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

Prince Joachim of Denmark opens the Inbicon cellulosic ethanol plant in Kalundborg, Denmark

In Denmark, Prince Joachim inaugurated the 1.4 Mgy, demonstration-scale Inbicon cellulosic ethanol plant in Kalundborg, which is utilizing wheat straw as its initial feedstock. The plant is the largest cellulosic ethanol facility in Europe, and second globally only to the KL Energy project in Upton, WY.

Inbicon and its parent company DONG Energy, the state oil, power and gas firm, confirmed that Inbicon will license its technology for use outside of Denmark, while DONG CEO Alders Eldrup said that the company expects to “construct a few factories also in Denmark.

Inbicon, a DONG Energy technology subsidiary, has invested $80 million in the project, which is co-located with a DONG Energy power plant, and utilizes waste heat from the power plant as a critical cost-reducing inputs in its system.

The plant opening was timed to coincide with the COP 15 Climate Change conference in Copenhagen where the successor to the Kyoto Treaty is scheduled to be finalized. A number of official vehicles at COP 15 will utilize E85 cellulosic ethanol produced by the Inbicon plant. The remainder will be supplied to Statoil Hydro under a long-term offtake agreement, and will appear in E10 ethanol blends in Danish service stations commencing in 2010.

Wheat straw utilized in the Inbicon process

In addition to ethanol, the plant is expected to produce 13,000 metric tons of lignin pellets — which will be supplied to the DONG Energy power plant to replace coal — and 11,000 metric tons of molasses that will be utilized in animal feed.

Inbicon’s technology allows the molasses to be converted to biogas or processed into ethanol if economics warrant further processing of the C5 (xylose) sugars. Currently, only the C6 (glucose) sugars are processed into ethanol, although the company is continuing to improve its technology.

A unique feature of the technology is symbiotic relationship with power production — utilizing waste heat from power gen to eliminate the use of natural gas and costly heating infrastructure in a free standing ethanol plant, which also reduces greenhouse gas emissions associated with production. In addition, the company has pioneered a proprietary pretreatment process and proprietary designs on its first-stage hydrolysis units, where enzymes are first introduced to capture sugars from the lignin and cellulose – both innovations are designed to reduce the energy intensity of the process, thereby reducing emissions and cost.

Inbicon CEO Niels Henriken confirmed that he expected that Inbicon technology would next surface in Southeast Asia, with several sites and projects under consideration. However, a team of executives from Minnesota’s Great River Energy were on hand for the Kalundborg opening, and confirmed that they expect to license or partner with Inbicon on a 20 Mgy cellulosic ethanol project planned for the Spiritwood complex in North Dakota. Like Kalundborg, the Spiritwood project is planned as a symbiosis to capture and convert waste streams from the Great River Energy’s CHP plant currently in operation at Spiritwood.

Inbicon opens 1.4 Mgy demonstration cellulosic ethanol plant in Denmark 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.  The link to the ballot will be distributed this week in every edition of the Digest newsletter.

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

1. UOP (last year #10)
2. LS9 (last year #25)
3. POET (last year #4)
4. Amyris Biotechnologies (last year #7)
5. Coskata (last year #1)
6. BP Biofuels (last year – unranked)
7. ZeaChem (last year #11)
8. Sapphire Energy (last year – #2)
9. DuPont Danisco (last year #9)
10. Solazyme (last year #6)

Among subscribers, early ratings are:

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

POET, BP, Coskata and Sapphire have appeared on both Top 10s in voting to date – too early to tell, but it may shape up to be a good year for these four companies.

Over the past week, Gevo and Verenium have slipped out of the top 10 as algae rallied, with Sapphire Energy rejoining the top 10. The big trend this year so far is the advance by companies making drop-in, renewable fuels, with companies such as UOP, BP Biofuels, Amyris and LS9 moving up. 6 of the top 10 now have drop-in fuel capabilities.

In all, more than 160 companies have received votes in this year’s ballot, to date. In all, 17 companies are currently in the “early results” top 50 that were unranked last year — including BP Biofuels, Enerkem, Codexis, Joule Biotechnologies, TMO Renewables, LanzaTech, PetroAlgae and more.

