Despite possible suit, canola project continues in Ore. February 10, 2010

An economic development grant approved by Josephine County officials last year has hit a snag, but Commissioner Dave Toler said that the project remains worthwhile and has benefited the community.

The $85,000 grant was approved by the board of county commissioners on Jan. 13, 2009 by a 2-1 vote, with Sandi Cassanelli dissenting. It was awarded to the Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation District (JCSWCD), which was charged with administering the grant in cooperation with the Eugene-based firm, N.W. Seed Crushers.

At the time, it was hoped that canola could be grown by area farmers, which could then be crushed, with the resulting oil used for biofuels. The growing of canola is prohibited in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, but not in the southwest portion of the state.

However, the partnership between N.W. Seed Crushers and JCSWCD now appears to be dissolving, and could end up in litigation.

Toler addressed the issue during the Wednesday, Feb. 3 meeting of the Josephine County Renewable Energy Task Force, held at the courthouse in Grants Pass.

Only half of the grant allotment has been spent, Toler said, meaning that the other half is still available.

Toler touted certain aspects of the grant allocation. He said that more than 300 acres of canola have been planted throughout the county as a result, with several growers participating.

Kit Doyle has taken the lead on the project, Toler said, and has created partnerships with many growers. Doyle also has a waiting list of other growers hoping to become involved, Toler said.

A production facility for the crop may be established somewhere in the county soon, Toler said, adding that the Applegate Valley is becoming the local “epicenter” of canola growing.

Once the canola seed is crushed, around 70 percent of the product can be used as an agricultural feed product, Toler said, and the rest can be used as a biofuel.

He said that a new state mandate requires that 3 percent of the diesel consumed in Oregon come from renewable energy sources. There is currently an inadequate supply of such renewables in the state right now, he said, so it is being imported from Montana.

“This is definitely growing,” Toler said.

The grant was intended to stimulate the growth of biofuels crops, Toler said. Unless the commissioners vote to pull the remaining funding back, he said, it can go to a local contractor to continue the project.

“I think it will have a long-term impact in terms of agriculture,” Toler said. “With $43,000, we stimulated part of our agriculture sector. That’s great bang for our buck.”

Doyle will be scheduled to make a presentation to the commissioners sometime in mid-February about the canola project, Toler said.

Scott Jorgensen, Illionois Valley News - http://www.illinois-valley-news.com/archive/2010/02/10/canola/

Is Biomass the Brave New World of Energy? January 27, 2010

It was an idea hatched in algae. Now its creators believe it could grow into a better way to power the West, and possibly beyond.

First things first, the scientists at Whitefish-based Algae Aqua-Culture Technologies (AACT) must put their idea into action and test its efficiency. And they have found a willing partner in the F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber Co. of Columbia Falls.

Scientists at AACT have a vision to use woody biomass and algae to produce both heat and commercially viable organic compounds for use in fertilizers. In the process, the system would create methane to be converted into electricity while also capturing and utilizing carbon dioxide, rather than releasing it into the atmosphere.

A team of engineers and scientists is currently working on a model biorefinery for Stoltze. It will be implemented at Stoltze’s mill site over the next couple of months and, if it proves efficient, a much larger full-scale biorefinery will follow. Mike Holecek, a project leader, said the system’s pyrolytic boiler can handle a range of biomass, but initially woodchips will be the primary fuel.

The project, called the “Green Power House,” has already garnered investors and a range of supporters, including retired Air Force Lieutenant General Richard Swope, who now works as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense. He has been part of multiple alternative energy projects.

Swope said the Defense Department has steadily increased its desire to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil and pursue alternative energy resources. The Air Force, Swope said, is the Defense Department’s largest consumer of fuel.

“There have been a number of flight tests conducted with military aircraft with a mix of biomass-derived jet fuel,” Swope said.

Current research, on behalf of the Defense Department, is seeking ways to “convert biomass specifically into feedstock or fuel,” Swope said. Keeping his eye out for groundbreaking alternative energy projects, Swope happened to find one in his own backyard. Swope, who lives in Whitefish, said AACT’s project could have influence far beyond Stoltze’s mill site.

“Absolutely, something like this could help at the national level,” Swope said. “It could help with the Defense Department.”

In December, Smurfit-Stone Container Corp. announced the closing of its linerboard plant in Frenchtown, ending employment for 417 workers and raising serious questions for an already beleaguered timber industry in western Montana. Smurfit-Stone was the state’s biggest buyer of slash, small trees and sawmill residuals. Many in the logging industry relied on the mill.

The linerboard plant’s closure triggered discussions about the potential of biomass-derived energy in Montana. With such a major wood consumer gone, folks in the state’s timber industry were left grasping for new uses for forest products. Biomass energy began to dominate headlines throughout Montana.

Furthermore, NorthWestern Energy announced in early January that it’s in discussions with Smurfit-Stone officials about the possibility of turning the shuttered linerboard mill into a biomass power plant. When in operation, the mill already functioned as a biomass cogeneration plant, burning wood products in a boiler to produce energy used at the facility, as well as excess electricity put back on the power grid.

NorthWestern is also working with the Montana Community Development Corporation to study the feasibility of turning other mills into cogeneration biomass power plants.

On Jan. 21, Stoltze hosted a biomass energy forum as part of the “Re-Powering the Flathead” community dialogue series at Flathead Valley Community College. One of the speakers was Dr. Evan Sugden, a member of the AACT team. The event was heavily attended.

Amid all the biomass headlines, AACT’s proposal is particularly striking, primarily, because the ball is already rolling and, secondarily, because it’s such a foreign concept to most outside of scientific circles.

At its core, this seemingly brave new world is actually rooted in two familiar standbys: warm water and old friends. Several years ago, Holecek, who has a background in biochemistry and environmental design, was asked by his friend Paul Stelter to research new approaches to utilizing the geothermal qualities of Alameda’s Hot Springs Retreat, located in the town of Hot Springs. Stelter is part owner of Alameda’s.

From that initial research came the creation of Algae Aqua-Culture Technologies, a partnership between Stelter, Holecek and Michael Smith, who, like Holecek, lives in Whitefish. Sugden, a scientist and professor at the University of Washington, joined the team later. And Swope came on as a chief strategist and promoter, while numerous other people lent their support, through money and otherwise.

In Hot Springs, the AACT team launched a project using low temperature geothermal water to grow algae. The algae are fed into geothermal-heated bioreactors, or digesters, which are essentially sophisticated composters. Sugden calls the Stoltze project’s digester an “algae-eating, mechanical cow.”

The bioreactors consume the algae, along with some cellulose, to produce methane, which is converted into electricity. The Flathead County Landfill installed a system last year that takes methane emanating from trash and turns it into electricity.

But what really caught the scientists’ attention wasn’t the methane produced by the digesters; it was the waste product the digesters spit out. That waste product turned out to be a substance ideal for use in soil amendments such as organic fertilizer.

Also, the scientists discovered that their project’s control system is intelligent enough to manage any type of thermal energy, including heat at sawmills. That discovery led to discussions with Stoltze. And while the AACT team is now focused on the Stoltze project, it hasn’t abandoned its geothermal research, Holecek said.

Sugden, emphasizing the difference between “hot” and “warm” water, said there are numerous warm springs scattered across the West that could be utilized to run algae-based systems like AACT’s.

At Stoltze’s model biorefinery, bioreactors will digest algae – grown on site in a greenhouse – and produce organic compounds for fertilizer, similar to the Hot Springs geothermal project. But it will also incorporate a high-tech pyrolytic boiler. The boiler will generate heat to dry lumber in Stoltze’s kilns, as well as steam to run the rest of the system.

The boiler serves another important function – it produces biochar, or charcoal. The biochar can then be combined with the other organic compounds produced by the system for use in organic soil amendments. The organic fertilizer market, the AACT team points out, is growing rapidly.

With the system, Smith said carbon is sequestered and used to make a substance that could be valuable for agricultural purposes. He sees both commercial and environmental potential. So does Swope.

“The beauty is that there is an enormous amount of intellectual energy coming together to try to solve and resolve energy issues,” Swope said. “It is very exciting.”

Meyers Reece, Flathead Beacon - http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/is_biomass_the_brave_new_world_of_energy/15613/

WSU Scientists receive $1.1 million for biofuels research January 14, 2010

WSU scientists based in the Tri-Cities and Pullman are getting a combined $1.1 million for biofuels research from the U.S. Department of Energy.

DOE announced $80 million for biofuels projects, split between three consortia. WSU is one of several groups involved in the consortia and will receive funding as part of the two groups co-led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which is getting $14 million. For more details, see the DOE press release.

For WSU Tri-Cities, this means $620,000 of research funding as part of the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium. The work will be done by the WSU Center for Bioproducts and Bioenergy team based at the Bioproducts, Sciences and Engineering Laboratory (BSEL) on the Richland campus.

“This is only the start of more great things to come in the BSEL building,” said Birgitte K. Ahring, director of WSU’s Center for Bioproducts and Bioenergy and Battelle Distinguished Professor. “This opportunity lays the groundwork for amazing partnerships nationwide and will help us find new ways to make fuels from non-food plants.”

The BSEL opened in May 2008 on the Richland campus. Construction of the $24.8 million facility was a partnership between WSU and Battelle, which operates PNNL for the U.S. DOE. The building allows the organizations to work together to develop solutions to some of the nation’s largest energy problems, to strengthen opportunities to move technology into industry and to provide students with a hands-on educational experience.

For the Pullman campus, $495,000 from the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts consortium is for algae research to be conducted in the WSU College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, under Professor David Kramer with the Institute of Biological Chemistry.

Kramer is a WSU “innovator” whose research focuses on increasing plant productivity and redirecting photosynthetic energy toward new and efficient biochemical pathways in effort to harness bioenergy.

More details on Kramer’s research can be found here.

By Melissa O’Neil Perdue, WSU Tri-Cities - http://wsutoday.wsu.edu/pages/publications.asp?Action=Detail&PublicationID=17660&TypeID=1

Boardman biofuel plant gets $25M federal grant December 11, 2009

ZeaChem Inc. on Friday said it has been awarded a $25 million federal stimulus grant it will put toward its cellulosic ethanol plant under construction in Boardman.

Lakewood, Colo.-based ZeaChem announced last month that it had started construction on the 250,000-gallon-capacity plant, which will be capable of converting organic material such as forest waste and wood pulp into fuel.

The company’s core technology, which will result in a chemical called ethyl acetate, will be online by 2010. The $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy will be used to build and integrate additional components that will enable final production of cellulosic ethanol.

ZeaChem was one of 19 organizations to be selected for a total of $564 million in stimulus grants targeted for advanced biorefinery projects.

The roughly $34 million biorefinery will use poplar trees as its principal feedstock. The trees will be supplied by GreenWood Resources Inc., a Portland company that operates a 17,000-acre tree farm near Boardman. If successful, the company hopes to expand the Boardman plant to commercial-scale production in the range of 25 million to 50 million gallons of fuel annually.

Portland Business Journal – http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2009/11/30/daily55.html

Commercial Wood-to-Biofuel facility planned for Boardman, Ore. November 18, 2009

A Colorado company that has developed a process to convert wood to fuel is starting construction of what will eventually be a commercial-scale production plant.

Lakewood-based ZeaChem Inc. is working with Hazen Research of Golden to build the first units of its biofuels refinery. ZeaChem President and CEO Jim Imbler says the company will transfer the modular units to Boardman, Ore., where it will eventually run a commercial refinery.

ZeaChem plans to start production at a demonstration facility in Oregon by the end of next year.

ZeaChem uses a bacteria to break down the cellulose in wood to make fuel. Imbler says the process, unlike traditional fermentation with yeast, produces little carbon dioxide.

The company raised $34 million earlier this year to help build a refinery.

Gazette Times – http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/state-and-regional/article_93ef17d1-e18f-5221-bcff-81a2a2c6de18.html

Montana Sawmills Set to Create Biomass Fuel October 18, 2009

Montana sawmills are working with Montana’s power company to create biomass fuel. Eight sawmills are partnering with NorthWestern Energy and the Montana Community Development Corporation. The goal is to create wood-fueled power across the state. It’s partially funded by a $125,000 grant from the State. The combined effort hopes to help address the pine beetle problem and diversify the State’s electric supply.

KECI (TV) – http://www.keci.com/Montana-Sawmills-Set-to-Create-Biomass-Fuel/5460581

Brothers Turn Cow Manure into New Source of Electricity October 5, 2009

Dairy cows make milk, and they make poop — 30 gallons a day. Now farmers can send the cow waste to machines that will convert it to electricity. Washington Governor Chris Gregoire will visit one of those electrical plants in Skagit County today (Monday).

Daryl Maas owns the plant with his brother Kevin.

Maas: “Doesn’t everyone always dream of working with manure their whole life?”

He says they got into renewable energy when they tried to build wind turbines on their grandfather’s farm. That didn’t work out. But they heard about machines called manure digesters. And they decided to get into it. He says the hardest part isn’t the smell. It’s convincing farmers that it’s a good idea.

Maas: “Farmers in Western Washington are just allergically scared of regulation, of environmental issues. And if they feel like getting involved in the project is gonna make their life more complicated and give them more scrutiny, that’s really tough for them.”

But Daryl and Kevin Maas convinced two farmers in Skagit County to pipe their manure to their new power plant. The digester extracts methane from the manure and burns it in a generator to make electricity. Daryl and his brother sell the electricity to Puget Sound Energy.

This is kind of gross, but what’s leftover are solids and liquids. Daryl and Kevin give them back to the farmers, because they can actually use them. Daryl says the solids are a good replacement for sawdust in cow bedding. That can save a farmer $10,000 to $15,000 a month. Farmers can use the liquid as fertilizer — and Daryl says it’s better than raw manure because it’s so thin it can run through a hose.

And to Daryl, the whole thing smells like money. He and his brother paid over $3 million to build the digester. But he says they’ll make the money back in six years. He plans to build three more in Western Washington.

