A recent study, released on 11 October, “Biofuel and Technologies” released by Pike Research states that the global biofuel market will double within the next decade to $183.3 billion from its current level of $82.7 billion, with ethanol production accounting for $78 billion of future worldwide biofuel production, while predicting that biodiesel production will reach $25.5 billion. Perhaps not surprisingly, Pike Research predicts that the US will become the world’s leading biofuel producer, accounting for 71 percent of alternative fuel by 2021.

Colorado-based Pike Research on its website defines itself as “a market research and consulting firm that provides in-depth analysis of global clean technology markets.”
How realistic a prediction is this? Many in the media are utilizing the company’s press release on the gist of the report, as one has to be a user to login even to find out the price of the report, which the website helpfully notes, contains 144 “Tables, Charts, Figures.”

So, is America about to go ever more green to raise ethanol?

Recent history would not seem to indicate so.

Biofuel production is now receiving substantial attention from the executive branch of the federal government. Shortly before his inauguration in January 2008 President-elect Obama promised to invest $150 billion over the next decade to develop biofuels, plug-in hybrid vehicles, renewable energy production and a skilled work force for clean technologies.

Obama has now made clean energy a centerpiece of his administration’s policy – during his State of the Union address on 25 January he said, “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.

Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. And in a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps us meet that goal. We’ll invest in biomedical research, information technology, and especially clean energy technology – (applause) – an investment that will strengthen our security, protect our planet, and create countless new jobs for our people. Already, we’re seeing the promise of renewable energy.”

Agro-fuels first rose to national prominence in the U.S. in the aftermath of the second oil crisis in 1980. Seen as a renewable energy source, many policy makers in Washington supported increased production of biofuels as a substitute for imported oil. In the last few years, with increasing political instability in the Middle East, and rising oil prices, biofuels are once again being promoted aggressively, but the majority of U.S. biofuel production remains largely ethanol. Another factor promoting ethanol production – perhaps more important than rising oil prices – was the farm crisis. In the wake of the decline of the Midwestern agricultural sector, the ethanol industry was seen a way of revitalizing Midwestern economies. As a result, given the important political interests involved, the ethanol industry received strong bipartisan political support in the U.S. Senate.

But the ongoing recession is impacting all aspects of federal spending, including such previously sacrosanct programs as defense and agricultural subsidies, and the future is murky indeed.

Aside from ethanol production, the U.S. federal government has been involved in promoting alternative fuels for slightly more than a decade. In 1998 biodiesel fuel use credits were included in the alternative fueled vehicle requirements for government and state motor fleets established in 1992. In 2000 USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation Bioenergy Program was implemented. The 2002 Farm Bill included an Energy Title for the first time encompassing several biofuel provisions, including expanding CCC Bioenergy Program and Biodiesel Education Program. The same year Minnesota enacted U.S.’s first biodiesel mandate requiring at least 2 percent biodiesel in diesel fuel sold in the state by 2005.

The American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 established the first national tax credit for biodiesel at $1 a gallon for oil crops and animal fats and 50¢ a gallon for recycled fats and oils. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandated the renewable fuels standard (RFS) and included several biofuel provisions, including a 10¢ per gallon income tax credit for small agri-biodiesel producers, lasting to December 2008; a 30 percent tax credit for installing fueling facilities for “Alternative Fuel Vehicles,” including vehicles that run on at least 20 percent biodiesel and an extension of the national tax credit for biodiesel to December 2008.

The “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007” set a “mandatory Renewable Fuel Standard,” requiring fuel producers to use at least 36 billion gallons of biofuel in 2022.
In October 2008 the federal interagency Biomass Research and Development Board issued its National Biofuels Action Plan while in June 2009 the House of Representatives passed the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 by a margin of 219 to 212. The 1,200-plus-page H.R.2454 bill mandated an economy-wide carbon dioxide emissions cap 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, 42 percent below by 2030 and 83 percent below by 2050.