A factor? In a ranking system that rewards “visibility and credibility,” brand recognition is proving to be a factor. Otherwise well-regarded international companies have registered “don’t knows” in the mid to high 80s, including Drystill, RakennusTempo and Shree Renuka. Meanwhile, mainline oil and grain companies are in the teen and low 20s – ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron having the highest recognition.

But visibility can pay – among companies with “don’t knows” in the 20s and low 30s are POET, Novozymes, Petrobras, Coskata, Sapphire Energy, and Verenium.

Another factor – name changing. HeroBX, Mission New Energy and Qteros had elevated “don’t know” levels after going through name changes.

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

POET, BP, Coskata and Sapphire among early contenders in 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy underway is a post from: Biofuels Digest

But there’s not too much mystery to it. By now, practically everyone in biofuels knows the basic recipe for making a gallon of algal fuel from an open pond environment. As great cooks advise, the potential is in the ingredients, but the flavor is in the execution.

Ingredients:
One 320 ml beaker containing “secret sauce” – a superior strain of algae in solution
1500 gallons of water (recyclable)
45 pounds of CO2
Trace amounts of other nutrients, including iron and copper

Directions:
Add all ingredients to water
Stir continuously, and bake in sunlight until algae reaches 0.2 percent concentrations, then harvest continuously.
Remove water, extract oil, recycle 99.8% of water
Burn remnant biomass for power, or sell as protein  – your choice

Serves:
1 VW Jetta TDI for approximately 50 miles.

(Note to readers – don’t try this at home – the ratios are basically correct for an algal strain with 33 percent oil content, but you don’t really make algae in one-pound “servings”.)

Aside from the continuing challenges of extracting the water from the algae (or the algae from the water) and extracting the oil (excepting those who gasify the biomass — or have magic bugs who consume algae and excrete ethanol — the real trick is in the cost of engineering and in the production of the secret sauce, the superior strain of algae that will accomplish three things:

1. Reproduces rapidly.
2. Contains tons of BTUs.
3. Keep on going and going under conditions only an extremophile could love.

The very criteria for the Energizer and Duracell Bunnies.  And so, the algal ventures are pursuing their microbiological version Survivor, developing candidate “magic strains” and then voting the losers off the island.

Meanwhile,  a cabal of part-time observers and preternatural pessimists have concluded that, three years after serious ventures restarted the pursuit of algal fuels – the absence of millions of gallons of algal fuels at everyday low prices is an indicator that microalgae will not succeed as a fuel until some time in the, say, 24th century. That the correct allegory for algal fuels is not, in fact, “Survivor” — but rather “Fantasy Island.”

The industry’s penchant for secrecy, and global range, is partly to blame. Are algal fuels for real – are parity prices ever be a reality?  Is algal fuel production really underway, or is this some orgiastic expenditure of public and private investment along the lines of cold fusion?

To help draw back the veil, the Digest recently visited the labs at Sapphire Energy with a goal of substituting images for words — showing a full-scale, industrial biotech development effort – what it is,  and how it works.

Sapphire, like others, is developing an affordable, scalable commercial production system – its “above ground oil field,” as Sapphire’s Tim Zenk put it. At the same time, it has mounted a parallel effort to identify its “magic bunny” — the strains with the optimal combinations of high energy content, fast reproduction, and ability to tough it out in the wild, wild west of open ponds.

The Sapphire approach to finding the right “bunny” – amidst tens of thousands of microalgal species, and potentially an infinite number of strains:  an industrial biotech approach to R&D: equal parts of discipline, throughput, and sense of adventure.

The Ideal Strain #1.

The combinations of algal genetic traits would number in the billions. The first step is establishing a process by which strains can be identified, examined, selected for potential. In this case, they start at slide level.. The examination is industrial in its technology, and in scale. A few years back, an algal enterprise might examine a few dozen strains in a month. Today, Sapphire is processing 8,000 strains per day to find its perfect Bunny that breeds rapidly, survives in the wild, and is packed full of energy.

In our example here, Sapphire staff is looking at individual cells for favorable traits. Candidates with promise are moved from the slide and petri dish stage to the small beakers.

