Biofuels Digest – Daily Biofuels News – FREE Subscription – the latest on algae, jatropha, cellulosic ethanol and drop-in renewable biofuels is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Fulcrum Bioenergy
Fulcrum utilizes new emerging technologies to convert post-recycled municipal solid waste (MSW) feedstock to cellulosic ethanol.  Fulcrum is deploying new technologies in a two-step thermochemical process.  In the first step, MSW received from feedstock suppliers under long-term contracts, will be processed through a down-draft partial oxidation gasifier followed by a plasma arc. In the second step, syngas will be converted to ethanol through an alcohol synthesis process developed by Fulcrum using a new, proprietary catalyst technology. By recycling heat and energy within the MSW-to-ethanol plant, Fulcrum is able to reduce its cost of production to less than $1.00 per gallon.  This represents a dramatic reduction in the cost of production when compared to both conventional ethanol production as well as other cellulosic ethanol production models using agricultural and wood-waste feedstocks.

Reclaim Resources
UK-based Reclaim Resources recently announced the launch of a financial package for UK councils allowing them to install and operate a Vantage Waste Processor without raising funds for project financing. The VWP uses thermal hydration to convert municipal solid waste into ethanol.  In the project financing package, Reclaim keeps all profits for five years, after which the project is turned over to the council. According to Reclaim, Operating a VWP will eliminate landfill tax levies as waste removal is no longer necessary. As landfill tax is set to reach $78 in 2010/2011, local councils will make annual savings of $13 million per year. Additionally, local authorities can augment profits by charging for MSW accepted from external sources.

Enerkem
Enerkem GreenField Alberta Biofuels was recently granted North America’s first unconditional commercial permit ever awarded to produce 10 Mgy of advanced biofuels from sorted municipal solid waste. The Enerkem technology utilizes diverse feedstocks, including sorted municipal solid waste, construction and demolition wood, treated wood and forest residues. The Enerkem technology is currently in operation and new plants are under construction. Since 2003, the company’s technology has been tested at a pilot-scale facility in Sherbrooke, Quebec.  Enerkem’s CEO, Vincent Chornet, confirmed that Edmonton gave  a 25-year commitment for 100,000 tons of presorted material.  The project is slated to commence construction at the end of 2009, and it will take about 18 months to build.

INEOS Bio
The INEOS Bio process is a combined thermochemical and biochemical technology for ethanol and power production.  It is comprised of four main steps:  (1) feedstock gasification, (2) synthesis gas fermentation (3) ethanol recovery and (4) power generation.  The process utilizes a patented fermentation process, where cleaned, cooled synthesis gas is converted selectively into ethanol by a naturally occurring anaerobic bacteria.  The pilot plant has been in operation for 6 years (2003-2009), and feedstocks successfully tested include: wood waste, MSW, sugar cane bagasse, corn stover, and auto shredder residue.

Terrabon
Terrabon’s process is anaerobic mixed culture fermentation followed by chemical conversion of fermentation products into biofuels and bio-chemicals. Depending on chemical pathway chosen, Terrabon can produce mixed primary alcohols (a mix of ethanol, propanol, butanol, pentanol, hexanol and heptanol), mixed secondary alcohols (a mix of isopropanol, 2-butanol, 3-pentanol, 2-pentanol, etc), green gasoline, green diesel and green jet fuel. The company has joint venture arrangements with Valero/Waste Management, and licensing arrangements for larger facilities (300 to 500-ton per day) using agricultural and forest residue, food scraps and non-food energy crops as feedstock, with a target production cost of $2 per gallon or less.

Masada Resource Group
Last month, Masada announced a partnership with California-based entrepreneur Robert Lee in a proposal to build “hundreds” of municipal solid waste-to-ethanol production facilities. The company said that it would target facilities in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Ghana, South Korea, Denmark and France. The company said that its patented CES OxyNol process, converts municipal solid waste (MSW) and sewer sludge to ethanol and other commercial byproducts.  More than 90% of the waste process in a CES OxyNol facility is recycled or converted to beneficial use, according to the company. Masada’s first waste-to-ethanol facility in development in the United States is located in Orange County, New York.  Masada has international projects in development in the Dominican Republic and Switzerland. The company produces yields of 85 gallons of ethanol per dry ton of MSW.