Phyllis Fletcher, KUOW News – http://kuow.org/program.php?id=18500

Snohomish-based business converts landfill waste into electricity October 5, 2009

After four years and only one contract, many companies would call it quits.

But Paul Tower kept his Snohomish-based business afloat. He took a second job. He wrote papers for engineering conferences. He waited.

Thirteen years and 167 projects later, Tower’s Applied Filter Technology is looking to expand at a time when few businesses are.

Applied Filter takes low-grade methane — from landfill waste, cow manure or municipal waste systems — and turns it into fuel to generate electricity.

“What we specialize in is getting the gas to a point where it can be used,” Tower said.

That technology is in demand as consumers increasingly demand cleaner sources of power and more environmentally friendly ways for dealing with waste. That’s why Applied Filter Technology recently won a $7 million contract to expand Klickitat County’s H.W. Hill Landfill Gas Power Plant.

The landfill, established in 1999, accepts tons of waste, with large quantities coming from King and Snohomish counties, said Darby Hanson, project engineer for the site.

“This landfill keeps growing all the time,” Hanson said.

The landfill’s existing waste-to-gas project, which has the capacity to produce roughly 10 megawatts of power, can’t keep up with the waste being sent there. The county, with the help of Applied Filter, plans to expand the plant’s capacity to about 37 megawatts.

“It’s enough to light thousands of homes in Washington,” Tower said.

Some of that electricity will flow back to Snohomish County as part of the PUD’s green power program.

Hanson liked Applied Filter’s bid because it came with a 10-year guarantee of producing electricity-grade gas, making Klickitat’s system easier and less expensive to operate. When the economy turns around, Hanson is confident that Klickitat will be able to find buyers for all the power that will be produced at the expanded site — at a profitable rate. The expansion is scheduled to be completed next summer.

For Tower’s Applied Filter, contracts like the one in Klickitat County translate into jobs. The company, which has a staff of five in Snohomish, will have 12 or 13 people working on the Klickitat project.

On a Friday afternoon in late September, Tower fields calls of interest from South Korea and France out of his Snohomish office and plans customer trips to Applied Filter Technology sites in California and the Midwest. Far from those lean early years, Applied Filter installs a project monthly on average. And demand doesn’t seem to be slowing, prompting Tower to consider expansion.

“I think people are changing their perspectives and want a better quality of life,” Tower said.

Despite a lack of consensus about the causes of global warming, the public generally supports efforts to reduce known contributors to global warming, Tower said. Applied Filter Technology helps isolate one of those known contributors — methane — and turns it into something useful.

“I think all of us as ratepayers believe an incremental step is better than no step,” he said.

That’s particularly true in the Pacific Northwest, where Tower located in 2000 from California. However, the Klickitat County project is Applied Filter’s only system in Washington. About two-thirds of Applied Filter Technology’s projects are in the United States, but the company has systems operating in Europe, the Pacific Rim and Canada.

Besides an increasing public demand for “green” products, Applied Filter’s business also benefited from declines in the costs to produce its systems. In the 13 years since the business sold that first system, costs have dropped about 40 percent, Tower said. The company has worked with a manufacturer in Iowa to standardize parts to help drive down costs.

As Applied Filter Technology has grown, so has its ability to help out prospective customers. The company can design, build and operate systems for municipalities, removing the major barriers: start-up and operating costs. Applied Filter owns and operates about 23 of the systems it has installed for municipalities.

That’s a long ways from Applied Filter’s beginnings. For Tower, the company’s success is hard to believe.

Back in 1996, “we were just trying to solve a problem for a customer,” he said.

Michelle Dunlop, HeraldNet – http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20091005/BIZ/710059959

Skagit, Wash. manure-to-power plant on line September 25, 2009

It takes slightly more than three gallons of liquid cow manure to create one kilowatt-hour of electricity.

A lot of poop. A small amount of electricity. A big environmental boost to a dairy farmer.

A fledgling anaerobic manure digester is now running at roughly 80 percent capacity near Rexville in southwestern Skagit County. The plant produced its first power on Aug. 30 and will host Gov. Chris Gregoire at a ceremony next Monday.

The digester accepts the liquid manure in a big holding tank, where it gives off methane gas that is then burned to produce electricity.

It is the first or fourth of its kind in Washington – depending on how you catalog the device. Ferndale-based Andgar Corp. built all four.

Washington already has three conventional poop-to-methane-to-power digesters near Lynden, Monroe and Sunnyside. However, they essentially accept manure from one dairy farm each.

The Rexville operation – built and run by Farm Power – is different in a couple ways.

It is set up to accept manure from two or more dairy farms – enabling smaller operations to participate.

And it is designed to accept and extract methane from icky, slop-like wastes from seafood and chicken processing – as well as other food wastes. Farm Power had to get a bill passed in the Legislature this past spring to make combining the food and cattle wastes easier from a regulatory aspect.

Dairy farms produce huge amounts of manure that can ooze into groundwater and eventually into streams and rivers to cause pollution problems.

Farmers take many measures to deal with this problem, but digesters are a more cost-efficient way to tackle the matter, said Daryl Maas, one of two brothers behind the Rexville operation.

Kevin and Daryl Maas – who grew up around Skagit County dairy operations – saw Washington’s first digester built near Lynden in 2004 and became fascinated by its potential.

But they saw that very few farmers could afford to build similar digesters, Daryl Maas said.

The brothers created Farm Power in 2007, which raised $3.5 million – including $1 million in federal and state grants – to build the Rexville facility that is currently taking manure from two nearby dairy farms. The site has the capability to expand to accept manure from additional farms.

At full capacity, the Rexville site can handle 55,000 gallons of liquid manure a day. That translates to 750 kilowatt-hours – enough to power about 500 homes.

That’s one-tenth of 1 percent of the roughly 500,000 homes served by Puget Sound Energy (PSE).

The Rexville facility adds to what PSE can offer in “Green Power,” a program in which utility customers can request to have their electricity partly or totally supplied by renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass facilities.

Roughly 24,000 of PSE’s 1.1 million overall customers have signed up for Green Power sources, said utility spokesman Andy Wappler.

“Now farmers have a brand-new product to sell – renewable energy,” Wappler said. Maas said the brothers have three more digesters on the drawing board – two in Whatcom County and one near Enumclaw. They hope to build an average of one per year.

Meanwhile, Maas said the manure can be returned to the farmers in better shape after the methane is extracted.

The returned manure has its nutrients broken down, which makes it a better fertilizer. Without going through the digester, the same manure would take longer to break down into essential nutrients for fertilizer.

Also, the process produces a mulch that can be used for livestock bedding.

By JOHN STANG, Seattle Post Inteligencer – http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/978878.html

Railroad helps build biofuel facility in Tri-Cities September 25, 2009

A sister company of Tri-City & Olympia Railroad Co. has signed an agreement with Gen-X Energy Group to build a new facility in Richland to make biofuel.

The new facility will sit on land owned by the sister company called 10 North Washington Avenue in the Horn Rapids Industrial Park, said Rydel Peterson, vice president of the short-line railroad company.

“We’ve agreed to work together to develop the property,” Peterson said, adding the details of the project including the size, cost and financing for the building are still being worked out.

The company 10 North Washington Avenue is owned by Peterson’s father, Randy, according to the state Secretary of State’s website.

The proposed plant also will include a facility to store raw materials and finished fuel, Rydel Peterson said.

Gen-X, which lost its Burbank biodiesel plant to a fire in early July, couldn’t be reached about the agreement. The company’s website says Gen-X is not going out of business and that it continues to produce and deliver certified biodiesel to its clients.

Gen-X will benefit from using the short-line service and access to both BNSF Railway Co. and Union Pacific Railroad, Peterson said.

For Tri-City & Olympia Railroad Co., which previously transported raw materials to Gen-X’s Burbank plant, the new agreement is an extension of its old business relationship, Peterson said.

The talks between the two companies have been going on for a while now, he said. The move was partly prompted by his company’s ongoing legal battle with BNSF about track use rights on 16 miles of track extending from Kennewick to Richland.

The track is owned by the Port of Benton and leased to Tri-City & Olympia Railroad Co. through 2032 for moving freight.

BNSF recently ended its partnership with the short-line railroad and began providing services directly to customers along the Richland track.

“We’ve lost about 40 percent of our revenue,” Peterson said. The company also laid off 17 of its 32 employees in the last three weeks, he said.

Pratik Joshi, Tricity Herald – http://www.tri-cityherald.com/business/story/728495.html

Boardman Ore. Poplar pulp may be converted to biofuel September 14, 2009

The poplar trees here grow 10 feet a year, transforming an irrigated stretch of desert near the Columbia River into a neatly pruned forest. For now, the trees provide lumber for cabinets and pulp for paper.

But in the years ahead, energy entrepreneurs hope the pulp from poplar can be turned into ethanol, helping resuscitate the Northwest’s floundering biofuels industry.

One of the first investments in this region will be near Boardman, where construction is scheduled to begin later this year on a demonstration plant that will produce about 1.2 million gallons a year of ethanol from poplar.

“We’ve raised $34 million and that’s enough to move us forward,” said Jim Imbler, chief executive officer of ZeaChem, the Colorado-based company that is building the plant.

The push to develop poplar ethanol comes at a dismal time for the Northwest biofuels industry.

Just a few years back, the industry attracted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors and legislative support from politicians eager to see the region’s farm and forest economies bolstered by a new push into energy production. But the first three large-scale biofuel plants launched in the region ended up importing energy crops from outside.

Today they all are floundering, knocked down by last year’s run-up in crop prices and an implosion in oil prices as the recession took hold.

Imperium’s biodiesel plant in Aberdeen, built to use Canadian canola, is idle. A Clatskanie, Ore., plant that tried to make money converting Midwestern corn into ethanol opened in the summer of 2008, then shut down in January.

A second corn-ethanol plant near Boardman still operates. But the plant is in Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization as its parent company, Pacific Ethanol, struggles to pay off debts.

The biofuels industry also is under assault from critics who question the ethics and environmental wisdom of diverting food crops such as corn into fuel. They question whether the thirst for material to produce biofuels is spurring a global expansion of agriculture, with wide-ranging repercussions on water, forests cleared for crops and soil fertility.

“There is a finite amount of land on this earth … adding additional land-use demands for agriculture has consequences, and that is undeniable,” said Kate McMahon, who represents Friends of the Earth.

Despite the controversy, the U.S. ethanol industry — bolstered by federal and state subsidies — has still mustered impressive growth.

Largely corn-based ethanol production hit 9 billion gallons in 2008, nearly double the output from just two years earlier. Much of the ethanol is produced in the Midwest grain-belt states.

That fuel represented — by volume — about 6 percent to 7 percent of total gasoline consumption.

Many entrepreneurs are banking that the federal government’s involvement will drive a dramatic expansion of the biofuels industry — and help make poplar ethanol commercially feasible.

A federal mandate requires the production of 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other biofuels by 2022. The law calls for some 15 billion gallons of that fuel to come from wood, wheat straw, corncobs or other cellulosic materials rather than foods such as corn or sugar cane. That’s spurring research and development efforts.

But breaking down cellulosic material and turning it into fuel is a more complicated and costly undertaking than converting starch or sugar crops to ethanol.

To date there still are no commercial-scale cellulose-to-ethanol plants operating in North America. Most of the plants are in a pilot or demonstration stage, and, like the ZeaChem project near Boardman, still under development.

One oil-industry skeptic likened the quest to produce ethanol from cellulose to the search for the Holy Grail.

“But remember, they never found the Holy Grail,” said John Felmy, an economist for the American Petroleum Institute at a 2007 conference of the Renewable Fuels Association.

ZeaChem, formed in 2002, is using a technology that harnesses the same bacteria used by termites as they feast on wood.

The bacteria break down the cellulose into acetic acid and then eventually into ethanol or another, more valuable chemical — ethyl acetate. Ethyl acetate is used as a solvent in varnishes and lacquers.

ZeaChem researchers say that this process allows a more complete conversion of cellulose to ethanol, offering a fuel yield more than fivefold greater than an acre of corn and considerably more than other cellulosic technologies.

HAL BERNTON, SEATTLE TIMES – http://www.tri-cityherald.com/business/story/715171.html

Looking for a biofuels breakthrough in Boardman, Ore. September 5, 2009

On paper, making fuel from plant materials looks like a simple five-step process.

You start with a bundle of twigs. Separate the cellulose, add enzymes, then let the brew ferment. A couple of chemical processes later, you’re powering a car with a product that quite literally grows on trees.

In reality, large-scale ethanol production has only rarely been able to compete with the cost of a barrel of oil. And with the recent recession, the dream of cheap, renewable fuel seems even further from reach.

But former oil executive Jim Imbler, who now heads a Colorado biofuels company called ZeaChem Inc., thinks he might have found the key to profitability in Oregon.

And it lies in Boardman, home to one of the nation’s largest hybrid poplar tree farms, grown by Portland-based GreenWood Resources.

“We’ve done the math, and we can compete with $40- to $50-a-barrel crude oil,” said Imbler, based in Lakewood, Colo. “We’re really excited to get going in Oregon.” Backed by $40 million in venture capital, ZeaChem plans to build a demonstration plant in Boardman that will convert Oregon hybrid poplar trees, grass and agricultural waste into ethanol.

Using an innovative technology, the biorefinery could mean a breakthrough for the biofuels industry, on a quest to meet federal mandates for alternative fuels.

Experts believe cellulose, found in nearly every plant, tree and bush, may be the future for abundant, affordable ethanol. And Oregon, with its vast tree farms, forests and farmlands, is poised to be a field of dreams for the industry, recently criticized for relying too heavily on corn, pitting food resources against fuel.

“Corn is a very energy intensive crop,” said Rick Wallace, the state’s biofuels coordinator. “Biomass has a smaller carbon footprint, and we have a lot of it here. There are a lot of benefits for Oregon if we can develop these technologies.”