The Ideal Strain #2 – Dish to beaker and small tubes and mini-raceways

At this stage, a number of unpromising strains have been “voted off the island,” and the remaining candidates are transferred to small beakers. This has been captured on video, so that you can see the rotation that keep the water in motion (as opposed to the paddle wheels utilized in the larger raceway pond systems). Promising candidates are now moved to larger tubes, where analysis continues — note the heavy array of sensing equipment accompanying each small tube. Candidates are also tested in mini-raceway pond environments to test their ability to withstand a more industrial set of conditions.

The Ideal Strain #3 – Small tube to greenhouse

A smaller group of candidates, based on stability and yield among other factors, are moved into the greenhouse. There, larger soft plastic tubing is employed and final candidates are selected for transfer from the San Diego labs to the test ponds in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

The Ideal Strain #4 – Las Cruces

Here, Sapphire Energy is constructing a 100-acre R&D, engineering, and pilot production facility. Ponds are already in place and Sapphire began growing “aggressively” as of November 2008, as well as continuing lab work at nearby New Mexico State University.

Our candidate “bunny” – 1 in at least 8,000 – has made it through the selection process, and has won a ticket east where a staff of at least 18 are now in place to test it in the ponds. What began as a cell on a slide – out of thousands of candidates – is now a contender to become a component part in a national energy solution.

Along the way – test production.

Some notable firsts from Sapphire. The first gasoline produced from genetically modified algae, as well as drop-in, renewable diesel and drop-in renewable jet fuel. If green diesel from algae reaches it potential for epic scale, look for these samples to find a final home in the Smithsonian.

Next steps

Sapphire is reportedly raising $600 million in a revolving debt facility to facilitate its expansion to a 1 Mgy demonstration-scale facility by 2014, 100 Mgy commercial scale by 2018, and 1 billion gallons per year by 2025.

Meanwhile, its staff of 80 PhDs in the San Diego labs, as well as a growing staff, and 22 acres of ponds in place in Las Cruces, are keeping Sapphire’s visibility and credibility at high levels that indicate why the company was ranked #2 among the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy for 2008-09.

Sapphire Energy: the making of algae that reproduce strong, last long 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.

All subscribers to Biofuels Digest, Biomass Digest and Geothernmal Digest e-newsletters are eligible to vote. (Subscriptions are free – to sign-up, visit this link).

Digest subscribers will also this week receive a link and password to the free “Selectors Data Book for Digest Subscribers” – including 230 pages of company profiles, surveys and industry data.

“Early precincts” are reporting – 15 percent of  invited selectors have already cast their votes. Though it it far too early to “call” the results, early leaders are:

1. UOP (last year #10)
2. Amyris Biotechnologies (last year #7)
3. Coskata (last year #1)
4. LS9 (last year #25)
5. BP Biofuels (last year – unranked)
6. POET (last year #4)
7. Gevo (last year #26)
8. ZeaChem (last year #11)
9. Solazyme (last year #6)
10. Verenium (last year #36)

In all, more than 140 companies have received votes in this year’s ballot, to date. In all, 20 companies are currently in the “early results” top 50 that were unranked last year — including BP Biofuels, Enerkem, Codexis, Joule Biotechnologies, TMO Renewables, LanzaTech, and more. The big trend this year so far — biobutanol and drop-in, renewable fuels are generally advancing, with companies such as UOP, BP Biofuels, Gevo, Amyris and LS9 moving up.

More on the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy
Here is the full list of “early results” from the invited selectors.

Is your favorite bioenergy company missing – or ranked too low? Be sure to cast your ballot in their support!

Subscriber voting opens in 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy; UOP, Amyris, Coskata lead in early-stage balloting is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Projects announced today will contribute a minimum of 20 percent of matching funds for research and development projects and 50 percent of matching funds for demonstration projects. Funding is provided through USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and DOE’s Biomass Program.

Awardees include: GE, Gevo, Itaconix, Yenkin-Majestic Paint, Velocys, Execlus, Purdue, the University of Minnesota, Agrivida, Oklahoma State, the University of Tennessee, and the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials.

