Dennis Vander Griend began his career in ethanol engineering as a student at South Dakota State University. A microbiology professor came into the engineering class, asking for a volunteer to build a still to be used for fermentation studies. That first still led to a lifelong career of designing solutions for bottlenecks and efficiency improvements in ethanol plants&mdash;the ICM dryer and evaporator design being two notable ones. Vander Griend, 63, passed away July 8 in Wichita, Kansas, after a brief illness. &ldquo;He was the godfather of the industry,&rdquo; says his brother Dave VanderGriend, CEO of ICM Inc. (who spells their last name as one word). Dennis and Dave founded ICM in 1995 along with Brad Box, but the brothers&rsquo; ethanol collaboration goes back to that college engineering project in 1978. &ldquo;He got a bunch of books and read up on it, then he came to my place and said, &lsquo;We&rsquo;re going to build a still,&rsquo;&rdquo; Dave recalls. &ldquo;I said, &lsquo;What&rsquo;s that?&rsquo; and he handed the books to me.&rdquo; The next year, the brothers trucked their still to Washington, D.C., where it turned out 190 proof alcohol to run engines in a week-long technology festival on the Washington Mall. The duo went on to build a half dozen farm distillation columns. &ldquo;In 1984, we put the plant on Lowell Broin&rsquo;s farm,&rdquo; Dave recalls. Lowell and his sons, Rob and Jeff, bought a defunct plant in Scotland, South Dakota, and asked the Vander Griends to help get it running. By that time, Dennis was working at a wet mill in Keokuk, Iowa, and Dave was running the High Plains ethanol plant in Colwich, Kansas. &ldquo;We went back and forth doing the engineering work for the Scotland plant, and then the Aberdeen, South Dakota, plant and the Winthrop, Minnesota, plant.&rdquo; The Broins went on to develop their own design company, which later became Poet LLC. Working for High Plains Corp. for a decade, Dave&rsquo;s initial focus was on getting the Colwich plant running well, tapping into his brother&rsquo;s engineering skills. More plants were built for High Plains until the Vander Griends and their partner bought the engineering side of the business, along with the office building. ICM is still headquartered on that site in Colwich. The first engineering challenge tackled by the newly formed ICM team was to build a better dryer. John Caffrey, ICM director of manufacturing and design, remembers working alongside Dennis on the later refinements to that system. &ldquo;Dennis&rsquo; intellectual talent and achievement relating to our dryer system was most notable. He came up with an excellent design to deal with emissions from our ICM dryer system.&rdquo; Dennis designed the ICM thermal oxidizer to incinerate emissions from the distillers dried grains dryer system. He then coupled that design with a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) that captured all the heat required to oxidize the dryer emissions and turn that heat into steam to run the entire ethanol plant. &ldquo;That steam and heat balance was very, very clever to say the least,&rdquo; Caffrey says. &ldquo;Dennis&rsquo; design of the ICM dryer system, the matching thermal oxidizer and HRSG system remains the gold standard for the ethanol industry&rsquo;s energy recovery efforts.&rdquo; John Freidig, ICM senior manager of startups and services, began working with Dennis at ICM in 2003. &ldquo;Dennis was a very complex man, but his designs were so simple,&rdquo; he says, citing Dennis&rsquo; patented evaporation system design, used to condense thin stillage to be sprayed onto distillers grains or sold as syrup. &ldquo;He made it so simple with minimal level control and no pressure control, just steam flow,&rdquo; Freidig says. &ldquo;Usually with evaps, it gets pretty complicated with pressures and temperatures.&rdquo; In Dennis&rsquo; design, the typical configuration where the evap steam was condensed and routed back to the boiler was turned on its head and the steam was used first in the evaporators and then drove distillation. &ldquo;You used the steam twice,&rdquo; Freidig explains. The evaporator design contributed greatly to the 6,000-Btu-per-gallon of ethanol savings at the ICM plant, he adds. The dryer and evaporator designs are on the top of Dave&rsquo;s list as well, but he has many other stories to share about his younger brother&mdash;a classic absent-minded professor-type who, besides being a brilliant engineer and a bit difficult to work with, paid little attention to his appearance and many practicalities. One story stands out. During the startup of the second plant using the new ICM design in the early 2000s, Dennis put the plant controls into manual setting. &ldquo;Which is what he does,&rdquo; Dave says. &ldquo;He puts all the levels, all the flows in manual, and runs it by himself. He&rsquo;s figuring out if this tank is filling as this tank is going down, which you can&rsquo;t tell on auto. On the energy side, he puts the boiler in manual. He&rsquo;s tuning everything and how it moves so he can balance the entire plant out, putting in the right amount of steam to maintain the right temperature in the beer column, the rectifier, the proof.&rdquo; Needing to get some sleep, Dennis put everything back on automatic and left, forgetting one critical control&mdash;the level on the boiler steam drum, which would shut down the plant if the low water cutoff was triggered. &ldquo;He left for eight hours and came back and the level in the boiler steam drum dropped an inch, which is like nothing,&rdquo; Dave says. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s how level the plant was. To have the plant that precise, that is phenomenal. There&rsquo;s nobody that I know that could do that. That&rsquo;s how well he comprehended everything that was going on in the plant.&rdquo; &ldquo;Dennis was simply a process engineering genius,&rdquo; says Ron Fagen, who began working with the Vander Griends in 2001. Of the over 100 ethanol plants designed by Dennis at ICM, Fagen Inc. partnered to build more than 75. &ldquo;There wasn&rsquo;t a problem he couldn&rsquo;t solve when it came to the ethanol process. I was always glad to work with Dennis, as he was pleasant, direct and quite a character. He will be missed and I was proud to call him my friend.&rdquo; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Freelance Journalist retkaschill@yahoo.com

Fond Farewell: Dennis Vander Griend played an instrumental role in technology development for the ethanol industry. He passed away in July and is remembered by his family, friends and coworkers as brilliant and dedicated.

