers&rsquo; needs. Similarly, says Van Mouwerik, &ldquo;As growers experience residue management provided on a consistent basis that is only made possible by steady demand from cellulosic ethanol plants like DuPont and Abengoa and Poet, they will begin finding opportunities in their operations that will help them achieve lower costs, new cropping opportunities.&rdquo; He cautions against being too hasty to judge the emerging biomass supply chain. &ldquo;What we&rsquo;ve signed up for is to go on a journey where we all learn how to take advantage of a completely underutilized slice of a crop or family of crops,&rdquo; he says. There will be opportunities when growers and users learn how the new crop mixes will complement each other, and their operations. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re going to learn a lot together in the next five or 10 years.&rdquo; &nbsp; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Senior Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-738-4922 sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com

How many bales? A 30 MMgy cellulosic plant will consume roughly 400,000 dry tons of biomass yearly. That's around 700,000 big square bales. 

2015/09/Ethanol-PacificAg_14417317713047_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Ethanol-PacificAg_14417317713047_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Ethanol-PacificAg_14417317713047.jpg

BIG YIELDER: Genera Energy has worked with multiple energy crops. Energy cane would be suitable along the Gulf Coast and in southern California, yielding 20 dry tons per acre or more.

2015/09/Genera-EPM15_14417317721422.jpg

PERENNIAL CHOICE: Dormant switchgrass can be left standing and harvested as late as January, extending a harvest season. Forage-chopped switchgrass leaves the field at 13 to 15 percent moisture and less than 1 inch in particle size.

2015/09/Genera-OctEPM15_1441731773135.jpg

HARVEST TRAIN: Pacific Ag began working in the Midwest by transporting equipment from its Oregon base. It is now adding equipment and crews to building a more national footprint.

2015/09/PacificAg2-OctEPM15_14417317741191.jpg

EXPANDING THE LEGACY: Those familiar with the traditional bedding and forage markets quickly learn the quality requirements for bioenergy uses.

2015/09/PacificAg-OctEPM15_14417317750563.jpg

Building a supply chain from scratch demands attention to detail and high agricultural IQ. This article appears in the October issue of EPM.

Bringing in the biomass for cellulosic ethanol 

Since the ethanol blend wall seems to be the current issue the U.S. EPA is struggling with, I have a crazy idea. Instead of setting a blend wall for ethanol, why not set a fossil fuel pollution cap (PC). After all, ethanol is not causing major pollution in our cities, it&rsquo;s not damaging our environment, or polluting our oceans, rivers and streams and causing untold health issues for our citizens, fossil fuels have already cornered that market. It just seems like the EPA is doing everything possible to restrict the use of the wrong fuel. Fossil fuels have a proven track record of nasty effects from health to wars. I don&rsquo;t recall seeing any health effects or wars that have been attributed to ethanol. While seemingly an outlandish idea, having a fossil fuel PC would accomplish a number of key objectives for the country and the environment. Unless I&rsquo;m mistaken, that should be the objective of the EPA, to help protect the citizens of this country through sound environmental policy. Policy that promotes a cleaner environment and better air quality, via minimizing the use of polluting fuels like gasoline and diesel fuel. Besides, the PC could also stand for the politically correct thing to do as we come into the 2016 election cycle. It&rsquo;s not terribly complicated. The government, led by the EPA, would enact legislation that caps the use of fossil fuels over the next 30 years to, say, 50 percent of its 2020 level. Let&rsquo;s say that by 2020, fossil fuel use would be capped at 85 percent of the levels it is today. That would provide an opportunity for ethanol and biodiesel to meet those limits over the course of the next four years.
Then, during the following 10 years from 2020 to 2030, fossil fuel use would have to be reduced from the 2020 level to 70 percent. Following that, it would have to be reduced to 60 percent and, finally, by 2045 to 50 percent of the 2020 level. It&rsquo;s a program that would accomplish many things for the environment, air pollution and for the economy as a whole. All by simply addressing the root cause of the problem.&nbsp; It is difficult to imagine the impact such a policy would have on the economy of this country. Not just the rural economy, but the economy as a whole. We would not have to concern ourselves anymore about protecting our oil interests around the globe. We would reduce air pollution by at least 30 percent or more. We would go far toward achieving our global carbon reduction goals and improve the health and well-being of citizens from coast to coast. Combined that with the development of new vehicle technology such as electric and improved fuel economy and it may just be an achievable idea.
I know, I could have used this space to talk about something that actually has a chance of becoming policy, but one never knows. The EPA is simply focused on the wrong thing. It&rsquo;s seems to be intent on restricting the use of a fuel that has contributed enormously to the environment, the economy and energy security, in favor of a fuel that has done almost the exact opposite. The introduction of a fossil fuel PC is beyond my ability, but perhaps some of our Washington insiders ought to give it a think. Many things begin with a simple idea.
That&rsquo;s the way I see it. Author: Mike Bryan Chairman, BBI International mbryan@bbiinternational.com

2015/09/MIKE2005-EPM_14417330494397_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/MIKE2005-EPM_14417330494397_thumb.jpg

2015/09/MIKE2005-EPM_14417330494397.jpg

Instead of setting a blend wall for ethanol, why not set a fossil fuel pollution cap, writes Mike Bryan of BBI International. This column is titled "Time to cap pollution" in the October issue of EPM.  

Time to cap fossil fuel pollution    

After reporting on dedicated energy crops for more than a decade, I&rsquo;d be lying if I said I hadn&rsquo;t experienced occasional moments of skepticism about more than a few nongrain feedstocks. After all, it seems like we&rsquo;ve been telling the same story about some of these novel biomass inputs for a long time. In fact, I believe it&rsquo;s been nearly a decade since President George W. Bush mentioned switchgrass in one of his State of the Union addresses. That was an exciting moment for sure, but it was 10 years ago. Where&rsquo;s switchgrass now? Where&rsquo;s miscanthus? Where are those insanely large Jerusalem artichokes? With the exception of an update on artichokes&mdash;maybe we&rsquo;ll cover that next year&mdash;our team went looking for answers to these and other questions about biomass ethanol feedstocks this month. What we found refreshed my confidence in dedicated energy crops and elevated my belief in crop residues. Starting with <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/12597/cellulosic-feedstocks-of-the-future" target="_blank">&ldquo;Feedstocks of the Future,&rdquo;</a> we learn that planting and harvesting crops like switchgrass, miscanthus and biomass sorghum is, in fact, happening at a somewhat large scale. That&rsquo;s good news, and we should give the dedicated energy crop community high marks for sticking to it.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In <a href="http://www.ethanolproducer.com/articles/12596/bringing-in-the-biomass-for-cellulosic-ethanol" target="_blank">&ldquo;Bringing in the Biomass,&rdquo;</a> we shift our attention from purpose-grown crops to supply chain development. This story educates us on something the ethanol industry&rsquo;s emergent cellulosic ethanol producers know all too well: Building a biomass supply chain from the ground up is an enormous multi-year challenge. EPM Senior Editor Susanne Retka Schill reports that producers lacking a high degree of certainty about their supply should consider a multifeedstock strategy, if possible. Relying on two or more crops with different harvest windows, for example, can help producers achieve the continuous just-in-time feedstock delivery system they need for scaled success.&nbsp; Ultimately, I think dedicated energy crops like switchgrass will find their rightful place in the ethanol industry. Honestly, however, it won&rsquo;t happen tomorrow. Just as corn ethanol has paved the way for ethanol from corn fiber and corn residue, so too will those feedstocks pave the way for perennial grasses and other energy crops down the road. As for those enormous artichokes, hey, just give us time. Author: Tom Bryan President &amp; Editor in Chief tbryan@bbiinternational.com

2015/09/Tom-Bryan-Ethanol_14417331307934_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Tom-Bryan-Ethanol_14417331307934_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Tom-Bryan-Ethanol_14417331307934.jpg

Just as corn ethanol has paved the way for ethanol from corn fiber and corn residue, so too will those feedstocks pave the way for energy crops down the road. The editor's note, written by Tom Bryan, appears in the October issue of EPM. 

Peeking at ethanol's future fields  

Don't stop me if you've heard this one. It&rsquo;s a marketing story. Really.
A moth goes into a podiatrist&rsquo;s office. The podiatrist greets him and asks, &ldquo;How can I help you?&rdquo; &ldquo;Geez, Doc, I don't know if you can help me,&rdquo; the moth answers. &ldquo;I don't know if anyone can help me &hellip;&rdquo; &ldquo;Well, what seems to be the problem?&rdquo; the podiatrist asks. &ldquo;Why don't we just start with that?&rdquo; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the problem, Doc. I don't know. I feel like I don't know anything. I'm lost. I've got no confidence,&rdquo; the moth explains. &ldquo;I got fired from my job, and actually, I think my boss was right to fire me, because I didn't know what I was doing there. My wife and I are constantly fighting, I&rsquo;m worried she&rsquo;s going to leave me &hellip;&rdquo; The podiatrist, feeling uncomfortable, tries to interrupt, &ldquo;Oh, sir, I understand, but &hellip;&rdquo; &ldquo;&hellip; and frankly, I'd leave me, too. I mean, she&rsquo;s tried to be supportive, but she&rsquo;s been so busy with the kids. And those kids, don't even get me started on the kids. I really have no control there. But I get it. It's because &hellip;&rdquo; &ldquo;Sir,&rdquo; the podiatrist interrupts, this time more forcefully, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s clear that you need help, but you need to talk to a psychologist. I'm a podiatrist.&rdquo; &ldquo;See? I can't even get that right. Sorry I wasted your time,&rdquo; the moth replied. &ldquo;Wait!&rdquo; the podiatrist said, &ldquo;Before you go, if you don't mind, can I ask you how you found us? Was it our ads? TV, radio? Our monster truck sponsorship, &lsquo;Big Foot,&rsquo; clever, right? Or was it Twitter? Our Facebook page? Instagram? What was it that brought you in here?&rdquo; &ldquo;Dude. I'm a moth,&rdquo; he answered. &ldquo;Your light was on.&rdquo; There are a number of lessons one could draw from this story. The most obvious is, despite our best efforts to educate inform and convince people to use our product, sometimes they buy it anyway.&nbsp; We want to believe drivers are inexorably drawn to the &ldquo;light&rdquo; of clean, high-octane, renewable, American ethanol, and some are. In reality, however, the majority of them are unavoidably drawn&mdash;begrudgingly&mdash;to the nearest gas station with the lowest price, by a blinking &ldquo;low fuel&rdquo; light on their dashboard. Ethanol blends are most often the lowest-priced options at the pump, so whether they like ethanol or not, they&rsquo;re buying it.&nbsp; And isn&rsquo;t that what we really want? That&rsquo;s not to say we shouldn&rsquo;t try to educate, inform, and convince people to use ethanol, we have to.&nbsp; Because some people&mdash;not very many, but some&mdash;want to know what this stuff is that they&rsquo;re putting in their car.&nbsp; We can&rsquo;t concede that job to the same serial misinformers who are continually misinforming elected officials, media outlets and the public in general. Just try to look past the fact that most people don&rsquo;t love ethanol, or even care about it. They use it because they need gas, and ethanol is in there. If it helps, they don&rsquo;t love gas, either. Never have, never will. Oil companies have spent billions advertising premium gasoline over the years, and yet annual sales don&rsquo;t come anywhere close to the amounts that would be sold if people who own premium only cars (it&rsquo;s on the gas cap and in the owners&rsquo; manual) actually put premium in them a fraction of the time. Even requiring branded stations to sell premium for the last 30 years didn&rsquo;t boost sales into the high single-digit percentages. Premium sales are up recently, because the change in base fuel requires stations to blend some premium with it to offer any gasoline without ethanol, or to sell any fuel with an octane higher than 87. Maybe people don&rsquo;t buy ethanol for the reasons we would like them to buy it. But they buy it. And when we turn the lights on at more stations offering higher blends, they&rsquo;ll be drawn to it. Like moths to a podiatrist. Author: Ron Lamberty Senior Vice President American Coalition for Ethanol 605-334-3381 rlamberty@ethanol.org&nbsp;

2015/09/Lamberty-Ron_14417327942562_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Lamberty-Ron_14417327942562_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Lamberty-Ron_14417327942562.jpg

Maybe people don't buy ethanol for the reasons we would like them to buy it, writes Ron Lamberty of ACE. But they buy it. This column appears in the October issue of EPM. 