Award details:

·  GE Global Research (Irvine, CA) up to $1,597,544: to develop detailed and simplified kinetic models of biomass gasification.  A fundamental modeling capability will enable the widespread design of feedstock-flexible biomass gasifiers that are cost-effective and scaled to match the regional distribution of biomass feedstocks.

·  Gevo, Inc. (Englewood, CO) up to $1,780,862: to develop a yeast fermentation organism that can cost-effectively convert cellulosic-derived sugars into isobutanol, a second generation biofuel/biobased product.  As an advanced biofuel, isobutanol strikes a unique balance between high octane content and low vapor pressure, it can be converted into hydrocarbons, and as a biobased product it can be used as a chemical precursor for numerous high-value products such as isobutylene and PET plastic products.

·  Itaconix ( Hampton Falls, NH) up to $1,861,488: to develop production of polyitaconic acid from northeast hardwood biomass, using an integrated extraction-fermentation-polymerization process.  Polyitaconic acid is a water soluable polymer with a 2 million metric ton per year market potential as a replacement for petrochemical dispersants, detergents, and super-absorbents.

·  Yenkin-Majestic Paint Corporation (Columbus, OH) up to $1,800,000: to demonstrate, at scale, the operation of a dry fermentation system that uses pre- and post-consumer food wastes from supermarkets and restaurants, waste sawdust, grass, leaves, stumps and other forms of wood waste to produce biogas, heat, and electrical power.  Yenkin-Majestic will use these products to demonstrate a distributed stand-alone system for the operation of a large industrial facility.

· Velocys, Inc. (Plain City, OH) up to $2,651,612: to improve biorefinery economics through microchannel hydroprocessing.  This project will explore the unique capabilities of heat and mass transfer inherent in microchannel reactor technology with advanced catalysts to intensify chemical processes, resulting in more efficient conversion of cellulosic residues to liquid transportation fuels.

· Exelus, Inc. (Livingston, NJ) up to $1,200,000: to develop a Biomass-to-Gasoline (BTG) technology that represents a fundamental shift in process chemistry and overall approach to creating biofuels. The technology uses unique, engineered catalysts that facilitate new reaction pathways to liquid motor fuels from biomass. The BTG process replaces conventional high-temperature processes like gasification and pyrolysis with a series of mild, low-temperature reactions. The self-contained process uses minimal water and no acids or chemical additives.

Biofuels Development Analysis:

· Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) up to $933,883: to develop an analysis of the global impacts of second generation biofuels in the context of other energy technologies and alternative economic and climate change policy options.  This project will modify, extend and link established modeling frameworks to capture the strengths of each framework in a hybrid, multidisciplinary system.

· University of Minnesota (St. Paul, MN) up to, $2,715,007: to assess the environmental sustainability and capacity of forest-based biofuel feedstocks within the Lake States region.  This project will address key uncertainties about expanding feedstock harvests in the northern Lake States, including environmental impacts, economic feasibility and avoided fossil-fuel CO2 emissions.

· Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials (Washington, Idaho, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee) up to $1,430,535: to compare the life cycle environmental and economic impacts for collecting forest residuals, short rotation crops, mixed waste,  and biomass from fire risk reduction activities on federal lands for conversion to fuels via biochemical, pyrolysis and gasification systems. National estimates of biofuel production will be based on stratified biomass collection and processing implementation scenarios that can be evaluated against the Renewable Fuel Standard greenhouse gas emission objectives.

Feedstock Development:

· Agrivida (Medford, MA) up to  $1,953,128: to develop new crop traits that eliminate the need for both expensive pretreatment equipment and enzymes.  Transgenic switchgrass will be engineered with cell wall-degrading proenzymes that are dormant when the plant is in the field, but activated after harvest, under processing conditions with specific temperature and pH.

·  Oklahoma State University (Stillwater, OK) up to $4,212,845: to develop best practices and technologies necessary to ensure efficient, sustainable and profitable production of cellulosic ethanol feedstocks.  Utilizing large-scale feedstock production research, the economic and environmental sustainability of switchgrass, mixed-species perennial grasses and annual biomass cropping systems will be evaluated, and the synergy between bioenergy and livestock production will be explored.