By the end of the year, ZeaChem plans to break ground on a five-acre site owned by the Port of Morrow. It hopes its tests, using eastern Oregon wheat straw and trimmings from the Umatilla National Forest, will eventually lead to a commercial plant that pumps out up to 50 million gallons of ethanol a year.

But like many biofuels entrepeneurs on a sprint to the next generation, ZeaChem is gambling on the unknown. Across the Northwest, corn ethanol plants that attracted millions of dollars in public and private investment now stand idle.

By all accounts, ZeaChem’s technology looks promising.

“(Their technology) has a very big potential,” Wallace said. “But can it be done at a commercial level economically? We don’t know these answers yet. If they do, it’s a real benefit to Oregon. “

Links to Oregon
Dozens, if not hundreds, of companies are racing toward cellulosic ethanol production, which must meet a federal mandate of 16 billion gallons by 2022.

ZeaChem’s secret weapon: a bacterium found in the guts of termites. The bacterium, acetogen, ferments cellulose into acetic acid, which can eventually be turned into ethanol.

The company’s demonstration plant, unlike some other technologies, will use a variety of plant materials, producing about 1.5 million gallons of ethanol a year.

“We can feed softwood trees, hardwood trees, corn cobs,” Imbler said. “If you think about a termite, it doesn’t really care. Our vision is to become a technological skunkworks.”

ZeaChem, with 30 employees and a lab in California, says its patented process offers higher yields at lower cost, with a lower carbon footprint than other methods. The bacterium can also be used to make another, more valuable chemical, ethyl acetate, a solvent in varnishes and lacquers. It enables the development of other lines of business, turning plant material into solvents for paints or chemicals used in plastics.

“We believe ZeaChem is the leading advanced biofuel company,” said Paul Batcheller, a partner in South Dakota-based PrairieGold Venture Partners, a major investor in ZeaChem. “One thing is that their yields translates to a huge economic advantage. I think Oregon has a great advantage in terms of feedstock and marketing the project.”

Oregon offers fertile ground for the company’s giant leap. For starters, the state may provide a financial sweetner: ZeaChem has applied for the state’s Business Energy Tax Credits, which would be worth about $6.5 million.

Another key reason for locating in Oregon: proximity to GreenWood Resources, which owns the 26,000-acre hybrid poplar tree farm in Boardman. The company also owns 6,000 acres near Clatskanie and accounts for 90 percent of the state’s poplar production.

“We love hybrid poplar because its the best deal we can find now,” Imbler said. “If you have something that can grow cheaper, faster, we’re all for it. But I think the hybrid poplar is hard to beat.”

When it comes to growing trees fast and inexpensively, GreenWood Resources is a well-known expert. Its poplars, through traditional breeding methods, can grow 10 to 15 feet each year. The company’s partnership will provide a steady feedstock near the test plant.

“They’re going to need feedstock 24-7 once they get to the commercial level,” said Jake Eaton, GreenWood’s managing director of global acquisitions and resource planning. “We can optimize high yields and produce a low-cost dedicated feedstock.”

Studies show hybrid poplar is a fairly efficient feedstock for cellulosic ethanol. The partnership allows GreenWood to develop trees for a growing market in cellulosic-based chemicals and ethanol.

“From what we can see, they have the best technology out there,” Eaton said.
Recession and risks But making fuel out of plants is not the hard part. After all, scientists over the past year have turned coffee grounds into biodiesel and watermelon rinds into ethanol. Big oil companies are investing billions of dollars into growing algae.

The challenge is to build a commercial plant, which will take lots of plant material and money.

ZeaChem’s project comes at a turbulent time for nation’s ethanol industry, shaken by bankruptcies and failures over the past year. Along with other agricultural industries, biofuels rode the rollercoaster commodities market to its heights last year, only to have prices collapse with the recession.

The fallout from the credit crisis delivered a double punch, freezing access to credit and private capital for new research and construction. Then early this year, oil prices fell, making it difficult for ethanol producers to compete at the pump. So far, all commercial ethanol plants in the U.S. use corn.

“A number of plants misread the commodity markets,” says John Urbanchuk, a Pennsylvania-based expert in agriculture and biofuels with LECG LLC, a global consulting firm. “A lot of people thought that corn prices were going to continue to climb, and they were unable to cover their commodity positions.”

A wave of bankruptices and closures has followed, leaving idle corn ethanol plants and stalled projects across the Northwest.

Cascade Grain LLC, built a $200 million ethanol plant in Clatskanie last year and filed for bankruptcy protection in January. The plant ran for just six months before it was shut down.

In Longview, Wash., Northwest Renewables broke ground on a $100 million corn ethanol plant three years ago. Last week, the company announced the project, on hold for some time, would become a biomass plant with an uncertain timeline.

In Boardman, Pacific Ethanol’s plant continues to pump out 40 million gallons a year, despite filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May. The plant uses mostly corn from the Midwest, said company spokesman Paul Koehler.

Now, however, the prospects might be getting brighter for ethanol. Oil prices have increased, and corn and natural gas prices, the two largest costs in the industry, have fallen.

“The outlook today is brighter than six or seven months ago,” Urbanchuk said. “The profitibility picture looks better.”

The long-term prognosis for the industry is for steady growth, mostly due to government environmental policies that ensure demand for ethanol, in particular, cellulosic ethanol. Unlike corn, biomass holds the promise of greater efficiency, and it doesn’t compete for food resources.

For 2009, federal mandates require production of 11 billion gallons of biofuel, of which 100 million gallons which must come from no-corn feedstock. By 2022, cellulosic ethanol must make up nearly half of the government’s required 36 billion gallons of biofuels.

“The industry responded quickly to demand, and now we’re seeing demand and supply move into balance,” said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Washington-DC- based Renewable Fuels Association. “But there’s so much more growth that’s projected, those closed facilities may once again fire up as the economics of the industry improve.”
Implications for Oregon
In Oregon, the push for renewable fuel and energy has big economic implications. Many parties now eye Oregon’s forests for biomass, from wood pellet manufacturers to utility companies. And many others, from foresters to timber fellers to environmentalists, are pinning their hopes on a new, green market for Oregon wood.

Biofuel projects will likely bring new jobs into rural areas hard hit by years of mill closures. And they will put the state on the map in a growing industry.

“We don’t have the corn or the soy the Midwest does,” said Wallace, who works with different state departments in developing biofuels. “We need to get into (cellulosic) biofuels, if we’re going to play. I think we’re going to see more projects like this.”

In Boardman, ZeaChem’s project will create 75 construction jobs and 20 full-time jobs once the plant is running. If the company builds a commercial plant, dozens more jobs could be added.

“We’re excited about that potential,” said Gary Neal, general manager of the Port of Morrow. “There’s going to be a great utilization of the products and biproducts of the region, good paying jobs. We just see lots of pluses, and it’s good for the environment.”

Beyond jobs, developing local sources of fuel will mean more money stays in the state, Wallace said. In 2008, Oregonians spent $8 billion fueling up their cars and trucks. While some of that money goes toward taxes, most of the money spent on transportation fuels goes out of state.

Ultimately, finding uses for the state’s biomass will be good for the forests, said Mike Cloughesy, director of forestry for the Oregon Forest Resources Institute. The state has about 4.25 million acres capable of providing biomass by forest thinning projects, which would prevent wildfires.

“There is more than enough material to go around,” McCloughesy said. “Anything that makes more markets for biomass creates more opportunities for active forest management.”

Amy Hsuan, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2009/09/a_looking_for_a_biofuels_break.html

Douglas County, Ore. considering landfill methane plant September 3, 2009

Douglas County commissioners decided Wednesday to continue negotiations with a company wanting to produce electricity from methane gas at the county landfill.

Commissioners Susan Morgan, Doug Robertson and Joe Laurance approved a 90-day extension of an exploratory contract with Massachusetts-based Ameresco.

An impasse over the county’s desire to control its garbage destiny had threatened to nix a deal to have Ameresco construct a 1-megawatt plant to harness energy from methane, a byproduct of rotting garbage.

The commissioners want to reserve the option to ship a portion of its garbage south to the Dry Creek landfill outside Medford as a way to relieve pressure on the Douglas County Landfill south of Roseburg.

Ameresco wants to ensure an adequate supply of methane from decomposed garbage to meet its electricity production estimates and to offset the $4 million it would spend to construct the plant at the landfill.

At current disposal rates, the landfill is expected to fill up within the next 11 years. When it quits operating, it could cost up to $33 million to meet state health and safety closure requirements.

Ameresco has offered the county $1 million in royalties over a 20-year period from electricity produced by the plant, which would be sold to Pacific Power.

The county, Robertson said, is willing to provide Ameresco with whatever methane is produced from the garbage already disposed of at the landfill. However, it wants to have the flexibility to take some of its trash to another facility, he said.

“We are not willing to enter into any kind of agreement that marginalizes what the county may or may not do with their landfill in the future,” Robertson said.

Commissioner Joe Laurance said the county also wanted to reserve its options in case new technology allowed the county down the road to process garbage in a different way. Ameresco official Jim Bier told the commissioners he didn’t see that kind of technology on the horizon anytime soon, but said his company’s process was “shovel-ready” and could provide an immediate benefit to the county.

“I want to remind you guys that Ameresco is here because Douglas County advertised their landfill at a national convention in Washington, D.C., about three years ago and after that issued a (request for proposals). So I’m not a snake oil salesman here trying to sell you something that you didn’t ask for,” Bier said, in urging commissioners not to terminate the company’s preliminary contract.

Thad Roth, an official with the Energy Trust of Oregon, told the commissioners that his organization has pledged a $1.2 million incentive to Ameresco to help offset the difference between the cost of generating electricity and current market rates.

The Energy Trust is funded by Oregon utility customers served by Pacific Power, Portland General Electric, NW Natural and Cascade Natural Gas. It invests in efficient technologies and renewable resources meant to save money and protect the environment.

“We think this is a strong project for its size,” Roth said.

John Sowell, The News-Review – http://www.nrtoday.com/article/20090903/NEWS/909039977/1063/NEWS&ParentProfile=1055

WWU Gets Grant To Convert Cow Manure To Fuel September 3, 2009

Western Washington University’s Vehicle Research Institute has been awarded a $500,000 grant for turning cow manure into clean-burning bio-methane for vehicles.

Part of the funding from the Department of Energy will go toward placing new engines in three buses used by Bellingham’s Bellair Charters.

Not only will the busses produce a fraction of the CO₂, but they are also using a renewable resource made from cow manure, which would ordinarily just add its greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, according to VRI Director Eric Leonhardt.

The bio-methane used to power the buses comes from a dairy digester at the Vander Haak Dairy in Lynden.

Manure is put into the digester, which separates the solids from the gases, Leonhardt explained.

The gases are then run through a “scrubber,” to make them clean and ready to burn in a combustion engine.

Leonhardt said Whatcom County cows alone could produce enough bio-methane to run every car, truck, bus and piece of farm equipment in the county.

Tracy Ellis, KGMI (AM) – http://kgmi.com/Western-Gets-Grant-To-Convert-Cow-Manure-To-Fuel/5143532

Company plans biomass power project in Longview, Wash. August 28, 2009

A company that had planned to build an ethanol manufacturing plant in Longview now wants to build a facility that would burn wood waste to produce electricity.

Vancouver, Wash.-based Northwest Renewable estimates the $72.5 million biomass plant will create up to 400 construction jobs and up to 70 permanent positions. The Daily News of Longview reports that the company hopes to start construction next year. It says the proposed 24-megawatt plant would burn wood chips and other waste to generate steam, which would then drive a turbine to make electricity.

Northwest Renewable originally planned to make corn-based ethanol at the Longview site, starting in June 2008. But poor economic conditions in the alternative fuels industry kept the 31-acre site idle.

The Daily News – http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=11009793

Oregon company to turn dairy waste into biofuel May 13, 2009

An Oregon business hopes to become the first company to turn dairy and wood waste into a renewable biofuel called butanol.

Diesel Brewing of Salem plans to burn either dairy or wood waste to create liquid butanol through a process called gasification.

Butanol is a form of alcohol that could completely replace gasoline rather than be blended with it, like ethanol.

CEO Jeff Raines and his business partners are planning to open a pilot plant in Salem by the end of the year.

The test plant would use from about half a ton to one ton of wood and dairy waste per day. If the process proves workable, Raines and his team hope to build commercial-scale plants that use 100 tons of waste per day and produce a couple million gallons of butanol per year.

The Associated Press - http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/national-14/1242226675139880.xml&storylist=orlocal

NW fuel crop could cut jet fuel emissions by 84% May 11, 2009

A new study at Michigan Tech may help reduce greenhouse gas emissions with a crop that grows in Montana.

According to the study, greenhouse gas emissions from jet fuel could be cut by as much as 84 percent. The research was done by the Sustainable Futures Institute at Michigan Tech using the oil seed crop camelina, which is well-suited for the state of Montana.

“Again, according to our camelina, experts, there are large tracks of land in Montana that are currently used for wheat products in which camelina can be integrated as a rotation crop,” said Professor David Shonnard who conducted the study.

According to susoils.com, Web site about sustainable oils, camelina sativa is a member of the mustard family, a distant relative to canola, and the new darling of biodiesel production. Camelina plants are heavily branched, growing from one to three feet tall producing seed pods containing many small, oily seeds. It’s proof that good things really do come in small packages.

Shonnard continued to say that this study will be ongoing for several years as they continue to find ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

KPAX - http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=10342323

Bioelectricity More Efficient than Ethanol for Transportation, Study Shows May 10, 2009

In a new study published online yesterday in the journal Science, researchers led by Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced modeled entire fuel systems all the way from crop cultivation to vehicle propulsion, comparing cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions for both biofuels and bioelectricity. They found that the bioelectric pathway came out ahead of both corn ethanol and advanced cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass.