Leave light on for ethanol consumers

Focusing solely on the big three cellulosic ethanol producers, corn is still king, even in second-generation advanced biofuels.&nbsp; Corn stover is the feedstock of choice of Abengoa Bioenergy, DuPont Advanced Biofuels and Poet-DSM, at least in the near-term. There are, however, a handful of other feedstocks that are gaining traction as potential feedstocks of the future, says Kelly Tiller, president and CEO of Genera Energy Inc. Specifically, switchgrass, miscanthus, biomass sorghum, sweet sorghum and energy cane are all currently being grown at commercial-scale production levels. Although there are other crops of interest, of course, Tiller zeros in on those six, counting corn stover, because they&rsquo;ve been shown to work on the large-scale and are economically feasible, she tells Ethanol Producer Magazine. Genera Energy provides biomass supply solutions to a variety of industries, including advanced biofuels. The company works with farmers and landowners, in some cases handling everything from land management, planting, harvest, transportation and storage. Although the company isn&rsquo;t able to go into specifics, due to confidentially agreements with clients, Tiller said Genera is actively working in 10 states. &nbsp; Corn Stover Poet LLC, Abengoa and DuPont provided EPM with statements about the feedstock of today as well as what might come down the line. &ldquo;We are certainly looking into additional feedstocks for the future, but our efforts today are primarily focused on corn crop residue in our joint venture with DSM,&rdquo; says Matt Merritt, director of public relations for Poet. &ldquo;Corn crop residue offers many benefits, not the least of which is feedstock logistics and the opportunities for colocation with grain ethanol plants.&rdquo; Abengoa is currently most interested in corn stover and wheat straw at its Kansas biorefinery, says Chris Standlee, executive vice president of global affairs for Abengoa Bioenergy, because of the large amount of those crops available locally. &ldquo;In short, we are still ramping up production capacities at Hugoton, and at this point the only feedstock we have used there is corn stover,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We will use wheat straw as we increase production rates closer to capacity, but even at full capacity we will probably only use 10 percent to 20 percent wheat straw and almost all the rest will be corn stover.&rdquo; Energy sorghum, which Standlee says looks promising as a feedstock, is grown locally in one of several test plots, managed by an Abengoa subsidiary that is dedicated to developing new feedstocks for the production of cellulosic sugars. The company also has a small 30-acre plot of switchgrass planted on the land where the ethanol plant is built. Finally, the facility could also convert other grasses harvested locally, depending on factors such as price, availability and accessibility. &ldquo;Other feedstocks will be used when it makes economic sense for us to do so, or when we want to run a test for a particular feedstock for possible use at other facilities,&rdquo; he says. DuPont, Nevada, Iowa, facility will focus on maximizing production and productivity using corn stover says Jan Koninckx, global business lead for advanced biofuels. However, the company, which will celebrate its cellulosic ethanol plant grand opening on Oct. 30, is investigating the potential of other feedstocks, including sugarcane bagasse, switchgrass, biomass sorghum and empty fruit bunch, a residue of palm oil production, all of which can be processed using DuPont's design. &ldquo;We are using our pilot plant in Tennessee to validate other feedstocks,&rdquo; he says. Sam Jackson, vice president of business development for Genera Energy, describes corn stover as an opportunistic feedstock. It&rsquo;s secondary to corn-grain production and, in some cases, can actually help solve problems when some is removed from the field. &ldquo;But the same circumstances that offer economic advantages for collecting stover biomass also introduce some disadvantages in material handling and processing,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Dirt and other materials picked up off the ground when harvesting stover can cause significant problems in downstream processing and stover moisture content can be highly variable, which can introduce costs and processing challenges.&rdquo; Perennial Grasses With corn stover taking up a lot of attention, there hasn&rsquo;t recently been as much buzz about purpose-grown energy crops such as switchgrass and miscanthus. But planting and harvesting of these crops is actually happening at fairly large scale, Tiller says. Today, the crops are more commercially viable because the time needed to establish plantings has been reduced. It is possible, Tiller says, to harvest switchgrass and miscanthus in the first year, but full productivity is now possible by about the second year. Native grasses also offer the second benefit of conservation value. The crop provides wildlife habitat, soil stabilization and even the ability to improve degraded soils over time. Harvest of perennial grasses can also be spread out over three or four months, or perhaps longer, in some cases, Tiller adds. Crops like switchgrass and miscanthus, which are harvested dry, produce feedstocks that are consistent, clean and have low variability, Jackson says. On the flip side, the grasses also have low bulk densities, which results in challenges and additional costs in storage and transport. &nbsp; Sorghum Varieties There&rsquo;s also commercial activity happening with the annual energy crops biomass sorghum and sweet sorghum, Tiller says. One big advantage of sorghum is that is requires less water than other row crops, so it&rsquo;s particularly attractive in areas under drought stress or more mindful of water conservation. The crop also has some value as a silage or forage crop.&nbsp; &ldquo;So that gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of being able to diversify those market outlets,&rdquo; she says. In addition, since sorghum is an annual crop that is already produced and harvested in a similar manner to other row crops, it can be harvested with existing equipment and knowledge. In other words, there&rsquo;s less of a learning curve. Biomass sorghum is a crop that provides high yield and flexibility in land use from year to year, Jackson says. On the other hand, it&rsquo;s typically harvested at about 50 percent or higher moisture levels. &ldquo;High moisture may limit the ability to cost-effectively mill a feedstock to fine particle sizes, store it for long periods of time, or use in some combustion processes,&rdquo; he says. &nbsp; Energy Cane This crop can be grown in a limited geographic area, such as in the Gulf Coast or Southern California, Tiller says. Energy cane requires tropical conditions. Still, it&rsquo;s a crop worth mentioning due to its tremendous yield potential, she says. &nbsp; Feedstock Value One exciting advancement in recent years, as more of these crops are planted and harvested on commercial scale, is yield information. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s one thing to have yields that are coming out of a laboratory or a designed experiment, but what we are seeing is very good documentation of very good, real world data on large scale,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;And, they are quite good. I think, again, it&rsquo;s validation for the true yield potential and information that some of the assumptions are valid and achievable in real world situations.&rdquo; Still, Tiller and Jackson agree, all tons are not created equal. While it&rsquo;s true that tons are an easy way to compare feedstocks, such as comparing the number of tons harvested per acre or the cost per ton of delivered material, there&rsquo;s more to consider. &ldquo;While these are useful data points, they only tell part of the story,&rdquo; Jackson adds. For example, in a comparison of a crop that yields 7 tons per acre, with a delivered price of $75-per ton and a crop yielding 12 tons per acre with a delivered price of $60 per ton, high yield and lower cost might not necessarily make the $60 crop the most attractive feedstock, he points out. If the $75 a ton crop is of a consistent and high quality with good storability, low handling costs and good conversion rates, it may actually be the better deal in the end. &ldquo;The true cost associated with any biomass feedstock is the accumulation of cost from preparing the land for planting, crop production and management, harvesting, aggregation, logistics, storage, material handling, preprocessing and conveyance into the conversion facility&rsquo;s process,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;To truly compare each feedstock, that total cost should be calculated as the starting point for comparing the cost of feedstock A vs. B. But to truly understand the relative value of a given feedstock, a more appropriate metric is the total cost of that feedstock represented in one or more marketable products derived from the biomass.&rdquo; In the end, there isn&rsquo;t one single best feedstock. &ldquo;All feedstocks have comparative advantages and disadvantages,&rdquo; Jackson says, &ldquo;and any feedstock&rsquo;s value in a finished product depends on the region and the specific downstream material handling, pre-processing and conversion process, in addition to all of the characteristics and costs that are feedstock-specific.&rdquo; Author: Holly Jessen Managing Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-738-4946 hjessen@bbiinternational.com

DROUGHT FRIENDLY:  Biomass sorghum requires less water than other annual crops, making it a good fit for drought-prone areas.

2015/09/Biomass-Sorghum_14417319833544_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Biomass-Sorghum_14417319833544_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Biomass-Sorghum_14417319833544.jpg

VISIONARY:  Planting miscanthus and other perennial grasses may mean growing it for the next decade or even two, meaning a long-term relationship is needed with the grower. 

2015/09/Miscanthus-Feedstocks_14417319843037.jpg

HOME SWEET HOME: Switchgrass has multiple benefits, including providing good ground cover and travel corridors for small mammals and nesting birds. 

2015/09/Switchgrass-Feedstocks_14417319853321.jpg

Commercial-scale production and harvest of several annual and perennial biomass feedstocks is under way, paving the way for biofuels, biopower and biobased products. This article appears in the October issue of EPM. 

Cellulosic feedstocks of the future

The U.S. Grains Council has announced Michael Dwyer as its new chief economist at its Washington, D.C., headquarters. In the newly created position, Dwyer will provide regular reports and analysis of developments in global supply and demand for coarse grains and products, help staff and members stay abreast of developments in the global market, and develop and maintain information on changing market conditions that will benefit the USGC&rsquo;s overseas contacts. The position was created in an effort to expand the USGC&rsquo;s strategic thinking about the global marketplace. Prior to joining the USGC, Dwyer served as director of global policy analysis at the USDA&rsquo;s Foreign Agricultural Service, where he was responsible for conducting and coordinating analyses on a variety of issues that affected U.S. and world agricultural trade, including those that affected the emerging global biofuels market. The USGC also announced Kimberly Atkins, a long-time staffer and previous director of global programs, as the council&rsquo;s next vice president and chief operating officer. Atkins has been with the USGC for 10 years, working in roles focused on management and execution of the council&rsquo;s global operations. Cary Sifferath, who previously served as USGC&rsquo;s regional director for the Middle East and Africa, will take oversight of the organization&rsquo;s global offices as senior director of global programs. With the USGC for 22 years, Sifferath has run regional offices in Southeast Asia and North Africa and country offices in Japan and China. In addition, the USGC announced Haksoo Kim has joined its staff as assistant director in the USGC&rsquo;s Korea office. He will work with the director in Korea to develop a strategy and plan to identify and address relevant trade, technical and policy-related factors relevant to building and maintaining the market for U.S. coarse grains and coproducts in Korea. In addition, he will assist in directing programs, including strategic analysis, program planning, implementation and evaluation, budget and accounting, personnel, administration and communications. Prior to joining the USGC, Kim was employed by Korea Agro-Fisheries &amp; Food Trade Corp. He also has experience with the USGC from his time as president of aT Grain Corp. when he served as a USGC delegate and sat on the Asia Advisory Team. The Advanced Biofuels Association has elected Wayne Simmons, president and CEO of Sundrop Fuels, as chairman; Neville Fernandes, president of Neste Oil U.S. Inc., as vice chairman; Wes Bolsen, head of business development and public affairs at Cool Planet, as treasurer; and Phil Caplan, partner at Ensyn Development Partners, as secretary. Appointed as new members to its executive committee were Paul Woods, president and CEO of Algenol; Laurel Harmon, vice president of government relations at LanzaTech; and Rebecca Boudreaux, president of Oberon Fuels.&nbsp;&nbsp; New Holland has appointed Bret Lieberman to lead the brand as vice president of North America. Bret joined New Holland in 1990 with a position in service parts. Most recently, he served as head of North America manufacturing, where he has been responsible for all agricultural and construction manufacturing plants since 2009.
UNICA, the Brazilian sugarcane industry association, has joined the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance. Created in 1997, UNICA is the largest organization in Brazil representing sugar, ethanol and bioelectricity producers. The association&rsquo;s members represent more than 50 percent of all the ethanol produced in Brazil and 60 percent of the country&rsquo;s sugar production. GRFA members now represent more than 90 percent of the global biofuels production from 45 countries. The USDA has named Robert Johansson as its chief economist. Johansson has served as USDA&rsquo;s acting chief economist since January and as deputy chief economist since 2012. He joined USDA in 2001. As chief economist, Johansson is responsible for USDA&rsquo;s agricultural forecasts and projections and for advising the secretary of agriculture on economic implications of programs, regulations, and legislative proposals. His responsibilities include the Office of the Chief Economist, the World Agricultural Outlook Board, the Office of Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit analysis, the Global Change Program Office, and the Office of Energy Policy and New Uses. He also serves as chairman of the federal crop insurance board of directors. Gevo Inc. has appointed Johannes Minho Roth to its board of directors. Roth is the founder and CEO of FiveT Capital Holding AG, a Zurich-based independent asset management firm that specializes in investment solutions for high net-worth clients, family offices and institutional investors. He is also a member of the board of directors for Plug Power Inc. Ganesh Kishore, who joined the Gevo board in 2008, has resigned. The National Corn Growers Association President Chip Bowling recently presented the NCGA&rsquo;s President&rsquo;s Award to Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D. The award is given annually to a leader who has worked to advance issues important to corn farmers and agriculture. Heitkamp sits on the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, on which she helped write, negotiate and pass the 2014 Farm Bill. She has been a leader in pressing the U.S. EPA to set strong renewable volume obligations for renewable fuels, helped introduce bipartisan legislation to require the EPA to redo its proposed Waters of the U.S. rule, and to help support and improve the export of American agricultural commodities to Cuba. Blume Distillation LLC has announced the sale of its first African-based biorefinery to Numbitrax LLC, based in Touwsriver, Western Cape, South Africa. Numbitrax has completed a purchase agreement and fund transfer for a Blume biorefinery system. The company plans to produce ethanol and additional high-return offtake products. The Advanced Ethanol Council has expanded its scope and changed its name to the Advanced Biofuels Business Council. Founded in 2011 to represent advanced and cellulosic ethanol producers and technology providers, the rebranded organization has expanded its organizational charter to include other types of advanced biofuels. As part of the expansion, two existing members, Poet-DSM and Cellerate, a cellulosic biofuel joint venture between Quad County Corn Processors and&nbsp; Syngenta, will take seats on the board of directors. New member company Aemetis will also join the board, while Sweetwater Energy will join the ABBC as a corporate member. Delegates at the National Corn Growers Association&rsquo;s Corn Congress elected five farmers to serve as the organization&rsquo;s corn board. Taking office Oct. 1, are new board members Jim Reed of Illinois, Bruce Rohwer of Iowa and Jeff Sandborn of Michigan. Current board members Keith Alverson of South Dakota and Anthony Bush of Ohio were re-elected.&nbsp;