· The University of Tennessee (Knoxville,TN) up to $2,345,290: to compare three varieties of switchgrass using various management practices, harvesting equipment and harvesting timelines in Eastern Tennessee. This 2,000-acre demonstration-scale project will use field plots ranging in size from 10 – 50 acres that incorporate different varieties of switchgrass seed: the current Alamo variety, the Ceres EG 1101 improved Alamo variety, and the Ceres EG 1102 Kanlow variety.

USDA, DOE announce $24 million in bioenergy, bio-based products R&D grants: Gevo, Velocys, GE, Agrivida among awardees for ethanol, biobutanol, drop-in fuels is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Artist rendering of the proposed Rentech facility in Natchez, MS

Elsewhere in today’s Digest, comments from Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson and the DOE’s Valerie Reed confirm an increasingly laser-like focus on renewable aviation fuels from the advanced biofuels community. Here are some developments in renewable, drop-in aviation fuels from biomass also highly worth noting.

US Air Force
The Air Force has announced that it will construct a $2.5 million Assured Aerospace Fuels Research Facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, also home to the Air Force Institute of Technology and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The facility is expected to be completed in summer 2010, and according to a report in Daily Tech, “It is expected to develop around 15 to 25 gallons of research jet fuel composed of coal, biofuels, and other gas alternatives every day.”

Dynamic Fuels

One of the fuels under study at Wright-Patterson is Dynamic Fuels — the joint venture of Tyson and Syntroleum, which will commence producing 75 Mgy of renewable diesel, and renewable jet fuel, based on the company’s R-8 platform, produced from animal fats and vegetable oil s by the company’s Bio-Synfining process. The Air Force Research Laboratory recently tested 600 gal of R-8 for short. According to a report from Wright-Patterson, “initial physical property and T63 engine testing indicates R-8’s performance as indistinguishable from that of S-8, Syntroleum’s Fischer-Tropsch synthetic jet fuel that first flew in 2006 aboard the B-52. Additional tests of R-8 are underway, with the product also entering the first stages of the MIL-HDBK-510 Alternative Fuel Certification Process.”

More on Dynamic Fuels and the USAF: a downloadable USAF presentation on the USAF Energy Program.

Rentech
Rentech is producing synthetic jet fuel and renewable diesel at its demonstration plant in Commerce City, Colorado. This facility currently produces Jet A fuel for commercial aviation and it is also sold to the U.S Air Force, a deal that was the company’s first commercial sale. This facility also produces Rentech’s clean diesel or Rendiesel which will be produced in commercial scale at the Rialto Project.

The Rialto (CA) Project will take urban yard and woody green waste to produce ultra clean and renewable fuels. It is estimated that Rialto will produce 600 barrels per day of synthetic fuel as well as 35 megawatts of renewable power. The Rialto project is currently completing all feasibility studies and will complete front-end engineering and design in 2010. Estimated completed construction and start up is expected in 2012.

How does Rentech fund its clean energy projects? Its operating cash flow comes from Rentech’s Energy Midwest Corporation or REMC located in Illinois. This is the underlying economic base that supports commercialization of Rentech’s other projects. This facility produces 600,000 tons of nitrogen fertilizer products that are sold to Midwest markets.

Next week: Jet Plains, Part III: Inside looks at some serious industrial biotech at Sapphire Energy

Next week, “Jet Plains, part III” will appear on Tuesday, with a special look at Sapphire Energy, including exclusive video from the company’s research labs in San Diego, where the company is ploughing through an astonishing 8,000 algal strains per day in its R&D, moving the top-performing strains to its facility now well advanced on its construction in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sapphire provided algal oils used for renewable jet fuel in the JAL and Continental test flights conducted last year.

Jet Plains, Part II: Doers, Done, and the DOE in renewable jet fuel is a post from: Biofuels Digest

The US military has commenced testing of biofuls with the F-18 Hornet

Ceres, ViaSpace, Sustainable Oils, Solazyme are among R&D leaders aiming to turn America’s heartland into a high-tech advanced biofuels playground of energy grasses and camelina for advanced transportation biofuels and aviation fuel.