“We expected that electricity would look better than corn ethanol, but it was surprising to see that this was also the case for the more advanced second-generation ethanols,” Campbell says. “In all cases, the electricity pathway uses a lot less land to achieve the same amount of transportation.”

The study suggests than electric vehicle powered by biomass will travel an average of 81% farther than an internal-combustion vehicle powered by cellulosic ethanol if both are produced from the same area of cropland.

The results also suggest that alternative bioenergy pathways have large differences in how efficiently they use the available land to achieve transportation and climate goals.

>>Listen to an interview with lead author Elliott Campbell from Science Podcast

Timothy B. Hurst, Gas 2.0 - http://gas2.org/2009/05/08/bioelectricity-more-efficient-than-ethanol-for-transportation-study-shows/

Oregon House Approves Vechicle Energy Efficiency Bill May 10, 2009

The measure would order new rules on how long big rigs can idle in truck stops or ships can idle in port.

But the centerpiece of the legislation is a section that requires a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicle fuel.

Supporters like Democratic Representative Ben Cannon say that would encourage more use of locally-produced renewable fuels.

Rep. Ben Cannon:  “A low carbon fuel standard along with the other provisions of this bill will take important next steps in the direction of energy independence, green jobs, and prosperity in a carbon-constrained future.”

Opponents ridiculed the bill as a bureaucratic boondoggle that will end up costing businesses and consumers more in the long run.

The action came on the same day that Oregon lawmakers eased up on another bio-fuel mandate.

The House voted to make ethanol optional for premium-grade gasoline.  Both bills now head to the Senate.

Online:Oregon House Bill 2186

Oregon’s carbon footprint would shrink under a bill narrowly approved Friday by the Oregon House. The measure would affect everything from the fuel you buy to the tires you drive on.  Salem correspondent Chris Lehman reports.

BY CHRIS LEHMAN, OPB News – http://news.opb.org/article/4952-oregon-house-approves-energy-efficiency-bill/

Idaho energy offers many prospects (Part II) May 9, 2009

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part look at energy consumption in Idaho and renewable opportunities across the state.

University of Idaho researcher Robert Zemetra is looking to the fields of Idaho to turn a waste product into a fuel source. Common sources of ethanol such as corn kernels and switchgrass take farmland away from the production of the world’s food supply. “Here you run into the food verses fuel debate,” he said.

Zemetra has a better idea for the future of ethanol. He proposes using the leftover straw from wheat production to distill ethanol, which still allows the grains to be used for food.

A refinery capable of wheat-straw ethanol production was slated to be built in Shelley, Idaho, but may be constructed in Canada instead.

The problem with using wheat straw for ethanol production, Zemetra said, is it requires breaking down the lignin-cellulosic structure of the wheat stalk to get to the sugars inside. This drawback can lead to a lower yield.

“Lignin has a direct effect on digestion,” he said. “Our idea is to modify the lignin to increase access (to sugars), thus increasing production.”

Zemetra hopes to create a low-lignin wheat stalk without affecting the quality of the grain. To accomplish this, he proposes using plant breeding or molecular re-structuring.

“It’s not necessarily genetic engineering,” he said, but acknowledged that it may be perceived as such.

He said this process is nothing new, but often receives a negative reaction from food consumers.

“We’ve had transgenic plants for probably five years now,” he said. “We’ve already told our wheat commission that until the public accepts transgenic wheat, we’re not going to put it into commercial production.”

Although Zemetra is already growing prototype plants in a greenhouse, he doesn’t anticipate full-scale production for at least another decade.

One of the challenges faced with lignin reduction is producing a wheat stalk that is structurally strong enough to support itself, he said.

Still, if he can successfully create a low-lignin wheat plant, he believes it will produce a cheap and widely available dual-use fuel source for the state of Idaho.

From the depths

Geothermal energy is the use of hot water or steam from below the surface of the earth for heat or electricity. It has been used in Idaho since the 1800s for everything from spas to greenhouses to the farming of warm-water fish and alligators. The Idaho State Capitol building complex is heated by geothermal energy.

Another more expensive use for geothermal energy is the conversion of hot water or steam to electricity. The U.S. Geothermal Raft River Facility located in southeast Idaho is the first geothermal electricity plant in the Northwest, according to the State of Idaho Office of Energy resources. It began generating in Jan. 2008, and can generate up to 110 megawatts of power.

“Idaho has substantial geothermal resources,” said Steven Peterson, a professor of business and economics at UI. “It has potential for much wider use.”

Peterson co-authored a study about the economic impacts of a possible geothermal electricity plant that could be constructed at Willow Springs Idaho. The study found the plant could create 240 jobs in Idaho and generate an estimated $10.2 million in earnings.

The problem with geothermal electricity, Peterson said, is it requires a substantial amount of money to get started.

“The fuel is nearly free,” he said. “But the marginal cost of capital is high.”

If constructed, the Willow Springs facility could cost $150 million for the facility itself. Labor for construction, studies and the drilling of test wells could cost another $260 million. But once completed, it could produce $37 million annually in net revenue, the study stated.

Peterson said the costs of start-up for alternative energies are often overlooked and unmentioned by politicians who talk about creating “green jobs” to stimulate the economy.

“Everything in economics has an opportunity cost,” he said. “In the long run, that could very well be true, but in the short run, people are going to lose jobs, and it is going to cost money until the fruition of those jobs in the future.”

To accelerate the development of alternative energy in Idaho, Peterson recommends policy makers provide incentives for using renewable sources and limiting the use of carbon-based energies.

“We need to move away to alternatives to oil because we are going to run out,” he said. “That’s not going to change.”

Reid Wright, Argonaut - http://www.uiargonaut.com/content/view/8098/48:testset/

Landfill to provide clean energy to Seattle area April 9, 2009

Methane from a Seattle-area landfill will soon be used to provide clean natural gas power for area residents.

This week, Puget Sound Energy and Bio Energy-Washington announced a plan to power 24,000 nearby homes with methane gas from the Cedar Hills Regional Landfill.

“We are reducing carbon dioxide emissions roughly equal to taking 22,000 average passenger cars off the road each year, and we’re creating a valuable commodity from what was previously considered a useless byproduct,” King County executive Ron Sims said in a statement.

According to PSE, the power output from the landfill project will be equivalent to a 35 megawatt natural gas plant, and the third-largest facility of its kind in the nation. The methane will be transported to PSE-owned natural gas plants, reducing the landfill’s carbon footprint by nearly two-thirds in the process. The company also indicated that the landfill gas is actually cleaner than that from conventional wells because of the processing steps involved.

While there are over 100 of these landfill energy projects nationwide, this isn’t the only non-traditional energy source gaining traction. Dane County in Wisconsin recently issued an RFP for manure-digesters that will help the local dairy industry by generating natural gas and keeping manure-related pollutants out of area lakes.

Washington Energy Services – http://www.washingtonenergy.com/articles/article/903/landfill-to-provide-clean-energy-to-seattle-area

Salem area may get biodiesel research campus March 25, 2009

A Willamette Valley consortium plans to turn the area’s only commercial biodiesel plant into a research and education campus. With the new emphasis on renewable energy and economic stimulus, backers feel the time is right.

Chemeketa Community College, Pacific Biodiesel Technologies and developer Wildwood Inc. submitted a proposal for $10 million in funding to Oregon’s congressional delegation.

The project would be built over three years and could create 450 jobs, said Travis Henry, vice president of Wildwood.

The 30,000-square-foot facility, which would adjoin Pacific Biodiesel’s existing Salem plant, would include classrooms, test laboratories and pilot programs. Researchers hope the facility will help identify new biodiesel fuel sources.

The collaboration will involve Chemeketa students in every step in the process, said Chemeketa spokesman Greg Harris. “We see this opportunity as a unique chance to get talent developed for a growth industry,” he said.

Pacific Biodiesel processes used cooking oil and canola grown in Eastern Oregon, along with some tallow, said Will Smith, process engineering manager.

The expansion would allow the company to use different sources, including gatropha, a tropical nut, grease trap oil, algae oils and water treatment wastes.

“Imagine anything that’s rancid and disgusting and oily,” Smith told the Portland Daily Journal of Commerce.

Pacific Biodiesel could incorporate new biofuel sources into its existing mix.

“If they’re able to demonstrate the technology in a pilot scale, it could attract private industry, (which) could then build a full-scale production plant somewhere else,” he said.

The educational value relies on the close working relationship with Pacific Biodiesel, however, Henry said. “What makes this program so special is that you have students who are able to participate in all steps of the process.”

The project could get started within weeks of securing funding, said John Miller, president of Wildwood. “Our site is more than shovel-ready,” he said.

“Looking at what the priorities of what the new administration seem to be, the dire circumstance of the Oregon economy and the interest in building infrastructure for the new green economy, this fits with all of that,” Harris said.

The Associated Press – http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/salem_area_may_get_biodiesel_c.html

Mont. bill to allow NF biomass towards ‘renewable fuel standard’ March 21, 2009

Sen. Jon Tester is backing bipartisan legislation that will strengthen renewable energy opportunities in Montana by allowing biomass material from National Forests to be counted toward the Renewable Fuel Standard.The 2007 Energy Bill does not officially define resources from National Forests as “renewable biomass.” Therefore, renewable energy producers have no incentive to use them toward the Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires that 36 billion gallons of renewable fuel to be in use by 2022. So Tester teamed up with Senators John Thune, R-S.D., Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., and Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, to introduce legislation to fix the flawed definition.

The bill would:

* Allow pre-commercial waste (dead trees) and post-commercial waste (sawdust and wood chips) from National Forests to be considered “renewable biomass.”

* Allow dead trees to be removed from public lands to help cut wildland fire danger.

“Renewable resources that can be used to fuel our future shouldn’t be defined by imaginary boundaries,” Tester said. “We need to put all options on the table in order to make our country energy independent, and we need to responsibly use all the renewable resources we have at hand. This is a good, bipartisan bill that just makes common sense.”

“Forests can plan an important role in helping meet the country’s need for renewable energy,” said Rick Holley, president and chief executive officer of Plum Creek.

A 2005 U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture study said about 2 billion tons of treatable biomass on federal forestland is available for bioenergy production. A significant portion of this biomass could be sustainably removed on an annual basis, not counting post-commercial waste such as wood chips from paper mills.

The senators’ bipartisan legislation is S. 636.

Clark Fork Chronicle - http://www.clarkforkchronicle.com/article.php/20090320192257637

Governors envision eco-friendly fuels at I-5 rest stops March 11, 2009

Gov. Chris Gregoire and her counterparts in Oregon and California are considering a plan they hope would help transform Interstate 5 from a freeway ruled by gasoline burners to a haven for eco-friendly cars and trucks.

The three governors envision a series of alternative fueling stations stretching from the Canadian border to Mexico, creating what has been dubbed a “green freeway.”

As the plan stands, motorists eventually would be able to pull off at I-5 rest stops for more than a cup of coffee and roadside relief: They also would be able to charge, or swap out, their electric-vehicle batteries or fill their tanks with biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen or compressed natural gas.

The idea is drawing opposition from interest groups that say the state-approved stations would compete with nearby private businesses.

But supporters say services for alternative-fuel vehicles are often tough to find near the 1,382-mile interstate. If approved, the project could begin in Washington as early as this coming summer.

It would mark the first time U.S. drivers could travel a long stretch of freeway with easy access to alternative fuel.

“We originally coined it the B.C.-to-Baja green highway,” said Jeff Doyle, director of public-private partnerships at the Washington State Department of Transportation. “The three states are trying to find out if we can all march forward together.”

The fueling stations and battery swap-out docks would be the first businesses allowed by West Coast states to operate at rest stops, Doyle said. To help companies with their initial costs, they would not be charged rent until they started turning a profit, he said.

The move would need to clear layers of local and federal approval. Supporters say the plan would fit with the nationwide push for green jobs and alternative-energy development, and put the states in line for some of the $15 billion in federal stimulus money dedicated to energy-related programs.

Marty Brown, Gregoire’s legislative liaison, said Gregoire, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski are beginning to figure out how to make the plan work. The three briefly discussed the idea last month during a meeting in Washington, D.C.

Priming investment

Doyle said he has been working with the Oregon and California transportation departments for months in developing a way to “partner with next-generation fuel providers to spur private investment.”

He said Oregon and California are not likely to start on their ends of the project as soon as Washington, which also is looking at setting up alternative-fuel stations at Park-and-Ride lots.

Separately in Olympia, Rep. Deb Eddy, D-Kirkland, is sponsoring a bill that would give businesses a sales-tax exemption to establish battery charging and exchange stations, as well as create the infrastructure to transform the state automobile fleet from gasoline to electric.

“If we expect to ever meet our state greenhouse-gas goals, we will have to tackle transportation,” Eddy said.

Eddy said she is not working with Gregoire and the California and Oregon governors in her efforts, but she said she’d like charging and battery swap-out stations at rest stops by the end of 2015.

Eddy said her proposal, House Bill 1481, is likely to be voted out of the House in coming days.

Business opposition

Jim Whitty, manager of the Innovative Partnerships and Alternative Funding office in Oregon, said his state wants to push forward with the rest-stop fueling stations but is tied up by opposition from the National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO) and national gasoline distribution groups.

NATSO contends the stations would draw potential customers from truck stops, hotels, restaurants and other businesses near rest stops.

The owner of a Eugene, Ore., company that works with I-5 tractor-trailer drivers to reduce greenhouse emissions by upgrading their vehicles, remains hopeful for the rest-stop businesses. Sharon Banks, CEO of Cascade Sierra Solutions, said the proposal would appeal to truckers who choose rest areas over truck stops as places to pull off the freeway.

In the Puget Sound region, Susan Fahnestock, who co-owns Bellevue’s Green Car Co., which sells electric, plug-in hybrid and biodiesel vehicles, said the proposal is timely because numerous types of electric cars are hitting the market.

