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Articles from Alternative Fuel News
Harvesting Hydrogen from Farm Waste
The National Research Council of Canada’s Biotechnology Research Institute has begun research and development of a process that will extract hydrogen from organic waste materials like fermentable feedstock and manure. The materials are processed to hydrogen by dark and photofermentation. The goal is to “come up with biosystems that could be grouped into a [...]

House Committee Extends Biodiesel Incentive

The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee has approved the Energy and Tax Extenders Act of 2008, a measure that will extend the biodiesel tax incentive through the end of next year and provides a dollar-per-gallon incentive for all biodiesel regardless of feedstock.

"I would like to thank Chairman Rangel and the members of the Ways and Means Committee for extending and improving the biodiesel tax incentive," said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB). "The biodiesel tax incentive is working, and the committee's decision to support biodiesel will help our industry improve America's energy independence by displacing foreign petroleum with clean-burning, domestically produced fuel."

If finally passed by Congress and signed by the president, HR 6049 will also stop what's known as the "splash and dash" loophole that has been letting fuel produced outside of the U.S. to come into this country and then sent to another country for actual use. That issue has been a bone of contention for many American biodiesel producers and groups for some time.

Two of the main architects of the new Farm Bill are more than thrilled with overwhelming passage of the legislation this week by both the House and Senate.

"Senate passage of the farm bill conference report on a strong, bipartisan basis demonstrates support for core farm bill initiatives – conservation, energy, nutrition and rural development – while continuing and strengthening farm income protection," said Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Tom Harkin (D-IA).

Harkin says the bill increases biofuels production by accelerating commercialization of advanced biofuels, like cellulosic ethanol, by helping farmers produce biomass crops, by providing grants and loan guarantees for new biorefineries, and by increasing bioenergy research.

Senate Ag Ranking Republican Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said of the bill, "We're going to make sure that we provide future generations with alternative energy projects and that we do it in the right way."

The Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2008 passed the House by a 75 percent margin and the Senate vote was 81 to 15. However, President Bush intends to veto the bill because he says it is too costly and contains too little reform. The margin of votes in Congress indicate that they will be able to override the veto.

The conference featured every vehicle technology under the hot sun on display and several panels and workshops helped to educate and provide information about the various blends of ethanol and especially how they can fit into greener fleets.

Ethanol Promotion and Information Council communications specialist Elizabeth Hilpipre says that several ethanol representatives appeared on panels at the event. "There were many questions during the conference about compatibility, sustainability and of course, food and fuel," she said. "Over three different panels, EPIC Deputy Director Robert White spoke about the realities of the food and fuel debate, as did Team Ethanol IndyCar owner Bobby Rahal."

During the general session, Rahal addressed his concern over the impact of $120+ per barrel oil, and the simple transportation costs associated with getting products to market, having more of an impact on food prices.

Overall, Hilpipre says the conference was a great success for the ethanol industry. "Fleet managers, average consumers and school kids turned out by the numbers to learn about the arsenal that continues to grow each year to help diversify our nation's fuel supply," she said.

Airbus and JetBlue Airways are just two of a handful of airlines exploring the use of biofuels made from algae to power their planes. The Green Tech Blog reports that a joint biofuel effort - which also includes international airlines Aero Engines, Honeywell Aerospace and UOP, a second Honeywell company - was announced Thursday.

The group plans to study ways to make commercial aviation fuels out of so-called second-generation feedstocks such as algae.
Airbus A380

That's where the backing of established and heavyweight manufacturers such as Honeywell and Airbus could make a difference. Honeywell says that its UOP subsidiary, a specialist in refining technology, has been working for some time in a DARPA-funded project to convert natural oils and grease into military jet fuel and has commercialized a process for producing "green diesel" from biofeedstocks.

Ethanol proponents from the halls of Congress to the corn fields of the Midwest are expressing outrage at documentation that major food corporations may have supported a high-dollar public relations campaign to blame farmers and ethanol for rising food prices.

In a prepared floor statement on Thursday, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa told his colleagues that "this anti-ethanol campaign is not a coincidence. It turns out that a $300,000, six-month retainer of a beltway public relations firm is behind the smear campaign, hired by the Grocery Manufacturers Association."

That information was reported Wednesday in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call, which obtained confidential documentation of the effort.

