Keeping plants running with minimal downtime is no small feat. Maintenance teams work hard to keep ahead of bearing wear and other routine upkeep, looking for indications of systems that may need more extensive reconditioning. Most plants schedule downtime in the spring and fall for cleaning and repairs, with one eye on keeping equipment in top condition and the other on keeping costs down.&nbsp; Ethanol Producer Magazine looks at three critical systems&mdash;centrifuges, dryers and RTOs (regenerative thermal oxidizers)&mdash;to learn about the challenge of keeping ethanol plants up and running. Each system has unique challenges in the types of needed repairs and in how the companies doing the rebuilds work with plants. The centrifuges that separate whole stillage into liquids and solids ahead of the dryers get a workout. Hundreds or even thousands of gallons a minute of hot stillage, typically 185 degrees Fahrenheit, move through the centrifuges for dewatering. &ldquo;The rotating assemblies weigh between 5,000 and 10,000 pounds and can spin at 3,000 to 4,000 RPM,&rdquo; says Dan Ellis, president of Flottweg Separation Technology Inc. &ldquo;You have high solids and high temperatures&mdash;it&rsquo;s a high-demand application in all aspects.&rdquo; &ldquo;We tell customers, if you want the maximum availability and reliability, it has to be a two-way working relationship. We look at their facility and how they have to run it, and they work with us on our recommendations on how to best run the machine,&rdquo; Ellis says. Startup and shutdown procedures are important to do correctly. Timely cleaning and close attention to how the unit sounds while running are important and, at least once a shift, operating data should be recorded. &ldquo;Over the years, we&rsquo;ve trended critical variables so you can predict when the unit should be rebuilt,&rdquo; he says. Flottweg recommends rebuilds be planned every 12 to 18 months due to the demanding operating conditions. Most plants run multiple units and keep a spare on hand so one centrifuge can be taken down and switched out while the plant is running.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ellis is a firm believer that plants should work with the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for repairs. &ldquo;Nobody knows the equipment as well as the OEM,&rdquo; he says. Going with other shops may save money on the initial repair, he admits, but unsatisfactory repairs begin to multiply problems. &ldquo;You never bring it back up to full OEM operating specs, so each time you do the repair it gets progressively worse. If it gets to a certain condition, you have to get a very expensive repair to get all the machine components back to OEM specs.&rdquo; Maintaining proper tolerances is especially important, for example, and somewhat tricky as the metal components in the high-speed rotating equipment expand with the hot stillage flows. Flottweg may be unusual in setting a goal of retaining 80 percent of the after service for the equipment it sells, Ellis says. And, in an age where many companies trim inventories to the minimum, he is committed to keeping replacement parts on hand for all machines. &ldquo;A big thing with us is making sure that regardless of the part size or cost, if somebody does have a failure, a quality repair can be done as quickly as possible.&rdquo;&nbsp; The average lifespan of a centrifuge is 20 to 25 years, and it&rsquo;s not uncommon to service machines that are more than 30 years old, Ellis says. Working with the OEM helps with reaching the maximum lifespan.&nbsp; Another advantage of working with OEMs, he adds, is that new features can be incorporated. His company, for instance, has developed a Recuvane system that recovers energy from the liquid discharge to reduce power consumption in each machine by 13 to 18 percent and a new scroll design is coming out that increases performance capacity while minimizing vibration issues to increase mechanical viability. Dryers The situation for major dryer repairs is very different from centrifuges. For one, there aren&rsquo;t multiple units, with a spare kept on hand. Some plants do have two dryers, but if one is shut down for unplanned repairs, the plant has to cut production, says Bill O&rsquo;Connor, president of O&rsquo;Connor Kiln &amp; Dryer Inc. As plants reach the 10-year mark, the big challenge is reconditioning dryers in the time allotted. &ldquo;Typically an ethanol plant has a yearly shut-down for five to 10 days, but the refurbishing can&rsquo;t be completed on the big dryers in that amount of time,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Connor says. &ldquo;We do the best we can with the time they allow us and come back in another year to do a little more, to keep them running the best we can. It's very challenging. Sometimes I make a bid and we&rsquo;ve got five days, then we run into all sorts of unseen stuff. Then I go confront them about it and we decide let&rsquo;s do this and this. At the end of five days, we pull everything out and start up, whether we&rsquo;re finished or not.&rdquo; The pressure to keep the plant running can be detrimental, O&rsquo;Connor says. The internal flighting, for example, can break loose and start flopping around. If plants don&rsquo;t shut down to investigate, the loose parts not only damage the inside of the dryer drum, but can seriously damage the screw. The worst cases, though, are when plants experience dryer fires. &ldquo;A fire inside is hard to put out,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and when the fire fighters come, they start hosing down the outside.&rdquo; The result can be severely warped metal. Over the years, he&rsquo;s seen a variety of issues with DDGS dryers when it comes time for major repairs. When some plants were built, the dryer was put in place and the building constructed around it with minimal working space inside. He has seen poorly designed pier mounts and improperly aligned systems. With a rotating drum that&rsquo;s large enough for a man to stand inside, major issues can develop as the system begins to wear.&nbsp; &ldquo;With a rotary dryer you have a big steel ring that goes around the outside of drum, which I call the tire. Then to run your tire on, you&rsquo;ve got rollers underneath called the trunnions.&rdquo; Whenever the trunnions are changed out, the slope of the drum must be correctly maintained. &ldquo;The alignment of these things is real crucial,&rdquo; O&rsquo;Connor says. &ldquo;Most plants do pretty dang good watching [their dryers],&rdquo; he says, although he adds most also don&rsquo;t totally understand how to properly set them. &ldquo;Everything they do is in a big, mad hurry. If they lose a bearing or got to change a trunnion, they want it done in five minutes, which is impossible. You have to jack it up, take the old one out and put the new one in.&rdquo; Then there&rsquo;s the temptation to start it up again without properly checking everything. &ldquo;As soon as they get the base bolts in and the bearings tightened down, they start it up and run. Sometimes it can run too hard up or down against the thrush rollers and you can start tearing the thrush rollers or the tire, and you&rsquo;ve got to replace it&mdash;it&rsquo;s a big challenge out there.&rdquo;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; RTO&nbsp; A system next in line behind the dryers presents an equally big challenge to refurbish when the time comes. The regenerative thermal oxidizer burns off the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) contained in the exhaust air coming off the dryers. A primary air pollution abatement system, the RTO insures the exhaust coming out of the plant&rsquo;s stack is virtually pure steam. RTOs are huge systems that can tower five-stories high with a footprint of 30 by 100 feet in a large plant. As many plants approach the decade mark in operations, the ceramic media inside the RTO is plugging, explains David Sorensen, senior key account manager at Durr Systems Inc.&rsquo; Clean Technology Systems. &ldquo;The purpose of the media is to store energy,&rdquo; he explains. Combustion burners start the reaction, heating the airstream coming off the dryer to temperatures of 1,500 to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit needed to oxidize the VOCs. The heated airstream passes through the media which stores the energy, regenerating the reaction to continue VOC destruction. Most RTOs have the ability to bake-out, much like a self-cleaning household oven burns up deposits leaving a residual ash. &ldquo;In the RTO, over time, that residual ash gets built up in the media and can&rsquo;t be baked out,&rdquo; Sorensen says. &ldquo;The material has already been oxidized and that&rsquo;s where the plugging begins to occur over years of operation.&rdquo; While changing out the media is a big expense, there are advantages to installing the new media that has been developed since the days when most RTOs in the ethanol industry were installed. &ldquo;Right now there are more efficient media that have better heat transfer rates,&rdquo; Sorensen says. While an improvement from 92 percent to 95 percent or better may not seem like much, he says, &ldquo;With Thermal efficiency, the percentage isn&rsquo;t linear to cost savings&mdash;two points could be a 15 percent operational cost savings.&rdquo; As with dryer refurbishments, the big challenge is accomplishing the RTO reconditioning during the allotted time. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s always a challenge. Once you&rsquo;ve removed all the old media, there&rsquo;s usually a surprise or two that you find. It puts additional pressure on us to resolve the issue and have an engineered fix and still maintain the schedule. No one wants to go to a plant manager and tell them I need two more days. It&rsquo;s just not acceptable.&rdquo; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Managing editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine sretkaschill@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4922

INSIDE STORY: As ethanol plants reach the 10-year mark, the ceramic media inside the regenerative thermal oxidizer can become plugged and need replacement.  

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REBUILDERS: Ethanol plants send their centrifuges in to the shop for refurbishment. Given the demanding conditions in plants, Flottweg recommends it be done every 12 to 18 months.    

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Examining the state of affairs with repairs for three critical pieces of equipment in the back end of the ethanol process -- centrifuges, dryers and RTOs. In-depth reporting from the March print edition of Ethanol Producer Magazine.  

The Inside Story

During the confirmation hearing of Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt for EPA administrator, the renewable fuel standard (RFS) was one of the most frequently raised topics. Members on both sides of the aisle who support the program peppered Pruitt with questions about enforcing statutorily prescribed mandates and the timely release of annual renewable volume obligations (RVOs). But the tensest back and forth may have been the exchange between freshman Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and Pruitt when she attempted to pin him down on his views regarding the point of obligation debate pending before the U.S. EPA. While Pruitt declined to answer the question specifically because there is an open comment period on the question, Duckworth&rsquo;s persistence on the issue demonstrates its importance. The question surrounding point of obligation began last winter with a request for the EPA to reconsider the definition of &ldquo;obligated party.&rdquo; In November, the EPA responded with its intention to deny the request, while initiating a public comment period, which was extended once to Feb. 22. How the Trump administration responds to the comments will be the first key test to how it views the RFS program. Supporters of the program have cause for concern given Pruitt&rsquo;s previous comments and views questioning the RFS. However, President Trump pledged his continued support for the program throughout the campaign and Pruitt has vowed to follow the president&rsquo;s lead. Pruitt&rsquo;s answers throughout the hearing on the RFS were positive, to the point where he seemed to question whether the EPA was being judicious enough with its waiver authority. His comments on implementing the program, as prescribed, were what supporters needed to hear. But given the EPA&rsquo;s authority to revisit the issue through the extended comment period, his refusal to offer thoughts on the question at hand did not calm fears. The question of moving the point of obligation from refiners and importers to blenders would be a major disruption to the RFS and the way the program has effectively run the past 11 years. Such a move would turn the program on its head, adding enormous complexity to the program&rsquo;s implementation and enforcement by greatly expanding the number of companies obligated. In EPA&rsquo;s own analysis, it was unable to determine a final number of entities that would be included under a new definition of obligated parties and, in fact, noted that the type of company that would become an obligated party could extend as far as to railroads and big store chains. Companies that have not historically fallen under these compliance obligations would need to staff up to address these new issues and roles. Established business relationships and deals would need to be revisited. As in all considerations related to the RFS, it is worth noting the impact that such a change would have on ongoing investments in infrastructure and in the technologies leading us into second-generation biofuels and increased efficiencies in existing production. A major change in the structure of the program at this stage in its implementation would chill investments. The market will wait to see how the industry responds to the new structure and the resulting impact on commercial producers, as well as pilot and lab-based testing and production. Debate over the RFS will undoubtedly continue as the new Congress gears up. The inability for the previous Congress to enact comprehensive energy legislation and a new administration with wildly differing views from its predecessor only adds more incentive to consider such legislation. Add to that the beginning of the next Farm Bill reauthorization and comprehensive tax reform and there will be a number of opportunities for this administration to reinforce its support of the RFS. It will be important for the industry to make it clear to Congress and the administration, that adhering to the volumes mandated by law is only one aspect to supporting this vital program. Support for the volumes will mean nothing if the program is broken down from within through a change in the point of obligation definition. On the flip side, a strong stance on this issue from the new administration will go a long way in quelling fears of its long-term intentions on the RFS. Author: Josh Andrews, Director, Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting 202-589-2819 Joshua.Andrews@FaegreBD.com

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The director of Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting weighs in on important policy issues to follow in his column on Business Matters appearing in the March print edition of Ethanol Producer Magazine.

Point of Obligation Takes  Center Stage in Hearing

Carbon dioxide sourced from corn-ethanol plants is not a waste-recovery product but a coproduct that, in many regions, can only be replaced by higher-emitting, less-economical resources. A reduction in U.S. ethanol production (for example, in response to policy changes) would inadvertently pose a significant disruption to the billion-dollar carbon dioxide industry, and the U.S. food industry. Fermentation from corn-ethanol plants is the largest single-sector CO2 source for the U.S. merchant gas markets. A valuable commodity, it averages $95 per ton with a large number of applications led by food and beverages and dry ice applications. Light industrial users in the merchant market include metal welding, chemicals, pH reduction and CO2 fracking applications in oil and gas. Ethanol sources have become so popular that major industrial gas companies have added new CO2 sources. Notable additions from Air Products, both completed in 2014, were the 400 ton-per-day (TPD) plant sourcing gas from Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy, Council Bluffs, Iowa, and the 250 TPD plant at Big River Resources in Boyceville, Wisconsin. Nearly 43 percent of domestic CO2 by-product for refinement and liquefaction is derived from 48 ethanol plants, mostly in the Midwest. While several regions in the U.S. are saturated, more ethanol plants will be tapped for carbon dioxide feedstock in the future as the U.S food industry continues to expand. For example, Continental Carbonic this fall announced a new CO2 plant to be colocated with ethanol producer Pennsylvania Grain Processing in Clearfield. The Pennsylvania project is an example of a strategically located CO2 source that cannot be replaced by other sources in an affordable and clean manner. The 2016 U.S. CO2 merchant market is estimated at 9.63 million short tons, the largest in the global 22 million-tons-per-year market. Domestic prices average $95 per delivered ton, sold in a wide range of containers from 105-ton rail cars to 24-ton, over-the-road tankers, as well as smaller 500-pound microbulk tanks and 20-pound cylinders. The captive market is led by enhanced oil recovery (EOR) with White Energy, Russell, Kansas, the only dedicated source. Captive supply of CO2 has been evaluated for other projects such as delivery into the EOR pipeline infrastructures owned by Denbury Resources in the mid-South, and Kinder Morgan in the Southwest. Other captive markets include enhanced coal bed methane, sodium bicarbonate, methanol and, potentially, urea. The total CO2 market is estimated to approach $1 billion, broken out by segment in the accompanying table. Location, Location Carbon dioxide sources are highly sensitive to location, shown in the accompanying map. Due to a lack of strategically located alternatives, the current ethanol plant fleet cannot be economically replaced. For example, there are not enough ammonia plants, the second-largest CO2 source, available to replace ethanol sources. The drought of 2012 illustrated the major scramble required to meet the potential disruption of CO2 supply during the peak summer-to-fall period. Ultimately the industry impact was contained to the mid-Atlantic and Eastern U.S., but large consumers of CO2, including a major food producer, considered buying or leasing a fleet of CO2 trailers until they found a suitable refrigerant replacement. The loss of CO2 from ethanol would result initially in product shortages, driving up costs for refrigeration and other applications. Any new sources would be much more expensive due to the lack of strategic location. Many of the cryogenic freezing, chilling and allied applications now utilizing CO2 would have to go to other methods such as liquid nitrogen, requiring major reconfigurations. Nitrogen requires air separation plants with high power demands. Many other unique cases exist for CO2 application where replacing the commodity could not be achieved by conventional means. Evaluating Alternatives Ethanol byproduct cleanup is generally less technology- and equipment-intensive than other sources, and there is significantly more experience in the construction of CO2 plants from ethanol than other sources in recent years.&nbsp; Other CO2 sources include 21 ammonia plants, 18 reformer refineries, 15 natural sources and a handful of others such as flue and natural gas. Natural geological sources can be the cheapest of all types. When source quality and well-head pressure is ideal, the feedstock is extremely clean, requiring only minor carbon filtration, and the elimination of a feed compressor can save half the power demand. In many cases, however, natural sources also contain hydrocarbons, heavy sulfur and benzene, all of which are expensive or difficult to remove, as in the case of benzene. Natural sources are in specific limited markets and cannot replace the predominately Midwestern-located ethanol sources. Traditional technologies for ammonia production can yield some of the cleanest raw CO2. Ethanol fermentation raw gas, in comparison, usually contains several constituents not found in ammonia, such as trace sulfur compounds and acetaldehyde. Newer ammonia technologies are said to produce an intermittent raw stream that present new engineering and production challenges, leading to higher costs. Numerous ammonia projects were slated to be constructed (usually with international principals) in recent years, but never progressed beyond the drawing board. Power requirements are similar for ethanol and ammonia sources. Power demand at the first new commercial ammonia plant in 30 years built in the Midwest was estimated at between 145 Kwh/ton and 153 Kwh/ton of production for 540 TPD CO2 recovery. In comparison, the power demand at a proposed 400 TPD ethanol plant was estimated between 135 Kwh/ton and 142 Kwh/ton of CO2 produced. A project with a power demand of about 150 Kwh/ton is considered reasonable; scaled-down projects between 100 and 250 TPD can have a power demand between 160 and 170 Kwh/ton. There are just two 250 TPD flue gas plants in the U.S. A federal law in the 1980s allowed qualifying independent cogeneration plants to combine the relatively expensive MEA recovery plant with the power project itself. As a result, these two currently operating CO2 plants do not have to amortize those capital costs. A flue gas CO2 recovery plant costs between $20 million and $30 million, which compares with the $3 million to $5 million cost for a similarly sized ethanol system. Power consumption for the flue gas plant is estimated to be at least double that of traditional plants. If ethanol byproduct disappeared, large processors and other consumers would ultimately be forced to abandon CO2 utilization or to switch to higher-emitting, more costly sources. Author: Steffen Mueller, PhD Principal Economist, Energy Resources Center University of Illinois at Chicago (312) 316-3498 muellers@uic.edu Conributing author: Sam Rushing President, Advanced Cryogenics rushing@terranova.net

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Strategically located ethanol sources cannot be economically replaced. This expert contribution appears in the March print edition of Ethanol Producer Magazine.

