An independent peer review meeting is scheduled for March 14, 2011 in Arlington, VA. [Federal Register Jan 28, 2011] READ MORE  Download Report

The project, which is projected to cost 2 million euros, is 50 percent funded by the Fund for Support to Innovation of the Energy Agency (Adene).

…The project will research areas including improving plant varieties, harvesting, oil extraction and use of sub-products.

Galp Energia’s jatropha plantations in Mozambique are increasing in size and by 2016 the company expects to have a planted area of 23,000 hectares and production of 30,000 tons of oil.  READ MORE

Piedmont Biofuels announced today(February 7, 2012)  that the company has commenced the first commercial scale zero-waste production of biodiesel in the United States using its proprietary approach of enzyme catalysis. Biodiesel is a diesel fuel alternative made from fats and oils, which can be used in diesel engines without modification.

Piedmont has successfully scaled-up an enzyme-based technique to biodiesel production. The traditional biodiesel production method uses chemical catalysts like potassium hydroxide and sulfuric acid. These chemicals form soaps or salts which contaminate both the biodiesel and glycerin phases, producing low-grade co-products.  “With the enzyme process, we eliminate the caustic chemicals which allows biodiesel producers to decrease waste and increase yield, with all types of feedstocks,” says Lyle Estill, President of Piedmont Biofuels.

Piedmont Biofuels has been investigating enzyme catalysis for the biodiesel industry for over four years in efforts to find a successful zero-waste output. In 2009, Piedmont began collaborating with global enzyme producer, Novozymes. Their most recent research and development efforts have been supported by an U.S. Department of Energy, Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) grant in addition to the technology commercialization support. from the Clean Energy Alliance (“CEA”) under the Department of Energy Small Business and Clean Energy Alliance Partnership.

This is the first commercial production of its kind in the United States using enzyme catalysts for biodiesel. “ We are very excited to share our success this year at the National Biodiesel Conference,” states Rachel Burton, Research Director of Piedmont Biofuels, who will be delivering details about the production process at the conference in Orlando, Florida from February 5- 8th. “This milestone brings Piedmont Biofuels one step closer to a zero-waste, sustainable biodiesel process.” READ MORE

The “I-Awards” represent the biodiesel industry’s top honors, and are bestowed upon companies, groups or individuals who have helped carry the biodiesel torch, fostering understanding, mentoring others and encouraging broader use of this cleaner burning, sustainable fuel.  Hino Trucks was nominated for an award this year for serving as a trailblazer among manufacturers as well as among hybrid truck manufacturers in supporting the use of B20 biodiesel blends.

Hino Trucks was honored in the Impact category by becoming the first manufacturer to support the use of B20 biodiesel blends in a hybrid-electric truck, as well as in its complete product line of class 6 and 7 conventional trucks.  Not only will Hino’s COE 195h hybrid truck be a part of the event’s Biodiesel Vehicle Showcase, but Hino was invited to be a part of a general session OEM panel entitled “The Future is Unwritten:  Energy Policy, Diesel Technology, and B20″ as well as the technical session discussing “Biodiesel Engines of Today and the Future – Development of Super High Efficiency Diesel Engines.”

All 2011 and later model conventional trucks powered exclusively with Hino’s proprietary J-Series engines are approved to use B20 biodiesel blends that contain biofuel blend stock (B100) compliant to American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D6751, and blended fuel compliant to ASTM D975. B20 biodiesel meeting these standards is also approved for use in Hino’s newly announced diesel and diesel-electric hybrid cab overs due to enter the market late this summer.

“It is our strong commitment to design and assemble trucks that are at the forefront of environmental friendliness and that help to reduce our overall dependency on foreign oils,” said Glenn Ellis, Vice President of Marketing and Dealer Operations for Hino Trucks.  Hino offers the only class 6 and 7 conventional truck to meet the stringent 2010 EPA emission requirements without the use of credits. “By offering the class 5 market a diesel-electric hybrid cab over that can use up to B20 biodiesel, our customers now have an option for a commercially acceptable alternative fuel truck,” added Ellis.