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Dennis and Dave: Dennis Vander Griend (left) and his brother Dave VanderGriend stand in front of the ICM headquarters in Colwich, Kansas, in 2015. 

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Ingenious Engineering: Brothers Dennis and Dave Vander Griend displayed their innovative distillation system at a technology festival on the Washington Mall in 1979. 

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Explaining Innovation: Dennis Vander Griend (left center) is interviewed in the late 1970s about the alcohol fuel still he built for South Dakota State University. 

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Dennis Vander Griend, who passed away in July, is remembered as an extraordinary engineer, a unique character and a great friend.  

Character, Friend, Genius

In an industry with more than 200 existing plants, four new projects is a small figure. Greenfield ethanol plant development is in a lull, but three plants are under construction and one is making strides in development, classified as proposed on Ethanol Producer Magazine&rsquo;s 2018 Fall Fuel Ethanol Plant Map. A few more companies in the industry have plants they consider proposed and under development, but Ethanol Producer Magazine classifies plants as proposed only if they&rsquo;ve made progress on financing or permitting in the past 24 months. Details and timelines of the four new ethanol plants are as follows: Ringneck Energy &amp; Feed&nbsp; Under Construction Ringneck Energy &amp; Feed was formed in September 2014 after it was determined that Onida, South Dakota, had sufficient infrastructure to support the 80 MMgy plant, says Ringneck CEO Walter Wendland. A grain origination study was completed that November, and more than $86 million in equity was raised for the $151 million project. Construction began in 2017 and the plant is expected to begin operation in January, Wendland says. Ringneck Energy will use about 28.5 million bushels of corn and milo per year. Wendland is an experienced ethanol plant developer, this being the fifth plant with which he&rsquo;s been involved. &ldquo;It took a tremendous amount of time and teamwork from my wife, our local board members, our industrial partners like Ron Fagen, Fagen Inc., ICM, Sukup Manufacturing, and our ethanol partners that include Dakota Ethanol (Wentworth, South Dakota), Chippewa Valley Ethanol Cooperative (Benson, Minnesota), Granite Falls Energy and Oahe Grain Corp. to get this project to the finish line. It was our love for agriculture and the ethanol industry that kept us all going when times got tough.&rdquo; Wendland says his main advice to others on plant development is don&rsquo;t underestimate the time, commitment and cooperation it will take to complete a project. Red River Biorefinery&nbsp; Under Construction Red River Biorefinery broke ground just outside Grand Forks, North Dakota, in August. The plant will process sugar beet tailings, as well as potato and pasta processing waste from the region. Developed by BioMass Solution with technology from Biotechnika, the plant will use up to 500,000 tons annually of process wastes, producing 16.5 MMgy of ethanol and generating D3 and D5 renewable identification numbers (RINs).&nbsp; The Biotechnika process is used at a sugar beet-to-ethanol plant in Poland. While the feedstock is innovative in the U.S., it&rsquo;s used to produce 21 percent of the ethanol in the European Union, says Tomasz Kapela, owner of Biotechnika. BioMass Solution has a long-term contract with area sugar beet cooperative American Crystal Sugar Co., as well as with partners Simplot, a potato processor in Grand Forks, and Philadelphia Macaroni Co. The plant will operate year-round, as at least one of the three feedstocks will be on hand at all times, says Jacek Chmielewski, BioMass Solution principal. The plant will process all the waste from all three local plants, though pretreatment will vary slightly with each, Kapela says. The plant is scheduled to start up at the beginning of 2020, selling fuel to the California market and taking advantage of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Element LLC&nbsp;&nbsp; Under Construction A partnership between ICM Inc. and The Andersons, Element LLC is a $175 million project expected to start up in the summer of 2019. The 70 MMgy ethanol plant will use ICM&rsquo;s Gen 1.5: Grain Fiber to Cellulosic Ethanol Technology to produce more than 5 MMgy of cellulosic ethanol. It is being built adjacent to ICM's headquarters in Colwich, Kansas, on the site of the former Abengoa Bioenergy plant. Development on Element started in fall of 2016, says Chris Mitchell, president of ICM. The majority of the existing plant was demolished in late 2017 and construction started in March of this year, for roughly 18 months of development time from concept to construction. &ldquo;Overall, our process was relatively smooth and the governmental agencies we were working with were supportive,&rdquo; Mitchell says. &ldquo;From the ICM point of view, there were things we were able to do from a planning standpoint relative to the site and some early on design that probably helped us through the permitting process.&rdquo; The process included some hurdles, Mitchell says, but nothing unique that other ethanol plants under development wouldn&rsquo;t encounter. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s probably a pretty difficult time to take on development of a greenfield corn ethanol plant.&rdquo; Still, with the proper team in place and all the details coming together well, ICM and The Andersons are pulling it off. Poet Biorefining &ndash; Shelbyville&nbsp;&nbsp; Proposed Poet LLC announced in July that it is developing an 80 MMgy ethanol plant in Shelbyville, Indiana, that will process 28 million bushels of corn annually. The project represents an expected $150 million to $160 million capital investment, according to Poet. It will create nearly $3 million in added value for local crops, contribute $2 million to the local community in annual payroll and have a total $200 million local annual economic impact. Matt Merritt, director of public relations for Poet, says the plant is in the permitting process and a construction and operation timeline has not been established. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re excited about the opportunity to partner with farmers, the Shelbyville community and the surrounding area,&rdquo; Merritt says. &ldquo;Farm families there need a new market for grain, particularly given the significant economic challenges facing agriculture today. It is a great area with good people who would certainly make this project a success.&rdquo; &nbsp; Author: Lisa Gibson Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701.738.4920 lgibson@bbiinternational.com

FROM THE GROUND UP: Ringneck Energy & Feed in Onida, South Dakota, is one of three greenfield ethanol plants under construction in the U.S. With one plant classified as proposed and making credible progress, the total number of greenfield projects un

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: In the U.S. ethanol industry, three plants are under construction, while a fourth makes its way through the permitting process. 