GeoSynFuels
GSF’s technology is simultaneous saccharification and solid-state fermentation for ethanol and potential for other advanecd biofuels such as biobutanol. GeoSynFuels is currently a development company focused on the construction of a continuous pilot plant.  The company has several processing routes that range from treating beetle killed pine for both hemicellulose and cellulose conversion and fermentation to treating waste fiber (MSW, waste paper, etc) whcih requires no pretreatment.  The beetle kill process has a projected price of $1.25 per gallon while the waste fiber process will be less than $1.

BlueFire Ethanol
Last month, cellulosic ethanol pioneer BlueFire Ethanol Fuels announced strategic relocation of its second planned biorefinery to Fulton, Mississippi. BlueFire has completed a 20-month licensing process and is currently awaiting the final financing needed to break ground on its ethanol biorefinery in Lancaster, CA. The Lancaster facility will use post-sorted cellulosic wastes diverted from Southern California’s landfills to produce approximately 3.9 million gallons of fuel-grade ethanol per year.

Range Fuels
Range Fuels is focused on commercially producing low-carbon biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol, and clean renewable power using renewable and sustainable supplies of biomass that  cannot be used for food.  The company uses an innovative, two-step thermo-chemical process to convert non-food biomass, such as wood chips, switchgrass, corn stover, sugarcane bagasse and olive pits to clean renewable power and cellulosic biofuels.

Powers Energy of America
Power announced in August that it will apply for a state waste handling permit in the next 45 days, based on one of up to three locations in Lake County, IN. The $285 million waste-to-ethanol project in Lake County will be the first to generate ethanol from municipal solid waste, if it stays on its current timeline, with a construction period of 18 months. Following application for the waste permit, a 90-day comment period will follow before the plant can move to secure up to 15 permits and thence officially commence construction by spring 2010. The company is focused on locations in the towns of Lowell, Crown Point and Schneider, and will handle up to 10,000 tons of waste per day. Opening of the facility is slated for fall 2011.

Agresti Biofuels

Also in August, Agresti Biofuels said that it was seeking to replace $5 million lost for its Pike County waste-to-ethanol project, when an earmark placed by Senator Jim Bunning was removed in a congressional budget review. Agresti is seeking $5 million in private capital towards its $13 million phase one expense. Total cost of the project is $200 million, which will produce up to 20 Mgy of ethanol from municipal solid waste using a gravity pressure vessel technology that produces a net gain in potable water.

Special Digest Update on biofuels made from municipal solid waste is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Obtaining Vital Information – Part III

How do you sift all the available information to find only what you need to help you make sound decisions?  It is worthwhile to know the best sources of information for your business.  Many industries have websites, research reports or other sources that already mined through the more mainstream data.  They have experts that take this data and transform it into trends and patterns.  In fact, once transformed, this data is sometimes called ‘intelligence.’  Though costly, these sources can save hours of time.  These are particularly beneficial if your company does not have a research department or if transforming data is not one of your core capabilities.

Search data to your purpose

As you begin to obtain vital information, one of the Bioenergy PROFITS Principles, highlighted in Dr. Rosalie Lober’s, newly released book, Run Your Business like a Fortune 100: 7 Principles for Boosting PROFITS, you can apply some of the best practices and proven principles of successful biofuels companies for running your business most effectively in this current world of climate change and renewable energy.

A good start is to ask yourself:

• What do I want to accomplish?
• What is the current state of my business
• What is required for my company to become more profitable?