Ethanol Industry Provides Critical CO2 Supply

A new mineral additive technology offering energy and yield benefits to DDGS processing has been developed by Nucleus Ag &amp; Bio Products, Lakeville, Minnesota. The anticaking agent absorbs moisture allowing ethanol plants to lower the relative moisture of their outgoing DDGS, with multiple benefits. Todd Seaton, NABP U.S. sales manager, says, &ldquo;Many plants over-dry the grains to load or unload them from rail cars and trucks. If they&rsquo;re not dry enough, they are difficult to unload. Because plants want flowability, they dry their grains to 9.5 or 10 percent moisture, losing yield in the process. Over-drying the grains uses more energy, and drying longer than needed wastes energy.&rdquo; The additive also improves the nutritional value of the DDGS, Seaton says. &ldquo;Any one of these benefits alone could add profitability to an ethanol plant.&rdquo; Vertex DDGS Enhancer is composed of finely ground food-grade minerals. It works by micro-encapsulating DDGS fibers to keep them from sticking together. The added minerals adhere to the grains like a coating and absorb excess moisture, allowing the DDGS to flow. The treatment adheres best to the grains when blended with DDGS after they are dried and cooled. Improved safety is an additional benefit, as reduced clumping aids front-end loading operations. A patent-pending delivery system applies the precise amount of mineral blend using rotary valves, airlocks and screw conveyors. NABP offers indoor and outdoor versions of the Vertex System to accommodate different plant configurations. Vertex changes the nutritional profile of DDGS increasing iron, calcium and other minerals and acts as a natural intestinal detoxifying agent. The natural additive in Vertex also enhances the color of DDGS, making it lighter and scoring higher on the Hunter L scale. Seaton says the feed industry recognizes there is value to the color of feed and prefers this color enhancement. The Hunter L score of DDGS at the Tharaldson Ethanol customer site increased five or six points with the addition of Vertex, he says, opening new markets. Seaton adds Vertex has generally recognized as safe status and is compliant with the new Food Safety and Modernization Act regulations. Seaton worked in the ethanol industry for more than 35 years. After retiring, he and his wife Susan Seaton, the product&rsquo;s inventor, knew of some problems and where to add value in the ethanol industry. They wanted to help, and together created the Vertex product. &ldquo;NABP exists to bring added value to our friends in the ethanol industry,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;During trials, one plant was able to use more syrup in their DDGS, which helped increase DDGS yield.&rdquo; When NABP started in March 2015, it delivered the product in Supersacks, which took a long time to load and resulted in expensive freight charges. Unloading into an auger blending machine was labor intensive. NABP cut costs by moving to 25-ton pneumatic bulk loads delivered to plants for storage in silos. &ldquo;At first, the costs of sourcing, blending and drying the minerals and getting them to the plant and applying them were high. It took a while to perfect,&rdquo; Seaton says. &ldquo;But now, costs are competitive with what the end user pays for DDGS. Ethanol plants can recover up to 100 percent of their costs and increase their DDGS yield, so it makes sense.&rdquo; First Adopters&nbsp; Jeff Wilson, vice president of chemical sales at NABP describes Vertex as an early-stage product. Plant trials have been completed at 100 MMgy and 50 MMgy corn-ethanol plants, with one commercial system&nbsp; running and another in the startup phase. &ldquo;Plymouth Energy in western Iowa is excited about the technology and a system is currently being installed there. Four trials were also done at GPRE in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, who also loved the product,&rdquo; Seaton says. Tharaldson Ethanol, Casselton, North Dakota, was NABP&rsquo;s first customer and pilot facility. Tharaldson produces 168 million gallons of ethanol and about 450,000 tons of distillers grains each year, and operates its own fleet of DDGS rail cars. Vertex additive is applied after the dryers while the coproduct is conveyed to the storage building. The additive system includes an outdoor storage tank, a screw delivery system, a baghouse and feeder bin. According to Bill Paulsen, general manager of ICM Energy Management Solutions, which manages Tharaldson Ethanol, the Vertex technology adds value through energy savings and faster turns on rail equipment, accompanied by less damage to rail cars. &ldquo;After adding this product, we were able to increase paybacks to the facility in multiple ways.&rdquo; Paulsen says the most important factors for deciding to use it were issues with rail shipments. Before using Vertex, the unloading time for customers in the South took longer, and they had to vibrate or beat on the cars to get the distillers out. The trains took longer to get back to the ethanol facility, and there were time constraints for getting cars loaded. &ldquo;Our biggest problems were when the DDGS were sitting in a hot rail line for three days in the humidity. They would settle and get hard, and it was painful for our customers to unload,&rdquo; Paulsen says. &ldquo;In the 22 months since we started using Vertex, we haven&rsquo;t seen any more issues like these. There are no problems flowing, and the flowability lasts. We visited one customer in Texas and they have nothing but compliments about the product and how well it now comes out of cars. The turns of getting rail cars back from that customer have been phenomenal. That&rsquo;s what allowed us to make the decision quickly.&rdquo; Reductions in damage to cars has been significant, says Ryan Carter, general manager of Tharaldson Ethanol. &ldquo;We see a large value in not getting the cars beat up and having to repair them, since each car is repaired at different times, and no repair is less than $10,000.&rdquo; He estimates they have seen a two-day faster turn on facility rail cars, allowing them to downsize their fleet. &nbsp;&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve become a preferred provider to all of our customers because of the flowability and consistent product. We took a good product and gave it an additional boost that competitors today don&rsquo;t have,&rdquo; Carter says. On the energy side, using Vertex allowed Tharaldson to run year-round at increased moisture, which meant not running the dryers as hard. &ldquo;This cut the energy usage in the facility, creating a better bottom line. It reduced the natural gas used per gallon of ethanol produced,&rdquo; Carter says. &ldquo;We used to run our dryers at 100 percent. Now, with Vertex, they run at 90 percent, which is a decrease of about 6 to 8 decatherms per hour, which saves 5 to 10 percent on dryer gas,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We used to have to run 9 percent moisture in the feed to make it flow. Today, running 12 percent moisture, the drying time is still the same, but it helps dryer efficiency.&rdquo; Carter estimates the return on investment at Tharaldson is less than a year, noting that ROI will be different for every plant. &ldquo;Going to the max of 12 percent moisture means more water is sold out the back end. It&rsquo;s heavier feed, so there&rsquo;s a quicker payback. There are also lower emissions from using less natural gas, which reduces the [carbon intensity] score and helped us move forward going for our low carbon fuel standard permit and EP3 petition for efficient producers. Any project like this helps in the long run,&rdquo; he says. Carter says DDGs are sent out for nutritional testing every day, and the values of calcium and iron increased. &ldquo;This is one less thing the end user has to do, purchase calcium or iron to supplement into their feed. It&rsquo;s a cost the consumer is getting back that we&rsquo;re taking care of,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;We have not had one complaint about this product, and have had a lot of compliments on quality and the appearance of the feed. We are hoping to add Vertex at more facilities,&rdquo; Paulsen adds. Author: Debbie Sniderman CEO, VI Ventures LLC info@vivllc.com

SAVINGS VIEW: NABP's Todd Seaton, left, Ryan Carter, Tharaldson Ethanol, and Bill Paulsen, ICM Plant Services, review Vertex energy cost savings calculator spreadsheet.    

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OUTDOOR SYSTEM: Plymouth Energy, Merrill, Iowa, has installed NABP's outdoor Vertex System, shown above.  

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PNEUMATIC HANDLING: NABP realized big savings when it moved from Supersacks to pneumatic transports, shown above delivering the Vertex DDGS additive at Tharaldson Ethanol. 

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INDOOR SYSTEM: Tharaldson Ethanol uses the indoor blending Vertex System. 

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New DDGS additive saves ethanol plants energy and improves flowability. In-depth reporting profiles a new technology in the March print edition of Ethanol Producer Magazine.   

Adding Flowability

Perplexed about why E15 does not get a one-pound waiver? That&rsquo;s a sign you clearly understand the issue, says Monte Shaw, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association executive director. People who ask questions are seeking logical explanations for why E15 does not get the one-pound waiver and there just aren&rsquo;t any, Shaw says. &ldquo;The situation doesn&rsquo;t make sense. When I try to explain it to people, I&rsquo;ll go through it step by step and then they&rsquo;ll look at me, confusedly, and say &lsquo;Huh?&rsquo; and then I&rsquo;ll say &lsquo;Exactly, you&rsquo;ve got it.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp; Congress amended the Clean Air Act in 1990 to allow blends of ethanol to get a one-pound waiver to accommodate for 10 percent ethanol being &ldquo;splash blended&rdquo; with gasoline. When 10 percent ethanol is added to 9.0 psi gasoline, the Reid vapor pressure (RVP) of the mixture rises to near 10 pounds per square inch (psi). As gasoline evaporates, volatile organic compounds enter the atmosphere and contribute to ozone formation, a problem that is exacerbated by warmer air temperatures. Without the one-pound waiver, gasohol, as the fuel was called then, would have required a base gasoline with an RVP of about 1 percent lower to stay below the 9.0 psi allowable maximum for air quality. The ethanol industry successfully argued that producing a special low-RVP blendstock would be costly and cause logistical problems. &ldquo;It was a well-intentioned rule and they (Congress) never thought the day would come when there would be a higher blend than 10 percent,&rdquo; says Mike O&rsquo;Brien, Growth Energy vice president of market development. But that day did arrive and, as the ethanol industry sees it, it only makes sense that E15, which has lower evaporative emissions than E10, should be granted the one-pound waiver. However, the U.S. EPA regulation implementing the one-pound waiver applies it only to fuel blends of gasoline with 10 percent ethanol. In an enclosure to a Dec. 22, 2016, letter EPA sent to several Midwest governors, the agency says the one-pound waiver applies only to E10: &ldquo;The revised statutory language in section 211(h)(4) specifically provides for a 1psi waiver exclusively for fuel blends of gasoline and 10 percent ethanol...,&rdquo; a sentence of the letter reads. The EPA added the word &ldquo;exclusively&rdquo; to the sentence, notes Brian Jennings, American Coalition for Ethanol executive vice president. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s their interpretation of the statute. That&rsquo;s where the disagreement is between the ethanol industry and EPA. They think that authority is exclusive to E10. We argue they have the authority to apply it to grant the one-pound waiver to E15.&rdquo; Seasonality Issue Because E15 does not get the one-pound waiver, it cannot be sold during the RVP season which runs from June 1 to Sept. 15.&nbsp; &ldquo;During that time, they limit the volatility of gasoline to reduce evaporative emissions which can lead to ground-level ozone&mdash;smog,&rdquo; Shaw says. &ldquo;Currently for conventional gasoline areas, the limit is lower. That is, generally along the East and West coasts, some of the larger cities have cleaner-burning gasoline.&rdquo; E10 was given the one-pound waiver because, when ethanol is added to gasoline at low concentrations, the volatility is increased typically by less than one pound, although it varies by gasoline blendstock, Shaw says. &ldquo;[Congress said] we want to get ethanol into the fuel supply, we don&rsquo;t want to complicate it by making you have special gasoline to use ethanol and special storage tanks and distribution.&rdquo;&nbsp; The ethanol industry argues E15 burns cleaner than E10 and thus is better for the environment, so not granting E15 a waiver defies logic. &ldquo;There are additional tail pipe emissions with E10 versus E15. Therefore, there will be less evaporative emissions with E15. Yet, you can&rsquo;t sell E15. By not giving the E15 the one-pound waiver, and having consumers buy E10, you&rsquo;re increasing emissions,&rdquo; Shaw says. While E10, which has much fewer emissions than E0, is a great fuel, it is not as clean as E15, he says.&nbsp; &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the frustration, with all of the science, all of the environmental benefits, all of the attributes of the fuel&mdash;everything EPA should be looking at&mdash;granting the E15 the one-pound waiver is a no brainer.&rdquo; Jennings concurs. &ldquo;By narrowly interpreting the statute the way EPA does, they are actually preventing a fuel that has fewer evaporative emissions from being used in most of the country during the summer months, which is a huge problem&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We have had legal opinions written that suggest EPA is narrowly interpreting that statute, and that, indeed, that statute gives it authority to extend that one-pound waiver to any blend of ethanol that&rsquo;s approved for use, which would include E15.&rdquo; Being prevented from selling E15 during the summer months is not only costly to the environment, it has a negative economic impact on the ethanol industry and on consumers, Shaw says. &ldquo;We lose a ton of sales in the summer when those sales are restricted to flex-fuel vehicles We have large retailers right here in Iowa&mdash;and I&rsquo;m sure it&rsquo;s not just Iowa&mdash;who have told us &lsquo;We like E15 but we don&rsquo;t want to monkey with the summer-winter thing confusing our consumers. When I can sell it year-around, I&rsquo;ll do it.&rdquo; The RVP season also is challenging for retailers who do sell E15, says O&rsquo;Brien. &ldquo;They do a great job of getting the sales going, everything is going great. Then they have to do something different come summertime and, in the fall, they have to revamp to ramp up the sales again.&rdquo; Besides causing logistical challenges for retailers and resulting in reduced sales during the summer, the RVP season also hurts consumers, O&rsquo;Brien says. &ldquo;Just about all of the retailers we work with are selling E15 at a 3- to 10-cent discount versus unleaded 87. The consumer is losing because in the summertime, when the price of gas tends to go up, the lowest price grade of gasoline is not available to them. Everybody feels that RVP impact across the board.&rdquo; Seeking Solutions After &ldquo;going around and around&rdquo; with the EPA and getting nowhere, the legislative route appears to be the best one to take to get changes made to the rule, O&rsquo;Brien says. &ldquo;The long and short of it is, after a couple of years of debating it with EPA, with the help of several senators and congressmen, we started the legislative process to give the one-pound waiver to higher blends of ethanol, including E15. There are governors supporting it with letters. There are retailers supporting the change as well, including NACS (the association for convenience stores and fuel retailers).&rdquo; The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association encourages the legislative approach, Shaw says, with a cautionary note. &ldquo;You also have to be careful how a bill would go through Congress and what might get attached to the bill. The easiest thing would be for our EPA to admit they have the regulatory authority.&rdquo; Jennings is hopeful for a change in interpretation. &ldquo;I think under a new administration, we have opportunity to perhaps have the political appointees at EPA interpret that provision differently,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We think we have a very genuine opportunity, under the Trump administration, to get a new look at this, to get them to interpret this a little more broadly than we have in the past. We intend to work on that.&rdquo; The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association will continue to address RVP,&nbsp; Shaw says. &ldquo;What we have to do is take a deep breath and step back and look at the markets, the implications. For retailers selling E15 today, they have to lose a vast majority of those sales for three and a half months in the summer because of lack of RVP parity.&rdquo; Author: Ann Bailey Associate Editor: Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-738-4976 abailey@bbiinternational.com

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The ethanol industry sees one-pound waiver for E15 as a no-brainer. This in-depth feature on the industry goal of changing the policy on Reid vapor pressure appears in the March print edition of Ethanol Producer Magazine.

No Waiver? No Sense.