Concept to Construction

Ryan Brock, technical services manager for Lallemand Biofuels &amp; Distilled Spirits, has horror stories about poorly planned ethanol plant expansions: a plant that forgot to notify the gas supplier of its expansion and was shut down when the supplier assumed the massive increase in use was the result of a leak; a plant that had doubled its capacity but was forced to delay startup because it realized too late that its current server couldn&rsquo;t handle the expanded programming in the distributed control system; a plant that blew a transformer because the power company wasn&rsquo;t aware of the expansion or prepared to supply it. Brock doesn&rsquo;t directly handle expansions, but his job puts him in plants planning or having recently completed them. In fact, he&rsquo;s so seasoned on the topic, he delivered a presentation on it at the 2018 International Fuel Ethanol Workshop &amp; Expo. &ldquo;You see what happens,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re more than happy to not spread their agony to the rest of the industry.&rdquo; The biggest problems, he says, are results of incomplete planning and failure to analyze the expansion effects on each area of a plant. &ldquo;Once you&rsquo;ve decided you&rsquo;re doing an expansion, not just debottlenecking your plant, spend a lot of time actually mapping out what you&rsquo;re going to do so you don&rsquo;t have to go back and redo something or fix some other problem you caused.&rdquo; Understand the Problem If debottlenecking comes hand in hand with an expansion, it&rsquo;s important to fully comprehend the issue and plan for increased efficiency, Brock says. &ldquo;If you know you have a bottleneck in distillation, make that new distillation a little bit more efficient in your design so that you can take some of the pressure load off of your already-struggling area. Make sure you understand the problem that you already have, so you don&rsquo;t just make that problem worse when you expand.&rdquo; One plant manager explained to Brock that the plant added two ferm headers, but had had an issue in one of the existing ferm headers. After the expansion, the plant had infections in six fermenters instead of four. &ldquo;Find the issues you already have before making them worse down the road,&rdquo; Brock says.&nbsp; Keep an eye on the areas of the plant that aren&rsquo;t being expanded, too, he says. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re not touching this part of the plant, but you need to remember it&rsquo;s impacted.&rdquo; For example, if distillation is doubled, that means twice as much material is being handled in whole and thin stillage tanks. &ldquo;You forget about those two tanks, but now you&rsquo;re putting twice as much into them, twice as fast.&rdquo; If cook goes down, overflow occurs in half the time. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re shooting mash out of the ceiling.&rdquo; Al-Corn Clean Fuel in Claremont, Minnesota, didn&rsquo;t make that mistake when planning its 70 MMgy expansion, says CEO Randall Doyal. &ldquo;This issue is something we addressed very early on in our design, and I am happy to say that it hasn&rsquo;t been an issue,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Instead, because of the things we changed or repurposed, we found additional capacity in the old plant.&rdquo; Al-Corn determined in 2015 that it would move forward with an expansion from its 50 MMgy to 120 MMgy, calling it a &ldquo;modernization and expansion,&rdquo; Doyal says. The plan, in partnership with Karges-Faulconbridge Inc. and McGough Construction, was to update some parts of the existing facility, continuing to use existing distillation, evaporation and drying. New build projects included grain receiving, milling, distillers dried grains with solubles cooling and storage, and a cook system. &ldquo;We also built a new distillation, evaporation, molecular sieves, dryer and RTO sized to provide the additional 70 MMgy of capacity,&rdquo; Doyal says. &ldquo;In addition, we repurposed some of our existing tankage to provide upsized liquefaction, cook water and cleaning process storage.&rdquo; While planning for the entire facility was a success, Al-Corn did hit snags in other areas. &ldquo;Permitting in our state is a tremendous time drain,&rdquo; Doyal says. &ldquo;It takes far too long. The time delay caused project costs to increase, and we had to become very creative in redesigning, or what KFI and McGough call &lsquo;value engineering.&rsquo;&rdquo; He says the project was able to come in at the original budget, but it wasn&rsquo;t easy. &ldquo;We were also dealt some unexpected blows with the programming of our control system. This caused us serious problems with our startup efforts and drug out the time required to get the plant up to rates.&rdquo; Modeling Software Planning for those potential issues down the line can be easier with the help of Aspen modeling. Tiffany Trottman, business development manager for Nelson Engineering, says use of the software is common in chemical engineering designs, but fairly new to the ethanol industry. An Aspen model can be as detailed as necessary, down to the piping and hydraulics of a plant. But it starts with a focus on the main equipment, Trottman says. &ldquo;When we build an Aspen model for an ethanol customer, a lot of times we&rsquo;re going to start by focusing on the major process equipment.&rdquo; Aspen can help scientifically verify the capacity of existing equipment and pinpoint issues, she says. &ldquo;Maybe internals in a distillation column are causing problems. Now you can be more focused and precise in your expansion efforts to understand what is truly needed and why.&rdquo; That includes power consumption, a caution Brock lists. &ldquo;Understand power consumption currently and after expansion,&rdquo; Trottman says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a significant lead time to get a substation up to requirements for new demand.&rdquo; Aspen also can help map how a bolt-on technology will integrate into an existing plant, she says, and verify third-party claims about carbon intensity scores. &ldquo;Aspen gives you the ability to take an incredible amount of information&mdash;you have an entire processing facility and you have 40-some people who are staffing this day-to-day operation&mdash;and it&rsquo;s helping you condense it into a snapshot,&rdquo; Trottman says. &ldquo;That allows you to make educated decisions all in one spot, from the capital side of it.&rdquo;&nbsp; Building an Aspen model can take eight to 12 weeks, depending on the specific plant and details. Brock refers to the Aspen model as an example of how plants can make sure they plan for increased demands in an expanded facility. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re going to adjust your entire stream through your plant, so you have to understand where other adjustments will need to be made.&rdquo; &lsquo;Chasing Rabbits&rsquo; Following Al-Corn&rsquo;s successful expansion, Doyal says it&rsquo;s crucial to properly and thoroughly consider plans and goals. &ldquo;Think about your existing facility, your site and your potential future growth. Spend plenty of whiteboard time shooting down ideas and chasing rabbits until a plan starts to solidify.&rdquo; Al-Corn, KFI and McGough Construction were the recipients of Ethanol Producer Magazine&rsquo;s 2018 Collaboration of the Year Award. &ldquo;The reason collaboration is important is because you are never as smart as you think you are,&rdquo; Doyal told Ethanol Producer Magazine when the award winners were announced in May. &ldquo;You can fall in love with your own ideas but still be completely wrong.&rdquo; Don&rsquo;t be afraid to challenge decisions and rethink options at any stage of the game, he says. &ldquo;Ideas on paper cost far less than steel and concrete to modify.&rdquo; Author: Lisa Gibson Editor, Ethanol Producer Magazine 701.738.4920 lgibson@bbiinternational.com