If you are an ethanol producer, or want to learn about ethanol companies you may know that there are six principal advantages to using cellulosic biomass to produce biofuels:

1. use of dedicated energy crops

2. it is comparatively low-cost

3. it uses marginal lands for feedstock growth

4. it has a beneficial net energy balance

5. it uses less fertilizer and water relative to other crops

6. it reduces emissions of greenhouse gases.

The following are examples of some of ethanol companies that will help you search data to your purpose and sort through many of the categories you may be looking for.

• POET

The largest dry mill ethanol producers in the US, Poet is collaborating with Novozymes in the research and development of cellulose ethanol technology. The technology utilizes enzymatic hydrolysis and uses agriculture and biomass feedstock.  Poet will expand their Emmetsburg, Iowa facility to include cellulosic ethanol production from corn hulls and cobs. Completion is expected in 2009.

• Mascoma

Mascoma is developing bio and process technology for cost-effective conversion of cellulosic biomass. Similar to POET, the technology utilizes enzymatic hydrolysis and uses agriculture and biomass feedstock.

• Coskata

Coskata is a biology-based renewable energy company with technology that enables the low-cost production of ethanol from a variety of input material including biomass, agricultural and municipal wastes, and other carbonaceous material.  The company utilizes a gasification technology.

Using proprietary microorganisms and patented bioreactor designs, the company  produces FlexEthanol™, or feedstock flexible ethanol, to fuel energy security, economic growth, and environmental sustainability.

• Verbio

The VERBIO group is one of the leading producers and suppliers of biofuels and also the only industrial-scale producer of biodiesel and bioethanol in Europe. Nominal capacity currently amounts to around 450,000 tons of biodiesel and 300,000 tons of bioethanol per year. The company has developed its own processes and innovative technologies for the production of biodiesel and bioethanol. It supplies its products directly to European mineral oil corporations, mineral oil traders, independent gas stations and haulage companies.

As a biofuel producer with proven CO₂ savings of more than 80%, VERBIO sees itself as the link between agriculture, energy provision and mobility.

• ZeaChem

ZeaChem Inc. has developed a cellulose-based biorefinery platform producing ethanol. Their approach addresses carbon dioxide (CO₂) problems associated with traditional and cellulosic based processes.  ZeaChem’s patented process offers the highest yield ethanol, at the lowest cost, with the lowest fossil carbon footprint of any known biorefining method.

• BlueFire Ethanol

BlueFire Ethanol Fuels, Inc. was established to deploy a patented Concentrated Acid Hydrolysis Technology Process for the conversion of waste materials to ethanol, and other viable alternatives to petroleum derived fuels. BlueFire’s technology has demonstrated production of ethanol and other petroleum displacing fuels from urban trash (post-sorted MSW), rice and wheat straws, wood waste and other agricultural residues. BlueFire uses the Arkenol Technology Process (which has been used in Izumi, Japan since 2002) for creating cellulosic ethanol.

BlueFire is one of four ethanol companies awarded funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to construct a commercial scale cellulosic ethanol production facility. Its biorefineries will be located in markets with the highest demand for renewable transportation fuels thereby dramatically reducing delivery costs while simultaneously increasing the areas biofuel supply and reducing the waste streams sent to landfills.

• Iogen

Iogen operates a demonstration scale facility to convert biomass to cellulose ethanol using enzymatic hydrolysis technology. Full scale commercial facilities are being planned. It is very likely they will announce plans for an Idaho plant that will make ethanol from wheat straw.

• Abengoa

Abengoa constructed the world’s first commercial scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery in Babilafuente (Salamanca), Spain using some components from SunOpta. In 2006, Abengoa formed a partnership with Dyadic and, Abengoa started conversion of a corn-based ethanol plant in York, Nebraska into a bio-mass ethanol facility, which would initially use small grain straw and corn stover as the bio-mass feedstock

They quantify emissions by means of conducting an inventory of greenhouse gases, with internal regulations established for this purpose, and validate this inventory through an external auditing process. Based on this inventory, plans are drawn up for reducing, compensating and neutralizing emissions.