In May 2009 the Department of Energy announced plans to invest $786.5 Million in Recovery Act Funds in biofuels. Two months later the DOE announced $85 million funding for development of algae-based biofuels and advanced, infrastructure-compatible biofuels while at the end of 2009, the U.S. Departments of Energy and Agriculture awarded approximately $600 million in biorefinery funding, the bulk of it earmarked for pilot and demonstration-scale projects to help accelerate the commercialization process.

While the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 aggressively mandated biofuels to replace 20 percent of the U.S. petroleum gasoline consumption, or 36 billion gallons, Congress has struggled unsuccessfully to pass a comprehensive energy bill and many states have put renewable energy on hold because of the recession.

The well established corn ethanol industry agricultural lobby remains at present in the driver’s seat of U.S. renewable policy and is heavily subsidized. For years, the livestock industry was the main buyer of cheap and plentiful U.S. corn. With the 2005 ethanol mandate the government required that Americans use about 13 billion gallons of ethanol in 2010 and now, nearly one-third of U.S. grown corn is used in ethanol production, which in turn has had a significant impact on raising food prices.

So, is ethanol a good deal? Currently, its production consumes more energy than it generates.

Dr. David Pimentel, professor of ecology and agriculture at Cornell and Tad W. Patzek, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Berkeley, conducted a detailed analysis of the energy input-yield ratios of producing ethanol from corn. Pimentel added up all the energy used in growing corn – the fertilizer, the tractor fuel and tractor manufacturing, etc., plus the energy used by ethanol plants and found that making one gallon of ethanol uses the equivalent of about 1-1/3 gallons of oil. Given the rise in oil prices since 2005, the cost would be higher now. Pimentel concluded, “Ethanol production in the United States does not benefit the nation’s energy security, its agriculture, economy or the environment.

Ethanol production requires large fossil energy input, and therefore, it is contributing to oil and natural gas imports and U.S. deficits.”

Nor is corn-derived ethanol cost effective.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, producing enough corn ethanol to match the energy contained in a single gallon of conventional gasoline costs taxpayers $1.78. Even with those subsidies, which total about $7 billion per year, corn ethanol still only provides about 3 percent of America’s oil needs, hardly enough to wean America from its dependence on imported oil.

U.S. biofuels production has also become hostage to a massive anti climate change campaign, underwritten by America’s oil and coal, whose political influence has precluded Congress from passing any clean energy/climate bill.

So, is U.S. biofuel production about to double in the next decade?

The evidence seems against it at present.

Article by John C.K. Daly, appearing courtesy OilPrice.com.

photo: silk cut.

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A new advocacy film called Freedom wants Americans to wean themselves off oil and embrace alternatives to fossil fuels, which it says is killing us.

Freedom adopts an unabashedly patriotic approach to sustainability advocacy. The trailer includes shots of graveyards where soldiers who’ve died in oil wars are buried and references to other types of alternative energy such as wind and solar.

The makers of the film are currently making a tour of the country in their ethanol-fueled bus to promote screenings and meet the public. The website offers the tools to book a screening so anyone can join the movement.

The agenda that drivers the producer behind Freedom seems to be more anti-oil than just marketing for the biofuel industry. In order to get off oil, they say, the public should adopt a local lifestyle, make their homes more efficient and use ethanol or biodiesel in their car, or get an electric one. Sounds all good!

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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Every now and then we hear a specialist singing the merits of algae as the ideal solution for the fuel crisis. The idea of algae as a source of biofuel sounds wonderful, but detractors say it’s too expensive and impossible to scale up. But let’s hear for the optimists.

10 News has an interview with Dr. Stephen Mayfield, a San Diego researcher who believes that algae biofuel will be available to the public in ten years’ time.

Dr. Mayfield works at the San Diego Center for Algae Biotechnology, a leading hub of research in the U.S. The center last year received a $4 million state grant to train workers to join the biofuel industry.