BETTER BUILD: Thorough planning helped Al-Corn Clean Fuel in Claremont, Minnesota, pull off a smooth 70 MMgy expansion, avoiding common pitfalls other plants have experienced.

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METICULOUS MODEL: The Aspen model shows the ethanol process in as much detail as necessary, helping to design and engineer plant expansions. 

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CONSTRUCTION CAPTURED: Al-Corn Clean Fuel determined in 2015 that it would move forward with an expansion, bringing capacity from 50 MMgy to 120 MMgy. The project won the plant and its partners Ethanol Producer Magazineâ€™s 2018 Collaboration of the 

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EXPANSION UNDERWAY: Al-Corn Clean Fuel recently added 70 MMgy to its existing 50 MMgy plant in Claremont, Minnesota. The project finished on budget and three months ahead of schedule.

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: With proper planning, expansions can go relatively smoothly. Without it, large, unforeseen obstacles can increase costs, delay startups and derail projects. 

Perfectly Planned

Two ethanol producers are adopting quite different innovative technologies to add value to their corn oil&mdash;one making biodiesel with supercritical methods, the other making renewable diesel. East Kansas Agri-Energy&rsquo;s renewable diesel plant has been operational for about a year, after taking months to work through the bugs in Saola Energy&rsquo;s first-of-its-kind plant. Diversification was the primary goal, &ldquo;an income stream that isn&rsquo;t ethanol,&rdquo; says Bill Pracht, president and CEO of EKAE. &ldquo;Our plant closed in the drought of 2012. Renewable diesel made sense for us because, during that time, we could have bought corn oil or another feedstock and run renewable diesel.&rdquo; Those familiar with the dynamics of the California market&rsquo;s Low Carbon Fuel Standard understand the motivation for Calgren Renewable Fuels in Pixley, California, to add biodiesel production to its portfolio. Calgren produces about 2.5 million pounds of distillers corn oil (DCO) at its 58 MMgy plant, about half of what the biodiesel plant now under construction will consume, says Lyle Schlyer, president. Renewable Process Solutions&rsquo; supercritical technology is expected to produce a biodiesel with a carbon intensity (CI) score in the low 20s, earning attractive carbon credits. Construction on the plant is set to be completed in December. In both cases, the interest in using new process technologies is spurred by the difficulty in processing the high free fatty acid (FFA) feedstocks that result in low CI scores. Even the modestly high FFA levels in DCO&mdash;generally around 12 percent&mdash;require extra processing steps, thus adding cost. &ldquo;The traditional processing of free fatty acid feedstocks, we think, is inefficient,&rdquo; Schlyer says. &ldquo;Acid catalyzed esterification followed by base catalyzed transesterification, and there&rsquo;s drying steps between due to the water produced. Yuck. We think what RPS is doing is much more elegant.&rdquo; RPS&rsquo;s technology uses supercritical conditions that do not require catalysts, explains Rahul Bobbili, president and chief technology officer. &ldquo;When you blend oil and methanol at room temperature, 65 Celsius, they don&rsquo;t mix together, so you add a catalyst&mdash;sodium methylate for transestertification (of triglycerides) or sulfuric acid for esterification (of free fatty acids). The catalyst acts to increase contact to produce biodiesel.&rdquo; In the RPS technology, temperature and pressure of the oil and alcohol mixture is increased to a point where it is neither a gas nor liquid, the supercritical state. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s in a state between, where the density of both liquids are so close they are miscible with each other so you don&rsquo;t need a catalyst,&rdquo; Bobbili says. &ldquo;At that point, the molecules rearrange themselves and come out as methyl ester, which is biodiesel.&rdquo;&nbsp; One advantage to supercritical biodiesel is that it works with any level of FFA, Bobbili says, and does both esterification and transesterification in a single step, without producing impurities. &ldquo;It is a clean method of producing biodiesel, but it comes with a cost. Conventional biodiesel systems cost between $1 to $1.50 per gallon, but a supercritical system comes at a cost around $2 per gallon.&rdquo;&nbsp; A state grant brought the cost down, improving the rate of return for Calgren, he says. &ldquo;But when I talk to other ethanol facilities, they feel reluctant to build this plant because of the capital cost and return on investment spread out to three to five years.&rdquo; Schlyer expects it will take some time to get the kinks out of the new plant once it comes online. Calgren will begin processing its own corn oil, with plans to add even higher FFA feedstock to the mix. &ldquo;We would love it if we could go half and half with our distillers corn oil and a high FFA feedstock like brown grease.