"Rising food and fuel prices have led the biofuels industry to take a beating on Capitol Hill the past few weeks," the article stated. "But the pummeling hasn't been by chance - it's part of a concerted effort spearheaded by the Grocery Manufacturers Association and the Glover Park Group. GMA has been leading an ‘aggressive' public relations campaign for the past two months in an effort to roll back ethanol mandates that passed in last year's energy bill."

Among the documents obtained by Roll Call was the GMA's proposal request "to build a groundswell in support of freezing or reversing some provisions of the 2007 Energy Bill and for the elimination/reform of ethanol subsidies and import restrictions."

Glover Park Group's proposal response included the number one objective to "obliterate whatever intellectual justification might still exist for corn-based ethanol among policy elites."

National Corn Growers Association president Ron Litterer says that corn farmers are shocked and outraged by the news. "It is simply unfathomable that food companies through the Grocery Manufacturers Association chose to smear their farmer-suppliers rather than cooperate with us to meet the growing challenge for America's fuel needs," Litterer said. "Unfortunately, from what we've heard this not the only campaign in the works to place the blame on agriculture."

John Deere Agri Services has released an upgrade to its ethanol business management system, which includes a new flow controller interface as an extended option available with their scale automation system. As part of the integrated business system for ethanol facility management, the scale system automates shipping and receiving operations.

The ethanol facility is able to customize the system according to factors such as ID, load number, or destination. When haulers arrive at the plant, the flow controller prompts them for the required information, which is then optionally verified with data in the automated system.

Massachusetts drivers will soon be able to get 85 percent ethanol enriched fuel for their flex-fuel vehicles.

"Waivers and permits were new issues for state and local government agencies as well as for us," said Andy Frongillo of Burke Oil. The lack of Underwriters Laboratories certification of a dispenser kept the site from opening much sooner.

Frongillo added, "Burke's gas station has the distinction of being the first in Massachusetts offering biodiesel at the pump. Burke supplies many of the area's largest biodiesel and bioheat users. To keep pace with growing demand, the company recently opened a Biofuels Storage Facility in Holyoke, Massachusetts."

A new report from the U.S. Department of Energy says that America could get 20 percent of its power from wind energy in about the next 20 years.

This agency press release says it will mean increasing the amount of wind power by nearly 20 times current production levels… a doable number according to the DOE:

Entitled "20 Percent Wind Energy by 2030", the report identifies requirements to achieve this goal including reducing the cost of wind technologies, citing new transmission infrastructure, and enhancing domestic manufacturing capability. Most notably, the report identifies opportunities for 7.6 cumulative gigatons of CO2 to be avoided by 2030, saving 825 million metric tons in 2030 and every year thereafter if wind energy achieves 20 percent of the nation's electricity mix.

Prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy and a broad cross section of stakeholders across industry, government, and three of DOE's national laboratories - the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA; and Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, NM, the report presents an in-depth analysis of the potential for wind in the U.S. and outlines a potential scenario to boost wind electric generation from its current production of 16.8 gigawatts (GW) to 304 GW by 2030.

The report goes on to say that infrastructure will need to be improved, as well as streamlining the siting and permitting processes to meet that goal.

Canadian Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz is blasting those opposing a proposed mandate for biofuels in the country.

Ritz defended the plan in the House of Commons against criticism from the New Democratic Party, which once supported the use of biofuels but has switched its position. The bill would mandate a five per cent ethanol mixture in gasoline by 2010 and a two per cent mixture of biodiesel by 2012.
"It's an excellent situation for the environment, it's a great thing for farmers, and a great thing for rural communities," said Ritz.

Ritz says this situation doesn't apply to Canada where the price of basic food commodities actually dropped slightly in February. The government estimates it would take five per cent of total production capacity to produce the three billion litres of ethanol which the plan would require. He says the weather has more impact on Canada's agricultural output than five per cent.

The article goes on to say that Ritz points out that the United Nations has said there's enough food. The issue is getting it to where it needs to be at the right time.

Anna Smith of Roll Call today filed a story on how the Grocery Manufacturers Association is "leading an ‘aggressive' public relations campaign for the past two months in an effort to roll back ethanol mandates that passed in last year's energy bill." GMA hired Glover Park Group to run the campaign, Smith writes, based on GMA's request for proposal and Glover Park's response.

In its RFP, the GMA outlined a four-part approach: building ‘a global center-left coalition,' which includes environmental, hunger, food aid, poverty, development, senior, children, business, nutrition, farm consumer and labor groups; taking advantage of the ‘extraordinary earned media opportunities' caused by rising food prices; mobilizing local food banks and ‘other local opinion leaders in key states and districts'; and hiring ‘trusted third-party experts' to document the effect of fuel mandates on, among other things, global hunger and poverty, job losses in the food industry, and inflation.