The E30 Challenge passed the test&mdash;from the organizers to the participants, praise was heaped on the program sponsored by Glacial Lakes Energy LLC&nbsp; in Watertown, South Dakota. The E30 Challenge, which ran from fall&nbsp; 2015 to fall 2016, was designed to show motorists they could safely use E30 fuel. The study focused on two aspects: dynamometer testing to show that modern vehicles can adapt and use higher-octane fuels, and collection of real-world, on-road data showing vehicles fueled with E30 still operate within the vehicles&rsquo; calibration range set up by the manufacturers&rsquo; engineers. Watertown was an ideal location for the challenge because it has one of the largest, if not the largest, infrastructure of blender pumps in the United States, says Marcy Kohl, Glacial Lakes Energy corporate communications manager. &ldquo;We have over 40 blender pumps in Watertown and we&rsquo;re the size of about 22,000 people. We thought we would be the perfect fit because we had the infrastructure.&rdquo; The E30 Challenge was launched to increase awareness of the fuel and where to get it, and to encourage people to try using E30 in their vehicles, whether they were flex fuel or not. &ldquo;We knew it would work, but we wanted other people to try it,&rdquo; she says. Before Glacial Lakes Energy launched the challenge, it wanted to be sure key people were well-informed, Kohl says. &ldquo;We could promote E30 all day long and get consumers to use it, but the first time they went to their auto technicians and they say, &lsquo;That stuff is junk, don&rsquo;t use it,&rsquo; our efforts are in vain.&rdquo;&nbsp; Challenge organizers talked to area technicians, the automotive department at the Lake Area Technical Institute, retailers and car dealerships. Talking to area auto technicians and giving them information about E30 was key, because many times they blame check engine lights on the ethanol content of the fuel, says Andy Wicks, owner of DynoTune Speed and Performance in Watertown. Wicks provided professional expertise and helped conduct the E30 Challenge. &ldquo;We were able to dispel a lot of myths. We were trying to provide them with good information that is real so the technicians can use it to repair vehicles properly, rather than having them say, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t use ethanol because you&rsquo;re going to have a problem.' We&rsquo;re actually showing them what&rsquo;s going on and that&rsquo;s why the program is so successful, I believe. A lot of those technicians actually stated using E30 in their cars based on our findings,&rdquo; Wicks says. Besides educating auto technicians and others working with vehicles, Glacial Lakes Energy also worked to inform organizations operating fleets of vehicles. &ldquo;We worked with the Watertown Police Department. They have a large group of vehicles. Theirs were flex fuel, but they weren&rsquo;t using flex fuel,&rdquo; Kohl says. &ldquo;We worked with some electrical cooperatives. We&rsquo;re a farmer-owned cooperative and so are they." The challenge organizers also reached out to the Watertown Trolley which operates in the city during the summer. &ldquo;We thought it was a great way to advertise and to prove the trolley runs on E30,&rdquo; Kohl says. &nbsp; Data Collection After Glacial Lakes Energy launched the educational part of the E30 challenge, it purchased data loggers. &ldquo;We wanted to have some sound evidence to submit to the U.S. EPA to prove that E30 works in nonflex-fuel vehicles,&rdquo; Kohl says. The data loggers&mdash;memory boxes that plug into the vehicles&rsquo; Onboard Diagnostic&mdash;were the same kind EPA uses to record data. Once the data loggers were ready, the E30 Challenge advertised for participants. &ldquo;They couldn&rsquo;t be a shareholder or connected to the ethanol industry in any way," Kohl says. "We had participants driving all makes and models." The 40 vehicles in the challenge were labeled so that everyone would know they were test vehicles. During the Challenge, participants filled their tanks three times with E10 and three times with E30 and then were asked to talk about how their vehicles drove with the fuels. Meanwhile, the data loggers recorded statistical information about the vehicles&rsquo; performance. The official test results showed: &bull; Modern vehicles filled with E30, could adapt to higher octane to improve performance and increase power. &bull; All vehicles tested adapted to E30 staying within the OEM computer calibration range. &bull; No difference in average miles per gallon was found, with smaller engines showing the best response. &bull; Savings amounted to .0137 cents per mile, with a projected annual savings of more than $200 per vehicle. &bull; There were no check engine lights as a result of using E30. &ldquo;What we found is all cars &rsquo;96 and newer have enough capacity in the factory fuel injection (system) to accommodate up to 30 percent ethanol&mdash;no check engine lights, no drivability problems,&rdquo; Wicks says. Wicks, long a believer in using ethanol to fuel vehicles, was not surprised at the E30 Challenge study results. &ldquo;At DynoTune Speed and Performance, we concentrate on high-performance, mostly fuel-injected street cars&mdash;Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros, things like that. In 2005, 2006, we started using E85 and a number of ethanol blends as a substitute for racing fuel. We were comparing $12- to $15- a gallon race gas with the fuel that was available at the pump in the high performance cars. We were able to transition a lot of engines efficiently and safely and we made some pretty significant horsepower (improvement) with it,&rdquo; Wicks says. Testimony Jared Landmark, CEO of Sioux Valley Co-op station in Watertown, participated in the E30 Challenge using three vehicles, a 2007 GMC company pickup truck, a 2014 Ford F150 company pickup and his own 2006 Nissan Armada. All three were nonflex-fuel vehicles. None of them had performance issues during or after the challenge, Landmark says. &ldquo;No mechanical issues, no warning light.&rdquo; Another reason to use E30 is that the corn used to produce the ethanol is grown locally by the farmer-owners of the Sioux Valley Co-op, he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a no-brainer. I think this teaming up with the local Glacial Lakes Energy has been a great thing. We wanted to get out to the public what this product is about.&rdquo; Business hasn&rsquo;t seen a drop since the E30 Challenge, so people apparently were convinced about the merits of the fuel, Landmark notes.&nbsp; &ldquo;People got a taste of what it is: it increases horsepower, is good for the environment and cheaper. I always like to get the less expensive in as a last note. But it really is a consumer choice based not only on other factors, but on price, too.&rdquo; Glacial Lakes Energy spread the word about the positive findings of the study through personal testimonies from the participants via radio, television and print advertisements. Challenge organizers believed that having the people who participated in the challenge telling about how their vehicles performed using E30 was more powerful than the organizers talking about it, Kohl says. Now the E30 Challenge is completed in Watertown, she adds, Glacial Lakes Energy hopes to launch it elsewhere. &ldquo;From here we would like to find the next Watertown. We think somewhere out there, there has to be another town in the United States that has a similar infrastructure with blender pumps and an ethanol plant.&nbsp; We would like to roll this out town by town, getting more people to use [E30],&rdquo; Kohl says. The trend of using E30 fuel is going to grow, Landmark says.&nbsp; &ldquo;I think it starts here in the grass roots of South Dakota and becomes bigger.&rdquo; Informing people about E30 is key to increasing usage and the results of the study provides sound, positive information to present to them, says Brad Brunner, Glacial Lakes Energy marketing manager. &ldquo;We continue to present the information, and hopefully, if you tell your story long enough, people realize it&rsquo;s better for America to use E30 and higher-octane fuels, in general, and to support American-made products. The [E30 study] gives us great confidence we&rsquo;re on the right path.&rdquo; Author: Ann Bailey Associate Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701-738-4976 abailey@bbinternational.com

ETHANOL BOOSTER: Glacial Lakes Energy treasurer Dale Christensen served on the E30 Challenge organizing committee. 

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HIGH-PERFORMANCE PROOF: Andy Wicks discovered ethanol's benefits when he switched from expensive race fuels to E85 in the high-performance cars he works with. 

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CHALLENGE LEADERS: Marcy Kohl and Brad Brunner, employees at Glacial Lake Energy in Watertown, South Dakota, took the lead on organizing the E30 Challenge. 

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Glacial Lakes challenge in Watertown, SD, demonstrates E30 is a winner. The midlevel ethanol blend caused no check engine lights, mileage was virtually unchanged and resulted in real savings. This feature appears in EPM's March print edition.    

Passing the Test with Flying Colors

Enerkem Inc. has appointed Dominique Boies as executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO). Boies has more than 20 years of experience in corporate and finance strategy, investment banking and operations. Prior to joining Enerkem, he was executive vice president and CFO at RONA where he was responsible for financial and corporate strategy, investor relations, accounting, financing, treasury and legal affairs. At RONA, he led the company&rsquo;s turnaround as well as the transaction that resulted in the acquisition of RONA by Lowe&rsquo;s valued at $3.2 billion. Prior to this, Boies held various senior executive positions at RBC Royal Bank and at the Caisse de d&eacute;p&ocirc;t et placement du Qu&eacute;bec (CDPQ), one of the largest institutional fund managers in North America.&nbsp; Trident Automation has reached an agreement to merge with Trident Intech LLC, a software development company partially owned by Shane Seif and the founders of Trident Automation. Under the new agreement, Seif will be leading the new software development and R&amp;D initiatives for Trident Automation and will develop all proprietary software products for the company. Trident Intech has developed several products, including the Workbench Suite of products that is a data collection and reporting module; the KPI System that automatically collects key performance indicators; and the Lab Data Module that presents data in easy-to-read graphics.&nbsp; Premium Plant Services has hired James Schwindeman to serve as vice president of operations. Schwindeman is responsible for providing strategic and tactical direction to improve the profitability, productivity, safety and efficiency of the company&rsquo;s operations. He is based at the company&rsquo;s Hibbing, Minnesota, office. Before joining Premium Plant Services, Schwindeman spent several years working in various roles throughout Texas for Halliburton Energy Services, most recently as a principal field engineer.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; CTE Global, an enzyme provider, has joined the Minnesota Bio-Fuels Association as a vendor member. In the U.S., CTE Global works closely with the ethanol industry to optimize ethanol production. The company&rsquo;s operations are based in Illionois. CTE Global also has a research and development lab in St. Paul, Minnesota, that provides analytical support to ethanol producers. Petrobras Biocombust&iacute;vel S.A., a wholly owned subsidiary of Petrobras, has announced an agreement to sell its shares in Guarani S.A., a Brazil-based sugar and ethanol producer, to Tereos Participations SAS, a company under French group Tereos, for $202 million. Tereos, a partner of Petrobras Biocombust&iacute;vel in Brazil, is the third-largest sugar producer in the world. Petrobras first announced it was beginning negotiations with Tereos in October regarding the sale of its 45.9 interest in Guarani. Syngenta has announced that Ron Wulfkuhle, head of GreenLeaf Genetics, has been appointed the new head of Enogen corn enzyme technology. Wulfkuhle brings more than 30 years of agricultural industry experience to the position. He started as an Arkansas-based sales rep for Ciba-Geigy in 1984 before taking on sales and marketing positions across a variety of commercial units and legacy companies of Syngenta. Most recently, he oversaw the significant growth of the GreenLeaf business after it was fully acquired by Syngenta in 2010. Syngenta also recently announced that it has reached agreements with ethanol plants with a combined total capacity of nearly 2 billion gallons for the use of Enogen corn. The alpha amylase enzyme found in Enogen corn hybrids helps an ethanol plant dramatically reduce the viscosity of its corn mash and eliminate the need to add a liquid form of the enzyme. U.S. Water Services has named LaMarr Barnes as CEO. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Allete Inc. Barnes replaces former CEO Allan Bly, who resigned his position after a 20-year career with the company. Barnes has more than 25 years of experience in industrial water treatment and technology management. Hired in 2010 as vice president of marketing, he assumed added responsibilities as vice president of marketing and business development before being named senior executive vice president of marketing and strategy in 2015. LanzaTech has been selected by the Department of Energy&rsquo;s Bioenergy Technologies Office to receive a $4 million award to design and plan a demonstration-scale facility using industrial off gases to produce 3 MMgy of low-carbon jet and diesel fuels. The facility will recycle industrial waste gases from steel manufacturing to produce a low-cost ethanol intermediate Lanzanol. Both Lanzanol and cellulosic ethanol will then be converted to jet fuel via the alcohol-to-jet (ATJ) process developed by LanzaTech and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In Denmark, on Dec. 15, the Danish Parliament voted to implement a 0.9 percent blending mandate for advanced biofuels in the transportation sector. The mandate is set to become effective in 2020. The Iowa Renewable Fuels Association has announced Kum &amp; Go as its newest associate member. Kum &amp; Go has been a leader among retailers, offering renewable fuels at the pump for nearly 20 years. The Iowa-based organization offers biofuel options such as E15, E85 and biodiesel at stores across 11 states, and more locations are added each year. Pacific Ethanol Inc. and Toledo, Peoria &amp; Western Railway, a subsidiary of Genesee &amp; Wyoming Inc., announced they have commenced unit train service from Pacific Ethanol&rsquo;s plant in Pekin, Illinois. Under the new service, the Tazewell &amp; Peoria Railroad, a G&amp;W-owned switching and terminal railroad that serves the Pekin plant, hauls the plant&rsquo;s daily output to Creve Coeur, Illinois, where the connecting TPW has the track capacity to aggregate the railcars and assemble unit trains of as many as 96 cars. The TPW, a 200-mile short line railroad, then interchanges the unit trains with connecting Class I railroads for delivery to final destinations east of the Mississippi.

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Business Briefs

On a cold mid-December day in Chicago, while most people were getting ready for the holidays, 50 people gathered to talk about the effects of fuel composition on particulate matter (PM) emissions. As someone who has spent many years working to protect public health through the use of cleaner burning fuels like ethanol, I was honored to participate as a director of Siouxland Ethanol, and an advisor to the Urban Air Initiative.&nbsp; It was an invitation-only workshop sponsored by the prestigious Boston-based Health Effects Institute. It opened a lot of eyes. Attendees included a &ldquo;Who&rsquo;s Who&rdquo; from the auto industry, the U.S. EPA, the California Air Resources Board, refining industry, fuel experts and academia. It was candid and informative. There&rsquo;s a glimmer of hope that we may have turned a corner with EPA on the increasingly important role higher ethanol blends have to play in making cleaner fuels. As its name implies, the Health Effects Institute is a research organization that funds and conducts research to understand the sources and effects of mobile source air pollution. As you might expect, HEI receives significant funding from EPA.&nbsp; I know that EPA&rsquo;s failure to fairly assess ethanol&rsquo;s true effects on gasoline emissions has had a lot to do with why HEI has not acted more quickly to deal with the health threat from gasoline aromatics. More than 15 years ago, HEI was charged with overseeing the EPA Blue Ribbon Panel on Oxygenates in Gasoline, which investigated the MTBE water contamination controversy in California and other states. Enormous progress has been made since then, including advances in agricultural practices, ethanol production technologies, vehicle power-trains and gasoline infrastructure and dispensers. Automakers are telling us that ethanol has superior octane properties that were not fully recognized until recently. Automakers have pleaded with EPA to provide them with higher-octane fuels that the turbocharged, downsized vehicles of the future will desperately need, but to no avail. Unlike private sector innovators, EPA regulators plod along at glacial speed.&nbsp; But as noted, we may be turning the corner.&nbsp; In Chicago, EPA officials grudgingly admitted that there is a direct connection between gasoline aromatics, particulate matter emissions and air toxics.&nbsp; They also conceded that direct injection could make those emissions worse unless gasoline composition was significantly improved. Even while attempting to defend their defective models that perversely blame ethanol for aromatics&rsquo; PM emissions, EPA acknowledged that higher-octane ethanol splash-blends would reduce particulate-bound toxic emissions. In the real world, ethanol is splash-blended, so EPA&rsquo;s devotion to its much-maligned, match-blending protocols is curious, indeed.&nbsp; The more we reflect on the workshop, the more hopeful we are that consensus is beginning to emerge on many points: &bull; Intelligent policy requires the use of real-world fuels and driving conditions and must be based upon real-world emissions.&nbsp; &bull; When testing higher blends of ethanol, the differences between splash- and match-blending techniques cannot be ignored. When ethanol is splash-blended, emissions are reduced, as in the real world. When ethanol is improperly match-blended in the lab, harmful emissions get worse.&nbsp; &bull; Rapid adoption of gasoline direct-injection technology will significantly worsen PM, secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) emissions unless fuel quality is improved, which ethanol accomplishes. &bull; PAH emissions are regarded as an increasingly dangerous health threat.&nbsp; Ethanol replaces aromatics. &bull; Gasoline aromatics are the predominant source of SOAs and PAH. Ethanol replaces aromatics. &bull; Deposits pose a major challenge to gasoline direct-injection engines.&nbsp; Aromatics exacerbate deposits, thus another reason for higher levels of ethanol in fuel reformulation. &bull; Fuels, power-trains and after-treatments must be addressed as an integrated system. The U.S. DOE&rsquo;s Co-Optima work should be accelerated and incorporated into EPA&rsquo;s thinking, which favors high-octane fuels, such as ethanol provides. &bull; EPA&rsquo;s failure to properly account for and control SOAs from gasoline aromatics requires immediate attention, for which ethanol is a solution. &bull; Policymakers must find ways to allow cleaner fuels, such as higher blends of ethanol, in legacy vehicles, to improve our environment. This is progress. I believe it&rsquo;s possible that HEI&rsquo;s workshop opened a window for high-octane, low-cost fuels in 2017. Author: David Hallberg Siouxland Ethanol board member Urban Air Initiative advisor dehbiofuels@gmail.com

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Candid discussions at the Health Effects Institute offer hope ethanol's positive emissions profile will be taken seriously, writes a UAI advisor and Siouxland Ethanol board member in the Clearing the Air column in the March EPM print edition. 