&rdquo; In the meantime, Bobbili responded to the ROI challenge by engineering a combined approach, dubbed Hybrid T. &ldquo;If we have 12 percent FFA, we filter and strip the fatty acids from the oil in the front end. The now virgin corn oil goes through transesterification, which is proven. On the side, we take the secondary product, the fatty acids, and process them through a very small supercritical system.&rdquo; The FFA product is reintroduced to the transesterification step with no yield loss and the overall cost of the system substantially reduced, he says. Drop-In Approach EKAE took a different approach to addressing the high FFA content in DCO with its renewable diesel plant. The technology is adapted from oil refineries, explains Dean Camper, Saola chief technology officer, who previously worked in refining. Hydrogen is introduced into corn oil under high pressure and temperature. &ldquo;The hydrogen will react with oxygen to form water and saturate everything, leaving basically a hydrocarbon,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s the same components you end up with in petroleum diesel.&rdquo; And, as a hydrocarbon nearly identical to diesel, it can be blended at any ratio or used at 100 percent. While the capital expenditure is higher than biodiesel, it should not be as labor intensive, he says. In addition to renewable diesel yields in excess of 90 percent, Camper says the plant produces naphtha, which can be used as a denaturant in the ethanol plant. The process is also energy long, producing fuel gas that can displace natural gas or excess steam that can supply energy to the ethanol plant. EKAE is still optimizing the plant. &ldquo;Our hydrogen supply is not big enough to let us run at full capacity,&rdquo; Pracht says. &ldquo;It needs reliable and affordable hydrogen production, and that can be accomplished.&rdquo; EKAE&rsquo;s 50 MMgy ethanol plant produces a little more than half the DCO needed for the renewable diesel plant, he says. &ldquo;And, we&rsquo;re not running our diesel capacity wide open. When it shakes out, we will produce close to half our needs and we&rsquo;ll be buying corn oil directly from neighboring ethanol plants.&rdquo; EKAE is selling its renewable diesel on the West Coast. &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve sold to California, Oregon and Vancouver,&rdquo; Pracht says. &ldquo;Pearson Fuels is our marketer and they sell in those three areas. That&rsquo;s where the demand is now because of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard.&rdquo; He couldn&rsquo;t give a CI score, as the plant is currently using a temporary pathway while applying for a permanent one under the California LCFS. Renewable diesel pricing is based on diesel, which varies with location. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s sold off the basis of diesel, the price of CI credits and RIN pricing,&rdquo; Pracht says. Currently, he adds, the RIN market is depressed, due to small refiner waivers. The ethanol industry has been highly critical of the U.S. EPA&rsquo;s generous waivers on quotas for renewable identification numbers (RINs) used to demonstrate compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s ruined the RIN market for renewable diesel,&rdquo; Pracht says. &ldquo;We get 1.7 RIN per gallon. You can do the math on what RIN price going from $1 to 40 cents does&mdash;it takes the fun out of it.&rdquo; Renewable diesel does have other advantages. Unlike corn ethanol that tends to be treated like an ag commodity following the corn market, renewable diesel&mdash;and biodiesel to some extent&mdash;is tied to the energy sector. &ldquo;You can look at the board today,&rdquo; Pracht says about the early September markets. &ldquo;Heating oil is $2.24 [which biodiesel is benchmarked against], gasoline is $2.15 and ethanol is $1.26.&rdquo; While it may cost more to produce a gallon of renewable diesel, it is a direct drop-in for petroleum diesel, Pracht points out, adding that renewable diesel has a higher cetane value, burns cleaner and provides slightly better fuel efficiency than petroleum-based diesel. &ldquo;And it can&rsquo;t be made into an ag commodity.&rdquo; Author: Susanne Retka Schill Freelance Journalist retkaschill@yahoo.com

DROP-IN DIESEL: East Kansas Agri-Energy in Garnett, Kansas, added renewable diesel to its portfolio, using Saola Energy's new technology. The system produces renewable diesel yields in excess of 90 percent.  

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PROJECT TEAM: Rahul Bobbili, president and chief technology officer of Renewable Process Solutions (front center), stands with the Calgren and RPS biodiesel project management team. 

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PROJECT POSE: Adam Belyamani, Saola chief operating officer (left), and Dean Camper, chief technology officer, flank East Kansas Agri-Energy CEO Bill Pracht in front of the renewable diesel plant.

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Renewable diesel and supercritical biodiesel address corn oil's high FFA content in different ways. 