Abengoa also defined a system of indicators of the sustainability for the company’s use of energy consumption; water consumption; biodiversity; emission of atmospheric contaminants; odor emissions; contaminated water dumping; soil and aquifers; noise; recycling potential of materials and products, undertake improvement actions.

• Verenium

Verenium produces next-generation cellulosic ethanol using advanced enzyme science to reduce the cost of ethanol production that enables the use of a wide variety of biomass. Unlike traditional ethanol manufactured using natural gas or coal, cellulosic ethanol from biomass can be broken down into fermentable sugars using a mild acid or enzymatic hydrolysis. The biomass is hydrolyzed using steam and mildly acidic conditions. This portion of the process creates five carbon sugar (pentose) syrup from the hemicellulose found in the biomass, and prepares the remaining cellulose fiber for further enzymatic conversion into glucose. This is then turned into ethanol. The principal feedstock now being used in Verenium’s pilot facility is agricultural waste from sugar cane production, bagasse.

• Algenol

Algenol Biofuels is an innovative algae to ethanol company, using DIRECT TO ETHANOL™ technology a process powered by the sun.
Algenol’s technology produces industrial-scale, low-cost ethanol using algae, sunlight, CO2, and seawater, producing ethanol at a rate of over 6,000 gallons per acre per year.

The Direct to EthanolTM process links photosynthesis with the natural enzymes to produce ethanol inside each tiny algae cell.  The Direct to EthanolTM technology is the only end-to-end commercial process that stabilizes and reduces CO2 levels and puts CO2 to work.

• Dyadic

Dyadic International, Inc. is a global biotechnology company with the groundbreaking technology that brings nature to the marketplace. Dyadic focuses on the discovery, development, and manufacturing of novel products derived from the DNA of complex living organisms – including humans – found in the earth’s biodiversity.

For over a decade, Dyadic’s designed and developed enzymes for the increasingly efficient extraction of sugars from biomass. Using its integrated technology platform, Dyadic develops biological products such as proteins, enzymes, polypeptides and small molecules for applications in large segments of the agricultural, industrial, bioenergy, chemical and biopharmaceutical industries. Dyadic’s unique technology virtually ensures that each time a useful gene is discovered, it can also be expressed and then mass-produced.

In Summary

It’s easy to veer from seeking solutions to specific issues when faced with the multitude of data available.  Asking yourself three key questions will keep you focused.

• What do I want to accomplish?
• What is the current state of my business
• What is required for my company to become more profitable?

Over the next few weeks we will be exploring the Profits Principles: position for growth, reality, flexibility, integration, test and revise and steering the company, as we continue to explore ethanol companies – looking at their feedstocks and technologies.

Bioenergy PROFITS Principals: Obtaining Vital Information, and Verenium, Dyadic, Coskata is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Balloting will be open to the registered subscribers of the Biofuels Digest, Geothermal Digest and Biomass Digest e-newsletters, through Monday November 23rd at 5pm EST. To cast your vote, click here.

To download your free copy of the Selectors Data Book for Digest subscribers – including 230 pages of company profiles, surveys and industry data, please click here.

“Early precincts” are reporting – 25 percent of the invited selectors have already cast their votes. Though it it far too early to “call” the results, early leaders are:

1. Amyris
2. LS9
3. UOP
4. Sapphire Energy
5. POET
6. Coskata
7. Solazyme
8. Gevo
9. DuPont Danisco
10. ZeaChem

Among subscribers, early ratings are:

1. BP (last year – unranked)
2. POET (last year #4)
3. ExxonMobil (last year unranked)
4. Coskata (last year #1)
5. Novozymes (last year #14)
6. Solazyme (last year #6)
7. Sapphire Energy (last year #2)
8. Shell (last year unranked)
9. DuPont Danisco (last year #9)
10. Chevron (last year unranked)

Overall – four companies are appearing on both lists: POET, Coskata, Sapphire and Solazyme, while Amyris jumped into the top slot in the invited selectors’ poll, and ZeaChem reappeared.