“I fully expect that in the future,” said Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson, “that I will make my daily 15-mile commute in a car that is powered by green electrons. But heavy rail, heavy truck, heavy marine will be using diesel or diesel-electric hybrids for a long time, and aviation has nowhere to go but aviation biofuels.”

60 billion gallons of aviation fuel – all of it up for grabs for those biofuel producers who can develop the feedstocks and the processing technologies to make affordable, sustainable biofuels. At $2.50 per refined gallon — it is a $150 billion market today — perhaps more in the future.

Salicornia, jatropha, camelina and algae are usually mentioned as the feedstocks of choice. But there’s a strong connection also between algae and the woods, grasses, mustards and canes grown in the heartlands and the southeast — the cheap sugars that could be unlocked by cellulosic processing technologies hold the key for Solazyme’s heterotropic system for cultivating algae. [In Solazyme's system, algae is grown in large industrial fermenters and fed cellulosic biomass, in the dark — as yeasts and enzymes are a platform for producing ethanol from sugars in fermenters, Solazyme's platform uses algae to produce oils from sugars in a similar industrial setting].

The US military is buying jet biofuels for testing — most recently placing a 600,000 gallon order with  Sustainable Oils,. Cargill and Solazyme.  In addition, Solazyme previously received an order from the Navy for 20,000 gallons of renewable algae derived F-76 Naval distillate fuel for use in Navy ships. In fulfillment of the jet fuel contract, Solazyme said it will partner with Honeywell’s UOP to use the latter’s renewable jet fuel processing technology. The contract calls for delivery of 1500 gallons of SolaHRJET-5 renewable algae derived jet fuel to the Navy for compatibility testing next year.

Today, some updates on advances on the grass side. In part II, tomorrow, a closer look at the woods, canes, salicornia and algae

Biomass, BioGrass

In California, Ceres announced that it plans to expand an advanced trait development project to increase biomass yields of several energy grasses by as much as 40% in coming years, while simultaneously decreasing the use of inputs such as nitrogen fertilizers. The project, which was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) from among 3,700 renewable energy proposals, will be funded in part by a $5 million advanced research grant managed through the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), a DOE organization modeled after the long-heralded defense organization, DARPA. Projections indicate that the Ceres traits alone could displace 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 58 million tons of coal over a ten year period. Depending on cropping practices, 1.2 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer could be eliminated (about the amount of nitrogen needed for 24 million acres of cotton), among other benefits.

The three-year project is expected to begin next month. Ceres researchers will test its advanced traits in a variety of energy grasses such as switchgrass, sorghum and miscanthus. Productivity and inputs requirements, such as fertilizer, will be evaluated as well as expected improvements to carbon and nitrogen cycles. Upon successful completion, the Ceres traits would undergo a customary evaluation by USDA prior to full commercialization.

Also in California, ViaSpace announced it has applied to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademark “Giant King” as a unique brand of grass. VIASPACE Chief Executive Dr. Carl Kukkonen stated: “VIASPACE has created global interest in Giant King grass, and it is becoming apparent that its unique characteristics and tested performance provide a strong basis for establishing Giant King grass as the leading source of low-carbon renewable energy. We believe a trademark will not only reinforce the competitive advantages and value of Giant King grass, but also prevent others from exploiting the name and buzz that Giant King grass is creating.”

In Montana, Sustainable Oils confirmed that the Food and Drug Administration cattle feed with up to 10 percent concentrations of camelina. The decision makes it possible to establish larger markets for camelina mash. Recently, Sustainable Oils, a producer of camelina-based fuels, announced that it has been awarded a contract by the Defense Energy Support Center for 40,000 gallons of camelina-based jet fuel. The fuel will be delivered to the Naval Air Systems Command fuels team in 2009 and will support the Navy’s certification testing program of alternative fuels. The contract includes an option to supply up to an additional 150,000 gallons of camelina-based jet fuel.

Camelina is the most readily available renewable fuel feedstock that meets the Navy’s criteria, with the ability to scale up acreage to meet demand.  The camelina for the contract was primarily grown in 2009 and harvested recently by farmers in Montana. The company also has several field trials in Washington state.

