Ethanol Week - January 3, 2011

UPDATED: Pacific Ethanol granted extension, restarts plant Pacific Ethanol Inc. announced Dec. 29 that it had been granted a 180-day extension, or until June 27, to regain compliance with the minimum $1 bid price per share for continued listing on the Nasdaq Capital Market. READ MORE SHARE
Heron Lake plant agrees to $66,000 penalty Heron Lake BioEnergy LLC, a 50 MMgy ethanol plant in Heron Lake, Minn., will pay a $66,000 fine to resolve alleged violations of its environmental permits. READ MORE SHARE
	2011 miscanthus acres to mushroom Miscanthus will see a giant leap in acreage in 2011, thanks to Soperton, Ga.-based Repreve Renewables LLC. The company currently has 500 acres planted in five locations in the Southeast, which Craig Patterson, manager of commercial operations, says is equal to the total of all other miscanthus plots being grown now in the U.S. and Canada. In 2011, Repreve has committed to getting 10,000 acres in the ground. READ MORE SHARE
Broin, Thornton's awarded for work in Indiana Two companies received awards for their work in Indiana this December. Jeff Broin, CEO of Poet LLC, and Thornton's Inc., a gasoline/convenience chain retailer with 36 E85 stations, were both honored during the Greater Indiana Clean Cities awards ceremony. Broin received the 2010 Paul Dana Excellence in Bioenergy Leadership Award from the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. Thornton's was awarded for outstanding achievement in the implementation and promotion of E85 retail locations from the Greater Indiana Clean Cities Coalition. READ MORE SHARE
FTC finds deconcentration trend continues In its sixth annual report on concentration in the ethanol industry, the Federal Trade Commission found the industry is continuing a trend towards deconcentration. The FTC reports that as of September, there were 160 U.S. firms producing ethanol, the same number as 2009. The largest ethanol producer's share of capacity increased slightly to 12 percent of domestic ethanol production capacity, above the 11 percent share in 2008 and 2009, but still below the largest producer's capacity share between 2000 and 2007, which ranged from 16 percent in 2007 to 41 percent in 2000. READ MORE SHARE
New Age Cryo adds consultant, other services A dry ice cleaning business that serves ethanol plants is experiencing rapid expansion. Spring Grove, Ill.-based New Age Cyro recently hired Shawn Easterly, who will work in sales and consulting, and added welding and painting services to its dry ice services. READ MORE SHARE
TetraVitae successfully demonstrates biobutanol production Chicago, Ill.-based TetraVitae Bioscience successful completed the demonstration of its process to produce biobased n-butanol (normal butanol) in a corn dry-mill pilot plant. For the demonstration, TetraVitae retrofitted an integrated corn dry-mill pilot facility at the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center on campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. READ MORE SHARE
Maverick announces engineering partner Chapel Hill, N.C.-based Maverick Biofuels Inc. recently announced it is collaborating with Raleigh, N.C.-based Professional Project Services to develop engineering designs for a proposed pilot-scale biorefinery. According to Maverick CEO Sam Yenne, construction on the facility could begin towards the end of the first quarter of 2011. Maverick's technology produces mixed-alcohol biofuel consisting of ethanol, propanol and butanol from either biomass or municipal solid waste. READ MORE SHARE