HEI Takes Hard Look at  Ethanol vs Aromatics  

Climate change and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions are genuine priorities for Canada&rsquo;s federal government. Canada&rsquo;s ambitious commitments expressed in the Paris climate accord are to support the goal of keeping global warming below 2 degrees Celsius this century and to reduce GHG emissions 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.&nbsp; Given its geographic breadth, it is not surprising that the transportation sector is responsible for 23 percent of Canada&rsquo;s GHG emissions. Canada will not achieve its Paris commitments without substantial reductions in transportation sector emissions.&nbsp; For more than three decades, Renewable Industries Canada has been the lead association representing Canada&rsquo;s biofuels and bio-based industries, which provide clean and innovative technologies that have contributed to curbing the growth of GHG emissions. Ten years ago, the federal government introduced renewable fuels regulations that required gasoline to be retailed in a blend that included 5 percent ethanol and petroleum diesel to be blended with 2 percent biodiesel.&nbsp; Some provinces have set their own volumetric requirements for ethanol in gasoline that exceed the federal government&rsquo;s requirements, such as Manitoba at 8.5 percent and Saskatchewan at 7.5 percent. The existing volumetric requirements on renewable fuels have had an effect equivalent to removing 1 million vehicles from Canada&rsquo;s roads every year. These gains have been achieved without any required change in driving behavior or increased consumer cost. Analysis of life-cycle GHG emissions has shown that ethanol can burn up to 62 percent cleaner than pure gasoline and that biodiesel is up to 99 percent cleaner than petroleum diesel, not to mention the economic benefits that our $3.5 billion industry has brought to the Canadian economy. Renewable Industries Canada is therefore advocating for the increased volumetric requirements with an inclusion of up to 10 percent ethanol, and 5 percent biodiesel. These measures would remove the equivalent of an additional 1 million vehicles from Canada&rsquo;s roads. In the United States, the renewable fuel standard (RFS) has been a remarkable success. According to a 2015 study by California-based Life Cycle Associates, &ldquo;the RFS2 has resulted in the cumulative CO2 savings of 354 million metric tons over the period of implementation.&rdquo; And the Jan. 12 USDA report found that &ldquo;GHG emissions associated with corn-based ethanol in the United States are about 43 percent lower than gasoline&hellip;comparable to reducing GHG emissions in the U.S. transportation sector by as much as 35.5 million metric tons per year.&rdquo; The study will be useful to policymakers tasked with reducing U.S. GHG emissions. Increased volumetric requirements also provide market certainty and business opportunity. In Ontario, Canada&rsquo;s largest province, biodiesel producer BIOX acquired an additional facility that had been shuttered, thanks to the province&rsquo;s Greener Diesel Mandate. At IGPC Ethanol Inc., construction begins this spring on a project that is intended to double production, due to the province&rsquo;s announced intention to increase renewable fuel content in gasoline as part of its climate action plan. Ontario also recently launched consultations aimed at further reducing emissions from gasoline by an additional 5 percent. Ethanol is sure to figure prominently in this equation, and our industry looks forward to continued momentum on both sides of the border. Author: Jim Grey Chair, Renewable Industries Canada CEO, IGPC Ethanol Inc. 519-765-2575 jgrey@igpc.ca

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Renewable Industries Canada's chairman explains how biofuels will help his country meet its GHG reduction goals as part of its Paris climate change commitments in the March EPM Global Scene column.  

Canada's Climate Priorities 

Within the first 100 days of the Trump presidency, members and other supporters from all walks of life will join the American Coalition for Ethanol in Washington, D.C., for our annual grassroots fly-in, March 22-23. Participation in this event is critically important because members of Congress will hold committee hearings this year about the future of the renewable fuel standard (RFS), and a new administration is willing to work with us on regulatory reform for higher blends of ethanol. During the fly-in, we are going to leverage the pivotal role that rural voters played in the election outcome and capitalize on that grassroots clout to help President Trump keep the promises he made during the campaign about keeping the RFS on track and removing restrictions on the use of E15 and higher blends of ethanol. We will emphasize how unleashing the ethanol industry to produce affordable and high-octane fuel for consumers nationwide will help restore some economic prosperity to key areas of the country that are suffering today. But before our fly-in, we have been busy providing the Trump cabinet and key administration officials with our list of priorities to address, including issues such as the RFS, Reid vapor pressure relief, the need to raise the minimum octane of gasoline, ensuring our trading partners play by the rules, updating the carbon intensity analysis for corn ethanol and correcting the MOVES (Mobile Vehicle Emissions Simulator) model. ACE members have also engaged the Senate as it has carried out its constitutional role to confirm new cabinet officials. While there is a school of thought that Scott Pruitt and Rick Perry will suddenly embrace ethanol as they take the reins of the U.S. EPA and DOE because their boss, Trump, supports our industry, you don&rsquo;t need a long memory to recall that Barack Obama also supported ethanol during his campaign for president. In spite of this, Obama&rsquo;s EPA administrator took the RFS off-track and refused to grant RVP relief to E15. Instead of hoping that Pruitt and Perry will have a change of heart, ACE has worked closely with key Republican allies in the Senate to &ldquo;trust, but verify&rdquo; that they will help keep the promises made by Trump during the campaign. Several ACE members responded to our call-to-action urging senators to ask tough questions of Pruitt who will lead EPA. As a result, several senators got Pruitt to go on the record that he would follow the law when it comes to EPA&rsquo;s implementation of the RFS. We expect to meet with Pruitt and other administration leaders about our priority issues during the fly-in later this month. In the same way &ldquo;Make America Great Again&rdquo; was the slogan for the Trump campaign, &ldquo;Power by People&rdquo; has been ACE&rsquo;s brand, a motto which highlights that people are what makes ethanol great.&nbsp; The ethanol industry really began as a grassroots effort of neighbors helping each other at a time of economic crisis.&nbsp; While our industry is about dollars and cents, it is first and foremost about people&mdash;a profile in courage about ordinary people who committed their own money and time to help their families, neighbors and communities by building locally owned businesses in their towns.&nbsp; Jobs were created and profits stayed at home.&nbsp; Along the way, those farmers, small town businesses and rural citizens ended up developing the most successful renewable energy platform in the world, generating billions of dollars in economic activity and saving consumers billions of dollars at the pump. As in past years, Big Oil and other opponents will try to create an alternative reality about ethanol use in engines and complain about the RFS and RIN prices. But ACE members are uniquely positioned to combat that with their authentic voices and stories about why ethanol shouldn&rsquo;t merely be measured by the barrels of foreign oil it displaces, it should also be valued based on the jobs it creates and human good it delivers to people of all walks of life. We look forward to helping you show and tell that story this year. Author: Brian Jennings Executive Vice President American Coalition for Ethanol 605-334-3381 bjennings@ethanol.org

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The American Coalition for Ethanol gives voice to its members through its Power by People campaign and events like the annual D.C. fly-in, writes its executive vice president in his Grassroots Voice column for the March issue of EPM.

Telling Our Story in DC 

Growth Energy recently held its eighth annual Executive Leadership Conference in Miami. The conference is our forum for taking stock of where we are as an industry, where we need to go together, and how to get there. More than anything, it is an opportunity to unite as we celebrate our successes, diagnose our challenges and coalesce around the smartest path forward. In Miami, we convened an impressive group of industry experts who addressed diverse and important topics. We discussed how Growth Energy is facilitating E15 expansion and branding to sell more gallons of ethanol. We prioritized regulatory and legislative issues so industry has a clear sense of where we should focus our energy and resources for the greatest impact. And, we discussed advances in foreign market development and explored progress in engaging domestic consumers more thoughtfully and substantively. While together, we recognized the industry&rsquo;s greatest victory this past year, which was in regard to the renewable fuel standard (RFS). For the first time in years, the U.S. EPA restored renewable volume obligations for conventional biofuel to the statutory level&mdash;15 billion gallons for 2017. Not since the RFS was expanded in 2007 have we won a more profound and clear-cut victory for our industry&rsquo;s most important policy. As President Trump&rsquo;s administration takes hold and the Republican majority in Congress establishes its priorities, we must be vigilant in making sure we don&rsquo;t give any ground on the RFS, because it isn&rsquo;t just a highly effective energy policy, it is a hugely impactful agricultural policy. In 2016, we broke barriers and achieved key milestones. Consumers drove more than 500 million miles on E15, and NASCAR drivers, racing under the most stressful driving conditions, surpassed 10 million miles on Sunoco Green E15. We doubled&mdash;to 28&mdash;the number of states where E15 is sold. As a result, the fuel is available at more than 600 gas stations. Prime the Pump&rsquo;s initiative to help retailers pay for the blender pumps required to sell all ethanol blends from E15 to E85 continues to provide an immediate return on investment and we thank all those who support the effort.&nbsp; We also explored the significance and implications of our new political landscape. Trump was a vocal supporter of ethanol and the RFS on the campaign trail, and polling results show that an overwhelming majority of Midwestern voters in critical swing states who helped put him in office, over 80 percent, agreed with the president&rsquo;s position. We must make sure that the cabinet officials and their political staffs understand what it means to &ldquo;support a strong RFS&rdquo; from a policy-making perspective. In addition, we remain absolutely committed to securing a legislative fix for Reid vapor pressure (RVP). Given our success in expanding access to E15, it is paramount that retailers are not prevented from selling it year-round due to an arcane EPA rule. This is a message that should resonate beautifully with the reform-oriented incoming administration. To supplement our work in reaching policymakers, we also discussed how to engage consumers. We know through market research that when moms realize higher blends reduce the use of toxic additives, they will seek out this fuel. We know that when millennials know ethanol reduces greenhouse gas emissions they give it a second thought. These are our future customers. And Growth Energy is committed to meeting them in their preferred communications space with a message we know will resonate with their core values and beliefs.&nbsp; We are giving our members tools to share their stories with friends and neighbors, local press and social media communities. By empowering members and combining consumer outreach with advocacy, we ensure that our message becomes a call to action. It was an honor to be a part of such an energizing and inspiring event and I appreciate people taking the time to join us. The sharing of ideas among attendees and the obvious dedication to the industry exhibited by everyone in Miami left all of us at Growth Energy excited for what&rsquo;s in store. Our industry&rsquo;s strength comes from the people who live and breathe biofuels every day, and an event like the leadership conference certainly reinforces that notion. Author: Emily Skor CEO, Growth Energy 202-545-4000 eskor@growthenergy.org

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Growth Energy's annual leadership conference inspires and energizes, writes the organization's CEO in her March Drive column for Ethanol Producer Magazine. 

Celebrating Success, Finding Smartest Path Forward  

It&rsquo;s the early days of the Trump administration and already the signs of change are apparent as the new president fulfills his promise to shake up the establishment in Washington and return government to the people. One change we do not expect to see, however, is any retreat on the nation&rsquo;s renewable fuels policy. We believe the industry will continue to grow and thrive as President Trump puts America and American energy first. Why? Take what EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in his January confirmation hearing. &ldquo;To honor the intent and the expression of the renewable fuel standard statute is very, very important. It's not the job of the administrator or the EPA to do anything other than administer the program according to the intent of Congress. And I commit to you to do so,&rdquo; he told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Other members of his cabinet, including Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, will echo Trump&rsquo;s energy priorities. That&rsquo;s because they have gotten the message&mdash;Trump understands the value of strong, American energy policies like the renewable fuel standard (RFS). While on the campaign trail, Trump said &ldquo;the RFS&hellip;is an important tool in the mission to achieve energy independence to the United States. I will do all that is in my power as president to achieve that goal. As president, I will encourage Congress to be cautious in attempting to change any part of the RFS.&rdquo; Trump knows there&rsquo;s no reason to reverse course and we look forward to strong annual RFS rules under his administration. More importantly, we expect a heavy focus in the Trump administration on regulatory reform. Trump is committed to removing regulatory barriers that impede growth. Don&rsquo;t we have a long list of those?! Among the issues we would like addressed is removing the unnecessary volatility restrictions that have discouraged market acceptance of higher-level ethanol blends like E15 and created unreasonable administrative burdens on gasoline marketers willing to offer these fuels to consumers. EPA&rsquo;s regulations, which grant a summertime volatility waiver to E10 but not to any other ethanol blends, have created an uneven playing field for E15 and other higher-level blends. Under the Obama administration, EPA has stated it does not believe it has the statutory authority to extend the 1 psi RVP waiver to E15. We disagree and are hopeful the Trump administration is more amenable to this common-sense change. Meantime, we expect Trump and his administration to be much more supportive of our industry&rsquo;s export efforts. Under the Obama administration, our industry had been hampered by the European Union&rsquo;s illegal 9.5 percent antidumping duty. While the EU General Court last year invalidated certain ethanol duties, the European Commission has filed an appeal and the duties will be in place during that time. The U.S. Trade Representative under the Obama administration was reluctant to bring the case to the World Trade Organization. But this administration is all about American energy and we believe won&rsquo;t be afraid to fight back against unlawful trade restrictions. For example, we anticipate Trump&rsquo;s administration will vigorously oppose duties imposed by China on the coproduct of ethanol production, distillers dried grains. We look forward to having a strong ally in Terry Branstad, U.S. ambassador to China and the longest-serving governor of Iowa who, like Trump, understands the value of American agriculture. Trump is all about American business, American energy and American innovation. He will put America first. We look forward to working with his administration on ways to boost domestically produced ethanol, the lowest-cost, cleanest-octane transportation fuel on the planet. Author: Bob Dinneen President and CEO, Renewable Fuels Association 202-289-3835

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Trump is all about American business, American energy and American innovation, writes RFA's president and CEO in his March View from the Hill column. He looks forward to working with the administration to boost domestically produced ethanol.

President Trump: Putting American Energy First 

On numerous occasions I&rsquo;ve been told that E30 can be used in nonflex-fuel vehicle engines without concern, but until I read this month&rsquo;s cover story I wasn&rsquo;t sure we should be telling consumers to try it. After reading &ldquo;Passing the Test with Flying Colors,&rdquo; on page 28, I&rsquo;m convinced that modern engines are perfectly capable of using E30 without incident or risk. As EPM&rsquo;s Ann Bailey reports, Watertown, South Dakota-based Glacial Lakes Energy LLC sponsored an E30 Challenge to empirically prove that the midlevel blend is compatible with modern engines. Through consumer education and sound automotive science&mdash;they used data loggers plugged into onboard vehicle diagnostics&mdash;the team made history. They proved that model year 1996 and newer vehicles are able to adapt to E30, and even perform better on it. Fuel economy stayed the same (compared to E10) and no mechanical issues or &ldquo;check light&rdquo; incidents were reported. In essence, the cars liked it. In &ldquo;No Waiver? No Sense,&rdquo; on page 34,&nbsp; we report on E15&rsquo;s perplexing exclusion from the one-pound Reid vapor pressure (RVP) waiver given to its predecessor, E10. As Bailey reports, E15 actually has lower evaporative emissions than E10, so it almost defies logic that it wouldn&rsquo;t be granted the same regulatory exception. To date, the U.S. EPA has said the Clean Air Act amendment that allows for the waiver applies exclusively to E10, an interpretation our industry disagrees with. That&rsquo;s left E15 hamstrung by seasonal restrictions. Throughout much of the country, the fuel can&rsquo;t be sold from June 1 to Sept. 15, which has encumbered its adoption. While legislative channels of opposition are possible, our trade association leaders now hope the Trump administration&rsquo;s penchant for regulatory reform will yield a common sense one-pound RVP waiver for E15. Jumping from markets to maintenance, our page-38 story examines the unique challenges of repairing, reconditioning and rebuilding different types of ethanol plant equipment. In &ldquo;The Inside Story,&rdquo; EPM&rsquo;s Susanne Retka Schill reports on how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and after-service companies keep centrifuges, dryers and regenerative thermal oxidizers running with optimal availability and reliability. We learn that timely cleanings, periodic rebuilds, close adherence to OEM instructions, and patience, keep major equipment running better, longer and more safely. On page 42, we introduce readers to a new product that is improving the flowability of DDGS and making the product more nutritionally valuable. Freelance writer Debbie Sniderman reports on a Minnesota-based company applying a mineral additive to DDGS with a plethora of benefits. The product encapsulates and pulls moisture away from DDGS while enhancing the coproduct&rsquo;s mineral composition and color. Ethanol plants testing the product have reported many benefits including higher product yield, lower energy use, faster turns on rail equipment and less damage to rail cars. Sounds promising. &nbsp;&nbsp; Author: Tom Bryan President &amp; Editor in Chief tbryan@bbiinternational.com

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The March edition of EPM answers questions about RVP and E30, says EPM's editor-in-chief. Other articles cover reconditioning of key back-end equipment, along with a new DDGS treatment. 