Part II of Jet Plains continues tomorrow with a look at canes, woods, salicornia and algae

Jet Plains: Do grasses, woods, mustards grown in the heartlands hold the key for aviation fuels? is a post from: Biofuels Digest

Joule’s Helioculture process mixes sunlight and CO2 with highly engineered photo synthetic organisms, which are designed to secrete ethanol, diesel or other products.

However, unlike algae and other current biomass-derived fuels, the Helioculture process does not produce biomass, requires no agricultural feedstock and minimizes land and water use. It is also direct-to-product, so there is no lengthy extraction and/or refinement process.

The breakthrough was made possible by the discovery of unique genes coding for enzymatic mechanisms that enable the direct synthesis of both alkane and olefin molecules – the chemical composition of diesel. Production was achieved at lab scale, with pilot development slated for early 2011.

Because its organisms are being engineered to directly secrete hydrocarbon molecules, Joule will avoid costly steps such as large-scale biomass collection, energy-intensive degradation, or other downstream refinement. In addition, Joule’s process requires just marginal, non-arable land, no crops and no fresh water.

More about Joule:

Joule Biotechnologies: 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy candidate profile

Joule narrows list for pilot plant to five towns; seeks CTO

Joule Biotechnologies announces process to convert CO2 to fuel; scalable; 20,000 gallons per acre; parity with $50 oil

Fuel from Thin Air? Joule reports direct microbial conversion of CO2 into hydrocarbons; no biomass, no extraction, no refinement is a post from: Biofuels Digest

The complete manager’s amendment – which is NOT seen in the bill as available on Thomas.gov — is available for download here. The biofuels provisions begin with Section 555, “the Second Generation Biofuels Producer Credit” on page 14 of the text.

There has been some confusion about the provision in the industry — understandable, because “elimination of a biofuel tax credit” sounds like bad news. However, the House text is actually favorable.

First, the bill as passed amends the term “qualified feedstock” for the $1.01 per gallon cellulosic ethanol producer credit to mean “i. any lignocellulosic or hemicellulosic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis, and ii. any cultivate algae, cyanobacteria or lemna.”

This goes a long ways towards making the biofuels tax credits feedstock neutral, and specifically is favorable to producers of microcrops such as lemna (e.g. Petroalgae) and cyanobacteria (e.g. Biolight Harvesting, Inventure Chemicals), which had previously not received recognition.

Second, the tax credit that was shut down was a credit recognizing black liquor — a byproduct of pulp and paper manufacturing — as a biofuel, rather than a biofuel feedstock. The current structure of the credit permitted pulp and paper mills to claim a 50 cent gallon payout per gallon of black liquor that was burned in boilers to make steam for power generation — a practice for many years in the industry, rather than a new practice. The manufacturers were able to claim between $6 billion and $7 billion in payouts in the most recent fiscal year, according to Digest sources.

Under the new provision — named nicknamed “Son of Black Liquor,”  pulp and paper manufacturers could have claimed the $1.01 cellulosic biofuels producer credit, and claims could have ballooned to $24 billion according to Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), the bill’s sponsor. The way was cleared by a June IRS ruling which was published last month. This, despite the fact that black liquor is not used as a transportation fuel.

However, companies that utilize black liquor as a feedstock for an advanced biofuels process — thereby using black liquor as a feedstock rather than a fuel, will still qualify for the credit, under the US House provision. Black liquor gasification is a technology hotly pursued by the Swedish government and a collection of Swedish forestry companies (including Kappa Kraftliner, SCA, Sveaskog), the Swedish Energy Agency, the research foundation Mistra, and several institutions including Luleå University of Technology , Umeå University, Chalmers University of Technology, STFI, and Swedish Corrosion Institute.

Black liquor gasification is now at pilot scale and heading rapidly towards commercialization in the next few years.

More on the issue, here, in a good recap for riisinfo.

A copy of the IRS memo from June is here.

A copy of a release from the Senate Committee of Finance discussing their intent to close the black liquor loophole is here.

Closing down $24 billion biofuels tax credit loophole: a good idea (here’s why) is a post from: Biofuels Digest