“Biodiesel, America’s advanced biofuel, would not be what it is today without champions and supporters like the Eye on Biodiesel honorees,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board. “We are proud to recognize these leaders from all facets of the biodiesel industry.”  READ MORE

…Since first installing its trademarked Grower Harvester bioreactors at the Shenandoah plant in 2009, the project has continually met or exceeded its expectations, with the latest expansion being no exception. The company announced last fall that it planned to construct the five-acre farm in the spring and is now moving ahead as scheduled. But the successful scaling-up process has brought with it unexpected challenges on the demand side.

Last year, Green Plains CEO Todd Becker said that the project was progressing faster than market opportunities were being developed for algae. As a result, the company began participating in market development activities, supplying algae for feed trials and tests for other markets, such as pharmaceutical applications.

…(T)he company wants to play the role of farmer, supplying the wholesale dried algae to companies for their individual purposes. READ MORE

…As CEO of BioVantage Resources, Inc., Sue is responsible for corporate vision, strategy, execution and capitalization of a company pursuing two tracks of development in the algae industry, one as a scale-up specialist, enabling cultivators to advance from lab level to commercial production. And two, being experts in water reclamation, in which they use their own products to facilitate algae nutrient removal and biomass development.

…We chose the scale-up part of the growing system, and water reclamation. There is always that classic build or buy decision, in early-stage businesses especially. We’ve put together a very nice packaged set of products to allow you to grow algae from milligram, to kilogram, to commercial scale in a 21st Century way.

I’ve got some background in manufacturing, and we’ve commercialized a lot of product. So we’ve looked at how to tackle commercialization of systems so that we can really have repeatable and reliable processes. And that is something we’re good at. Anyone who wants to grow algae at volume needs to go through the scale-up process, so we look at that as our biomass business. We’ve built dozens of scale-up systems already, with customers using it for biofuels, biochemicals, for protein, and we’ve just started dialogs about growing for nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals.  READ MORE

The new company’s technology and intended products are different, they say, and it is relying on private investment.

Colorado-based Range Fuels had planned to use a catalytic conversion process to make ethanol from wood chips at the Soperton site. When that technology apparently failed to work commercially, Range tried to transfer the plant and a $40 million federal loan guarantee to the newly created LanzaTech Freedom Pines, a subsidiary of New Zealand-based LanzaTech Inc.

However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture refused to transfer the loan, triggering foreclosure on Range Fuels, which ended in LanzaTech Freedom Pines buying the plant on the courthouse steps a month ago for $5.1 million. Company officials have said they hope to add to the existing equipment, hire hundreds of employees and produce a variety of fuels and chemicals.

…Unlike Range Fuels, LanzaTech Freedom Pines has not received any U.S. funding for the Soperton plant. But its parent company has received $560,000 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, $4 million from the Department of Energy and $3 million from the Federal Aviation Administration, all for research and development related to producing jet fuel from waste gas streams or biomass, said Laurel Harmon, vice president for government relations of LanzaTech Inc.

…Robert Rapier, who vets renewable energy technology and writes a prominent industry blog, predicted that LanzaTech will seek government funding for the Soperton project. “I would ban them from government funding until that Range loan is paid off” because of the overlap between the two companies’ investors, he said. “Anyone involved in the Range Fuels thing shouldn’t be getting more tax money. … A lot of people are angry that LanzaTech, with some of the same people, came in and bought (the plant) for pennies on the dollar.”  READ MORE

…Enerkem, which in the first three quarters of 2011 lost $19.1 million while recording $887K in revenues (primarily government grants) becomes the 15th company to file for an IPO in the industrial biotech boom, which began with a successful listing on the NASDAQ by Codexis in 2010.

…Here’s the F-1 registration, in a conveniently downsized 10-minute Digest version – with some commentary along the way as to what is driving value in the Enerkem model, opportunities for the intrepid investor, and some risks which we have translated from the ancient and original SEC into modern English.

From the F-1:  “We develop renewable biofuels and chemicals from waste using our proprietary thermochemical technology platform.

We intend to take advantage of the abundant supply of municipal solid waste, or MSW, which we expect to be paid to use as feedstock, to profitably produce cellulosic ethanol, a second-generation biofuel. We believe that our waste-based biofuels provide one of the most advanced solutions to the growing world demand for renewable sources of energy, while also addressing the challenges associated with waste disposal and greenhouse gas, or GHG, emissions.