The algae sell is enticing: 5,000 gallons of fuel per year; rapid growth and little water needed; it grows in the desert; it does not compete with food crops; and so on. It may sound too good to be true – but who knows?

Algae for hydrogen
Algae biodiesel is also news at MIT, which released a press release regarding breakthrough research in the field.

MIT said that Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT’s Center for Biomedical Engineering, and postdoc researchers Iftach Yacoby and Sergii Pochekailov, in a collaboration with Tel Aviv University in Israel and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, have found a way to use bioengineered proteins to flip algae’s preference from sugar to hydrogen.

“The algae are really not interested in producing hydrogen, they want to produce sugar,” Yacoby said – the sugar is what they need for their own survival, and the hydrogen is just a byproduct. But a multitasking enzyme, introduced into the liquid where the algae are at work, both suppresses the sugar production and redirects the organisms’ energies into hydrogen production.”

The enzyme increases hydrogen production by 400% but sugar production is not completely suppressed otherwise the organism would die.

The potential application of the system is to produce hydrogen on a large scale using water and sunlight. The hydrogen would then be used in a fuel cell or to power a vehicle, or combined with carbon dioxide to make methane or other fuels in a renewable, carbon-neutral way.

A more detailed description of the work will appear online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research was supported in part by a European Molecular Biology Organization postdoctoral fellowship, the Yang Trust Fund and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

The researchers highlight the simplicity of the process as one of its selling points. Algae exists anywhere in the world so developing countries could benefit as well. Besides, no toxic materials are involved in this method.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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The burning of wood is currently the largest use of energy derived from a solid fuel biomass. Wood fuel can be used for cooking and heating, and occasionally for fueling steam engines and steam turbines that generate electricity. The use of wood as a fuel source for heating is as old as civilization itself. Historically, it was limited in use only by the distribution of technology required to make a spark. Wood heat is still common throughout much of the world. Wood fuel, one of the oldest energy sources on the planet, could become the newest commodity market if it can overcome supply limits and green concerns as demand grows for renewable energy. Experts say that supply constraints are starting to put wood fuel into competition with the paper industry, in an uneasy reminder of existing tensions between the food industry and companies making biofuels from food crops.

Wood has been used as fuel for millennia. The Greeks, Romans, Celts, Britons, and Gauls all had access to forests suitable for using as fuel. Over the centuries there was a partial deforestation of climax forests and the evolution of the remainder to forest management as the primary source of wood fuel. These woodlands involved a continuous cycle of new stems harvested from old stumps, on rotations between seven and thirty years.

John Bingham, a director at consultants Hawkins Wright, said that an open market was “coming very fast” citing Eurostat data showing European Union imports of wood pellets up 42% last year.

Shaped wood pellets are made for the energy sector, while raw wood chips are used mostly by the paper industry.

Those developments suggest a gradual shift to a more transparent market beyond bilateral deals between suppliers and users, such as timber companies and utilities.

Britain’s biggest coal-fired power plant, Drax, burned nearly 1 million tons of biomass last year – more than double the previous year’s figures – while burning ten times that amount of coal.

Wood pellets are said to have about 70 percent of the calorific value of coal.

The British arm of German utility RWE, RWE npower will this year convert a coal plant near London to burn 2 million ton of biomass until it closes in 2015.

Domestic UK wood fuel production, excluding recycled or waste wood, is currently about 1.5 million tons annually, according to Forestry Commission data.

But it is an open question whether there is enough volume for an open market, as utilities already have large volumes tied up in long contracts, or produce pellets for themselves.

The existing biomass power generating industry in the United States, which consists of approximately 11,000 MW of summer operating capacity actively supplying power to the grid, produces about 1.4 percent of the U.S. electricity supply.

But how green is wood or biomass combustion? In theory wood is a natural product that is periodically harvested and reused in a sustainable fashion.

Such concerns are reflected in a European Commission study of the environmental impact of biomass incentives, which will lead to new eligibility rules later this year.

The biomass industry says it is working on its own green standards, and that plantation forests and waste will be the main sources of supply.