Blending  the Rules 

Highland Pellets ended 2016 on a high note, successfully producing a test batch of pellets at its flagship pellet plant on New Year&rsquo;s Eve. The first few weeks of 2017 were spent making minor adjustments before the first of four 150,000-ton-capacity production lines were fired up in early February. Each line will be commissioned sequentially, with subsequent lines turned on every three months. On this schedule, the company hopes to reach full capacity in November.
Project developers chose the 209-acre Pine Bluff plant site because of the area&rsquo;s deep fiber basket and strong logistics chain to the Port of Greater Baton Rouge. Southern Yellow Pine from managed forests serves as the plant&rsquo;s feedstock source, with most coming from forest thinnings, in addition to tree tops, low-grade trees without an end market, and mill residuals. Although the pellets Highland produces with this raw material will service Drax Power Ltd.&rsquo;s power station in the U.K., the company recognizes what the pellet operation brings to U.S. soil. Highland Pellets&rsquo; founder, Tom Reilley, and his team believe wood pellets are an important new market for sustaining working forests. &ldquo;We are big fans of the industry, and we think it&rsquo;s really important that the sustainability story is told,&rdquo; Reilley says.&nbsp;
Sustainably sourcing raw material for the plant is estimated to result in 350 to 400 direct cutting and hauling jobs, which are in addition to the bookkeeper, tire salesman, gasoline attendant, spare parts manufacturer, banker and others beyond the forest. According to Reilley, construction of the plant resulted in up to 900 jobs on top of the plant&rsquo;s 68 direct employees.&nbsp; Design Difference Highland was only able to execute its vision effectively with the help of its partners, including Astec Inc., Wagner Construction, Nexus Program Management Group, Weyerhaeuser Services, Entergy Arkansas and Union Pacific. Astec supplied the vast majority of the plant equipment (conveyors, drying equipment, etc.) from its own group of Astec companies, allowing it to pre-engineer the plant. &ldquo;We design the equipment on a modular basis, so that means that most of the equipment is completed here in a shop environment, and is highly shippable,&rdquo; says Malcolm Swanson, president of Astec, from the company&rsquo;s headquarters in Chattanooga, Tennessee. &ldquo;That gives us better control of the construction of the equipment, and enables us to deliver equipment in a more completed and higher-quality state.&rdquo;
Astec channeled its decades of experience making asphalt plants into designing pellet operations. &ldquo;A lot of what we had in terms of equipment, knowledge and expertise were applicable, so it seemed to be a natural place to expand our business,&rdquo; Swanson says. Astec built and operated a 5-ton-per-hour prototype plant at its facilities in Chattanooga, prior to building full-scale. The Pine Bluff facility is Astec&rsquo;s second commercial pellet plant project, having completed previous work on Fram Renewable Energy&rsquo;s 500,000-metric-ton pellet plant in Hazlehurst, Georgia.
The Pine Bluff facility&rsquo;s production lines are built independent of each other for maximum redundancy and reliability. &ldquo;If a critical piece of equipment goes down on one line, the other three can continue to operate,&rdquo; says Jody Doak, Highland&rsquo;s plant manager. &ldquo;This is far from the norm, as most facilities rely on single pieces of critical equipment. Astec&rsquo;s design allows for redundancy in lines keeping facility downtime to a minimum.&rdquo;
Doak adds that in other areas of the mill internal to each individual line, Astec provides additional &ldquo;spares&rdquo; in the design. For example, four pellet mills are required for each line at full production rates, while five pellet mills are supplied. This spare gives Highland the capability of maintaining optimal production rates with minimal negative impact, should a piece of equipment fail. &ldquo;While we cannot have a spare for every step of the process, Astec has done a great job at identifying areas more prone to production challenges and designed around it,&rdquo; Doak says.
Andritz Inc. supplied the pellet plant with 20 PM30, 500-horsepower pellet mills, as well as ancillary equipment like conditioners and lubrication systems. &ldquo;Every bit of our equipment is there on-site, and line one is fully installed,&rdquo; says Mike Curci, Andritz North American capital sales manager for biomass. According to Curci, Andritz also signed an agreement to supply Highland with aftermarket support service for an extended length of time.
Another unique component to Astec&rsquo;s pellet plant design is its drying system, which differs from the conventional convection-type dryer. Highland uses a hot oil tube dryer, which rotates with approximately 550 tubes carrying&nbsp; heat transfer oil. &ldquo;The mechanism of providing heat for the drying process is by flow of oil through the tubes in the dryer, and then the material is tumbled over the heated tubes,&rdquo; Swanson says. &ldquo;The temperature of the tubes is around 500 to 550 degrees Fahrenheit, so it&rsquo;s a lot cooler than the convection dryers, and we think a safer dryer, and it&rsquo;s more gentle on material.&rdquo;
Even though this project is only the second commercial-scale pellet plant Astec has provided equipment for, it&rsquo;s gone smoothly. And for experienced civil contractor Wagner Construction Inc., it was the company&rsquo;s pellet project debut. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve been looking at different market segments,&rdquo; says Kalan Wagner, president of the company. &ldquo;The wood pellet industry is relatively new, and we looked at it as a market to get into.&rdquo; According to Wagner, the company&rsquo;s involvement consisted of first clearing and grubbing over 200 acres, then installing all of the site utilities and mass grading over 500,000 cubic yards of dirt. Wagner Construction also built a double-loop track railcar system for the project site, and completed all of the structure excavation and backfill for all of the pellet plant components.
The company was tasked with the extra challenge of stabilizing the soil, as the area received record rainfall, but Wagner says his crew was able to keep the civil portion of the project on schedule, which was a &ldquo;big feat.&rdquo; Although soil stabilization was needed to keep the project on track, he adds, the project essentially took one year from notice to proceed until the first pellets were produced. A portion of the Wagner Construction crew is still on the site completing structure excavation, backfill, placing aggregates and concrete paving, but Wagner estimates that the work will be complete within four or five months. &ldquo;The whole team on this project has worked together to produce a high-quality project on schedule and on budget,&rdquo; he says.
Other partners agree. &ldquo;Candidly, we&rsquo;ve been impressed by the way this project has gone, by what we&rsquo;re seeing thus far,&rdquo; says Ben Hubbard, Nexus PMG president. Nexus PMG represents Highland&rsquo;s construction team as independent engineering consultants. Half of Nexus PMG&rsquo;s business is working with private equity and commercial lenders, but the other half is focused on owner&rsquo;s engineering, which is the role it took on with the Highland team. The company was brought on during prefinancial close to put together the project execution plan, project schedule, and support in due-diligence efforts. During project execution, Nexus was tasked with managing all of the cost budgets, monitoring the contingency profile, handling change order requests from the contractors, and more.
Although this is Wagner&rsquo;s first pellet plant project, Nexus PMG is no stranger to the industry. &ldquo;We work pretty heavily in that space; we&rsquo;ve worked with many of the major wood pellet producers in North America, and we&rsquo;ve worked on various biomass power plant conversion projects in Europe, representing lenders, contractors and developers,&rdquo; Hubbard says. &ldquo;The Highland project is the first time we&rsquo;ve engaged with the Astec modular design, which is very different than your traditional black box design where you&rsquo;re sourcing all of the major equipment from various suppliers, and designing and assembling it yourself.&rdquo;
Because of the modular design, the main process areas are well understood at the start of the project, thus minimizing design and execution risk, according to Hubbard. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited to be part of a project that could potentially deliver pellets to the market much faster than any that we&rsquo;ve seen in our experience, and we&rsquo;ve seen quite a few,&rdquo; he says. Strong Logistics At full production, Highland could receive 160 truck deliveries of roundwood thinnings and mill residuals each day. &ldquo;All of our feedstock will come from recognized sustainable sources through our procurement agent, Weyerhaeuser,&rdquo; says Rob McKenzie, Highland&rsquo;s managing director. The company has built solid relationships with local foresters such as Bobby Taylor of Shelby Taylor Trucking, he adds, as well as the Arkansas Forestry Association, of which Highland is a member.
Sustainability is key for the company&rsquo;s operation, and it&rsquo;s currently undergoing certification through the Sustainable Biomass Partnership. Highland uses a track-and-trace system that is able to record the GPS location and contract number of every delivery of fiber that is brought to the site. &ldquo;The truck driver provides the weigh bridge with a ticket that has a bar code, so we can quickly scan all the data into our system to check that the fiber has been sourced from legal and sustainable land according to our contracts,&rdquo; McKenzie explains. &ldquo;If the truck does not have a correct ticket, then it does not enter our site.&rdquo;
Once the raw material arrives at the site, there will be different storage areas for the fiber, as well as for the final product after it&rsquo;s produced. &ldquo;We have five dedicated silos that are each capable of holding 1,000 metric tons,&rdquo; McKenzie says. &ldquo;We are also able to store pellets in spare rail cars.&rdquo;
Pellets for shipment are loaded into 5,700-cubic-foot enclosed rail cars by an overhead hopper. Each car will be able to hold about 89 metric tons. &ldquo;We will then use Union Pacific mainline rail to transport the pellets directly to the Port of Greater Baton Rouge using unit trains that will be 80 to 100 cars in length, with six to seven trains per month at full capacity,&rdquo; McKenzie says.
The cars are unloaded by gates below each car into a rail dump at the port before returning to Pine Bluff. &ldquo;The total turnaround time for each train will be four to five days, depending on train length,&rdquo; McKenzie says. &ldquo;We will have enough rail cars to fill two unit trains, so as soon as the train returns to our site, we will have the cars loaded to dispatch the next unit train.&rdquo; Long-Term Bullish Come May, Highland&rsquo;s pellets will ship to Drax via Supramax or Panamax vessels, depending on the delivery schedule. Drax Biomass owns the storage domes and loading equipment at the port. According to Reilley, Highland's delivery of pellets to the port, combined with Drax&rsquo;s existing pellet infrastructure, has been a huge success story for the port. &ldquo;This has led the port to commit to expanding the rail infrastructure at the port to enable delivery of longer unit trains,&rdquo; he says.
Highland Pellets also plans on expanding. &ldquo;Now that our business model has been proven, we are excited to explore other sites in Stephens, Arkansas, and in Enterprise, Mississippi,&rdquo; Reilley says. The company is currently pursuing the requisite permitting requirements.
If built, Reilley says, these would be 600,000-plus-metric-ton pellet facilities, similar in design and contract chain to the facility at Pine Bluff. Highland is targeting Stephens as its next site, and, if developed, it would supply the Port of Greater Baton Rouge with a further 600,000 metric tons of pellets. Reilley says they are in discussion with other European and Japanese customers regarding supply from the south Arkansas and Enterprise development sites, but which will be utilized, and when, depends on securing an offtake contract, and the customer preference for which port used for export.
As project developers and partners know, developments such as Pine Bluff take considerable time. In fact, the facility saw a delay from its original March 2016 completion date, due to the successive number of regulatory and political developments that increased market uncertainty and prevented buyers from being able to commit to an offtake. These included the European Commission&rsquo;s lengthy state aid investigation into the U.K. government&rsquo;s award of a contract for difference for a Drax unit conversion, the end of renewable obligation certificate grandfathering, a U.K. election outcome that raised significant questions about the country&rsquo;s future energy policies, the end of renewable exemption from the U.K. Climate Change Levy, and the Levy Control Framework budget overspend, which led to widespread reduction in subsidies for some renewable technologies. &ldquo;The industry needs periods of political and regulatory stability in order to be able to make significant long-term investments,&rdquo; Reilley says. Another consideration for project development, he adds, has been the local workforce. &ldquo;Our experience with the people of Pine Bluff has been inspiring and uplifting.&rdquo;
Highland is long-term bullish about the future of the market, and so are its industry partners. Curci says Andritz expects the company and industry to continue to grow for several more years in regions throughout North America and abroad. &ldquo;We look forward to see what the future has for many years in the space, and continue in development and process improvement,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Also, we continue to work on improving the machinery to reduce the operational cost and production of pellets.&rdquo;
Astec, too, hopes to continue working in the industry, using its success stories with Fram and Highland as leverage. &ldquo;The whole industry is in a little bit of a lull at the moment, but those in the industry who should know are saying it will be a short-lived lull,&rdquo; Swanson says. &ldquo;We are working on proposals for projects that other companies are currently planning to put together.&rdquo; Author: Katie Fletcher Associate Editor, Biomass Magazine 701-738-4920 kfletcher@bbiinternational.com

A total of 68 direct employees will work in four different rotating crews 24/7 at Highlandâ€™s Pine Bluff pellet plant, once operational. The $200 million plant, including financing costs and contingencies, is budgeted for 7,500 hours of operation a 

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Highland Pellets undertook four sustainability audits with NSF International during December, and has already received three certifications. Highland hopes to achieve SBP certification within the next couple of months. 

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As its primary process heat source, Highland Pellets' Pine Bluff plant burns wet bark in a Sigma Thermal bark-burning furnace. One furnace is used for each line.

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While pellets produced at Highland Pellets' new facility leave for overseas, the benefits remain in the surrounding community of Pine Bluff, Arkansas. 