2015/09/Atkins_14417324816951.jpg

2015/09/Dwyer_1441732482437.jpg

2015/09/Heitkamp_14417324833745.jpg

2015/09/Johansson_14417324844048.jpg

2015/09/Kim_14417324853637.jp

2015/09/Lieberman_14417324865076.jpg

2015/09/Sifferath_1441732555798.jpg

Business Briefs

This month the U.S. renewable fuels industry celebrated the 10-year anniversary of the introduction of the renewable fuel standard (RFS). But this landmark policy, implemented as part of the Energy Policy Act 2005, mandated biofuel content in blended gasoline to encourage greater use of renewable fuels and initiated unprecedented growth in the ethanol industry. Since then it has helped the U.S. diversify its energy supply mix, eased dependence on foreign oil and boosted rural economies across the country. This success has been envied and emulated by countries the world over with steady growth seen in the Canadian, Brazilian and European biofuels industries in recent years. Today, more than 60 countries have initiated biofuels friendly policies led by the U.S., which remains the largest producer in the world.
Of course, this success has not been without its challenges. The U.S. ethanol industry has shown its resilience against commodity price spikes, severe weather and plummeting oil prices. Through all that, the industry has continued to grow and prosper. This success has been in large measure due to policies that have created the right conditions for success. Unfortunately, despite the undeniable success of the RFS in achieving its objectives, it has come under sustained attack by vested interests that have been threatened by the growth of the renewable fuels industry, or it has been used as a scapegoat for other challenges. As a result, the renewable fuels industry has been forced to repeatedly respond to misinformation and fear-mongering campaigns. Most damaging of all has been the success these campaigns appear to have had in influencing some within the U.S. EPA. Despite renewable fuel volumes being explicitly laid out in the original legislation, the EPA has repeatedly introduced uncertainty into the industry by delaying the release of annual blending volumes and setting blending goals far below the original targets. This policy instability has resulted in an estimated $13.7 billion in lost investments that the advanced biofuels industry needed to increase capacity and meet RFS goals. It is extremely regrettable that the EPA has fallen prey to the self-interested fear mongering against biofuels by the fossil fuel industry.
After a decade as the world leader on renewable fuels policy development and production, the U.S. is at risk of going backwards and surrendering this leadership position. As an industry, we cannot afford to get complacent with our advocacy. While the EPA deserves credit for eventually releasing renewable fuel volumes for 2015 and 2016, the delays and significant volume reductions will undeniably have a negative effect on the industry going forward. There is now speculation that the EPA will look to further undercut the RFS in the future, and that the program as a whole may be under threat. Not only would this be unbelievably shortsighted and foolish, but it flies in the face President Obama&rsquo;s efforts to address the threat of climate change.
We have accomplished too much, and the future is too bright for the U.S. to abdicate its leadership on renewable fuels now. Author: Bliss Baker Global Renewable Fuels Association 647-309-0058 info@globalrfa.org

2015/09/Baker-Bliss_14417326603694_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Baker-Bliss_14417326603694_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Baker-Bliss_14417326603694.jpg

Countries with biofuels friendly policies

2015/09/GlobalScene-Drop_14417326613836.jpg

We have accomplished too much, and the future is too bright for the U.S. to abdicate its leadership on renewable fuels now, writes Bliss Baker of GRFA. This column appears in the October issue of EPM. 

US cannot abandon biofuels global leadership

It&rsquo;s that time of year again, when leaves make their seasonal color change and pumpkins are carefully placed on every porch. Another year is on its way out. Time, it seems, is never on our side; it&rsquo;s always zipping by us faster than we expect. The ethanol industry had quite the significant &ldquo;has it been this long?&rdquo; moment in August when we celebrated the 10th anniversary of what is arguably our nation&rsquo;s most successful energy policy: the renewable fuel standard (RFS). Over the past 10 years, the RFS has made an indelible impact on the nation&rsquo;s economy, environment, and energy security. The RFS is powering America&rsquo;s rural economy in ways we could not have imagined before the Energy Policy Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2005. Since then, ethanol industry jobs have more than doubled, driving a threefold increase in annual ethanol production from plants nationwide to its historic height of 14.3 billion gallons in 2014. Farmers are now producing 25 bushels of corn per acre thanks to higher yields&mdash;all without expanding onto additional lands&mdash;and the doubling of corn prices has saved families from the brink of bankruptcy. The RFS is, of course, a multifaceted program that was created to tackle critical energy issues gripping the nation at the time of its passage. In 2005, the United States imported three-fifths of its petroleum needs. Today, that number rests at just over a quarter. Notably, ethanol&rsquo;s rise to claim 10 percent of the gasoline pool has virtually eliminated all gasoline import dependence. Last year, the Energy Information Administration found that ethanol displaced the gasoline equivalent of 512 million barrels of crude oil, which is more than all the oil America imports every year from Saudi Arabia. But what is a comprehensive energy plan without a consideration of its environmental impact? Ethanol continues to be unquestionably cleaner than fossil fuels. Conventional ethanol is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 34 percent compared to gasoline. That means less carbon monoxide, benzene and other toxic hydrocarbons are polluting our atmosphere. The lowered emissions each year equate to removing more than 8 million cars from the road. If cleaner tailpipe emissions aren&rsquo;t already a draw, consumers can look forward to cheaper gas prices, thanks to ethanol. On average, ethanol saves drivers about a dollar per gallon at the pump. The fact is the RFS is doing what Congress intended it to do 10 years ago. The American public recognizes that fact. The U.S. EPA, however, does not seem to want to hear about the public&rsquo;s satisfaction with the program. Its proposal to drastically slash volumetric blending requirements for refiners proves that the agency instead prefers to listen to the same misinformation that the oil companies have been propagating for years. As the EPA witnessed at its June hearing Kansas City, support for the RFS at the ground level is ubiquitous and strong. EPA&rsquo;s proposal will only reverse the program&rsquo;s success in the name of Big Oil profits. The RFS is just a decade old and its results have been wide-ranging and long-lasting. Ethanol production, corn yields, and the number of rural American jobs are up, while oil imports, greenhouse gas emissions and gas prices are down. At a time when the White House is making a concerted effort to move America beyond the 20th century kilns of the coal factories, biofuels are now more important than ever. The stability the RFS has brought to the ethanol industry has not only economically rejuvenated the nation, but it has driven the innovation necessary to propel advanced biofuels into the forefront. What was once a niche gasoline supplement has found its footing and is being recognized for what it is: the fuel of the future. Author: Bob Dinneen President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association 202-289-3835

2015/09/Bob-Dineen_14417329817883_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Bob-Dineen_14417329817883_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Bob-Dineen_14417329817883.jpg

The RFS is just a decade old and its results have been wide-ranging and long-lasting, writes Bob Dinneen of RFA. This column appears in the October issue of EPM. 