“I think people know this is coming. We have got to start somewhere,” Fahnestock said.

Doyle said he’s slogging through the legalities of getting the federal government to approve commercial development alongside an interstate. He said that if the plan is approved, the rest stops would not resemble some East Coast rest areas that feature fast-food restaurants and souvenir shops.

Doyle said the state wouldn’t want alternative-fuel stations to disrupt rest-area traffic, so contract companies would have to provide small, low-profile setups. Doyle added that rest-stop fueling sites would be self-service and likely to have little or no on-site staffing.

There already are dozens of compressed natural gas, ethanol and biodiesel stations in Washington and Oregon, but the closest hydrogen station is at Humboldt State University in Northern California.

Company interested

Doyle said no contracts for the fuel stations have been signed. But the head of a California-based company that has electric-car service stations in Israel, and is in the midst of expanding to Hawaii, the Bay Area, Australia and Ontario, Canada, has met with Gregoire, Brown said.

The company, Better Place, is led by Shai Agassi, a former Silicon Valley software executive who has been traveling the world touting his vision of a network of electric-vehicle charging stations.

Jeff Miller, who works in global development at Better Place, said that if the company were hired it would build charging stations in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and battery switch-out stations at rest areas about every 40 miles along the I-5 corridor. Electric vehicles, he said, have a battery life of about 100 miles.

Better Place’s stations are fully automated and require about five minutes to switch out a battery, which can be less time than it takes to fill up a gas tank, Miller said.

Jennifer Sullivan, Seattle Times – http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008827158_greenfreeway08m.html

Eureka, CA looks to digest food refuse into energy March 11, 2009

In the ever-challenging goal to trim down Humboldt County’s waste stream, food refuse is a heavyweight — and waste management officials are hoping it can be digested to save money, generate power and meet state mandates.The Humboldt Waste Management Authority and the cities of Arcata and Eureka are looking to develop a regional food waste digester they believe could save millions over the next two decades. Instead of sending the area’s food waste by truck to a landfill, it would go to the digester to be converted into methane and used to produce electricity.

Recycling bottles, cans, paper and other items has pared down the amount of waste sent to landfills over the years. But some cities have had trouble meeting a 2000 state demand to keep at least 50 percent of their waste streams out of landfills. Proposed legislation on waste and pollution are likely to tighten regulations in coming years.

Food waste is heavy — it’s 75 to 80 percent water — and represents about 20 percent of households’ waste, and 38 percent of businesses’ waste, according to the California Integrated Waste Management Board. That means it costs a lot to put it on a truck and ship it to a landfill 190 miles away.

”When you think about hauling water — it doesn’t make sense,” said Humboldt Waste Management Authority Program Analyst Juliette Bohn.

Despite its estimated $6 million to $7 million price tag and $618,000 yearly operating cost, a waste authority feasibility

analysis approximated that such a facility would save more than $4 million over 20 years by cutting tipping fees, producing electricity and reducing long haul trucking costs. Some 11,800 tons of organic waste could be diverted to the digester each year, the study estimated.Food waste digesters have the benefit of extracting energy from refuse and leaving a potentially compostable residue, wrote California Integrated Waste Management Board spokeswoman Charlene Graham in an e-mail. The board’s primary concern is that the technology meets environmental standards, Graham wrote. Technologies that have multiple benefits are usually worth pursuing, she wrote.

Digesters have long been used to process manure and solid waste from wastewater treatment facilities. What’s different is the process to grind up the food before it’s sent to the digester, Bohn said, and how to operate the plant given food’s quick putrefaction.

There are about 70 food digesters in Europe, but only a handful of small-scale projects in the United States.

”Because it’s a new take on an old process,” Bohn said, “there’s been a learning curve.”

A project in Humboldt County could answer remaining questions about food waste digestion and serve as a demonstration for other communities that might be interested, Bohn said.

The waste management authority is applying for grants for permitting, and for design and engineering of a facility. It’s also looking into government loans and public-private partnerships to facilitate the construction.

Ideally, Bohn said, ground could be broken in as little as two years.

John Driscoll, The Times-Standard – http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_11885675

Biodiesel plant proposed for Salem, Ore. March 9, 2009

Biofuel advocates, Chemeketa Community College and Salem businessmen are hoping for federal money to build a new biofuels research and processing plant in Salem.

The project, which seeks $10 million in federal dollars, would create Oregon’s first such facility — nestled next to the state’s only commercial biodiesel production facility and biofuels analytical laboratory at Mill Creek Junction on Turner Road SE.

The project’s partners — Chemeketa Community College, Wildwood Inc. and Pacific Biodiesel Technologies Inc. — submitted the proposal to Oregon’s Congressional delegation, the first step in acquiring a federal “earmark” for 2010.

John Miller of Wildwood, owner and developer of Mill Creek Junction, wants to see Salem lead the alternative fuel sector: “This bread basket (the Willamette Valley) can also be a fuel basket.”

The proposed facility — between 20,000- and 30,000-square-feet — could produce as much as 432,000 gallons of liquid biofuels per year. The biofuels could be made from algae, woody waste and agricultural waste.

Chemeketa Community College hopes to train about 60 students a year at the facility.

“What we do well and want to do more of is train workers for employable jobs with skills that employers in our district need,” said Greg Harris, Chemeketa’s public information officer. “Chemeketa is not a research institution … we are more about practical skills. I think we wouldn’t be training future scientists as much as we would be training future technicians.”

Students would study under private industry scientists in Pacific Biodiesel Technologies and other businesses not yet named.

By Beth Casper, Statesman Journal – http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20090309/GREEN/903090356/1001/news

Pacific Ethanol closing 2 plants for now February 28, 2009

Corn-based fuel – The company seeks new terms from its lenders, but its Boardman site is still running “full out”

Pacific Ethanol said Friday that it is temporarily closing down its ethanol plants in Burley, Idaho, and Stockton, Calif., leaving only a partially owned plant in Colorado and its Boardman plant along the Columbia River to produce the corn-based fuel.

The Sacramento-based company, the West Coast’s largest ethanol producer, also suspended operations at its Madera, Calif., plant in January.

The down economy, lower prices for petroleum gasoline, and a tighter spread between ethanol and corn prices have all hit ethanol hard, though mandates for ethanol content in gasoline still help the industry.

In a news release, Pacific Ethanol said it is trying to negotiate new loan terms with its lenders. The lenders will “refrain from exercising their rights and remedies” through March 31, the release said.

The Boardman plant, opened in 2007, has a 40 million-gallon-a-year capacity. Rail cars carry the corn in from the east, and barges take the distilled fuel down the Columbia River to distributors in Portland.

Paul Koehler, a Pacific Ethanol spokesman, said the company is “operating Boardman full out.” Koehler said he couldn’t comment on whether an inability to negotiate new loan terms would affect the Boardman plant.

The company said it will continue serving its ethanol customers through production from Boardman and ethanol suppliers to Kinergy Marketing, Pacific Ethanol’s wholly owned marketing arm. Pacific Ethanol also owns a 42 percent interest in Front Range Energy, which owns an ethanol plant in Windsor, Colo.

The Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol industry group, said this week that 23 of 171 ethanol plants are currently idled, but 21 more are under construction.

SCOTT LEARN, The Oregonian – http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/1235791507280380.xml&coll=7

Oregon bill would create a new source of biofuels February 26, 2009

Woody biomass from federal forestlands could be used to develop cellulosic ethanol under legislation reintroduced Wednesday by U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Hood River, and a Democratic colleague.

The Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act, also reintroduced by U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., would broaden the definition of cellulosic ethanol within the renewable fuels standard to include biomass gathered from federal lands as well as private forests.

The bill would allow brush, small trees and other forest thinnings from federal hazardous fuels reduction projects to be used for biomass energy production. Such projects from southwestern Oregon alone could produce huge amounts of biomass while reducing the threat of catastrophic wildfires to rural communities, analysts say.

Any biomass projects on federal land would have to comply with all federal environmental laws.

The two representatives, who originally introduced the bill last year, say it addresses a flaw in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. That legislation included a historic 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard, of which 21 billion gallons are required to be derived from advanced biofuels by 2022.

However, the law’s definition of renewable biomass prevents almost all federal land biomass from counting toward the mandate if it is used to manufacture biofuels.

“Our bipartisan legislation would give the country a better chance of reaching its goal of producing 21 billion gallons of advanced biofuels a year by 2022—enough to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 20 coal-fired electricity plants,” Walden said in a prepared statement.

“There’s technology out there to turn woody biomass from forest health treatments in our choked forests into clean fuel, a process that would create good paying jobs and a healthier environment at the same time,” he added.

The legislation will help diversify the nation’s energy portfolio, according to Herseth Sandlin.

“While the energy bill took tremendous strides to decrease our dependence on foreign sources of energy, not allowing biofuels made from certain types of biomass to count toward the RFS hinders the potential benefits of the landmark legislation,” she said.

The bill, reintroduced Wednesday, also would help forest health efforts as well as boost economic development in the surrounding communities, she said.

In addition to Walden and Herseth Sandlin, other cosponsors include Democrats U.S. Reps. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, Bart Stupak of Michigan and Mike Ross of Arkansas, and Republicans Jo Ann Emerson of Virginia and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.

Paul Fattig, The Mail Tribune – http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090226/NEWS/902260332

Clean Energy Aspects of now signed recovery act February 18, 2009

President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on Tuesday and the measure includes US $16.8 billion for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). The funding is a nearly tenfold increase for EERE, which received $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2008.

The act also directs DOE to analyze the nation’s electrical grid to determine if significant potential sources of renewable energy are locked out of the electrical market by a lack of adequate transmission capacity. DOE must then provide recommendations for achieving adequate transmission capacity.

While the bulk of the new EERE funding is supporting direct grants and rebates, $2.5 billion will support EERE’s applied research, development and deployment activities, including $800 million for the Biomass Program, $400 million for the Geothermal Technologies Program, and $50 million for efforts to increase the energy efficiency of information and communications technologies.

An additional $400 million will support efforts to add electric technologies to vehicles. And separate from the EERE budget, $400 million will support the establishment of the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), an agency to support innovative energy research, modeled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

The economic stimulus act also stipulates that $5 billion will go towards the Weatherization Assistance Program, and the act also increases the eligible income level under the program, increases the funding assistance level to $6,500 per home, and allows new weatherization assistance for homes that were weatherized as recently as 1994.

A complementary measure in the act provides $4 billion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to rehabilitate and retrofit public housing, including increasing the energy efficiency of units, plus an additional $510 million to do the same for homes maintained by Native American housing programs. HUD will receive an additional $250 million to increase the energy efficiency of HUD-sponsored, low-income housing.

The act also directs $2 billion in EERE funds toward grants for the manufacturing of advanced battery systems and components within the United States, as well as the development of supporting software. The battery grants will support advanced lithium-ion batteries and hybrid electric systems. Another $300 million will support an Alternative Fueled Vehicles Pilot Grant Program, and an additional $300 million will support rebates for energy efficient appliances, while also supporting DOE’s efforts under the Energy Star Program.

The act also stipulates that $3.2 billion will go toward Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants, which were established in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, but were not previously funded. The grants will go toward states, local governments and tribal governments to support the development of energy efficiency and conservation strategies and programs, including energy audit programs and projects to install fuel cells and solar, wind, and biomass power projects at government buildings. For background on the program, see pages 176-183 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.

The act also stipulates that $3.1 billion of EERE funds will go toward the State Energy Program for additional grants that don’t need to be matched with state funds, but the act only allows such grants for states that intend to adopt strict building energy codes and intend to provide utility incentives for energy efficiency measures. To help states implement the measures, a separate portion of the act allocates $500 million to the Department of Labor to prepare workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Renewable Energy and Smart Grids

The act includes $6 billion to support loan guarantees for renewable energy and electric transmission technologies. The funds are expected to guarantee more than $60 billion in loans. The act requires the DOE Loan Guarantee Program to only make loan guarantees to projects that will start construction by September 30, 2011, and that involve renewable energy, electric transmission, or leading-edge biofuel technologies.

The act also directs DOE to analyze the nation’s electrical grid to determine if significant potential sources of renewable energy are locked out of the electrical market by a lack of adequate transmission capacity. DOE must then provide recommendations for achieving adequate transmission capacity. To help achieve those recommendations, the act includes a provision allowing the Western Area Power Administration to borrow up to $3.25 billion from the U.S. Treasury for transmission system upgrades, particularly for facilitating the delivery of power from renewable energy facilities.

In addition, the act provides $4.5 billion for the DOE Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability for activities to modernize the nation’s electrical grid, integrate demand-response equipment and analyze, develop and implement smart grid technologies. The funds will also support research in energy storage technologies, efforts to facilitate recovery from energy supply disruptions and efforts to enhance the security and reliability of the nation’s energy infrastructure. A complementary section of the act opens smart grid demonstration projects to electric systems in all areas of the country and establishes a smart grid information clearinghouse to share data from the demonstration projects.

Greener Federal Buildings and Fleets

Federal buildings and fleets will become greener under a measure of the new bill. The act provides $4.5 billion to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) to convert federal buildings into high-performance green buildings, which generally combine energy efficiency and renewable energy production to minimize the energy use of the buildings. The act also directs $4 million toward the establishment of an Office of Federal High-Performance Green Buildings within the GSA. In addition, the act provides $100 million for the Energy Conservation Investment Program within the Department of Defense, as well as another $100 million for energy conservation and alternative energy projects at facilities of the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps.

For federal vehicle fleets, the act provides $300 million to cover the costs of acquiring greener motor vehicles, including hybrids, electric vehicles, and plug-in hybrid vehicles, once they become commercially available. Buying plug-in hybrids could be an iffy proposition, however, as the funds must be spent by September 30, 2011.