True  Sustainability  in Pine Bluff

Vancouver, British Columbia-based Cielo Waste Solutions Corp. is a penny stock traded on the Canadian Securities Exchange operated by CNSX Markets Inc., which was recognized as a stock exchange in 2004. The CSE is described as an &ldquo;alternative stock exchange.&rdquo;
Some larger public companies trading on major stock exchanges are unwilling to share anything outside of what&rsquo;s been presented in press releases, filings and required documentation, while smaller penny-stock businesses traded on securities exchanges are often more willing to discuss plans, visions and intentions. The lingo of publicly traded companies is a complex language unto itself&mdash;convertible debentures, private placements, tranches, public shells, exercisable warrants. Ironically, the disclosure requirements for public companies necessitate transparency but deciphering the code and navigating the trail of meandering business deals can be challenging. One phrase used often by these firms, however, is the all-too-clear &ldquo;forward-looking statements.&rdquo;
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says the term &ldquo;penny stock&rdquo; refers to a security issued by a very small company that trades at less than $5 per share. Penny stocks are commonly quoted over-the-counter, but they may also trade on securities exchanges. &ldquo;Penny stocks are generally considered speculative investments,&rdquo; states the SEC. &ldquo;Consequently, investors in penny stocks should be prepared for the possibility that they may lose their whole investment.&rdquo;
CWS has been developing its technology, designed to convert a myriad of refuse feedstock into renewable diesel, for 13 years at a cost of $16 million, says CEO Don Allan. &ldquo;And $9 million of that came from my own family,&rdquo; he says. The technology is referred to as thermal catalytic depolymerization (TCD).
Allan says his background is in mechanical engineering and, on the business management side, specializing in &ldquo;small companies that are in rough shape, taking them to international standards, and selling them off,&rdquo; he tells Biomass Magazine. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve done it a few times, building corporations up.&rdquo; After being asked to help save an anhydrous ammonia plant in northern Alberta&rsquo;s oil sands as natural gas prices rose above $6, Allan thought to use the hydrogen reformer on-site to lighten heavy crude. &ldquo;I thought it was a good business model, but we found out it was going to be a multibillion-dollar upgrade,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;Our budget went from $800 million to $2.3 billion and there was no longer a return on investment.&rdquo;
Afterward, with the employ of Canadian engineers, Allan says he began to focus on waste-to-energy technologies, including gasification. &ldquo;We felt it wasn&rsquo;t enough of a return on investment creating power out of gasification technologies,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;so we began looking for a higher return. We found some technologies using waste to make low-grade fuel, and we began putting a lot of money into them, but we were frustrated with their abilities. So we ended up buying the only existing plant in the world that could do what we wanted to do. We brought it back here to Alberta, changed the technology significantly and changed the catalyst for our thermal catalytic depolymerization process. We conducted an international patent search and didn&rsquo;t find anything like this, so we decided to move forward.&rdquo;
Michael Yeung, a business development and financial advisor to CWS, says there&rsquo;s a lot of interest in CWS&rsquo;s TCD technology to produce renewable diesel from trash. &ldquo;The waste industry is the fastest growing one we have today&mdash;everyone&rsquo;s got a garbage problem,&rdquo; Yeung says. &ldquo;The biggest hurdle now is finding the right investors to step in at this current moment.&rdquo;
The roots of CWS and its demo plant are in gold and mineral mining and oil exploration. CWS was previously called Cielo Gold Corp. until the company changed direction and its name in 2013. The demo plant was property of Blue Horizon Bio-diesel (BHBD) owned by Blue Horizon Industries, also involved in mining, construction and oil exploration. &ldquo;It was obvious to us that if we were going to raise capital, we were going to require a public shell to purchase, as the shareholders investing into green companies would not be happy with the mining and oil exploration companies,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;We looked at Northcore Technologies as the public shell, as it had $800,000 cash and was listed on a larger stock exchange than Cielo Gold. It turned out that we found many issues that we could not overcome, so we decided to drop the purchase of the company. Cielo Gold was an empty shell with no assets, so it was a simple purchase, and then a change of name and direction for the company.&rdquo;
As for the demo plant, Allan says CWS operated the facility for four years but didn&rsquo;t complete the purchase from BHBD to Cielo until fall 2016. &ldquo;There was no rush to do this, but it was the last asset in BHBD, and now we are winding that [company] down, so the time was right to make the final transfer. I am president of BHBD, so there was never any issue of the sale or timing.&rdquo;
Allan says he spent years working on catalyst development to process municipal solid waste, and then a number of different feedstocks. &ldquo;We then spent two years working on catalyst vs. various feedstocks and determined the best all-purpose catalyst,&rdquo; he says. CWS hired a company named 1888711 Alberta Inc., which was incorporated April 2015, to further develop the technology, Allan says. &ldquo;They had the engineers and financing to complete the work we had been doing. We then agreed to pay them a royalty for their investment, and signed a world licensing agreement with them &hellip; We&rsquo;ve engineered this thing to death, and we&rsquo;re hoping to write the patent in the next few months covering the U.S. and Canada.&rdquo;
On June 24, 2014, CWS entered into an agreement with Seattle-based New Fuel International Inc., which gave NFI the exclusive right to market and produce renewable biofuel derived from industrial biomass waste streams, initially in the U.S. states of California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska, and the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Ontario. NFI&rsquo;s responsibilities were to include securing biomass feedstock, triggering offtake agreements, managing operations, marketing, sales, and providing financing for the different NFI projects. At that point, NFI was incorporated for less than three weeks. When asked about this, Allan says, &ldquo;NFI was a small buyer of biodiesel and renewable fuels based in Spokane, but we [subsequently] decided to let this contract lapse and sign with a much larger buyer, Elbow River Marketing, as they are local and we would like to sell our product here in Alberta, as it would significantly be an advantage over the importers.&rdquo;
In March 2016, CWS signed a long-term lease for more than 2 acres and a right of first refusal on an additional 8 acres in Edmonton. &ldquo;And there&rsquo;s another 100 acres behind that,&rdquo; Allan says. Here CWS planned to build a 1,000-liter-per-hour refinery using its TCD technology. The site is in Edmonton&rsquo;s Heartland Industrial area on a major highway close to suppliers, buyers and manufacturers. &ldquo;We always planned to have that as our startup,&rdquo; or first commercial proving grounds, for CWS&rsquo;s TCD technology to produce renewable diesel from waste. &ldquo;Then, when the opportunity came along to pick up an idle biodiesel plant, we thought that was much quicker and less risk.&rdquo; High River In November, CWS announced the signing of a commercial purchase agreement with XR Resources Inc. to buy property in High River, Alberta, near Calgary, which includes a 16 MMly (4.2 MMgy) biodiesel plant formerly owned by Western Biodiesel Inc. Allan says the plant was built in 2009 for $10.2 million, and shut down in 2013. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s in good shape,&rdquo; he says. The purchase price was for $2.3 million, with 5 million common shares at 6 cents apiece, and $2 million in cash. Allan says construction costs to retrofit the plant will be an additional $6.3 million. The company is conducting two private placements to raise that cash&mdash;one for the construction costs, and another $1 million for operating capital. Yeung says although the company is still in the middle of raising the construction funds, CWS has strong indications this will come through. &ldquo;The team is ecstatic,&rdquo; Yeung says.
&ldquo;The High River plant&mdash;we&rsquo;re not putting any lipstick on it,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s cheap, dirty and will have a lot of used material. We plan to put the least amount of money possible to prove our technology works.&rdquo; The plan is to start with 1,000 liters per hour, or slightly more than 2 MMgy. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re designing for a much larger plant, but want to be conservative,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;We want to walk this up nice and slowly. We don&rsquo;t want to risk 13 years and $16 million.&rdquo; He says the biodiesel technology itself is stripped out of the plant. &ldquo;Basically what&rsquo;s left behind is what we can use&mdash;the tank farm, boilers, coolers, the lab, offices,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;A lot of these pieces lower our capital expenses by 40 percent and speeds us through construction.&rdquo;
CWS is not investing in feedstock handling and preparation in High River either, as the company plans to use sawdust supplied by Parkland Chip Products Ltd. &ldquo;We have enough feedstock in place for the first six plants,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;One in High River and five in Edmonton.&rdquo;
The process will begin with sawdust being delivered in a 53-foot truck. The product will move to a hopper, and then to silos. Allan says the feedstock must be mixed with a medium to create a slurry, otherwise, it plugs up operations. &ldquo;We could use animal tallow, yellow grease or canola, but that&rsquo;s too expensive,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We thought about using heavy oil from up north, but we decided on used motor oil, it&rsquo;s very inexpensive.&rdquo; In March 2016, CWS signed a multiyear agreement with Dipper Oil Recycling for the purchase of used motor oil. Allan says the oil and sawdust are blended in a 50/50 ratio. The idea is to continuously recycle the oil, but Allan says a small percentage of it gets cracked in the process and becomes part of the finished fuel. &ldquo;About 8 percent gets turned into diesel,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not looking to crack that. At first we were cracking way more than we wanted to, so it was important to find a catalyst that wouldn&rsquo;t crack the used motor oil. We&rsquo;re down to between 6 and 8 percent now that still gets converted. We&rsquo;re trying to recycle as much of that as possible.&rdquo;
The materials will be blended and heated, and then enter a dehydration process to remove moisture followed by a desulfurization process. From there, the pretreated feedstock will enter a reaction tower in which the zeolite-based proprietary catalyst is introduced. After reaction, the product will move to a fractionation tower out of which will be distilled three products: naphtha, kerosene and diesel. Allan says the residual waste product will be run through one more reactor to further break it down into more naphtha, kerosene and diesel. Then, different fuel conditioning tanks will be utilized to meet client specifications, he says. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll have a small waste stream&mdash;sulfur, asphalt and water that we dispose of,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;We will use a flare stack, but we will not flare on a regular basis, just in emergencies.&rdquo;
The process is intolerant of water, he adds, so CWS will spend a lot of money making sure the product is dry. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t put more than 2 percent moisture in the process,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;Steam is a real problem. We run at atmospheric pressure. Our reaction time from the reactor to the frac tower is seconds. As soon as the catalyst hits the feedstock, it converts within two seconds. Normally, it takes 15 to 18 seconds, so our energy costs are minute, comparatively.&rdquo;
Just days after announcing its intention to purchase the old Western Biodiesel plant, CWS announced it had awarded construction contracts for the retrofit. The fabrication work will be provided by Advanced Metal &amp; Lyncorp Manufacturing Ltd. just down the road. The electrical and instrumentation work has been awarded to Electech Contracting Ltd. out of Calgary. Kwik-Fab Energy Services in Sundre, Alberta, will perform millwright work. Kwik-Fab worked closely with CWS on maintenance services at its demo plant in Red Deer, according to CWS. &ldquo;It's been a great experience to work on the demo plant with Cielo and Don,&rdquo; Mark Haldane, vice president of operations at Kwik-Fab, stated in CWS&rsquo;s press release. &ldquo;In addition to the opportunity to bring diversity into a new industry, it&rsquo;s been particularly exciting to witness and be a part of this new technology. I believe it&rsquo;s an excellent opportunity for us and everyone involved.&rdquo; CWS says the contracted construction companies have agreed to assist CWS in financing the retrofit by deferring profits until the plant is operational and earning revenues.
One of the main differences between the demo process and the one to be employed in High River is the need to move from batch to continuous operations. &ldquo;We need to run continuously,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s where the risk is. Also, the amount of catalyst we use for the cracking&mdash;if we use three times more than we planned for, that&rsquo;ll change our economics. But we believe the catalyst will work. We spent four years on it, we&rsquo;re very confident we&rsquo;ve eliminated that risk.&rdquo; The small size of CWS&rsquo;s first commercial plant, 2 MMgy, is critical, too, he says. &ldquo;If we have problems, it&rsquo;ll be tens of thousands of dollars to fix vs. tens of millions. So that&rsquo;s a good reason start small and walk it up from there. That&rsquo;s our business philosophy. Our competitors need scale but, for us, we&rsquo;re using such cheap feedstock we can start small and walk it up.&rdquo;
Allan claims the renewable diesel produced in CWS&rsquo;s process is functional down to minus 120 degrees Celsius (minus 184 Fahrenheit). &ldquo;It has no freezing point that we have found,&rdquo; he says. His plan is to supply the oft-frigid Canadian markets with fuel to help meet federal and provincial biomass-based diesel mandates and reduce the need for imported product. &ldquo;The governments keep increasing the mandates, but nobody is producing up here,&rdquo; Allan says. &ldquo;And it&rsquo;s important to say we&rsquo;ve built this company without subsidies. We need to know that we can operate with whatever government is in place. We need to be profitable, and we&rsquo;ve done that. We know we can compete with fossil fuels, even if the mandates fell aside.&rdquo;
He says, &ldquo;fingers crossed,&rdquo; High River should be producing by fall 2017. Once that is commissioned and the company gets comfortable with operations and performance, the plan is to double capacity on-site. Afterward, CWS intends to concentrate on the Edmonton site where it can build production units modularly. Allan says he hopes to break ground there by Q1 2018.
&ldquo;When we first commercially produce, this will be an exciting, exciting stock to watch,&rdquo; Yeung says. &ldquo;A world changer.&rdquo; With its precious metal mining roots, whether CWS can turn trash into gold&mdash;or its dreams into cash returns for investors&mdash;remains to be seen. Author: Ron Kotrba Senior Editor, Biomass Magazine 218-745-8347 rkotrba@bbiinternational.com

Cielo Waste Solutions Corp. interrupted its business plans to commercialize the companyâ€™s renewable diesel technology from the ground up in Edmonton, Alberta, when it purchased the abandoned Western Biodiesel plant near Calgary. 

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With help from investors, Cielo Waste Solutions Corp. plans to fast-track deployment of its renewable diesel technology at a shuttered, gutted biodiesel plant in Alberta. 

Commercial Proving Grounds

The first few weeks of President Trump in office have created both a new fascination with Washington, D.C., and uncertainty surrounding the renewable fuel standard (RFS) program. If uncertainty is a bad word for business and a good word for traders, we will have plenty of both unhappy and happy people, respectively, with the state of the renewable fuels sector.
Given this state, I would like to provide an overview of the outstanding issues confronting the industry writ large, in hopes of honing in on the true priorities for the industry over the next six months. First, we must finalize the 2017 renewable volume obligation (RVO) rule for the RFS program. Second, we must push for the 2018 mandates to be published before the Nov. 30 deadline to send a strong signal for next year. Third, we must support the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s denial of the petitions to move the point of obligation under the RFS. Finally, we must engage on tax reform proposals, as alterations to tax policy have the potential to help or hinder the development of our industry, particularly biodiesel and advanced cellulosic fuels.&nbsp;&nbsp;
The 2017 RVO rule, finalized in November, was caught in the melee of the new administration&rsquo;s regulatory reform efforts, which froze all regulations issued by the Obama administration between Oct. 30 and Jan. 20. If the new administration chooses to, it could tinker with the final numbers by engaging in a process to review the current mandates, propose an alternative, and solicit comments on the revisions. It goes without saying that the annual RVO rule is the bedrock of the RFS program, and the EPA&rsquo;s timely publication of the mandates for ethanol, biomass-based diesel, and cellulosic fuels is essential. Although I believe chances are low that the new administration will attempt to alter the 2017 RVO rule, it is incumbent upon all parties in the renewable fuels sector to encourage the new administrator to finalize the existing rule, as proposed, without delay.
Second, the new administration will have to hit the ground running to propose the 2018 RVO rule for public comment by early June. We should work with the EPA to keep the process on schedule, for we all remember vividly how strong the negative impact was when it took the EPA three years to publish the RVOs for 2013, 2014 and 2015. The industry&mdash;and particularly the advanced industry&mdash;cannot stand to be left in suspended animation for more time if we are going to support the RFS program&rsquo;s growth.
Third, moving the point of obligation is a Trojan horse. Doing so would lead to the demise of the RFS by fundamentally shifting the power at the fuels distribution rack, and raising overall prices for both sellers and consumers of fuels across the country. Ironically, the very people who chose not to invest in compliance with the RFS program would be the ones rewarded with market power. Parties that had worked toward compliance would be left paying the bill. Therefore, we must comment in support of the EPA&rsquo;s published denial of the petitions to move the point of obligation.&nbsp;
Fourth, tax reform is on the agenda, and we must come to the table to participate in this effort. On the offense, we have an opportunity to extend the biodiesel blenders credit and the second-generation and alternative fuels credits. On the defense, the industry stands to be affected by the border adjustment tax, as it may impact many of our customers. These are complex and weighty issues, but we must remain informed and actively participate in these negotiations to protect our markets, our sellers, and our end users. The current proposal on the border adjustment tax would shift over a trillion dollars in the economy, a risky move without a firm understanding of the winners and losers in such a shift.
A final note: As always, we must continue to support the budget and rulemakings in the various agencies that we rely on for permits and pathway approvals under the RFS program. Let&rsquo;s be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.&nbsp;
This year is shaping up to be a most fluid and challenging year. Mark some dates on your calendar to visit Washington, D.C., in the coming months. As we engage with the Congress and the administration in this brave new world, our industry&rsquo;s engagement will be imperative. Author: Michael McAdams President, Advanced Biofuels Association michael.mcadams@hklaw.com www.advancedbiofuelsassociation.com

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Advanced Biofuel Association President Michael McAdams provides an overview of the outstanding issues confronting the industry, and outlines priorities of the next six months. 

The RFS in 2017: A Brave New World 

Its 10th century B.C., and you walk into one of several heated baths in the Assyrian Empires capital after a long, hot day. In 16th century A.D., you do the same with Persian baths.&nbsp; In Victorian London, you find yourself walking along the streets of a lighted city. What do these events in history have in common?&nbsp; They all utilize that same source of energy, one of the oldest and most renewable sources of energy: biogas from anaerobic digestion.&nbsp;
Even without technological advances or engineering marvels, the baths of Persia, Assyria and others, as well as the lighted lamps of Victorian London, operated efficiently and without fail.&nbsp; Of the more common renewable energy sources, biogas is one of the oldest, and the most sustainable.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
The anaerobic digestion process, unlike most any other energy-producing process, relies upon a workforce we do not see&mdash;microbes that consist of bacteria and methanogens working hand-in-hand to achieve the best results they can. In their world, perfection is making the most available food sources accessible for the next in their assembly line. To give equally for what they take, the bacteria work to break down the carbon compounds into lower fatty acid chains, or volatile fatty acids, which methanogens use to convert with hydrogen into methane gas. Along with producing low-chain carbons, many of these bacteria also produce hydrogen as a waste product, or a more complex carbon dioxide gas (CO2). Methanogens use these volatile fatty acids and CO2&nbsp; as food sources, and the hydrogen as an energy source to produce methane gas.
By ensuring we have the right bacteria to work in conjecture with our friendly neighborhood methanogens, we can achieve higher than anticipated yields. Ever wonder why some digesters thrive at 75 percent methane, and other stumble and struggle at 40 percent? Engineering does play a part in this, but not as significantly as one may think. Biology is equally important. Knowing which biology works best for the feedstocks you have is a vital component to your success. To determine this without impairing or risking the success of your current production, we are called to utilize Biochemical Methane Potential Test Systems (BMP), methods by which we can simulate our exact criteria, mixing timings and speeds, and operating temperatures. Using exact feedstocks makes a difference, as the naturally occurring biology is different in one region then it is in another. We may find strong sulfate-consuming bacteria as a part of a recipe in sulfur-rich water regions, but find more aggressive, carbon-hungry munchers like Clostridium in another region. It is vital to use what exists naturally, and find a compliment to help it work more effectively. To do this, one may find that simple enzymes that stimulate current biology may be enough, other times we one may find the need to introduce additional bacteria to help break down those longer chain bacteria. Whatever the solution, in the era in which we live, there are plenty of options, and plenty of opportunities to find the right solutions. It may take 10 attempts, maybe even 20, but if one is patient and continues to pound at it, the most fitting solution for the digester will be found.&nbsp;
Technology has advanced over the millennium since man discovered anaerobic digestion, but only recently, with growth of our understanding of the microbial world, have we come to understand the use of outside microbial additives. This understanding is new, and even our understanding of the microbes themselves is still evolving.&nbsp; It has only been in the last couple decades that we understood that Archaea (the class of organisms that methanogens belong to) is not even a true bacterium. The world went through its technical revolution, and is now entering what one could refer to as the microbial revolution. Where we once thought everything needed to be steamed and made void of biology, we now understand that some of these biological entities are our friends. This friendship extends to our energy production within anaerobic digestion.
Often, it&rsquo;s mistakenly assumed that this biology will evolve to suit our needs, and forgotten that these organisms are subjective to specific living conditions. Overloading with metals or minerals can become toxic. Digesters can obtain upset stomachs and upset biology, just as we do. Just as occasionally we are required to watch our diet, we need to do the same for our digesters.
In the end, we wish to see methane gas, CH4, in the highest possible form. We know from research and practical application that we can see 70 percent CH4 or, on occasion higher, in a healthy digester system. So how do we get there?&nbsp; How do we get to the Holy Grail that we all know is possible but struggle so aimlessly to acquire?&nbsp; The thing to understand is this: CH4 is produced by methanogens, and methanogens prefer fatty acid chains that are 1-6 carbons in length, simple foods. These fatty acids are known as volatile fatty acids. For this to occur, enter our trusty bacteria friends.&nbsp;
The process of breaking down the fatty acid chains is likely the most important step in the entire process. To break these medium- to long-chain fatty acids, and even very long-chain fatty acids, down into simpler fatty acid chains that the methanogens can consume, is a key to every digester&rsquo;s efficiency.&nbsp; Whether we break down these chains using ultrasonic or other mechanical methodologies, spend our resources working to ensure the right biology is present, or even a combination of both, this is the key stage for an anaerobic digester&rsquo;s productivity. How well these fatty acid chains get broken down into more amiable forms is what allows a digester to be successful.
So how can one determine the right bacterial amendment for a digester?&nbsp; The simplest means is to perform side-by-side BMP analysis utilizing the standard operational procedure and typical feedstocks, against potential biological additives offered in the industry. In this manner, one can dictate the production capabilities of a digester with and without these biological additives, answering whether or not it is worth the cost, time and the effort. Do these additives result in enough increase to justify those costs?&nbsp; In my experience, I have yet to encounter a situation in which we did not find a product that was the perfect solution to far exceed current production levels. In some cases, these increases were to the magnitude of 200 percent increases. In others, it was a meager 30 percent increase in production, but for over 20 digester simulations, we have seen increases 100 percent of the time over the standard input.
BMPs and biologicals are a very important tool combination for anaerobic digesters. Many debate the efficiency of BMP work as being typically 25 to 30 percent, but the reality is in the way the BMP work is completed.&nbsp; If it uses a biological inoculant that the digester is not utilizing, then the overall results can easily be 25 percent, or even 50 percent off.
Why are BMP results so different than actual real life results? If you seed your digester only once, the benefits of the introduced bacteria are lost over time, as these populations either wither away or are diluted to nonexistence. A BMP is a batch reactor, working under the assumption that the digester is fed the same constantly, with the right blends of nutrients and metals. Staff should be well-enough educated to look for red flags, and to know the yellow flags when they first appear. Ensure your digester is always kept well-trained and in top mechanical condition, working to its best ability. Don&rsquo;t shortchange your success by limiting your digester&rsquo;s biological capability to fully process carbon into energy. Your biology is one-third your success. As in business, the difference between the red and the black can sometimes be as small as a 10 percent factor.&nbsp;
Where there is a will, there is a way. Find the will to succeed by applying today&rsquo;s sciences and technologies to your digester&rsquo;s successful operations. Author: Will Charlton President, Digester Doc wcharlton@digesterdoc.com 208-731-3234
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
CONTRIBUTION: The claims and statements made in this article belong exclusively to the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Biomass Magazine or its advertisers. All questions pertaining to this article should be directed to the author(s).