RFS: Doing what Congress intended  

When the Calgren Ethanol Biodigester officially opened in Tulare County, California, early this year, it represented a major commitment by the state of California to employ sustainable energy production. Located in the town of Pixley, the biodigester utilizes waste from dairy operation Four J Farms to power the production of tens of millions of gallons of ethanol, all consumed in the Central Valley. It is the first digester of its kind in the state, relying on agricultural waste to create renewable natural gas to power another renewable energy facility, essentially creating a zero-waste life-cycle. The two-stage, mixed plug-flow Pixley Anaerobic Digester was designed by DVO Inc. of Chilton, Wisconsin, and built by Regenis of Ferndale, Washington, and is the first system in California to be 100 percent American made and constructed. In the Beginning The genesis of the project dates back to a conversation Daryl Maas of Farm Power had with Calgren&rsquo;s president, Lyle Schlyer, nearly six years ago. &ldquo;Daryl suggested we apply for a California Energy Commission grant to build a digester on-site and process dairy waste,&rdquo; Schlyer says. &ldquo;He owns and operates similar digesters in Washington and elsewhere. Since we are always looking for ways to lower the carbon intensity of our renewable fuel ethanol, we readily embraced the idea. Daryl stayed on and managed the project for us.&rdquo; Biogas generated at the plant&rsquo;s site would drive Calgren toward a more sustainable business model and reduce cost, while enabling production of its own power. The company reached out to DVO because of its expertise in this area. &ldquo;We were first approached in 2010,&rdquo; says Melissa Van Ornum, vice president of marketing for DVO Anaerobic Digesters. &rdquo;The basic idea was there, but it took some time to get Calgren and the dairy to come together and put all the puzzle pieces together. We are the largest biodigester company in the country. We have a lot of experience; we&rsquo;re currently in 18 states and have ventured internationally as well. We have a proven design, which always makes it easier when approaching investors.&rdquo; There were some unforeseen challenges after the idea was conceived, so the project took a little longer to come to fruition than Schlyer had anticipated. &ldquo;Satisfying California&rsquo;s Environmental Quality Act was by far the biggest challenge,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Unfortunately, CEQA can be easily highjacked and used for unintended purposes. In our case, it was used to oppose an environmentally sound project.&rdquo; Van Ornum notes that permitting in California is never easy. &ldquo;The fact that Calgren already had the steam turbine in place&mdash;so we weren&rsquo;t having to permit a new engine&mdash;was a huge help,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;They had to get a new permit, but it was more like modifying an existing one. That made it a lot easier.&rdquo; Another challenge was the community wasn&rsquo;t originally on board and needed some convincing to assuage their concerns. Van Ornum says that educating the community played a large part in getting the project up and running. &ldquo;Many were concerned,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;Few knew anything about digesters, and we needed to explain that it wouldn&rsquo;t explode, there were no crazy odors, and all these other things that people worry about. It helped that we could explain what it was and it didn&rsquo;t take long for people to come around.&rdquo; Mostly, it was the fear of the unknown, Schlyer adds. &ldquo;Our opponents were concerned about odors and the idea of waste processing in their vicinity,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;To help allay their concerns, we downsized and tightened up project parameters. We also agreed to relocate the digester from the north side of our facility to the south side.&rdquo; The key in getting the system permitted and approved in California, Schlyer notes, was perseverance by everyone involved, especially when it related to CEQA. Other important agencies were much more open to the idea and worked with Calgren to make the digester a reality. &ldquo;The agencies with oversight of environmental emissions and the like were generally helpful,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Tulare County was exceedingly supportive, as was the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the California Energy Commission.&rdquo; The project was conceived in late 2009, and all CEQA issues were finally resolved in February of 2014. &ldquo;We commenced construction immediately thereafter, and had the digester in operation by September 2014,&rdquo; Schlyer says. &ldquo;Initially, we hoped biogas would provide up to 20 percent of our fuel requirements, but we have had to pare back our expectations.&rdquo; The plant officially opened in February. Building the Digester Regenis served as the general contractor of the anaerobic digester, including design and layout of the facility. &ldquo;Being the largest on-farm anaerobic digester contractor in the west, we have a vast knowledge of design and layout of digester facilities, which helps the owner achieve maximum operation in all facets of the facility,&rdquo; says Mike Apol, Regenis&rsquo; regional manager for California and project manager for the Pixley Biogas Project. The biggest challenge of the building process, according to Apol, was its short construction schedule. &ldquo;The excavation started in March 2014, and the project was complete and producing biogas by September,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We were able to complete the project due to the team environment from all of the parties involved.&rdquo; How It Works Constructed with the help of a $4.6 million grant from the California Energy Commission, in its simplest definition, the digester takes in cow manure from Four J Farms, and the generated methane is captured and burned as clean biogas to power the Calgren ethanol production process. The digester greatly reduces bacteria and pathogens so dairy farmers can reuse the liquids (water) safely on their crops, Schlyer says. The pipeline that sends the raw manure to the digester also pipes back the digester liquid into the lagoon, which is used on crops, Van Ornum further explains. &ldquo;In California, where drought is a problem, the farmer has liquid and they can play Mother Nature. It allows for more flexibility for the dairy farm as well.&rdquo; Benefits Abound The Pixley Biogas anaerobic digester is the first anaerobic digester on a California farm permitted to use all feedstocks, including municipal green waste and food processing waste. According to Apol, one of the main reasons the finished project is so important to the industry is the environmental benefit in the reduction of methane being released into the atmosphere, which is 22 times more potent than any other green house gas. &ldquo;A second reason was the opportunity to bring industry and agriculture together on the same project,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;I believe this is the first time this has happened due to the close proximity of the ethanol plant and the dairy, which would both benefit from the byproducts of the anaerobic digester.&rdquo; Schlyer says that digesters lower the life-cycle carbon intensity of renewable fuels, something critical in California due to its Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Currently, other jurisdictions are considering similar policies. &ldquo;We hope our current digester is but the first of many similar projects,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Liquid fuel is a mainstay of our transportation system. Using renewable biogas as process energy for the production of renewable fuel liquids sort of maximizes the whole concept.&rdquo; A New Trend? While digesters are often talked about as solutions for sustainable energy, the number of operating facilities today in the U.S. doesn&rsquo;t come close to mirroring the industry&rsquo;s potential, especially in California. That could be changing in the years ahead, however. In January, the CEC issued rules that could increase the number of digester projects around the state. Apol notes that Reginis&rsquo;s mission is to reimagine reusable resources, and in California, the potential is nearly limitless. He believes that implementing digesters around the state would not only create hundreds of new construction and operation jobs in rural communities, but that organic waste is in such supply that it could power up to three million homes, or generate 2.5 billion gallons of clean, ultra-low carbon transportation fuels. Around the industry, Western Plains Energy has an ethanol production facility in Gove County, Kansas, producing fuel-grade ethanol as well as distillers dry and wet grains. The feedstock used to produce ethanol includes corn and milo. Other examples include United Ethanol, which installed an anaerobic digester in an ethanol plant in Milton, Wisconsin, in 2010; and AG Processing Inc., which has an ethanol plant in Hastings, Nebraska. And the first three commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants that are in varying stages of commissioning in the U.S. have all added digesters on site and are utilizing them for process energy as well. According to Schlyer, digesting waste at ethanol plants makes a lot of sense, especially if there are cattle nearby. &ldquo;I would not be surprised to someday see waste digesters at a majority of ethanol plants,&rdquo; he says. Others in the industry aren&rsquo;t so sure, perhaps suggesting that they aren't a good fit for all operations. &ldquo;You must recognize that offsetting your natural gas with a biodigester is an enormous undertaking,&rdquo; says one industry insider, who requested anonymity. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve had several problems with ours&mdash;we had struggles. It&rsquo;s a very difficult economic proposition, unless you have a strong feedstock source. Most of the time that needs to be free.&rdquo; Meanwhile, the Calgren digester has been operational for almost a year, producing somewhere around 350 cubic feet of biogas per minute. That number is expected to increase in the years ahead, providing a savvy sustainable energy solution for all in the area.&nbsp; Things are running smoothly and it&rsquo;s now working wonderfully, Shyler says, but as new concepts often require, it came with a little trial and error. There have been a few equipment issues and some learning curves for the workers, he adds, but overall, Calgren has been pleased with its operational performance. Author: Keith Loria Freelance writer, Biomass Magazine freelancekeith@gmail.com

The 55-MMgy Calgren Renewable Fuels plant is colocated with an anerobic digester that accepts cow manure via tanker truck. Biogas resulting from the digestion process is captured and combusted to generate process power for ethanol production. 

2015/09/BiogasFeatureLede-BMM15_14423249203466_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/BiogasFeatureLede-BMM15_14423249203466_thumb.jpg

2015/09/BiogasFeatureLede-BMM15_14423249203466.jpg

WHAT'S INSIDE: The digester building houses the piping and equipment related to the biogas mixing system inside DVO Inc.'s patented digester.  

2015/09/Calgren2-OctBMM15_14423249216603.jpg

California's Calgren Renewable Fuels uses renewable energy generated onsite to power its renewable fuel production process.

Twofold Renewable in Tulare County

This summer, the Algae Biomass Organization achieved its most important legislative priority: the approval by the U.S. EPA carbon capture and utilization (CCU) for power plants seeking to meet emissions reduction goals. &nbsp;The Clean Power Plan notes that &ldquo;state plans may allow affected EGU (electric generating units) to use qualifying CCU technologies to reduce CO2 emissions that are subject to an emission standard, or those that are counted when demonstrating achievement of the CO2 emission performance rates or a state rate-based or mass-based CO2 emission.&rdquo; While there is still work to be done, especially regarding how EPA will qualify utilization technologies, this is a huge win for the algae industry. Just one year prior, the idea of including carbon utilization in climate planning was not even considered by the EPA, Congress or the Obama administration. Our members never gave up, and their persistence&mdash;and a winning argument&mdash;carried the day. The rule gives new certainty to a number of U.S. companies working to commercialize algae-based technologies that can convert carbon dioxide generated at power plants into fuels, feeds, fertilizers and other valuable products. The change in course by the EPA, from not mentioning utilization in its early drafts to fully supporting the technology, is also a testament to what a relatively small but committed group of companies and researchers can accomplish on the policy front. To get the EPA to acknowledge algae and carbon utilization, the members of ABO came together in a coordinated effort. Among the tools we deployed: &bull; Countless meetings with the offices of elected officials that could inform the EPA about carbon utilization potentials in their districts. &bull; Letters directly from ABO members to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy about the importance of supporting utilization technologies. &bull; A White House petition asking the administration to advocate for utilization in the Clean Power Plan. &bull; Meetings with EPA staff and official comments that were directly informed by the experiences and plans of ABO members commercializing algae cultivation technologies that can consume huge volumes of CO2. &bull; Invaluable support from members of Congress, who communicated with EPA and introduced legislative proposals to support CCU technologies. &bull; A public information campaign that included outreach to media, a website on carbon utilization, and tours of algae facilities across the U.S. It worked. The EPA&rsquo;s rule is clear evidence that our message that carbon utilization is a common-sense, market-driven approach, with bipartisan support throughout Congress, is being heard. The support is spreading across agencies, evidenced by the U.S. DOE recently awarding funds to carbon capture research to two efforts that will use algae. At ABO, we are excited by the momentum, and are reminded by words of anthropologist Margaret Mead: &ldquo;Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.&rdquo; At ABO, we are building new truth into these words, and we have no plans to let up. Our attention will be on the EPA&rsquo;s intent to establish a mechanism for deciding how a particular carbon utilization technology can be used to meet a state&rsquo;s carbon reduction goals. What variables will EPA use to determine if a particular utilization approach will qualify? How can a company ensure the EPA has accurate information about its technologies? It is very possible that some technologies will not be certified by EPA without a concerted effort to educate the agency. Given what we have been able to accomplish in the past year, we are looking forward to that phase of the campaign. We invite any utilization technology developer to work with us. The more voices we can raise about the potential of using waste gases in beneficial ways the more likely they will given the green light by the EPA. Author: Matt Carr Executive Director, Algae Biomass Organization www.algaebiomass.org mcarr@algaebiomass.org

2015/09/Matt-Carr_OctBMM15_14423254947446_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Matt-Carr_OctBMM15_14423254947446_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Matt-Carr_OctBMM15_14423254947446.jpg

his summer, the Algae Biomass Organization achieved its most important legislative priority: the approval by the U.S. EPA carbon capture and utilization (CCU) for power plants seeking to meet emissions reduction goals.