In its 21-page answer, a copy of which was also obtained by Roll Call, Glover Park laid out a hard-hitting plan with two main goals for the campaign.

‘First, we must obliterate whatever intellectual justification might still exist for corn-based ethanol among policy elites. … Second, we must demonstrate to policy makers at the state and federal level that there is a political price to allowing ethanol policy to drive up the cost of food,' Glover Park wrote.

In order to do that, Glover Park said the campaign must ‘clearly show the direct and irrefutable link between corn-based ethanol policy and the variety of harms caused by that policy, above all food price inflation' the lobbying and public affairs shop noted, must be that ‘this is a "Now" issue that is fast reaching crisis proportions for American consumers.'

As if biodiesel isn't green enough. But, Maverick BioFuels has found yet another way to make bio-diesel even more sustainable and XcelPlus Global Holdings is jumping at the opportunity to put this new technology to use. XcelPlus will equip itself with the necessary tools from Maverick to covert glycerin, a byproduct from biodiesel production, to a fuel suitable for use in turbine engines.

Gly-Clene (TM) can be made from any crude glycerol, regardless of the feedstock, including yellow grease. The fuel has the ability to power up turbine engines for electricity production or any other non-aircraft use associated with turbine engines. Gly-Clene can also be used to heat fluid bed reactors as it also performs well in oil gun furnaces.

With the ever-increasing biodiesel production, the glycerin market grows as well. Subsequently, the fear of another glut has concerned biodiesel manufacturers, scratching their heads looking for a stable way to dispose of this by-product. There is currently enough glycerin produced in the U.S. alone for Gly-Clene to produce 27,000 megawatts of electricity per day or over 8 billion megawatts per year without even adding steam turbines to take advantage of the excess heat produced by the turbines.

There has been much in the media lately on biofuels, climate change and the food crisis.

The International Energy Agency, energy policy advisor to 27 member countries (one of which is the United States) formed during the oil crisis of 1973-74 recently released a statement on biofuels,

"The recent shortage in grain stocks and surge in food prices have triggered questions about the sustainable production of biofuels. In reality, there are a number of important factors impacting food supplies and prices, including surging food demand, failed harvests and high energy prices.

Biofuels do have an impact but the IEA considers it very important to differentiate between types. On one hand, most biofuels are attractive in that they may serve to replace imported oil and help diversify energy resources. However, some current ("first generation") biofuels, such as ethanol from grains and biodiesel from oil seeds, may compete with food, fibre and feed production, although currently less than 2 percent of global agricultural cropland is used for biofuels production. (Source: Worldwide Institute, "Biofuels for Transport: Global Potential and Implications for Agriculture", report prepared for the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, 2007).

Biofuels can be produced in a more sustainable way and, properly managed, they can offer valuable benefits to OECD and developing countries. The use of sustainable biofuels can increase energy security, foster economic development, especially in rural areas, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ethanol from sugar cane produced in the tropical/sub-tropical regions such as Brazil, southern Africa and India, for example, has excellent characteristics in terms of economics, CO2 reductions and low land use requirements.

"Second generation" biofuels from ligno-cellulosic feedstocks (straw, woody biomass residues, vegetative grasses) hold considerable promise for eventually providing more sustainable types of biofuels. Although they remain relatively costly options to date, through on-going public and private research and deployment investments, much progress has been made in recent years. Several small and medium-scale conversion facilities to convert ligno-cellulosic biomass to either ethanol or to synthetic diesel are expected to come on line over the next 2-3 years in countries such as the United States, Canada and Germany. The IEA calls on governments to increase their support for 2nd generation biofuels RD&D at this critical juncture, to consider phasing out current incentive support schemes for biofuel technologies as they reach maturity, and to explore a rapid transition to policies that promote advanced biofuels.

Biofuels are playing an increasingly important role in meeting growing transport fuel demand. They represented 49% of the growth in Non-OPEC oil supply in 2007 and this share is expected to rise to 55% in 2008. An upcoming IEA publication, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008, will show that biofuels may have to play a significant role if the world is to make meaningful reductions in carbon dioxide emissions. In the report's most ambitious scenario, advanced biofuels supply about 700 million tonnes of oil equivalent, representing 26% of total transport fuel demand, by 2050."