Article by Andy Soos, appearing courtesy Environmental News Network.

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A California company working on algae biofuel has announced a distribution partnership with one of its process partners. World Water Works will distribute OriginOil’s dewatering and extraction systems to its global customer base. The agreement covers product integration, manufacturing and joint marketing.

“We’re excited that World Water Works have decided to manufacture and distribute our devices throughout their international customer base,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. “This is a major first step in our plan to integrate the algae production process for our customers.”

World Water Works’ Algae Harvesting Technology Optimized (AHTO) system is a patent-pending version of the company’s wastewater industry high rate Dissolved Air Flotation (DAF) process, specifically tailored to algae harvesting.

It separates suspended solids (flocculated algae) from the water by a process of dissolving air into water under pressure. Upon release of that pressure, micro-bubbles form. These micro-bubbles interact with the particles to cause them to float to the surface of a vessel where they are skimmed off.

The company says the process brings significant performance and cost advantages over other algae harvesting systems on the market, yielding up to 20% algae concentrations at low operational and capital costs.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, a Brazilian writer and video art curator based in London, UK. He holds a BA in journalism and an MA in film and television.

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A team at the BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) announced that it succeeded to produce isobutanol directly from cellulose. It is the first time anyone does that.

The process presents several advantages, including saving time and money. Besides, isobutanol is a higher-grade of alcohol than ethanol.

“Unlike ethanol, isobutanol can be blended at any ratio with gasoline and should eliminate the need for dedicated infrastructure in tanks or vehicles,” said James Liao, chancellor’s professor and vice chair of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science.

“Plus, it may be possible to use isobutanol directly in current engines without modification. Compared to ethanol, higher alcohols such as isobutanol are better candidates for gasoline replacement because they have an energy density, octane value and Reid vapor pressure – a measurement of volatility – that is much closer to gasoline”, Liao added.

Process
One of the problems with corn stover and switchgrass in terms of conversion of cellulosic biomass to alcohol is that they are more recalcitrant, that is, they are harder to dismantle chemically. Besides, several steps are involved in the process (pretreatment, enzyme treatment and fermentation), involving higher costs. Combining biomass utilization and the fermentation of sugars to biofuel into a single process is more financially attractive.

To make the conversion possible, Liao and his team developed a strain of Clostridium cellulolyticum, a native cellulose-degrading microbe that could synthesize isobutanol directly from cellulose.

“This work is based on our earlier work at UCLA in building a synthetic pathway for isobutanol production,” Liao said.

Some bio-tweaking was necessary, though. While some Clostridium species produce butanol, these organisms typically do not digest cellulose directly. Other Clostridium species digest cellulose but do not produce butanol. None produce isobutanol, an isomer of butanol.

“In nature, no microorganisms have been identified that possess all of the characteristics necessary for the ideal consolidated bioprocessing strain, so we knew we had to genetically engineer a strain for this purpose,” researcher Yongchao Li said.

The choice fell on Clostridium cellulolyticum, which was originally isolated from decayed grass. The method exploits the host’s natural cellulolytic activity and the amino acid biosynthetic pathway and diverts its intermediates to produce higher alcohol than ethanol.

In response to the announcement, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu said it is another sign of the rapid progress in the development of biofuels that can help reduce oil dependence.

The paper “Metabolic Engineering of Clostridium Cellulolyticum for Isobutanol Production from Cellulose” is available online. The research was supported in part by BESC at ORNL and UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, appearing courtesy Justmeans.

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For some time now, announcements have been coming out from the Ford Motor Company about their decision to hybridize various existing models while also presenting full electric and hydrogen vehicles as a part of a green lineup. However, last Thursday the attitude from Ford seemed to change a little bit when they announced that they didn’t believe that electric vehicles were worth a full investment.