Innovations in Biomass-Based Diesel 

Syngenta names new biofuels account managers Syngenta has added two account managers to support its expanding U.S. biofuels business, which includes more than 30 ethanol plants across 12 states. Anne Osentowski and Allen Ziegler will be part of a team that supports the growing number of ethanol plants using Enogen corn, helping broaden access to both Enogen corn and Cellerate process technology. Osentowski is an industry veteran, having spent almost 20 years in the biofuels industry, and joins Syngenta from RPMG, which is among the largest ethanol marketers in the nation. She is a graduate of Minnesota State University, Mankato, and holds a degree in corporate finance.&nbsp; Ziegler&rsquo;s involvement in the biofuels industry spans 20 years of global experience in all sectors of production and feedstocks, most recently starting Archangel Inc. in 2015, specializing in antimicrobial technology. He previously served as the director of biofuels marketing for Ashland/Solenis and holds a bachelor&rsquo;s degree with an emphasis on finance, chemistry and microbiology from Fort Hays State University. &ldquo;We are thrilled to have Anne and Allen join our biofuels team,&rdquo; says Jeff Oestmann, head of biofuels operations for Enogen at Syngenta. &ldquo;They share our passion for the ethanol industry and commitment to its success. We look forward to working with them to help ethanol plants be more competitive and fuel enzyme innovation.&rdquo; Enogen corn is an in-seed innovation available exclusively from Syngenta and features the first biotech corn output trait designed specifically to enhance ethanol production. Cellerate is a process technology that adds value to protein, increases distillers corn oil production, creates cellulosic ethanol and produces low carbon-intense ethanol, all while allowing additional throughput from a dry grind ethanol facility.
Mascoma, NextFerm announce joint development agreement Mascoma LLC, a subsidiary of Lallemand Inc., and NextFerm Technologies have signed a commercial joint development agreement that will expand their collaboration into the biofuels category. NextFerm is an Israeli biotech start-up that is developing and producing fermentation-derived ingredients for the global food and feed industries. &ldquo;We are pleased with the opportunity to continue with the great collaboration with Lallemand,&rdquo; says Tzafra Cohen, co-founder and vice president of research and development for NextFerm. &ldquo;For us, this new agreement represents yet another validation that our core technology and unique approach to non-(genetically modified) yeast modification works and on an industrial scale.&rdquo;&nbsp; Kevin Wenger, executive vice president of Mascoma LLC, says, &ldquo;As experts in genetic engineering for yeast (that produce) fuel ethanol, we believe this project is an excellent opportunity to exploit the synergy between our respective technologies. We&rsquo;ve seen a high level of professionalism and experience coming from NextFerm, which gives us tremendous confidence going forward.&rdquo; Cohen adds, &ldquo;Here, in this project as well as in our previous NextFreeze project, we will be isolating and then improving natural yeast strains with enhanced resistance to environmental pressure.&nbsp; We believe that our previously successful approach will be proven useful here as well.&rdquo;

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Two new account managers join Syngenta and Mascoma and NextFerm announce partnership.

Business Briefs

Marketing is fun. At least the stuff most people think of when they hear the word &ldquo;marketing&rdquo; is fun. Naming your product, creating a brand and logos, coming up with catchy slogans, cool ads, maybe a jingle, planning and executing advertising and social media campaigns&mdash;all that activity is fun. And when you&rsquo;re done doing it, you get shiny stuff you can touch and hold in your hands that makes your product look good and cool. And it makes you feel good and cool, too. That&rsquo;s probably why ethanol industry folks get excited when they talk about marketing ethanol. If I had a dime for every time I&rsquo;ve heard someone say we need to do a better job &ldquo;marketing ethanol to consumers&rdquo; over the past two or three years, I would &hellip; OK, let&rsquo;s be honest, if I could somehow collect money from people based on words they say, I would probably have moved on to phrases or words used a lot more often than &ldquo;marketing ethanol to consumers &hellip;&rdquo; But I digress &hellip; In the ethanol industry, there is growing interest&mdash;bordering on obsession&mdash;with &ldquo;marketing ethanol to consumers.&rdquo; The thought process goes like this: If drivers only knew what we know about how good ethanol is for cars, the economy and the earth, gas stations would have long lines of cars and trucks 24/7, waiting to fill up with the highest possible ethanol blends. Most of the &ldquo;marketing to consumers&rdquo; urgency surrounds E15. A couple years ago, station owners told us if we want to sell more E15, &ldquo;you guys need to tell us how we&rsquo;re supposed to market this stuff.&rdquo;&nbsp; Ethanol people heard that and released years of pent-up ethanol-loving creativity (and spending). They bought airtime and ad space, created new logos, developed clever promotions, and generally felt better and cooler about making E15. I followed up with one station owner to get his impression of all the promotional activity. He said, &ldquo;All I really wanted to know is what we should call the stuff &hellip; E15? Unleaded15? Unleaded Plus? Unleaded88?&rdquo; Unlike other consumer products, drivers don&rsquo;t want new and different fuels to put in their cars. Dull, boring, &ldquo;same as it ever was&rdquo; is what works&mdash;hence the success of UnleadedXX as demonstrated by Thorntons, Sheetz and Kwik Trip . But those things are only one part of marketing. And it&rsquo;s the least effective part&mdash;or more correctly, the least necessary&mdash;when the other parts are done well. Those of you who studied marketing in college probably remember the four Ps: product, price, place and promotion (or some version of those categories). The preceding &ldquo;fun&rdquo; items fit in the promotion category. Our product is ASTM D4806 denatured fuel ethanol, and the marketplace determines its price (with unwanted input from politicians and bureaucrats). We don&rsquo;t sell E15 or flex fuels. Marketers buy ethanol and make those fuels to sell to consumers, who are their customers, not ours. That leaves place, often referred to as distribution channel or simply supply. Place is the ethanol industry&rsquo;s most critical marketing challenge. Aggressively promoting E15 or Unleaded88 to consumers could backfire if drivers can only find it in one of 100 gas stations. Go ahead and celebrate 2800 E15 stations in a few years, and 4500 stations selling flex fuel today, and we&rsquo;ll continue to work on converting more of the 145,500 locations that aren&rsquo;t offering either blend. The truth is, current higher-blend retailers aren&rsquo;t having trouble selling our fuel&mdash;but they&rsquo;d like some company. And one positive of historically underpriced ethanol is that the math of higher blends is tougher for prospective retailers to resist. Author: Ron Lamberty Senior Vice President American Coalition for Ethanol 605.334.3381 rlamberty@ethanol.org

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Rob Lamberty of the American Coalition for Ethanol writes his column this month about marketing in the ethanol industry. 