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Ensuring a digester has the right bacteria to work in conjecture with methanogens can lead to higher-than-anticipated yields and a more profitable operation.

Biologicals and BMPS: A Modern  Digester's Blueprint for Success

In January 1982, the same year that a small welding and manufacturing company in Bark River in Michigan&rsquo;s Upper Peninsula was officially incorporated,&nbsp; it built and installed a biomass heating system at the nearby North Central Area&rsquo;s high school building in Powers, Michigan. The area surrounding the community of Powers is rich in timber, and the school, hoping to capitalize on abundant streams of waste wood, made the decision to heat its facility with biomass. The project was the first of its kind for Messersmith Manufacturing Inc., and it provided the young company with a successful case study it could point to, right in its own backyard.
The system was built in parallel to the existing natural gas system, tucked neatly into the basement of the school. When the facility was built, the school received fuel deliveries in much smaller quantities, typically by small, dump-truck sized loads. At the time, the on-site storage capabilities were well suited for the existing waste wood collection and delivery infrastructure. This didn&rsquo;t last long, however, and eventually, the fuel delivery infrastructure completely outgrew the fuel receiving operation.
Brett Harter, head of maintenance and transportation at North Central Area School, joined the district staff in time to have operated the original system. &ldquo;It would take anywhere from an hour and a half to three hours to unload a truck, because the biomass would go into a hopper and up through a conveyor, and on to another conveyor in the building that would spread it out,&rdquo; he says.
The system became finicky in its old age, Harter says. &ldquo;It had been revamped a bit in 1994, but the chip delivery system was completely worn out, the augers and things like that.&rdquo; Back then, the challenge for Harter was that toward the end of its useful life, the chip handling system required daily monitoring. &ldquo;I was there seven days a week,&rdquo; Harter says. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d have to go there every day. If I let it go too long, and there was a belt off or something, you&rsquo;d wind up with one heck of a mess.&rdquo; Specifically, Harter pointed to a metering bin that, when full, had a flapper mechanism that would turn off the conveyors that fed it with new chips. On more than one occasion, the flapper mechanism failed, and an entire truckload of chips would overwhelm the metering bin, filling the room with chips. For Harter, this meant the better part of a morning shoveling chips by hand.
The team at Messersmith, many of them just kids when the original system was installed, recognized that the school&rsquo;s boiler and chip handling system was in a need of an overhaul. &ldquo;The problem really was that it would take the better part of day to get the fuel from where it was delivered outside into the storage area,&rdquo; says Jeremy Mortl, president at Messersmith. &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t a good place to park a truck to make a fuel delivery that made sense for where it was ultimately stored. That was a big struggle.&rdquo;
A number of other capital projects, including new parking lots and some new buses, led the district to launch a bond initiative and the timing seemed right to capitalize an overhaul of the biomass heating system. &ldquo;They called us up,&rdquo; Mortl says.&nbsp; &ldquo;The district just doesn&rsquo;t have time to maintain a boiler or service any issues that may come up. They needed something that had minimal maintenance. Their other desire was to have more fuel storage capabilities. They wanted an easier solution to get their fuels into their fuel storage area.&rdquo;
The first challenge the Messersmith team had to confront was positioning a new fuel handling facility in a way that would allow a truck to get in, unload, and get out with the greatest ease. The school building sits on a relatively small footprint, and both Messersmith and the district knew that gobbling up even more already limited parking space would not be popular. &ldquo;We had to come up with the best solution for a building layout so that they could get truck and trailer in there, get it turned around, and empty fuel into the bin,&rdquo; Mortl says. A local engineering firm was hired, and together, the companies worked up a plan for a covered building that would not only receive fuel deliveries, but also hold a combustion unit, a boiler and the associated piping and control systems.
This collaboration led to an initial design concept that Mortl describes as &ldquo;pretty close&rdquo; to what was eventually built. &ldquo;The one change the district made to the initial design was to have more fuel storage capability than what we had originally drawn up,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They can take more than one full truckload of fuel now. Plus, it makes it nice for them in the summer time. When there is no fuel in that bin, they can keep a couple of pieces of equipment in there.&rdquo;
The final design included a 93-foot by 24-foot building, and with over 1,000 square feet of that space dedicated to fuel storage, over 50 tons of wood chips can be held on-site, enough to feed the boiler for nearly three weeks in the coldest days of winter. Also included in the project was a traveling auger design that Messersmith invented. &ldquo;There is an auger that travels along a beam in a carriage system,&rdquo; Mortl says. &ldquo;That carriage will travel along the 60-foot length of the beam, and the auger will move material onto the belt conveying system. There are carbide teeth built into that auger system so that if frozen or compacted fuel comes into the building, those carbide teeth will chew it up, break it apart, and move it onto the belt conveying system.&rdquo; Tight Construction Window A unique challenge confronting the design and construction team was the limited time frame that comes with doing work for schools. Groundbreaking wasn&rsquo;t held until the day after school let out for the summer. Once the property was vacated, building began in earnest.
The concrete work was completed first. A three-and-a-half-inch pad, with larger footings to support the weight of the combustion unit and boiler, was engineered and poured. Once that was complete, a crane set in the Messersmith combustion unit, and atop that, a 2.5 million MMBtu Hurst boiler. The heat output closely matches the district&rsquo;s old system, but Mortl highlights the dramatically increased efficiencies in the new boiler. &ldquo;The old boiler worked just fine,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But it was 30 years old.&rdquo;
One advantage that Messersmith uses to make the most of short construction timeframes is its in-house fabrication capabilities. While the demolition, excavation and concrete work were being done at the school, Messersmith&rsquo;s welders were building the combustion unit, the fuel handling system and all of the ladders and catwalks for the facility. &ldquo;The same crew of people who manufacture the equipment are the same ones who go and do the installation on it as well,&rdquo; Mortl says. &ldquo;This is one of the more unique things we do. We are a turnkey solution in that way.&rdquo;
Once the main components were in place, the general contractor began erecting the building around the new system. Work progressed throughout the summer, and the system was still being buttoned up when the late summer temperatures finally gave way to early fall, and the oncoming heating season. &ldquo;We fired up the system Nov. 14,&rdquo; Harter says. &ldquo;They were still just finishing up the electrical inside the building.&rdquo;
For Harter, the transition to the new system couldn&rsquo;t have been easier. The control systems are virtually the same, and there is no longer day-to-day worry over the fuel handling system. For him, the biggest challenge has been letting go of his old habits. &ldquo;If I go by there on a weekend, I&rsquo;ll stop by,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;But I don&rsquo;t have to. On Friday night, I&rsquo;ll make sure the ash bins are empty, and I won't see the system again until Monday morning.&rdquo;
The extent of Harter&rsquo;s weekly routine, which was once characterized by time-consuming repairs, is now emptying ash bins and sweeping, he adds. &ldquo;This new system, it&rsquo;s just a world of difference.&rdquo;
Author: Tim Portz Executive Editor, Biomass Magazine 701-738-4969 tportz@bbiinternational.com

A Messersmith Manufacturing combustion unit sits beneath a 2.5 million MMBtu boiler at the North Central Area junior high and high school in Powers, Michigan.  

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After 30-plus years of operation, a biomass heating system at a school in Michigan's Upper Peninsula was replaced by the company that originally built it.

North Central Area's Biomass Reboot

The Biomass Thermal Utilization Act (BTU Act), a federal investment tax credit on high-efficiency biomass heating systems, will be one of the Biomass Thermal Energy Council's top priorities again this year. In 2016, the BTU Act came closer than ever to becoming law. With this momentum, last Congress&rsquo;s champions of BTU Act, Maine Sens. Angus King and Susan Collins, have agreed to spearhead the proposal again. Other efforts to achieve tax parity for biomass at the national level might be bolstered by the new Congress&rsquo;s priority to reform the U.S. tax code. These efforts would make biomass thermal competitive with other renewable energy technologies, and expand markets for biomass across the country.
BTEC members have also made progress with state-level biomass efforts. In Maine, for example, a commission to study the state&rsquo;s biomass industry recommended including thermal energy in the state&rsquo;s renewable energy requirements. If passed into law, this proposal would encourage facilities to use biomass to increase the efficiency of their thermal energy systems.
BTEC is beginning the year with a strong focus on developing codes and standards for biomass thermal energy in residential, commercial, and institutional buildings. One such proposal from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-conditioning Engineers, would expand the definition of on-site renewable energy for high-performance buildings to include biomass.
The other technical priorities for BTEC in 2017 include putting the finishing touches on the Wood Energy Financial Calculator, a tool that project managers can use to assess the cost savings of converting to biomass heat; completing laboratory testing of the first U.S. efficiency test standard for commercial-sized wood boilers; and working with industry stakeholders to create a U.S. wood chip standard. Besides BTEC, other partners working directly on the wood chip standard initiative include Innovative Natural Resource Solutions, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council and the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers.
The policy and technical priorities presented above will be discussed further at BTEC&rsquo;s annual Northeast Biomass Heating Conference &amp; Expo. The event will be in Burlington, Vermont, from April 25-27, and include tracks on policy, technical and project development, and business development. The goal of NEBHX 2017 is to introduce biomass thermal energy to a wider array of stakeholders, including specifiers, engineers, architects, and facility managers, as well as those already in the industry. Author: Aaron Aber Project Assistant, Biomass Thermal Energy Council Aaron.aber@biomassthermal.org 202 596-3974

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The Biomass Thermal Energy Council  is beginning the year with a strong focus on developing codes and standards for biomass thermal energy in residential, commercial, and institutional buildings.

Biomass Thermal Legislative Advances 

Many of us in the wood and pellet heating movement are doing a lot of soul searching these days. Not only do we have a president who questions the science behind climate change, we also have to deal with the effects of a warming world that is gradually reducing demand for the renewable energy technology we support.
Even though Trump is a climate change skeptic and put the head of Exxon in charge of our state department, could he still do something good for our modest slice of the residential renewable energy movement?
Obama was a champion of renewable energy, but his administration did not deliver that much for our sector. He did give us a vision for an America that would steadily increase the amount of renewable energy on our grid, and in our cars. Renewable heat policy was sure to follow.&nbsp;
Under Obama, the U.S. Forest Service, a division of the USDA, was a vocal proponent of rural Americans who benefit from wood and pellet heating. Hopefully, their leadership in this area will continue. Under Obama, the U.S. EPA did a good job updating stove and boiler emission standards, which is absolutely necessary for wood and pellet heating systems. But there was no real leadership or vision at the level for promoting the deployment of the most advanced equipment, as there is in Europe.
We could go backward under Trump if Congress were to abolish the wood stove and boilers emission regulations, which some of the extreme right-wing members want to do.&nbsp; They have already introduced legislation to that end. The wood and boiler industry unanimously opposes doing away with these regulations, since reasonable and clear federal rules are good for industry, compared to a patchwork of state and local rules.
We could stay the same course with little federal support or intervention, which is probably the most likely scenario. Wood stoves would continue to outsell pellet stoves by three to one, and the legacy of millions of old, polluting stoves would stay put, heating more homes than their cleaner EPA-certified cousins.
Maybe the Republican Congress and even the White House could advance this sector more than the last Congress or the Obama administration. President Trump&rsquo;s base is far more rural than Obama&rsquo;s, and much of it is low- to middle-income. These are also families who struggle to pay heating bills, and are part of a demographic that buys wood and pellet stoves.&nbsp;
A first step for Congress would be to pass the BTU Act, which would finally treat high-efficiency biomass heating just as other renewables are treated. This means tax credits for institutions and households that are investing in a domestic energy pathway that supports rural America.&nbsp;
A second step is a program that helps rural Americans upgrade old wood stoves to cleaner, more efficient options such as heat pumps, pellet stoves or certified wood stoves. There are about 12 million Americans with wood stoves, and only about half a million with solar panels. Both have about the same capacity to reduce fossil fuel use, but most of those 12 million stoves are not as clean or efficient as they should be. As a country, we still have the opportunity to harness the potential of those 12 million households by upgrading those appliances.
This Congress can help support rural economies and American jobs by supporting modern biomass heating. Currently, we export millions of tons of wood pellets to Europe for low-efficiency electricity generation, when we should be transforming that production for high-efficiency heat and combined heat and power for use here at home.&nbsp;
I am still hopeful that Congress can focus on rural America in a way that helps millions of households affordably heat their homes with a domestic fuel.&nbsp; Congress is our best hope.&nbsp; As for our new president, I didn&rsquo;t vote for him, but I&rsquo;m not writing him off, either.&nbsp;&nbsp; Author: John Ackerly President, Alliance for Green Heat jackerly@forgreenheat.org www.forgreenheat.org&nbsp;

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Even though President Trump is a climate change skeptic and put the head of Exxon in charge of our state department, could he still do something good for our modest slice of the residential renewable energy movement?

Trump, Obama and Wood Stoves

Not far from the Dublin Port shoreline, perhaps resembling a modern office building more than a power facility, Dublin Waste-to-Energy stands ready to fulfill its purpose.
There, the labor of upward of 1,300 people over the past two years will finally be realized. Adjacent to the new, gleaming white waste-to-energy facility rests the shuttered Poolbeg Power Station, referred to by locals as the Pigeon House, an area landmark that, next to Dublin WTE, is now much less noticeable from a bird&rsquo;s-eye view. That is, aside from its famous, red-and-white-striped twin stacks, which rise far above most structures in Ireland, even those of its new neighbor. At 100 meters high, Dublin WTE&rsquo;s stacks are roughly half the height of Poolbeg Power Station&rsquo;s, which was decommissioned in 2010, though the site still hosts an operational power station.
Commissioning of Dublin WTE has begun, and it won&rsquo;t be long before it is converting the city&rsquo;s waste into electricity. Director of Operations Thomas Ericksen is overseeing plant operations, and says the crew is walking down systems and preparing for first fire, which will be in March. Ericksen, who relocated from Orlando, Florida, to Dublin to oversee the project, has been part of Covanta&rsquo;s team since 1986, working at a number of the company&rsquo;s U.S. waste-to-energy plants over the length of his career, which he says &ldquo;has gone fast.&rdquo;
Currently finishing up getting his staff of 54 in place, Erickson will continue his role at Covanta Dublin for a few more years, before turning it over to his No. 2 man, the chief engineer.
In the meantime, he&rsquo;ll make sure startup and operations run as smooth as possible, and that the two core functions of the plant are achieved&mdash;reducing waste, and providing power to around 80,000 homes. And, down the road, the facility will also provide district heat to 50,000 homes. Waste In, Power Out Covanta will operate and maintain the facility, which has secured a 25-year tip fee arrangement with four Dublin local authorities, through the Dublin City Council, to provide disposal services for a minimum of 320,000 tons of waste annually, representing over half of the facility's capacity. The rest has been contracted through the marketplace.
In a nutshell, waste is hauled in to Dublin WTE via truck, that waste is burned to generate heat, the heat is converted to steam, and the steam drives a turbine generator to create power, says Ericksen, who is able to explain the process in great detail without hesitation. &ldquo;Waste coming in is reduced by about 90 percent by volume due to the combustion process, so you only have about 10 percent of the original volume of waste that you need to dispose of,&rdquo; he says.
Due to a lack of treatment facilities and active landfills&mdash;only six remain open today, according to the Ireland Environmental Protection Agency&mdash;the country has relied heavily on waste exports, resulting in outbound shipments totaling several hundred thousand tons of waste annually. In recent years, a push to change waste management practices in Ireland has focused alternate waste disposal and reduction methods, including organic waste separation and collection, and development of anaerobic digestion facilities and treatment plants such as Dublin WTE.
Daily, up to 1,800 tons of waste will be trucked to Dublin WTE by haulers, who will first go over a weigh bridge to, upon their exit when they are reweighed sans waste, calculate how much was brought in. &ldquo;Trucks then come off the scale and receive to a tipping floor, a rather large bunker that is 75 meters long, 25 meters wide, and about 8 meters deep,&rdquo; Ericksen says. The majority of the waste is dumped directly into the bunker, and loads are inspected to ensure nothing unacceptable to the facility&rsquo;s waste license, or anything potentially harmful to employees or the facility, is mixed in with the waste. &ldquo;If we do find something, we have a quarantine area where we&rsquo;ll push it over to, and it will be picked up and disposed of properly,&rdquo; Ericksen says.
The remaining waste is dumped into the pit and picked up by two large, mechanical cranes and fed into the hoppers, where it is sent down a feed chute into the four-pass, horizontal&nbsp; boiler. &ldquo;The burning takes place on a reciprocating grate, and we have underfire air that comes in off the tipping floor to keep it under negative pressure, which prevents any odors from escaping the facility&mdash;so we&rsquo;re sucking air from the outside in&mdash;and we use that air for combustion in the furnace,&rdquo; Ericksen says. &ldquo;The burning of the waste takes place on grates, and the heat generated there is used to create steam in the boiler. Water wall tubes transfer the heat energy into steam, which is then piped over to the turbine generator to create power.&rdquo;
While the power generation process itself ends there, treatment of gasses, emissions and end products is just beginning. &ldquo;At the end of the system, the flue gas carried through the boiler has to be cleaned up before it&rsquo;s sent out into the atmosphere,&rdquo; Ericksen explains. The first step occurs in the furnace, where aqueous ammonia is added to neutralize NOx emissions into nitrogen and water. &ldquo;The next step is in the back of the boiler&mdash;once you have recovered all of the heat you economically can out of the boiler system, the gas is sent through a semidry scrubber. We inject lime slurry and carbon&mdash;the lime is used to neutralize acid gases, and the activated carbon is used absorb metals that may be coming in with the waste.&rdquo;
The next step is a baghouse filtration system, which filters out dust, dirt and particulate matter, followed by a polishing wet scrubber. &ldquo;We circulate a sodium hydroxide solution through a packed bed scrubber,&rdquo; Erickson says. &ldquo;We bring the flue gas through that, and it neutralizes any additional gases that may have come through the system, and absorbs other fine particulate matter. From there, we finally go up and out the stack.&rdquo;
The facility is also equipped with a continuous emissions monitoring (CEM) system that monitors a number of parameters required by permit, as well as a backup CEM.
Residues from the combustion process will be transferred to an off-site processing plant for recovery of ferrous and nonferrous metals, which are recycled, and production of aggregate materials that can be used for various construction applications, or to secure the voids of depleted salt mines.
The plant is wastewater free, and the majority of its process water supply will come from rain water and a neighboring waste water treatment plant.
Down the road, the two-unit, 600,000-ton-per-year plant will provide district heating to around 50,000 homes. &ldquo;It was designed to include district heating, but what&rsquo;s needed now is the infrastructure throughout Dublin to interconnect,&rdquo; Ericksen says.
For now, Ericksen continues to work finalizing and training the plant&rsquo;s crew, which he says has exceeded his expectations. &ldquo;I was a little concerned about staffing the operational side of the plant, as there is only one other waste-to-energy plant in Ireland, and it&rsquo;s only been here a few years,&rdquo; he adds. &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ve been very pleasantly surprised at the quality of people I have been able to employ, and I look forward to a very successful startup and long-term operation of the facility with this type of expertise. We have a great bunch of guys.&rdquo; Author: Anna Simet Managing Editor, Biomass Magazine asimet@bbiinternational.com 701-738-4961
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Dublin Waste-to-Energy Fast Facts
Location:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Poolbeg, Dublin, Ireland Project leads: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Covanta Energy (Developer) &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Hitachi Zosen Inova (EPC contractor) &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; PM Group (Civil engineering) Boiler Specs:&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nominal superheated steamgeneration - 125.0 t/h &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nominal superheated steam temperature - 443.0 degrees C &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Nominal outlet steam pressure - 62.0 bara
Boiler manufacturer: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Duro Dakovic steam boiler Waste capacity: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 600,000 tons annually Incentives: &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Ireland&rsquo;s renewable energy feed-in tariff Power capacity: 58 MW