The word came down from the Executive Chairman himself, William Ford, last Thursday during his speaking engagement at The Wall Street Journal’s ECO:nomics Conference in Santa Barbara, California. William Ford said that he believed that electric vehicle technology is at this point and time not proven to be the “winning technology” when it comes to green vehicles. He instead thinks that Ford should not squander too many resources on the development of only electric vehicles when the company should also be paying close attention to the developing hydrogen fuel cell and biofuel markets as well. Ford’s reluctance to dedicate a large amount of resources to the development of electric vehicles is apparently due to their belief that the technology and infrastructure is not developing in a way to make it a very safe bet.

While Ford is happy to spread their investment around with green vehicle technology they certainly do not intend to totally abandon electric. They still have a variety of models converted into electric or hybrid versions and still have plans to take the Focus line and turn it electric.

As many companies push forward with electric on a massive scale, it will be interesting to see whether or not Ford’s cautious attitude will pay out in the end. With plenty of years ahead of us before we see any major change in the type of fuel automobiles use on an international or national scale it would seem Ford has time to change their mind.

Article by Richard Cooke, appearing courtesy Justmeans.

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The food versus fuel debate is back on the agenda with the launch of a map designed by anti-poverty organization ActionAid and the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The map shows which countries are at highest risk of a food crisis due to food price rises.

The organization says volatile food markets and food insecurity contributed to the civic unrest that recently brought down Egypt’s president. They link the food price crisis to the American insistence on subsidizing corn ethanol.

“When we send seven times as much corn to ethanol plants as we keep in our own stockpiles, the diversion of just a few more bushels sends shockwaves through commodity markets and food price indices”, said Sheila Karpf, legislative and policy analyst at EWG.

Corn ethanol
In fact, a Los Angeles Times report last week highlighted how corn ethanol is booming in America right now. Ethanol production hit record levels last year, and some companies are looking to expand, wrote the publication. This is a consequence of a federal mandate to quadruple the nation’s use of biofuels to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022 from 2008 levels. Corn ethanol gets almost half of that market, or 15 billion gallons. Besides federal incentives, some states have similar programs in place as well.

Altogether, three quarters of tax credits destined for renewable energy goes to ethanol. A combination of rising oil prices and increasing demand for ethanol has created a bullish market for the product. As a consequence, the U.S. has shifted 40 percent of corn production from food and feed to fuel, putting stress on corn supplies in a year when stocks are at the lowest level in decades, ActionAid said.

“We are teetering on a full-fledged global crisis and one trigger – rising oil prices, a spike in the cost of rice, an export ban, or climate related shortage of crops – could be the tipping point,” said Marie Brill, senior policy analyst at ActionAid USA. “To use storm terminology, we were in a food crisis watch last fall, which has escalated into a food crisis warning. The U.S. needs to be prepared and to take steps now to mitigate a food crisis and prevent future crises.”

Map
The map identifies 52 high-risk countries where people rely on 83 billion tons of imported food per year. 750 million individuals are already malnourished in those places. Corn is a main staple, alongside soybeans and wheat exported by the United States.

Half of these countries are experiencing food price hikes and 37 of them are heavy importers of corn. The average income in these places is $2 a day and people spend at least 55 per cent of their income on food.

The data which the map was based on was compiled from the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), US Dept. of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, the World Bank, ActionAid and EWG.

Article by Antonio Pasolini, appearing courtesy Justmeans.

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The foundation for a rash of legal actions arising out of a failed green project have been laid. 

According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, the Carousel Center shopping mall was supposed to be a showcase of green features. To fund the project, the Carousel Center developers secured:

$228 million in federally authorized, tax-exempt “green bonds” to help finance the first phase of Congel’s expansion of the mall into an entertainment and tourism center to be called Destiny USA.

Unfortunately, six years later, those green features are no where to be found:

There is no 45-megawatt electricity generating plant running on “biofuel” made from soybean oil and recycled cooking grease. If there were, it would be the largest such plant in the nation and consume more than one-third of the total U.S. biodiesel supply.

Nor are there 290,000 square feet of solar panels on the mall’s roofs and other surfaces, enough to blanket six football fields.