Our pilot facility in Sherbrooke, Canada has been in operation since 2003 and has a throughput capacity of 4.8 metric tons per day. We have successfully increased, or scaled-up, our throughput capacity tenfold, or 10x, to 48 metric tons per day in our commercial demonstration facility in Westbury, Canada. The Westbury facility has a production capacity of 1.3 million gallons per year, or MMGPY.

Our first standard 10MMGPY commercial facility is currently under construction in Edmonton, Canada. We have developed a modular, copy-exact and scalable approach for equipment production and installation that we anticipate will allow us to have our systems manufactured by third parties as pre-fabricated, replicable modules under fixed-price contracts.

The Technology   From the F-1: “Our proprietary technology platform converts MSW and other heterogeneous waste feedstocks, consisting of mixed textiles, plastics, fibers, wood and various other forms of waste, into a pure, chemical-grade synthesis gas, or syngas. This syngas is then converted into biofuels and chemicals through well-established catalytic reactions. …

The Market    MSW Market. The United States generated 435 million metric tons of MSW in 2009, of which approximately 289 million metric tons, or 66% was landfilled. The company projects that approximately 140 million metric tons is suitable for ethanol production through gasification, yielding up to 14 billion gallons of ethanol annually.  READ MORE and MORE (Bloomberg) and MORE (PR NewsWire)

One of the points made in the six-page paper emerging from those efforts is that although those in support of the ILUC factor have argued higher demand for corn for ethanol production stimulates land conversion, it may be based on a faulty assumption. “Although the connection between price signals and reduced land conversion isn’t often part of the ILUC conversation, the implicit assumption is that low prices will help stem land conversion,” the paper states. “High prices stimulate agricultural expansion, but there is evidence that low commodity prices can do the same. Low prices can encourage producers to plant more to make up for lost volume, and have led many developing nations to decrease investments in agriculture that could lead to sustainability and food sovereignty improvements. Low prices have instead encouraged many countries to create food systems based on cheap imports.”  READ MORE and MORE (Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy)  Download study

Excerpt from study:  Instead, the prioritization of maximized production of commodities for international trade (with no regard to agriculture’s other functions) has brought heightened pressures on finite land resources that do get transmitted from one part of the global economy to another. And with this recipe for market failure, Wall Street has convinced policymakers to further financialize agricultural commodities (creating massive index funds that treat commodity futures contracts like a Vegas casino), which divorces prices on global markets from any relevance to actual fundamentals of supply and demand. This system creates artificial scarcity in some places and waste in others, and pits different values, such as fuel and food production, against each other instead of seeking to optimize agriculture’s multiple functions.  READ MORE

Mexicali Valley, Mexico and Los Angeles, CA February 3, 2012 – Algae producer Aquaviridis and OriginOil, Inc., the developer of a breakthrough technology to extract oil from algae and an emerging leader in the global algae oil services industry, today announced that Aquaviridis has signed a commercial agreement with OriginOil to help develop the multi-phase algae production rollout at its Mexicali, Mexico site, a potential model for algae sites throughout the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) region, with a focus on desert areas of the American Southwest and Mexico.

OriginOil will provide its expertise to help develop growth and harvesting solutions and implement appropriate OriginOil technologies. The facility will also serve as a test bed for OriginOil innovations.

In announcing the agreement, Aquaviridis president Thomas Byrne stated, “After evaluating OriginOil’s portfolio, our technical team felt that OriginOil had some novel, scalable, and potentially game-changing technologies for algae harvesting and growth enhancement. We are excited about the opportunity to work closely with them as a partner during our research and planning stage. Having the right partners and technologies is critical, as our expectation is to have this facility in revenue this year.”

Aquaviridis is backed by private sector funding, with plans to immediately scale up from research and development to ten acres of pilot algae production by the middle of this year. Commercial scale production capacity is expected by the second quarter of 2013.  Aquaviridis selected the Mexicali Valley as a strategic location due to favorable growing conditions, strong local and governmental support, and available sources of carbon dioxide.

OriginOil’s vice president of marketing, Ken Reynolds added, “The Mexicali Valley is a great place to develop an algae industry, given its climate and access to industry research and resources throughout North America. With the U.S. as a neighboring market for high value exports, Mexico is in an excellent position to take the lead in areas such as research and production of algae for nutritional products, animal feed, and oil for biofuels, which would create long-term regional economic growth and job production.”  READ MORE