Is your favorite bioenergy company missing? Be sure to cast your ballot in their support.

50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy: Amyris takes leads in selector balloting as 11/23 vote deadline nears is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Based in: Madagascar

2008-09 ranking: 47

Business: GEM BioFuels is initially focusing on the establishment of ‘company managed’ plantations of Jatropha trees in Madagascar and the extraction of the vegetable oil that is produced from its seeds as this oil is well suited to use in the production of biodiesel.

GEM BioFuels has been established to supply jatropha-based feedstock to the rapidly growing global biodiesel market. The Directors believe that one of the most significant potential constraints on the growth of this market is the relatively limited supply of biodiesel feedstock, and that this provides a significant commercial opportunity for the Company.??Model: ?Owner-operator, in parnership with communes.

Past milestones:
Entered into 18 agreements with Communes in relation to 452,500 hectares of land suitable for the establishment of plantations in Madagascar, which provide it with the exclusive right to establish Jatropha plantations on the land.

To date approximately 13,300 hectares have been planted.

Future milestones:
In addition GEM BioFuels has an agreement in relation to 40,000 hectares containing natural forest, including significant numbers of mature wild Jatropha trees. Separately, the Company also has informal arrangements with a number of individuals for the delivery of wild seed to the Group’s storage facility.

Metrics:
The Company has secured 50 year agreements giving exclusive rights over 452,500 hectares
(in excess of 1 million acres) to establish plantations, ranging in size from 2,500 – 50,000
hectares with a further 40,000 hectares of natural forest containing substantial numbers of
mature Jatropha trees.

The Hot 50 for 2009-10 will be released Tuesday, 12/1. Between now and then, you’ll see profiles of potential candidates in the Digest, and you’ll have a chance to vote for your favorites. Reader response will count for 50 percent of a company’s overall score in the preparation of the rankings. The remaining 50 percent is voted by a panel of experts.

GEM Biofuels: 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile is a post from: Biofuels Digest

National Research Council: “The report found that, in 2005, the hidden costs of energy production with fossil fuels in the United States amounted to $120 billion. Climate considerations aside, damages wrought by ethanol made from corn were usually similar to, or even slightly worse, than damages from gasoline. That’s because of the extra energy needed to convert corn to biofuel.

Today in Biofuels Opinion: “If you don’t have a big brother with deep pockets, like a BP, Exxon, Shell, or a Chevron, it’s going to be very difficult.” is a post from: Biofuels Digest

The process creates value at every step – it treats wastewater, recovers wastewater nutrients as fertiliser, removes carbon dioxide from flue gas, and creates biofuel. The Christchurch wastewater treatment plant has 230 hectares of polishing ponds that are currently used to provide disinfection of the treated wastewater prior to discharge.

It is in one of these ponds that five hectares have been cordoned off by NIWA and converted into a series of specially designed High Rate Algal Ponds with carbon dioxide (CO2) addition.The aim of the project is for NIWA to produce between 150 and 300 tonnes of algae per year from the 5 hectares of wastewater treatment High Rate Algal Ponds. After harvesting and dewatering, this algae could potentially be converted into 10,000- – 25,000 gallons of bio-crude oil by Solray.”

Algae to biocrude, using wastewater, demonstration project opens in New Zealand is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Nigerian Cassva Growers Association signs 8 million ton delivery contract; ethanol for cooking stoves envisioned is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Petrobras acquires 50 percent stake in BSBIOS biodiesel plant in Brazil is a post from: Biofuels Digest

The group sequenced a variety of corn known as B73, developed at Iowa State decades ago. It is known for its high grain yields and has been used extensively in both commercial corn breeding and in research laboratories. The corn genome data is freely available to the public at maizesequence.org

Research team publishes the completed corn genome; genome data available is a post from: Biofuels Digest