The fuel cells that were to make 7 megawatts of electricity, five times more than the nation’s largest existing commercial fuel-cell installation? Nowhere to be seen.
 

The construction landscape is littered with the bodies of failed projects, grandly envisioned in 2005 and all but abandoned in 2011.  The question–What becomes of the tax exempt status of the bonds? 

Loss of the tax exemption would require Congel to pay higher interest rates on the bonds to compensate investors, who would suddenly be required to pay income taxes on the interest they earned. The increased cost would depend on the interest rate spread between taxable and tax-exempt bonds at the time of the IRS ruling. In 2005, a Destiny USA executive estimated the tax exemption would save the developer about $120 million over the 30-year term of the bonds.

If the IRS chooses to rescind the tax exempt status of the bonds, there could be a flood of legal fallout.  A few possibilities: 

1. Investors, particularly institutional investors, now forced to pay taxes on their previously exempt bonds could sue Congel. 
2. Government entities, like the Syracuse Industrial Development Authority, could pursue Congel. Although the SIDA did not put up any money outright, it gave the project a 30 year tax abatement, presumably on the premise that completion of the project would bring economic development.  If the project would not have gone forward without the $228 million in green bonds, SIDA might have grounds for seeking its property taxes.
3. Citibank and Congel entered into a settlement under which Citibank agreed to disburse the remainder of the $$155 million construction loan on the project.  If the project is devalued by the impact of the tax issue, Congel may be in breach of whatever settlement he came to with Citibank.
4. According to the Post-Standard, the developer’s attorneys now say the promised conservation and technology goals will not be achieved with the current expansion and may never be achieved, even if future phases of Destiny are built. if the Federal government can prove that Congel fraudulently represented that the project would have the green features, this may be additional grounds for a suit.
   

However, Congel almost certainly protected himself and his development company behind a single purpose entity to develop the Carousel Center.  If, at the end of the day, the only asset the single purpose entity has is the partially completed Carousel/Destiny USA Center, investors, the government and the people of Syracuse may have been taken for a ride.

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Algal technology company, Aquaflow Bionomic Corporation announced last week that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Impulse Devices, Inc (IDI) of California, United States.

Aquaflow director Nick Gerritsen says that the companies intend to work together to develop next generation technology to produce low-cost, renewable energy and chemicals, among other applications.

Aquaflow is one of the world’s leading algal technology companies. Impulse Devices, Inc, which was founded in 1999, has become the world leader in high-pressure cavitation performance as well as being at the forefront of developing the technological capacity required for acoustic inertial confinement fusion (Acoustic ICF).

In essence, acoustic cavitation (AC) uses high frequency sound waves to form cavities, or microbubbles, in liquids. The microbubbles eventually implode producing high temperatures and energy. Acoustic cavitation devices may be built for a fraction of the cost of nuclear fusion reactors to produce relatively safe and low-polluting energy.

“This is another example of Aquaflow pushing the envelope and not simply sitting back and accepting some status quo view of the algae biomass sector. It is significant for a New Zealand-based company to continually attract and develop top tier international support and collaboration,” comments Gerritsen.

In addition, both companies are committed to long term wastewater remediation in man-made (oxidation pond) and natural (rivers and lakes) water sources. AC technology is also able to control algal growth and potentially improve water quality without producing toxic by-products.

“We are committed to making algae-derived fuels and chemicals a reality in the very near future. The ability to experiment and potentially apply the Impulse Devices’ technology may lead to faster advancement and the development of another pathway,” explains Gerritsen.

Dr Peter Nelson, VP Corporate Development at IDI, stated: “We are pleased to join forces with Aquaflow in order to explore the application of high-pressure AC to algae biomass processing. IDI is the world leader in pressurised AC and believes that by bringing its technology together with Aquaflow’s process, the energy cost of generating liquid bio-fuel can be substantially reduced.”

Article by Kate R., appearing courtesy Celsias.

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