Renewable Energy Tax Credits

The tax section of the act provides a three-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for most renewable energy facilities, while offering expansions on and alternatives for tax credits on renewable energy systems. The extension keeps the wind energy PTC in effect through 2012, while keeping the PTC alive for municipal solid waste, qualified hydropower, and biomass and geothermal energy facilities through 2013.

In addition, a two-year extension of the PTC for marine and hydrokinetic renewable energy systems will keep that tax credit in effect through 2013. The PTC provides a credit for every kilowatt-hour produced at new qualified facilities during the first 10 years of operation, provided the facilities are placed in service before the tax credit’s expiration date.

For 2008, biomass facilities fueled with dedicated energy crops (“closed-loop biomass”), as well as wind, solar, and geothermal energy facilities earned 2.1 cents per kilowatt-hour, while other qualified facilities earned 1 cent per kilowatt-hour.

Unfortunately, the current slump in business activity means that fewer businesses are seeking tax credits, which means that renewable energy producers are having trouble taking advantage of the PTC. With that in mind, the act also allows owners of non-solar renewable energy facilities to make an irrevocable election to earn a 30% investment credit rather than the PTC. The option remains in effect for the current period of the PTC, that is, through 2012 for wind energy facilities and through 2013 for other qualified renewable energy facilities.

Alternately, the facility owner could choose to receive a grant equal to 30% of the tax basis (that is, the reportable business investment) for the facility, so long as the facility is depreciable or amortizable. The grants are also available for renewable energy facilities that would normally earn a business energy credit of 10%-30%, including systems using fuel cells, solar energy, small wind turbines, geothermal energy, microturbines and combined heat and power (CHP) technologies.

To earn a grant, the facility must be placed in service in 2009 or 2010, or construction must begin in either of those years and must be completed prior to the termination of the PTC. For facilities that would normally earn a business tax credit, construction must be completed prior to 2017. The grants will be paid directly from the U.S. Treasury. A separate measure in the act removes limitations on the business credit based on how the systems are financed and also removes a business credit limit on small wind energy systems.

The stimulus bill also provides greater tax credits for clean energy projects at homes and businesses and for the manufacturers of clean energy technologies. For homeowners, the act increases a 10% tax credit for energy efficiency improvements to a 30% tax credit, eliminates caps for specific improvements (such as windows and furnaces), and instead establishes an aggregate cap of $1,500 for all improvements placed in service in 2009 and 2010 (except biomass systems, which must be placed in service after the act is enacted).

The act also tightens the energy efficiency requirements to meet current standards. For residential renewable energy systems, the act removes all caps on the tax credits, which equal 30% of the cost of qualified solar energy systems, geothermal heat pumps, small wind turbines and fuel cell systems. The act also eliminates a reduction in credits for installations with subsidized financing.

For businesses and individuals buying electric vehicles, the act simplifies and expands the available tax credits. For electric low-speed vehicles, motorcycles, and three-wheeled vehicles, a 10% tax credit is available through 2011, with a cap of $2,500. For vehicles converted into qualified plug-in electric vehicles, a 10% tax credit is also available through 2011, with a cap of $4,000. And starting in 2010, full-scale commercial plug-in electric vehicles can earn a maximum tax credit of $7,500, depending on their battery capacity. The credit will phase out over a year for each manufacturer after they sell 200,000 plug-in vehicles.

The act also provides a bonus to homeowners or business owners installing clean fuel refueling systems at their homes or businesses. For businesses, the maximum credit for installing such refueling systems increases to $50,000 for most systems, up from $30,000, and it increases to $200,000 for hydrogen refueling stations. For homeowners, the credit is doubled from $1,000 to $2,000. Homeowners might install their own natural gas refueling system for a natural gas vehicle, or they might install recharging systems for plug-in electric vehicles. The credit is available through 2010 for most refueling systems and through 2014 for hydrogen refueling systems.

The economic stimulus act has also added a new tax credit to encourage investment in the manufacturing facilities that help make such clean energy projects possible. A new 30% investment tax credit is available for projects that establish, re-equip or expand manufacturing facilities for fuel cells, microturbines, renewable fuel refineries and blending facilities, energy saving technologies, smart grid technologies and solar, wind and geothermal technologies.

The credit also applies to the manufacture of plug-in electric vehicles and their electric components, such as battery packs, electric motors, generators and power control units. The credit may also be expanded in the future to include other energy technologies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Secretary of Treasury must establish a certification program within the next 180 days and may allocate up to $2.3 billion in tax credits.

Clean Energy Bonds Expanded

Two bonding mechanisms for financing renewable energy and energy efficiency systems have been expanded under the tax section of the act. The act authorizes the allocation of as much as $1.6 billion in new Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs), which are tax credit bonds for financing renewable energy projects. CREBs were previously limited to a maximum of $800 million. The act also authorizes the allocation of $2.4 billion in qualified energy conservation bonds, up from the current limit of $800 million. These tax credit bonds are allocated to states and large local governments to finance a variety of clean energy projects.

Unlike normal bonds that pay interest, tax credit bonds pay the bondholders by providing a credit against their federal income tax. In effect, the new tax credit bonds will provide interest-free financing for clean energy projects. But because the federal government essentially pays the interest via tax credits, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service must allocate such credits in advance. However, tax credit bonds require the investment of a bondholder that will benefit from the federal tax credits, and those investors may be hard to find during the current business downturn. To try to draw more investment, a separate measure in the tax bill will allow regulated investment companies to pass through to their shareholders the tax credits earned by such bonds. Yet another measure adds a prevailing wage requirement to projects financed with CREBs or energy conservation bonds.

RenewableEnergyNews.com – http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/02/clean-energy-aspects-of-the-american-recovery-and-reinvestment-act

3 more NW dairies turning cow waste into biogas February 18, 2009

A biogas plant at a former dairy near Monroe is turning cow waste from three dairies into methane that can be burned to generate electricity.

The plant is located on a former honor farm once operated by the state prison at Monroe and now owned by the Tulalip Tribes.

It’s operated by the nonprofit Qualco Energy group and has a contract to sell electricity to Puget Sound Energy.

The Everett Herald reports that byproducts of the process are a liquid fertilizer and biosolids that turn into compost.

Associated Press – http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9865829&nav=menu484_2

National: Farmers harness manure’s gases to generate power February 16, 2009

Where others see simply manure, Danny Kluthe smells money.

Long before President Barack Obama promised the country that “we will harness the sun and the winds and the soil,” Kluthe already had yoked the power of pig poop.

Manure from his hogs drains as a slurry into a giant vat. It is stirred and warmed. A virtually odorless liquid – ideal for fertilizing surrounding fields that, in turn, feed more pigs – emerges from the giant digester.

The real beauty, though, comes in the methane fumes that rise off the muck. They are funneled to a tractor engine and used to power a generator. Suddenly his electrical utility is writing checks to him.

“There will be a day when there will not be a hog facility or a dairy built without one of these things,” Kluthe said. “This,” he said with the glee of someone who has figured out how to spin straw into gold, “just makes too much sense.”

What helps save the farm could help save the planet.

Because Kluthe doesn’t let the methane from hog waste waft away, his sewage lagoons pack one-twentieth the climate-changing punch they would otherwise.

In fact, his dung-to-dollars system is but one way agriculture can put food on your plate without dumping so much greenhouse gas into Earth’s atmosphere.

Other fixes can be made earlier in the process: improving grassland diversity, spreading fertilizer more precisely and tweaking animal food.

While agriculture accounts for just 6 percent of greenhouse gases in the United States, it is responsible for more than half the methane and nitrous oxide emissions. In Missouri and Kansas, those two climate-changers come almost entirely from farming.

Molecule for molecule, methane has about 21 times the impact as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide is 300 times as powerful.

They may be some of the easiest to cut back, however.

“There’s a lot of opportunity for agriculture to get this low-hanging fruit,” said Evan Branosky, a research analyst at the World Resources Institute, an environmental think tank. “You can do some simple practices that are going to result in large reductions.”

Better farming practices are part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a new carbon-trading market among 10 Northeastern states that requires power plants to offset their carbon dioxide emissions.

Those sorts of carbon credits – where a polluter in one part of the economy balances out their damage by paying someone else to cut back on their greenhouse gases – could provide an incentive to pay for greener farms.

Ranchers and feedlots already have plenty of enticement to fatten cattle as quickly as possible, but the ideal feed isn’t always the most economical. And low-impact tilling and chemical treatments don’t always fill the most bushels at harvest.

Likewise, anaerobic digesters such as the one Kluthe runs to transform effluent into energy don’t get built unless a government grant is involved.

Indeed, even as analysts see great hope for cutting back on greenhouse gases from farming, they also stress that there are no universal fixes.

“It’s important not to make blanket statements,” said Karin Wittenberg of Canada’s National Center for Livestock and the Environment. “There are a lot of factors to weigh.”

Cud-chewers have roamed the planet for millennia, but not in the concentrations seen since our meat- and dairy-loving civilizations figured out how to raise them on a massive scale.

Going vegetarian would be the quickest route to eliminating that impact, but history has shown that those who can afford to eat higher on the food chain are sure do to so.

So why not give livestock the farm equivalent of Beano?

Take, for instance, Bessie’s diet. A dairy cow eating high-protein feed makes more efficient use of her meals than a bovine eating low-quality hay.

That means bacteria in her rumen, the fermentation chamber that serves as her first stomach, will produce less of the methane that makes her belch and fart. The better her feed, the better for her farmer, the better for her planet.

But it’s not always that simple. For starters, a pregnant cow might be fed low-quality forage if that is the only economical food available through the winter after a poor harvest. Costlier cow chow could mean no profitability for a marginal rancher.

Secondly, growing that heartier feed of corn, soybeans or alfalfa might burn more equipment fuel or consume more nitrogen fertilizer – quickly negating any gains made by nurturing a not-so-gassy animal.

While the Midwest is awash in grain, livestock raised elsewhere don’t have such easy access to that kind of feed.

Still, gains can be made at the margins of even large-scale commercial agriculture, changes that make both farmer and climate scientists rest easier:

-Diversify plants in a pasture. That way everything doesn’t bloom at once and then, even during dry stretches in the summer grazing, cattle can find more than the dregs of dried grasses for dinner. As cheap and simple as it seems, even that would require that ranchers pay attention to something they might ordinarily leave to nature.

-Chemistry. Some scientists think there might be hope in a vaccine or inoculation that eliminates or reduces the methanogens – the bacteria responsible for the enteric fermentation and its methane waste.

-Breeding. By raising animals that make the most of a meal, costs of production stay low without manufacturing so much methane in a cow’s stomach.

-Raising something adapted to a region. Perennial plants require far less energy, don’t demand the plowing that release carbon dioxide from the soil and use less fertilizer to grow a crop. Researchers are looking for more plants that might fit the bill, and the promise is strongest for livestock feed.

Or consider kangaroo steak. A University of New South Wales study found that using kangaroos instead of sheep and cattle – both grazing ruminants with those gassy bacteria in their stomachs – could produce the same tonnage of meat and lower Australia’s greenhouse gas output by 11 percent.

-Precision. More care taken to apply fertilizer on narrow seed rows – rather than broadcast across a field – can dramatically lessen nitrous oxide released.

“Some of these things are being done already,” said Gene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. “More things we might be able to do pretty easily in the future.”

Consider the potential of biogas electricity. The manure an average hog produces in a day could light a 40-watt bulb eight hours. A typical dairy cow’s droppings could power the same bulb 95 hours.

Put another way, the hogs and dairy cows in Missouri and Kansas combined could provide electricity for more than 77,000 households.

Still, the potential sale of that electricity doesn’t yet cover the cost of installing the manure processing system at Kluthe’s farm.

“We think it’s going to take some government incentives,” said A.L. Goldberg of Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources. “The startup costs are just too high now.”

The federal government and some states have handed out grants to build more than 100, including Kluthe’s, across the country – although none in Kansas and Missouri.

In fact, they’re less attractive to Midwestern farmers, who typically pay less for energy than in other U.S. regions.

“It so much comes down to what energy policies exist in a state of whether it makes sense to put on the grid,” said Chris Voell, the director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s AgStar program.

Many states require that some of a power company’s energy come from renewable sources.

Missouri currently requires that less than 1 percent come from renewable sources, but that figure is scheduled to rise to 15 percent by 2021. Kansas has set a target of 20 percent by 2020. Without such requirements, however, utilities are reluctant to buy energy that costs them more than, say, burning coal.

“What we need to do is figure the value of the other benefits,” said Kluthe, who said the checks he gets more than offset his farm’s utility bills. “What’s the cost of getting rid of that odor and being a good neighbor? Or about helping the environment? You put everything together, and it starts to make sense.”

By SCOTT CANON, McClatchy Newspapers - http://www.theolympian.com/649/story/760197.html

Republican Lawmakers stall poop power bill in Idaho February 12, 2009

A plan to promote businesses that turn Magic Valley cow manure to power caused a stink in a House committee Thursday, with lawmakers voicing skepticism after a first whiff of incentives like not requiring private businesses to pay any property taxes.

The Revenue and Taxation Committee including Chairman Dennis Lake, a Blackfoot Republican, agreed to hear Office of Energy Resources chief Paul Kjellander explain the bill at an upcoming hearing.

But Lake said he fears “there may be some things in here that this committee can’t live with.”

Rep. Jim Clark, a Hayden Republican, criticized provisions seeking to give Idaho’s utility regulator broad new authority in setting up renewable energy zones, which in addition to the dairy hub near Twin Falls would include other regions, too, according to the proposal.

Kjellander pledged to return with explanations – and possible changes.

Associated Press – http://www.kivitv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9836671

US Senators Introduce Bill Promoting Biogas Through Tax Credits‏ January 23, 2009

Billions of gallons of fossil fuels could be reduced through renewable energy sources produced from animal waste with a little ingenuity and modest government support.

Today, a bipartisan group of seven Senators led by Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska introduced groundbreaking legislation that promotes the development of biogas – a natural gas substitute created by the conversion of organic wastes such as the anaerobic digestion of animal wastes – through tax incentives.