Whose Customer Is It, Anyway? 

Before the inauguration of President Trump, the unravelling of the North American Free Trade Agreement, or the interprovincial&nbsp; disagreement on how to best tackle change, Prime Minister Trudeau promised decisive action. Many forget that in 2015, on the very top of the Canadian government&rsquo;s to-do list was an ambitious plan to reduce emissions, put a price on carbon, deliver green jobs and spur innovation in a thriving clean-tech industry. In fact, the liberal party&rsquo;s 2015 election platform was crystal clear in its published plan, &ldquo;Real Change: A New Plan for Canada&rsquo;s Environment and Economy.&rdquo; It states, &ldquo;It is time Canada put a price on carbon pollution. We&rsquo;ll work with the provinces within 90 days of the Paris U.N. climate change conference to establish a framework for reducing Canada&rsquo;s collective carbon footprint. We&rsquo;ll invest in clean technologies. We&rsquo;ll look to the future and develop a Canadian energy strategy that delivers security and energy conservation while investing millions in new clean tech.&rdquo; Nearly three years into its mandate, the Trudeau government is rounding the corner on reaching some of the key priorities of its climate agenda. The federal carbon pricing system will apply on Jan. 1 in each province or territory that requests it, and in any jurisdiction that does not have a carbon pricing system that meets the federal benchmark. For the Clean Fuel Standard, proposed regulations regarding liquid fuels are expected in spring 2019 and final regulations in 2020, with requirements coming into force by 2022. For gaseous and solid fuels, proposed regulations will come in fall 2020 and final regulations in 2021, with requirements coming into force by 2023. The stakes are high&mdash;for the government, the climate, and Canada&rsquo;s domestic ethanol producers. For example, of the CFS&rsquo;s 30 megatonne greenhouse gas reduction target, ethanol alone can deliver up to 15 megatonnes should the policy optimize ethanol&rsquo;s potential.&nbsp; Progress is being made but the transition to low carbon fuels is complex. Understandably, the government has relied on extensive consultations and stakeholder engagement as part of its policy design process. Renewable Industries Canada (RICanada) thinks productive consultations are essential for policies like the CFS to execute and deliver. And everyone at the proverbial table has to come forward with solutions.&nbsp; Industry, such as the businesses represented by RICanada, needs to share its practical understanding of what it takes to compete, grow market share and effectively deliver goods and services to consumers. For its part, the government should design policies that help keep that marketplace competitive and responsible. It&rsquo;s a healthy balance and an important relationship, and one RICanada&rsquo;s founding member companies are proud to be part of. As private sector companies, RICanada&rsquo;s founding ethanol members (Greenfield Global and IGPC Inc.) are already taking it upon themselves to find ways to make their ethanol less carbon-intensive on a life cycle basis by reusing and selling the carbon dioxide (CO2) the plants produce, among other efforts. One example is partnerships to sell the CO2 from the fermentation process to other companies, allowing it to be reused instead of going to waste. Some of it is sold for use in other industrial processes or even in the food and flavor market in carbonated drinks. This helps ensure every step of the biofuel production process is the least carbon-intensive possible. Greenfield Global, in collaboration with municipal partners, has developed a large-scale anaerobic digester adjacent to its Varennes ethanol plant to convert organic waste into biogas (methane and CO2). The biogas is piped into Greenfield&rsquo;s ethanol plant, significantly lowering the carbon intensity of the ethanol produced. These are just some examples of how the private sector is already thinking of economically viable solutions that better the health of the planet and work for their businesses. The benefits of biofuels to the Canadian economy are real. The biofuels industry contributes $3.5 billion each year and creates approximately 14,000 direct and indirect jobs in the country and more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs annually. The benefits of the CFS are also poised to be real. The CFS can be an opportunity to harness the expertise of business leaders, who successfully built Canada&rsquo;s renewable fuels industry, to develop policy solutions that will work for both the economy and the environment. The relationship between business and government works best when economic enterprise and public policy collaborate. As the government reaches this pivotal time for implementing the CFS and other carbon-based policies, the perspective of renewable fuel producers and clean tech businesses can be especially useful. After all, RICanada&rsquo;s member companies prove that climate policy doesn&rsquo;t need to be the economy versus the environment when ethanol is part of the mix. &nbsp; Author: Andrea Kent Vice President of Government and Public Relations, Greenfield Global Board Member, Renewable Industries Canada 1.833.476.3835 andrea.kent@greenfield.com

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Canada's business sector can help the country realize its climate goals.

