Jeff Langbehn, executive director of the Lake County Solid Waste Management District, said he lost faith and respect for Earl Powers, CEO of Powers Energy of America, when Powers walked out on board members in the middle of discussions regarding financing for the proposed south county plant.

And the waste district’s new vice chairman, Griffith Councilman George Jerome, said his faith is wavering in Langbehn and other members of the district’s professional staff who advocated the Powers project.

Jerome and fellow waste district board member Rick Ryfa, also a Griffith councilman, said Friday it is time to have discussion about the future of the district’s professional staff now that the trash-to-ethanol plan is in free fall.

Frustrated following the passage of three years since inking a contract with Powers with no results, the waste district board voted Thursday to find Powers in breach of contract.

The board gave Powers 60 days to secure financing, land for the facility and to show other progress toward construction —  things Powers has failed to accomplish since signing the contract with the district in November 2008.  READ MORE

Greg Noble, Chief Operating Officer for the Indiana Corn Marketing Council says the flex-fuel pumps are part of a program ICMC developed about a year ago.  Noble says, “The board approved money for operating grants to do installation of flex-fuel pump infrastructure to provide consumers a broader base, or more choice at the pump for mid-level blends of ethanol fuel. “ Noble tells Brownfield the grants are up to 50% of the project cost, a maximum of $20,000.”   To date, Noble says the ICMC board has approved 14 Flex Fuel Pump projects.  READ MORE

A multi-state, interdisciplinary team led by Ken Moore, Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in the Department of Agronomy, recently won a $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and will develop the blueprint for using marginal farmlands to grow perennial grasses that will, in turn, provide a biomass source for a drop-in biofuel.

Growing perennial grasses on that marginal Midwest cropland has many environmental advantages, including reducing soil and nutrient runoff, slowing soil erosion and increasing carbon sequestration.

Growing those grasses currently has few benefits for the farmers who own the land and make the production decisions, however. And convincing farmers to take land out of corn production when prices hover near $7 per bushel will require developing a market for that perennial grass that gives producers a solid return.

“In general, the lands we are using in the research aren’t really very good for producing food, so we are taking the food-versus-fuel argument out of the equation,” said Moore. “By using perennial grasses on this land, we are reducing soil erosion, improving soil and water quality and even providing wildlife habitat.”

…The study will be conducted in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Vermont, Idaho and Nebraska by researchers at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind.; University of Wisconsin, Madison; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; University of Vermont, Burlington; USDA Agricultural Research Service offices in Madison, Wis., Wyndmoor, Pa.,and Lincoln, Neb.; Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, Idaho Falls; and Iowa State University.  READ MORE

And the chief political champion of the plan, Lake County Commissioner Gerry Scheub, said he wants the answer as much as anyone.

Former Sheriff Roy Dominguez, an outspoken critic of the process to bring the plant to Lake County, filed a Freedom of Information Act request Monday with the Lake County Solid Waste Management District.

…The proposed private plant has yet to secure any construction funds, permits or land upon which to build the facility. But waste district board members did receive a promise from Cadena in November that his hedge fund would finance the plant.

Some county officials have expressed skepticism that the plant will secure any financing, and Dominguez said his information request seeks proof of any available money.  READ MORE and MORE (Post-Tribune)

Berry would like to see a mandate in the next Farm Bill that would require new or renovated stations be ethanol compatible, … READ MORE

The reason is the survival of another federal measure, known as the Renewable Fuels Standard. It requires that an increasing amount of renewable fuels such as ethanol be blended into transportation fuel—from 9 million gallons in 2008 to 36 billion gallons in 2022.

So, oil companies still need to blend ethanol into gasoline. But with those blenders no longer pocketing the tax credit, look for gasoline prices to rise 4 cents to 5 cents a gallon, say experts.

…Ethanol makers are trying to make the fuel additive from other parts of the corn plant, such as stalks. Companies such as Indianapolis-based Xylogenics Inc. are working to perfect strains of yeast that would optimize ethanol yields from corn stalks as well as other plants. Xlylogenics has licensed its yeast to a handful of firms.

Such progress in the industry, along with the continuation of the Renewable Fuels Standard, appears to have quelled the alarms sounded by the Renewable Fuels Association and other ethanol groups 18 months ago.

“The domestic ethanol industry has evolved, policy has progressed, and the market has changed, making now the right time for the incentive to expire,”  the association said last month.

…(POET CEO Jeff) Broin said the industry was equipped to compete without the tax credit, noting improvements in the efficiency of ethanol production. That includes cutting energy use by half and water use by 80 percent.

…About 10 percent of most gasoline now contains ethanol, which became a replacement for the anti-knock additive methyl tert-butyl ether, or MTBE, which was pulled for environmental reasons.

…Alternative fuels advocates are looking for other ways to improve use of ethanol, including pumps that could dispense a blend of 30-percent ethanol, 70-percent gasoline.

Such pumps could allow flex-fuel vehicles to still burn a higher level of ethanol but incur less of a fuel economy penalty than if using E85.

“You’re going to start seeing a lot more E30 stations,” said Kellie Walsh, executive director of the Greater Indiana Clean Cities Coalition, a federally funded group that promotes alternative fuels.

Walsh said a handful of E30 pumps are being installed in Fort Wayne, and that a couple of fuel vendors in Indianapolis are kicking around the idea.  READ MORE

Lake County Solid Waste Management District Executive Director Jeff Langbein said Powers Energy owner Earl Powers is negotiating with three landowners on a new site near Schneider, after he lost an option to buy land near US 41.  READ MORE

The Indiana company this week received the 2011 Paul Dana Excellence in Bioenergy Leadership Award from the state department of agriculture. The award was established to honor the memory of Indy Racing League driver Paul Dana who was killed in a racing accident in 2006 after seeing the fulfillment of his dream that the IRL adopt ethanol as a racing fuel.  READ MORE

Jim Straeter developed and trademarked the Cornrower. “And what it does is it catches the material that comes down through the stalk rolls, chops it up, blows it through a tunnel, and there’s one on each row,” he told HAT. “The tunnel exit is a conveyor that’s right behind the corn head. That would be ahead of the drive tires of the combine. The conveyor and the air velocity of the chopping device move the material underneath the feeder house so as the combine moves forward you have a windrow of chopped stover.”  READ MORE (includes audio interview)

But some Lake County municipal officials, made skeptical by years of delays with the project, weren’t convinced Wednesday by the promise of financing.

Hugo Cadena, who identified himself as chairman of Las Vegas-based hedge fund Visage 1 LLC, said he expected to be able to provide $300 million in financing for the proposed trash-to-ethanol plant in Schneider “very soon.”

Cadena, speaking from California, and Earl Powers, who plans to build the plant under contract with the Lake County Solid Waste Management District, addressed district board members Wednesday night via teleconference at Purdue University Calumet’s Merrillville facility.

Cadena described his hedge fund as low key, lacking a corporate website and ready and willing to sell bonds to pay for the multimillion-dollar plant, which Powers proposes to build in Schneider.  READ MORE