The Little Algae That Could

About 40,000 people pass through IKEA&rsquo;s 274,000-square-foot furniture store in Emeryville, California, every week, but what few of them know is that the power to run the hopping San Francisco-area retail wonderland is produced on-site from rooftop solar arrays and a newly installed fuel cell system tucked away behind the building. &ldquo;We really haven&rsquo;t gotten too much response from customers about it,&rdquo; says Lisa Ciccoli, IKEA Emeryville&rsquo;s local marketing specialist. &ldquo;Some of them see it in the back of the parking lot. It just looks like a generator. We&rsquo;re going to work on a better PR campaign this fall to talk about all the things we are doing here.&rdquo; IKEA&rsquo;s investment in fuel cell technology at the Emeryville location&mdash;one of 40 retail stores in the U.S. and, according to Ciccoli, one of the smaller locations&mdash;reflects the company&rsquo;s goal to be energy-independent by 2020 and complements other IKEA renewable programs in the U.S., including solar presence at nearly 90 percent of its locations, a geothermal heating and cooling system at two stores, and two wind farms totaling 104 turbines. At the Emeryville store, the 300-kW fuel cell is IKEA&rsquo;s latest move to be energy- and resource-conscious, as it joins a 2,394-panel solar array covering 68,000 square feet, water-saving urinals and taps in the restrooms, use of an energy-management system to efficiently use energy in the store, and four electric vehicle charging stations in the parking lot&mdash;but that&rsquo;s not all. &ldquo;We have changed out all our spotlights in our store to LED lighting and we have the ambition to convert all our external lights on the property to LED,&rdquo; Ciccoli says, &ldquo;and we divert more than 80 percent of the waste generated in our building from going to the landfill.&rdquo; The fuel cell system was manufactured by Sunnyvale, California-based Bloom Energy Corp., which has installed more than 160 MW of its systems in the U.S. and Japan. IKEA&rsquo;s Bloom Energy Server fuel cell is marketed as powered by biogas, but this is not quite accurate. A spokesperson for Bloom Energy tells Biomass Magazine that the company&rsquo;s systems don&rsquo;t actually run on biogas, but rather what&rsquo;s referred to as directed biogas. In other words, a customer using Bloom Energy&rsquo;s fuel cell technology purchases biogas from a remote location&mdash;sometimes in-state and sometimes not&mdash;and that biogas is injected into the natural gas pipeline where it is used somewhere, sometime in some diluted, unknown concentration. &ldquo;The biogas for our project is presently coming from Arizona,&rdquo; Ciccoli says. &ldquo;This source of biogas is connected to the pipeline, which connects to California but not directly to our store. This process is called physical displacement,&rdquo; adding that she believes the term &ldquo;directed biogas&rdquo; is used for tracking in-state purchases of biogas for tax credit purposes. &ldquo;In California you get tax credits for having a fuel cell and get additional credits when you use biogas from California,&rdquo; she says. &ldquo;We were not able to purchase biogas in California because there was no supply.&rdquo; SOFC Technology Similar to batteries, fuel cells use anodes, cathodes and electrolytes to produce electricity. The difference, however, is that fuel cells continuously make electricity when fed a constant fuel source like natural gas or biogas. Bloom Energy&rsquo;s fuel cells are the solid oxide variety. Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) operate between 1,100 and 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. &ldquo;Each SOFC is made of ceramic materials forming three layers: the anode, the cathode and the electrolyte,&rdquo; PNNL&rsquo;s website explains. For a solid oxide fuel cell, the electrolyte is a solid ceramic material. The anode and cathode are made from special inks that coat the electrolyte, according to Bloom Energy, which adds that, unlike other types of fuel cells, no precious metals, corrosive acids or molten materials are required. &ldquo;Air is pumped up against an outer layer, the cathode,&rdquo; PNNL describes. &ldquo;Oxygen from the air becomes a negatively charged ion, O2-, where the cathode and the inner electrolyte layer meet. The ion moves through the electrolyte to reach the final layer, the anode. There, the oxygen ion reacts with a fuel.&rdquo; The reaction creates electricity, water and only &ldquo;small amounts of carbon dioxide,&rdquo; according to Bloom Energy. The water is recycled to produce steam needed to reform the fuel, and the process also generates the heat required by the fuel cell. The advantage of fuel cells, according to PNNL, is that they&rsquo;re more efficient than traditional power generation. &ldquo;For example, the combustion engines of portable generators only convert about 18 percent of the chemical energy in fuel into electricity,&rdquo; PNNL states. &ldquo;In contrast, some SOFCs can achieve up to 60 percent efficiency.&rdquo; Many other well-known companies are using Bloom Energy&rsquo;s fuel cell technology to provide on-site power, including Walmart, FedEx and Apple, to name a few. A couple of years ago, Apple&rsquo;s datacenter in Maiden, North Carolina, installed a series of Bloom Energy Servers to generate 4.8 MW of power. While Apple declined an interview with Biomass Magazine, the company&rsquo;s Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Form 556 application from 2012 was obtained, which explains the company&rsquo;s project. Apple&rsquo;s Maiden project consists of 24 200-kW fuel cell systems using Bloom Energy&rsquo;s SOFC technology. On fuel use, the application states, &ldquo;The systems will be fueled with biogas that will be transported via natural gas pipeline system. &hellip; Once injected into the pipeline system, it comingles with conventional natural gas and is indistinguishable from conventional natural gas. &hellip; The biogas, having been upgraded/cleaned to pipeline-quality and then injected into the natural gas pipeline system, displaces a comparable quantity of conventional natural gas. &hellip; The North Carolina Utilities Commission ruled that biogas fuel, which is derived from a renewable energy source, cleaned to pipeline quality, injected into the pipeline system and nominated for an electric generation facility within the state of North Carolina, is a renewable energy resource known as &lsquo;directed biogas.&rsquo;&rdquo; Biomass Magazine couldn&rsquo;t confirm where Apple was purchasing its biogas from, but the datacenter is about six miles from the 800-acre Blackburn Landfill, also in Catawba County, North Carolina. The landfill captures its biogas and generates 3 MW of electricity at the colocated Catawba County EcoComplex, which is tied into the grid. Carbonate Technology There are four primary fuel cell technologies, including carbonate, solid oxide, phosphoric acid and polymer membrane. While Bloom Energy&rsquo;s systems utilize SOFC and run on so-called directed biogas, FuelCell Energy Inc.&rsquo;s systems leverage carbonate fuel cell technology, which the company says is well-suited for megawatt-class applications. Moreover, some of FuelCell Energy&rsquo;s systems run on actual biogas. The company is, however, researching SOFC technology for smaller, submegawatt applications. The carbonate fuel cell derives its name from its electrolyte, which consists of potassium and lithium carbonates. This spring, FuelCell Energy announced execution of a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the city of Riverside, California, to install a 1.4-MW combined-heat-and-power plant at the Riverside Regional Water Quality Control Plant. FuelCell Energy&rsquo;s systems differ from Bloom Energy&rsquo;s not only in its use of carbonate vs. SOFC technology, but also in its use of CHP vs. Bloom Energy&rsquo;s all-electric solution. The fuel cell power plant will convert actual biogas produced on-site from the wastewater treatment process to power the facility and two electric vehicle charging stations, and provide thermal energy for the water treatment process. &ldquo;It is great to provide the city of Riverside with a power generation solution that will deliver energy savings and energy security in an environmentally friendly way with no capital investment required by the city,&rdquo; says Chip Bottone, CEO of FuelCell Energy. &ldquo;Our fuel cell power plants are fuel flexible, utilizing on-site biogas for this application, which is carbon-neutral due to the renewable nature of the fuel source.&rdquo; Ernest Marquez Jr., Riverside&rsquo;s principal engineer, says, &ldquo;The benefits of this fuel-cell project are that we avoid the flaring of the biogas, we remove future compliance obligations from the South Coast Air Quality Management District regulations due to the emission of only water vapor from the fuel cells, and we obtain carbon credits from the California Air Resources Board. Fuel cells operating on renewable biogas solve a number of our issues and concerns about permitting and sustainability that are not easily or completely addressed by other forms of on-site power generation.&rdquo; Author: Ron Kotrba Senior Editor, Biomass Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

QUASI ENERGY INDEPENDENCE: IKEA, the worldâ€™s leading home furnishings retailer, announced July 1 it officially had flipped the switch on a fuel cell 
system installed at its retail location in Emeryville, California. 

2015/09/BloomEnergy-LedeOctBMM15_14423261078669_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/BloomEnergy-LedeOctBMM15_14423261078669_thumb.jpg

2015/09/BloomEnergy-LedeOctBMM15_14423261078669.jpg

APPLEâ€™S BIOGAS NEIGHBOR: Just six miles from Appleâ€™s datacenter in Maiden, North Carolina, is the Blackburn Landfill, which captures its biogas and produces 3 MW of electricity that is tied into the grid.  

2015/09/blackburn-landfill_14423261068791.jpg

BIOGAS-POWERED: A fuel cell power plant, similar to this one located at a wastewater treatment center in San Jose, is being installed at a wastewater treatment facility in Riverside, California, where it will be fueled by biogas produced on-site.   

2015/09/san-jose-2-4v2_14423263018917.jpg

More and more big-name companies are installing fuel cells, some powered by biogas and some marketed as such, for on-site power production. 

A Trending On-site Power Option

One of the greatest attributes of biogas is the flexible nature of the resource. It can be generated from a variety of organic feedstocks such as food waste, livestock manure, crop residues, biosolids, or solid waste in a landfill. Its utilization is also flexible, as biogas can be burned for electrical generation or heat, cleaned and used as a replacement for natural gas or compressed for use as a vehicle fuel. There is even early stage research being performed to figure out how biogas can be a feedstock for biobased chemical production to displace petroleum in materials and products we use every day. The flexibility of biogas offers many advantages, but the flexibility of the resource also presents several challenges. Given the multiple project configurations for biogas projects, it can be difficult to design policy initiatives aimed at taking advantage of biogas utilization. Biogas is much more than a low-carbon energy resource. It can be a more effective tool in managing organic waste feedstocks because biogas generation relies on anaerobic digestion to produce the gas. Biogas projects can also result in other positive environmental benefits such as reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved air and water quality. Oftentimes, to make biogas projects economical, monetization of additional environmental benefits is required. However, not all U.S. markets offer the ability to monetize nonenergy benefits. Given the multiple biogas project configurations and the need to bundle various economic benefits to make projects pencil out, squeezing the most value out of projects all along the supply and production chain is critical. Many biogas projects are feasible when focusing on onsite energy production and use. This can also make a project more efficient, using the same amount of feedstock to produce multiple outputs. Combined-heat-and-power (CHP) projects using biogas as the primary fuel source can achieve efficiencies of up to 80 percent when compared with electricity generated at central station facilities with no heat capture and reuse. Livestock-based biogas projects have been able to achieve greater project efficiencies by capturing waste heat from the engine generator and using the heat in the barn or parlor. There are also technologies that provide cooling options for recovered thermal energy. Recovered energy is an opportunity to improve project economics and efficiency by avoiding energy purchases. Biogas projects that clean or upgrade raw biogas to make a product that is chemically identical to conventional natural gas also have the opportunity to integrate CHP into the project configuration. A portion of the biogas can be used to generate electricity, which can then be used onsite to power gas cleanup equipment. Projects can also recover thermal energy for utilization elsewhere in the production process. These project configurations can have multiple energy end uses for biogas and are a combination of onsite utilization and offsite distribution. For as long as I have worked on biogas projects, the ultimate project configuration has been to colocate a biogas project next to a greenhouse. A greenhouse, which has large thermal and electrical needs, presents the opportunity to have a closed-loop system where food scraps could be a part of the feedstock mix in a digester, and the digested material would be an excellent fertilizer for food grown inside. There are examples of landfill gas projects that have partially demonstrated this model, but as anaerobic digestion system costs decline, we could see more of this model implemented across the country. Although biogas projects have multiple configurations that present some challenges in resource scale up, the flexible feedstock sources and end-use utilization make them a worthwhile pursuit. The key will be putting together all the different financial benefits to get the most value out of each project.&nbsp; Author: Amanda Bilek Government Affairs Manager, Great Plains Institute 612-278-7118 abilek@gpisd.net

2015/09/Bio-Biomass-Bilek-1214_14423264024916_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Bio-Biomass-Bilek-1214_14423264024916_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Bio-Biomass-Bilek-1214_14423264024916.jpg

Although biogas projects have multiple configurations that present some challenges in resource scale up, the flexible feedstock sources and end-use utilization make them a worthwhile pursuit.

Maximizing Biogas Project Value

In the winter, if the breeze is just right, you may smell a hint of a campfire entering or leaving the Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center located in Bismarck, North Dakota. Operations Superintendent Ryan Geerdes says, although it may be over simplifying, &ldquo;When you break it down, it&rsquo;s just a big bonfire that is computer controlled.&rdquo; In 2010, when the facility was built, the decision was made to generate heat using wood waste sourced from the Bismarck Municipal Landfill. After working with the fuel over the past few years, Geerdes and others have devised an effective way to heat the facility, pool and domestic water at a fraction of the cost to other fuel sources. Although they didn&rsquo;t start where they are today, the facility&rsquo;s King Coal boiler now runs at about 85 to 90 percent efficiency in the winter. The boiler adds to the list of reasons to visit the facility. Kevin Klipfel, facilities and program director with the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, highlights the system&rsquo;s teaching-tool nature. &ldquo;The local college has brought classes over to look at the system and to educate the kids on what is involved,&rdquo; he says. The approximate 66,000-square-foot BSC Aquatic and Wellness Center is located on the college campus. The building houses a 50-meter competition pool, diving, recreation and lap pools, and the wellness center includes strength and cardiovascular equipment. The center also has a playground, a group fitness and dance studio and meeting rooms. A variety of people utilize the facility, and it hosts a number of events&mdash;from high school state swim meets to the Paralympic Pan Am games this December. Whether it&rsquo;s a therapy session in the warm rec pool or a hot shower after weightlifting, the combustion of wood waste makes them possible. Big Learning Curve The idea to install a biomass heating system at the BSC facility all stemmed from personnel learning about a smaller-scale biomass unit the Bismarck landfill was using to heat its shop in the winter months. Phase one of the project was a feasibility study. Randy Bina, executive director of the Bismarck Parks and Recreation District, says the study, which was part of a grant application and overall justification for the system, yielded positive results. &ldquo;It showed that there would be substantial savings on heating costs for the facility,&rdquo; Bina says. Grant funding from the North Dakota Forest Service Fuel for Schools Program was received to assist with the purchase of the boiler technology and some of the wood waste handling equipment, including a payloader and trailer to haul the wood waste to the center. Similar to the unit at the landfill, a locally manufactured King Coal boiler was installed, with a larger output of approximately 10 million Btu to heat the facility using hot water. When the center opened its doors in March 2010, it initially ran on natural gas. After a few months, all of the equipment was in place for the biomass system, and it was fired up. Geerdes takes care of anything mechanically related at the center, including the role of caretaker of the biomass boiler. When Geerdes was hired a few months prior to the grand opening, he was green to this green technology. &ldquo;I was there for all of the startups, and when we got ready to run the biomass I was about as green as you can get,&rdquo; Geerdes chuckled. &ldquo;I think it was a big eye-opener for King Coal, too, because they weren&rsquo;t used to doing systems that don&rsquo;t have a consistent fuel source that is screened&mdash;to go to whatever you are getting from the landfill, which could be seatbelts and whatever else the guys run through the grinder. It was a big learning curve for everyone.&rdquo; It took about a year to get the right combination of fuel to make the system run optimally. The system began fueling with dirtier wood waste from the landfill. &ldquo;After the first couple of years we got better&mdash;as we had better fuel, we had less problems,&rdquo; Klipfel says. &ldquo;We were babysitting it day and night, and that&rsquo;s when we finally just said that this is ridiculous, we have to change some stuff,&rdquo; Geerdes says. Those involved with running the boiler met with the landfill staff and discussed options with the wood waste. Now, the feedstock is composed of dried, large logs and wooden pallets. According to Geerdes, the landfill staff takes special care to ensure the wood chip pile is clean and on-spec, now that the demands of the biomass boiler are better understood. &ldquo;King Coal changed some equipment to handle what we&rsquo;re getting and meeting with the landfill helped everything,&rdquo; Geerdes added. Nuts and Bolts The pile of wood chips at the landfill is loaded onto a trailer that can hold about 4.5 tons of product. In a year, Geerdes says they make about 130 truckloads to and from the facility&mdash;a 45-minute round trip&mdash;which works out to be about four loads a week in the summer and four loads every other day in winter. Between 1,200 and 1,500 tons of wood waste are sourced from the landfill per year. The center has onsite fuel storage capacity of 40 tons, or about four or five days&rsquo; worth. During the winter, the boiler burns about 7 to 8 tons per day, and in the summer, about 1 ton per day. The system running at its max can burn 30 pounds per minute. Prior to combustion, feedstock is moved from the storage bin onto a vibrating table where it is sized down to 2 or 3 inches. A 25-pound magnet at the end collects all of the metal, such as nails from the pallets in the wood waste mix. Approximately 5 gallons of metal and nails are removed per day. Any oversized biomass and metal is recycled back to the landfill, and ash is augured into a dumpster and brought back to the landfill to use for cover. Prior to changing the mix of fuel, the biomass system was producing three to four times the amount of ash it does now, wearing the equipment down. Today, however, the system averages 3 to 5 percent in ash waste. The remaining ash&mdash;within EPA standards&ndash;&ndash;is removed from exhaust gasses before it goes out the stack. The boiler is made to burn the biomass as efficiently as possible, with the stoker temperature kept between 1,000 and 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. &ldquo;We have a couple fans, one blows underneath to stoke the fire and another blows around the top of the fire,&rdquo; Geerdes says. &ldquo;We burn everything&mdash;all of the combustible gases&mdash;so we get as much heat out of the wood as we possibly can.&rdquo; The fuel is raked a few times a day, depending on how much wood is burned. In the stoker box, Klipfel compares the movement of the fuel to a volcano. The fuel gets pushed up into the bin from the bottom like a volcano, although, not to that magnitude, he says. &ldquo;It gets pushed up slowly and as it burns, it spreads out,&rdquo; Klipfel says. &ldquo;You try to rake the material back to the middle to get it to burn hotter.&rdquo; The material is raked using equipment similar to a hoe. Raking is also done to get rid of what the staff refers to as clinkers&mdash;chunks of dirt and sand that have melted together&mdash;that sometimes form in the combustion process. The system runs year round, 24/7, unless down for maintenance. &ldquo;We can usually go six, seven months with nothing happening and then a bearing might go out or something like that, but usually if we can run all year long we will,&rdquo; Geerdes says. The system helps save dollars while utilizing a source of fuel that would have otherwise been wasted. &ldquo;We continue to see financial savings by using this system,&rdquo; Bina says. &ldquo;In addition to that, it&rsquo;s a way of reducing that waste at the landfill.&rdquo; Besides a workout, visitors can add a look at the biomass boiler to the reasons to come to the facility. Some even don&rsquo;t mind bypassing the swimming pool and consider the biomass heating system the main attraction. &ldquo;A lot of people will come up on tours and say let&rsquo;s get to the fun stuff,&rdquo; Geerdes says. &ldquo;Everyone thinks it&rsquo;s neat.&rdquo; Author: Katie Fletcher Associate Editor, Biomass Magazine kfletcher@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4920