“We already have the technology to break down animal wastes to create biogas but it needs encouragement from the federal government to become a commercially-viable alternative to natural gas. This new energy source would benefit rural communities and the environment while lessening our dependence on fossil fuels and ensuring energy security,” said Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska.

“We shouldn’t waste the waste; we should promote biogas development.”

“Incentivizing production of clean and affordable energy from agricultural waste is a benefit to everyone,” said Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho.

“Developing our supply of renewable natural gas is one of the many ways our nation’s farmers, ranchers and foresters are proving to be an important part of the solution to our energy needs.”

“This bill puts an existing byproduct to a productive use,” said Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

“Ohio’s strength in agriculture along with its growing renewable energy industry positions us be a leader in the production of renewable natural gas. By encouraging its production, we can create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and improve the environment.”

“This bill promotes innovative technology for the production of renewable energy, and it is good for Nebraska’s livestock producers,” said Senator Johanns of Nebraska. “In addition to being a potentially abundant energy resource, biogas holds the added benefit of turning manure from a waste product into an energy resource. I am proud to be a co-sponsor of this legislation.”

“In basketball terms, this proposal should be a slam dunk,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon.

“It creates a major new incentive to produce natural gas from renewable sources, allowing dairy farmers, feedlot owners, food processing companies and others to turn waste products into revenue. It reduces environmental emissions of a potent greenhouse gas – methane. And it rewards innovation by allowing a broad range of feedstocks and processing technology to qualify.”

“This type of forward thinking is what is needed for our country’s energy security,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota. “I will continue to work on developing alternative, home grown energy resources that are good for our environment and our economy.”

“By making real investments in the production of alternative energy technologies like biogas we can create good-paying middle-class jobs,” said Senator Stabenow of Michigan.

“This legislation will help ensure farmers and developers throughout Michigan can continue to convert waste into clean energy, all while improving water quality for the Great Lakes.”

Biogas is produced through technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD) that can convert animal wastes and other agricultural or organic wastes into at least 50% methane (the principal ingredient of natural gas). Biogas can be used as is on the farm or co-located with another facility such as an ethanol plant, or as a renewable substitute for natural gas, propane or other fossil fuels.

This legislation, the Biogas Production Incentives Act of 2009, would encourage greater production of biogas for energy purposes by providing biogas producers with a tax credit of $4.27 for every million British thermal units (mmBtu) of biogas produced. This could mean more jobs and a boon for rural communities.

Biogas production also offers environmental benefits such as a reduction in the greenhouse gas emissions of both carbon dioxide and methane and improved water quality through better manure management. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, if the U.S. used half of its waste biomass, biogas could replace about 5% of the natural gas currently being used, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by another 45-70 million metric tons per year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cites a report by the Senate Agriculture Committee estimating that each year 1.37 billion tons of solid animal waste are produced in the U.S. — the production of biogas could help turn much of this waste into a source of renewable energy.

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january222009/biogas_legis_1-22-09.php

Idaho Oilseed Conference: February 12 in Moscow January 19, 2009

The Oilseed Conference will provide up-to-date information on oilseed crops commonly grown in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.

Conference Topics

· Discussion of food versus bio-fuel

· Renewable energy research, education and product development in Mexico

· Breeding, genetics, and cultivar development

· Biodiesel research and industry perspectives

· Production and pest management

· Oilseed product development

This conference will be of interest to farmers, oilseed and biodiesel processors, public officials, oilseed researchers, and the public.

For more information:

Julie Haddox

Phone: 208-885-7173
FAX: 208-885-6654
Email: julihad@uidaho.edu

-OR-

http://www.ag.uidaho.edu/oilseeds/conference/

Update: Josephine Co. (OR) gets grant to grow canola for biofuel January 17, 2009

Farmers in Josephine County now have an opportunity to make money growing oil seeds on their land.

The Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation District has just received an $85,000 grant to move the project forward.

So far seeds have been planted on 300 acres of Josephine County farmland. These oil seeds can produce meal for livestock and biofuels. If harvested, one acre of land can generate anywhere $200 to $800 for local farmers.

Wayne McKy has been a Josephine County farmer all his life and spent years working with one particular 20-acre piece of land in Hugo.  “It was cleared early 1900s, it’s cropped so many times, cropped and cropped,” he said.

In October he invested about $200 to plant canola seedlings on 15 acres as part of a new county project.  “Hope it puts a few dollars in my pocket help me I’d like to see farming get started here again,” McKy said.  There are other advantages to the soil. Once the seedlings begin growing, they can get rid of many noxious weeds.

Michelle Baumgartner is a conservationist with the county, she says these seeds grow even in the worst of soil. The grant from the county will pay for three new contractors who will help landowners plant and harvest the seeds. Canola seeds can generate $800 dollars an acre, camelina seeds $200. Once the seeds are harvested, they will be crushed at a biofuel processing plant in Eugene.

The leftovers will become protein rich meal for livestock. Baumgartner says this will be a great opportunity for farmers in the county, many who have land that have been left unused for years.

“On route on right now 5 years completely self sustaining in Josephine County everything utilized and self sustaining here,” she said, explaining that they hope to have a biofuel processing plant in the county by that time.

It would be a golden opportunity for what some farmers say is a dying industry in Josephine County. “You used to see farms all over county you see cream cans out little dairies, then it just got less and less,” she said.

With hopes this spring, these seedlings may bring josephine county to what it used to be.  “You just never know farming is a gamble to a point just like everything else,” McKy said.

The Josephine County Soil and Water Conservation district is still looking for local farmers to participate, you have to have a 5 to 10 acre piece of land but the soil can be marginal.

A presentation will be held at Kelly’s Market in Hugo off exit 66 Saturday at 10 a.m., to show other josephine county landowners how the process works. Another presentation will be held at 2 p.m. At Young’s Farm at 12061 Williams Highway, for information call (541) 846-6051

http://www.ktvl.com/news/county_1188646___article.html/farmers_josephine.html

—————————————————-

Click below for a previous NW Renewable News post on Canola in Josephine County, OR:

http://nwrenewablenews.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/josephine-county-or-considers-growing-canola-for-biofuel/

Update: Flathead Co. landfill power project on track January 16, 2009

One man’s garbage is another man’s energy, at least in the case of the Flathead County Landfill. A project to use landfill power as an alternative energy is on schedule in the Flathead.

Methane gas from rotting garbage will be gathered in wells, piped to a generator, and used to produce power. Currently the gas is just being burned off in an enclosed ground flare.

The landfill power project should be in full operations in April.

The snow slowed work, but construction is speeding up again with the warmer weather. Next week new wells will be drilled and the generator will be installed.

This project is one of the first in Montana where methane gas from a landfill is being used to produce power.

“I think it’s a major breakthrough to use the gas and the resource, instead of flaring it off into the atmosphere, it’s going produce power for around 900 houses, putting the power and using it locally, so I think it’s going to be a win win for everybody,” said Operations Manager, Jim Chilton.

The gas energy project is a partnership between the Flathead County Landfill and Flathead Electric Co-op.

http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=9683031

Ethanol industry has received over 3/4 of all Federal REC’s January 13, 2009

The corn-based fuel grabs three-quarters of all federal renewable-energy tax credits, EWG reports. Ethanol gets more four times as much cheese as wind, solar, and geothermal combined. If you add in support for biodiesel, biofuels grab 80 percent — four dollars in five — of federal tax largesse to renewable fuels. In short, the dubious practice of turning corn and soy into liquid car fuel is crowding out other more energy-rich and sustainable energy sources.

A professor from Iowa State University — ground zero of ethanol fervor — has broken ranks and issued a scathing, cogent critique [PDF] of of the ethanol program. Here’s a juicy sample from the paper, by Dennis Keeney, emeritus professor, Department of Agronomy and Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering:

About 6.7% of the gasoline used in the U.S. will be displaced by ethanol in 2009, when corrected for the lower energy content of ethanol and assuming an annual gasoline consumption of 140 billion gallons. Assuming a net energy gain in the conversion of corn to ethanol of 1.25, there is a net energy displacement of approximately 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline, about a 2% net energy gain. If the energy in nonfuel byproducts (e.g. distillers grains, which are used for cattle feed) is removed from the equation, the net energy gain is close to nil. In other words, ethanol from corn will do nothing to boost net energy supplies.

Read More: http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2009/1/9/13714/29599

Continental Airlines to use algae/Jatropha based biofuel blend in test flight January 6, 2009

Continental Airlines has announced that it will be conducting the first biofuel-powered demonstration flight by a US commercial aircraft. The flight will be powered by a fuel blend including components derived from algae and jatropha plants. According to Continental Airlines the demonstration flight will be the first biofuel flight conducted by a commercial carrier using algae as a fuel source. The aircraft used for the demonstration flight will be a Boeing 737-800 equipped with CFM International CFM56-7B engines. The demonstration flight is scheduled to depart from Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport on 7 January.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2109102/

US biofuels industry expected to consolidate January 5, 2009

The US biofuels industry is expected to undergo consolidation in 2009, with many of ethanol and biodiesel plants either closing or being absorbed by a few larger players who will dominate the market.

The US has 171 biodiesel refineries with estimated capacity at more than 2.4bn gal/year, well ahead of the 6m gal/year mandated by the US government for 2009.

With domestic renewable fuel infrastructure relatively underdeveloped and Europe taking an increasingly aggressive stance against US biodiesel imports, many analysts consider the US market oversupplied.

Demand for US biodiesel in the domestic and overseas markets will be muted through the first quarter of 2009. The EU, traditionally the destination of about 70% of US biodiesel, is investigating allegations of dumping by subsidised US biodiesel sellers and has taken steps to reduce imports.

At home, the rapid decline in crude oil values – from $147/bbl in July to the $40s/bbl in December – has squeezed profit margins for biodiesel producers who compete against the petro-fuel.

In both arenas, the global recession also has contributed to a considerable softening in demand.

Some biodiesel industry representatives continue to argue that soy-based biofuels have little influence on food markets supply and pricing. However, commercial suppliers are increasingly looking toward such “second-generation” feedstocks as jatropha seeds and algae. Both of these potential fuel sources yield more oil than conventional feedstocks and exist outside the “fuel vs food” sphere.

Market analysts and producers consider algae an especially promising feedstock, as it can be grown virtually anywhere and, by some estimates, can yield 2,000 times more oil than soybean feedstocks. A commercially viable algae-based biodiesel process is still considered at least five years away, however.

On the ethanol side, consolidation and mothballing were poised to be the buzzwords for 2009, market sources said.

The vulnerability of the US ethanol industry came under the spotlight in October, when VeraSun Energy, the country’s second-largest producer, filed for bankruptcy, citing shrinking liquidity.

VeraSun was only one of at least six producers that have halted production or sought bankruptcy protection in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Read More: http://www.icis.com/Articles/2008/12/31/9181188/outlook-09-us-biofuels-industry-expected-to-consolidate.html

Ada County, ID turns landfill trash to gas – then cash January 4, 2009

More than $250,000 a year – for years – had been going up in flames at the Ada County landfill.

But for the past two years, the county has been turning trash into cash and into enough electricity to power a small town.

“It is a win-win-win situation,” said Fred Tilman, Ada County Commission chairman.

Federal requirements and safety concerns require the county to get rid of its landfill-produced gas – a mostly methane and carbon dioxide byproduct of decomposing solid waste.

But instead of burning it off, as it used to do, the county has tapped it as a renewable energy source. And because a private company is converting the gas into electricity, it costs the county nothing to run the system, Tilman said, and the county’s share of the profits keeps increasing.

FROM NUISANCE TO RESOURCE

Landfills and livestock are the two largest human-related sources of methane in the U.S., according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Each accounts for about 23 percent of all human-related methane emissions.

If it is not captured, landfill methane becomes a greenhouse gas at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas.

Uncaptured landfill gas also poses a threat because it can contaminate groundwater or even explode.

Because of the danger to safety and health, municipal landfills are required to capture and destroy the harmful gas. In Ada County, the gas was collected and burned off in a flare.

When Tilman first became a commissioner, one of his first official duties was to go to the landfill and cut the ribbon on the two big flares that burn off landfill gas.

“I was so amazed standing there when they fired those things up. As I watched millions of BTUs going up in the air I thought, what a waste. That is what prompted me to say ‘We’ve got to be able to figure out how to do something with that,’ ” Tilman said.

$600,000 IN REVENUE AND COUNTING

In late 2006, the county partnered with Georgia company G2 Energy LLC, which purchased and installed two engines at the landfill to convert the gas into electricity.

Earlier this year, G2 was purchased by Fortistar, which owns more than 50 landfill power plants across the U.S. and represents about 12 percent of the landfill gas-to-energy market.

The company sells the energy to Idaho Power, according to Dave Neal, director of Ada County’s solid waste management department. Each engine generates about 1.6 megawatts of electricity – enough to power 2,400 average homes.

Read More: http://www.idahostatesman.com/273/story/621890.html

Pipelines for Dairy Waste Digesters the next logical step December 31, 2008

Dairies produce gas, and utility companies need renewable gas sources for energy. Building a system to deliver the gas while giving dairies credit for reducing emissions seemed like a good fit.

Using methane gas produced in a dairy digester to provide energy isn’t a new concept, but David Albers, a Bakersfield, Calif.-based environmental attorney and dairy owner, provided a new twist. He would design and build projects that take biogas from several dairies, convert it to a form useable by a utility and feed it into their gas pipeline.

Dairy owners receive part of the proceeds from the sale of gas. Sale of the resulting emissions credits, since the project removes greenhouse gases from the environment, also generates income for owners.

Albers’ first project, at his Vintage Dairy in Fresno County, began providing gas to Pacific Gas & Electric Company in October. It is the first in California to deliver pipeline-quality, renewable natural gas to a utility.