How Lessons from Business Can Help Canada's Climate Agenda 

As countries begin to examine ways to achieve their own climate goals, particularly in the transportation sector, many are implementing more stringent fuel economy standards. Automakers are responding by making smaller, higher-compression engines that demand higher octane. Improved engines are the first step toward achieving mid-level ethanol blends such as E25 and E30. Growth Energy has been central to improving the outlook for ethanol blended fuel, at home and across the globe. Growth Energy has long worked with industry allies and engaged with past administrations to unite the voice of biofuels to ensure higher blends. E30 would improve fuel economy standards, reduce emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other harmful air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, and reduce consumer costs at the pump. Leading the way in 2012, Growth Energy was the first to call on EPA and the state of California to use E30 for vehicle certification and consumer use, as the state developed more stringent fuel economy standards. We continued the effort to include midlevel ethanol blends in 2013 when we submitted comments to the U.S. EPA on its proposal for Tier 3 fuel regulation. Because of those efforts, we successfully secured some limited ability for automakers to use alternative fuels for certification in the final rule. Further, we were one of the founding members of the Ag-Auto-Ethanol Working Group, whose members include the Renewable Fuels Association, the American Coalition for Ethanol, state corn grower organizations, U.S. auto manufacturers, and ag companies like Deere and Monsanto, among many others. This group has worked diligently to answer the questions of automakers and lawmakers on the retail, life cycle emissions, cost and availability of midlevel ethanol blends. The industry continued its call for high-octane, midlevel ethanol blends with both the Obama and Trump administrations during their midterm evaluations of vehicle standards. Under the Obama administration, far more stringent standards were established that were set to continue increasing through 2026. The Trump administration has, however, attempted to freeze those standards in its latest proposal to U.S. EPA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. This new proposal would keep Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards at 2020 levels moving forward and revoke the ability for states to implement their own, more stringent, vehicle standards or electric vehicle mandates. While the outcome is unclear, we expect California to fight the most recent proposal, in an attempt to maintain its own standards above federal regulations. Despite this potential conflict with California, the current proposal&rsquo;s explicit recognition of the benefits of high-octane fuels through greater engine efficiency is a major step forward. The inherent octane advantages of ethanol paired with its reduced cost and significantly reduced GHG emissions make it the pre-eminent fuel additive under this proposal&rsquo;s stated goals. EPA and NHTSA are asking specifically about how higher-octane fuels can help meet these standards. It presents a golden opportunity for our industry to echo the winning arguments for ethanol, as we have done time and time again. The U.S. is increasingly recognizing the benefits of biofuels. Author: Chris Bliley Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Growth Energy 202.545.4000 cbliley@growthenergy.org

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Fuel economy standards help make the case for midlevel ethanol blends.

Improving Ethanol's Outlook      

The president of Calgren Renewable Fuels in California uses the word &ldquo;elegant&rdquo; to describe a biodiesel production process he&rsquo;s installing at his ethanol plant. He&rsquo;s referring specifically to the avenue for processing feedstocks high in free fatty acid. Traditionally, it&rsquo;s inefficient, with multiple steps and phases. &ldquo;Yuck,&rdquo; he says. While his word choices result in delightful quotes (and journalists love that), it&rsquo;s more important to note that he&rsquo;s right. In our cover story, we explore two technologies that produce biodiesel and renewable diesel from distillers corn oil. One uses supercritical conditions, the other uses hydrogen. Both diversify the revenue stream for ethanol plants and, as one source notes, make a product that can&rsquo;t be turned into an ag commodity. Find out more about the processes and who&rsquo;s installing them, starting on page 16. Following the coproducts feature is a look at properly planning and executing expansions. One source tells me that most ethanol plants are willing to share their tough lessons learned&mdash;anonymously, of course&mdash;to help another plant avoid the hardships. He lists a few major blunders he&rsquo;s seen and suggests ways to prevent them. Another source recommends solid partners, brainstorming and willingness to change and improve ideas. Don&rsquo;t fall so utterly in love with your own ideas that you can&rsquo;t recognize when a better one comes along, he says. The article also examines a software program that can help plan expansions, down to the smallest details. It starts on page 24. One of this month&rsquo;s themes is 2018 Ethanol Projects Report, so that&rsquo;s what we&rsquo;ve brought you. It&rsquo;s important to point out that Ethanol Producer Magazine considers a plant &ldquo;proposed&rdquo; only if it has made progress in the previous two years. Without progress, we consider that plant&rsquo;s development halted. This year, just four greenfield plants meet the criteria for classification as &ldquo;under construction&rdquo; or &ldquo;proposed.&rdquo; Turn to page 30 for the full list. Finally, on page 38, we remember Dennis Vander Griend, who passed away in July. Vander Griend developed staple technologies for ethanol plants and could manually run a plant to mystifying precision. He was a genius, his friends and colleagues say. He&rsquo;ll certainly be missed. And that does it for November. We&rsquo;re heading into a long winter, likely with high snow accumulation, at least here in North Dakota. But this time of year, I welcome winter. I&rsquo;m ready. There&rsquo;s something about a slow snowfall that I find&mdash;what&rsquo;s the word&mdash;elegant.&nbsp;&nbsp; Author: Lisa Gibson Editor lgibson@bbiinternational.com

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FROM THE NOVEMBER ISSUE: Editor Lisa Gibson previews the magazine, including feature articles about technologies used for producing coproducts, plant expansions, current ethanol construction projects, and more.

November 2018

Business Briefs

Business Briefs

Columns

Whose Customer Is It, Anyway?

How Lessons from Business Can Help Canada's Climate Agenda

Improving Ethanol's Outlook

Into November and Welcoming Winter

Featured

Character, Friend, Genius

Concept to Construction

Perfectly Planned

Innovations in Biomass-Based Diesel

November 2018.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

Columns

Whose Customer Is It, Anyway?

How Lessons from Business Can Help Canada's Climate Agenda

Improving Ethanol's Outlook

Into November and Welcoming Winter

Featured

Character, Friend, Genius

Concept to Construction

Perfectly Planned

Innovations in Biomass-Based Diesel

November 2018