Repurposing: About 4,000 tons of wood waste is at the Bismarck landfill site. The BSC Aquatic and Wellness Center uses 1,000 to 1,500 tons of a ground-down, 50/50 blend of dried logs and wooden pallets to heat its facility, pools and domestic water.

2015/09/Lede-collage-ThermalFeature_14423266635762_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Lede-collage-ThermalFeature_14423266635762_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Lede-collage-ThermalFeature_14423266635762.jpg

Operations Superintendent Ryan Geerdes controls the biomass 
system using this touchscreen panel. Multiple safety measures are in place including an alarm system, mechanical air locks, dust removal system and fire suppression.

2015/09/BrainsOfTheOperation-OctBMM15_14423266626358.jpg

Savings: The wood chips used in the BSC Aquatic and Wellness Centerâ€™s heating system cost about $50 per load, or about $13 per poundâ€”accounting for factors like labor and gas around $20 per pound. 

2015/09/Savings-OctBMM15_14423266645888.jpg

The Daily Grind: A mixture of logs and pallets is ground to boiler specificationsâ€”under 3 inchesâ€”at the landfill and stored in a separate pile for pick up. The grinder was purchased with a city of Bismarck forestry grant.

2015/09/TheDailyGrind-OctBMM15_14423266655448.jpg

Wood waste is the heating fuel of choice at the Bismarck State College Aquatic and Wellness Center.

Diving into Wood Heat

A recent op-ed in the journal Nature starts out stating that &ldquo;[t]he bioeconomy is rising up the political agenda.&rdquo; While the piece discusses international policy issues, the U.S. political agenda is also increasingly bioeconomy-focused. A perfect example is a letter, signed by 154 members of the House of Representatives in August, urging federal agencies to recognize the carbon neutrality of biomass energy.&nbsp; While &ldquo;biomass use is expected to continue to rise to 2030 and imports to Europe are estimated to triple by 2020,&rdquo; a key point that authors of the Nature article make is: &ldquo;There is no consensus on what 'sustainable' means. Biomass assessment is a patchwork of voluntary standards and regulations. With many schemes comes a lack of comparability. Confusion leads to mistrust and protectionism, international disputes and barriers, slow investment and slower growth.&rdquo; The op-ed calls for an international body to resolve biomass-related disputes, or for a global biomass sustainability framework. Whether or not one supports these proposals, a lack of respected national and international standards for biomass production and utilization can only hamper the biomass industry&rsquo;s growth and standing. Motivated to change this, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council is currently drafting the first thermal efficiency test method designed for commercial-sized boilers, which use all kinds of solid biomass as a fuel stock, including pellets, chips, briquettes and cordwood. One motivation for this project was concern from industry and regulatory stakeholders about incentive legislation at both the state and the national level, such as the Biomass Thermal Utilization Act of 2015. The BTU Act is designed to incentivize high-efficiency biomass systems, and in order to capture the strengths of biomass systems, combined electrical and thermal efficiency are counted as a basis for credits. However, there is no standardized thermal efficiency measure for commercial-sized biomass systems to distinguish between high-efficiency, low-emissions equipment and less satisfactory performers. The project has gained substantial support from partners such as the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund, and the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources. BTEC will hold a series of regional scoping meetings to gather public feedback on the standard this fall and spring of 2016. A strength of the BTEC efficiency test procedure is its planned validation in a testing laboratory environment, after which it will be published as a voluntary industry standard and made publicly available through BTEC. The process won&rsquo;t stop there, however, as BTEC will then continue working to gain formal acceptance of the protocol by an ANSI-accredited standards organization. Furthermore, BTEC will promote the efficiency testing procedure outside the biomass industry to the wider HVAC industry, government officials and testing agencies, as well the general public. (The project&rsquo;s full overview and timeline are available on BTEC&rsquo;s website.) It will take time and lot of cat wrangling to harmonize the international &ldquo;patchwork of voluntary standards and regulations&rdquo; the biomass industry faces today. That said, creating a national American test method to show that biomass boilers perform like they should is a pretty good start. &nbsp; Author: Ben Bell-Walker Technical Affairs Director, Biomass Thermal Energy Council 202-596-3974 x 304 &nbsp;ben.bell-walker@biomassthermal.org

2015/09/Ben-Bell-Walker_BMM15_14423268358274_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Ben-Bell-Walker_BMM15_14423268358274_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Ben-Bell-Walker_BMM15_14423268358274.jpg

A lack of respected national and international standards for biomass production and utilization can only hamper the biomass industry's growth and standing.

Nature's Call  for Biomass Standards

Some form of Croft Castle has occupied its present day site in Herefordshire, England, since the 11th century. It served as a dwelling for the Croft family, as recorded in the Domesday Book, an early census method completed under the direction of William the Conqueror in 1086. Now, nearly a thousand years later, Croft Castle is being recorded in the first chapters of the story of the transition of many of the United Kingdom&rsquo;s most treasured historic places to renewable energy.&nbsp; Croft Castle and over 300 other historic buildings similar in nature are owned, managed and cared for by a large charitable organization called the National Trust. Founded in 1895 as a reaction to the rapid pace of industrialization happening within the country, the National Trust was formed to preserve not only physical buildings, but wild places as well. The National Trust&rsquo;s mission goes far beyond simply preserving its roster of castles and historic properties, as it also works to preserve the buildings&rsquo; contents, and whenever possible, make them available for the public to visit and enjoy. The task isn&rsquo;t cheap, and it requires that the buildings have heat and power. In July, the National Trust announced it was committing &pound;30 million ($46 million) to an initiative that would replace fossil fuel energy inputs at its properties with renewable replacements, including biomass. The decision was made on the heels of a five-project pilot phase that included replacing a fuel oil boiler at Croft Castle with a biomass boiler. Ed Wood, a renewable project manager at the National Trust, tells Biomass Magazine that this initiative began to take shape around four years ago when the National Trust really started to understand the potential benefits of moving away from fossil fuels and using local, sustainable sources. &ldquo;Thinking about this led the trust to think more about renewable technologies,&rdquo; Wood says.&nbsp; Once it started considering renewables, Wood says the benefits and alignment with the National Trust&rsquo;s mission just kept piling up. Chief among the benefits the National Trust immediately embraced was the long- term sustainability offered by renewables. &ldquo;We hold many properties inalienably, which means that we can&rsquo;t sell them,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;So when you think about looking after these properties forever, being able to use a sustainable fuel source has got a massive advantage.&rdquo; &nbsp;The board at the National Trust had its eye on the potential economic impact of a widespread transition to renewables as well. &ldquo;Conservation work is hugely expensive,&rdquo; says Wood.&nbsp; &ldquo;In 2014 and 2015 the conservation cost was &pound;103 million.&rdquo; In the case of Croft Castle, the grounds of the estate are more than capable of satisfying the fuel requirements that the new boiler requires. &ldquo;The savings we generate we can put back into the conservation work,&rdquo; Wood says. As the National Trust is a charity and ultimately answers to its members, it is taking a stepwise approach to this renewable energy roll-out, and understandably so. Wood, remembering the organization&rsquo;s direction, says, &ldquo;The trustees had a look at what we were proposing, and they said, &lsquo;If you do a number of trial projects and show us that you can appropriately install modern renewable technology in the buildings and the sites that we have, and over five initial projects prove that it works in all the ways you&rsquo;ve talked about, then we&rsquo;ll give you more resources to do more renewable projects on a bigger scale. &ldquo;For Wood and the rest of the National Trust&rsquo;s renewables team, this certainly raised the stakes of getting the system at Croft Castle right. Challenging Deployment While Croft Castle illustrates the benefits of a transition to a biomass solution, it also highlights the incredible challenges of installing new energy systems at historic sites. With a commitment to preservation being central to the National Trust&rsquo;s mission, the urge to proceed with extreme caution with projects is understandable. &ldquo;We really have to consider if everything we do in terms of installation is really justifiable,&rdquo; Wood says. Still, climate control is a very necessary component of preserving buildings and the tapestries, carpets, furniture and artwork they contain. Without it, the varying temperatures and humidity would accelerate the deterioration the National Trust is working so hard prevent. This caution extends well beyond the walls of the project buildings. &ldquo;It also impacts the grounds,&rdquo; Wood says. &ldquo;In many instances, the grounds around a given building may very well have other archeological items in place. So again, we have to make sure we do everything by the book, and bring in archeologists to watch our digging and our trench work. And if we do find something, we have to change our route.&rdquo; With all of this in mind, the team at National Trust awarded the Croft Castle project to Euroheat, a leading biomass heating system installer in the United Kingdom. At the heart of the system Euroheat installed is an HDG Compact 200 wood chip boiler. The boiler is set up in a district heating configuration and delivers hot water to not only the castle, but also several different cottages on the estate, as well as the National Trust&rsquo;s offices. The system is capable of meeting about 75 percent of the properties heating demand, replacing an older, inefficient boiler that typically consumed over 5,000 gallons of fuel oil a year. The boiler will burn wood chips sourced from the woods immediately surrounding the castle. This contributes to the more active management of the surrounding woodlands and increases tree growth and overall biodiversity. Further highlighting how neatly the biomass boiler solution fits into Croft Castle, Wood notes that already in place there is a countryside team that looks after the woods on the estate. Early on, the project team decided that the grounds team already on site would be responsible for keeping the boiler fed with high dry, high-quality wood chips. &ldquo;The grounds team brings in a contractor to fell trees, and they stack that wood in round form and dry it for up to 18 months before chipping it,&rdquo; he adds.&nbsp; Wood emphasizes that delivering chips to the boiler at the right moisture content is imperative to maximizing its efficiency. In order to stockpile enough wood chips to maintain uninterrupted operation of the boiler throughout the heating season, a storage solution had to be devised. &ldquo;We made a very appropriate wood clad, timber-framed structure for the wood chip store,&rdquo; Wood says. Great attention was paid to not only the operational performance of this solution, but great care was taken to ensure that the new building blended in with the other buildings on the estate. &ldquo;We had to keep roof levels very low,&rdquo; says Wood. This challenging requirement paid off and yielded not only a solution that integrates visually with the site, but also offered some real gains in operational efficiency. &ldquo;The byproduct of that is that we ended up with a sliding roof on the chip store,&rdquo; Wood says. &ldquo;We can slide the roof back, pour the wood chips in, and really maximize the use of the space without having a very big space.&rdquo; The installation was complete and brought online in September 2014. In its first season of use, the boiler consumed about 100 tons of wood chips. Finally, it is a true closed system, as the grounds team utilizes the ash for a soil amendment on the estate&rsquo;s expansive gardens. More to Come The chip boiler deployment at Croft Castle is being viewed as a runaway success, and has put biomass heating in a good position to get a respectable share of the &pound;30 million tranche of funds the National Trust has committed moving forward. Wood and the renewables team are now moving on to the installation of two pellet boilers at a property in Warwickshire called Upton House. The grounds at Upton House are more compact than the grounds at Croft Castle, and make the deployment of a large boiler house and chip store impossible. As a result, the design team opted to deploy two pellet boilers supplied by ETA, each capable of producing 95 kW of heat. Two separate interior pellet bins will supply the boilers, which will heat Upton House, a restaurant, a cottage and an art gallery. The Upton system will be installed by Purple Energy and&nbsp; will consume approximately 75 tons of pellets each year and produce nearly 215,000 kWh of heat annually, satisfying nearly 50 percent of the site&rsquo;s total energy needs. The site was not without its own challenges, however. It was not built with automobiles in mind, to say nothing of larger pellet trucks, and Wood&rsquo;s team had to overcome a pellet resupply challenge before the project could be given the green light. &ldquo;Luckily, we found a supplier with a smaller pellet delivery vehicle that can get down our driveway,&rdquo; says Wood. Other projects are beginning to work their way into the biomass heating industry within the United Kingdom. Neil Harrison of re:heat reports that his team successfully responded to a tender, or request for a proposal, for a project in North Yorkshire called Nunnington Hall. &ldquo;In our years in the industry, we&rsquo;ve never completed a tender quite like this one,&rdquo; Harrison says. &ldquo;These guys are very serious in terms of how they view their property portfolio.&rdquo; The system Harrison&rsquo;s team designed has been configured to deliver lower temperatures at a constant rate. &ldquo;This system has been designed to deliver mainly conservation heat,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The system needs to provide enough heat, year-round, to preserve the fabric of the building and the contents of the building.&rdquo; Not having to deliver enough heat to keep the building warm enough for continuous habitation allowed Harrison&rsquo;s team to ratchet down their design. &ldquo;Even for a massive place like this, we&rsquo;re only putting in about 100 kW of pellet boiler capacity,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;You would expect something much bigger.&rdquo; Through this experience, re:heat learned what every contractor working on a National Trust property must understand: Appearance and conservation are key. &ldquo;Anything that alters the look of the building degrades it from a historical perspective,&rdquo; Harrison says. &ldquo;We couldn&rsquo;t just stick a shipping container with a pellet boiler outside the building. So we needed to make very sensitive modifications inside the building to achieve the proper design.&rdquo; With the success at Croft Castle and the other pilot projects, Wood and the renewables team earned a license from the National Trust&rsquo;s trustees to do more&mdash;&pound;30 million more. The share of that tranche that biomass will earn is yet to be determined, as projects are still working their way through a robust evaluation phase. These first monies can&rsquo;t possibly cover the needs of all the properties owned by the National Trust, but they can certainly serve as a broad proof of concept that renewables can meet energy needs, even in sites being actively preserved for their historical value. Moreover, with each successful project, the initiative cements its place in the National Trust&rsquo;s long-term vision. Providing good sustainable energy is also vital to looking after these properties forever,&rdquo; Wood adds. &ldquo;There is a kind a tradeoff to be had in trying to install these technologies for the benefit of the property while doing&nbsp; it in a way that is really sympathetic to the history of the site&mdash;it&rsquo;s&nbsp; good fun.&rdquo; Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine 701-738-4969 tportz@bbiinternational.com