Construction of Dublin Waste-to-Energy is complete, and the first firing of waste is scheduled to occur in March.

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A public-private partnership between Covanta and Dublin City Council, Covanta Dublin will process approximately 600,000 metric tons of waste annually and will power 80,000 homes.

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A state-of-the-art, waste-to-energy plant at Dublin's Poolbeg Peninsula is readying to fire up. Built by Covanta Energy Inc., the facility will generate enough power for 80,000 homes, and eventually, district heat as well.

The New Stacks in Town

As the new administration settles into office and the 115th Congress takes shape, we are looking ahead at potential policy opportunities for the biomass industry in 2017. The following are some key issues the Biomass Power Association is preparing for.
Infrastructure and Forestry. We are seeing a shift in the administration from a focus on renewable energy during the Obama era, to a focus on forestry, jobs and infrastructure. Both the Trump administration and Democrats have expressed a strong interest in investing in a large infrastructure package; a Democratic proposal has budgeted $100 million specifically for energy infrastructure.
Compared to previous years, we are seeing much more interest from the administration and Congress in land management and logging. Many federal lands across the country need management, whether it&rsquo;s the 100 million dead trees in California, or the dry, densely forested lands of the Southeast, and GOP leaders have consistently recognized this.
The Farm Bill, legislation that preserves policies that support the agriculture and forestry industries, must be reauthorized by 2019. Ranking Member of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson from rural Minnesota, is seen by many as a conservative Democrat willing to make deals across the aisle. There may be an opportunity to work across the aisle for funding to improve forest health on federal, state and private lands.
Tax. We are hearing both enthusiasm and skepticism on the likelihood of tax reform being completed this year. It&rsquo;s been a priority for Republicans, but right now, it&rsquo;s taking a back seat to other priorities like health care and immigration. If tax reform does happen, we expect major changes to the Section 45 production tax credit program, if it survives at all.
Regulations. Congress and the Trump administration have both made it a priority to identify regulations to roll back. So far, none of the regulations tagged for removal involve biomass, but there may be some upcoming opportunities, particularly with the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s Non-hazardous Secondary Materials rule.
EPA. We will be watching closely for any action on the Clean Power Plan and on the EPA&rsquo;s regulation of carbon from biogenic sources. We do not expect the plan to move forward, even though the U.S. EPA administrator nominee, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, has pledged several times to continue to regulate carbon dioxide. Rather than setting and enforcing carbon reduction targets as the Clean Power Plan proposed, we expect a more laissez-faire approach to state clean air regulations. He has also proposed allowing coal facilities to stay open with a requirement for improved emissions controls, possibly opening up an opportunity for cofiring with biomass.
U.S. Forest Service. Sonny Perdue, former governor of Georgia, is the nominee to lead the USDA, which houses the U.S. Forest Service, a sponsor of Bioenergy Day and one of our closest partners in the U.S. government. Throughout his tenure as governor, Perdue strongly supported forestry, and even attended the openings of several biomass facilities. We are encouraged by his biomass experience and are looking forward to continuing our strong relationship with the U.S. Forest Service.
While some signs point to an encouraging political climate for biomass, there still remain many questions about how far a Republican-led government will be willing to go to support biomass. There is also unprecedented gridlock on Capitol Hill, and a Republican party with some internal disagreements. For now, a few weeks into the Trump administration, we are seeing some indications of the policies to expect over the next four years, and we see some reasons to be optimistic about the biomass industry. However, given the hostile political climate and lack of cohesion even among political parties, very little is clear about what will move forward.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, none of these policies would happen without our trusted team at BPA. I&rsquo;m pleased to announce the promotion of Carrie Annand as our new executive director, and Nick Mazuroski as our new vice president of operations. Congratulations, Carrie and Nick. Author: Bob Cleaves President, Biomass Power Association bob@usabiomass.org www.usabiomass.org

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As the new administration settles into office and the 115th Congress takes shape, the Biomass Power Association is  looking ahead at potential policy opportunities for the biomass industry in 2017. 

Biomass: A 2017 Policy Outlook

1. Yargus sells manufacturing operation to AGI Yargus Manufacturing Inc., a manufacturer of Layco brand fertilizer and industrial material handling equipment located in Marshall, Illinois, has entered into an agreement to sell its manufacturing operation to Ag Growth International Inc., a publicly traded company located in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
2. AEBIOM elects president, board European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) has elected Didzis Palejs as its new president, succeeding Gustav Melin, who led the organization for the past six years. Palejs has worked in the energy and wood industry for nearly 20 years at local and international levels in both sales and logistics. He has served as the chairman of the Latvian Biomass Association and as the vice president of the European Pellet Council. In addition, AEBIOM elected Thomas Siegmund as vice president and renewed part of its board by appointing Michael Doran, Christoph Pfemeter, Marijan Kavran, Vilma Gaubyte Eric Vial, and Gustav Melin. 3. BTEC elects board member Dane Floyd, president and CEO of Biomass Engineering and Equipment, has been elected to serve on the Biomass Thermal Energy Council board of directors. BTEC advances the sustainable use of wood and agricultural biomass for clean, efficient heat and combined heat and power to meet U.S. energy needs and strengthen local economies. Biomass Engineering and Equipment designs and manufactures machinery for the biomass and wood processing industries.
4. Ocean Park advises on Abengoa Hugoton plant sale Abengoa Bioenergy Biomass of Kansas recently closed the $48.5 million sale of its cellulosic ethanol plant located in Hugoton, Kansas, to Synata Bio in an auction conducted under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. Ocean Park acted as exclusive sell-side advisor to Abengoa. Ocean Park was involved in all facets of this transaction, including securing the debtor-in-possession financing, developing the marketing strategy, contacting over 200 parties in the sales process, and generating interest from multiple bidders in the auction. 5. Reverdia adds team member Alexander Krapivin has joined Reverdia as business development manager. He will work with the company&rsquo;s commercial team to maximize opportunities in the global market for bio-succinic acid. Krapivin previously worked at GFBiochemicals, developing the market for biobased platform chemicals in applications such as resins and coatings, bioplastics and downstream markets. Prior to GFBiochemicals, Krapivin was employed by Dow Corning, Dow Chemical and Shell Chemicals in international sales, business development and marketing. 6. MHG launches new corporate identity Meredian Holdings Group Inc., a biopolymer manufacturer, recently announced it will do business as Danimer Scientific, effective immediately. MHG&rsquo;s updated corporate identity is a visual salute to its solid, steadfast origins as a biotechnology company committed to sustainability and the development of innovative bioplastic products that do not contribute to global pollution. Danimer Scientific was originally formed in 2004 and provided sustainable polymer solutions by developing compostable and biodegradable plastic alternatives. 7. Enerkem appoints CFO Enerkem Inc. has appointed Dominique Boies as executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO). Boies has more than 20 years of experience in corporate and finance strategy, investment banking and operations. Prior to joining Enerkem, he was executive vice president and CFO at RONA, where he was responsible for the financial and corporate strategy, investor relations, accounting, financing, treasury and legal affairs. At RONA, he led the company&rsquo;s turnaround, as well as the transaction that resulted in the acquisition of RONA by Lowe&rsquo;s, valued at CA$3.2 billion ($2.45 billion). Prior to this, Boies held various senior executive positions at RBC Royal Bank and the Caisse de d&eacute;p&ocirc;t et placement du Qu&eacute;bec (CDPQ), one of the largest institutional fund managers in North America. 8. Amyris appoints CFO Amyris Inc. has appointed Kathleen Valiasek as chief financial officer. She is a senior finance and business executive with more than 20 years of experience serving start-up, venture-backed and Fortune 500 companies. She replaces Raffi Asadorian, who has resigned to pursue a new opportunity, but will continue to support specific projects, as well as serve in an ad hoc consulting capacity to ensure a smooth transition. Prior to joining Amyris, Valiasek was founder and CEO of Lenox Group Inc., a finance and strategic consulting firm. There, she worked closely with the senior management teams of private and public&nbsp; companies, including Kaiser Permanente Inc., Albertsons Inc. and Cytokinetics Inc. Prior to that, she served in key venture capital, real estate development and accounting roles. Her background includes finance, SEC reporting, strategic planning, debt and equity financing, business development, and mergers and acquisitions. 9. QED offers landfill gas monitoring system QED Environmental Systems has announced it is offering the Landtec GEM5000 series as part of the QED line of environmental products. The GEM5000 is designed specifically for monitoring landfill gas collection and control systems and has the ability to sample and analyze the methane, carbon dioxide, and oxygen content of landfill gas. 10. Xergi announces plant order, patent Xergi has announced an order for its 10th biogas plant in the U.K. Bonby, North Lincolnshire-based Brigg Lane Biogas Ltd. has hired Xergi to build a new biogas plant that will convert up to 75,000 metric tons of food waste annually into green gas, which will then be distributed via the local gas grid. Brigg Lane Biogas will be located on the same site as Bio Waste Solutions, a company that pretreats food waste for biogas plants in other parts of the U.K. Soon, that food waste will be taken by the new biogas plant instead, minimizing transport. The biogas plant will be able to take additional waste from other suppliers. Xergi also recently announced it has developed X-chopper as a solution for the pretreatment of deep litter and other challenging biomasses for biogas plants. Recently, the technology was granted a European patent. The patent secures Xergi the rights to the solution that enables X-chopper to continuously pretreat deep litter and other biomasses without having to make frequent stops to empty and clean the pretreatment unit. When deep litter is added to an X-chopper, the biomass is macerated by rotating chains inside the X-chopper. The design of the individual link in the chain impacts how the biomass is macerated, and how long the links can last.
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SHARE YOUR INDUSTRY NEWS: To be included in the Business Briefs, send information (including photos and logos, if available) to Business Briefs, Biomass Magazine, 308 Second Ave. N., Suite 304, Grand Forks, ND 58203. You may also email information to evoegele@bbiinternational.com. Please include your name and telephone number.

AEBIOM General Secretary Jean-Marc Jossart (left), former President Gustav Melin, and President Didzis Palejs 

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The biomass heating system at the North Central Area junior and senior high school in Powers, Michigan, profiled on page 28, can be mostly viewed from one spot. Standing in the open doorway of the building that serves as the fuel receiving, fuel handling and boiler house, a person could easily mistake it for a large bus garage. Conversely, the new Highland Pellets pellet production plant in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, featured on page 18, would take the better part of a day to see.
As different in size as the two facilities are, they share a number of common traits that help illustrate the current state of best practices in construction of biomass conversion facilities. When I spoke with Jeremy Mortl, president of Messersmith Manufacturing Inc., the system&rsquo;s fabricator and installer, about its success in meeting the aggressive construction schedule, he stressed the importance of fabricating the major system components at the company&rsquo;s local facility. The North Central Area school district wanted to minimize construction activity and its associated noise while classes were in session, so construction activities were forbidden until school dismissed for the summer. Without getting a head start on fabrication, having a system installed and ready to deliver heat that winter would have been a stretch.
For Highland Pellets, the decision to utilize off-site fabrication was driven entirely by a desire to get a plant built and generating revenue as quickly as possible. Highland Pellets was the second commercial-scale effort for Astec Inc., a Chattanooga, Tennessee-based manufacturer hoping to leverage decades of experience in asphalt and aggregate processing to gain a strong presence in the wood pellet sector. Our team has been covering the development of this project since it was announced in 2014, and the story in this issue of Biomass Magazine was our first opportunity to get some opinions on Astec&rsquo;s unique modular approach. Ben Hubbard, president of Nexus PMG, an independent engineering consultant hired by Highland Pellets, told Associate Editor Katie Fletcher, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited to be a part of a project that could potentially deliver pellets to the market much faster than any that we&rsquo;ve seen in our experience, and we&rsquo;ve seen quite a few.&rdquo;
The completion date for each of these projects was critical for vastly different reasons, and despite the massive difference in project scale, the construction approaches to hit each deadline had a lot in common.
Tim Portz Vice President of Content&nbsp; &amp; Executive Editor tportz@bbiinternational.com

Tim Portz
Vice President of Content  & Executive Editor
tportz@bbiinternational.com

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Though the completion dates of two projects featured in the March issue of Biomass Magazine were critical for vastly different reasons, despite the massive difference in scale, the construction approaches to hit each deadline had a lot in common.

March 2017

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Point of Obligation Takes Center Stage in Hearing

HEI Takes Hard Look at Ethanol vs Aromatics

Canada's Climate Priorities

Telling Our Story in DC

Celebrating Success, Finding Smartest Path Forward

President Trump: Putting American Energy First

Blending the Rules

The RFS in 2017: A Brave New World

Biomass Thermal Legislative Advances

Trump, Obama and Wood Stoves

Biomass: A 2017 Policy Outlook

A Matter of Scale

Featured

The Inside Story

Adding Flowability

No Waiver? No Sense.

Passing the Test with Flying Colors

True Sustainability in Pine Bluff

The New Stacks in Town

Contributions

Ethanol Industry Provides Critical CO2 Supply

Biologicals and BMPS: A Modern Digester's Blueprint for Success

Departments

Commercial Proving Grounds

North Central Area's Biomass Reboot

March 2017.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

Point of Obligation Takes Center Stage in Hearing

HEI Takes Hard Look at Ethanol vs Aromatics

Canada's Climate Priorities

Telling Our Story in DC

Celebrating Success, Finding Smartest Path Forward

President Trump: Putting American Energy First

Blending the Rules

The RFS in 2017: A Brave New World

Biomass Thermal Legislative Advances

Trump, Obama and Wood Stoves

Biomass: A 2017 Policy Outlook

A Matter of Scale

Featured

The Inside Story

Adding Flowability

No Waiver? No Sense.

Passing the Test with Flying Colors

True Sustainability in Pine Bluff

The New Stacks in Town

Contributions

Ethanol Industry Provides Critical CO2 Supply

Biologicals and BMPS: A Modern Digester's Blueprint for Success

Departments

Commercial Proving Grounds

North Central Area's Biomass Reboot

March 2017