His second project, in Kern County, is scheduled to go online by November 2009. With four dairies under contract for that project, he could deliver 500,000 cubic feet of gas per day. Albers’ company, BioEnergy Solutions, has a long-term contract with PG&E to deliver up to 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year. The utility uses the gas to deliver electricity to customers in central and northern California.

“David is the only one in California to do this successfully,” said Ken Brennan of PG&E. “His company is the front runner in the state.”

Brennan said that PG&E is impressed with the quality of the gas that comes from the dairy pipeline.

“The gas molecules are the same as every other natural gas molecule,” Brennan said.

Albers wanted to bypass the electricity production from methane that so many dairies have tried because the generators used to convert gas to electricity have run into problems with the air districts due to their production of nitrous oxides.

Albers saw the gas pipeline route as a better choice.

In his law practice, Albers assists dairy producers with the permit process, which includes responding to public comments about the proposed dairies.

“As part of the process we do an environmental analysis of the project, and in public comments someone would always ask ‘why don’t you build a digester?’

In response, Albers would do an economic analysis for a digester and find it wasn’t economically feasible.

“There was no market to justify the cost,” he said.

Then came a mandate for utilities to use renewable sources for energy.

“I started to talk with PG&E and eight months later I had a contract,” he said.

Albers said he just had to figure out how to build the infrastructure to gather the gas from dairies, convert it to a useable form and send it to the utility.

“It was really just a new application of existing technology. We were putting different Tinkertoys together,” he said.

Read More: http://www.capitalpress.info/main.asp?SectionID=67&SubSectionID=617&ArticleID=47517&TM=56671.99

Jet has successful test flight using 50/50 Biofuel mix December 30, 2008

Looking to reduce its carbon footprint and cut its fuel bill, Air New Zealand on Tuesday tested a passenger jet that was powered partially with oil from a plum-sized fruit known as jatropha.

The airline is the latest carrier to experiment with alternative fuels, partly due to the threat of rising oil prices but also to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from aviation, which are projected to rise by 90 percent by 2020.

Air New Zealand said the two-hour flight from Auckland International Airport was the first to use what are known as second generation biofuels to power an airplane. Second generation biofuels typically use a wider range of plants and release fewer emissions than traditional biofuels like ethanol.

One engine of the Boeing 747-400 airplane was powered by a 50-50 blend of oil from jatropha plants and standard A1 jet fuel.

“Today, we stand at the earliest stages of sustainable fuel development and an important moment in aviation history,” Air New Zealand Chief Executive Rob Fyfe said shortly after the flight.

Along with investing in new technology to replace outdated fleets and new designs that reduce weight and air resistance, the International Air Transport Association says airlines are experimenting with a range of plant materials in an effort to find the jet fuel of the future.

The association, which represents 230 airlines, said it wants 10 percent of aviation fuel to come from biofuels by 2017 as part of a broad climate change plan. Air travel now generates only 2 percent of global carbon emissions that are believed to contribute to global warming, but the industry’s high growth rate has raised concern about future emissions.

“There are very promising biojet fuels, and jatropha is one of them,” association spokesman Anthony Concil said Tuesday, adding that the industry is also looking at switch grass, algae and salt-tolerant plants called halophytes.

Jatropha is a bush with round, plum-like fruit that has been found in parts of South America, Africa and Asia. Seeds from jatropha are crushed to produce a yellowish oil that is refined and mixed with diesel.

Read More: http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/international-33/123064164587580.xml&storylist=international

Manure digester summit January 13, but in Wisconsin December 29, 2008

There has been a lot of interest as of late in manure digesters in the northwest. If your a ranch owner who wants to learn more about this, this just might be your best opportunity. Here is the info:

Whether you have less than a 100-head herd or a large herd, digesters can work for you. Come to the seminar to hear how Dane County and Richland County are using community digesters as well as how to implement a manure digester on a 50-head farm.Tuesday, January 13, 2009
9:30AM -3:00PM
Room B-30 West Square Building
505 Broadway
Baraboo, Wisconsin
Cost: $20.00 and includes lunch

PRESENTATIONS:
- OVERVIEW/FEASIBILITY OF MANURE DIGESTERS
John Reindl, former Dane County Recycling Coordinator; Larry Krom, Renewable Energy Manager for Focus on Energy
- FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF MANURE DIGESTER PROJECTS
Larry Krom, Renewable Energy Manager for Focus on Energy; Mike Dreischmeier, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Engineer; Tom Brennan, Bank of Prairie du Sac Agricultural Loan Officer
- REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS FOR MANURE DIGESTER PROJECTS
John Vosberg, Sauk County Land Conservation Department Engineer;
DNR Representative
- TECHNICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR MANURE DIGESTER PROJECTS
Vance Haugen, Crawford County UW-Extension Agriculture Agent; Michael Zander, President and CEO of Energies Direct, LLC, Sauk City;
Paul Soglin, CFO of Energies Direct, LLC, Sauk City;
Steve Dvorak, P.E., President of GHD, Inc.
- CASE STUDIES: HOW WE DID IT ON OUR FARMS
Charlie Crave, Crave Brothers Farm
Art Thelen, Wild Rose Dairy
Statz Brothers Farm

Air New Zealand to Test first biofuel flight today December 29, 2008

Here is the News Release in full:

WHAT:		The world’s first commercial aviation test flight powered by a sustainable second-generation biofuel will take place today in New Zealand. For media not in attendance, a pre-flight briefing with Chief Pilot Captain David Morgan is available today.
		The Air New Zealand Boeing 747-400 will have one of its four Rolls-Royce RB211 engines powered by a biofuel blend derived from a second-generation biofuel plant – Jatropha Curcas.
WHO:		The Air New Zealand test flight is a joint initiative with partners Boeing, Rolls-Royce and Honeywell’s UOP in commercial aviation’s drive for more sustainable air travel for future generations. Captain Morgan will detail the various stages of the flight and the tests that will be undertaken to check the performance of the biofuel blend under a variety of operating conditions.
WHEN:		Please dial in at 1 p.m. PST today, December 29, 2008. The briefing will take approximately 20 minutes.
		USA Toll Free 1866 469 8380
		A replay of the briefing will be available approximately one hour after the completion of the briefing until close of business (NZ time) on January 7, 2009.
		Details as follows:
		International Metered + 61 2 8016 4509
		Passcode 125407#
WHY:		Air New Zealand and its partners have been non-negotiable about the three criteria any environmentally sustainable fuel must meet for the test flight program. These are social, technical and commercial. For more details on these criteria, visit www.airnz.com.

Air New Zealand
Sarah Miller-Reeves, 310-648-7039

WSU report says state should focus on biofuels from waste products, not food December 23, 2008

A Washington State University report says the state should focus on producing biofuels from waste products instead of food products.

The report released Monday by WSU economists was requested last year by state lawmakers.

The team from the WSU School of Economic Sciences says incentives to produce biofuels from corn, sugar beets and canola are not likely to be cost effective. The team says the state should focus on using farm and logging residues or city solid wastes.

The team also recommended a tax on greenhouse gas emissions to promote research and fuels with low carbon emissions.

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/northwest/story/575737.html

Scientists turn coffee grounds into diesel December 18, 2008

Researchers have reportedly created biodiesel from one of the Northwest’s most common by-products – coffee grounds.

The researchers from the University of Nevada at Reno announced their results in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, according to the New York Times, which added that several hundred million gallons of the diesel could be generated annually.

One of the researchers, Mano Misra, told the Times that the idea started when he “made a coffee one night but forgot to drink it,” recalling how the next morning, he had spotted a layer of oil on the surface. From there, he and his team were off to Starbucks to acquire about 50 pounds of coffee grounds, which reportedly contain up to 15 percent oil by weight.

Up next, the team is planning a pilot operation to gather coffee grounds from a local roasting company. Still, Misra acknowledges that coffee grounds won’t be a cure-all for world energy needs because they only have the potential to fill less than one percent of the nation’s annual diesel demand.

Along with coffee, researchers are working on many different ways to create biofuels, from prairie grasses to corn and even algae. The National Biodiesel Board reports that biodiesel is currently a $24 billion industry that is expected to create up to 40,000 jobs nationwide in the coming years.

http://www.washingtonenergy.com/articles/article/910/scientists-turn-coffee-to-diesel

Oil Demand is slowing, growth in Renewable fuels main reason December 17, 2008

The government is predicting virtually no growth in U.S. oil consumption between now and 2030.

The Energy Information Administration attributes this trend to increases in conservation, a greater use of renewable fuels and an expected rebound in oil prices. The agency also said Wednesday that overall energy use will continue to increase, but at a slower rate.

Its long-range forecast projects a 3% annual growth of renewable energy use, including solar, wind and biofuels such as ethanol. It also expects a sharp increase in sales of hybrid cars.

While oil prices have fallen recently, the report says that prices will rise again as economies rebound and global demand increases.

http://www.kndo.com/Global/story.asp?S=9537104&nav=menu484_2

Camelina based biofuel will get test flight in Boeing jet December 17, 2008

A Japanese commercial airliner is scheduled to take a test flight next month using jet fuel derived in part from camelina – an emerging biofuels crop that has received strong backing from Montana officials.

Camelina is a seed-oil crop that at least two Northern Plains companies are pursuing as a potential source of alternative fuels. Gov. Brian Schweitzer and Montana’s U.S. senators, Max Baucus and Jon Tester, have promoted camelina as a way to lessen U.S. reliance on foreign oil.

Camelina companies have been struggling to reach their goal of converting millions of acres of the region’s farmland to production of the crop. Competition with high prices for wheat made attracting farmers difficult.

Representatives of Bozeman-based Sustainable Oils say they hope the upcoming test flight will show farmers that a market for the crop will exist.

Japan Airlines plans a one-hour flight out of Tokyo on Jan. 30, using a jet fuel blend made from Sustainable Oils camelina, said Scott Johnson, general manager of the company built on a partnership between Targeted Growth of Seattle and Green Earth Fuels of Houston.

“We need to prove that it’s a consistent and good source of renewable fuels for this type of market,” Johnson said. He added that the number of acres devoted to the crop “could be scaled up quickly” to meet demand.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing also is participating in the test project. “Until recently it was assumed the only thing we could ever use was petroleum,” said Darin Morgan, head of Boeing’s sustainable fuels program. “Boeing set out to prove that wrong.”

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/local/story.asp?ID=272650

Josephine County, OR considers growing canola for biofuel December 16, 2008

A presentation and grant request from the Eugene-based company N.W. Seed Crushers Inc. was received during a Friday, Dec. 12 administrative meeting at the courthouse in Grants Pass by the Josephine County Board of Commissioners.

Company owner Chuck Bergfeld and co-founder Tim Parker’s focus was on the production of biofuel through growing and processing canola, a crop which also can be used as seed meal source.

Bergfeld told the board that a moratorium is in place against canola growing in Willamette Valley, due to fear of it cross-pollinating with grass seed and other crops. That moratorium does not apply south of Lane County, Bergfeld said.

Other advantages, Bergfeld said, are that Josephine County production of the crop could bolster the agricultural industry, increase the value of farmland, and aid in the battle against noxious weeds. It also would help improve county diversity from a timber-dependent economy, he said.

Parker said that by growing canola, farmers can take advantage of tax credits and renewable energy mandates in order to guarantee a market share. The canola crop has been successfully grown in a variety of areas and climates, Bergfeld and Parker said. Water canola has a high yield, even on marginal, non-irrigated soil.

N.W. Seed Crushers supplies equipment to growers, along with personnel, to plant, harvest and transport the seed to market. It also would process the seeds.

But to bring these opportunities to Josephine County, Parker and Bergfeld requested an $85,000 economic development grant from the board. They said that doing so would create local jobs almost immediately.

The board will consider the grant request in January.

http://www.illinois-valley-news.com/archive/2008/12/17/story-joco_oily.html

Douglas County, OR to convert forest slash and wood waste into heating oil December 14, 2008

Douglas County plans to set up a test project next summer to convert forest slash and other wood waste into a No. 3 grade heating oil, Douglas County Commissioner Joe Laurance told members of the Douglas Timber Operators on Thursday.

Speaking at a breakfast meeting, Laurance said the project would involve the superheating of 5 to 7 tons of woody material per day at a site near Lemolo Lake in eastern Douglas County.

The project would utilize a process described to Laurance and other members of the Douglas County Forest Council during a meeting in September. At that time, Philip Badger, president of Renewable Oil International, explained how a small modular plant could be loaded onto a flatbed truck and taken out into the forest.

The wood waste would be chipped into small, thumbnail-sized pieces and mixed with heated steel shot placed into a heated chamber. The biomass then is heated to 1,000 degrees within a second and the resulting gases are then used to further heat the chamber, which is initially heated by propane.

Each ton of slash produces 157 gallons of bio-oil, the equivalent of nearly four barrels of oil. It could then be used as heating oil or refined slightly to a No. 2 diesel fuel.

The conversion process also produces 500 pounds of char per ton of slash. That material can be used in applications calling for activated charcoal, charcoal briquettes or as home heating pellets with twice the energy of traditional wood pellets.

One-third of the biomass material available in Oregon is located in Douglas County, according to state foresters.

“This is ground zero for that,” Laurance said.

One of the biggest hindrances for large-scale biomass projects has been the high cost of transporting slash materials to a processing plant. In most cases, it’s not feasible because of the long distance between the source of the material and the processing plant.

The portable system was tested in a two-year pilot program at a chicken farm outside Huntsville, Ala. Badger’s company converted the waste of 264,000 chickens into bio-oil that was used to warm the poultry houses on the farm.

“If this shows us what we think it will, we think it will be justifiable, perhaps, to invest in the process,” Laurance said.

Members of Oregon’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Ron Wyden and Reps. Peter DeFazio and Greg Walden, have expressed interest in the project, Laurance said.

http://www.nrtoday.com/article/20081214/NEWS/812129865/1063/NEWS&ParentProfile=1055&title=Biomass%20test%20project%20scheduled