SUBTLE STORAGE: The chip storage solution at Croft Castle was designed to mimic the rooflines and low profile of the other buildings on the site. 
The requirement for low roof lines led to a unique solution that allows the roof to slide back so chips

2015/09/SUBTLE-STORAGE-BMMoct15_14423270021757_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/SUBTLE-STORAGE-BMMoct15_14423270021757_thumb.jpg

2015/09/SUBTLE-STORAGE-BMMoct15_14423270021757.jpg

A STATELY SITE: The splendor of Croft Castle epitomizes the properties the National Trust owns and maintains. Any energy solution that detracts from the visual appeal of these properties simply cannot be considered.

2015/09/A-STATELY-SITE-BMM-Oct15_14423270000883.jpg

CASTLE COMFORT: An HDG Compact 200 wood chip boiler will supply nearly 75 percent of the Croft Castle propertyâ€™s heating needs, each year displacing over 5,000 gallons of fuel oil and consuming nearly 100 tons of wood chips, all while eliminating t

2015/09/CASTLE-COMFORT-BMM-Oct15_14423270010707.jpg

The National Trust, a charity dedicated to preserving the United Kingdom's most priceless historic sites, is including biomass heat in its ambitious transition toward renewable energy.

Entrusted to Biomass

The United Kingdom biomass heat sector is experiencing turbulent times, thanks to a near-perfect storm of market factors, subsidy review and the fallout from dramatic growth in the industry since the introduction of the Renewable Heat Incentive in November 2011.&nbsp; The industry is now experiencing an equally dramatic slowdown, with significant numbers of redundancies and a marked drop in business confidence, despite biomass having barely scratched the surface of the U.K.&rsquo;s multibillion-pound annual heat market and our 2020 renewable heat targets still looking well out of reach. The impact that currently low global oil prices are having on biomass market growth will be well-understood by readers wherever they are on the planet, but when taken with the conditions prevailing in the domestic U.K. market, the biomass heat industry could well be facing an existential threat. Since its introduction, the RHI has helped the U.K. biomass heat industry deliver some 13,000 commercial and 10,000 domestic projects, and biomass boilers have far outstripped all the other technologies that have been eligible for support under this tariff-based scheme, with pellet systems dominating within the overall product mix.&nbsp; Whilst this is good news for a government with legally binding renewable energy targets to meet, the rapid deployment of biomass boilers has meant triggers to trim back the levels of support have been regularly exceeded, with permanent reductions in payment levels the result.&nbsp; In fact, the rate of deployment has been so great that the support available for &ldquo;small biomass&rdquo; schemes (less than 200 kilowatts, or 680,000 Btu) has dropped by 48 percent in the past nine months.&nbsp; Taken with the drops seen in heating oil and propane prices over the same period, the economic case to switch to biomass heating has been dramatically undermined. However, of most concern to the industry is the shift in U.K. policy, since the advent of a wholly conservative government in May 2015.&nbsp; We all know that current low oil prices will rebound close to previous levels in the short- or medium-term, which will help the competitiveness of biomass, but since securing a majority in the general election, the U.K. renewable energy industry has suffered shock after shock at the hands of a government, which increasingly appears opposed to the concept of generating energy from renewables. By any measure, a staggering array of negative steps has been taken in a very short time by the U.K. government, toward curbing the deployment of renewable energy technologies, often accompanied by rhetoric around &ldquo;reducing energy bills for hard working families and businesses.&rdquo;&nbsp; These steps range from proposing budget caps on support for anaerobic digestion and solar PV (meaning a reduction in support of as much as 87 percent for this particular technology), abandoning the decade-long plan to implement the Zero Carbon Homes policy in 2016, to taxing green electricity at the same level as that produced from fossil fuels and removing the guaranteed level of RO subsidy for biomass power stations. So what does this mean for wood pellet producers and the biomass heat industry?&nbsp; Well, there&rsquo;s been some good news from the biomass-to-electricity market over the summer, with Drax announcing its third coal-to-pellet boiler conversion will be completed imminently, but the general direction of travel observed in renewables policy has most realistic observers expressing serious concerns about the outlook for biomass heat. Only when the next government comprehensive spending review is unveiled at the end of November will the future of the industry become clear. But one thing is certain: Treating biomass heat the same way other renewable energy technologies with status and far-better established supply chains have been lately means the U.K. runs a serious risk of pushing this still-fledgling industry off a cliff, well before it&rsquo;s ready to spread its wings and take flight. Author: Neil Harrison Board Member, Wood Heat Association neil@reheat.uk.com 44 (0) 7917-632-171

2015/09/Neil-Harrison-BMM15_14423271550398_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Neil-Harrison-BMM15_14423271550398_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Neil-Harrison-BMM15_14423271550398.jpg

The United Kingdom biomass heat sector is experiencing turbulent times, due to a near-perfect storm of market factors, subsidy review and fallout from dramatic growth in the industry since the introduction of the Renewable Heat Incentive in November.

UK Biomass Heat: Ready for Takeoff?

CCurrently low oil prices might serve as a fuel-switching deterrent for the near-term, but those with roots in the wood pellet industry know this glut is only temporary and are continuing business as usual. Always-fluctuating oil prices will again soar, thinning wallets and depleting savings, and that&rsquo;s one of Maine Energy System&rsquo;s messages to home and business owners. Wood pellet fuel allows users to guard themselves against oil price volatility, and that&rsquo;s just one of the many benefits they offer. &ldquo;In the long-term, we [the industry] have the right answer,&rdquo; says Les Otten, president of MESys. &ldquo;But in the short term, we are small, and so we have to roll with the waves. Next time there&rsquo;s an insane oil price increase&mdash;and that could happen at any moment for any reason&mdash;there will be significant demands on our industry, and we need to be ready to meet them.&rdquo; That applies to those in all corners of the pellet industry, including design and innovation, which MESys is no stranger to. The company is the sole American distributor of Austrian wood pellet boiler system Okofen, which has been leading the pack of European system designers for nearly two decades and developed the full-automatic wood pellet boiler in 1997. Though the most recent cutting-edge Okofen product isn&rsquo;t yet available in the U.S., it is officially available in the Austrian market, after a series of lengthy but successful test installations. And not only will the Pellematic Smart_e guard against oil price volatility, but it allows a user to generate its own electricity, recent prices of which are flirting with historic highs in the Northeast U.S. Heat and Power at Home Miriam Gahleitner, Okofen product manager, explains that the Pellematic Smart_e combines the generation of heat and electricity in a very small space. &ldquo;The Stirling engine, as well as the condensing pellet burner technology, is incorporated in a 600-liter buffer storage,&rdquo; she says. Via the system, heat and electricity can be generated as it is needed directly at customer homes or at businesses, which Otten says can find a huge benefit if a there is a constant need for heat and electricity&mdash;for example, at a hospital, where it would cut some of the base costs. Electricity is generated through a Microgen Stirling engine, which is located inside the burner chamber of the Pellematic Smart_e, Gahleitner says. &ldquo;With the heat of the pellet burner&mdash;and only when the pellet burner is in operation&mdash;the Stirling engine is able to produce up to 1 kW of electrical power.&rdquo; The engine itself is filled with helium as a working gas, which is heated via a heater head, and then cooled down in a hermetically sealed, maintenance-free system. The heating and cooling of the gas causes a pressure wave inside the Stirling engine, which moves the pistons inside the engine and leads to the generation of alternating current, according to Gahleitner. Heat travels through the boiler to supply hot water for space heating, domestic use or for industrial and commercial process needs. In 2012, field testing of the cogeneration system began in Austria. &ldquo;The field test has been expanded step-by-step, and in several countries in Europe, pilot projects were realized,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;Up to now, more than 30 installations were made with the aim to gain experiences in praxis; 30 percent of all Pellematic Smart_e systems were installed as baseload boilers to get as many running hours as possible within a very short time frame.&rdquo; &nbsp;The rest of the cogeneration boilers were installed in single-family households to test future application. &ldquo;It was very important for us to gain as much experience as possible and optimize the whole system&mdash;for example, to increase the self-usage rate of the generated electrical yield,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;The more electricity that can be used direct at the customer&rsquo;s household, the higher the efficiency of the system is.&rdquo; All of the pilot installations were fully monitored, and onsite consumption rates of 70 to 90 percent were achieved, according to Gahleitner. The systems were adjusted occasionally and settings were changed at times to learn more about the effects and find optimization. After the first field test round in Austria, Okofen has installed additional test units in Austria, as well as France, Germanys the U.K., Italy, Netherlands and Belgium, with good results. &ldquo;Due to those good experiences, the Pellematic Smart_e is now officially available on the Austrian market,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;In other countries, the market entry should follow after training of service employees, and when field tests there are finished.&rdquo; The obvious benefit of the added electrical component is one has the ability to generate his own electricity at the right time and where it is needed, but Gahleitner highlights the fact that it is much&nbsp; more efficient, as the energy is mainly consumed where it is produced. That prevents losses caused by transportation&mdash;for example, from a large power plant, sending the power into the grid and to a customer&rsquo;s home. Tailored to meet the requirements of a single-family household, the system has a high on-site consumption rate of the generated electricity, due to its nominal thermal load of 9 kilowatts. &ldquo;This allows long running times in spring and autumn, and for the daily system yield to be maximized,&rdquo; Gahleitner says. &ldquo;On colder days, and at times of increased heat demand, the system switches to a higher output level, thereby allowing a baseload and a peakload boiler to be implemented for the first time in one unit.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; As for bringing the technology to the U.S., MESys&rsquo;s B.J. Otten says he&rsquo;s not quite sure if the U.S. market is ready for the technology yet, but will be by the 2017 heat seasons. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in a nice position, as our market is growing, to learn from the European market,&rdquo; he says. Les Otten says that MESys is ready to begin discussions for potential customers now to serve as the first adopters. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to identify half a dozen folks who would like to be the initial heart transplant recipients, and build from there.&rdquo; Otten reiterates the fact that the Pelletmatic Smart_e is the result of companies and minds from across the world coming together to yield extraordinary results. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re living more and more in a global economy, and this is a marvelous example of what that looks like. Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4968

2015/09/Pellematic_14423276954777_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Pellematic_14423276954777_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Pellematic_14423276954777.jpg

LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD: The Microgen Stirling engine produces alternating current (50 Hz) and provides 1 kW of electrical power, ideal for use in domestic homes.

2015/09/Sterling_14423276965287.jpg

Comprised of an American-made engine and boiler vessel, and an Austrian burner and pellet design, Okofen's compact Pellematic Smart_e marks the next evolution in wood pellet energy.

Packing a Punch

After years of regulatory uncertainty, in August the U.S. EPA took two actions that could have a big impact on the biomass industry. The Biomass Power Association is determining our next steps in advocating for the utmost benefits to the industry. To chart our course forward, we need the help of all biomass producers across the country: Please contact us to take our fuel survey and tell us about the types of biomass feedstocks used in your facility. The first action was the release of the final Clean Power Plan. To recap, the Clean Power Plan, which we covered extensively in last month&rsquo;s column, is, potentially, a very positive development for biomass facilities that came online on or after Jan. 1, 2013. (For older facilities, the plan holds little downside and, encouragingly, won&rsquo;t regulate biomass as a carbon-emitting energy source.) What remains to be seen is how facilities can become classified as &ldquo;qualified biomass.&rdquo; This will have a lot to do with which feedstocks states include in their plans, subject to the EPA&rsquo;s approval.. The agency is also accepting comments on its model federal plan, which will go into effect in states that don&rsquo;t submit their own plans. The second action was the latest report from the Scientific Advisory Board. The SAB is a paneled team of scientists tasked by EPA with determining how to account for emissions from all biogenic sources. The panel is weighing how to assign a biogenic accounting factor to every feedstock, fuel type, use and scenario that they can think of&mdash;a monumental task, to say the least. The outcome of the SAB is currently not connected to any legislation or regulation, but the lack of clarity in the Clean Power Plan on acceptable biomass feedstocks leaves open the possibility that the SAB findings could influence the EPA&rsquo;s decision in this area.&nbsp; Given these two interrelated regulatory actions, BPA wants to ensure that it has a good grasp on all materials that are currently in use for biomass energy across the country. To that end, we have developed a fuel survey&mdash;the first of its kind that we are aware of&mdash;to identify the types of feedstocks used in each state where biomass is an energy source. We plan to compile the results of this survey, state by state, to help inform us as EPA accepts comments on its proposed model federal plan, and as states begin developing their State Implementation Plans. We realize much of this information is sensitive and proprietary, and we will not release any company-specific information. &nbsp;These two regulatory actions, while not creating the absolute certainty we had hoped for, are beginning to indicate the role of biomass in what will amount to a new federal energy policy. We still have a lot of work ahead of us to make sure that all feedstocks currently used by biomass facilities are embraced by states and included in their SIPs. That is why we hope you will take our fuel survey, even if your company is not a member of Biomass Power Association, to help us better understand and advocate for the industry at this critical time. If you would like to take our fuel survey to provide us with data on your company&rsquo;s biomass power feedstocks, I encourage you to contact Carrie Annand, BPA&rsquo;s vice president of external affairs, at carrie@usabiomass.org, for more information. &nbsp; Author: Bob Cleaves President and CEO, Biomass Power Association www.biomasspowerassociation.com bob@biomasspowerassociation.com

2015/09/Bob-Cleaves_Standing_14423279501044_largethumb.jpg

2015/09/Bob-Cleaves_Standing_14423279501044_thumb.jpg

2015/09/Bob-Cleaves_Standing_14423279501044.jpg

After years of regulatory uncertainty, in August the U.S. EPA took two actions that could have a big impact on the biomass industry

Advocate for Biomass via Fuel Survey

New Holland appoints North American vice president New Holland has appointed Bret Lieberman to lead the brand as vice president of North America. Bret joined New Holland in 1990 with a position in service parts. Most recently, he served as head of North America manufacturing, where he has been responsible for all agricultural and construction manufacturing plants since 2009. USDA names chief economist The USDA has appointed Robert Johansson as its chief economist. Johansson has served as USDA&rsquo;s acting chief economist since January and as deputy chief economist since 2012. He joined USDA in 2001. As chief economist, Johansson is responsible for USDA&rsquo;s agricultural forecasts and projections and for advising the secretary of agriculture on economic implications of programs, regulations, and legislative proposals. His responsibilities include the Office of the Chief Economist, the World Agricultural Outlook Board, the Office of Risk Assessment and Cost-Benefit analysis, the Global Change Program Office, and the Office of Energy Policy and New Uses. He also serves as chairman of the federal crop insurance board of directors.&nbsp; UNICA joins Global Renewable Fuels Alliance UNICA, the Brazilian sugarcane industry association, has joined the Global Renewable Fuels Alliance. Created in 1997, UNICA is the largest organization in Brazil representing sugar, ethanol and bioelectricity producers. The association&rsquo;s members represent more than 50 percent of all the ethanol produced in Brazil and 60 percent of the country&rsquo;s sugar production. GRFA members now represent more than 90 percent of the global biofuels production from 45 countries. Roth joins Gevo board of directors&nbsp; Gevo Inc. has appointed Johannes Minho Roth to its board of directors. Roth is the founder and CEO of FiveT Capital Holding AG, a Zurich-based independent asset management firm that specializes in investment solutions for high net worth clients, family offices and institutional investors. He is also a member of the board of directors for Plug Power Inc. Ganesh Kishore, who joined the Gevo board in 2008, has resigned. Advanced Ethanol Council changes name, expands focus The Advanced Ethanol Council has expanded its scope and changed its name to the Advanced Biofuels Business Council. Founded in 2011 to represent advanced and cellulosic ethanol producers and technology providers, the rebranded organization has expanded its organizational charter to include other types of advanced biofuels. As part of the expansion, two existing members, Poet-DSM and Cellerate, a cellulosic biofuel joint venture between Quad County Corn Processors and Syngenta, will takes seats on the board of directors. New member company Aemetis will also join the board, while Sweetwater Energy will join the ABBC as a corporate member. Matria new senior vice president, chief financial officer of Joule Joule has announced the appointment of Peter Matrai as senior vice president and chief financial officer. He has nearly 20 years of experience in finance, global strategy, and corporate development, including a decade spent in the biofuels sector for BP. Matrai most recently served as chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Butamax Advanced Biofuels, a joint venture between BP and DuPont. He also previously led business development for BP Biofuels in North America. Advanced Biofuel Association elects officers The Advanced Biofuel Association has elected Wayne Simmons, president and CEO of Sundrop Fuels, as chairman; Neville Fernandes, president of Neste, as vice chairman; Wes Bolsen, head of business development and public affairs at Cool Planet, as treasurer; and Phil Caplan, partner at Ensyn Development Partners as secretary. In addition, the association appointed three new members to its executive committee, including Paul Woods, president and CEO of Algenol; Laurel Harmon, vice president of government relations at LanzaTech; and Rebecca Boudreaux, president of Oberon Fuels. Altaaqa appoints Ford chief commercial officer Altaaqa Global, a leading global provider of large-scale temporary power services, has appointed energy industry veteran Julian Ford as chief commercial officer. As the company&rsquo;s CCO, Ford&rsquo;s remit is to ensure that Altaaqa Global achieves revenue growth targets and overall commercial success, and to facilitate the formulation and implementation of innovative global commercial strategies. Ford&rsquo;s career in the industry started at the time when the concept of power plants on a rental basis was just gaining ground. He had a hand in introducing the concept of power project rental to governments of developing economies, which allowed them to hire power capacity to address short-term energy issues during times of hydropower shortage or other generation or transmission issues. Ford was instrumental in taking the rental power concept to different regions across the globe, including Middle East and Africa, South America, East Asia and South Asia. Butamax, Gevo settle patent dispute Gevo Inc. and Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC, a joint venture between BP and DuPont, announced that they have entered into worldwide patent cross-license and settlement agreements, ending a patent dispute related to technologies for the production of biobased isobutanol. This settlement ends the lawsuits and creates a new relationship between the companies, aimed at leveraging each other's strengths and accelerating development of competitive supply for isobutanol. The cross-license agreement grants both parties patent licenses to all fields for isobutanol and is structured to develop robust and sustainable isobutanol markets. The license will be royalty bearing for Butamax in certain fields and royalty bearing for Gevo in other fields. There are also a number of fields that are royalty-free for both companies. Both parties can sell up to 30 MMgy, royalty-free, into any field.

October 2015

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Priming the pump for higher blends

Zeroing in on smart year-end decisions for ethanol producers

Time to cap fossil fuel pollution

Peeking at ethanol's future fields

Leave light on for ethanol consumers

US cannot abandon biofuels global leadership

RFS: Doing what Congress intended

The Little Algae That Could

Maximizing Biogas Project Value

Nature's Call for Biomass Standards

UK Biomass Heat: Ready for Takeoff?

Advocate for Biomass via Fuel Survey

A Great Fit

Featured

Ricketts, biofuels champion at home, abroad

Equipment company has strong biomass knowledge-base

Bringing in the biomass for cellulosic ethanol

Cellulosic feedstocks of the future

Twofold Renewable in Tulare County

A Trending On-site Power Option

Diving into Wood Heat

Entrusted to Biomass

Contributions

New NIR models speedup feedstock analysis process

Searching for effective, environmentally friendly water treatment Technologies

Departments

Packing a Punch

October 2015.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

Priming the pump for higher blends

Zeroing in on smart year-end decisions for ethanol producers

Time to cap fossil fuel pollution

Peeking at ethanol's future fields

Leave light on for ethanol consumers

US cannot abandon biofuels global leadership

RFS: Doing what Congress intended

The Little Algae That Could

Maximizing Biogas Project Value

Nature's Call for Biomass Standards

UK Biomass Heat: Ready for Takeoff?

Advocate for Biomass via Fuel Survey

A Great Fit

Featured

Ricketts, biofuels champion at home, abroad

Equipment company has strong biomass knowledge-base

Bringing in the biomass for cellulosic ethanol

Cellulosic feedstocks of the future

Twofold Renewable in Tulare County

A Trending On-site Power Option

Diving into Wood Heat

Entrusted to Biomass

Contributions

New NIR models speedup feedstock analysis process

Searching for effective, environmentally friendly water treatment Technologies

Departments

Packing a Punch

October 2015